Crypto Market Update (22 August 2018)

Bitcoin Global News (BGN)

August 22, 2018 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire

General Market Outlook

The market has turned upward again, but to a much lesser extent that earlier this week. Most of the top 100 coins are in the green and trading volume has risen $1 billion to around $12 billion in 24 hours. Cortex (CTXC) is the major stand out of the top 100 coins by market cap - up over 35% in the past 24 hours, but WTC, PIVX, AOA, and CMT are all up 12% or more. Bitcoin (BTC) is right around $6,650 for +3.5% and a total market dominance of about 53.1%, and Ethereum (ETH) is right at $285 for +3% change in the past 24 hours. Market cap for the overall cryptocurrency market gain over $7 billion, now sitting at just over $216 billion total.

Major Headlines

Australians Can Pay Most Bills In Crypto

A new partnership between a licensed cryptocurrency exchange and an automated billing platform in Australia is facilitating cryptocurrency payments for anything from electricity to speeding tickets. The Cointree Exchange is one of four officially registered in Australia, along with BTC Markets, Independent Reserve, and Blockbid. Cointree currently lists 27 coins, but will launch support for 10 more this month. Gobill hopes to eventually offer support for as many as 50. Gobill was funded by Microsoft with their launch in 2015. The platform allows payment to any Australian provider including utilities, telecommunications, council rates, insurance and more. They are a partner of the Australian Government’s cyber safety initiative as well.

Steve Wozniak’s First Blockchain Project

Last week at the ChainXchange Conference in LA, Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple) mentioned he is involved with a blockchain project for the first time. The organization is still in the early funding stages. This isn’t going to be like other coin launches, and there won’t be an ICO. Wozniak’s project is working with big investors, and providing actual shares of a company. “This company is doing investment by investors with huge track records in good investments in things like apartment buildings in Dubai.” He has compared Ethereum to the Apple Store before, and considers Bitcoin the only “digital gold.”

Chinese Bus System Overhaul Funded By Blockchain Assets

The largest bus operator in the country has signed a deal for funding through a U.S. digital asset services platform. China has been planning to overhaul their entire bus system to electric powered vehicles by 2021. NTS is the largest full-service operator for electric buses, with sales, lease financing, a charging station network, and real-time data services including media, payments, maps, and facial recognition. Seven Stars Cloud Group (SSC) has developed an automated infrastructure that issues, trades, and settles digital asset transactions using machine learning and AI, which can be tailored to the needs of each customer. They will provide “fixed income lease financing-based products” for sale totaling $8.75 billion in China markets, and $15 billion to global markets over three years. This one of the biggest deals utilizing blockchain technology for digital assets. The deal will is for $24 billion over three years. The entire replacement project will cost $45 billion.

Top 5 Gainers

AC3 (AC3) +56.04% at $0.47160

Super Bitcoin (SBTC) +50.32% at $4.13

Webcoin (WEB) +49.27% at $0.008836

OptiToken (OPTI) +47.48% at $0.213632

XcelToken (XCEL) +42.55% at $0.069290

Top 5 Losers

Namecoin (NMC) -47.42% at $1.01

Cashcoin (CASH) -32.63% at $0.006387

DigiFinexToken (DFT) -30.68% at $0.298765

Soma (SCT) -28.97% at $0.043536

IHT Real Estate Protocol (IHT) -27.73% at $0.015932