Samsung fills cryptocurrency wallet patent

Summary:

• Cryptocurrencies head lower on the New Year’s Eve

• Samsung fills cryptocurrency app patent with the UK Intellectual Property Office

• BITCOIN heads lower as $4000 handle looks as hard cap

Global equity market indices finish 2018 on the wrong foot as the investors’ confidence was undermined by trade conflicts, political divisions as well as geopolitical tensions. In the early days of crypto craze many digital asset enthusiast hailed new asset class as safe havens of the future. However, 2018 proved how wrong they were. Of course, the moods were spoiled since the very beginning of 2018 as the bubble on the cryptocurrency market began to burst at the turn of 2017 and 2018 but even as the initial panic waned most of the coins failed to see any gains. Instead, they were trading in consolidations for weeks before heading lower once again in the final quarter of the year. According to CoinMarketCap capitalization of the whole cryptocurrency market dropped almost 85% since the January’s peak. Early-2018 valuations seem out of reach now and it may stay this way unless a broader adoption of cryptocurrencies occur.

Cryptocurrency market saw its capitalization drop severly throughout 2018 but Bitcoin managed to keep its share quite stable. Source: Macrobond, XTB Research

The cryptocurrency bear market that happened this year turned out to be too tough for some cryptocurrency projects. According to Coinopsy and DeadCoins website almost one thousand cryptocurrency projects were classified as “dead”. What does it mean? It means that, for example, at some point developers behind the project dropped support for it, the projects were scams or trading on these coins barely existed. While some of those were the so-called “joke coins”, a bulk of coins lost support as there were no one willing to dedicate their spare computing power to validate transactions on particular blockchains. Another interesting report came from Wall Street Journal. Namely, the US newspaper conducted a research on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). According to the study over 15% of ICOs conducted in 2017 or 2018 had their prospectus plagiarized from another project. Such findings limit adoption of cryptocurrencies as they show that this market is still to big extent penetrated with scammers that do not even bother to write their own whitepaper.

BITCOIN managed to rebound from the $3000 area but the recovery was halted by the resistance at $4000. As the coin is painting consecutive lower highs bears may continue to dominate trading on the Bitcoin market at the beginning of the next year. Source: xStation5

Last but not least, earlier this quarter reports surfaced saying that Samsung is developing its own cryptocurrency wallet. The company strongly denied that such a product is currently being developed. However, reality may turn to be different. Just after Christmas the company filled in trademark pattern with the UK Intellectual Property Office that was named “Samsung Crypto Wallet”. In the application Samsung stated that the trademark is for a computer software that can be used to transfer cryptos and pay with them as well as serve as the cryptocurrency wallet. Having said that, it looks like the company just did not want to attract public attention when denying that such project is being developed. Additionally, it means that in 2019 we may finally see a cryptocurrency wallet developed by on of the major electronics companies.