Undoubtedly, this was the most expected crypto event 2020. It happened on May 11, when 630,000th block was mined. Halving is a process that reduces the reward that miners get. Expectations were mostly connected with the Bitcoin price prediction. Previous Bitcoin halvings surprised the community with the increase of the BTC price. In a month after halving the Bitcoin price was fixed in a corridor between $8,000 and $10,000.

Cryptocurrency regulations

The beginning of 2020 brought some changes in the area of cryptocurrency regulations around the world:

Crypto in IndiaIn 2018 the central bank of India (RBI) issued a decision to ban cryptocurrency. It had several consequences, such as discussions about a prison sentence for crypto holding and the necessity for crypto firms to stop their work in India. However, in March 2020, the Supreme Court denied the decision of the RBI.
Ethereum got a status of the legal property in ChinaThe Shenzhen Futian District People’s Court (Guangdong province) declared ETH to be a legal property. Now ETH is considered to have an economic value and is protected by the law. The current situation of crypto in China means that it is legal to hold crypto, but illegal to use it as a payment method.
Russian legislation projectRussia has started to discuss the cryptocurrency prohibition policy. Possible punishment for illegal cryptocurrency turnover may be imprisonment or a fine of 2,000,000 RUB (about $28,000). Representatives of the crypto business in Russia consider this decision to be damaging to the Russian economy.
Cryptocurrency firms in Canada received a new statusStarting with June 1, 2020 crypto exchange services and payment processes have got the legal status in Canada, a Money Service Businesses status. They received an opportunity to conduct their work legally in conjunction with a number of restrictions. Now they have to provide a record about all the transactions that exceed 10,000 Canadian dollars, and register with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada is required.

Innovations

2020 brought a number of innovations too:

Ethereum 2.0In 2020 Ethereum is about to have an upgrade. The launch is going to take place in July. Here are the changes that will happen: Ethereum 2.0 will be an independent PoS network, it will have a central blockchain and 64 sidechains, one node will process transactions for a particular shard, and not to the whole network. The testnet for the project is called Topaz Testnet. In April 2020 its version reached 20,000 validators.
SteemitSteemit, a famous blogging platform that provided bloggers with an opportunity to get a reward for their texts, was bought by Justin Sun. However, the Steemit community was not very happy with this change. Sun voted out the leadership of the platform. As a result, a hard fork was planned, and a copy of the blockchain was created.
New Visa crypto cardEidoo, a Swiss company that provides innovations for the Crypto World, together with Visa is preparing to launch a new Visa crypto debit card. This card will make a crypto-fiat convert, using regulated stablecoins. Unlike existing crypto-fiat cards, this one is promised to have better decentralization. Now Eidoo cards are available for preorder.

Financial crisis

The financial crisis showed that people see cryptocurrency, and Bitcoin in particular, as an opportunity to protect their savings.

Increase of demand for Bitcoin in ArgentinaThe financial crisis within the country influenced the demand for Bitcoin in Argentina. Arcane Research shared data that showed that the demand for crypto was increasing since 2018. Since January 2018 the volume of the Argentine peso in LocalBitcoins rose 1028%. This coincided with the threat of default.

Taking into consideration all the events of the first half of the year, crypto 2020 seems to be very promising. We can now witness how the digital world is changing, and we are going to help you to stay tuned with crypto events.

Do you remember what crypto news hit you the most this year?

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