October 2018 was the 120th month of Bitcoin’s existence – that’s ten years – and besides important anniversaries, there was plenty going on in the world of Bitcoin.
On the market side of things, bitcoin and the rest of the cryptoasset industry were quite placid. October saw record lows in price movement/volatility for the year – and even beyond – in terms of bitcoin price action, and highs for dormant bitcoin wallets.
In somewhat the same vein, Chainanalysis found that the “role of whales in the Bitcoin market may be overstated,” and that what few real “whales” that exist are mostly supporting Bitcoin’s price – buying not selling.
Bitcoin’s Tech Grew
For what bitcoin transactions remained, however, the use of SegWit reached all time highs of over 50% – which might leave AntPool, hardware miner manufacturer Bitmain’s proprietary mining pool, out in the cold for (politically) passing on mining SegWit transactions.
SegWit is also a prerequisite for using the experimental Bitcoin Lightning Network – an off-chain payments network running atop Bitcoin – which is now running on more than 12,000 open channels. The mobile version of Lightning, Neutrino, is also showing big strides with a running alpha version released this month.
Bitcoin’s core software also got some upgrades, with the new version 0.17 allowing incremental increases in privacy through address-masking, as well as ease-of-use improvements.
Bitcoin Throughout the World
In China, the status of bitcoin and cryptocurrency was further clarified, following a ruling of the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration which ruled that virtual assets are protected under law as general property, even if some monetary capacities are not recognized.
Someone gave Janet Yellen, former U.S. Federal Reserve chair, some bitcoin after she said she was “not a fan” of the seminal cryptocurrency. She apparently responded (apocryphal) maybe “to know it” will be “to love it.”
There was plenty to love for someone, who sent $194 million worth of bitcoin this month for the equivalent of only a $0.1 fee, instead of the thousands it would have cost through the legacy system. Admittedly, fees have been much higher in the past during periods of high network congestion.
While BTC’s price is still flirting with the $6,300 – $6,400 marks, the number of crypto ATMs in the world has surged past 3,900. Finally, arguably the best thing to happen in Bitcoin this month was eToro’s (not) investment advice: HODL.
