Bitflyer, Japan’s and the world’s largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has announced its expansion into the US market this fall. It is launching a US-based bitcoin exchange, allowing customers to trade between bitcoins and dollars. The company says it has already obtained regulatory approval to operate in 34 states.
https://news.bitcoin.com/worlds-largest-bitcoin-exchange-bitflyer-expands-into-us-market/

Government agencies are looking further into adopting blockchain technology and bitcoin. They hope to commandeer these protocols in order to protect military from mass-hacking campaigns, counterintelligence, and otherwise hostile attacks on their systems. The Pentagon is has especially shown recent interest in using cryptographically-guarded blockchains to aid their operations.

https://news.bitcoin.com/government-agencies-want-to-adopt-bitcoin-and-blockchain-technology

The non-profit Zcash Foundation has announced that it is offering $80,000 worth of new grants to innovators and technologists for the advancement of the privacy-oriented digital currency Zcash.

The foundation said that the grants should be used for software development, science and research, and community outreach.

Zcash is a privacy-focused digital currency protocol that allows its users the option make anonymous transactions through the use of a bleeding-edge cryptography method called zk-SNARKs.

The cryptocurrency was conceived as “Zerocash” in 2014 by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and a group of cryptographers at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The Zcash Foundation was established to supervise the development of the digital currency’s platform, which was officially launched in October 2016.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/zcash-foundation-offers-800000-in-new-grants-to-advance-the-zcash-ecosystem

No one knows if the recent rally is the last pump before the bubble pops, or indeed if it is the tipping point. But, Octogon Strategy Dave Chapman is seeing a new breed of investors flowing towards cryptocurrency that makes him believe Bitcoin is growing up.

Chapman’s company, which specializes in commodity investment, especially digital currencies, is seeing a new flow of institutionalized money opening accounts with Octagon. These new account holders are the type of people that make it look like Bitcoin is growing up, not preparing to pop.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/not-bubble-bitcoin-growing-up-heading-to-10000-dave-chapman

Approximately 20-30 Cryptomat Bitcoin ATMs (BTMs) will be installed in Kiev by the end of the summer, Michael Chobanian, founder of Kuna Bitcoin Agency and Kuna Cryptocurrency Exchange, told UBR this week. He also said:
By the end of the year, around 150 Bitcoin ATMs will be installed throughout Ukraine. This is at the request of one customer who contacted us. Plus, there is a constant demand from entrepreneurs across Ukraine who want to engage in this business, that is, buy terminals and sell cryptocurrencies.
https://news.bitcoin.com/150-bitcoin-atms-ukraine/

Ethereum price has shown significant growth for the first time after a long fall. Is this a reversal wave?
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-price-analysis-july-22-30

On Aug. 5, less than four days after the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork, Bitcoin price surged drastically within a 24-hour period, recording a new all-time high at $3,212.

Previously, Bitcoin price broke the $3,000 mark mostly due to optimism surrounding the activation of the Bitcoin Core development team’s transaction malleability fix and scaling solution Segregated Witness (SegWit).

However, shortly after that, a major market correction led Bitcoin price to fall to $1,900, and it stabilized at around $2,500 amidst uncertainty regarding SegWit and the execution of the BCH hard fork, which was initially proposed by Bitcoin mining equipment manufacturer Bitmain.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-price-explodes-to-3212-new-all-time-high-factors

The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), the world’s largest open-source Blockchain initiative, has recently added 34 new members expanding to a total of 150 organizations.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/enterprise-ethereum-alliance-joined-by-34-more-organizations-including-mastercard-and-cisco