Current State Of The Crypto Market (March 27th, 2019)

Hackers:

Singapore-based exchange DragonEx says it has been hacked for an undisclosed amount in a number of cryptocurrencies.  DragonEx announced the news on its official Telegram channel on Monday, stating that, on Sunday, March 24, it had suffered a cyberattack that saw cryptocurrency funds owned by users and the exchange “transferred and stolen.” No information has yet been provided on the value of the losses.  On Sunday, apparently as the breach was first being discovered, DragonEx first took its platform offline saying it was upgrading its systems. Later the same day, it announced that it was “still working on system maintenance,” before finally disclosing that it had been hacked yesterday.  In a statement via DragonEx telegram channel they stated, “Part of the assets were retrieved back, and we will do our best to retrieve back the rest of stolen assets.

Bullish Key Players:

Even when Bitcoin battles hard to stay afloat the $4,000 mark, Crypto enthusiast Tim Draper advices that it is best to buy the Bitcoins now when the prices are low rather than buying them when they are high. He believes that the token is in for a major hike in the next two to three years. He estimates that the top coin may rally as high as $250,000 by 2023. At that stage, the value of Cryptocurrencies would account for $5 trillion in the global economy, accounting for around 5% of the total market.

BanksInstitutions:

Vancouver-based company NetCents Technology launched its Crypto Banking Stack (CBS) for financial institutions on Wednesday, March 7. These newly released rails will integrate crypto transactions, accounts and other functionalities with the existing banking platforms.  With the help of NetCents’ CBS, financial institutions like banks and money service providing companies will able to use cryptocurrency functionality with their existing infrastructure.  These crypto enabled bank accounts will have the ability to add multiple wallets/accounts, deposit, withdraw, view transactions and make payments. Users can link their crypto bank accounts to their existing debit cards as well. They will be able to convert their fiat balances to crypto and vice versa. Initially, it will support Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

Adoption:

Ripple’s XRP-powered xRapid may finally be achieving major adoption from not 1 but 3 giant cryptocurrency companies: the crypto and traditional asset trading platform eToro, the world’s most popular crypto exchange Binance, and SBI Virtual Currencies, a subsidiary of the Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings.  xRapid is Ripple’s XRP-powered payment solution that uses the digital token XRP to offer on-demand liquidity and deliver real-time payments while dramatically reducing costs.  It’s designed to be a legally compliant way for banks and financial institutions, including crypto exchanges, to utilize the speed and efficiency of XRP for payments and settlement of transactions. Essentially, it enables XRP to be used as the medium of exchange and converted to fiat currency upon receipt of the transaction.  Currently, Ripple is already partnered with crypto exchanges Bittrex, Coins.ph, Bitso, and Bitstamp.