I am going to put a list of important news and events that have taken place about Bitcoin recently. Let's see if I can make you not fall into all that FUD that is now in crypto 😉
1.- Samsung, South Korea’s Largest Firm, is Manufacturing ASIC Chips For Bitcoin Mining
Yes, you have read well, Samsung has just finished the development of its own ASIC chips and (I hope) it will compete with Bitmain in the production of ASICs. They plan to start in the Chinese market and then spread to South Korea and Japan.
https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/01/30/samsung-south-koreas-largest-company-manufacturing-asic-chips-bitcoin-mining/
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42892380
2.- BitGo Enters Into Agreement To Acquire Kingdom Trust
I quote: "Digital currency startup BitGo has entered into an agreement to acquire Kingdom Trust, a digital asset custodian that currently serves more than 100,000 clients and manages more than $12 billion in assets."
This opens the possibility of buying an investment product for retirement accounts, called Bitcoin IRA or 401(k) accounts.
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180125006079/en/BitGo-Enters-Agreement-Acquire-Kingdom-Trust
https://www.ccn.com/bitgo-acquires-12-billion-asset-manager-kingdom-trust/
https://www.kingdomtrust.com/news/kingdom-trust-at-the-forefront-of-bitcoin-investments
https://bitcoinira.com/
3.- Strike, a stripe-like API for Lightning, is released by ACINQ.
Ok, this is HUGE. This will keep the costs of integrating payments with Lightning Network to a minimum and will make it easier for companies to integrate them. This is called combo wombo.
https://medium.com/@ACINQ/introducing-strike-a-stripe-like-api-for-lightning-c84762f4f634
https://strike.acinq.co/#/
4.- There are more than 1000 open channels and more than 400 nodes working with the Lightning Network in the Bitcoin MAIN net.
And all this in less than a month. I hope it can be fully functional soon and that we have good wallets to use it.
https://lnmainnet.gaben.win/
https://p2sh.info/dashboard/db/lightning-network
What is the LN? -> https://cointelegraph.com/explained/lightning-network-explained
5.- BTC miners have mined a 2.1 MB block, the largest one so far.
This has gone very unnoticed, but it is a big step towards SegWit. The use of SegWit has decreased in recent days, I suppose because there aren't yet enough large services that support it (cough, cough, CoinBase). Seriously, use BTC addresses that start with a 3.
https://www.smartbit.com.au/block/0000000000000000001bbb529c64ddf55edec8f4ebc0a0ccf1d3bb21c278bfa7
SegWit adoption stats: http://segwit.party/charts/#
Why should I use SW? https://hackernoon.com/bitcoin-owners-you-need-to-do-these-two-things-right-now-a73122dd23d4
Maybe 2018 has started dyed in red, but believe me when I say that this year you're going to hear a lot of people talking about Bitcoin.
So the question now is: Are you going to sell your Bitcoins at such a low price? I do not 😎