The NYSE launched a Bitcoin tracking index this week, and two of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges ran into trouble. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 21.
- Bitfinex got into trouble this week as its hot wallet got hacked, resulting in a loss of about 1,500 BTC. Fortunately, the hot wallet contained only a small portion of all coins held by Bitfinex and the exchange will cover all losses from its own pocket. The hack will not influence the exchange’s review rating on Digiconomist as the current score already includes the risk.
- OKCoin might be facing bigger problems, as Roger Ver (known as Bitcoin Jesus) has revealed that the exchange has failed to make contractual payments, and that it has attempted to falsify documents in order to escape these payments. Besides being obviously fraudulent, these actions also make the exchange appear to be insolvent. The platform’s review rating has been downgraded as a resullt.
- The New York Stock Exchange has launched a new tracking index for the price of Bitcoin. The new index receives the ticker NYXBT and will use data from San Francisco based exchange Coinbase. Just the previous week it was announced that the NASDAQ was experimenting with the Bitcoin blockchain.
- Yesterday marked international Bitcoin Pizza Day. On this day five years ago programmer Laszlo Hanyecz paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas to another Bitcoin Talk forum user. The transaction was worth about $25 at the time, and is widely recognized as the first real-world Bitcoin transaction. At today’s rate 10,000 BTC would be worth roughly $2.4 million.
- The price of one Bitcoin increased by almost 2 percent or roughly $4 this week to a rate of about $240 per coin. Other digital currencies also performed strong this week. Litecoin and Dogecoin even saw their price increase by around 25 percent.
My recommendation to novice bitcoin investors is to conduct your homework before trusting any of these companies with your money. They gain your trust by producing a modest profit, and then when you invest a substantial sum, they block your money for no apparent reason. Thanks to the recovery agency INW.TODAY, I was lucky enough to get my funds back. You can reach out to them if you need assistance