This Week in Cryptocurrency: April 12, 2019

Every Week Can’t Be Green

The good times can’t last forever. After a few weeks of consistent growth, we finally saw a pullback this week. The crypto market cap fell from $174.7B down to a low of $167.7B before climbing back up to $172.7B. Overall, we saw a one percent loss on the week. Not too shabby.

Cryptocurrency Market Stats (4/12/19)

Most coins were in the red with the exception of Ethereum Classic (10.00%), Crypto.com Chain (67.15%), and Nano (16.13%). As for our top three:

Bitcoin went against the market grain, posting a 1.39% rise.

Ethereum didn’t do much, bringing in a 0.34% gain.

XRP was the big loser, dropping 9.80% over the week.

Domestic News

FaceCoin Could Be Worth a Cool Billion: According to NY Times reporter Nathanial Popper, Facebook is shopping around for venture capital firms to invest in their cryptocurrency to the tune of…zooms in on Dr. Evil’s face…one billion dollars.

The social media giant will allegedly use the new cash as collateral for its upcoming crypto. The new coin will most likely be pegged to a basket of foreign currencies to keep a stable value. With Telegram, Kik, and Line all launching cryptocurrencies this year, it’ll be interesting to see how Facebook fits into the mix.

House of Reps Reintroduce Pro-Crypto Act: Early in the week, the U.S. House of Representatives reintroduced the Token Taxonomy Act, which would exclude cryptocurrency from security classification. Beyond the ideal classification status, the act proposes regulatory certainty for the blockchain industry. Crypto and blockchain-related businesses would no longer be in a regulatory grey area.

To reintroduction is apparently in response to the growing blockchain markets in both Europe and China. Representative Darren Soto, one of the people behind the bill, commented that “it is time for the United States to step up and lead in blockchain technology.” Amen, brother.

People Saying Things

Goodbye, Paper: Meme-daddy Musky took to the airwaves this week to talk paper money and its dismal future. On the FYI – For Your Innovation podcast, the Tesla CEO proclaimed that “crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper.” He also spoke on the Bitcoin’s technology, calling it “quite brilliant.”

The Buterin Burn: Ethereum jokester Vitalik Buterin responded to a claim this week that he didn’t want Craig Wright to have a voice in the crypto space. While many agree with this sentiment, Buterin clarified that “Craig Wright absolutely should have a voice. But so do all of us laughing at his stupidity.” Ouch…

Oh, and if you missed it – Buterin has quite the rap career ahead of him.

“This is what happens when you code a lot…” @VitalikButerin dropping some beats #EDCON pic.twitter.com/42ba0c3Hml

— Washington Sanchez (@drwasho) April 11, 2019

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Cryptocurrency News from Around the World

PewDiePie Joins the Block(chain) Party: PewDiePie, Youtube’s number one celebrity, is heading over to DLive for his future live streaming needs. The two announced an exclusive partnership on Tuesday in which the 100m subscriber-count star will start streaming weekly live videos on the blockchain platform.

DLive is a “livestreaming platform that leverages blockchain technology to reward both creators and viewers.” The company prides itself in taking none of the video creators’ revenue. Instead, 90.1 percent of the revenue goes directly to content creators while the remaining 9.9 percent gets locked in a pool “that rewards people…for their contributions to the network on a daily basis.”

Blockchain Joins World’s Largest Business Org: The Internation Chamber of Commerce (ICC) recently signed an agreement with a blockchain startup from Singapore, Perlin Net Group, to look into how blockchain technology could improve the free flow of goods around the world.

The agreement includes:

• ICC helping Perlin recruit members to its blockchain alliance
• Perlin joining ICC as a technology partner
• Sharing results of their first blockchain proof-of-content

Also part of the agreement, the duo will form a new group called the ICC Blockchain/DLT Alliance. Maybe they should form a naming committee next…