Ethereum Price: $200.65
Ethereum Price (BTC): 0.018746 BTC
Market Cap: $21.54B
ETH Network Dominance*: 75.55%
7 Day Candle**: $212.18 / $213.27 / $174.19 / $200.65

#BitBlockBoom was probably the most surreal event to occur in crypto land since the Bitconnect annual ceremony of January 2018. The event, which is a self-described conference for Bitcoin Maximalists, saw a presentation which gave a step-by-step guide to trolling and arguing with supporters of other cryptocurrencies. One slide, titled “The path to victory” closed with the statement “bully people that don’t agree with us”; and another titled “Relentless propaganda again” led with “Nocoiners must be crushed” (here’s a full transcript of the ramblings).

If this wasn’t the tone that many Bitcoin Core developers and Twitter supporters have taken for the last year or more, it would be forgivable to assume that this is just a highly self-aware meme. But sadly, the defence of Bitcoin has – for a long time – been as nasty as it sounds in this transcript.

But what these bizarre ramblings don’t tell you at first glance, is that this behaviour is a response to what many Bitcoiners are perceiving as a growing threat to its position.

tBTC was announced last week – a protocol to trustlessly move Bitcoin to Ethereum without a middleman. Unlike “Wrapped Bitcoin” (WBTC), there is no Bitcoin custodian and if the spec is implemented successfully, we could see a flood of Ethereum-enabled BTC hitting the network that requires little more than a single transaction on the Bitcoin network. This will likely boost the amount of collateral used in systems like MakerDAO, increasing the liquidity of DAI and further expanding today’s rapidly growing DeFi ecosystem.

Bitcoin is stagnating as nothing more than digital gold. Despite what many will claim, the blockchain is not being used for smart contracts or even payments; and developer energy is focused more on this “propaganda” than on building out the protocol. This is a far cry from the activity and enthusiasm of just one of the many ETH 2 teams, let alone the thousands of developers building dApps today.

The gap between the market and reality continues to widen.

– Nick, Owner EthereumPrice.org

Binance Announces Launch of “Venus” – a Direct Challenge to Facebook’s Libra

Earlier on Monday August 19, Binance – a leading cryptocurrency exchange – published a blog post announcing the launch of a global cryptocurrency project, “an initiative to develop localized stablecoins and digital assets pegged to fiat currencies across the globe”.

This project rings familiar as it shares a very similar vision to that announced by Facebook two months ago with its stablecoin, Libra. Libra is set to launch in 2020, however significant push back by US regulators has led many to believe that the launch date will be heavily delayed.

Binance, on the other hand, already has an existing global network with dozens of existing markets for stablecoins. Without the ongoing privacy concerns faced by Facebook, Binance may well find their fiat-backed stablecoin has an easier path to production than its notorious competitor.

While Facebook is widely followed, boasting about 2.2 billion users, China-based Binance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and has access to this massive market that Facebook struggles to reach.

This move will not come as a surprise to Facebook. Those fighting Libra’s corner have consistently warned that heavy regulation in the US will allow other countries to take an even greater lead in the cryptocurrency space as they are given more freedom to innovate. This latest news may well come as a wake up call to officials in the US, providing a greater sense of urgency to launch Libra.

Ethereum on Top with the Most Developers in 2019

According to a report recently published by Electric Capital, Ethereum has come out on top as the blockchain with the most developers working on its base protocol (not counting community project developers).

After fingerprinting over 20,000 code repositories and 16 million commits to obtain data, the report revealed that on average 216 developers contribute code to Ethereum repositories every month.

In comparison, Bitcoin, who placed second on the list, has an average of over 50 developers per month.

Other platforms that follow are EOS, Tron, and Cardano whose blockchains all have over 25 monthly core protocol developers on average.

The report did not include data for developers building projects in the ecosystem more broadly, however the gap between Ethereum and others in this regard is considered to be even wider.

Coinbase Custody is Now the Largest Crypto-Custodian Globally with the Acquisition of Xapo’s Institutional Business

Coinbase Custody has become the largest crypto custodian globally when it announced last week its acquisition of Xapo’s institutional business bringing its Assets Under Custody (AUC) to over $7 billion.

Xapo is a long-respected name in the world of cryptocurrency custody solutions. An industry leader, developing security techniques to meet the rigors of institutional clients, Xapo held a moment in the spotlight when in 2017 it revealed that they stored customers’ cryptocurrency in a fortified ex-military bunker in the Swiss Alps. 

Coinbase Custody, which began trading a little over a year ago, has a remit to provide secure cryptocurrency storage for institutional investors by combining cold-storage solutions with an institutional-grade broker.

Many investors in the crypto-sphere believe that custody is the last obstacle to overcome for serious institutional adoption of Ethereum and cryptocurrencies as a whole.

What to Expect at Berlin Blockchain Week

Berlin Blockchain week is a decentralized community-organized initiative that started in 2018. The second edition has just kicked off and will run until 29^th August. This year’s convention makes a promise to be bigger and more informative than the well-received 2018 version. The week will be teeming with a wide array of blockchain developers, hackers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders.

Some of the exciting events that will be on the go include:

Web3 Summit on August 19–21. A gathering of developers, researchers, and protocol developers who work toward building a fully functional and user-friendly decentralized web.

Ethereum Conference on Friday 23 August held at the Technische Universitat Berlin. ETH Conference is a global developer conference which brings together hundreds of blockchain and smart contract developers, researchers, and enthusiasts.

ETHBerlin Hackathon on Friday 23 August. Developers meet to create new ideas and software for the Ethereum blockchain. Expect to see the inception of major new applications at this Hack.

* calculated as: (ETH Market Cap / Ethereum Network Market Cap)
** open / high / low / close