Bitcoin Magazine Week in Review: Stablecoins Take the Spotlight

Instead, stablecoins crowded headlines this week, as tether — among others — had difficulties retaining its peg, and top exchanges rolled out support for some of the asset class’ regulatory-compliant newcomers.

All the while, developers remind us that, even in bear markets, the tools of innovation continue to work against the buzz of speculation.

Stablecoin News Takes Center Stage

As Tether’s Peg Slips, Bitcoin’s Price Distorted Across Markets

Tether took a dip this week. The market’s leading stablecoin dropped to as low as $0.92 cents for its exchange-averaged price as a market-wide selloff left the coin wanting in demand. By consequence, bitcoin on tether-supported exchanges began trading at somewhat of a premium, an inflated price that reflected bitcoin’s worth against tether’s discounted price rather than its worth against the actual dollar. At the time of writing, tether has shaved off roughly $800 million from its market cap over the week — that’s nearly a third of its entire value.

Huobi and OKEx List the Same Four Stablecoins

As tether was unravelling, two of the industry’s highest volume exchanges listed four of the top stablecoins’ staunches competitors. Huobi and OKEx both announced support for TrueUSD, Gemini USD, USD Coin and the Paxos Standard earlier this week, moves that may have aggravated the sell off that crippled tether’s peg. The four stablecoins, which are fiat-collateralized like tether, are considered transparent, regulator-friendly alternatives to what was the market’s only viable stablecoin until this year.

Developers Keep On Developing

No Connection Required: How One Dev Sent Bitcoin While Off the Grid

An Auckland developer sent bitcoin to his girlfriend earlier this week without access to internet — seriously. Leveraging technology developed by goTenna and Samourai Wallet, the Kiwi dev was able to transfer bitcoin across New Zealand using only a $27 smartphone and some impressive mesh network architecturing.

Decentralization Gains Traction: Go-Ethereum Fifth Most Active on GitHub

Commonly referred to as geth, Go-Ethereum, a command-line interface for running an Ethereum node using the Go programming language, is now the fifth fastest-growing, open-source project on GitHub. This puts it in the company of other, more mainstream projects like azure-docs from Microsoft Azure, pytorch from Facebook, godot from the GoDot Gaming Engine and nuxt.js, a Javascript framework.

SEC Opens a Pipeline for FinTech Companies to Seek Guidance

SEC Sets Up Open Line of Communication for Fintech Projects With FinHub

On October 18, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it has created a new offices dedicated to fintech startups, including cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. The office will be a resource for these fledging organizations as the try to navigate unspecified regulations and comply with government mandates.