In this week’s daily editions of Bitcoin in Brief we reported about China hiring a cryptographer, McDonald’s unveiling Maccoin, Bitmain getting richer and much more. The most commented-on article during the week covered Paul Krugman’s new attack on the idea of cryptocurrency on the pages of The New York Times.
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Vitalik Wants More Crypto Cards
On Monday, we reported that the founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, seems to think that there is too much effort to bring cryptocurrencies to Wall Street rather than Main Street. The crypto influencer twitted: “I think there’s too much emphasis on BTC/ETH/whatever ETFs, and not enough emphasis on making it easier for people to buy $5 to $100 in cryptocurrency via cards at corner stores. The former is better for pumping price, but the latter is much better for actual adoption.”
Bitmain Gets Richer
The big news on Tuesday was that Bitmain has added another $2 billion to its valuation, making the Chinese mining behemoth worth a whopping $14 billion ahead of its IPO. Bitmain reportedly pulled in a profit of $1.1 billion in Q1 of 2018 alone. To place that in context, the total value of all BTC mined in the same period was around $1.3 billion. It seems there really is more money in selling shovels than in chasing digital gold. There’s no official date for Bitmain’s IPO yet, other than that it’s coming “very soon”.
McDonald’s Unveils Maccoin
An interesting story we covered on Wednesday is that to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Big Mac, McDonald’s has announced the Maccoin, a “limited edition global currency” backed by the Big Mac.
