Hackers:
Most experienced Crypto users are well-aware of the means that must be undertaken to protect their wealth. Thus, most experienced Crypto users strictly avoid hot wallets and opt for hardware wallets, as it’s widely known that hardware wallets can enable coin transfers without the security risks associated with hot wallets. The private keys stored in hot wallets are extremely vulnerable to cyber-attacks and this makes hot wallets insecure. Hardware wallets, on the other hand, retain a private key within a physical device and outside of the computer environment; this gives many the impression that the private key is off-limits, but there’s a limited truth to this notion.
A new Crypto payment technology, Bitfi, has created a new kind of hardware wallet that does not have any private keys. It stores no data at all and instead functions as a key generator. Bitfi allows users to create a wallet with just a salt and a passphrase. When a person wants to access to the wallet, the Bitfi device momentarily generates the private key. The device does not store any private keys; instead, algorithms function to generate the private key. The computing system takes the salt and passphrase input and plugs it into internal algorithms, and if the input matches with a wallet on the blockchain, access is granted. The salt and passphrase processed by the system’s algorithms are not stored. The private key comes into existence for a fraction of a second, just long enough to approve a transaction. The device remains completely empty and devoid of any data at all times.
Bullish Key Players:
Luke Martin, better known as Venture Coinist, remarked that if Bitcoin heads higher in medium-term time frames, like the four-hour or one-day, but closes below $3,930, he would start being “bearish short-term.” Another popular trader going by the name “DonAlt” expressed a similar sentiment. He explained that $3,900 is an essential level to watch from his point of view, adding that if it falls under this support, he would expect “$3,500 or even lower.”
Satoshi Flipper, a well-known industry commentator, remarked that over the past few months, BTC has touched a single resistance line ($4,050) six times. Each time it has done this though, it receded quickly, falling by a number of percentage points to return to a mean. But with the cryptocurrency currently slated to be on track for a seventh touch, Satoshi hinted that there’s a chance it could break through, pushing Bitcoin into a rally.
Banks Institutions:
According to the vice president of IBM Blockchain Jesse Lund, the firm has made discussions with two major lenders on issuing a crypto which is pegged 1:1 to USD. Last month, JPMorgan declared that it has issued a crypto that is tied to the USD, known as JPM Coin. The coin will use its own blockchain to speed up payments between corporate users. In the same sense, Lund said that IBM is also working with six major institutions which are not from the U.S. on cryptocurrencies. These banking institutions are still waiting for legal approvals from concerned regulators and they include South Korean-based Busan Bank, Philippines-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp and are anticipated to have finished issuing a stablecoin in Q2 of 2019. These six international giants officially signed a letter of intent to exploit World Wire network. These financial institutions will have to issue stablecoins which are tied to their own local traditional currency.
Early today, Binance announced a brand-new format for their token launch platform, Launchpad; changing from its original first come first serve format to a lottery format based on randomly selected winning tickets with an allocated amount of tokens set to each ticket. Ticket allocation appears heavily skewed in favor of BNB holders, with the amount of BNB held correlating directly to the number of tickets available to users. The new format allowed holders of less than 100 BNB access to one ticket only, meaning to have a higher chance to hold a winning ticket (allowing access to the tokens on sale) users must hold more than 200 BNB for 2 tickets, and up to 500 BNB for a 5 (the maximum amount of tickets) this meant the buy-in for the maximum chance of “winning” would require holding up to approximately $8,600 in BNB (500 BNB at current prices).
Adoption:
Earlier this month, the Bank of Mexico (Banxico) published an article, wherein it laid out its plan to issue permits to bitcoin exchange platforms and other crypto-related businesses operating in the country. Banxico stated that to get the right permits, crypto-based businesses in the country would be required to provide detailed business plans and company profiles. Each profile will have to contain various aspects of how the business operates including its business model, transaction fees and know-your-customer (KYC) security measures.Per the circular, the principal objective of the regulator is to curb the occurrence of crypto-based money laundering. To achieve this, it has implemented certain safeguards that will keep the operations of crypto businesses away from the traditional financial sector.
