The first day of bitcoin futures trading

Last Sunday, the first bitcoin futures launched on CBOE’s exchange platform, attracting a lot of buyer attention. On its first day, bitcoin reached a price height of $17,471 at 20:44 UTC and, according to CoinMarketCap data, appreciated 15 percent in the first 24 hours. Only hours after the official XBT futures kick-off, the specific BTC contract that expires in January, increased by 20 percent causing two trading halts. Additionally, excess CBOE website traffic resulted in delays and downtime, yet could not hamper the cryptocurrency’s increase in value.

Alongside bitcoin’s growth in value, bitcoin mining activities have also increased significantly over the past few months, leading to blackouts in some countries. In Venezuela, for instance, citizens are mining intensively for bitcoins amidst the current national financial crisis, and a plunge in the value of the country’s national currency, the bolivar. Citizens use mining as a way to avoid inflation and benefit from the country’s low energy costs.

Cryptowallet security breach

Someway or other, a knockoff version of MyEtherWallet, one of the biggest and most popular cryptowallets, was able to reach the number 3 position in the App Store’s Finance category. The developer of the app has created three other Apple apps, of which two are panda-fighting games. Needless to say, users should be careful before downloading finance related apps. The creators of MyEtherWallet have filed reports and warn people to look out for the fake version of their application.

Regarding crypto-related security breaches, not even a week ago, crypto-mining marketplace NiceHash published a statement on social media in which it announced the theft of all the bitcoins from its main wallet. Many users also filed complaints about losing bitcoins. Apparently, the marketplace had been hacked and an estimated amount of $62 million worth of bitcoins had been stolen.