The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will prioritize the examination of the cryptocurrency industry throughout 2020. 

Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing more computational power invested in coin generation than ever before.

As of Jan. 6, Bitcoin’s mining network has reached a hashrate of 120 exahashes per day. This number has been growing steadily over the past decade, but it has grown significantly in recent months. In the last year alone, the network has tripled.

In a January 7, 2020, report from Coinmetrics, analyst Antoine Le Calvez revealed several supply and distribution failures within the Stellar Lumens network. Specifically, who really profited from the monetary inflation process?

DeFi made its claim to fame with lending protocols that offer attractive yields. As these rates normalize, new age financial products could propel the space to greater heights. 

In the first six months of 2019, Bitcoin spiked from a biennial low of $3,200 to a range high of $13,900. 

Quantum computing could allow banks to more accurately quantify their risk, opening additional opportunities to invest in Bitcoin.

Some of the biggest names in banking have confirmed they’re targeting research investment into the nascent field of quantum finance. The move comes after Google confirmed last year that it had achieved “quantum supremacy” with its Sycamore processor. While quantum finance as a practice is likely to be some years away, its effects could be significant across the entire financial sector.

Data shows people are buying and holding Bitcoin in ever larger numbers, suggesting that hodl culture prevails.

Bitcoin has its detractors in terms of its scaleability as a currency that can be used in daily transactions. The average block time for Bitcoin transactions over 2019 was just under 10 minutes, meaning that a transaction would take 20 minutes to over an hour to confirm. Most cryptocurrencies transact a lot faster.

The community remains at odds over whether the upcoming block reward halving for Bitcoin will have a meaningful impact, or if it’s already priced in. 

XRP surged over 15 percent in the last 36 hours following a significant consolidation phase that began in mid-December 2019. Now, this cryptocurrency could be signaling a retracement before the continuation of an uptrend. 

Since Dec. 17, 2019, XRP was contained within a narrow trading range. This cryptocurrency spent 20 days trading between $0.184 and $0.197. The inability to determine the trend’s direction made this range a reasonable no-trade zone. 

Justin Sun, the founder and CEO of TRON, has announced that a TRON-based privacy coin is one step closer to reality. TRON initially announced plans for private transactions in January 2019. Since then, TRON added the feature to its testnet in July and opened it to beta testers in December.

This week, Sun hinted at the project’s final stretch:

As central bankers around the world get set for a prolonged period of monetary debasement, the 99% could look to Bitcoin for protection.