And we have a lift off. Bitcoin price bounced off from tanking at $2500 for a couple of days to crossing $2800 mark on Friday. The price continues to come very close to an all time high above $3000. In addition, if the price continues this momentum Bitcoin stands a chance to break its previous all time high in market capitalization -- above $50.4 billion.
BIP 91 has already been activated, which means SegWit activation is around the corner - August 8th being the tentative date. As of now, Korean exchange, Bithumb is leading the pack, trading more than $136 million worth of BTC in the last 24 hours.
Over the past few days cryptocurrency markets have gone through some fundamental events like, the emergence of Bitcoin Cash, SEC deeming ICOs as Securities and BTC-e going offline - but these events have had little to no impact on the Bitcoin price. Investors are hoping for a smooth transition to SegWit on August 1st.
Interestingly, every other cryptocurrency (including BCC futures, which is down 50%) is finding it hard to recover, while Bitcoin is flirting with an all time high. Looks like people are selling their alts for Bitcoin before August 1st to get hold of some free Bitcoin Cash.
Top stories from the crypto world
- Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is joined by 34 more organizations
The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) is the largest open-source blockchain alliance in the world which connects Fortune 500 companies to the Ethereum blockchain technology. It has recently added 34 new members including the likes of Mastercard and Cisco -- expanding to a total of 150 organizations.
The consortium was only formed in February this year with Intel and JP Morgan Chase as founding members.
- India is inching towards regulating Bitcoin
Indian government officials have held meetings in the past to work on cryptocurrency regulations, but no result was reached. Yesterday, it was reported that officials from the state of Karnataka are planning an event on blockchain and governance in the near future. As per analysts this could ultimately lead to new regulations in the cryptocurrency field.
The states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are already working on implementing blockchain technology as part of a digital reworking of their land registry systems. Considering Digital India push by the government of India, the regulations, whenever they come, will likely be in favor of cryptocurrencies.
- Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz invest in a Blockchain Hedge Fund
Leading Silicon Valley investors known for Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz known for their investments major tech giants like Google, Instacart, Buzzfeed and many more, have secretly invested in MetaStable Capital, a stealthy startup hedge fund based in San Francisco. One of the cofounders of MetaStable Capital is Naval Ravikant, another renowned Silicon Valley investor.
MetaStable owns many cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum and 1% of total Monero in circulation (around $6 million worth). MetaStable looks at the real-world use cases of cryptocurrencies, and makes decade long bets on most credible “credible candidates”, rather than timing the market.