Well then, this week has been particularly exciting for the crypto space. Not necessarily in a good way either as one of the world’s biggest exchanges, Binance experienced a security breach but luckily this didn’t stop Bitcoin from surpassing the $6k key resistance level. On top of this, we also saw Ripple launch the new 4.0 update which is helping more banks integrate the xRapid system.
Ripple 4.0
The Chief Technology Officer at Ripple Labs, David Schwartz has said that the latest version of its cross-border payment solution xCurrent is now live.
Now as we know, Ripple has over 200 hundred partnerships with all sorts of different financial institutions so this means that hundreds of customers are on their way to integrate the xRapid system with just the flip of a switch.
Schwartz has said:
“4.0 is live. We’re working to get all customers upgraded, but it’s a complex process. Multihop, xRapid support, much easier peering, and a much easier customer integration process are the major new features.”
The upgrade has promised for an increase in product interoperability that offers banks and financial organisations that wish to leverage digital assets as a way to “seamlessly access xRapid for digital asset payments.”
What this means is that every finance firm on RippleNet will now be able to integrate xRapid with ease.
Just some of the new features include:
- Upgraded Multi-Currency Support – Onboard new currencies without creating multiple databases.
- Additional Error Codes – View more specific error codes for easier STP handling of exceptions.
- Zero Downtime – Eliminate server restarts after making configuration changes.
- Improved Auditing and Monitoring – Receive detailed audit reporting and health checks for connection issues.
Binance Breach
One of the things that made this week so eventful was the Binance breach that occurred on Tuesday.
The world’s biggest crypto exchange has suffered a large scale cyber attack which resulted in the theft of around seven thousand Bitcoins. These Bitcoins come in at around $41 million from the popular platform.
Following the attack, Binance officially announced they were the victim of an attack because of a security breach.
They explained:
“A large number of user API keys, 2FA codes, and potentially other info,” in order to carry out the attack.” The exchange went on to add, “the hackers used a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks. We are still concluding all possible methods used. There may also be additional affected accounts that have not been identified yet.”
Despite the severity of the attack, Binance has ensured customers of the platform that only hot wallets were targeted (this surmounts to only two percent of the exchange’s total holdings).
The CEO of Binance Changpeng Zhao, who was in an AMA session at the time of the attack, stated:
“To be honest, we can actually do this probably within the next a few days. But there’re concerns that if we do a rollback on the Bitcoin network at that scale, it may have some negative consequences, in terms of destroying the credibility for bitcoin.”
Bitcoin Skyrockets
To end on some good news, let’s talk about how Bitcoin surpassed the $6k mark at long last.
Yes, finally BTC has made enough gains to pass the $6k key resistance level after one of the worse bear markets in history.
In fact, following the attack on Binance, many figured that the price of Bitcoin would plummet but instead, the leading cryptocurrency defied the odds and surged past the $6,000 mark.
As reported by CoinDesk earlier in the week:
“Bitcoin’s total trading volume across exchanges, exceeded $15.5 billion, yet its “Real 10” volume – a metric that takes into account trading volume from the only 10 exchanges reporting honest volume figures as identified in a report by Bitwise Asset Management – reveals a seemingly more accurate 24-hour volume figure may be closer to $502 million.”
When BTC moves significantly in a certain direction, the US dollar value of most other cryptocurrencies tends to follow it without question.
It will be interesting to see where Bitcoin goes from here as a lot of people had Bitcoin pegged to be priced at $6k at the end of the year. But as we all know, our favourite digital asset is unpredictable and is always subject to changing and surprising us.
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