A highly anticipated technology designed to make blockchain privacy features more scalable will be tested in the wild soon.

Named "bulletproofs," the tech, which was invented by cryptographers Benedict Bunz and Jonathan Bootle, promises to dramatically decrease the weight of confidential transactions, and on Thursday, Oct. 18, privacy-oriented cryptocurrency monero will put that to the test.

The first major cryptocurrency to deploy the technology, monero has been focused on how to implement bulletproofs for the past year – in an effort to cut the size of its confidential transactions by at least 80 percent.

https://www.coindesk.com/monero-to-become-first-billion-dollar-crypto-to-implement-bulletproofs-tech/

The cryptocurrency market has been making history for all the wrong reasons as of late, most notably by recently surpassing the plunge of the infamous Dot-Com bubble in the early 2000's.

With that said, cryptocurrencies tend to make recoveries when all hope is seemingly lost, and today's price action of the world's second largest cryptocurrency, ether and many others is no exception.

At press time, several of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization are reporting 24-hour gains above 10 percent, including monero (XMR), litecoin (LTC), and EOS. Ether (ETH) is leading the pack while boasting a 17 percent price increase. Further, the total market cap has edged back up over $200 billion, after falling lower earlier this week.

https://www.coindesk.com/back-over-200-billion-3-reasons-crypto-prices-are-heading-higher/

According to Jonathan Cheesman, a partner at investment firm Distributed Global, Bitcoin has fallen due to five major reasons: macro trend, speculative dominance, regulatory uncertainty, short selling, and scams.

But, as the market and cryptocurrencies as an asset class continue to see improvements in infrastructure and regulation, Cheesman explained that a growing number of investors will recognize cryptocurrencies as robust and legitimate stores of value.

https://www.ccn.com/investor-bitcoin-fell-due-to-regulatory-sell-pressure-will-recover-soon/

A major South Korean insurance company reportedly will start offering cryptocurrency exchanges insurance aimed at compensating for damages caused by hacking, according to local media. Currently, few crypto exchanges in the country are insured and hacking damages are not covered.


https://news.bitcoin.com/korean-insurer-crypto-exchanges-insurance-hacking-damages/

Alleged bitcoin money launderer Alexander Vinnik has reportedly told the judges of the Supreme Court of Greece that he wanted to be extradited to Russia.

The Russian national who was arrested in Greece last year, accused of laundering billions of dollars in bitcoin through BTC-e, has rejected the charges imposed on him by US and France.

According to a Russian media TASS, the Supreme Court of Greece has accepted the extradition of Vinnik to Russia. The approval came after Vinnik tole the court hearing that he wanted to be extradited to Russia.

https://www.ccn.com/greece-approves-btc-e-admin-alexander-vinniks-extradition-to-russia/

Over the weekend, Bitcoin Cash conducted a stress test designed to prove to merchants and businesses worldwide that its mainnet is capable of scaling on chain and handling huge transaction volumes currently.

The principal takeaway from the results of the test was that increased transaction volumes did not lead to a fee surge, and in fact transaction fees declined slightly.

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-cash-gains-14-as-stress-test-hits-transaction-record/

Crypto exchange Huobi has become the largest shareholder of a public firm listed in Hong Kong, inching a step closer to a possible back-door listing.

Pantronics Holdings, the acquired firm, released a statement on Aug. 29 saying Huobi Group had completed the deal by purchasing about 199 million of its shares via two of the group's subsidiaries – Huobi Capital and Huobi Universal.

https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchange-huobi-completes-acquisition-of-public-firm-for-70-million/

While China has been a ‘crypto hub’ for the better part of a decade, a recent set of announcements seems to show that the local government has changed its stance to be aversive to any operations related to crypto.

https://ethereumworldnews.com/chinese-government-cracks-down-on-crypto-related-wechat-accounts/

Recently, an XRP enthusiast contacted the US Securities and Exchange Commission to ask why the US Securities and Exchange Commission did not make a decision on XRP after classifying Bitcoin BTC and Ethereum [ETH] as "non-safe."

In response to this question, Lisa Skrycki, a lawyer at the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Investor Education and Advocacy Office, said that the SEC has not used any cryptocurrency in the market as a security.

https://ambcrypto.com/sec-has-not-determined-whether-any-specific-cryptocurrency-may-be-deemed-a-security/

The first Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) is expected to be approved in February 2019. However, some experts say that ETFs may increase market volatility.

How will ETFs affect the market
In the past few months, analysts have had a disagreement over the impact of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the BT's ruling on the encryption market.

https://www.ccn.com/will-the-first-bitcoin-etf-make-the-crypto-market-even-more-volatile/