The State of the Market: The crypto charts are a sea of green today, as the total market capitalization is fast on its way to $300 billion and has already recorded it’s highest level over the past 30 days. The rising swell of crypto prices has been led largely by Bitcoin (BTC) which sped fast $8,000 and is currently trading at around $8,200 for a 6% gain on the day. Ethereum (ETH) has also had a day in the green, with an increase of just under 5% over the last 24 hours.

1) According to a public document published today, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed making a decision on approval (or disapproval) of five Bitcoin ETFs until September 2018. Direxion initially filed the proposal to offer five Bitcoin-related ETFs in January. The SEC has decided to designate itself a more extended period to make a decision, and the final decision is now planned for September 21, 2018. Out of the five ETFs, only one will match Bitcoin’s price, and the remaining are based on Bitcoin’s price movements (read more).

2) BlockFi, a firm specializing in crypto-based lending, reportedly raised $52.5 million in a fundraising round led by Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital. BlockFi provides loans for individuals and companies using bitcoin or ether holdings as collateral, and its service is currently available in 35 states. The new funds will likely be used to expand BlockFi’s operations to additional states and bring in new hires. Following the round, BlockFi has become the industry’s first institutional investment in crypto-backed loans (read more).

3) The KT Corporation, South Korea’s largest telephone company, recently unveiled its own blockchain-powered commercial network. According to local news outlets, the state-owned firm has designed a blockchain layer on top of its existing nationwide network in order to increase security and transparency. Following the announcement head of KT Blockchain Center Seo Young-il remarked that “the whole point of applying blockchain to networks is to address security and transaction issues by making the current networks more secure and trusted.” The new network has a claimed capacity of 2,500 transactions per second — much greater than Ethereum’s (ETH) 15 or Bitcoin’s (BTC) 3 (read more).

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