After the bitcoin price reaches $20k from $19k... the bitcoin went through heavy market correction where bitcoin loses about $45% of it original value. The bitcoin price went down to $11k all because of the correction. Then, bitcoin manages to recover to $17k and it went through another correction. 

We are in 2018 now, and we are expecting the bitcoin price to reach at least $60,000 by the end of this year 2018.

Well, we are here in January nothing new unless some strong market corrections that bitcoin is suffering from.
The bitcoin is even selling below $13,000 today due to the Korean cryptocurrency exchange crackdown by security officials for tax invasions.

It appears the bitcoin is going through the second correction since December 2017.
But this correction is happening for a reason because the Korean cryptocurrency exchanges are crackdown by security officials for tax invasion. 

The market correction is inevitable for bitcoin and altcoins as well.
Whenever the price of bitcoin grow to the highest level the correction must come in to balance the price.

The bitcoin is going through taught time from high transaction fee to slow transaction speed, and from one correction to another. Few days ago, there is news of the Lightning network, the network that would speed up the bitcoin transactions to be more faster than ever but I don't know why the bitcoin developer are still silent about implementing of the lightning network.

The bitcoin went through massive correction in the late December that causes bitcoin to lose about 45% of its original value. Don't worry the bitcoin price would recover very soon.

Well, the bitcoin went through massive correction in the late December that cause bitcoin to lose about 45% of its original value. Though, bitcoin is going through the same situation once again.

I think the bitcoin price would reach $60,000 by the end of this year 2018. The demand of bitcoin is higher than the supply, still.

There is always negative news of bitcoin crash from negative people. all you have to do is stay away from them. Though, the current bitcoin price crash has a reason which is South Korea. The Korean government created a new task force to crackdown all cryptocurrecency exchanges for tax invasion and money laundering.   

Ukraine Forms Cryptocurrency Oversight Working Group



Senior officials in Ukraine are forming a new working group on cryptocurrency regulation, the country's government announced on Thursday.

During a meeting on cybersecurity and infrastructure matters, National Security and Defense Council chief Oleksandr Turchynov remarked that a lack of regulation around the tech constitutes a threat to Ukraine’s economy and security, according to a statement released by the government on Jan. 11.

Those risks have resulted in the working group's creation, which will be composed of officials from bodies including the National Bank of Ukraine, the Ministry of Finance, the National Securities and Stock Market Commission and the National Police, among others. The group will determine which agencies will have jurisdiction over the domestic crypto market and create a system for collecting income taxes traced to cryptocurrency trades.

The government statement goes on to read:

   "Moreover, the authorities were assigned to develop a mechanism for ensuring access of law enforcement bodies to the data of cryptocurrency exchanges with the obligation of the given subjects to store information about all transactions within the period established by law for financial institutions and disclosure of customer information on a motivated request."

Notably, the statement indicates that the National Bank – Ukraine's central bank – may move to create its own cryptocurrency.

"The National Bank of Ukraine is considering the relevance of establishing its own cryptocurrency," it stated.

A bill already in front of the Ukraine legislature would bring cryptocurrency exchanges under the central bank's oversight, as previously reported.

The proposed legislation contained provisions focused on the taxation and oversight of cryptocurrency exchanges and even included a provision regarding domestic mining operations. However, the legislation has not yet been passed into law, and there is no timeline set for its passage.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/ukraine-defense-chief-directs-state-to-develop-crypto-legislation/

Arizona Lawmakers Want to Let People Pay Taxes in Bitcoin



A new bill submitted to the Arizona Senate would, if approved, allow people to pay their state tax liabilities using bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

Public records show that the bill – sponsored by state Senator Warren Petersen and co-sponsored by three other lawmakers – was submitted for consideration on Jan. 9. It has since been referred to the Arizona Senate Rules Committee for further deliberation.

According to the text, the measure would allow for the use of "a payment gateway, such as bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, using peer-to-peer systems" in order to pay "tax and any interest and penalties" owed to the state government.

The bill goes on to state:

   "The Department [of Revenue] shall convert cryptocurrency payments to United States dollars at the prevailing rate within twenty-four hours after receipt and shall credit the taxpayer's account with the converted dollar amount."

Whether the measure gains traction in the Arizona legislature remains to be seen. A similar effort was undertaken in New Hampshire in 2016, but concerns expressed by some state lawmakers – primarily around bitcoin's volatile price – ultimately led to the bill being scuttled.

On the other hand, Arizona lawmakers have moved to approve bills related to the tech in the past. Last spring, the legislature finalized a bill that recognizes blockchain signatures and smart contracts as valid under state law. Gov. Doug Ducey signed the measure into law last March, as CoinDesk reported at the time.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/arizona-lawmakers-want-let-people-pay-taxes-bitcoin/

Quebec Lures Cryptocurrency Miners as China Sours on Industry



Quebec was fishing for tech giants but caught bitcoin miners. LOL

At least that’s how David Vincent, business development director at electric utility Hydro Quebec, describes the results of a campaign launched in 2016 to lure the likes of Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft to build their data centers in the Canadian province.

The sales pitch was simple: the province offers plentiful, cheap and renewable electricity, along with cold weather and a politically stable environment.

And while Hydro Quebec has gotten plenty of bites from traditional data center operators, the company also quickly discovered those same traits are equally attractive for cryptocurrency mining operations.

Nonexistent just six months ago, interest in Quebec from commercial-scale bitcoin miners has skyrocketed, Vincent said, amid the surge in cryptocurrency prices and political uncertainty in other jurisdictions.

For Hydro Quebec, 35 cryptocurrency mining organizations are asking the company for information regarding connecting to the power grid there. Those companies now account 70 percent of the total wattage capacity in Hydro Quebec's development pipeline.

In an interview with CoinDesk, Vincent said:

   “I have so much demand right now there’s no need for marketing. Pretty much every day I have a new one.”

And sentiments from others suggest what Hydro Quebec is seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg.

"Based on what I've seen in equipment purchase, real estate and power deals, things are exploding in Quebec," said Austin Hill, the former CEO of Blockstream, who is now investing in and backing some of the mining projects looking to Quebec.


Cheap and abundant

Cryptocurrency mining – the energy-intensive process by which new transactions are added to a blockchain – generally requires specialized hardware (either ASICs or GPUs) to solve complex mathematical puzzles. Because of the vast amount of computing power that's used, mining rigs generate a significant amount of heat, which is why mining operations look for colder environments to set up shop.

But it's not only the cold weather that's a draw for Quebec. The government's aggressive effort, during the post World War II era, to build dams in its northern regions has proven enticing enough to pull mining operators away from existing bases that already have weather on their side.

Because of that work, Quebec has become one of the largest hydroelectric power producers in the world. Hydro Electric, with 37,000 megawatts of installed electricity capacity, routinely produces at surplus levels and is thus able to offer some of the lowest rates in North America to its commercial customers.

For data centers, Hydro Quebec charges as low 2.48 cents (in USD) per kilowatt hour, and 3.94 cents per kilowatt-hour for bitcoin miners (the slight increase for the latter due to mining operations' smaller job creation and economic development footprint), Vincent said. These rates are anywhere from 50 percent to three times lower than in comparable parts of North America, according to data compiled by Hydro Quebec.

Historical consistency in pricing over time, and the assurance that the rates are not simply teasers that will jump overnight, are a key part of the value proposition for cryptocurrency mining operations, Vincent said. He added:

   "We always succeed at staying below inflation. It’s been like that since 1963 and it’s not going to change."

And while some have argued that cryptocurrency mining is environmentally degrading, there's a growing trend by these mining operations toward finding competitive advantage via greater energy efficiency and resource optimization.

"In some hotter environments, the current ASIC equipment ends up having a very short shelf life of around six to nine months because it gets so hot, and the cost of cooling it isn’t worth the cost of the equipment," Hill, who heads the Montreal-based Brudder Ventures, said, adding:

    "It’s just easier to run it super hot, throw it away and buy a new one. It’s hugely wasteful."

And moving to cooler climates, like Quebec, could help.


Political stability

Another driver behind Quebec’s accidental emergence as a cryptocurrency mining hub is that miners are increasingly looking for stable political environments where they can deploy their capital investments and plan their business efforts four to five years in advance with a higher degree of confidence.

While several of Hydro Quebec's interested parties are based in North America, a significant number of mining organizations hail from countries, notably China, where the landscape for cryptocurrency mining, and cryptocurrencies in general, has become cloudier.

In China, for instance, rumors have been surfacing that the government plans on withdrawing preferential benefits such as cheap electricity and tax deductions to bitcoin mining operations. Plus, the People's Bank of China has been one of the more aggressive regulators in the world when it comes to cryptocurrency, most recently issuing a ban on initial coin offerings and moving to shut down bitcoin exchanges.

Notably, Vincent said mining interest in Quebec began to tick upward significantly last fall after these moves by China.

He told CoinDesk:

    "They don’t say it like that, but the fact that the rush of the demand came at pretty much the same time they were having problems in their previous jurisdiction, we could think there was a correlation."

These concerns, along with a steady flow of reports about mining equipment seizures, kidnappings and game-playing by corrupt public officials in places like Venezuela, could make setting up shop in places where these risks are minimal more important than ever for mining operators.


A good problem

While Hydro Quebec is still, admittedly, trying to fully grasp this new class of customers, it’s been more than willing to roll out the welcome mat for them because of the enormity of the requests, not to mention the 24/7 nature of their operations.

To show mining operation's scale, Vincent compared them to Hydro Quebec's other customers.

Its smallest commercial customers, such as the Montreal Canadiens’ hockey arena, require five megawatts of electricity and a typical data center requires 30 to 60 megawatts. By contrast, "the top-three to top-five miners in world, most of them are talking to us, and the demand that they have right now is around 200 to 300 megawatts," he said. "It’s huge."

But with an industry as volatile as cryptocurrency, nothing is fully set in stone, and as a risk-averse, publicly owned utility, Hydro Quebec is minimizing its exposure by requiring miners to foot the upfront cost of the power connection and arrange a line of credit from a third party large enough to offset any losses in the event of something dire.

"The question for us is: is this a trend that will continue to stay at least as strong as it is right now?" Vincent said.

But for now, the biggest problem facing Hydro Quebec is finding enough buildings and locations that are suitable to be used as mining farms, as well as hiring more people who can help meet all of the requests from these types of potential clients, as quickly as they are coming in.

"[The miners] have this impression that they’re losing money every day, so they’re asking for big buildings with big interconnections and they want it tomorrow," Vincent said, concluding:

    "We have the capacity, but we’re not used to having so much big demand like this. It’s a good problem to have."


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/quebec-lures-cryptocurrency-miners-china-sours-industry/

Korea's Central Bank Forms Task Force to Study Cryptocurrency Impact



The Bank of Korea (BoK), South Korea's central bank, has launched a cryptocurrency task force to explore the technology's effects on the financial system.

According to a report by local news agency Pulse News, the bank said that the task force will see participation from eight departments, including the financial stability and monetary policy units, to study on the impacts of digital currency.

The new group will be administered and assisted by BoK's payment and settlement department and will be headed by Shin Ho-soon, deputy governor of central bank, the report adds. BoK is also seeking to explore a central bank-backed digital currency as part of the project.

The announcement follows concerns raised in South Korea that the drastic growth in cryptocurrency prices could effect the traditional financial system.

Earlier this week, six unnamed banks in South Korea were scrutinized the Korean Financial Intelligence Unit and the Financial Supervisory Service for their relationship with the country's bitcoin exchange ecosystem. The regulators indicated at the time that they were looking into whether the banks are complying with their anti-money laundering (AML) obligations when transacting with cryptocurrency exchanges.

The government already said last month that it would move to apply more scrutiny amid growing trade volume at the exchanges, including a possible ban on anonymous trading. Earlier today, new reports suggested that the government of South Korea is intensifying its moves against the country's bitcoin exchanges.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/koreas-central-bank-forms-task-force-to-study-cryptocurrency-impact/

South Korea Reportedly Expands Crackdown on Crypto Exchanges



New reports suggest that the South Korean government is intensifying its moves against the country's bitcoin exchanges.

Reuters reported tonight that Bithumb and Coinone were raided by police and tax office officials on Wednesday and Thursday. Citing employees of the two exchanges, which are among the largest in South Korea, the news service said officials visited their offices amid an investigation into alleged tax evasion.

"Local police also have been investigating our company since last year, they think what we do is gambling," a Coinone employee told Reuters. The employee said that the exchange was cooperating with the investigation.

In an email to CoinDesk, a representative of Bithumb confirmed that they had met with Korean tax authorities.

"It is true that the National Tax Service visited Bithumb. However, we weren't raided by the police," the rep said.

Separately, South Korean news service SBS has reported that the South Korean Justice Department is planning legislation that would pave the way for exchanges in the country to be shut down entirely.

"The Ministry of Justice will set up its own bill, which sees the virtual money brokerage itself as illegal and completely closes the exchange, and plans to start full-fledged ministry discussions this week," the service reported, according to a translation.

According to a subsequent report from Reuters, the Justice Ministry said that a bill was forthcoming.

"There are great concerns regarding virtual currencies and justice ministry is basically preparing a bill to ban cryptocurrency trading through exchanges," Park Sang-ki was quoted as saying.

The news represents a significant expansion in the growing scrutiny applied to the crypto-exchange space by South Korean regulators. Earlier this week, the Korean Financial Intelligence Unit and the Financial Supervisory Service announced that they were inspecting six unnamed banks for compliance with anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regulations.

The government had already declared in December that it would move to apply more scrutiny amid growing trade volume at the exchanges, including moves to curb anonymous trading.

Exchanges in South Korea have consistently seen prices well above those seen on other marketplaces. Indeed, it's a circumstance that earlier this week led to a controversial change by one popular data service to begin excluding some of the country's exchanges from its cryptocurrency price averages.


Source: https://www.coindesk.com/south-korea-reportedly-expands-crackdown-bitcoin-exchanges/

Well, I think Amazon will start accepting bitcoin by the end of this year 2018.
Amazon recently bought few new domains with cryptocurrency suffixes and prefixes.
So, that is a good sign that Amazon is planning something new maybe big for bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

Yes, I believe in time bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will plan a major role in controlling the global economy. With the currency market capitalization of about $800 billion, the market is growing in an exponential rate it may reach up to $3-$5 trillion market by the end of the year. So, as time goes on sky is the limit for cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin was invented originally to online as a data and the network work as peer-to-peer and fully decentralized. The bitcoin is very fast, secure, and offers global payments. Heck, bitcoin is now acceptable worldwide. if you can't see value in all of that you can find it nowhere in the world.

The coins are not the same because each of them serve it purpose. When you go to coincap.io or coinmarketcap.com you'll see many coins, of course. But every coin there has a features and purpose different from one another. They are actually not the same because they have different purposes, developers, platforms, communities and user-base.

Nice, bitcoin was invested as a peer-to-peer digital currency that fast, secure, and decentralized. Due do the bitcoin years of success and adoption by the people bitcoin is now even acceptable worldwide. People can now use bitcoin as digital currency to buy things or store it as a digital store of value.