The first 15 days of 2018 have shown that crypto is still as crazy as ever. Useless Altcoins continue to be pumped, Kracken looks like it's being run by cowboys, everybody has a chance to be a pimp, Tron is a roller coaster, and Ethereum is preparing to rule them all.

How Ethereum is Setting Itself up for a big 2018

After the coinmarketcap.com and the Korean exchange debacle, the crypto markets are experiencing their first taste of blood in 2018. However, ETH has weathered the storm and is one of the few coins that has remained in positive territory in the last week.

https://coinmarketcap.com/

Investor confidence is warranted. Newsbtc.com has reported that the last 24 hours has seen 24 Billion dollars (USD) transacted on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is just shy of being able to claim it processes more value than the rest of the crypto market put together.

https://bitinfocharts.com/

Bitcoin Google searches have experienced a sharp decline with Ethereum trending upwards in popularity. Ripple may have taken most of the attention so far this year, however, this may mean a Coinbase ETH pump is yet to come.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore

Eth is still plagued with scaling issues. However, 2018 will host numerous upgrades to the network, including the much anticipated Casper upgrade, and it's interest-earning “staking”. If current trends continue, and with BTC still meandering around with high transaction costs, the flippening may come sooner than you think.

The Pump and Dumps Continue

Outrage is spreading across the crypto community as leaked discord chats expose an online gang in the process of pumping Deep Brain Coin.

The chat logs show members of the group discussing how to manipulate the price and ensure green candles appear on the chart. They then make posts on Social Media platforms getting other members to upvote their posts and make it appear they have support.

Some of these pump and dump groups have clever scams where a requirement for membership is to bring 15 new members into the group. This enables the pumpers to gather an army of supporters quickly and spread their false hopes across the internet.

This behavior highlights the need for new investors in the crypto space to tread carefully. Never buy a coin based on random posts you find on the internet.  Only invest in coins you believe solve real-world problems and have future potential.

Some coins the pumpers are targeting include DBC, POE, ENG, and PAC.

Why Kraken are a Bunch of Cowboys

Last year Kraken users were plagued by downtime, double orders, and stop losses that failed to stop losses.

Kraken blamed these issues on their trading engine. However, 2018 saw a much-needed upgrade to a brand new engine for the troubled exchange. On Wednesday, after warning users there would be a 2-hour maintenance downtime, the exchange went dark for 40 hours, right in the middle of the Korean FUD.

Source: Coindesk

Yes, the new trading engine that was supposed to fix all the problems caused the longest downtime in the exchange's history.

Source: Coindesk

The Kraken downtime is the worst example of a problem that persists in the crypto industry. With more users joining the space every day, and with the ever-present threat of regulations, how can exchanges keep up?

Some would say they could use the huge amounts of cash they are making to hire competent developers.

One thing is for sure, the rise of decentralized exchanges can't come soon enough.

Source: Coindesk

How to get Pink Dividends

The PinkDate ICO is in full swing. The pre-ico has sold over 26 million PDP of the 85 million available at the time of writing.

PinkDate aims to be the Uber of the escort industry. They plan to launch an app that will connect escorts and, er, clients, and enable payments in cryptocurrency.

https://pinkdate.is/

If investing in the escort industry is your thing, PinkDate will distribute 50% of their profits to token holders. Also, investors can choose which currency they want to be paid in - including Monero.

In an unlikely twist, the escort industry has now shown us that traditional stocks, and the traditional stock markets, are obsolete. For the first time, regular investors are able to claim a share of a company and get paid dividends without ever coming into contact with the banking system.

Source: https://medium.com/@PinkDate/

Is Tron Bleeding Itself into buy Territory?

The higher they rise the further they fall, and TRX, with its recent rally, is falling hard.

After its spectacular rise on the back of CEO Justin Sun's exceptional hyping skills, the price of TRX has been hit the hardest by the downturn of the crypto market these last few days.

However, a quick look at the chart shows that the price may find support at reasonable levels. Whether or not you think Tron has a future, the company's ability to garner attention, and its access to the Chinese market, could mean that a buy at these low levels may be the perfect place to catch the next big TRX pump.

https://www.tradingview.com/

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