China’s Sichuan region suffered natural disasters

Flooding in China is causing problems for Bitcoin miners in Sichuan region.

Heavy rains in China’s Sichuan region have caused floods and landslides, affecting much of the crypto mining farms. This week, 17 regions of the Sichuan region suffered natural disasters caused by heavy rainfall. For example, in the Wenchuan area, the mining farms were covered with mud, destroying the equipment. The hydroelectric plants in the Aba area were forced to stop their activity, interrupting the electricity supply in the area.

2/2 clip of personnel digging out miners from the mud: pic.twitter.com/QebXEqBjrN

– Poolin (@officialpoolin) August 21, 2019

Based on btc.com data, the average hash rate of the Bitcoin network dropped from about 78 EH / s on Monday to about 73 EH / s on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the BTC price fluctuated between $ 9,800 and $ 10,100.

Peter Schiff claims that Bitcoin will never reach $ 50,000

In a debate hosted by CNBC, crypto-skeptic Peter Schiff said that gold will certainly reach $ 5,000 in the future, while Bitcoin will never reach $ 50,000.

Schiff participated in a debate with Joe Kernen, CNBC host, and Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat Global Advisors.

“My gold price forecast is more realistic than your Bitcoin forecast. In addition, at least gold will eventually reach $ 5,000. Bitcoin will never reach $ 50,000 ”,

Schiff told Lee.

From the guy who had a $ 50,000 Bitcoin price target for year end 2018. My gold forecast came a lot closer than your Bitcoin forecast. Plus at least gold will eventually hit 5k. Bitcoin will never hit 50k.

– Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) August 21, 2019

Coincheck plans to launch an IEO platform for utility tokens

The Coincheck Japanese crypto exchange plans to launch a platform for IEO to help companies raise funds through utility tokens.

After the massive hack in January 2018, Coincheck was acquired by brokerage firm Monex Group for $ 33.5 million in April of that year. Earlier this year, the exchange launched an OTC crypto trading service for Bitcoin.

Interestingly, the Monex Group has recently applied to join the Libra Association, as it offers “multiple possibilities”.

IEOs have become this year’s phenomenon, largely due to the success of Binance Launchpad. Currently, there are already 12 platforms dedicated to this phenomenon, among which are OKEx, Huobi and Bittrex. So far, 39 projects have been launched through an IEO.

The crypto community contradicts Buterin

This week, Vitalik Buterin warned that the Ethereum blockchain is full and that the consensus protocol needs to be changed to resolve the issue. However, the crypto community is of another opinion.

The heated discussion on Twitter was triggered by CEO Binance Changpeng Zhao, who claimed that the new blockchains have already solved the issue of scalability and speed. He believes that developers should focus on developing applications that will increase adoption.

I like Vitalik & ETH, but speed & capacity was a problem a year ago, but now a largely solved problem for newer blockchains (for now). We need to increase real applications that people actually use, so that we hit the new capacity issues / limits again. Focus on applications. https://t.co/wev1deZsVY

– CZ Binance (@cz_binance) August 21, 2019

Buterin replied that not even semi-centralized blockchains like EOS have found a solution and that they have already encountered bottlenecks.

Dozens of community replies followed, with examples of blockchains that have high speeds and high capacity. Overall, crypto-enthusiasts are of the opinion that applications should be the priority, generating mass adoption of technology.