Four leading South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges—Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Upbit—have teamed up to put up a fight against potential cases of money laundering and a number of other illegal activities.

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Over the past two years, the word “crypto” has acquired a powerful morphological significance. By putting it before any word, we get a new device, a new product, or a new technology that immediately attracts considerable interest. But the magic of this word has little effect on serious sectors of the global economy. Maybe the problem is the “raw nature” of the technology? Or it just does not have enough fuel for a good start? In light of such events, many specialists are trying to present the situation in their own view. One of the statements is, “Bitcoin network problems can only be solved by abandoning the PoW protocol.”

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The end of the previous week could have brought more clarity to crypto investors and enthusiasts on the possibility of the Bitcoin ETF approval. The U.S. government shutdown that has started at the end of December, however, led to the temporary suspension in the work of a number of federal agencies. The absence of a decision on a Bitcoin ETF application led to a moderate decrease in demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in light of investors’ fears that crypto markets were in search of a new “bottom.” But not everything is so pessimistic as it may seem at first glance. Last week, there was a lot of exciting news making one look boldly into the future and maintain confidence in the increase of Bitcoin price in the coming months.

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💸 The first Binance Launchpad platform’s project this year, BitTorrent (BTT) concluded its $7.2 million public token sale in less than 20 minutes.
via The Block

💰 A new report from Chainalysis suggests that two hacker groups were behind the thefts totaling $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency.
via Cointelegraph

🇮🇳 The Indian government is reportedly finalizing its regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency industry.
via Bitcoin.com

🇮🇷 The Central Bank of Iran is reportedly set to forbid the use of “unapproved” cryptocurrencies for making payments in the country.
via CoinDesk

👩‍⚖️ The owner of Italian cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail that suffered a hack last year has been sentenced to return funds to affected customers.
via Cointelegraph

​​In one of his recent articles, Bitcoin Magazine’s Aaron van Wirdum breaks down what a technology called Taproot is and how it works.

Introduced in mid-January last year by one of Bitcoin’s most respected developers Gregory Maxwell, Taproot aims to expand on Bitcoin’s smart contract capabilities and increase privacy without hurting scalability.

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Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin:
“Fungibility is the only property of sound money that is missing from Bitcoin & Litecoin. Now that the scaling debate is behind us, the next battleground will be on fungibility and privacy. I am now focused on making Litecoin more fungible by adding Confidential Transactions.”

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The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) and the United Arab Emirates Central Bank (UAECB) have announced a joint digital currency project trial.

The cryptocurrency will be used in blockchain-based financial settlements between the two countries.

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The issue of the development of cryptocurrency turnover in Russia rests with the regulation of this sector, as in most countries of the world. Except for some states, such as China, government regulators tend to be a wait and see attitude toward digital assets. The vagueness of cryptocurrency regulation is what can be said about both the United States and the European Union. But the new law proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development makes Russia one step closer to regulating the cryptocurrency industry and successful application of digital currencies in practice.

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The PoS and DPoS consensus algorithms are already used by such cryptocurrencies as Cardano, Dash, Qtum, EOS, Lisk, and Tron, and four of them are in the top 15 by market capitalization. With Ethereum that is preparing for a major upgrade and Tezos that is running atop Liquid Proof-of-Stake, the total market capitalization of such projects would have stood at $18.6 billion on January 24. Michael J. Casey, the chairman of CoinDesk’s advisory board and a senior advisor for blockchain research at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, believes that PoS will bring in new cryptocurrency businesses and financial models—in particular, staking-as-a-service that in its essence would be similar to interest income in the traditional banking model.

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🗓 American investment giant Fidelity that oversees more than $7.2 trillion in client assets will reportedly launch its Bitcoin custody offering as soon as March.
via Bloomberg

🔍 Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini passed a security compliance and data protection audit that was conducted by a “Big Four” firm Deloitte.
via Cointelegraph

📉 Graphics processing units manufacturer AMD expects that decreasing demand from cryptocurrency miners may negatively affect its revenue next quarter.
via CoinDesk

🔓 According to a recent report from blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace, in 2018, the amount of stolen cryptocurrency funds increased by more than 300% compared to the previous year.
via ccn

🗞 Media company Cheddar has partnered with the Brave browser to present users with limited-time free access to its premium content.
via The Block

SWIFT, a global provider of secure financial messaging services, has revealed plans to integrate technology from R3, the company behind the Corda platform.

Speaking at the Paris Fintech Forum, SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt has said that the formal announcement will come later today.

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Japanese IT giant Fujitsu has successfully piloted a blockchain-powered solution for improving electricity surplus management.

“Fujitsu has now devised a system in which electricity consumers can efficiently exchange among themselves the electricity surpluses they have produced through their own electricity generation or power savings,” the company’s press release reads.

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According to a report by blockchain analysis firm Elementus, two weeks after New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia first reported a hack, it is still suffering from cyber criminals who have now managed to take another $180,000 from 17,000 wallets.

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Over the last three years, the number of cryptocurrency ATMs has increased by 700%. This is indicated by data from the DRIVE Markets exchange. According to the company’s research, on January 1, 2016, 501 automatic teller machines for digital coins were in operation, and in 2019, the figure has reached 4,128. Experts believe this trend is related to the growing popularity and confidence in the crypto industry and the simplicity and accessibility of the devices compared to digital assets exchanges.

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In a recent Let’s Talk Bitcoin! podcast, renowned cryptocurrency advocate Andreas Antonopoulos talks about decentralized identity and how it could help users regain control over their sensitive personal data.

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💵 Cryptocurrency lending company Genesis Global Trading processed over $1.1 billion in borrows and lends last year.
via The Block

🏢 In 2018, the cryptocurrency industry saw more new venture funds than hedge funds for the first time.
via Bloomberg

🇮🇷 Iran, which has been under U.S. sanctions for years, is reportedly pushing its state-backed cryptocurrency for settlements with foreign countries.
via ccn

🇷🇺 The chairman of the upper house of Russian parliament has called for the work on digital economy bills to be accelerated.
via Cointelegraph

🤝 Decentralized identity startup Glyph is partnering with three crypto firms in a bid to appeal to accredited investors.
via CoinDesk

Cryptocurrency custody company BitGo has launched “Wrapped BTC” (WBTC), a new token that is backed with Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio and runs on the Ethereum blockchain.

The project aims to bring “greater liquidity to the Ethereum ecosystem including decentralized exchanges and financial applications.”

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South Korea’s primary financial watchdog, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), will not lift the ban on domestic initial coin offerings (ICOs). The reason behind such a decision lies in the fact that some projects have been violating rules.

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Almost all IOTA tokens (worth $11 million) that were allegedly stolen last year from over 85 victims have been found. As of now, the police are holding the funds as evidence in an ongoing investigation.

Dominik Schiener, the co-founder of IOTA, said the company thought that a hacker group was involved, but in the end, the mastermind behind the theft was a single individual who appeared to have a normal job and be well-educated.

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The World Economic Forum (WEF), which took place on January 22 to 25 in Swiss Davos, left different impressions. On January 28, the British Financial Times wrote that if at the event a year ago, blockchain and Bitcoin were the favorite words of the participants, then this year, they have been forgotten. This, however, is not the case.

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Peter Bel—former editor with Cointelegraph, now founder and managing partner of the ICO PR agency Byzantium—told DeCenter about a formula for successful ICO projects, his crypto preferences, and why it’s a good sign if there are things that a blockchain project has in common with zipper manufacturer YKK.

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