Current Bitcoin Price: $8086 (as of 8:10 AM PST)

The last 24 hours have shown a steady downtrend of between 3 and 8% in most coins. One token that’s performed extremely well despite this is the Binance Coin (#18), which is up almost 17% after riding a recent spike. Bitcoin Cash (#4), on the other hand, is down by almost 10%.

News-wise, the cryptocurrency world has been relatively quiet. Here are today’s top stories.

Top Bitcoin & Crypto News Stories for 18th May 2018

JPMorgan starts work on its crypto strategy

A year ago, trading cryptocurrencies would get you fired from JPMorgan Chase, the US’s leading bank. What a turn of events, as it’s recently been announced that JPMorgan’s Corporate & Investment Bank will begin work on its own crypto strategy.

The strategy architect is 29 year old Oliver Harris, formerly in charge of the in-house Fintech initiative, and he’ll look into how JPMorgan can make the most of cryptocurrency and the blockchain.

New decentralized exchange DEx.top is launched

The exchanges we are familiar with are all centralized, which is to say that they’re managed by a single, central entity. Examples include Coinbase, Cex.io, and Poloniex.

Seeing as decentralization is a big positive of blockchain technology, it’s delightful to hear that a decentralized exchange, where all transactions take place on-chain with smart-contracts, has been launched.

The exchange, DEx.top, boasts low transaction fees and was incubated by ASIC-designer Bitmain.

The promise of supply chain coins

Currency coins are great, but there is so much more to blockchain technology. Today it’s supply chain coins that take the spotlight.

Supply chain coins can be used to track — as the name suggests — supply chains, which often get messy and inaccurate with traditional tracing methods.

Supply chain coins, like VeChain, Walton Chain, and Modum, are developing proprietary sensors and chips to take an IoT-approach to putting supply chains on the blockchain.