Crypto market
• Bitcoin dropped below $10,000, Ethereum went below $900, marking a price slide of over 30% for both assets this week. https://goo.gl/bH8YdX
• Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the fourth largest bank in the world, will launch its own digital currency. The bank plans to peg one coin to one Japanese yen in order to maintain people’s confidence in the new cryptocurrency. https://goo.gl/bj8NE3
• Bitconnect has formally closed its lending platform and cryptocurrency exchange following warnings from Texas and North Carolina regulators. The Bitconnect Coin digital currency is down 87% today and 93% from its December 29 high of $437. Many in the digital currency community have called Bitconnect a Ponzi scheme. https://goo.gl/59FVfH
Blockchain
• The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance has appointed Ron Resnick, the former president and chairman of the Airfuel Alliance, as the first executive director. https://goo.gl/snmsCt
• IBM and Danish logistics company Maersk will create Blockchain-based shipping and supply chain company. https://goo.gl/7Q7jZz
Regulation
• A new US bill aims to fight terrorism by offering rewards for information that results in convictions of cryptocurrency-supported terrorism. https://goo.gl/etvsJ3
• A South Korean petition against the regulation of virtual currency reached 200K signatures, the amount of signatures required to compel a response from the government. The petition still supports some of South Korea’s cryptocurrency regulations, such as banning anonymous trading accounts. https://goo.gl/ksnopH