Table of Contents
Hackers:
One of the most common crypto crimes nowadays is hacking exchanges. According to the reports of crypto analytics companies Chainalysis and CipherTrace, cyber criminals generated around $1 billion in revenue in 2018. During attacks, users lost 1.35 million Bitcoin in the Mt. Gox hack and 24,000 BTC in BitFloor.The Callisto Network calls itself a platform focused on the implementation of a “self-sustained, self-governed, and self-funded blockchain ecosystem.” The company says it is aiming to find solutions for security issues in Ethereum smart contracts, which have caused millions of dollars of loss due to hacking. Callisto intends to solve these problems for CLO, which is the company’s native token, and Ethereum Classic ecosystems with its official smart contract auditing department of CLO and ETC. “This represents a completely free opportunity for a professional smart contract developer to audit their smart contract,” the startup says.
Bullish Key Players:
According to cryptocurrency trader Josh Rager, based on the historical trend of the cryptocurrency market, the price surge and newly established momentum of crypto assets may fuel Bitcoin in the near-term. Following a large movement in the cryptocurrency market, traders tend to hedge their investments and cash out their returns from high-risk trades to Bitcoin, often pushing up the price of the dominant cryptocurrency. In recent weeks, Litecoin recorded a 25 percent increase, Enjin Coin surged by 375 percent, and Kyber Network rose by 92 percent. Other cryptocurrencies involved in the Enjin project recorded similar gains in a short time frame. The stability in the price of Bitcoin has allowed many alternative cryptocurrencies to surge in value and in the future, as traders move their holdings from crypto assets too Bitcoin, the price of BTC could be next to rise.
Banks Institutions:
NetCents, a transactional hub for cryptocurrency payments, has announced the launch of its Crypto Banking Stack, which are the rails that facilitate cryptocurrency accounts, transactions, and functionality into existing platforms for banks, financial institutions, and money service businesses. The company’s Crypto Banking Stack will enable financial institutions to use their existing hardware and software to offer their clients access to a fully integrated cryptocurrency processing and transaction solution. The implementation will require only minor modifications to their legacy systems eliminating the need to develop and maintain their own in-house proprietary cryptocurrency processing technology. This allows for a low-cost crypto ready processing solution to be quickly implemented without the requirement for an extended and costly development cycle.
Adoption:
With 2,800 locations across the States, Kroger has long been at odds with Visa and due to rising transaction costs, last July they shut the option at 21 locations in California. This latest update is a significant escalation. Some are hopeful that the supermarket giant might be keen to adopt bitcoin lightning as a cheap alternative to Visa cards. The question of mass adoption of cryptocurrencies is one that has been pondered by many industry advocates and certainly is not without its hurdles. Starbucks is planning to accept bitcoin through Bakkt by the end of the year. Birks Group in Canada has already started accepting bitcoin for Jewelry in some stores. Rakuten in Japan is also reportedly setting up an option for crypto payments that could go online soon. In stable economies, the question is more about convenience than necessity and so adoption will only take place once it’s cheaper and easier for consumers. Kroger’s latest move has highlighted the ‘cheaper’ part, the infrastructure for ‘easier’ is being built as we speak.