, Maduro raised the petro’s price from 3,600 to 9,000 bolivars. The entire world has been watching the Venezuelan people suffer from economic hardships, while Maduro and fellow associates toy around with a so-called ‘multi-asset backed’ cryptocurrency created in secrecy.
Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro is pushing the first state-issued cryptocurrency called the Petro. Delayed Institutional Trading Products
Even though markets dumped all year long, cryptocurrencies did see a lot of institutional interest this year. Crypto-advocates will remember patiently waiting for a U.S.
-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval once again in 2018. Back in July, the Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) for a BTC-based ETF that will be tethered to the Vaneck Solidx Bitcoin Trust.
The same month, the SEC postponed its decision concerning five bitcoin-related ETFs filed by NYSE Arca.
US regulators postponed many ETF decisions in 2018.
This was the case throughout all of 2018, as Bitcoin ETFs were delayed all year long. U.
S. regulators had also asked for public opinion concerning Cboe’s ETF filing and received an overwhelming response . On Dec.
6, the SEC delayed its decision again and explained it will decide on the fate of the Vaneck Solidx bitcoin ETF in February 2019. Moreover, bitcoiners have been waiting for the Bakkt bitcoin daily futures contracts offered by the Intercontinental Exchange, which was supposed to start trading this month, but the product was also delayed.
Bitcoin Cash and the Tale of Two Forks
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network had an interesting year, to say the least, as it underwent two forks in 2018. The first fork in the spring was quite successful , resulting in a bunch of new features like re-enabled opcodes and a 32MB block size increase. Since the upgrade, BCH saw a huge influx of development, including many new applications like Memo.cash, Blockpress, Joystream, Marco Coino, Coinfundr, Akari, Telescope, Simple Ledger Protocol, Wormhole, and more.
In the first week of September, the Bitcoin Cash network processed millions of transactions on a daily basis during a week-long ‘stress test.’
Back in May, the BCH protocol upgraded successfully with new opcodes and a 32MB block size increase. However, in November the scheduled fork on the 15th became contentious and led to a blockchain split.
On Sept.
1, BCH miners confirmed 2,060,041 transactions (tx) in 24 hours and statistics showed that the BCH chain had processed 85,835 tx per hour, and 23.8 tx per second.
However, after the stress tests, the planned hard fork for Nov. 15 became contentious and the fork resulted in a blockchain split. After gaining the most proof-of-work and a majority of the infrastructure support, the Bitcoin ABC side of the fork was rewarded with the “BCH” ticker, and the other network’s ticker is listed as “BSV” across global exchanges.
The BCH community is steadily moving on from the split, and the decentralized cryptocurrency saw a 140 percent increase in value over the last week.
In 2019 the Crypto-Landscape Is Sure to Be Interesting
Most crypto-markets have done much better during the end of this December, and many enthusiasts are curious about what next year will bring.
Of course, most cryptocurrency supporters believe the long haul will pay off in the end, and there will always be some hurdles along the way. There was a whole lot of other interesting events in 2018 and 2019 is sure to be just as intriguing. One thing is for certain, no matter what year it is — There’s never a dull day in Bitcoin-land.
What do you think about 2018 and cryptocurrencies this year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Steemit.
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