Ethereum Price Weekly Analysis: ETH Facing Uphill Task Near $114

ETH price recovered a few points, but it is facing a lot of hurdles near $114 against the US Dollar. There was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance at $107 on the 4-hours chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken). The pair is likely to accelerate higher if it succeeds in surpassing the $114 and $115 resistance levels. Ethereum price is showing a few positive signs versus the US Dollar and Bitcoin. ETH/USD must break the $114 resistance to stay in the positive zone in the…

Canadian Crypto Exchange Coinsquare Lays Off 40 Employees

One of Canada’s top crypto exchanges, Coinsquare, is reportedly laying off almost 30 percent of its staff, including its chief financial officer (CFO) and chief operating officer (COO). The news was reported by Canadian startup and technology news platform BetaKit on Jan. 31. Coinsquare did not return Cointelegraph’s request for comment or confirmation by press time. Citing multiple sources, BetaKit estimates the total number of redundancies at around 40 team members — representing 27 percent of the company’s formerly 150-head workforce. A LinkedIn post from Coinsquare’s head of talent, Martin…

Reverse IPOs Slowly Growing as Cryptos Look to Go Public in the Long Bear Market

In a transaction that has all the hallmarks of a reverse initial public offering (IPO) — also called a reverse merger — OKC Holdings Corp., which is the parent company of OKCoin and OKEx (the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume) bought a controlling share in Leap Holdings Group on Jan. 14. Leap Holdings is a construction company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), with a market cap of 978 million Hong Kong dollars ($124.7 million). OKC Holdings bought 3,182,790,001 shares at a price of HK$0.1520 ($0.019)…

Wyoming Passes Bill to Recognize Cryptocurrencies as Money

In the United States, the state of Wyoming passed a bill that will allow for cryptocurrencies to be recognized as money on Jan. 31, according to the state legislature website. On Jan. 18, Wyoming legislation presented the bill, which would help to clarify the classification of cryptocurrency. As reported by Cointelegraph earlier this month, the bill will place crypto assets into three categories: digital consumer assets, digital securities and virtual currencies. Any digital assets that fall into those three categories will be defined as intangible personal property, granting virtual currencies…

Major European Publisher Axel Springer Partners with SatoshiPay

Europe’s largest digital publisher Axel Springer SE has partnered with blockchain startup SatoshiPay to enable direct payments using blockchain, investment news agency London South East reports on Jan. 31. Blockchain micro payment firm SatoshiPay has reportedly started a collaboration with Axel Springer yesterday, Jan. 31, in order to develop a platform enabling readers to pay for content using SatoshiPay Wallet. According to the article, the new blockchain solution will enable direct payments eliminating third party involvement, and will be integrated into Axel Springer products in order to get experience in…

Smart Contract Audits Firm Hosho Reduces Staff Due to Auto Tooling Boost and ICO Downturn

Smart contracts auditing firm Hosho has laid off 80 percent of its staff, citing an increased amount of automated tooling, the firm’s co-founder and president Hartej Sawhney told Cointelegraph on Feb. 1. Sawhney noted that while Hosho has laid of a significant portion of its team, it continues to be one of the leading firms in the industry of smart contract auditing and security, specifically in penetration testing. The Hosho president explained that the staff reduction was caused by a complex set of circumstances, including the downturn in the amount…

Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, EOS, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Tron, Stellar, Bitcoin SV, Cardano: Price Analysis, Feb. 1

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. Market data is provided by the HitBTC exchange. CEO of CoinList Andy Bromberg expects 2019 to be a quiet year for cryptocurrencies in terms of price while crypto firms focus on developing products and services that are useful to the public. A few analysts, however, expect the leading digital currency to fall…

Markets Quiet as Most Major Coins Report Small Gains, Bitcoin Hangs Below $3,500

Feb. 1 — Markets are relatively quiet, as major coins are trading sideways, with most seeing small gains over the 24-hour period. Market visualization from Coin360 The top cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering below the $3,500 mark, trading at $3,492 at press time. The coin is up by .71 percent on the day and is still down by 2.85 percent on its weekly chart. Yesterday, the Chicago Board Options Exchange’s (CBOE) re-submitted its application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).…

20-Year Old Hacker Pleads Guilty to $5 Million Cryptocurrency Theft

After stealing $5 million in cryptocurrency from 40 victims through SIM swapping, 20-year-old Joel Ortiz, pleaded guilty to theft and accepted a plea deal of 10 years in prison as reported by Motherboard, a division of news outlet VICE, on Feb 1. Ortiz accepted the plea deal last week, according to Erin West, the Deputy District Attorney of Santa Clara County, California. He will officially be sentenced on Mar 14. Authorities reportedly state that Ortiz is the first individual convicted of a crime for SIM swapping. “We think justice has…

Coinbase Director of Data Science and Risk Steps Down

The Director of Data Science and Risk at American cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase, Soups Ranjan, has stepped down. Ranjan announced his departure on Twitter and in a blog post on Jan. 31. In his Medium post, Ranjan reflected on the values of Coinbase, where he began working in 2015, stating: “Last week marked the end of my tour of duties at Coinbase where I built many systems and teams from ground up (data, risk, tools, identity). It was an exhilarating three and half years and Coinbase is quite a rocket-ship…