Cryptocurrency Market Update (1/3/17)

Market Update

As of today the price per Bitcoin is $15,017.30 representing a gain of 9.17% in the last 24 hours. More than $1.95B worth of BTC were exchanged in the BTC/USD market representing a 40.5% share of daily volume, followed by the BTC/JPY market that represents a 30% share.

See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

The Ethereum price has risen to $880.45 representing a gain of 1.65% over the past 24 hours, with over $630M worth of Ether exchanged in the past 24 hours on the ETH/USD pair which has a 38% market share of the daily trading volume.

See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

Ethereum Foundation Announces Millions in Grants for Scaling Research

The non-profit that oversees development of Ethereum has officially announced two subsidy programs that will support research on how to grow the number of transactions its blockchain can process.

In a blog post published yesterday, Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum creator, described how the network is beginning to reach 1 million transactions per day. In his view, scaling the network is the single most important key technical challenge that developers need to work on before blockchain applications can be widely used.

The blog post reads:

"With the Ethereum blockchain reaching 1 million transactions per day, and both Ethereum and other blockchain projects frequently reaching their full transaction capacity, the need for scaling progress is becoming more and more clear and urgent."

The Bank of England May Approve its Own Official Cryptocurrency

According to The Telegraph, the Bank of England may approve the creation of a state-sponsored cryptocurrency within this year. In the last year, the bank announced it had commissioned a theoretical currency, RS Coin, which could be used by central banks to settle payments. Now, England’s central bank is upping the ante, looking to make its theoretical concept into a viable reality.

Before Christmas, Dr Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, made the case for a central bank-backed cryptocurrency to England’s Treasury Select Committee. He stated:

“The underlying technology is actually of a fair bit of interest. We are working with it at the Bank of England. I have participated in discussions with the major central banks on this issue."
Read more here

Putin Orders Work on ‘CryptoRuble’ to Escape Western Sanctions

Vladimir Putin has ordered Moscow officials to work on creating Russia’s own national cryptocurrency dubbed the ‘cryptoruble’ as a means to evade sanctions.

At a recent government meeting, Sergei Glazev, Putin’s economic advisor, told other officials that a cryptoruble could serve as a ‘useful tool’ to circumvent crippling international sanctions. In quotes reported by the Financial Times, Glavez said:

"This instrument suits us very well for sensitive activity on behalf of the state. We can settle accounts with our counterparties all over the world with no regard for sanctions."