Bad news accumulates for cryptocurrencies

Below we will review the most important news of the third week of January 2018.

January 15

• Due to the change of mentality in China when offering tax and energy benefits to cryptocurrency mining companies, Bitmain, one of the largest mining companies in the world, has announced its launch of a mining project in Canada just a few days after announcing another one in Switzerland. China currently houses 70% of the world's mining power, a trend that as we can see is changing rapidly.
• $ 400,000 theft in Stellar lumens. A hacker manages to gain control of the BlackWallet DNS server and uses it to derive all transactions of more than 20 lumens to another wallet. This has secured 670,000 lumens for a current value of more than 400,000 dollars.
• The logistics giant Penske Logistics joins the consortium of transport companies that use blockchain technology (BiTA, Blockchain in Transport Alliance in English). The company will work on the creation of new blockchain-based technologies to improve its transportation and manufacturing processes.
January 16

• More bad news for crypto mining in China. ViaBTC, one of the largest mining companies in the cloud, increases the cost of cloud mining to its customers due to the scarcity of mining resources in China derived from political changes.
• Swift has signed a memorandum of understanding with seven central securities depositories to study how blockchain can be used for post-negotiation processes, such as proxy voting.
• Launched as a game changer for the cryptocurrency industry, the initial offer of Telegram coins could be a lifeline for the company. The ICO is flooded with news, both positive, for its great success obtaining 1.2 trillion dollars, and negative, for the lack of confidence in the governance of the company.
• According to reports, a senior official of the People's Bank of China is calling for a broader ban on services related to the cryptocurrency trade in the country. Pan Gongsheng, vice governor of the central bank, said that to avoid market risk, the government would apply stricter regulation to end all activities and services related to the cryptocurrency trade.
• The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is trying to invest in early-stage blockchain startups with the potential to help children around the world. In an announcement today, the UNICEF program said it is offering equity investments of $ 50,000-90,000 for startups in the development stage developing solutions in open blockchains in areas including smart contracts, tokens, mining and data analysis.
• The global transport giant Maersk (CO: MAERSKa ) wants to wrap the world in a blockchain. With access to a shared and reliable transaction log, Maersk executives say that global shipping companies would save money and could compete better in extended services. The company has developed its technology using the Fabric software provided by IBM (NYSE: IBM ) to the open source Linux Foundation, to do just that.
January 17

• The company behind the controversial cryptocurrency BitConnect has announced that it will close its lending and exchange platform. The BitConnect loan service will be closed effectively immediately, while your exchange platform will close in 5 days, according to a publication on its website. The announcement blames several factors, perhaps the most important are cease and desist letters issued in recent days by regulators in Texas and North Carolina.
• The Bitcoin company , Blockstream, launched a micropayment processing system that, it claims, simplifies the creation of Bitcoin applications on top of its Lightning Network.
• The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) has just appointed its first executive director. The open source blockchain consortium announced today that Ron Resnick, previously president of AirFuel Alliance, will now lead the organization. As one of his first acts for the group, Resnick will host an EEA event at the next World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 23, the statement said. More than 50 companies have joined the EEA in the last three months, including Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ ), the Digital Trade Association of Australia and Sberbank (MCX: SBER ).
• Reality Shares Advisors and Amplify Trust ETF today launched the first blockchain-based funds (ETF) on Nasdaq . Both funds were activated in the Nasdaq exchange at 9:30 a.m. EST. Reality Shares' Nasdaq NextGen Economy ETF (BLCN) opened at $ 24.20, while Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK) from Amplify started closer to $ 20.
• The Government of Israel has published a project that describes possible approaches to tax ICOs. Launched on Wednesday, the draft circular of the Israel Tax Authority proposes imposing a value added tax (VAT) on ICOs, differentiating them into two types: service transactions and sales transactions.
January 18

• A new state bill submitted to the Colorado Senate in the US is analyzing the use of Blockchain technology to protect private data against cyber attacks. Presented on January 16, Senate Bill 086 suggests that the use of a distributed record would eliminate the need for paper records and the actual updating of such data. The blockchain system would later solve the existing problems of collecting and retaining state data and create a more secure registry.
• Ledger, the French-based maker of cryptocurrency hardware wallets, has raised $ 75 million in Series B funds.
• The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has achieved solid financial results in the fourth quarter, thanks in part to the demand for cryptocurrency mining. In a January 18 statement, the world's largest independent semiconductor smelter said it generated $ 9.2 billion in revenue during the fourth quarter, representing a year-on-year increase of 5.9%.
• Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE ), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), has partnered with Blockstream to launch a new data source based on cryptocurrencies. The ICE feed will show real-time data from at least 15 different cryptocurrency exchange houses around the world.
January 19

• According to several reports, the Department of Business Administration of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) issued a document that requires payment providers in Beijing to stop facilitating the trading activity in cryptocurrencies.
• The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has invested in the Blockchain Electron startup. The Japanese energy giant said it had invested in the UK startup late last year, according to a press release published on Friday. The two companies say they plan to develop uses of technology around the distribution of energy, with the goal of creating a more efficient and reliable infrastructure.
• The government of India has sent tax notices to investors of cryptocurrencies. A survey found that India's citizens made more than 3.5 billion dollars in transactions over a 17-month period. The government also collected data from nine exchanges within the country and sent notices to "tens of thousands of people."
• The Brazilian state of São Paulo is weighing cryptocurrencies to help solve its infrastructure problems. The state plans to use a token called buildcoin to pay engineers around the world for their feasibility studies. These studies are necessary to evaluate the practicality and justify the expenditure of large construction projects.

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