Bitcoin Hash Rate Surges to New Record High – Plus Ethereum, Ripple and XRP, Litecoin, Stellar, Tron

From a new milestone for Bitcoin to adoption for Stellar Lumens in Asia Pacific, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s hash rate just hit a new all-time high, according to the latest data from Blockchain.com.

The hash rate measures the amount of computing power currently being used to secure the network. The number reflects a resurgence of interest in mining that began in January of 2019.

The head of global sales and marketing at Canaan Creative, which makes the Avalon miner told CoinDesk that Bitcoin’s rising price is putting even more pressure on an already short supply of mining equipment.

“It looks like a return to the 2017 Q3, Q4 conditions, where demand was three times the supply.”

Ethereum

A new edition of the Week in Ethereum blog post is out.

This week’s post covers the latest on Ethereum 2.0 and includes a number of updates on Ethereum-based platforms such as Loopring and Augur.

Ripple and XRP

The head of Ripple’s investment arm Xpring is outlining the company’s current focus. According to Ethan Beard, Ripple is looking to support three key areas of development.

• Offering tools to help developers build on the XRP Ledger, including exchanges, wallets, custody and payment processors
• Boosting the Interledger Protocol to enable businesses to transact in multiple currencies
• Creating a new economy around decentralized finance, using crypto as the primary building block including debt, derivatives, stablecoins and other synthetic assets

Ripple recently revealed that Xpring has spent $500 million on investments in the blockchain and crypto space to date.

Litecoin

Litecoin’s next halving is now less than 30 days away.

The halving is part of the coin’s deflationary monetary policy and will cut the rewards miners get for powering the network by half, which will slow the creation of new LTC.

Stellar

The crypto payment startup Wirex says Stellar Lumens (XLM) is now live on its platform in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. XLM is the 9th cryptocurrency available that users can buy, sell and exchange.

Tron

Tron is gearing up to launch BitTorrent Speed on July 8th. The launch will officially integrate Tron’s blockchain with the file-sharing platform, and will let users who upload files earn BTT for helping power the network. The platform is billed as “the world’s largest blockchain application for speedy uploading and downloading of files.”