Current Bitcoin Price: $6561 (as of 8:00 AM PST)

On Monday there was talk that Bitcoin had broken above the major resistance lines in a year-long price wedge, which led some investors to expect a major rally. However, the currency has hardly budged over the last few days — maybe those lines were a little skewed!

Instead, most cryptocurrencies have proceeded to shed between one and three percent of their value since Monday’s lovely green candle. The only exceptions are smaller coins, from the 20th ranking onwards — like Maker (down 10%) and Aeternity (up 17%).

Top Bitcoin & Crypto News Stories for 10th October 2018

Study: China controls over 74% of Bitcoin

One of the main concerns with Proof-of-Work cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin is that any dominant mining pools can effectively take control over the entire network, and change or reverse transactions to meet their desires. This is own as a 51% attack, in reference to the 51% of total computing power needed to overthrow the network.

A new study has shown that Chinese mining pools control over 74% of Bitcoin’s computing power. Interestingly, 80% of the total power is held by just 6 mining pools, 5 of which are Chinese and make up the 74% figure.

Banco Santander to use Ripple product

As a centralized company, much of what Ripple does goes against the spirit of autonomous cryptocurrencies. However, the benefits include a much higher likelihood of seeing real-world use, as they’ve demonstrated…

In this case, the famous Spanish bank “Banco Santander” has announced that it will be integrating Ripple’s xCurrent technology into its OnePay FX payment solution. Critics are still unsure how much this ties in with the XRP currency.

Google mentions cryptocurrency in ad

In terms of more trivial news, web giant Google has mentioned cryptocurrencies in a recent ad of theirs. Somewhat disappointingly, one of the actors refers to the digital assets as “money that’s not real.”