Here’s what happened this week in Bitcoin
Bitcoin’s price dipped to just below $6000 on Tuesday, its lowest level since mid-November 2017. Tuesday was perhaps the highest volume trading day since late-2015, suggesting that the of sellers may have offloaded their coins to a fresh wave of buyers.
At a hearing held before the US Senate Banking Committee the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission focused on the risks of unsound cryptocurrency exchanges and fraudulent ICOs. On the other hand, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission focused on the transformative potential of cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin in particular.
The general manager of the BIS – an international bank controlled by 60 national central banks, described Bitcoin as “a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster.”
On the other hand, the president of the European Central Bank said that EU banks may soon hold Bitcoin positions in the form of traditional financial products based upon the cryptocurrency.
Coinbase, announced that they’d upgrade to SegWit during February.Implementing Segwit should have a great impact on reducing transaction fees and overall congestion in the Bitcoin network.
Finally, cryptocurrency exchange BitGrail has reported a loss of 17 million Nano, an altcoin formerly known as RailBlocks. At the time of the hack this accounts for over $170 million. However, conflicting reports are surfacing with some believing the exchange to be insolvent for a number of months.
That’s what happened this week in Bitcoin.