The latest version of CoinPlay released by Tron aims to become the number one platform to download applications from the blockchain industry. Tron Foundation sees it as the ‘AppStore of the blockchain industry’.

In March 2019 TRON acquired the blockchain application marketplace CoinPlay, which the company says has seen significant growth in its number of users and listed applications. Coinplay is available worldwide and was created for the purpose of providing up-to-date blockchain applications in one place and ensuring the security and trust of users regarding the source of the downloads. According to the Tron Foundation, CoinPlay is an important addition to boost the development of the crypto industry and the construction of a decentralised Internet.

In the future, CoinPlay is supposed be able to support real-time quotes in multiple currencies and different platforms. CoinPlay is also working on developing high quality content on the crypto industry, so that it becomes a link between the user and other crypto projects of interest.

Tron CEO Justin Sun tweeted: The world’s first blockchain application store with a large number of applications for trading, wallets, market information, media and news, industries, blockchain games as well as DApps.

Now you can send and receive Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) via messaging platform WhatsApp thanks to the Lite.Im bot. The move aims to simplify the cryptocurrency transaction process, bringing virtual currencies closer to people.

In a tweet published by Zulu Republic on Sunday, 19 May, the digital platform announced that its cryptocurrency messaging platform Lite.Im had introduced bitcoin via WhatsApp.

More than 1.5 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family, anytime and anywhere.

All users have to do is add the Lite.Im WhatsApp bot and follow the on-screen prompts. There are numerous options for users apart from sending and receiving BTC and LTC. Presently, the two default languages are English and Spanish.

The service also allows people to earn cryptocurrency via a referral program. The service also supports sending and receiving Ether (ETH) and ZTX—the native token on the Zulu Republic platform.

Lite.Im already has similar services for Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and SMS.

According to the company, “social messaging” is an important component of wider cryptocurrency adoption.

Meanwhile, Facebook has its own cryptocurrency plans, although there is no official word from the company yet.

The new update from Jormungandr has been postponed to the second week of February 2020.

Charles Hoskinson, creator of Cardano, has stated that February will be a crucial month in the development of Cardano, and set the tentative date for activation of Cardano’s Ouroboros Byzantine Fault Tolerance (OBFT) hard fork as 20 February. Hoskinson has reiterated though that it is still a tentative date. Hoskinson said the update looks good in every way, but they are willing to postpone the date if they find a problem or if one of Cardano’s partners requests an extension.

In addition, after the fork, Cardano will launch the Byron reboot with Haskell wallet backend, which Hoskinson termed the most important event since the introduction of Cardano in 2017.

The Shelley mainnet will be released in March or April, but Hoskinson reemphasised that this date depends on the progress of the mentioned updates.

In February, Cardano released two new versions of the Jormungandr node software 0.8.8. and 0.8.9. The first version mainly fixed bootstrapping problems and the second one fixed booting problems on the Cardano network. Hoskinson said that these updates have solved most of the problems reported by users, but that a new update will be needed to solve all issues.

Bitcoin investors are generally thought of as younger people, but the truth is that the average investor is 45 years old, and the average investor interested in bitcoin is 42. There are several other common perceptions about investors in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which a recent Grayscale survey, reveals may be far from reality. Conducted by Q8 Research, this survey asked 1,100 U.S. investors between the ages of 25 and 64 about bitcoin, and found that over one-third of US investors would consider an investment in bitcoin, which roughly translates to 21 million people.

One area that does conform to the common perception is that men are more likely to be interested in bitcoin than women. While the overall investor base surveyed was 49% men and 51% women, men made up 57% of those who said they were interested in bitcoin.

The 1,100 investors surveyed were asked about 28 different financial news outlets in print, online, and TV formats, and all 28 are more likely to be read or watched by investors interested in bitcoin. Around a quarter of bitcoin-interested investors said they read content on The Motley Fool. Among the general investing public, that number is 13%.

Bitcoin is often referred to as “digital gold,” as many people who own bitcoin see it more as a store of value than as a payment mechanism. Grayscale’s survey found that 55% of investors believe gold is a good investment.

When asked about their top concerns, many investors agreed on some factors that may be keeping them out of the cryptocurrency market, around 75% cited digital crime as the reason. The other reasons included lack of regulation in the cryptocurrency market and lack of information.

Those in India will now be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with Fiat currencies

Starting 25 November, people in India will be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies with fiat currencies through the Binance Fiat Gateway. The global cryptocurrency exchange and blockchain ecosystem announced its acquisition of bitcoin exchange WazirX.

In the first quarter of 2020, WazirX’s auto-matching engine will be integrated into the Binance Fiat Gateway platform, allowing users to directly place orders on Binance.com and the Binance iOS or Android app to purchase Tether (USDT) against INR. This integration will allow users to trade any digital asset available on Binance.com with the purchase of USDT from the WazirX digital asset marketplace.

“The acquisition of WazirX is another step forward in achieving the freedom of money,” said CZ (Changpeng Zhao), Binance CEO.

“The next phase of mass adoption for crypto will arise from developing nations around the world,” said Nischal Shetty, WazirX CEO.

The native WazirX token (WRX) is currently available to the community through trade mining and signups and an upcoming token sale is under consideration. About 64,000 users hold WRX.

Binance has also focused on supporting and developing the Indian blockchain system. Earlier this year, the India-based startup Matic Network successfully fundraised via the blockchain on Binance Launchpad and another project, Marlin Protocol, secured a USD$3 million seed round from Binance Labs, the investment arm of Binance.

Binance also licenses its matching engine and wallet technologies to several partner platforms, including Binance Uganda, Binance Jersey, Binance Singapore, and newly launched Binance US, which offer fiat-crypto trading functions across a variety of currency pairs.

The launch of the exchange together with a robust road map for 2019 makes StakeCube one of the most interesting projects to invest in

StakeCube’s much anticipated crypto exchange was launched on 14th May. The launch makes StakeCube the only platform with the first ever integrated pool and an exchange that stakes customer’s digital assets while they trade. Ever since its inception in June 2018, the team has put in considerable efforts to deliver a state-of-the-art staking pool to a 20,000 plus user base.

StakeCube Exchange has listed eight coins including StakeCube’s native SCC. The other prominent projects listed are PIVX, MMO, ESBC, BITG, RDD, NAV and Dash. Bitcoin is the base pair for the listed tokens. There are plans for SCC to be included as a base pair in the coming days or weeks. The new exchange developed by founder Oleg has a clean and user friendly interface, largely embraced by their customers. Currently, developers involved in building the exchange are gathering feedback from its user base on discord to improve the pool and exchange.

One thing that has worked in favour of this growing platform is team work and its positive reputation as a trustworthy network. With 29 coins listed in its pool, StakeCube has outlived some of its peers by delivering on promises as per their road map. The delivery of the exchange was one of the items included in the roadmap for 2019.

Before the exchange was opened, StakeCube also began offering 3.717% annual interest on Bitcoin deposits in customer wallets—a feature that is unique in the exchange space. No other crypto exchange offers interest to its user base for depositing bitcoin. This feature alone should make the exchange an attractive option for investors who are keen on trading with PoS projects.

StakeCube has many upcoming features planned for its community including an academy for Proof of Stake coins. As per the 2019 road map announced on discord, SC will offer coin creation for businesses this year. Many similar projects and staking pools have offered similar services in the past, however, most of them have failed to take off. The difference with StakeCube is it has a team that has been around since June 2018. The team includes Oleg, Tyolus, Chimaera, Mike, Marco, Daryl, Derek, Motor and Titanium (all discord handle names). The team have been largely accountable and available to its 20k plus user base despite a series of setbacks in the beginning.

Hoping to establish the first “marketing oriented” blockchain in the industry, Thrive is set to give global advertising bigwigs like Google AdSense/AdWords a run for their money.

Thrive, a decentralised platform, is attempting penetrate into the global advertising market by creating a network on which advertisers and content creators can seamlessly integrate digital ads on a peer-to-peer manner, without the interference of intermediaries and third party service providers.

Through the usage of blockchain technology, the Thrive team promises full transparency and data security, which are two advantages which centralised platforms like Google AdSense and Amazon Advertising cannot provide. Often, revenue shares, advertisement margins, and rates are not transparently provided to content creators as accessible data, making it difficult for content creators to plan ahead potential revenues and profits to finance their operations and daily activities.

Blockchain technology’s and its cryptographically encrypted network enables every piece of data to be accessed as public information.

This means that for the first time, both publishers and consumers willing to voluntarily share anonymous data will get monetary rewards. With Thrive, content creators will not experience similar issues they have had on platforms like YouTube, wherein content is unfairly demonetised. Recently, demonetisation of content on major platforms resulted in more than 50 per cent of their revenues were eliminated overnight.

Thrive is targeting a rapidly growing market in digital advertising. The total addressable market of Thrive is nearly $310 billion, and if it can establish itself as a key service provider within the market, it will be able to evolve into a leading advertising marketplace.

Digital advertising spending worldwide—which includes both desktop and laptop computers as well as mobile devices was estimated to be 198.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2016. This figure is forecast to constantly increase during the coming years, reaching a total of 310 billion U.S. dollars by 2020.

The token sale or initial coin offering (ICO) of the Thrive token (THRT) begins on 15 February. 53 per cent of the total supply of THRT (106 Million THRT) will be sold during the token sale. Unsold token will be burned. The initial pricing per THRT will be $0.3, and the dynamic hard cap of the token sale will be set at $30 million.