South Korea hit headlines yesterday spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt over the proposal to ban cryptocurrency trading. This is just a proposal, so even if a bill to ban all cryptocurrency trading is actually drafted, it would need a majority vote in the National Assembly. This could actually take months or even years. The Blue Office, the executive office and official residence of the country’s head of state said that there will be no cryptocurrency trading ban in the short-term.

Apparently over 100,000 people in South Korea signed a petition to stop the cryptocurrency trading ban proposal. 30,000 people have apparently signed for the removal of the Justice and Finance ministers as they believe they have been trying to manipulate the market. 

Exchanges in South Korea are responsible for over a quarter of the global volume. A major issue Korean traders face is the discrepancies in prices which can be much higher on local exchanges than in other countries. This week coinmarketcap.com excluded major South Korean exchanges from its data sheet due to an extreme divergence in prices. 

Now let’s take a quick look at the cryptocurrency market today. Bitcoin climbed back over $14,000 today. A new pull request could see SegWit included in the anticipated Bitcoin Core version 0.16 release. This could ease Core node access to the technology. The CEO of Binance said recently that Warren Buffett “does not understand cryptocurrency” and that he is making “a big mistake.” “Binance wrote in a blog post on January 8th that, in order To ensure performance for our existing users, only a limited number of new registrations will be allowed each day. Registration open times will vary from day to day, without prior announcement”. On January 8th Binance saw a record 240,000 sign-ups in just one hour.

Ripple’s XRP is trying to regain its strength and it gained more than 18% over the past 24 hours. It was announced this week that Money transfer giant MoneyGram is partnering up with ripple to pilot XRP in their payment flows. They will explore MoneyGram’s integration into Ripple’s ecosystem through xVia. 

Talk that South Korea is banning cryptocurrency trading is spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. South Korea’s Justice Minister announced today that a bill is being prepared to ban all cryptocurrency trading. Several cryptocurrency exchanges in Seoul were raided this week as they are been investigated for alleged tax evasion. The total cryptocurrency market cap continues to move lower this week after we saw it hit a record high of over $800 billion on Sunday. We saw bitcoin fall under $14,000 today. Most of the leading cryptocurrencies are in the red again today, but bitcoin cash and IOTA have experienced some small gains. EOS, which is currently in 13th place has gained more than 19% over the past 24 hours.

Microsoft is accepting bitcoin payments again. The company had suspended bitcoin payments because of rising transaction fees and concerns over volatility. Funds can be used to buy games, movies and apps from the Windows and Xbox stores, but not for physical products. You should keep in mind that money added to Microsoft accounts using Bitcoin cannot be refunded.

And if we take a look at what’s happening in China, Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain has set up a subsidiary in Zug, Switzerland. This may have been influenced by reports, which have been circulating that China is making steps towards putting an end to cryptocurrency mining.

Also hitting headlines this week is news that Michael Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy investment partners hopes to launch the first cryptocurrency merchant bank. An undisclosed Bloomberg source stated that Novogratz “envisions Galaxy Digital as the Goldman Sachs of crypto.” Novogratz is putting substantially all of his crypto investments into Galaxy, around $400 million of bitcoin, ether, initial coin offerings and stakes in startups such as Xapo, Bitstamp, and Ripple Labs.

And finally, Venezuela’s opposition-run parliament this week outlawed a “petro” cryptocurrency. Socialist President Nicolas Maduro has been promoting this cryptocurrency. Legislator Jorge Milan told Reuters that this is not This is not a cryptocurrency, this is a forward sale of Venezuelan oil. It is tailor-made for corruption.

Ethereum is up more than 60% in just one week and up more than 13,000% in a year. This time last year ethereal was only around $10.31. In June we saw it surge all the way towards $400. It remained under $400 until November and in December we saw it skyrocket all the way to $844. Maybe 2018 is the year for ethereal as it started the year with on such a positive note and it continues to hit record highs. We saw it break past $1,400 today, before falling a bit lower. It has a market cap of over $125 billion. Thomas Glucksmann, head of APAC business development for cryptocurrency exchange Gatecoin, told CNBC that, ”Ether’s price rally is a testament to the growing popularity of ethereum as a platform for decentralized applications. Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen that the majority of tokens issued during ICOs and traded on exchanges, have been coded to run on the ethereum network.” All the other cryptocurrencies are in the red today. Kodak is launching a cryptocurrency for photographers as part of its partnership with Wenn Digital. They hope to develop an image rights platform called KodakOne. Shares in Kodak jumped 120% after the company revealed its crypto plans. The idea is that photographers will get paid instantly and securely via the blockchain when their photos are sold online. KodakOne will search the internet for image copyright violations. The concept is to create an encrypted distributed ledger of rights ownership running on the Ethereum platform using smart contracts. The ICO will kick off on January 31, but it is only open to accredited investors from a few countries including the US, UK, and Canada. Kodak also said that it would install rows of Bitcoin mining rigs at its headquarters in Rochester, New York.

It’s Wednesday, November 15th, I’m Kiana Danial, CEO of Invest Diva with thecaa and here is your crypotocurrency update. We’re going to take a look at Ethereum and what’s been going on in the world of the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap. First and foremost, Ethereum has started beating Bitcoin at least in some areas. Namely, transaction processing. The Ethereum network now processes twice the transactions than Bitcoin on a daily basis. It has been settling more than 520,000 transactions per day on average. In other news and in the race of seeking for international support, buying Ethereum in South Africa just got a whole lot cheaper. Luno, a Bitcoin company headquartered in London with operations in 40 different countries, now supports Ethereum in South Africa. Previously, South Africans who wanted to buy Ethereum – or other altcoins – typically had to purchase Bitcoin from Luno, send it to a cryptocurrency exchange, and then buy their desired cryptocurrency.This process incurred Bitcoin transaction fees and could take several hours. Now, South Africans can buy Ethereum instantly and cheaper than before. ETH has generally responded well to growing pains and continues to find support among users, technologists, and companies. With its price being more stable compared to the wildly volatile Bitcoin, Ethereum could have the most promising and stable support of the big players, making it the ideal large-scale crypto. Ethereum’s price versus the USD has risen up above the daily Ichimoku cloud while remaining in the $300 zone. The resistance is at the all-time-high price of $400, which could soon be broken.