Dogecoin loses popular cartoonist, and Bitcoin experienced a bad week possibly due to the IPO of Alibaba. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 38:
- Cartoonist Carlos Ruelas also known as Reddit user “Carlishio2” has passed away due to suicide after having battled with depression for a long time. Carlos was very involved with the Dogecoin community and well known for being the artist behind the popular Dogecoinball comics. Following this event, a fundraiser was started to raise awareness for mental health.
- Peercoin saw its market capitalization more than double from $17 to $35 million following the announcement of an official release date for NuBits. Details concerning the project are not known, but is claimed that NuBits will eliminate volatility in cryptocurrencies, and do so without counterparty risk and using a decentralized network.
- The price of Bitcoin had a less positive week, as the digital currency lost more than 15 percent of its total market capitalization. The reason for the drop is speculated to originate from China, in particular due to the IPO of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
- Mt.Gox CEO Mark Karpeles fears that his life may be in danger following the loss of a half a billion dollars’ worth of virtual currency from the now bankrupt exchange. Karpeles told so in his first interview since the Japanese police launched an investigation into his exchange in late July this year.
- Bitcoin Savings and Trust and its owner Trendon Shavers have been ordered to pay a combined $40 million fine after a U.S. judge established that the company was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. During its active period, the company sold investments using the virtual currency, but used Bitcoins from new investors to repay earlier ones. The collective loss to investors was 265,675 Bitcoins or more than $100 million at today’s rates.
