Altcoins Crushing All-Time-Highs | This Week in Crypto – Feb 8, 2021

Ethereum reached a new all-time high this week, trading at over $1700. The jump occurred moments after it was announced that Ethereum-based futures contracts are set to be introduced next week on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). 

Dogecoin experienced a 50 percent surge after Elon Musk, the South African entrepreneur behind both SpaceX and Tesla, wrote on Twitter that Doge was “the people’s crypto” and later added, “No highs, no lows, only Doge.” Dogecoin had already experienced a mega high last week following heavy interest from Reddit users. 

India—a country known for its up-and-down relationship with cryptocurrency—has drafted a new bill that if passed, could see the country issuing a centralized form of digital currency through the Reserve Bank of India. The bill also calls for a major ban on privacy-related coins. 

Ukraine has announced plans to build several cryptocurrency mining centers next to its many nuclear facilities. These power plants have produced excessive amounts of energy over the years, and government regulators believe crypto mining will provide a solid way of utilizing this excess power and creating additional sales markets.

Nigeria’s Central Bank has issued a request for all financial institutions within the nation to shut down any accounts that delve in or trade cryptocurrencies. The bank has explained that such activity is illegal without proper regulation in place and that all establishments that fail to comply will be hit with severe legal action.

Jack Dorsey—the bearded bitcoin lover who runs payment firm Square and social media platform Twitter—uploaded a photo of himself running a bitcoin node on his personal computer, suggesting that he is now taking on a new role as a validator of crypto transactions. 

Financial payments giant Visa has formed partnerships with as many 35 monetary institutions over the past several months. The credit card company says it’s looking to help banks and many other financial firms roll out crypto-buying services for their customers through a new digital asset software program which will be available in late 2021.

Crypto investment platform Yearn.finance became the victim of a cyberattack that saw an unknown actor wander off with nearly $3 million from one of the company’s shared digital pools. The attack occurred through Aave, the open-source DeFi protocol, through which the hacker was able to swiftly drain the pool before Yearn could take necessary action.

That’s what’s happened this week in crypto. See you next week.

A special thanks to eToro for sponsoring this video.