Market Analysis Report 21 July 2017

 Segwit2X: BIP 91 has officially locked in 

The controversial Segwit2X (BIP 91) has now locked in and will be activated in roughly 50 hours. Segwit2X aims to activate both the Segregated Witness update and a 2MB block size limit hard fork months later. The successful implementation of these two stages will see the Bitcoin block size and, consequently, its transaction throughput increased by fourfold.  The Segwit2X voting stage was pushed forward as an emergency measure, one that ensured the BIP 148 UASF did not take place. In the hours leading up to the activation of Segwit, the price of Bitcoin rose sharply, reaching the $2900 mark. However, the price declined moments prior to the Segwit confirmation, currently sitting at $2740. During the past 24h, more than $964M were exchanged in the BTC/USD market. 

 Parity Wallet Hacker Cashes out $90,000 in Stolen Ether

Roughly $90,000 worth of Ether, stolen on July 19 due to a security bug in multi-signature wallet software offered by Parity Technologies, have been cashed out. Yesterday 70,000 ethers have exited the hacker's address in seven consecutive transactions, each worth 10,000 Ethers. In the first transaction, the hacker cashed out 400 ethers via a cryptocurrency exchange service Changelly at a $220 exchange rate.

Changelly subsequently said in a Reddit thread that it has blacklisted the hacker's root address, but that the amount that has already been exchanged is permanently gone.

Slush: Bitcoin Scaling Proposal BIP91 is “Too Rushed”

Slush, the CEO of Satoshi Labs, the company behind the Trezor Wallet and other efforts in the cryptocurrency space, also the founder of one of the first Bitcoin mining pools, stirred up a bit of a discussion on Twitter recently when he said that he believed scaling changes are being rushed. Although the pool signaled for Segwit during the course of yesterday, Slush stated:

"BIP91 is too rushed. Serious stability fixes at last moment. We're doing our best to deploy on time & responsibly to not endanger network."

Cosmetics Giant Lush Accepts Bitcoin

Anti-animal cruelty and vegan cosmetic and skincare giant Lush has announced that it will be accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment. The idea is to allow for more global payment to be made on their UK online store through the use of this Bitcoin's global network. Because Bitcoin is not tied to any other fiat currency, it is unaffected by the global foreign exchange fluctuations, meaning that customers from all over the world all pay the same for a product. Finance Manager Mike West explains:

“Accepting Bitcoin is very exciting for Lush. With Bitcoin, customers from all around the world will pay the same for our products, free from volatile currency fluctuations and lofty bank charges. Cryptocurrencies are the future of global trade and we want to ensure that we are prepared to move into this new digital era.”

Article Source: Cryptocompare