Crypto Shard: Day 1

Some of what I found interesting in the cryptocurrency world today

1. TaiFu Indexes to me is essentially the Dow Jones for crypto. Created by Tai Zen & Leon Fu (both well regarded investors and "instructors"), the TaiFu index is a neat way to understand the current crypto market scenario at a glance. It currently presents a weighted average of the top 30 cryptocurrencies. Let's wait and watch how the experts leverage this in trading.

2. Christmas came early with massive crashes in the crypto marketplace. Though I'm no expert, I strongly feel that prices will continue to drop over the next few week. However, if you're like me, this was a great opportunity to pick up some coins on the cheap and add to your portfolio. I will HODLing these and adding more if prices drop

3. Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles confirmed suspicions of traders that the platform used a bot - used to inflated volumes. If you're unfamiliar with Mt.Gox - it was the largest bitcoin exchange and was used by many to even store their bitcoins. Mt. Gox was hacked in 2014 for over $450mn and another $27mn went missing - NOT the first time it was hacked. I'm interested to see what else comes out of this trial and if Karpeles had a hand in the missing balances.
   Those bitcoins are now worth more than $1.9bn

4. Countdown to SegWit implementation continues with Segwit2x testenet fork. Unfortunately, nodes that ran the new fork stalled for over 20hrs. Lets hope this doesnt happen when it really counts - Aug 1.

5. Having read about China working on its own national digital currency, I was beginning to wonder about what impact this may have on cryptocurrency. While countries adopting crypto is great, when it comes to China, I am automatically suspicious of centralization and govt interference. So, it makes sense that the Chinese govt has asked ISP's to block VPN usage in the country by Feb 2018. It will be interesting to see if there will be more rules coping out in the future and how they impact crypto. As a holder of AntShares/Neo, I am definitely wary if there will be any attempts to stifle entrepreneural activities/creation of non-govt digital currencies

6. arbX is another example of why you shouldn't keep your balances in an online exchange. If you've never heard of arbX, you're not alone. It's primary user base is in South Africa and the platform has about 100 users. Let's hope those who lost .
   “We made an error that effective mean't (sic) that we lost coins after a drive fail and backups were not correct” Jonathan Weltman (arbX founder).

7. I was really surprised to read Cointelegraph comparing the crypto market crash to the Rwanda Genocide. I have often shaken my head while reading cointelegraph, but this is a low one even for them.
   "Very few cryptocurrencies out of Top 100 Coin Market Cap list were in green on Tuesday morning. The carnage was as brutal as the Rwanda massacre some 27 years ago." CoinTelegraph