Your Crypto News on Steemit January 4, 2018

• The Big Bitcoin & Blockchain Annual Review 2017!
• ICOs 2018: The Start of the Race!
• Egypt: Crypto trading prohibited under Islamic Law!
• Data Leak by anonymous Cryptocurrency Verge?
• The Crypto Exchange Poloniex introduces new Requirements!

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Hello Steemians I wish you all a happy 2018! Your Crypto News on Steemit is back and I would like to start with an annual review of 2017 in the first edition of 2018.

Looking back on an eventful year in 2017, Bitcoin started trading below $ 1,000 in January, bringing the market capitalization to just over $ 15 billion. The total market capitalization of the crypto market was "just" $ 17 billion. The market for cryptocurrencies thus represented a tiny volume in terms of global capital flows and was significantly dominated and defined by Bitcoin - two things that were to change fundamentally 365 days later.

Bitcoin reached its $ 20,000 mark in time for the first time at the end of 2017, a twenty-fold increase in its own value within a year. And the total market capitalization is well over $ 600 billion, which is close to five-fold three times the initial value - an indication that the market is now skyrocketing independently of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies wrote their own stories.

Blockchain - the technology behind Bitcoin - also achieved a major social breakthrough this year, recognizing it as a forward-looking instrument by states and banks as well as start-ups, corporations and large corporations and working on a meaningful implementation. But we are ahead of ourselves, so here again in turn: Your Crypto News on Steemit-Review 2017!

The annual review is divided into monthly sections, which in turn are represented by chart images showing the performance of Bitcoin within a quarter. For an overview, events that had a major impact on the price are shown in these charts.

January: Bitcoin 1,000 EUR (1,200 USD)

As already mentioned, Bitcoin started the year at under 1,000 EUR per Bitcoin. But at this limit, it should not be long. Already on the first day of the new year Bitcoin cracked the 1,000 mark - and thus a new all-time high. In a year in which there was at times a new all-time high every week, it's hard to remember that Bitcoin made a new breakthrough in the first weeks of 2017: after a year-long bear market, a new all-time high was finally reached! Thereafter, however, it was down to 800 EUR in the meantime, until the price for the rest of the month stabilized at about 850 EUR.

Bitcoin and the China debacle

An actor who will accompany the discussion about cryptocurrencies throughout the year threw his shadow in January: the People's Republic of China. For example, the Chinese central bank Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has caused a stir with its renewed warning of the risks of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is not an official currency, and investors should be fully aware of the risks involved in dealing with digital currencies. Government officials also spoke with speakers from major Chinese Bitcoin exchanges such as BTCC, Huobi or OKCoin. A short time later, inspections of the country's major Bitcoin companies were announced.

Cashless society?

In January, the discussion began on several sides to think about the abolition of cash. Thus, in addition to the Greek government, the state of South Korea and the Central Bank of India brought into play a cashless society. For digital currencies such as Bitcoin, these restrictive measures may turn out to be good as they increase their attractiveness over the state's fiat currency. Finally, digital currencies can compensate for lost privacy due to the successive cash withdrawal.

And otherwise?

In the middle of January, the Lightning Network was tested for the first time, which should become relevant with the SegWit activation later in the year. Japan managed to push the US from second place in the ranking of world Bitcoin trade volume - behind what was at the time still dominating China. In Germany, Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann praised the Blockchain as a multiply applicable tool.

February: Bitcoin 1,200 EUR (1,400 USD)

February was strongly influenced by a price increase. Although the withdrawal stop on the Chinese crypto exchanges OKCoin and Huobi caused a dip in early February, it did not stop the general uptrend. This was in addition to a world-wide greater acceptance mainly by the expectation of the SEC decision regarding the ETF of the Winklevoss twins shaped and could lead the course to new heights over 1,100 EUR.

Wide acceptance

More and more states were open to cryptocurrencies. For example, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ruled out a ban on Bitcoin, but wanted to focus more on it. The Polish government also recognized Bitcoin companies. Meanwhile, the central bank of South Africa even planned to issue its own cryptocurrency. From prohibitions of digital currencies, to solutions for regulation, to possible integrations of blockchain technology, everything was included.

Blockchain is gradually influencing government policy

In addition, more and more governments were slowly but surely coming to the funnel, hiding behind blockchain technology much more than just bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Gradually, governments were in desperate need of responding in some way to the trend of the new Bitcoin & Blockchain technology. In fact, an IBM survey even found that nine out of ten governments planned to explore the blockchain in the public sector in a timely manner or use it for financial transactions, asset management, contract management and compliance. Seven out of ten government officials said the blockchain would trigger disruption in contract management, which is often the interface between the private and public sectors.

And otherwise?

Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum, spoke up and announced the progress of the Ethereum Network in 2017. The plan was to stage the Metropolis update this year. Another good news for Ethereum was the accession of JPMorgan and Santander to the Ethereum Group, which focused exclusively on Ethereum-based blockchain applications. Meanwhile, speculation about the Winklevoss ETF came to a head. The two twins have been working on the implementation of a listed fund for bitcoin for quite some time.

March: Bitcoin 900 EUR (700 USD)

Unlike the previous months, March was a month down from a downtrend. The chart representation is of the candle with long shadows on both sides of the body. This March 10, 2017, day candle reflected investors' behavior over the ETF's SEC decision: high expectations were followed by a big disappointment. Although the price has recovered in the meantime, the rest of March was strongly influenced by Bitcoin-internal debates between Segregated Witness and Bitcoin Unlimited and led to a fall of the course to less than 900 euros.

Winklevoss ETF rejected

For years they had tried, in March 2017 they had to finally bury their hopes: The twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss received from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) no permission for the issue of a listed fund for Bitcoin trading. First and foremost, the SEC mentioned two requirements that were not met in the case of a Bitcoin ETF: Firstly, it had to be ensured that control and monitoring mechanisms with relevant marketplaces were in place to ensure that the underlying, whether commodity or derivative, was sufficiently stable Tracing exchange trading. Second, these markets should be regulated.

SegWit vs. Bitcoin Unlimited

After the ETF decision, the Bitcoin community turned back to the long-simmering scaling debate. The opposite fronts of SegWit and Bitcoin Unlimited emerged more and more. The Bitcoin Core Team continued to stand for a block size of 1MB and saw SegWit as a better way. The developers wanted to "shorten" the transactions and thus handle more transactions per block. In addition, some of the transactions should be handled off-chain, ie outside the blockchain. Bitcoin Unlimited, on the other hand, represented a variable increase in block size of> 1MB. The block size would then be in the hands of the miners. As a result, they wanted to dynamically handle many transactions per block. The Bitcoin Hard Fork started slowly.

And otherwise?

Since transaction costs have grown into a major "cost driver", as of March 2017, the crypto-trading center Coinbase charged for external transactions of bitcoin and ether. Internal transactions between Coinbase users remained free. In cooperation with IBM, the Danish shipping giant Maersk made the first live attempt to handle container freights via the Blockchain. The Bitcoin made it into the German evening entertainment - in the crime scene it was about the use of the cryptocurrency in the Darknet.

April: Bitcoin 1,000 EUR (1,200 USD)

After the quarrels between Segregated Witness and Bitcoin Unlimited, the further price movement was strongly influenced by a large wave of acceptance in Japan and India, which again raised the price above 1,000 EUR.

ECB: DLT not so far

Although blockchain technology has become increasingly important to many government officials, it still has a long way to go. For example, the European Central Bank (ECB) considered that blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies could not be integrated into their market infrastructure in the near future. Any technology-driven innovation must meet high security and efficiency requirements, and at this stage of development, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is not mature enough. Nonetheless, the ECB wanted to continue to monitor developments in this area and explore practical applications for DLT.

Litecoin does it

The Litecoin community has done what Bitcoin developers and miners have failed to do: finding a common solution to the cryptocurrency scaling problem. The miners announced after an 8-hour meeting that they wanted to take the path of a "Segregated Witness (SegWit) Soft Fork" for Litecoin. The protocol revealed that everyone agreed that the protocol upgrade should be under community consensus rather than single-handedly by developers and miners. Among the supporters of the proposal were u. a. Bitmain (Antpool), BW.com, BATPool, F2Pool, and LTC1BTC, which together accounted for 68% of the hash rate at this time. The Litecoin course responded to the joyous news and climbed to a three-year high.

And otherwise?

The acceptance of cryptocurrencies continued to increase. The next countries to declare Bitcoin legal tender were Japan and India. With JPMorgan, the next big bank left the R3 consortium. The Berlin Blockchain start-up Bitwala was awarded third place in the Start-ups category at the German Innovation Prize 2017. This Bitwala is the only fintech start-up, which has made it into the top 3 - also with a focus on Bitcoin and the Blockchain.

May: Bitcoin 2,000 EUR (2,400 USD)

Although the general uptrend continued in May, various worries in dips hit the price. Firstly, the subject of ransomware in the media was heavily debated at the beginning of May. Because WannaCry's victims were supposed to pay ransom in Bitcoin, this also created a distressed Bitcoin adaptation by concerned companies, but also a negative reputation for Bitcoin and related slight price volatility. Significantly more dramatic, however, was an important finding within the Bitcoin community: with the New York Agreement, leaders in the Bitcoin ecosystem opted for a compromise in the scaling debate, lifting Bitcoin's course beyond the $ 2,000 mark. However, the further debates of Bitcoin Core representatives and other groups led to a case below this limit.

The New York Agreement

In May, it was eagerly awaited to meet some of the big names from the Bitcoin community who wanted to resolve the conflict around the scaling problem solution and present a common path. According to media, among others, the following Bitcoin representatives have been involved in the consensus: Barry Silver (Digital Currency Group), Roger Ver (Btcoin.com), Jihan Wu (Bitmain) and Valery Vavilov (BitFury). They all agreed to the SegWit scaling approach. In addition, they immediately set a countdown to another hard fork, which provided for scaling the blocks from 1 MB to 2 MB. The consensus later became known as SegWit2x. Thus, for the moment, rest and unity at Bitcoin seemed restored.

And otherwise?

Litecoin was already one step ahead and, as decided in the previous month, successfully activated the SegWit update. Accordingly, Coinbase responded and added Litecoin to its offering. According to Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum moved to the proof-of-work algorithm as part of the Casper update.

June: Bitcoin 2,600 EUR (3,150 USD)

OKCoin and Huobi were again able to make payments to their customers, which did the course well and raised him to over 2,600 EUR. In June, however, the competition of Bitcoin was very large: Ethereum, whose upward trend began in May, climbed unseen heights in June thanks to various ICOs. This new dominance of Ethereum and the still unresolved scaling debate led to the keyword "Flippening": The question of whether Ethereum would replace Bitcoin as the largest of all cryptocurrencies. This question was accompanied by a consolidation of the Bitcoin exchange rate, which at the end of June was just over 2,000 EUR.

Ethereum - soon new number one?

The two market dominators of the crypto market have never been so close together in terms of market capitalization. The market dominance of Bitcoin has never been as low as in mid-2017. June is the most successful month for the Ethereum network to date, which is now final in the crypto scene is on everyone's lips. Already the first voices were loud that Ethereum could act in the longer term as the better - or even the new - Bitcoin and overlooked the fundamentally different concepts of both networks. In the meantime, Ethereum also seemed to have the necessary growth to catapult itself to the top. However, as the rest of the year should quickly show, Ethereum could not keep up with Bitcoin - and managed to establish itself as a clear second face to the crypto scene alongside Bitcoin.

And otherwise?

By the middle of the year, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies reached $ 100 billion for the first time - not predicting where the year would end. Russia underlined its planned crypto acceptance with the idea of creating its own cryptocurrency - under state control, of course. Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann gave a speech on cryptocurrencies and talked about challenges facing conventional banking in the face of the crypto rise.

July: Bitcoin 2,200 EUR (2,650 USD)

The strained relationship between the People's Bank of China and Bitcoin was supplemented by another chapter: The PBOC saw in Bitcoin no currency. The associated regulatory implications for investors and miners in the People's Republic of China led to a price drop below 2,000 EUR. Another event on the horizon was the Bitcoin Hard Fork. On the one hand, many people hoped for "free money" in the forthcoming Hard Fork: since the private keys will work on all chain chains that are continued after a chain split, you would also own the competing product besides Bitcoin. Secondly, the period from mid-July to early August was very much dominated by concerns about these hard forks and the so-called user-activated soft fork. The latter led after a strong pump to a relatively stable price between 2,200 and 2,400 EUR.

Attack on CoinDash

For July 17, 2017, the launch of CoinDash's token sale was scheduled for 15:00 Central European Time. The platform CoinDash wanted to combine trading with social media. They wanted users u. a. offer the possibility of automated trading and offer according to own data a pleasant user experience. But attackers thwarted them. In an attack, they stole 43,000 ETHs in the then value of 6.5 million euros. The fact that the website was hacked shortly after launching the ICO, understandably harmed the reputation of the company - some users suspected fraud directly. After immediate preliminary closure of the project, users were offered token for compensation and requested not to transfer any additional ETH.

MultiSig Wallet

Furthermore, hackers stole 153,000 ETH at that time of 32 million USD. Three big wallets were the victims of an attack. Affected were the mulitwallets of Edgeless Casino, Swarm City and Aeternity. The vulnerability was, however, relatively quickly located and closed by white-hat hackers. They then emptied the remaining MultiSig wallets temporarily to prevent further attacks.

And otherwise?

Besides these two major attacks, a representative of the Chinese central bank said Bitcoin was not a currency. MindFactory stopped shipping video cards - miners used them for their work. Finally, adaptation continued: The LedgerX exchange was recognized by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

August: Bitcoin 3,700 EUR (4,460 USD)

After the miners expressed their acceptance of segregated witnessing and the hard fork between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash was completed without major complications, interest in Bitcoin rose sharply. In August alone, this led to a price increase to over 3,700 EUR. Although it began a slight consolidation, the price in August could not be less than 3,000 EUR.

Hard Fork, Bitcoin Cash and the split of the community

The problem was still there - the Bitcoin blocks were too small and the transaction costs were disproportionately high compared to the speed of the transactions. The argument of faster and cheaper transactions from Cryptos comes as fast to falter. Since the Bitcoin data octopus has been getting bigger and bigger for some time, some of the community eventually lost interest and caught a split, the so-called Hard Fork. On August 1, part of the community split off with its own blockchain.

This eventually led to the "new" independent cryptocurrency Bitcoin Cash, which has since enjoyed some of its popularity - but partly also disparaged. True to the motto of diversification, the Hard Fork had ultimately split not only the blockchain, but also the community.

SegWit - hated and beloved update

It was the same with the Segregated Witness update, which some parts of the community supported, others rejected. Some mining pools have even been accused of deliberately preventing the introduction of the update and having used their power.

SegWit ultimately distributed the data per block more efficiently, providing better scalability. This allowed more transactions to be executed per block. In addition, the update increased capacity and was compatible with older versions. Finally, the update was also designed to prevent the corruption of transactions.

And otherwise?

The Chinese central bank considered introducing an ICO ban, which should come into force next month. Furthermore, in August, the inflation-plagued Venezuelans turned to mining and using cryptocurrencies. While the US Securities and Exchange Commission eventually banned the trading of first-bitcoin capital stocks, campaign contributions in BTC became increasingly popular.

September: Bitcoin 4,000 EUR (4,820 USD)

The upward trend of August continued for the time being, which led to a breach of the 4,000 EUR mark. After that, however, the course fell dramatically. another chapter of the relationship between China and Bitcoin was written: What began as a regulatory measure against participation in ICOs ended in a trade stoppage on Chinese stock exchanges. At the same time, the scathing criticism from JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon has been discussed in various media, further fueling the downtrend and leading to a price drop below 3,000 EUR.

Prohibitions in China

At the beginning of September, China's central bank declared ICOs illegal. With the ban, the central bank took a radical step towards regulation. The idea of a central ban on decentralized affairs can sometimes be contradictory, and above all ineffective. Because, as shown shortly after the ban on trading in cryptocurrencies, the crypto exchanges simply migrated to neighboring countries such as Japan. This quickly led to a strong market growth in Japan.

And otherwise?

While Bitcoin has become more and more criticized for its energy consumption, waves of regulation have rippled in every corner of the world. Countries such as Canada, Switzerland, and Japan have been positive, while China and Russia have been negative on cryptos and ICOs. Finally, with Mediledger blockchain technology entered the pharmaceutical industry.

October: Bitcoin 5,000 EUR (6,025 USD)

Bitcoin Cash became the year of Bitcoin Hard Forks in 2017. So it became known that it should come in late October to another hard fork named Bitcoin Gold. The controversy surrounding this hard-fork did not keep investors from investing heavily in Bitcoin, leading to a rise in the bitcoin rate of over 5,000 EUR.

Bitcoin Gold - the unloved stepchild

It should be ready on the 24th of October. The Bitcoin blockchain was split once more to bring Bitcoin Gold to the fore. Although the developers promoted making Mining decentralized again. By cheaper mining, it should be possible again more people to mine coins. That was the only innovation. As a result, it hailed criticism from many directions. First there was the instability of Bitcoin Gold and its environment - the homepage was the victim of DDos attacks, the network could not withstand replay attacks. As a result, only very few stock exchanges considered listing the new coin. The development team was also watched with eagle eyes. So there was a pre-mining phase in which 16,000 Bitcoin Gold blocks of 12.5 Bitcoin Gold were generated in advance. These were offered in advance in exchange for Bitcoin - the ICO stench could hardly wash Bitcoin Gold from the coins. Thus, the adaptation of the unloved stepchild of Bitcoin was rather sluggish, the course crashed directly after a short all-time high again.

Tax havens call for regulation
Tax havens and cryptocurrencies often have a symbiotic relationship. While the economies of countries such as Gibraltar and Malta benefited from new companies, they enjoyed a mild tax climate. So while last month, countries like China were restrictive towards crypto exchanges, Gibraltar had become a haven for blockchain startups and ICOs.

And otherwise?

Also in the crypto scene a lot happened in October. For example, government employees were dismissed in the Crimea for banning Bitcoin at work. In addition, the blockchain adaptation was further advanced. While the Lufthansa Group was pushing ahead with technology integration in the travel industry, an Australian university tested a blockchain application for a document directory. Finally, Russia announced the launch of the Crypto-Ruble and the Ethereum network was upgrading the Byzantium.

November: Bitcoin 6,500 EUR (7,830 USD)

Another debate went around: Will the 2X part of Segregated Witness 2X be followed or not? The resistance of various parties signing the New York Agreement was so great that this part of the agreement was not honored. Not a few were relieved, as this postponed another protocol update. The price reached new highs at almost 6,500 EUR. However, for a short time, this rejection of 2X and the continued scaling problems of Bitcoin became a problem, and so the price tested support at around 5,000 EUR. The remainder of the month was marked by anticipation of listing on two major exchanges (CBoE and CME).

Bitcoin Cash and the SegWit2x cancellation

Announced in mid-November, the SegWit2x scaling solution was cheered by some members of the Bitcoin community. Many were opposed to a new spin-off, which would have resulted in additional coins other than Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold. The new spin-off was intended to expand the block size, but otherwise could not come up with many new features. It was not least this lack of innovation that made many doubt the seriousness of the project. But the community was finally able to prevail and establish the Bitcoin with it. Nevertheless, Bitcoin crashed and Bitcoin Cash soared a short time later. Some players behind Bitcoin Cash launched an attack on Bitcoin. For example, the price dropped briefly on November 9 to $ 2,000. The alleged responsible persons brought in addition a flippening into the play. As such, the replacement of a coin from its position by another coin has been referred to in terms of market capitalization and other factors. An internet page was set up which represented the flipping status of Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin. Newcomers were enormously unsettled by the attempted coup by Bitcoin Cash. However, the question of whether Bitcoin Cash will prevail in the end was still hotly debated in many places.

And otherwise?

While the debates over regulation, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin took hold in November, a lot had changed in the blockchain adaptation. For example, a blockchain solution for the healthcare sector was announced with Blockcerts. Otherwise, the UK Department of Justice had considered a blockchain solution for preserving evidence. Finally, the regulatory / prohibition wave in China has had an impact, as the largest stock exchanges and others a. emigrated to Hong Kong, where they enjoyed special legal status. Last but not least, in an attack on the Tether Treasury Wallet, an equivalent of around $ 31 million was stolen. The penultimate month of the year was also visibly impressive.

December: Bitcoin 17,000 EUR (20,000 USD)

The December was also marked by the upcoming stock market listing, which raised the price not only over 10,000 EUR, but to almost 17,000 EUR. However, this big wave of acceptance also showed the downsides of Bitcoin, so a plethora of unconfirmed transactions and extremely high transaction fees led to a consolidation of the price. Finally, December 22 was Bitcoin's Black Friday, where the price dropped below 9,000 EUR for a short time. Such losses before Christmas are not uncommon, after all, investors want to treat themselves also something.
From this Black Friday, the Bitcoin price could recover, so the price is over 12,000 EUR.

Crypto Futures and Course Madness

A decisive moment in December was the introduction of the crypto-futures and the associated involvement of cryptos and the stock market. The first impact occurred on December 10, the second on December 17. With these so-called futures contracts was not necessarily the Bitcoin, but rather driven the speculation on this in the mainstream. The cryptocurrency could be traded by the launch of the futures now on conventional stock exchanges, which is attractive especially for non-technical gamblers. In addition, they required buyers to buy a certain amount of Bitcoin at a fixed time at a fixed price. A risky way to bet on the course, which seems downright mocking in view of the repeatedly criticized volatility of the cryptocurrency. The fact that the rapid drop in prices since 17 December was linked to the launch of the futures of the world's largest stock exchange operator CME seems obvious at first glance. Maybe we just had to deal with the normal crypto (Christmas) madness, probably a mixture of both.
As always, our recommendation was: keep cool, wait and drink tea.

And otherwise?

While cryptos were hotly debated on the stock market and in the media, the crypto winter has arrived in South Korea. Not only have several exchanges been victims of attacks, the Prime Minister has also warned that Bitcoin is corrupting the youth. Undeterred by these headlines, our ever popular cryptocurrency continued to prevail. So you can buy now in Japan a used car with Bitcoin, (too) quickly rush to South Africa and pay his ticket there with the funds from his wallet. If you've forgotten your sunglasses for this turbulent ride, you can probably order a new one soon on Ebay with Bitcoin.

So we end a year 2017 that has been shaped so much by the Bitcoin, the Blockchain and the fundraising method ICO than any other year ever. The year was also very exciting for me. In this spirit, I want to thank you, my readers, for your loyal support in the past year and wish you a Happy New Year. I look forward to a hopefully equally exciting and eventful 2018.

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The word "blockchain" has probably already made it into the mainstream. And ICOs seem to equate it as the centerpiece. A look back at 2017 and a look at the (ICO) year 2018.

2017: The tokensale breakthrough

Probably hardly a financing model could establish itself so fast in this market size and change itself as ICOs. While token sales was still a background topic in the first quarter of 2017, it has evolved into a global financing method.

So it was in the early days also so that the number of ICOs was very limited - as was the scope. ICOs were typically done on blockchain projects that wanted to bring a utility token to market. Rather technically oriented, many of the projects seemed promising. The absolute number of projects was much lower, but the expected success rate was much higher. Those who invested in ICOs at that time could possibly also make good investments with the malicious "watering can strategy", ie the more or less deliberate scattering of investments on many projects.

ICOs: More competitive than before
In a short time more investors have discovered ICOs as an interesting investment vehicle - presumably driven by numerous success stories, not least the Ethereum ICO and the general cryptocurrency boom. Likewise, the market attracted new projects and founders who recognized the potential of the tokenized funding. Increasingly, the market has been expanding from pure utility tokens, that is, tokens that are technically needed to use a product or project, to other forms. Interest also won security tokens, which serve as a profit entitlement to projects. Overall, the market has thus expanded from blockchain projects to a broader market.

The huge interest in ICOs was reflected in equally huge amounts of funding that could be made in 2017. The three largest (not equal to the top three) token sales achieved the following results:

1. Filecoin – 257 million US-Dollar
2. Tezos – 232 million US-Dollar
3. EOS – 185 million US-Dollar

Token sales as an investment model of the future?

But how will things continue in 2018? Is the year of the ICOs approaching us at breakneck speed, or are they already being dedicated to the end of the Wild West by sharp regulations?

In fact, regulation is an issue to watch closely in 2018. Back in 2017, many states have shown that token sales can not act as a wild west for investments and legislate accordingly. Apart from a consumer warning from the BaFin, there is no publicity in the government in Germany - nevertheless it can be expected that 2018 will be followed by a reaction from the regulators. Whether it will be a restriction, a ban or the obligation to certain licenses, remains to be seen.

Not only regulators, however, are given a more serious view of ICOs - investors are also likely to see projects as much more critical than they were a year ago. Many black sheep have discovered the alleged gold mine and exploited the favor of investors - which has created a little more sensitivity, which will certainly continue in 2018.

Nonetheless, the chaff is expected to be separated from the wheat in 2018. After all, investing in an ICO is often an investment in a utility token. Whether this utility really earns its value, however, will only become apparent during the course of the project. Many of these tokens will be celebrating their first anniversary in 2018 - a short leap in the long-term, but a probationary phase that will challenge their victims. On the other hand, there will also be winners - projects that have proven to be successful in the marketplace through mostly very revolutionary concepts.

ICOs for the baker

So far, utility tokens are mostly launched, but less so are the security tokens. The latter are an exciting way to conduct financing and make assets very liquid through tokenization. Therefore, some start-ups are already considering setting up a platform for financing via security tokens. Certainly there will be a tendency in 2018, which shows that tokenization is not only useful for blockchain projects and is also helpful for classic businesses. Maybe also for a bakery.

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Egypt's religious leader has now commented on the legality of cryptocurrency trading in Islamic law.

Sheikh Shawki Ibrahim Allam, Grand Mufti of Egypt, said on Jan. 1 that cryptocurrency trading would not be allowed under Islamic law. According to Egypt Today, the risks associated with crypto trading are the reason for the ban.

Allam issued the ban in the form of a fatwa. A fatwa is an answer to a legal question pronounced by a religious authority. While a fatwa is not legally binding, Muslims often follow judgments in this form. The Grand Mufti is one of the first religious leaders to speak about cryptocurrencies under Islamic law.

The article mentions in addition to the strong price fluctuations also other reasons for the ban. Anonymity in Bitcoin trading could disrupt the legal system by allowing tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing and other unlawful activities.

It was not until December that a New Yorker was reported for allegedly supporting ISIS with cryptocurrencies.

Although the Egyptian cryptocurrency movement is still in its infancy, Allam's statements have a similar effect to those of a highly respected politician.

Egypt's central bank has recently been vehemently pointing out that the rumors about the legality of the settlement of Bitcoin transactions are not correct. The bank said then:

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On the website xvg.keff.org every few seconds the IP addresses of the users of the anonymous cryptocurrency Verge (XVG) are published. XVG automatically supports TOR and the Invisible Internet Project (I2P) anonymization network. Many are wondering how safe Verge is.

Just a few days ago, colleagues at Bitcoin.com warned against using Verge. Although the transfers are extremely cheap and fast, one can not fully trust the anonymous use, they said. Currently, the IP addresses of participants in many Verge transactions are [listed](https://news.bitcoin.com/privacy-coin-verge-allegedly-leaking-users-ip-addresses/9 by a non-imprinted Web site. The anonymous operator announced that it would soon publish the transfers of the Electrum XVG Wallet. At the same time, it is restricted that not all listed IP addresses must be correct. But since the network is comparatively small, many of them should be correct.

In October, John McAfee, the founder of the company of the same name, met with a member of the Verge community. McAfee highlighted in his tweets on several occasions the potential rise of this cryptocurrency. The visitor claims that the manager wanted to be paid for his activities on Twitter. 1.1 million US dollars are said to have been in conversation. Later, the CEO of the anti-virus company did not want to know anything about this agreement. Who says the untruth is and remains unclear. Only the common photos that the XVG Whale, as he calls himself on Twitter, has been pinned at the top of his tweets are verifiable. What remains in the end is a bitter aftertaste of the story.

December's in-house video announces that Verge (XVG) is the only digital currency that can not be traced back and is also suitable for daily use. It was announced via XVG's own Twitter account that the IP addresses published on xvg.keff.org have been checked. You could not find a single accurate IP address.

Leak or fake? So far it is still unclear what the alleged data leak is. And even if you have the correct IP address, you need for some years for a civil law information procedure a legitimate reason to get the address of the connection owner from the Internet provider to get notified. However, law enforcement agencies should have no problems in suspecting money laundering, tax evasion or possible drug offenses to convince Telekom & Co. of their right to information.

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One of the longest running Cryptocurrency exchanges Poloniex is taking steps to align its customer registration processes with those of the broader industries.

On December 27, US-based crypto exchange service Poloniex announced that all old accounts will soon be disabled unless those users perform the same verification process as the newer users of the accounts. These must undergo a so-called "Know Your Customer" -Due-Diligence (KYC). An exact deadline for the verification of the identity will be within the first quarter of 2018, the statements of the crypto exchange.

This requirement could be another step on the crypto exchange to comply with regulatory requirements and better ensure that their services are not used for criminal activities such as money laundering. Those who are unable to meet the deadline will no longer be able to access (trade, lend or place orders) their accounts.

Accordingly, a margin position (an eight-week grace period) is offered before the closure of the account occurs. The only feature that will work for older users is the maximum payout of $ 2,000. Delaware-based Poloniex has a trading volume of $ 818 million in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data. The crypto exchange has so far not revealed how many old accounts will be affected by the new rule.

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I wish you all a lovely Thursday!!!
ⓁⓄⓥⒺ & ⓁⒾⒼⒽⓉ
Best regards
@danyelk