BitDigest September 25 · Issue #750

• Crypto prices starting end of week in green with total market value at $334.9 billion
• The US Congress has introduced two new bills supporting the crypto ecosystem
• Germany pledges to move EC crypto discussion forward

Note: My API to Coinmarketcap.com is not linking this morning, sorry.
Bitcoin is trading at 10,604, up 2.67%
Ether (ETH) is at $340 up 3.91%
XRP (XRP) is at $0.23 up 3.5%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) at $211 up 0.28%

Today is the 750th edition of the newer public format of Bitdigest –it was published as a basic email for the first year – and as I read through the news below it is amazing to see how the blockchain and crypto story has evolved. I decided to look back to issue # 75 from November 6, 2017 to see where the story was back then. Here are some of those headlines:

• Bitcoin (BTC) traded up to $7,500 but pulled back to $7,354 with ether (ETH) holding flat at $300.
• The Central Bank of Uruguay announced plans to test the digitization of the Uruguayan peso.
• Russian officials reveled that the country has lost approximately 18 billion rubles ($310 million at that time) in tax revenues due to a lack of ICO regulations
• Societe Generale added to concerns about excessive bitcoin speculation, with the bank’s deputy head saying that bitcoin is a bubble 
• Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein admitted he is not comfortable with anything new, but said money backed by consensus rather than government degree may be the next evolution of hard currency.

A lot has changed over the past few years and I can only image where the conversation will be in 2023. Thanks for all your support, comments and conversations. I am looking forward to the crypto future.

The Headlines

Market Data

• Employment growth in the sector increased 21%, down from 57% post the 2017 market frenzy;
• 39% of proof-of-work mining is powered by renewable energy
• Off-chain transactions continue to be dominated by fiat-crypto trading
• Stablecoins are becoming increasingly valuable
• The share of crypto-only companies that did not conduct any KYC checks dropped from 48% to 13% between 2018 and 2020

Thoughts on the Ecosystem