Dogecoin is about to celebrate its birthday, and the U.S. Marshals Service has completed the second auction of Silk Road Bitcoins. Here are the cryptocurrency highlights of week 49:
- The Dogecoin community is getting ready to celebrate the digital currency’s birthday. The first block was mined on December 8, 2013. 98 percent of what was intended to be the maximum number of coins (98.5 billion) to be produced has now been mined. Due to a misunderstanding, 5.2 billion new coins will be added per annum once this number is actually reached.
- To date, Dogecoin has remained one of the most popular cryptocurrencies, still claiming the number two spot after Bitcoin according to CoinGecko. Litecoin and Ripple are following closely in the third and fourth position respectively.
- Last week it seemed that Western Union was starting to feel the pressure of Bitcoin, and also MasterCard is now choosing the offensive against cryptocurrencies. One executive, Matthew Driver, is trying to defend the outdated credit card model by arguing that cryptocurrencies carry too many risks to be successful. Driver did not comment on the recent history of the traditional banking system.
- U.S. representative Steve Stockman has proposed a new law to congress titled the “Cryptocurrency Protocol Protection and Moratorium Act”. If it would pass, it would prevent government regulation of Bitcoin for the next five years. It must be added that the bill is not likely to become law.
- The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) has completed the second auction of Bitcoins it has seized from online drug marketplace Silk Road. As much as 50,000 BTC were sold off, leaving still 94,000 BTC in the USMS’s possession.
