1. American entrepreneur and controversial crypto figure John McAfee has just backpedaled on his promise. He makes it clear that his promise to eat his penis if the Bitcoin price doesn't go to $1 mln by Dec. 31, 2020, was simply a "ruse" that was meant to attract new users. Moreover, he's now certain that Bitcoin has "an ancient technology," and newer blockchains with privacy and smart contracts will effectively replace it. Read Full on Twitter
2. Travala, the online platform that allows crypto users to book hotel rooms around the world, has registered remarkable growth. More than half of those in December were paid in cryptocurrency. The total number reached 1,528 in December which represents a more than 15% increase over November. Their report states that more than 60% of all Travala bookings in December were paid using cryptocurrencies with bitcoin core (BTC) topping the list with 28%. Whereas Fiat transactions with credit cards and Paypal had a 37% share.
Read Full on Bitcoin News
3. Bitcoin has turned upwards as the Middle East braces for a potential war with the U.S. which might be a quick one or might descend into a prolonged proxy war. In both cases, financially it will be costly and that will probably be paid by the regressive taxation of money printing. As a hard money, bitcoin should by itself reflect this potential devaluation, in addition to actual rising demand to escape the potential significant inflation of regional money. Read Full on Trustnodes
4. The average block time on the Ethereum blockchain decreased by after implementation of the Muir Glacier hard fork. From Jan. 1 to Jan. 4, the daily average block time on the blockchain decreased from 17.16 seconds to 12.96. The block time decrease resulted in a higher number of blocks mined daily. During Jan. 1, miners create 4,980 new blocks and 10,237 ETH. Meanwhile on Jan. 4 the network’s miners created 6,570 new blocks and 13,437 new ETH. This is nearly a 32% increase in the number of blocks and over 31% increase in block rewards. Read Full on Cointelegraph
5. The South Korean Presidential Office’s 4th Industrial Revolution Commission has recommended that the Korean government should allow financial institutions to launch cryptocurrency-based investment products, including Bitcoin derivatives, for the institutionalization of cryptocurrencies. the commission also recommended that the financial sector develop and introduce a Korean custody solution to avoid relying solely on foreign custodians in the process of handling crypto assets and that Bitcoin should be listed directly on the Korea Exchange (KRX). Read Full on financemagnates
6. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s central bank, has said that its digital currency is “progressing smoothly.” The development was announced by the central bank at its annual work conference held in Beijing. Central bank said “We will continue to steadily advance the development of legal digital currencies” in 2020. The first cities to pilot digital currency will reportedly be Shenzhen and Suzhou. Digital yuan will first be distributed to commercial banks and then users and businesses can register digital wallets with these commercial banks. Read Full on The Block
7. Binance Futures, the cryptocurrency exchange’s futures trading platform, has rolled out a perpetual contract for the XRP cryptocurrency. The contract, paired against Tether (USDT), offers leverage of up to 75 times, according to an announcement Monday. The XRP/USDT contract appears to be the first such contract from a notable exchange. The Binance Futures platform went live last September and currently offers three more contracts - bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH) and ether (ETH) - all tied against USDT. Read Full on binance
8. Popular crypto YouTuber Chris Dunn, who has 210,000 subscribers, is facing a long list of citations from YouTube. The video-sharing platform has removed the majority of Dunn's crypto content for violating community rules. Each of the titles is tagged as “harmful or dangerous content”. Dunn tells his Twitter followers that, “this is a clear example of why we need to decentralize the web!” Read Full on The Daily Hodl