There will almost certainly be no Bitcoin hard fork next week: the main organizers behind the SegWit2x project have "suspended" their efforts.
Called SegWit2x, the proposed fork would have increased the blocksize of bitcoin to allow quicker and less costly transaction processing. But it failed because of a lack of consensus support across the bitcoin community, including from bitcoin miners and exchanges.
British financial technology firm Revolut said on Wednesday it has applied for a European banking license, as it bids to join a growing number of digital-only banks looking to win away customers from larger, traditional lenders.
Founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko in 2015, Revolut is an app-based banking alternative with a multi-currency card and mobile app. An account can be created in seconds, enabling users to instantly send free money transfers in 26 currencies to banks around the globe; spend fee-free in 120 currencies with a contactless Revolut card; and exchange currencies at interbank rates in the app. It also offers peer-to-peer payments.
The online search phrase “buy bitcoin” is now more popular than “buy gold,” according to the latest data from Google Trends. The tide began to change in favor of bitcoin only in the spring of this year, with “buy gold” search phrase completely dominating the field prior to that. On average, gold still wins out in 2017, but this might not be for long, as shown on the Google Trends chart.
According to online records, e-commerce giant Amazon, often seen as the “white whale of bitcoin payments, recently registered three cryptocurrency-related domain names: “amazoncryptocurrency.com,” “amazoncryptocurrencies.com,” and “amazonethereum.com.” The move was first reported by domain industry news website DomainNameWire (DNW).
The former digital chief of Credit Suisse is launching a blockchain-based investment platform that lets people share ownership of "experiential" assets such as artwork or a classic car, and is seeking to raise funding for the startup via an initial coin offering (ICO).
Marco Abele, who left the investment bank this summer, is offering investments in assets usually limited to high-net worth individuals through a new platform called Tend. Well-known fintech industry insider Oliver Bussman, a former chief information officer at UBS and the investment bank’s "blockchain guru" is a strategic advisor.
Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam on Thursday expressed caution about Bitcoin, saying the current interest in the crypto-currency could eventually subside.
“Bitcoin presents a number of challenges. The first of them is really the anonymity,” Thiam told a results news conference. “I think most banks in the current state of regulation have little or no appetite to get involved in a currency which has such anti-money laundering challenges.
Bitcoin prices have continued to climb overnight, building on consecutive highs in recent days and ultimately reaching a new all-time high close to $7,000. At 07:00 UTC, bullish bitcoin trading saw the cryptocurrency soar to a peak of $6,994.01, having opened the session at $6,750. At press time, the price of a bitcoin is $6,939, according to CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index – a 2.8 percent gain for the day so far.
Financial theorist and neurologist William Bernstein doesn’t believe that bitcoin fits the classic idea of a bubble; however, he claims he won’t be ‘wasting his time’ on it.
The former American neurologist turned to writing about investing during the 1990s. A few of his popular bestsellers include The Intelligent Asset Allocator, The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, and Rational Expectations: Asset Allocation for Investing Adults.
