The cryptocurrency market never closes, and the industry itself is growing faster than ever. This means there’s more breaking news, and more vital information emerging than ever before. This Week in Crypto is Covesting’s weekly news recap aimed at providing the most complete coverage across the cryptosphere.

Novogratz Expects New All-Time High for Bitcoin in 2019

Galaxy Digital founder and prominent cryptocurrency investor Mike Novogratz, is expecting Bitcoin to reach a new all-time high in 2019, after breaking key resistance at $10,000 “by the end of the first quarter.”

Novogratz says that there’s going to be a case of institutional FOMO [fear of missing out], just like there was in retail,” that should help the leading cryptocurrency by market cap “go back to new highs — to $20,000 or more.”

Bitmain Reveals New Bitcoin ASIC Miners

Chinese crypto mining hardware manufacturing giant Bitmain, has launched two new models of its popular Antminer Bitcoin miners: Antminer S15 and Antminer T15. The two new miners use the newly revealed 7nm ASIC chip.

The 7nm ASIC chip was first revealed back in September by the company’s CEO Jihan Wu. Not much is known about the new miners, however, a tweet revealed that the miners "possess industry-leading hash rates designed to mine with the SHA256 algorithm,” and should outperform previous models.

Square Cash App Bitcoin Revenue Grows to $6M in Q3 2018

Payments app provider Square, known for their Cash app for Android and iOS devices, has revealed its Q3 2018 earnings report, and have revealed that its revenue stream related to Bitcoin has grown in Q3. The company reported quarter-over-quarter growth of $6 million in revenue, with over $500,000 in profit.

The revenue generated from its Bitcoin offering remain a flash in the pan compared to its overall $431 million in adjusted quarterly revenue generated, however, the company CEO, Jack Dorsey, maintains his belief that Bitcoin will eventually become the global currency for the internet.

Hackers Hijack Analytics Tool StatCounter, Load Sites With Malware

Popular website traffic analytics platform StatCounter, which services over 2 million websites, was hacked by cyber criminals. A line of malicious code was added by hackers to a script that StatCounter requires websites add in order to give accurate reporting on key website traffic metrics.

Security researchers, however, say that most users and websites are safe, except for cryptocurrency exchange Gate.io. According to researchers, the malware specifically targeted a URL associated with Gate.io’s dashboard for making Bitcoin transfers. Once a user went to send their Bitcoin, upon hitting the submit button, the malware switches out the receiving address with one owned by the hackers.

Indian Teen Threatens to Blow Up Miami Airport over Stolen Bitcoin

A teen from the Uttar Pradesh region of Northern India has been arrested by anti-terrorism agents after the youth reportedly threatened to blow up Miami International Airport, after becoming frustrated that the FBI refused to help him track down his stolen Bitcoin.

According to the report, the teen borrowed money from his father, which he invested in Bitcoin. After making a small fortune, the teen’s greed found him lured by a scammer, who made off with this Bitcoin holdings. The teen called the FBI over 50 times, but received no support. He then threatened to “bring AK-47s, grenades and suicide belts and blow up the airport.”

Salesforce Wins Blockchain-based Anti-Spam Patent

Customer-relationship management software provider Salesforce has won the rights to a patent that uses blockchain to stop unwanted email spam. The new platform would utilize a unique matching system to determine if an email is being sent legitimately.

The patent also provides additional use cases, such as verifying the authenticity of court documents, medical records, property deeds, and much more.

Coinbase Offers Egg-Freezing for Employee Retention

Most companies offer a set of employment benefits to give their customers a better quality of life and as a way to retain employees. But only a few offer egg-freezing through fertility clinics. In fact, only the likes of Apple, Google, and Facebook offer such a benefit, however, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has added the $5,000 per year benefit for their employees.

Due to the shortage of experienced blockchain developers and cryptocurrency executives across the industry, the job market is rather aggressive, and many executives are often poached from competing brands. Coinbase, valuing its employees, has offered the new benefit as a way to keep employees happy and working hard for their company for years to come.