Looking Back At this Week: October 1-7, Biggest Stories In The Market

A lot has happened this past week ranging from market volatility, to surprise investments and shocking collaborations. Let’s do a quick recap of the most important events that took place this last week.

RBI Denied ‘Formal Creation’ of Blockchain Unit

The central bank of India, RBI, was being widely credited in the media with the creation of a formal blockchain committee, which was allegedly going to chart a roadmap for blockchain integration in India. However, the RBI gave a clear statement that it was creating no such unit, after an RTI was filed by Naimish Sanghvi, demanding clear answers regarding the bank’s plan.

The RBI said:

“There is no new unit created formally in RBI for the purpose (Blockchain, Crypto and AI) mentioned in RTI query”.

Chinese Bitcoin Billionaire Said Goodbye to Crypto Industry

Li Xiaoli, who is China’s in-house Bitcoin billionaire and blockchain investor, announced that he will no longer be investing in crypto. He posted the following message on the Chinese social media platform Weibo,

From this day on, I, Li Xiaolai, will personally not invest in any projects (whether it is blockchain or early stage). So if you see “Li Xiaolai’ associated with any project (I have been associated with countless projects without my knowledge, 99% is not an exaggeration), ignore it.

According to him, he wants to move on to something else and this chapter of his life is done, but no one is exactly sure about his motive behind this sudden move.

American Venture Capital Firm, TechCrunch Is Relocating To Asia

TechCrunch recently announced that it is planning to shift base from the United States and settle down in Asia instead. The company had been sent to subpoenas by the SEC and according to Michael Arrington, the co-founder of TechCrunch, the legal costs of dealing with these are not ‘insignificant’. SEC’s unclear stance on crypto and strict regulations is what prompted Michael to take this decision.He said,

“We have received the second subpoena from the SEC, again collecting information from us as investors in a U.S. company. The legal costs of dealing with these are not insignificant. We will not invest in any further U.S. deals until the SEC clarifies token rules. Pivot to Asia.”

Father of World Wide Web Plans to Decentralise the Internet

Tim Berners-Lee, who is largely regarded as the father of the World Wide Web, has expressed his intention to make the internet a more decentralised place. He wishes to end the dominance of Facebook, Google, and Amazon, and allow individuals to take back control of their own data. To that end, he is building a startup that would help him achieve that. The magazine that covered the news first wrote,

This week, Berners-Lee will launch, Inrupt, a startup that he has been building, in stealth mode, for the past nine months. Backed by Glasswing Ventures, its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon.

Half of the Cryptocurrency Exchanges are prone to Security Issues

A recent research showed that majority of the cryptocurrency exchanges are not as safe and secure as e think they are, since they leave their users vulnerable to attacks. The report states that 54% of all the cryptocurrency exchanges have poor security in at least one area. The research studied 100 exchanges whose daily volume exceeded $1 million, on multiple security parameters. Coinbase proved to be most promising with a score of 89/100 followed by Kraken at 80 and BitMEX and Gopax tied together at the third place. The secure exchanges also included Cobinhood, Ethfinex, Bittrex and Binance.

Petro, Venezuela’s State Crypto’s Public Sale Date Is Out

The Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro made a televised announcement which stated that 5th November had been finalised as the date of the official public sale of Petro. He said,

“If you have bitcoins you can buy Petros, if you have Ethereum you can buy Petros, if you have dollars or euros you can buy Petros. And from November 5, the Petro … will go on sale to the Venezuelan public in sovereign bolivars,”

Petro is probably the last hope of Venezuela and their chance to save the country’s economy which is suffering from hyperinflation.

Cryptojacking is increasing at a Rapid Pace in India: Banbreach Report

According to an Indian security company, Banbreach, the number of compromised routers by cryptojacking software has almost doubled in India, in the last month alone. The report states that cryptojacking is increasing at a rapid rate in India. For those not aware, Cryptojacking is an illegal act of mining cryptos by using someone else’s computer without authorization. The study found that less populated areas of India have more infected routers. Top three cities of India- New Delhi, Mumbai, and Thane have the most infected routers and the growth in these cities is 5x.

Yale Hosts First Ever Bitcoin Boot Camp

Reputed Ivy League college Yale in the US, hosted its first ever bitcoin boot camp. It was hosted by Yale OpenLab in collaboration with Tsai CITY and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY). The boot camp offered two days of hands-on workshops, opportunities to build one’s own applications and sessions with blockchain development experts. It was powered by Consensys and Byte Academy.