From a massive stockpiling of Bitcoin to the adoption of Ripple and XRP, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.
Bitcoin
One of the world’s biggest crypto asset managers has amassed an outright Bitcoin fortune.
Grayscale Investments now owns more than 1% of the total supply of Bitcoin for its institutional investor clientele, according to a new report from Diar. That adds up to more than 200,000 BTC.
In July, the firm reported that the pace of investment into Grayscale products hit record levels. Despite the bear market, the company raised a record $330 million, the most in its five-year history. The market downturn, however, has now caused shares of its Bitcoin Investment Trust to drop 80% from its all-time highs since the last big Bitcoin rally.
Ripple and XRP
Ripple’s senior vice president of product management Asheesh Birla says cryptocurrencies like XRP are leaving traditional payment technologies designed more than 60 years ago in the dust.
In a new interview with PC Magazine, Birla says Southeast Asia in particular is “going from cash to digital via mobile payment at a crazy clip. So those countries are now saying we’re going to build a modern-day financial product. We are not going to use the 1950s wire technology or SWIFT technology. We’re going to use blockchain.”
Altcoin Expansion
The San Francisco-based crypto exchange Bittrex just launched crypto-to-fiat trading in Texas for a long list of cryptocurrencies.
Bittrex is now offering USD trading in 33 states for Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Cardano, Tron, Litecoin, Zcash, Ethereum Classic, TrueUSD, Bitcoin Cash, Tether and Siacoin.
Coinbase Pro
Coinbase Pro is also expanding, with four new cryptocurrencies now available for trading.
The platform listed the Ethereum-based ERC20 tokens Civic (CVC), district0x (DNT), Loom Network (LOOM) and Decentraland (MANA).
“Our decision to add ERC20 tokens first is based on the relative ease of integrating the standard with our existing infrastructure, particularly from a security standpoint.”
The announcement follows the news that Coinbase is considering the addition of 31 cryptocurrencies on its retail crypto exchange.
Stellar
BitGo just launched support for Stellar (XLM) in its multi-signature cryptocurrency wallet. The new addition brings the total number of cryptocurrencies supported on the wallet to 115.
[the_ad id="42537"] [the_ad id="42536"]Today we’re pleased to announce support for Stellar! With the addition of lumens (XLM), we now support 115 digital currencies – read more: https://t.co/WxyvLDLcwp @StellarOrg #digitalcurrencies #custody #XLM
— BitGo (@BitGo) December 5, 2018
