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From the Bitcoin whale awakening to the adoption of Ripple and XRP, here’s a look at some of the stories breaking in the world of crypto.

Bitcoin

New research shows long-dormant Bitcoin whales are starting to awaken.

An increasing number of Bitcoin addresses that have been inactive from six months to two and a half years are starting to move their BTC, reports the crypto analytics company Flipside Crypto.

According to Bloomberg, those addresses include a lot of Bitcoin whales holding BTC in large amounts.

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“The concentration of ownership is what makes the activity so potentially market moving. Often referred to in the industry as whales, about 1,000 addresses control 85 percent of all Bitcoins, and include many early investors that have remained relatively inactive during the stratospheric price surge and collapse of the past two years. ‘We’ve definitely seen that many long-time holders of Bitcoin are becoming active, said David Balter, chief executive officer of Flipside.'”

In October, 3.8 million Bitcoin addresses were inactive, a number that has now dropped to 2.8 million.

This is the second study on Bitcoin whale activity in the past week. New data from Delphi Digital found that about half of Bitcoin’s supply hasn’t moved in the past year.

Ripple and XRP

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says 2018 marked a year of remarkable growth for the blockchain payments startup – including the adoption of the digital asset XRP by its banking and financial services customers.

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“We also saw a 350% increase last year in customers sending live payments, and we’re beginning to see more customers flip the switch and leverage XRP for on-demand liquidity. At the end of the day, our goal is to make sure our customers can provide excellent, efficient cross-border payments experiences for their customers, wherever they are in the world.”

Meanwhile, the Singapore-based crypto exchange Bitrue says it plans to pair 30 coins with XRP within two to three weeks. The company currently has 26 coins paired with XRP, after adding five more pairs on Thursday.

Ethereum

The latest ConsenSys-sponsored Week in Ethereum blog post is out.

This week’s edition covers a number of updates relevant to the Ethereum community, including the Constantinople upgrade, the Raiden network and MyEtherWallet.

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Litecoin

Litecoin just reached a new milestone.

According to data provided by LitecoinBlockHalf, the 60 millionth LTC has now been mined. That marks more than 70% of Litecoin’s total supply of 84 million coins that will one day be available.

Cardano

The latest episode of The Cardano Effect podcast is out.

This episode features an interview with David Rountree, who handles technical recruiting at IOHK, the creator of Cardano.

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Tron, VeChain, Ontology, Kyber, OmiseGo

According to Binance, a number of high profile leaders in the crypto space will speak at its upcoming crypto conference in Singapore.

Tron founder Justin Sun, VeChain founder Sunny Lu, Ontology founder Jun Li, Kyber founder Loi Luu and OmiseGo product lead Jeremy Lam will all be on deck.

The two-day event starts on January 21st at the Marina Bay Sands hotel.

You can check out the full list of speakers here.

VeChain

VeChain just released their year-end reflection and outlook for 2019.

VeChain is focused on mass adoption, facilitating regulations and deploying its technology for real-world use cases.

“Blockchain applications in real business environments would be the key driving force of regulation and legislation development. And VeChain is contributing to that through our collaboration with national governments across multiple regions.”

VeChain’s 2018 New Business Partnership Highlights

You can check out their full summary here.