Summary:
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OECD publishes a report concerning ICOs as a method for SMEs financing
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Ethereum developers announce the new date when hard fork will take place
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Bitcoin trades a notch below $3500
Sunday’s trading in the cryptocurrency market ended on a weak footing as major cryptocurrencies experienced significant drops. Top cryptocurrencies have begun the new week with some slight losses, but their scale have been moderate so far. According to CoinMarketCap, the capitalization of the whole cryptocurrency market stands around the $120 billion handle whereas the capitalization of altcoins sits a little above the $55 billion mark.
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Bitcoin (BITCOIN on xStation5) saw a large drop yesterday. Moreover, the cryptocurrency has experienced another fall during the first hours of the new trading week. Source: xStation5
OECD releases ICO-related report
The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published on January 15 a report titled “Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) for SME Financing”. In the report, the Organization described some aspects of using initial coin offerings (ICOs) as a method of financing for small and medium-sized business (SMEs). The OECD said that ICOs might become a helpful mechanism for such financing. On the other side, the Organization wrote that ICOs “carry important risks for the SME issuers and investors subscribing to token offerings”. The mentioned risks are connected with, among others, “the uncertainty of the applicable regulatory framework for ICOs and crypto-asset markets” and “the lack of financial consumer protection safeguards”.
Ethereum (ETHEREUM on xStation5), like its bigger peer Bitcoin, experienced a noticeable decline on Sunday. The virtual currency is trading around the $115 handle at press time. Source: xStation5
Ethereum hard fork has been postponed to late February
Ethereum developers have suggested the cryptocurrency hard fork called Constantinople would be activated in late February. Ethereum developers made such a suggestion during a phone call on Friday. Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, took part in this call as well. Now, the Constantinople hard fork is planned with a 7.28M block (scheduled on February 27), according to a Péter Szilágyi’s tweet (the Ethereum developer). Let us remind that the Ethereum hard fork had been planned to be activated on January 16. However, ChainSecurity (a blockchain audit company) discovered a critical vulnerability, and Ethereum developers made a postponement of the Ethereum hard fork just hours before the planned upgrade Constantinople.
The second largest cryptocurrency, Ripple (RIPPLE on xStation5), was situated a little above the $0.31 mark on Monday morning. Source: xStation5
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