The News

• Monex, Japan’s 3rd largest brokerage firm have purchase the cryptocurrency exchange, Coincheck for $34M. Coincheck was hacked in January and $530M was stolen. reuters
• Coinbase, the big American cryptocurrency trading application have announced a VC fund to support startups in the crypto space. techcrunch
• The head of macro investing at the Soros family office indicated they are planning on trading cryptocurrencies. bloomberg
• The Reserve Bank of India have banned banks and financial institutions from working with cryptocurrency exchanges. rbi

Capital

• BitPay, the payments startup that allows merchants to accept bitcoin and bitcoin cash raised $40M in a series B round. recode
• Chainalysis, the crypto data intelligence company raised $16M in a series A round. techcrunch

Adoption

• Five American leading healthcare insurance companies have announced a blockchain pilot to investigate how data can be shared over the blockchain. unitedhealthgroup
• The Mexican government is testing tracking public contract bids over the blockchain to eliminate corruption. coindesk
• The Central Bank of Russia announced they are looking at using a blockchain software built on the ethereum blockchain to transmit payments and financial messages in the Eurasian Economic Union. tass

Market:

• In cryptocurrency terms it was a quiet week for the market with the overall cap hovering between $245B and $280B. The market rallied on Tuesday, but it wasn’t supported and it ended the week 3% down overall. Bitcoin was down 2% for the week finishing at $6,620 USD. Ethereum was also down 2% finishing the week at $367 USD.