Bitcoin in the News : 2020-01 More++

While I was preparing the previous post Bitcoin in the News : 2020-01 Price, I collected links to a number of Cointelegraph articles summarizing key trends in 2019. There were eleven:-

• 2019-12-24: 10 Best Performing Cryptos of 2019 Not Named Bitcoin • 'In January, the total market capitalization of this burgeoning sector was around $130 billion.'
• 2019-12-27: US Bitcoin Derivatives Market, Highlights of 2019
• 2019-12-28: Around the World in 2019 -- A Landmark Year for Crypto Taxation
• 2019-12-29: Five Countries Where Crypto Regulation Changed the Most in 2019
• 2019-12-30: The Biggest Crypto Winners and Losers of 2019
• 2020-01-02: Privacy Coins in 2019: True Financial Freedom or a Criminal's Delight?
• 2020-01-02: 'Cryptocurrency Will Not Die': Mainstream Media on Bitcoin in 2019
• 2020-01-05: Biggest Crypto Price Movements of 2019 • 'Its biggest 24-hour loss constituting a 10% drop on July 11'; see Bitcoin in the News : 2019-07 Price (August 2019).
• 2020-01-05: Most Significant Hacks of 2019 -- New Record of Twelve in One Year
• 2020-01-05: Who Got Gifts from Crypto Santa in 2019… and Who Got Coal
• 2020-01-13: Lawmakers Finally Took Data Privacy Seriously -- 2019 Regulatory Roundup

Looking at other stories from January, the two most interesting were also from Cointelegraph:-

• 2020-01-15: Bitcoin SV Prices Soar After Craig Wright Complies With Court Order • '[Wright] has received the public keys associated an $8.9 billion crypto fortune called the Tulip Trust'
• 2020-01-18: Bitcoin SV Drops 40% as Lawyer Admits Craig Wright Has No Private Keys

My first reaction to this was 'So what?'. Why should having Bitcoin (BTC) keys make Bitcoin SV (BSV) more valuable? Why should not having the BTC keys make BSV less valuable?

The first story ('Prices Soar') ended, 'With the day’s gains approaching 100%, this has some calling Wright’s tactics a straight-up exit scam.' Then it dawned on me: the larger the capitalization for a cryptocurrency, the more interest it will attract. The more interest it attracts, the more money will flow into the coin, thereby driving prices further. This is entirely in line with the assumption that a coin's price is mainly driven by psychological factors.

Other than the steady rise in price, January was a light month for additional bitcoin news. One more story, more forward looking than the others, is worth mentioning:-

• 2020-01-19: 5 Major Bitcoin Trends To Watch In 2020
  - Bitcoin Halving 2020 [May]
  - Bitcoin’s Transition to Digital Gold
  - Schnorr, Taproot, and Tapscript ['all expected to be included in the same soft-forking upgrade of the Bitcoin network']
  - Lightning Network and Liquid Sidechain Adoption
  - Institutional Money

There is some jargon in that last story that should be investigated. I'll do that another time.