Cryptocurrency Market Review 16.03.2018

American Express looks to blockchain for faster transactions. The travel arm of credit card company American Express – the American Express Travel Related Services Company - is studying the using of blockchain to increase the speed of transactions, according to a patent application released by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. As described, the request for payment would be sent to the system based on blockchain, which would either be approved or rejected based on various factors, including risk analysis.

Lightning Labs’ beta goes live on Bitcoin mainnet. Lightning Labs has announced the beta release of their highly-anticipated Lightning Network Daemon (LND), a developer-friendly software client used to access Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. The San Francisco-based Bitcoin startup said in a blog post that the release is intended for developers of future Lightning applications (Lapps) along with technical users and prospective routing node operators.

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel betting on Bitcoin. Facebook investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel is betting on Bitcoin because it's "the biggest" of the cryptocurrencies." He explained that Bitcoin has a great chance of becoming a safe haven for investors similar to gold for the digital age. The PayPal co-founder backed the idea of Bitcoin becoming a store of value instead of a go-to currency for daily transactions.

Fundstrat: Bitcoin mining no longer profitable. Bitcoin has dropped to a point where it's not that profitable to produce, Fundstrat's Thomas Lee said in a report Thursday. According to the analyst, Bitcoin now trades essentially at the break-even cost of mining a Bitcoin, currently at $8,038 based on a mining model developed by Fundstrat, which incorporates three factors: the cost of equipment, electricity and other overhead such as maintaining cooling facilities.

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