Today on Altcoins This Week we discuss reports about the Bank of England studies on Digital Currencies, we comment on Bitcoin Cash’s newest partnership and more.
Steve Wozniak Compares Ethereum to Apple
During the WeAreDevelopers conference in Vienna, Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, compared the Ethereum platform to the beginnings of the company, saying it could become just as influential. Wozniak’s main interest in the Ethereum platform is that it can actually do things, even referring to the blockchain technology itself as the next major IT thing.
Wozniak is a strong believer in the crypto industry, and claims that it will achieve its true potential within the next decade. Having co-founded one of the most successful technological companies of all times, “Woz” has parted ways with Apple and has been focusing on his own projects, such as his coding academies across the US.
Another Partnership For Bitcoin Cash
According to an announcement made via Medium, Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com and its COO, Mate Tokay, have joined MoneyToken as advisors. This is a blockchain-based financial ecosystem which provides crypto-backed loans, stable coin MTC and a decentralized exchange service. According to the press release, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) will now be accepted as collateral on the MoneyToken lending platform. This marks another partnership for Bitcoin Cash and its use throughout the community.
According to Roger Ver, the platform is a “bright example of the real use of blockchain technology, as well as offering a massive boost for crypto market liquidity for all market players, and especially for businesses.” The partnership comes at a good time for MoneyToken, since they are currently in the pre-sale stage and could definitely benefit from the Bitcoin Cash community, especially having announced that they’d also be taking BCH during the crowdsale.
Former CEO Of UK VISA Joins Crypterium
According to the Business Insider, Marc O’Brien, former CEO of UK VISA, has joined Crypterium, a crypto-payments startup. With years of experience, O’Brien is looking to make it possible for people to use cryptocurrencies on a daily basis, giving it the mainstream access it needs. According to the former CEO, cryptocurrencies today are quite difficult to use in normal life, and exchanging them for fiat is not as quick as actually paying with them; which is why Crypterium will provide an amazing opportunity for consumers to pay for their everyday items with digital currencies.
Although Crypterium was only formed in 2017, they’ve already managed to raise over $52 million through their ICO and are now focussing on developing the technology to launch crypto-supported cards sometime this year. O’Brien did not share how they were planning to avoid the volatility of the crypto market, but he did mention it was the company’s “secret sauce”, which was heavily protected with intellectual property rights around it. The company is hopeful of making partnerships with other major players in the industry like MasterCard or VISA, which given O’Brien’s previous experience, may be made easier.
Bank of England Studying Digital Currencies
The Bank of England has released a working paper on central bank digital currencies and their implications. The 54-page-long paper lays down the pros and cons of central bank digital currencies (CBDC) and explains the possible model variants and how they could affect the economy of banks. The paper is intended as a didactic exercise to aid researchers in the field of central bank digital currencies understand the effect those could have on their balance sheets.
What is of great interest in the report is the generally optimistic conclusions the Bank of England appears to have in its approach to CBDCs. The report found that there was no reason to believe they could have a negative impact on private credit or the total liquidity provision to the economy. Although The Bank of England is not working on a CBDC itself, others have shown interest in them, such as Switzerland and Norway, which have both expressed their willingness to dig into the subject and eventually develop their own.
Altcoins Showing A Slight Sight Of Recovery
Altcoins experienced a somewhat good week. Ethereum (ETH) started the week at $730 and then experienced a fall, dropping to the $700 mark. Although on Tuesday it returned to $730, it then started to decrease in price and finished at the lowest mark of $660 on Friday. It started to recover during the weekend, closing at $720. Ripple (XRP) started the week at $0.75c and tried to stay above the $0.70 mark, although it started to go down Wednesday, reaching its lowest point of $0.66c on Friday but then recovered, closing at $0.70. Bitcoin Cash (BTH) opened the week above the $1,400 mark but throughout the week, lost almost $300 off its value. It closed at just below the $1,300 mark. EOS was quite volatile, opening the week at the $14, however it too suffered with the rest of the market when it went down to $12 on Wednesday, before closing the week back up at the $14 mark. Although Consensus pumped the price up a little for Altcoins, it did not have the impact the community was expecting, and by the close of the event, most Altcoins were dropping in price.
