Oddities on Bittrex, Lightning Network on Bitfinex, hard fork and other events of the week

Summing up the results of the week, we recall the strange events around the Bittrex exchange, not everyone liked the news from theUkraine, a powerful approach from Bitfinex and other important events.

Bitcoin price

At the end of the week, the first cryptocurrency is in a light plus, having risen 2.76% over the past 7 days to levels just below $ 7,600.

Having started the week at around $ 7,200, Bitcoin made investors nervous on Wednesday, falling close to $ 7,000, but then confidently won back the position.

Also, according to the results of the week, the majority of the leading altcoins turned out to be pluses. Tezos stands apart, which has grown by more than 22% and has come close to the Top 10 CoinMarketCap.

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Ethereum network hosts Istanbul hard fork

Istanbul's planned hard fork on the Ethereum networkHeld on the night of Sunday, December 8th, at block # 9069000. The upgrade is designed to ensure Ethereum compatibility with Zcash cryptocurrency, increase the scalability of solutions based on zero-disclosure proof technology (SNARKs and STARKs), change the cost of gas of various operating codes (opcodes) in order to complicate spam blocks and increase the network's resistance to DoS attacks.

Representatives of SparkPool, which generated the specified block, said a bit earlier in an exclusive comment for ForkLog:

“We find Istanbul hard fork verytimely, rational and inventive. By timeliness, we mean that all technology updates follow cutting-edge research and development, including second-tier solutions such as STARKs. Speaking of rationality, we emphasize that all these schemes, including the mechanism for changing the cost of gas consumption, have been widely discussed by the community. The ingenuity, from our point of view, is that [with the transition to PoS] everyone will adhere to new environmental standards, as well as form new standards for social interaction. "

The activation of Istanbul should also mark the beginning of the transition to Ethereum 2.0, a new stage in the evolution of the network that marks the migration to the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm.

Bittrex – What's Going On?

A third of Bittrex's assets turned out to be transferred to an unknown wallet this week, however, the exchange assured that all funds are safe.

So, Whale Alert reported that an unknown person withdrew 43.5 thousand BTC ($ 313 million) from the site. Coins were sent to a newly created address through which only one transaction was made.

Soon, Bittrex announced a plannedmaintenance allegedly associated with the Ethereum hard fork, however, strange transfers of funds at its associated addresses continued. Probably, it was a question of so-called peeling transactions designed to increase user privacy and confuse traces, but why the exchange needed this remains unclear.

Lightning Network on Bitfinex

Bitfinex Exchange Added Protocol SupportLightning Network. According to the company's technical director Paolo Ardoino, Bitfinex expects this to help expand the number of network users. The exchange is also working on launching the Tether and Tether Gold stablecoins on the LN network.

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According to numerous reports, Bitfinex was the first major exchange to add LN. However, even in May 2018, the Vaultoro exchange did this. An interview with Vaultoro founder will soon be on ForkLog.

Deutsche Bank saw a cryptocurrency breakthrough

The next decade can become timecryptocurrency breakthrough, because the existing fiat system does not look stable, says Jut Reid, an analyst with Deutsche Bank In an analytical report by Imagine 2030, Reid noted that rising doubts about the stability of state currencies will lead to an increase in the popularity of cryptocurrencies.

"The forces that held the existing fiatsystem, now look fragile and can disintegrate in the 2020s. This will lead to a negative reaction to fiat money, and the demand for alternative currencies, such as gold or crypto, may increase. ”- he said.

Binance added trading pairs with the Russian ruble

On Monday, December 2, Binance Exchange reportedon the addition of new trading pairs in relation to the Russian ruble. In particular, users have the opportunity to exchange in pairs of BNB / RUB, BTC / RUB, ETH / RUB and XRP / RUB. New trading pairs are available on the USDⓈ stablecoin market.

Deposits can be made as withbank cards (3% commission upon deposit and 2.5% upon withdrawal of funds + 50 rubles per transaction), and through the AdvCash payment system. In the latter case, operations take place without commissions.

Regulation of cryptocurrencies in Ukraine &#8212; KYC, FATF and all this

December 6, deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukrainepassed a second reading of a bill introducing FATF standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing. Now the document contains a provision on virtual assets, which are considered as property and can be used for payment and investment purposes.

The concept of a service provider related to the transfer, exchange and storage of virtual assets is also introduced. These may include individuals.

According to the amendments prepared by the deputyBlockchain4Ukraine association together with the Ministry of Digital Affairs, BRDO and other market participants, all operations with virtual assets will undergo financial monitoring, depending on the amount and country of destination of the operation.

Regulation of the circulation of virtual assets in Ukraine and supervision of compliance with AML legislation in this area will be entrusted to the Ministry of Digital Transformation.

Tone Weiss: a new cryptozyme is inevitable

On December 2, the ForkLog YouTube channel hosted a live broadcast with the well-known cryptocurrency analyst and trader Ton Weiss.

&#171;I think we will have a second one nowcryptowinter. The biggest problem is that I don’t see mass adoption of Bitcoin at all, because in this case the price would rise very quickly. There is no mass adoption, because every second person in cryptocurrency and economics is trying to sell you some kind of scam, and people continue to believe in altcoins&#187;,&#8212; Ton Weiss stated.