Pixabay
Welcome to BroBible’s regular roundup of the biggest news in the world of cryptocurrencies. We’ll be providing you with the biggest news and stories concerning Bitcoin and major altcoins to help you keep your finger on the pulse of the crypto market.
Cryptocurrencies made a big push toward the end of last week but have been mostly trading sideways since then. They’re largely in the red over the past day but almost every coin and token has still had a weekly gain.
Here’s a quick look at how things are shaping up around noon on Monday.
- Bitcoin (BTC): $6625.80 (up 3.9% in the past week)
- Ethereum (ETH): $233.60 (up 10.85% in the past week)
- Ripple (XRP): $.525 (up 90.35 in the past week)
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH): $467.30 (up 8.15% in the past week)
- EOS: $5.75 (up 12.05% in the past week)
- Litecoin (LTC): $58.60 (up 7.65% in the past week)
- Tether (USDT): $1.00 (down .1% in the past week)
- Monero (XMR): $117.70 (up 2.9% in the past week)
- IOTA: $.564 (up 2.1% in the past week)
- Tron (TRX): $.0226 (up 17.5% in the past week)
As far as news goes, it’s been a fairly quiet few days but here are a couple of notable stories I’ve come across.
Will Ethereum Poised To Go Toe-To-Toe With Bitcoin?
Pexels
Ripple temporarily topped Ethereum’s market cap last week to take the title of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency but eventually fell back into third place.
It’s unlikely Bitcoin will lose the stranglehold it has on the market at any point in the near future, but if one expert is to be believed, it could face a serious contender thanks to the long-term potential of Ethereum.
According to ETF Trends, investor Ian Mcloed believes that Ethereum is poised to put a serious dent in Bitcoin’s impressive market share in the coming years despite its recent struggles, saying:
“Turbulence is a regular, and sometimes welcome, feature of the crypto sector. Therefore, the Ethereum rebound was, and is, inevitable.
But not only do we think it will rebound considerably before the end of 2018, I believe that over the longer time it will significantly dent Bitcoin’s dominance.
In fact, I think we can expect Bitcoin to lose 50 percent of its cryptocurrency market share to Ethereum, its nearest rival, within five years.”
He claims the blockchain tech that backs Ethereum is much stronger than that behind Bitcoin, so I guess we’ll have to check back in when 2023 rolls around to see how that prediction pans out.
More And More People Are Actively Using Bitcoin Wallets
Pixabay
A ton of people in the crypto game are members of HODL Mafia, a subset of investors who are sitting on their coins and tokens instead of actively using or selling them.
The vast majority of active Bitcoins on the market are currently being sat on, but according to a new report, there’s been a notable uptick in the number of people who have used Bitcoin for some sort of transaction over the past year.
According to Coin Desk, only 26% of Bitcoin wallets showed any signs of transactional activity over the course of 2017 but that number has now increased to 32% this year.
Economist Kimberly Grauer says that the data shows around half of the Bitcoins in circulation are still held by investors but claim the numbers show the market could be stabilizing, which could in turn encourage more adoption when it comes to actual transactions between users and merchants.
When you consider how many people have said mass adoption of Bitcoin is only a matter of time over the past few years, I’ll believe that last part when I see it.