Here’s what happened this week in Bitcoin in 99 seconds.
Bitcoin’s price declined moderately over the week and broke below the $8,000 level, probably due to a lot of bad press.
Google has moved to ban cryptocurrency advertising from its platforms.The move will affect all other crypto-related content. A notice said the policy would be introduced in June but did not give an explanation why.
The SEC – America’s own financial watchdog – announced that it’s pursuing “dozens” of investigations into ICOs. ICOs raised over $6.5 billion last year but over half of those projects have since failed. As fraud and failure rates are both so high, the regulatory intervention was inevitable.
Coincheck exchange – which was hacked for nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of NEM tokens – has fully repaid all affected clients and reopened withdrawals. The hack also prompted tightening regulations for crypto exchanges by Japan’s regulators.
The Monero dev team announced the changing of Monero’s Proof of Work algorithm. The move would render Bitmain’s Monero miner, the X3, which is scheduled to ship in May, useless for Monero mining. Bitmain CEO, Jihan Wu, blocked Monero dev Fluffypony on Twitter following the announcement.
Finally, the world’s first Bitcoin monument was unveiled in the European nation of Slovenia. A traffic roundabout in the city of Kranj is now graced by a massive, metallic representation of the Bitcoin logo. The statue was funded by Slovenia’s Bitstamp and 3fs companies.
That’s what happened this week in Bitcoin. See you next week.
