Bitcoin News Summary – January 27, 2020

LocalBitcoins traders from six different African countries have had their accounts disabled. The P2P platform cites guidance from an EU commission on countries requiring “an enhanced due diligence process” before they can be allowed access. These countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Botswana, Libya and Tunisia. However, traders in other African countries are also reporting suspensions.

The CEO of Ripple, the company behind XRP, dropped a hint that the company may seek a stock exchange listing this year. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Ripple’s CEO stated that he expects other crypto companies to open for public investment, in what could become an interesting new trend.

In more news out of Davos, the World Economic Forum seeks to set itself up as an international body for the regulation of digital currency, including crypto and stablecoins. The so-called Global Consortium for Digital Currency Governance announced that it looks to develop, implement, and standardize digital currency rules around the world.

According to data released by Longhash, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase’s cold wallets contained around 970,000 BTC (equaling about $8 billion) as of January 1st. If current growth continues, the company will reach the 1 million BTC mark by February. The trend underscores the growing tendency on exchanges that despite the dangers of trusting third parties, it appears that consumers in general still prefer not to control their coins themselves.

Before we conclude, this week’s “Bitcoin quick question” is is Bitcoin anonymous?

Every Bitcoin transaction conducted is publicly recorded on the Bitcoin ledger of transactions known as the blockchain. While all transactions are visible, you can’t tell who sent what to whom, since all you can see are Bitcoin addresses with no identifiable information. Having said that, once you link an identity to a Bitcoin address, you can easily track all of the financial activity related to that address using a block explorer – a tool that helps you fetch information from the blockchain. Therefore Bitcoin is considered to be pseudonymous – anonymous to the extent you don’t link your identity with your Bitcoin address. Today, this is becoming increasingly difficult to do as each legitimate exchange you’ll use to buy Bitcoin will ask for identity verification. Read more about buying Bitcoin without verification.

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