Huobi Research Weekly（Vol.91）（12.2–12.8）

Abstract

This week, the overall market capitalization for the top 100 cryptocurrencies increased of 1.48%, with 55 projects increased in value to varying degrees. According to coinmarketcap, as of December 8th, 2019, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies was 205.1 billion U.S. dollars, increased by 1.48%, and the total market cap of the top 100 cryptocurrencies was 202.7 billion U.S. dollars, increased by 1.92% from last week. 3 cryptocurrency projects entered the top 100 this week, namely NRG、ENJ and ZIL. As of December 8th, 2019, Bitcoin was traded at 7564.35 USD, 1.96% higher than its price last week. Ethereum was traded at 151.26 USD, 0.13% higher than its price last week. The market segment distribution of the top 100 cryptocurrencies remained stable.

The hashrate of Bitcoin increased and the hashrate of Ethereum decreased by this week. the difficulty of mining Bitcoin decreased and the difficulty of mining Ethereum increased. The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Bitcoin decreased. The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Ethereum decreased this week. The average transaction fees of Bitcoin decreased and the average transaction fees of Ethereum decreased. ZSC was the most active project on GitHub this week.

the average bitcoin Hashrate for the entire network reached 94.23EH/s, increased by 3.41% from the previous week. Average difficulty for mining Bitcoin this week was 12.950T, decreased by 0.15% from last week. The average difficulty of mining Ethereum this week was 2556.643TH, increased by 0.96% from that of previous week.

In network activity, the average size of each block was 0.99MB, decreased 2.94% form last week; there were on average 2117 transactions recorded in each block, decreased by 2.22% from the previous week. the average number of transactions per block in Ethereum this week was 107.9, decreased by 5.60%. The average size of each block was 24823.28 bytes, decreased by 9.83% compared to last week. As of December 8th, 2019, average transaction fees of Bitcoin this week was $0.479, decreased by 36.39% from last week. Average transaction fees of Ethereum this week was $0.0949, decresead by 9.62%.Total number of addresses on the Blockchain and Ethereum network reached 43.97 million and 79.23 million, increased 0.20(0.46%) million and 0.43(0.56%) million respectively. ZSC was the most active project on GitHub this week, with 82 commits submitted in the past week.

In terms of community activity, Tron, Bitcoin and Ethereum are the most popular communities on Facebook. On Twitter, the most popular communities are Bitcoin, Ripple and Tron.

2 investments activities took place in the blockchain industry this week, SOSOLX got Strategic round investment from Hoo Wallet、DU Capital, WazirX got bought by BINANCE.

1. Weekly Market Review

1.1 Market overview

This week, the overall market capitalization for the top 100 cryptocurrencies increased of 1.48%, with 55 projects increased in value to varying degrees. According to coinmarketcap, as of December 8th, 2019, the total market cap of cryptocurrencies was 205.1 billion U.S. dollars, increased by 1.48%, and the total market cap of the top 100 cryptocurrencies was 202.7 billion U.S. dollars, increased by 1.92% from last week, among which, Energi had the largest increased of 68.65%, bringing its market cap ranking from №125 to №88, Single Collateral DAI Shares had the largest decreased of -30.69%, bringing its market cap ranking from №67 to №93. In addition, there were 3 projects that entered TOP100, namely, Energi (NRG, increased 68.65%, Now №88), Enjin Coin (ENJ, increased 49.30%, Now №76), Zilliqa (ZIL, increased 40.39%, Now №87). As of December 8th, 2019, Bitcoin was traded at 7564.35 USD, 1.96% higher than its price last week. Ethereum was traded at 151.26 USD, 0.13% higher than its price last week.

The overall 24h trading volume decreased this week. Overall, the 24h trading volume decreased by 17.54% compared with the same period of last week. In this week, 39 of the top 100 projects increased in 24h trading volume, led by RVN with a weekly increase of 634.26%; there were 58 projects decreased in their 24h trading volume, there were 32 projects that saw over 20% decrease in their 24h trading volume, while 8 projects fell by more than 50%, led by ZRX, with a decreased of 78.09%.

The top 10 cryptocurrencies’ market value increased, the market share distribution remained stable. On NovDecember 8th, 2019, the overall market cap of the top 10 cryptocurrencies was 182.1 billion USD, increased by 2.11% from last week, accounting for 88.81% of the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies, increased by 0.55% from last week. The market value proportion of TOP10 project basically stable. BTC’s dominance was 66.71%, increased by 0.31% from last week.

1.2 Segment Analysis

Among TOP 100 cryptocurrency project segments, the total market cap of Application project and the average market cap of Coin projects got the largest increase. As of December 8th, 2019,the total market cap of coin projects reached 152.5 billion USD, increased by 1.78%. The average market cap of coin projects reached 4.48 billion USD, increased by 7.77%. The total market cap of platform projects reached 25.6 billion USD, increased by 0.86%. The average market cap of platform projects reached 0.75 billion USD, decreased by 2.11%. The total market cap of application class projects reached 20.09 billion USD, increased by 4.72%. The average market cap of application class projects reached 0.718 billion USD, increased by 0.98%. The total market cap of asset-backed token projects reached 4.52 billion USD, increased by 0.26%. The average market cap of asset-backed token projects reached 1.13 billion USD, increased by 0.26%.

The market segment distribution of the top 100 cryptocurrencies remained stable. As of December 8th, 2019, among the top 100 projects, the number of coin class projects decreased 2, application class projects increased 1, platform class projects increased 1 and asset-backed token class remain the same. The largest overall market cap by segment was still coin projects, accounting for 75.24% of the total market cap of top 100 projects.

2. Technical Statistics

2.1 Cryptocurrency Mining Statistics

The hashrate of Bitcoin increased and the hashrate of Ethereum decreased by this week. From December 2nd, 2019 — December 8th, 2019, the average bitcoin Hashrate for the entire network reached 94.23EH/s, increased by 3.41% from the previous week.

Average Hashrate for the entire Ethereum network was 171.85TH/s this week, decreased by 1.17%.

This week, the difficulty of mining Bitcoin decreased and the difficulty of mining Ethereum increased. As of December 8th 2019, average difficulty for mining Bitcoin this week was 12.950T, decreased by 0.15% from last week. The average difficulty of mining Ethereum this week was 2556.643TH, increased by 0.96% from that of previous week.

The number of blocks in Bitcoin increased by 13.23%. Top 5 rankings had changed. The overall distribution of the Ethereum mining pools rankings remain the same, the number of blocks dereased 1.67%. In the past week, Bitcoin mined 1061 blocks, increased 13.23% from the previous week. Among the top five pools were Poolin、F2Pool、BTC.com、AntPool、1THash&58COIN these 5 pools mined 195、161、137、121 and 62 blocks respectively, accounting for 18.38 % 、15.17 %、12.91%、11.40% and 5.84 % of all Bitcoins mined this week. The Hashrate was 17.94EH/s、14.81EH/s、12.61EH/s、11.13EH/s and 5.70EH/s, respectively.

In the past week, Ethereu’s entire network mined 41204 blocks, decreased 1.67% from the previous week. The top five pools were SparkPool, Ethermine, F2pool_2, Nanopool and Zhizhu.top, each mined 13163、8890、4568、3188 and 2286 blocks respectively, accounting for 31.9459%、21.5756%、11.0863%、7.7371% and 5.5480% of all Ethereum mined this week, respectively.

2.2 Activity Statistics

The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Bitcoin decreased. The average number of transactions per block decreased and the average block size of Ethereum decreased this week. According to blockchain.info, from December 2nd, 2019-December 8th, 2019, the average size of each block was 0.99MB, decreased 2.94% form last week; there were on average 2117 transactions recorded in each block, decreased by 2.22% from the previous week.

According to etherscan, the average number of transactions per block in Ethereum this week was 107.9, decreased by 5.60%. The average size of each block was 24823.28 bytes, decreased by 9.83% compared to last week.

Number of unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin decreased by 59.99%. Number of unconfirmed transactions in Ethereum decreased by 18.98% from the previous week. As of December 8th 2019, the number of 7-day average unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin network was 3938, decreased by 59.99% from last week. There were 28794.1 unconfirmed transactions in the Ethereum network, decreased by 18.98% from last week, with the lowest amount of unconfirmed transactions in the week being 14855 and the highest amount being 34877.

Total transaction fees of Bitcoin decreased. Total transaction fees of Ethereum decreased. As of December 8th, 2019, average transaction fees of Bitcoin this week was $0.479, decreased by 36.39% from last week. Average transaction fees of Ethereum this week was $0.0949, decresead by 9.62%.

The average number of distinct miners per day in Ethereum decreased by 2.18% from last week. From December 2nd, 2019-December 8th, 2019, the average number of distinct miners per day in Ethereum this week was 58.3, decreased 2.18% from last week.

The number of nodes in Bitcoin increased and the number of Ethereum increased this week. As of December 8th, 2019, there were 9440 Bitcoin nodes, increased by 0.07% compared to last week, of which 2465 nodes were in the U.S, 1915 nodes were in Germany, and 286 nodes were in China(№8), each accounting for 26.11%, 20.29% and 3.03% of the total number of Bitcoin nodes, respectively.

As of December 8th, 2019, there were 8513 Ethereum nodes, increased by 8.25% from the previous week. Specifically, there were 2236 nodes in the U.S, 1304 nodes in China, and 826 nodes in Germany, each accounting for 26.27%, 15.32%,9.70% of total number of nodes, respectively.

This week, the growth rate for new addresses of Bitcoin and Ethereum both increased. According to the data on blockchain.info, as of December 8th, 2019, the total number of Blockchain accounts reached 43978847, increased by 200617 (0.46%) this week.

According to the data on etherchain, as of December 8th, 2019, the total number of Ethereum addresses was 79237489 increased by 439589 (0.56%) this week.

ZSC was the most active project on GitHub this week. From December 2nd, 2019-December 8th, 2019, ZSC was the active project repository on GitHub with a total of 82 commits.

2.3 Community Activity Statistics

The top three most popular cryptocurrencies on Facebook were Tron, Bitcoin and Ethereum in descending order, with 973k, 510k and 156k fans respectively. The top three most popular cryptocurrencies on Twitter were Bitcoin, Ripple(XRP) and TRON, with 993k, 941k, and 485k followers, respectively.

3. Weekly Blockchain News Review

3.1 Industrial Application

1. Juventus Soccer Club Releases Blockchain Token for Fan Voting

Italian professional soccer club Juventus has released its own token to enable fans to participate in voting and polling.Following a year-long development, Juventus’ branded token is now available on Socios.com, a tokenized fan-voting platform for sports, according to a Dec. 2 announcement. The token’s initial price is 2 euros ($2.22) per token, while a limited amount of free tokens will be available through the augmented reality feature of the Socios.com app, “Token Hunt.”Fans who hold the token will be able to vote in a range of club-related decisions, the first of which will determine the club’s song for when it scores a goal.Initially, the club planned to release the token in the first quarter of 2019. The decision to develop a branded token followed a similar initiative by Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). PSG’s partnership with Socios.com also allows fans to vote and also confers VIP status and/or rewards to holders.Sport teams around the world have actively embraced branded tokens to improve interaction with their fans. In mid-October, the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team partnered with CryptoKaiju to launch crypto-collectibles backed by non-fungible tokens.

2. SoftBank Releases Debit Cards With Built-In Blockchain Wallet

Japanese holding company SoftBank has introduced a new debit card featuring a built-in cryptocurrency wallet.According to a press release on Dec. 1, SoftBank developed a debit card featuring a built-in blockchain wallet in collaboration with United States-based wallet card developer Dynamics. The new product is called SBC Wallet Cards and can be used as a traditional debit card or blockchain wallet. Consumers can use the integrated blockchain wallet as both cold and hot digital currency storage and check balance-related information in real-time. Currently, the card is available exclusively in Japan, however, SoftBank plans to roll out the product in Southeast Asia, South Korea, the United States and Dubai in the future. In recent months, SoftBank has actively participated in blockchain-related projects, including a number of investments. In November, SoftBank and other industry players participated in a series B financing round of Lagos-headquartered fintech Opay, which raised $120 million. SoftBank-backed Chinese fintech firm OneConnect filed for an initial public offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company seeks to raise $100 million, eyeing a listing on the Nasdaq Global Market or New York Stock Exchange, if approved.

3. Russian Smelting Giant Begins Testing Digital Trading Platform

Russian mining and smelting giant Nornickel has commenced testing its digital platform for metals trading.As Bloomberg reported on Dec. 5, Nornickel began trialing its platform for digital metal tokens in collaboration with physical commodities trading group Trafigura Group Ltd., metals finance and logistics firm Traxys SA and materials technology and recycling group Umicore SA. Specifically, the platform is designed to enable clients to purchase digital tokens backed by metals and then trade them for physical supplies. Commenting on the product rollout, Nornickel CEO Vladimir Potanin said that the company is “imply packing existing business links into a new and modern form.” Nornickel purportedly intends to raise the share its metals sales conducted using tokens to 20% within the next several years.Nornickel’s digital platform rollout seems to have progressed according to schedule. Vice-president of Nornickel Andrey Bugrov previously said that the company expected to bring the product to the market by the end of 2019, as well as begin trading the tokens.

3.2 International Policies

1. British Virgin Islands Announce US Dollar-Backed Digital Currency

Blockchain startup LifeLabs announced that it is developing a digital currency dubbed BVI~LIFE in partnership with the British Virgin Islands (BVI).According to a press release on Dec. 3, the currency is part of a broader initiative to grow the local fintech sector and will be presented during the BVI Digital Economy symposium. The coin will be a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar — which the BVI have used since 1959 — and its use is expected to reduce transactional fees, increase transaction speed and be accessible to outsiders such as tourists. LifeLabs is also developing Rapid Cash Response, a fund meant to provide aid in case of a national emergency. The local government already announced this initiative in April. BVI Premier Andrew Fahie said:“The importance of blockchain technology and the significant benefits it offers the BVI, are paramount to the Territory. We welcome this innovation with open arms.

2.Singaporean Gov’t Blockchain Platform Facilitates $15.7 Million in Fundraising

The Singaporean government-backed blockchain platform Tribe has helped raise another $15.7 million for participating companies through its ecosystem.In a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Dec. 2, Tribe Accelerator revealed that a total of $28 million had been raised to date to support start-ups from around the world attempting to solve real-world problems with blockchain technology. The first group of startups reportedly raised over $12.2 million within three months. On Nov. 21, Tezos’s non-profit arm Tezos Southeast Asia (TSA) announced its collaboration with Tribe to jointly launch a training program for developers on the Tezos blockchain. Tezos also hopes to attract more developers to create Tezos blockchain-based solutions for real-world applications.

3. South African Central Bank to Reportedly Introduce New Crypto Regulations

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) — the country’s central bank — is purportedly going to impose new regulations for the use of digital currencies in a bid to deter users from evading currency controls.As local business-focused publication Business Report reported on Dec. 2, SARB’s deputy governor, Kuben Naidoo, said that the new rules will be implemented in the first quarter of 2020, following a five-year-long series of consultations on the matter. Cryptocurrencies have proved to be popular in South Africa, with 10.7% of the country’s residents owning crypto, which is the highest of any country surveyed. The South African rand’s volatility, which is one of the world’s most volatile currencies, prompted consumers to seek protection for their money. Cross-border payments are a contributing factor of crypto popularity in the country, especially given how remittances are often sent from countries like South Africa to 15 other countries on the continent in what is known as the Southern African Development Community.In August, major South African crypto exchange Luno saw an average daily trading volume exceeding 80 million South African rand ($5.4 million). Luno saw a significant surge of new customers, reaching a milestone of three million wallets across 40 countries on its platform.

3.3 Technological Breakthrough

1. South Korean Startup Claims to Have Solved Blockchain’s Speed Problem

The South Korean-based firm Bloom Technology announced that they have created a new technology that is able to speed up transactions on the blockchain.On Dec. 3, United Press International reported that Bloom Technology’s CEO, Lee Sang-yoon, said that the company’s Locus Chain technology has been able to reduce blockchain transaction processing times to fractions of a second. The company reportedly conducted a public test with 635 participating nodes to reveal the transaction speed of the Locus Chain technology. The results showed that a single blockchain transaction took between 0.13–0.23 seconds. Korea Blockchain Association Vice Chairman Moon Young-bae commented on the tests:”Locus Chain is still under development to become a complete version. But I believe that the technology is already commercially viable […] I think it is a real deal.”Lee further hinted at the importance of faster blockchain transactions by pointing out that transactions at present often take “more than 10 minutes for cryptocurrencies and even longer than an hour for Bitcoin.”

4.Weekly Investment Activities

2 investments activities took place in the blockchain industry this week, SOSOLX got Strategic round investment from Hoo Wallet、DU Capital, WazirX got bought by BINANCE.

Huobi Research

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Huobi Research was founded in April 2016 and started research and explorations in various aspects in Blockchain area since March 2018. We cover various fields such as Blockchain technology research, industry analysis, application innovation and economic model explorations. We aim to establish a research platform and to offer theoretical foundations as well as judgements of trends in Blockchain to the public, ultimately promoting the development of the Blockchain industry.

Huobi Research Weekly aims to provide participators of the cryptocurrency market with the most up-to-date and comprehensive database to help them facilitate decision-making process.

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