This week in the Altcoin realm: Altcoins bounce back after the Christmas Crash, An Exmo Exec is kidnapped, XRP is making bigger ripples in the crypto pond, Ethereum is kicked out by Crypto Kitties and the Verge breaks into the high ranks.
Verge breaks into the high ranks
Verge is a fresh new take on cryptocurrency that has been trending a lot as of late. Verge (XVG) aims to make crypto transactions 100% anonymous, hiding all information from the giver and the receiver. It was originally created under the name DogeCoinDark in 2014 but was recently rebranded to the more professional “Verge Currency” last year. The technology behind Verge makes it virtually untraceable and allows for users of the coin to make instant hassle-free transactions. This is made possible by using blockchain technology which works in tandem with services like Tor and I2P that hide things like your IP-address and in turn, your personal data.
Verge has been a steady gainer and was given a boost from 1-2 cents to around 20 cents in mid-December when John McAfee tweeted about it. It has received coverage from many high profile media outlets such as Forbes and The Sun, Verge will be on the radar for a larger number of people, moving up to the 21st position with a market capitalization shooting past $ 2 Million.
Ethereum Kikked out by Crypto Kitties?
Ted Livingston – The Ceo of Kik, a popular social media app which raised over $110 Million through a very successful ICO in September of 2017, has recently made an announcement that they are leaving the Ethereum network and are moving across to Stellar. The slow network speed of Ethereum has been a big factor in their decision, says Ted Livingston, even going as far as to call it the “dial-up era of blockchain”. Ethereums aim to be a multi-purpose blockchain network may be the reason it suffers, it seems as if it is not able to handle the traffic it is getting.
Stellar, the new blockchain that Kik is moving to, have been around since 2014. They are a hybrid blockchain that is fully decentralized and open source and they have a strong weighting in payment systems. Ripple’s own Jed McCaleb is a co-founder and Stellar has experienced a similar growth to Ripple in the same period this year.
Bigger Ripples in The Crypto Pond
Ripple has had a good year and has experienced a healthy year of growth alongside other Altcoins like Litecoin and Ethereum. It has a solid supporter base, a large portion of which reside in Asia, and has been gaining a lot of traction. Ripple also has a lot of strength in their partnerships, they have over 75 commercially deploying customers and over 100 on their roster.
A huge partnership which, understandably caused a lot of buzz, was their recent team up with American Express. For a lot of Americans, this was their first experience of Ripple being a legitimate and reliable financial service, rather than as a new and intimidating technology which was hard to wrap your head around.
Ripple has grown a lot this year, going from just under the 20 cent mark to all-time highs around the $1 mark. The potential is there for ripple, and if they manage to nab their way onto a major exchange such as Coinbase, they’re in for another good year.
Kidnapped in Kyiv, Exmo boss disappears
Pavel Lerner, a 40-year-old Russian Citizen, and CEO of the British registered Exmo Bitcoin Exchange has reportedly been kidnapped in Kyiv just days after Christmas celebrations in Kyiv. He is reported to have been bundled into the back of a black Mercedes just after leaving his office in the Oblon region of the city. Speculation surrounds the cause and the culprits of this crime, could it be business partners? The Ukrainian Government? Or just ordinary criminals…?
This comes in the same month (and same country) that the Russian founder of Forklog, Anatoly Kaplan, was raided by the SBU (government internal security agency) and had a decent amount of his equipment and cryptocurrency seized. Earlier this month we saw another incident with a man being held at gunpoint, forced to give up all of the Ethereum in his digital wallet. Is this the start of a new wave of crypto crimes? Only time will tell.
Altcoins bounce back after Christmas Crash
Nearly all the main players in the market have made a predictable bounce back following the Christmas crypto crash that saw most currencies plummet to lows that had not been seen for a while. Almost all of the most prominent Altcoins have bounced back and have held a steady price but are still down by an average of 20-30% of their previous peaks.
Ethereum has been holding steady for a short while now at $750 and is likely to stay there for at least another few weeks, and could even see another climb in the hours running up to the New Year. Litecoin is another steady player and has been hovering at the $250 mark, which is still a massive increase of nearly 5000% this year for Charlie Lees creation. Bitcoin Cash is still moving around a bit and is still trying to find its natural level, as the market buzzes with rumors of manipulation involving the coin and its supporters.
With the hype around crypto increasing every day, 2018 could be the year that Altcoins don’t seem so “alt” anymore.
