The Bitcoin ETF has been rejected by the SEC, and Antpool is now supporting Bitcoin Unlimited. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 10:
- The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) renewed its efforts to regulate Bitcoin exchanges this week. Zhou Xuedong, Director of the Bank’s Department of Business Management, which carried out inspections of Bitcoin exchanges, outlined some new rules which exchanges must follow. Among the numerous rules Zhou proposed was a list of prohibited activities imposed on Bitcoin exchanges. According to Caixin, this list includes:
- Antpool, Bitcoin’s biggest pool with around 14% of the network’s hardware share, began mining this week with the new grassroots client, Bitcoin Unlimited. Only the Beijing servers appear to have upgraded so far. That gives BU’s share of Antpool hardware around 7% of the total Bitcoin network. It is unclear whether the other pool servers will follow. As a result of Antpool’s support Bitcoin Unlimited’s hashrate now exceeds the hashrate behind Segregated Witness, an alternative solution for Bitcoin scalability.
- BitClub, a small Bitcoin mining pool with around 4% of the network’s hardware share, has suddenly decided to attack the Bitcoin network by malleating transactions causing confusion, potential theft, and nearly bringing blockchain.info down. Amaury Sechet, software engineer at Facebook and Bitcoin Unlimited developer, explained “there is no theft from BitClub, but the confusion can definitively lead to theft. Say I pay you with tx B and you check it as valid and accept it. But B spend coin from A and A is malleated by BitClub, then B becomes invalid. Now you don’t have the money you thought you’d have anymore. Because of the backlog, this can happen a long time after our exchange took place.”BitClub is a private pool with small miners. It’s operator, James Hilliard, aka Lightsword, is a very strong proponent and advocate for segregated witnesses (SegWit). Some, therefore, are calling the attack political.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday denied a request to list what would have been the first U.S. exchange-traded fund (ETF) built to track Bitcoin, the digital currency. “Based on the record before it, the Commission believes that the significant markets for Bitcoin are unregulated,” the SEC said in a statement. “The commission notes that Bitcoin is still in the relatively early stages of its development and that, over time, regulated Bitcoin-related markets of significant size may develop.”
- Offering leverage and margin trades.
- Producing fake volume and manipulating the market using zero fees.
- Violating AML laws.
- Violating regulations on foreign currency management and cross-border capital transfer with Bitcoin.
- Replacing fiat by using Bitcoin to purchase goods.
- Tax Evasion.
- Engaging in false advertising or participating in Ponzi schemes.
- Providing financial services without a permit, including credit, securities, and futures trading.
- Compared to the previous week the price of Bitcoin has decreased by more than five percent, with the exchange rate currently at about $1,184 per BTC. The price of Ethereum increased by five percent, taking Ether up to a rate of $20.10 per ETH. Ethereum Classic lost about seven percent, with the price decreasing to $1.32 per ETC. Zcash lost five percent as well. One ZEC is now trading at roughly $38 per coin.
