From Bitcoin’s status as digital gold to new adoption for XRP, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.
Bitcoin
Crypto venture capitalist Lou Kerner says Bitcoin is well on its way to becoming the new gold.
In an interview with Bloomberg, the founding partner of New York-based CryptoOracle says Bitcoin’s market cap has already surpassed silver, and he believes cryptocurrency will ultimately be a bigger game changer than the internet.
“What it’s evolved into today is a store of value. And today, the main store of value is gold. It’s an $8 trillion thing. Bitcoin today is around $60 billion, so I think it has an opportunity to actually replace gold as the dominant store of value, in which case it can go up more than 100-fold from where it is today.”
Ripple and XRP
Ripple has posted an extended clip of a new interview with Asheesh Birla, the company’s senior vice president of product. Birla talks about xRapid and looks ahead to what’s expected for the XRP-based cross-border payment solution in 2019.
Watch @ashgoblue discuss how Ripple’s products including xRapid evolved in 2018 and what he expects from the new year. pic.twitter.com/3R4nttnbOa
— Ripple (@Ripple) December 28, 2018
Meanwhile, XRP is seeing new adoption, thanks to the Internet Archive. The company, which archives the web on its popular Wayback Machine, is now accepting donations in XRP.
Today we added XRP to our cryptocurrency donations page: https://t.co/qQHqR7vqQM
And right now, 3 generous supporters will match all crypto donations 3-to-1! We're so close to goal with just a few days to go, hoping the #XRPcommunity & all of our incredible supporters can help. pic.twitter.com/h4icBnu3Go— Internet Archive (@internetarchive) December 29, 2018
Ethereum
From Bitcoin’s community to the Trump administration, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin just closed out 2018 by tweeting a list of what he’s thankful for.
I'd like to follow @cryptochamomile's tradition and end the year with praise for groups I either consider outgroups or otherwise don't normally praise, both inside and outside the crypto space…
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) December 31, 2018
Excerpts
- The open hardware movement
- Bitcoin’s survival culture and its benefits
- The Lightning Network’s ability to make advancement – minus any ICO funding
- The national fiat currencies that have remained stable
- Governments maintaining a peaceful world order
- The subreddit buttcoin
You can check out the full list here.
Stellar
In a new interview with Yahoo Finance, Stellar co-founder Jed McCaleb, who also created Mt. Gox and co-founded Ripple, says he’s taking the long view on the crypto market, despite the year-long bear market.
“It’s funny when people say crypto is down. In my view, it’s still way way up. It’s down from the peak, but on the whole, it’s way way up. We don’t focus on the price that much. It doesn’t matter to us too much.
But when prices are up it does mean more people are interested, and you have the cash to do more things.”
Although he doesn’t think most financial institutions will adopt Bitcoin and while he believes “ninety percent of these projects are B.S.”, he thinks different use cases will demand different platforms.
“There are some things bitcoin is good at, some things Ethereum is good at, and some things Stellar is good at. And none of them can do all the things well. That’s just not how software works.”
Cardano
Charles Hoskinson is looking back at 2018, with a lengthy year-in-review video on YouTube.
The creator of Cardano talks about the current state of the relatively young platform and highlights key milestones made throughout the year.
IOTA
Not to be outdone, IOTA has released a lengthy year in review.
The post covers IOTA’s new partnerships, technological progress, ecosystem development, along with a short preview of what’s to come in 2019.
“IOTA was always meant to be, have always been and will always be an open source grassroots project. The Foundation already has plans in place to make community engagement on development, research and adoption a lot more interactive and open in the new year, starting almost immediately.”
Nano
The team at Nano is also recapping its progress over the past year. A new post highlights key releases, hires and events in 2018.
