After another successful week, the cryptocurrency market is bursting with good news. Bitcoin this week has been quite volatile with almost hourly fluctuations in price. But the cryptocurrency has managed to hold its water at $6,488 USD. The altcoins are doing quite well too, with all the top ten cryptocurrencies, by market capitalisation, making green gains over the past week.

Last week has been particularly advantageous to the blockchain startup ecosystem because many big names have come out with launch dates and interesting announcements that is setting the cryptocurrency market up for some more gains over the week.

Bakkt Sets a Launch Date The Intercontinental Exchange’s exchange for digital assets, Bakkt has finally announced a launch date. The exchange is said to be launched and open for business as soon as 12th of December 2018. The exchange aims to be an open and regulated global ecosystem for digital assets. Intercontinental Exchange is the owner of the New York Stock Exchange and runs many other global stock market exchanges. This is the first time, however, that the ICE has dipped its toes in the cryptocurrency market. The platform they are building is essentially an institutionally backed cryptocurrency exchange to promote and allure institutional investors. Must Read Bakkt : What is it all about?

Vertex Invests in Binance The Singapore Government owned venture capitalist firm; Vertex Venture has announced that they have invested in the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the market; Binance. The exact amount of this investment has not been disclosed, however, money has already exchanged hands. The investment from Vertex Venture is to help Binance and Singapore set up an exchange in the country. The exchange that Binance will aid Singapore in building is said to be offering crypto-fiat pairs and other crypto services to Singapore and other south-east Asian countries.

China Ruled BTC is Property Despite the Bank of China banning the cryptocurrency market in the country, a court in China ruled over the last week, that China should consider Bitcoin as property and it be extended the same rules, regulations and protection for the same. This ruling came as a result of an arbitration between two parties involving cryptocurrencies to the tune of $500,000. The ruling was announced at The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration in a case involving two parties. The plaintiff had supposedly signed a contract with the defendant to make investments on his behalf. Having failed to do so, the defendant did not hand over control of the assets either, the plaintiff is suing the defendant to return the assets with interest. In this matter, the court released a ruling in which it stated that Bitcoin should be given the status of property.

Bitfury IPO? A leading mining and blockchain software firm, Bitfury is rumoured to be in talks with leading investment banks in Hong Kong and Europe. It is rumoured that the company is considering an IPO sometime next year for their company. The company is also supposedly considering alternative options like debt financing and selling stake. If the company does go through with this the valuation is said to be between $3 to $5 million. The IPO is said to happen as early as the beginning of next year and is projected to be the first cryptocurrency IPO in Europe.

Coinbase Custody is Open For Business Last week Coinbase Custody took its first deposit and is now open for business. It is a digital assets platform that is making it easier for all eligible financial institutions and hedge funds to invest in the cryptocurrency market. Coinbase Custody is a platform that offers cryptocurrency custody services and is, for now, opening shop only to the US and parts of Europe but in its official announcement expressed an aim to branch out to Asia as well.

Coinbase Now Trade USDC Coinbase Pro has listed the USDC stablecoin on their exchange platform. The USDC is a stablecoin that traders and users convert USD to because the ratio is 1:1 and then convert them at a later time to trade against or for Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.

The Elon Musk Bitcoin Tweet Twitter locked entrepreneur Elon Musk out of his own Twitter account after a tweet about Bitcoin. Elon Musk posted an anime character and asked his followers whether they want to buy Bitcoin. In the past, many hackers have cloned Elon Musk’s accounts to elicit money. The same has happened to many other famous personalities like Katy Perry and Donald J Trump. Due to this, as Twitter was verifying the origins of the tweet, they locked Elon Musk out of his own Twitter account.