Category: News

Today saw host to the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where several panelists discussed the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

One of the most anticipated reports released at the forum was that of the quarterly top 50 blockchain companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein’s Crypto Valley. The report, put together by investment company CV VC in collaboration with PwC Strategy and inacta, details the most promising companies in the crypto valley area for Q1 of 2019.

One of the more impressive pieces of information the report reveals is a 20 percent growth in the blockchain sector in the last quarter of 2018. The statistic is very promising considering the extended cryptocurrency bear market that was at its worst during this period. Daniel Diemers is the Blockchain Leader for the Europe and Middle East Asia area at PwC Strategy. He spoke of the benefits of collaborating with CV VC and the growth of the blockchain industry in the country.

“Crypto Valley has grown enormously in just three short years. Even two or three years ago, there were just 10 to 15 companies in the blockchain industry.”

Highlights from the Q1 Report:

New Entries

There were 15 new companies to enter the list since the previous quarter, most notably the payments platform TokenPay and the data analytics company Santiment. Other important additions include: 4ARTechnologies, Boscoin, HDAC, ICON, Mt Pelerin, Nexo, ODEM, Quant Network, Saga, Sygnum, Swiss, Utopiamusic, WPP Energy and Zulu.

Four Unicorns

There were four startups included in this quarter that are considered unicorns – that is, companies worth more than $1 billion.

These are: Ethereum, Bitmain, Dfinity and Cardano.

Challenger List

The report also included a list of promising companies that have a good chance of being included in the next quarterly top 50 report.

These are: ambrpay, Arca Trust, Blockimmo, Cosmos Network, Datum, Friendz, Grain, Metaco, Orion Vault, Pigzbe, PikcioChain, Qiibee, Request Network, Taurus Group and UTRUST.

One of the largest political stories in the past couple of days is the fact that President Trump has chosen to officially recognize Juan Gaido as the interim president of Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro, who was serving as de facto president of the country for years now, has cut off all ties with the United States as a result, and ordered U.S. diplomats to leave within 72 hours.

Interestingly enough, it appears as though Juan Gaido, who has now been sworn into office, is a fan of none other than Bitcoin (BTC). In fact, before much of the world was even thinking about cryptocurrency, Gaido was tweeting about Bitcoin before much of mainstream media was even thinking about the digital asset.

About Gaido

For those who are unaware, Gaido is a 35-year old who has been at the head of the National Assembly for only three weeks, but whose popularity has risen as a result of the fact that he has been unafraid to call Maduro a “usurper”. He was raised in a coastal town, and previously worked as an industrial engineer.

He actually launched his own political party, the Voluntad Popular, with Leopoldo Lopez, a famous opposition leader that has been popular with Venezuelans for some time now. Lopez is considered to be Gaido’s mentor, and is currently under house arrest.

Could Bitcoin Help?

For those wondering how it is known that Gaido is interested in Bitcoin; there is the fact that he tweeted about the first Bitcoin exchange house in Venezuela back in 2014. This is quite substantial, as it was well before mainstream media was covering Bitcoin, and before many institutional players took the cryptocurrency markets seriously. You can find the tweet below:

@willgeneva Vía @Dossier33: Lanzan primera casa de cambio de Bitcoin en Venezuela http://t.co/O9uplEsEEw pic.twitter.com/R0BX8s5XQl

— Juan Guaidó (@jguaido) August 20, 2014

One of the largest issues with Venezuela’s economy is hyperinflation, which has made the fiat currency extremely volatile. As a result, many are turning to cryptocurrency, and believe that Bitcoin can be a potential solution. As a result, the country is now a huge market for cryptocurrency in general. In fact, the country is supposed to receive its first cryptocurrency ATM shortly.

Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Huobi has been struggling through the year-long bear market that has now extended into 2019. The operator recently shut down a subsidiary in Shenzhen, China, and has had to lay off approximately 100 staff so far this year.

However, the company still maintains a workforce of well over 1,000 employees and manages to continue turning profit. Since it’s launch in November last year, Huobi Derivatives Market (DM) has seen its trading volume soar, breaking the $20 billion milestone just two weeks after surpassing $10 billion.

Livio Weng, CEO of Huobi Global, said the achievement reinforces the companies believe that it truly caters to its user’s needs.

“I believe this explains our platform’s explosive growth, even in the midst of the ongoing bear market,” he said.

FSA Licence

Having been recently awarded its Japanese Financial Services Authority (FSA) licence in a merger with fellow trading platform BitTrade, the exchange may start seeing an even brighter future.

In July last year, Huobi announced it would be ceasing all operations in Japan after the FSA began cracking down on unregulated exchanges. Several hacks and exchange thefts in the country forced the FSA to issue improvement orders, prompting the formation of the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), a self-governing regulatory body. At the time, however, Huobi did not join the JVCEA or apply for an FSA licence.

Now it appears that the successful merger with the FSA-licenced exchange BitTrade has put Huobi back on the map in Japan. Speaking of the developments, Huobi CEO Haiteng Chen said: “We are extremely pleased to once again be offering our services to the Japanese trading public.“

Huobi founder Leon Li also reiterated the companies loyalty to the Japanese market and its priority to work and comply with regulatory bodies.

It looks like Haven Protocol might have pulled one of the first exit scams of 2019, with both anonymous developers missing in action and a team member announcing the project ‘dead’ on its Discord channel.

Haven Protocol is a hard fork of popular privacy coin Monero that marketed itself as an “offshore bank in your pocket”. It claims to be an untraceable cryptocurrency and uses smart contracts to facilitate the storage of large amounts of easily accessible fiat currency offshore. Its intention is to provide a way by which users can keep money ‘hidden’ while also having instant access to markets and the ability to avoid volatile fluctuations.

After it’s launch early last year the coin proved popular, gaining a token price of over $6 and a market cap of $11 million. But as the prolonged bear market decimated the crypto industry, the projects value slowly decreased, only to shoot up again in late November to an almost $20 million. However, after a Twitter storm yesterday revealing problems with management and the alleged disappearance of the core devs, the price has now plummeted to $0.32 and a $2 million valuation.

Twitter user @crypto_blkbeard posted a screenshot that Haven team member news.cutter wrote on the official Discord channel:

“I’ll be honest here. Consider this project dead unless some devs take it over.”

He continued by explaining that the lead developer @Havendev, who is the only person with access to the Github code repository, has been uncontactable for weeks. For what has been touted as a ‘community-based project’ with no ICO or corporate leadership, it seems odd that only one person would have access to the repository.

Yesterday, the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex announced it will be delisting the XHV token from its platform within 48 hours, citing regular complaints about the coin being a scam. With the price in freefall and all team members seemingly have jumped ship, it would certainly seem like a possible contender for one of the earliest and biggest exit scams of 2019.