The most popular cryptocurrency in the world – Bitcoin – increased in price a little. In the morning on February, 20th, Bitcoin rate remains at the level of $4000, according to Coinmarketcap.com portal.
Thus, Bitcoin rate increased by 0,29% and is traded at the level of $3936.
The other cryptocurrencies see variety of trends.
Ethereum rate decreased by 3,37% and at the moment it is at the level of $142.
XRP cheapened by 0,44% and is traded at the level of $0,32.
EOS decreased by 1,21%. The token costs $3,57.
Litecoin lost 0,25%. The token is traded at the level of $47,6.
Binance Coin price increased 11,66%. At the moment, the token’s cost is $10,78.
Crypto currency market capitalization is $132 billion. Bitcoin’s share in the market is 52.1%.

Bitcoin has outstanding structure, it is the better currency exchange method than “the pieces of papers”, according to American entrepreneur and CEO and founder of Tesla. He told about to a consulting company ARK Inves in an interview.
He says that crypto currencies bypass currency control, it is easier to transfer money with the help of crypto currencies.
Answering to the host’s question about bitcoin’s chance to become the only crypto currency of the Internet, Musk said that one of crypto currencies’ disadvantages was quite energy consuming computation. That’s why, in his opinion, it is needed to limit creation of such financial tools because token development consumes a lot of energy. However, it is very important to create “other bitcoins”.
Talking about it, Musk noted that it is not reasonable to spend Tesla’s resources on crypto currency development. Tesla team is trying to accelerate sustainable energy development, not to sell Bitcoin.

Binance token was traded at the level of $4.8 in the end of last November, but now its rate exceeds $10.8. Several important events could influence this.
On Wednesday, February, 20th, average Binance Coin hit it’s a-year-to-trade maximum $10,8, it increased 11% over 24 hours. At the same time, Bitcoin rate remains almost the same: it increased 0,14%, to $3943. Ethereum cheapened 3% over the last 24 hours, to 24 $144, XRP token price decreased by 2%, to $0,325.
Binance Chain network public testing started today, exchange’s own token which is currently Ethereum-based will switch to this network in the future. This will lead to transaction commission decrease and altcoin performance increase. Also, Binance DEX decentralized exchange will run on a new platform.
BNB token cost has been growing for the last 3 months – the coin increased 125% since November, last year. Earlier, BitTorrent crowdsale was launched on Binance Launchpad platform. Agiotage caused technical problems and most of investors did not manage to participate in the sale regardless to the fact that it lasted just for several minutes.
The next crowdsale handled by Fletch.AI will be launched on Binance platform on February, 25th. The tokensale will last until March, 2nd, if the tokens aren’t sold out earlier. Also, the trading platform added an apportunity to buy digital money with the help of credit card due to partnership with Simplex platform.

Design, programming and customer care specialists will work in Lithuanian capital.
International crypto currency platform Blockchain set up an office in Vilnius and is planning to gather a team in the near future, reports LRT.
The number of fintech companies increased 40% in a year in Lithuania.
According to Blockchain co-founder Peter Smith, the company estimated a lot of European cities. It was decided to choose Lithuanian capital because there’re some people who have needed experience.
Blockchain positions itself as the largest world’s company which provides access to crypto currencies. The company’s head office is located in London. It also has offices in New York and San Francisco.
The number of created onlime wallets exceeded 25 million last year. The company has clients in 160 countries.

According to the press release, Maltese crypto currency exchange OKEX listed four new crypto derivatives on its platform.
OKEx, the third largest crypto currency exchange in terms of trading volume announced listing of Bitcoin SV (BSV), QTUM, DASH and NEO, which will be traded against (BTC) and Tether (USDT) on margin with a 3x leverage option.
Last months, OKEx listed seven new crypto currency derivative pairs, including Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), EOS (EOS), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple ( XRP).
As it has already been reported by CJmonitor, OKEx crypto currency exchange launched a product called “perpetual swap” with support of BTC / USD with a 100x leverage option.
The exchange noted in January that new contracts will support 40x leverage, unlike the current press release mentioning 3x leverage.
Also, Honk Kong-based crypto currency exchange Bitfinex launched USDT/USD margin trading in December, 2018.
It has been recently reported that US crypto currency exchange Coinbase acquired blockchain exploration startup called Neutrino, highlighting that the goal was to add more promising crypto currencies and options to Coinbase services.

South Korean government is planning to invest $1.07 billion in fintech startups working with distributed ledger technology by 2022.
The funds will be allocated to new technology development via the Innovation development fund created last year. The fund will support the startups, including the ones which are at the early stages.
The Fund will allocate $11,75 million in Q1/Q2 and $7,45 in Q3/Q4 to blockchain development. According to Korean government, blockchain is a revolution technology and inalienable component of the 4th industrial revolution.
The government representatives also noted that average amount of money invested in a startup is almost seven times smaller in South Korean than in, for example, in Silicon Valley.
To recap, South Korea is not going to lift ICO ban.

Grin crypto currency was launched just a month ago, but its capitalization has already reached $13.6 million, its daily trading volume exceeded $20 million. The coin is based on Mimblewimble famous for its scalability and high level of privacy. According to the developers, no other protocol has the same characteristics.
The network’s name is borrowed from the films about Harry Potter: it’s transformed “Gringotts Bank”. Most of Grin market participants understand that it won’t be possible to earn on volatility of this crypto currency because of low liquidity, but the miners can make profit on it.
Last year, the miners experienced hard times, so new crypto currencies issue may save them now. Grin may let them make a good profit in the near future.
It is more profitable to mine Grin than Ethereum at the moment.
It is hard to make forecasts regarding any prospects of Grin crypto currency, the project is too young for decision making. But Chinese miners obviously think otherwise because Grin crypto currency gains popularity in China.
Veriblock network uses PoP algorithm and is eager to maximize security of alternative blockchains, using bitcoin chain security as a base.
Veriblock domination in OP return on bitcoin basis was revealed last month by one of the developers of the main digital currency Jameson Lopp.
It is said on Veriblock site that high level of security ensured by PoP protocol may be considered as a good motivation for altcoin networks development.
It is hard to reveal the signs of spam attack in Veriblock activities, but the crypto community should be careful in such situations.

American exchange Coinbase’s wallet will support Bitcoin Cash. All the users of iOS and Android-based Coinbase Wallet will access it in a new release in several weeks.
Coinbase Wallet will support both new CashAddr and traditional addresses. Also, the users and developers will have access to Bitcoin Cash testnet with the help of Coinbase Wallet.
Coinbase Wallet announced Bitcoin support in the beginning of the month.
It was revealed this week that Coinbase acquired crypto analytical startup Neutrino.

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges – Honk-Kong-based Binance – announced launch of testnet of Binance DEX — Binance Chain blockchain-based decentralized exchange which will support well-tied and decentralized software and hardware wallets.
For example, Trust Wallet (Binance official wallet) is already fully integrated with Binance DEX, as well as Ledger Nano S. Со and etc. will be supported in the future. Additionally, Binance DEX — is a safe platform, built on Binance Chain (a new blockchain and peer-to-peer system, developed by Binance and the community) which allows to exchange digital assets issued on DEX. Matching is managed by the nodes, and all the transactions are recorded in blockchain. In addition, Binance Coin (BNB), which is currently based on ERC-20, will be re-issued on Binance Chain. The traders will be able to issue, send and get the tokens using a new blockchain and also offer new trading pairs for listing.
Changpeng ?CZ? Zhao, CEO Binance, commented on it saying that Binance DEX is a decentralized exchange with a decentralized network of nodes which will provide an opportunity to store the private keys and manage the wallet.
Binance Chain will provide almost immediate transaction verification with uninterrupted block generation. For example, it takes Ethereum about 20 seconds to verify a transaction. Bitcoin needs almost 10 minutes to verify a transactions. Due to basic Binance Chain technology, Binance DEX will be able to process such a trading volume as Binance.com does. It allows to solve the problems which other decentralized exchanges face in terms of speed.

World Gold Council (WGC) published a report claiming that gold is different from crypto currencies and, in particular, Bitcoin. The main differences are volatility, more liquid market and trading carried out in regulated environment.
According to WGC, gold price increased 10% annually in average while its volatility was reducing after the failure of Bretton Woods system (the currencies of participating countries in it were backed by gold).
On the other hand, Bitcoin rate which has been extremely volatile during the recent years – about 10 times more than the gold price in USD. Thus, Bitcoin is not very good as a currency.
Bitcoin trading volume is also very low in comparison with the gold and other currencies. According to statistics, Bitcoin’s trading volume is $2 million in average, it’s less than 1% of total trading volume of gold market: $250 billion daily.
According to WGC, the supply of gold corresponds with the needs, gold in general is a well-tried and effective investment option which also showed good results during inflation period.
In addition, gold price and demand for it does not show any signs of competition with crypto currencies. That’s why crypto currencies are more likely to compete with each other, not with gold.
As for blockchain technology, the council is more positive about it. According to the report, this technology is truly innovative and may be useful either in financial sector or beyond it – including gold industry.
To recap, Bitcoin has already been doomed to be gold substitute. Thus, earlier, this month, a well known crypto expert Mike Novogratz claimed that Bitcoin would reach $8000 and become “digital gold”. Later, the CEO and the founder of Digital Currency Group and Grayscale Investments Barry Silbert noted that Bitcoin could replace gold in the future as a store of wealth.

OKEx exchange whose head office is based in Malta listed four new crypto currency derivatives.
According to the press release, perpetual swap allowing to exchange Bitcoin SV (BSV), QTUM, DASH and NEO to Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT) with 3x leverage are available on the platform now.
To recap, perpetual swaps – exchange’s own derivative financial tools were launched in the end of December. They work like futures contract, but they are perpetual. Initially, derivatives supported exchange of bitcoin to USD with 100x leverage. In the beginning of January, OKEx listed seven derivative tools, including Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) swaps. Their leverage is decreased to 40x.
Also, the other exchange – Bitfinex – listed four stablecoins — USDC, True USD, Paxos and Gemini USD in December. A little later, it launched margin trading for another stablecoin — Tether. The users can trade it against USD.
To recap, OKEx hits TOP-5 of the largest crypto currency exchanges in terms of daily trading volume. At press time, exchange’s daily trading volume is $986 848 693. Thus OKEx is ranked second, it is surpassed only by Binance.

Mining giant Bitmain announced a fresh round of layoffs. It has fired mining, chip, AI developers and etc., report Chinese media outlets referring to its own sources familiar with the matter.
Reports about massive layoffs at Bitmain first appeared in December, 2018, but the company disconfirmed them that time, claiming that it was just about business correction.
One of informants of Chinese journalists who used a false name confirmed Copernicus team’s layoff a part of which he had been. A department containing more than 40 employees was working on Bitcoin Cash development.
According to him, Bitmain offered to compensation packages: N+2 monthly salaries and N+1 salary, and a share of the company worth of 3-months-salary. He highlighted that he chosen the first option because he did not believed in success of mining company’s IPO.
Former Bitmain employee close to principal officers claimed that the company has only still had only 1000 employees out of 3000. 30-40% of the stuff were fired in the mining sector and 50% – in AI development.
It is noteworthy that Bitmain announced plans for entering AI chip market in May, 2018, this business direction was presented as the main in IPO folder. It is believed that the head of HKEX Charles Li Xiaojia criticized discrepancy in the goals and real situation, talking about poor prospects of Bitmain IPO.
To recap, Chinese company shut down development center in Israel. Shut down of mining center in Texas was announced in January. Also, Bitmain shut down the office in Amsterdam. As it has already been reported, mining giants losses in Q3, 2018 were about $500 million.

Bitcoin domination which is used as a trust index in the market is gradually decreasing. The crypto currency with the highest rating took about 90% of the crypto market in the beginning of 2017. This number has been decreasing slowly. It is expected that this trend will persist in the near future, reports crypto analysts GalaxyBTC. He claimed that the altcoins could break free of long-term resistance against downward trend. The analysts added that the altcoin season was coming soon.
Such altcoins as Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH), decreased more than their elder brother – Bitcoin (BTC). Bitcoin dropped by more than 85% in comparison with its historical period in 2017. On the other hand, Ripple (XRP) and Ethereum (ETH) dropped by more than 90% in comparison with their historical maximums.
Nevertheless, according to the graphic provided by GalaxyBTC, altcoin market capitalization has been growing since January, 2018. If this data is confirmed, altcoin season is inevitable.
Bitcoin Domination Will Drop Below 30%
GalaxyBTC is sure that Bitcoin domination will decrease below 30%.
Moreover, it seems that the lower upward domination trend is, the longer bitcoin growth is, and it is quite week at the moment.
It is expected that domination will decrease below 30% and it will be the longest altcoin growth season up to date.
While Galaxy believes that Bitcoin will lose its status of the main cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization soon, the other analysts believe that it will be hard to catch up with Bitcoin.
Barry Silbert, Digital Currency Group CEO once said that he would be more careful about investing in altcoins. He noted that almost every ICO was an attempt to raise money and most of ICOs would fail.
No one knows whether Bitcoin will lose its status for altcoins.

South Korean corporation presented a new flagman smartphone and conformed information on crypto currency storage implementation.
Samsung’s Galaxy S10 will have a crypto wallet. A new device was presented on February, 20th. The company confirmed information about presence of digital money storage.
A new Samsung’s feature – Knox – allows to use hardware to store private keys. The developers will create programs to let the users store crypto currency on the smartphone. It is not revealed whether the company will provide its own software.
The device uses Exynos 9820 chip which supports physical unclonable function (PUF). According to an IT specialist, this technology allows to store crypto currencies on smartphone.
Ben Geskin, a blogger,publish insider photos of Galaxy S10 in the end of January, they show a storage called Blockchain KeyStore. It supports Ethereum. According to source familiar with the matter, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and ERC-20 tokens support will be added later.

It is revealed the best regions for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are Slovenia, North Queensland and Japan, reports Marco Coino.
Slovenia has already been crypto-friendly country. At the moment, there’re 207 retail sellers at its territory who accept BCH as payment method. Most of BCH sellers may be found in Slovenian capital known as “the city of Bitcoin”. It’s possible to pay in restaurants and bars using BCH, as well as to buy clothes and interior items.
North Queensland citizens also report about DCH adoption – there’re 56 sellers in the Northern region who accept this crypto currency. Additionally, the first cryptoATM in Australia is located at North Queensland territory. It’s possible to buy food or have a car fixed or for crypto currencies.
Japan became the crypto currency center since legalization. There’re a lot of places in this country where BCH is accepted as payment method for goods and services. According to Marco Coino, there’re 56 of them. Additionally, BCH community is based in Tokyo and includes 1 253 members. One of them – Akane Yokoo – is responsible for spread of crypto currency in the city.
The other global participants of the crypto market filled with retailers who accept BCH are USA, Colombia, Barcelona, Belarus and London.
To recap, Coinbase Wallet will support Bitcoin Cash.