Current Bitcoin Price: $6581 (as of 8:00 AM PST)

The cryptocurrency market had continued to rise over the last 24 hours — that is, up until earlier today, when we saw a two to four percent reduction in value across most major coins.

NEO (#11) is the only major player resisting this change; it’s currently up by over 7% despite the hit. The news isn’t so great for Tezos (XTZ, #19), which is down close to 17%, or even VeChain (VEN, #18), which is down 6%.

Top Bitcoin & Crypto News Stories for 5th July 2018

Malta passes blockchain bills

In a recent newsletter we covered Malta’s parliamentary plans to introduce dedicated blockchain laws. That was among news of spurs of exchanges — from OKex to Binance — looking to open up offices in the island-nation.

Yesterday, Malta passed their blockchain bills, which means individuals and groups in the country now have a full legal framework on which to base their blockchain and cryptocurrency endeavours.

Waltonchain introduces garment authenticity system

Waltonchain (WTC, #55) was designed as a supply chain token, which means it can be used equally in industry and everyday life to track various goods.

This principle is being put to work now, with Waltonchain’s new garment authenticity system. It’s the world’s first blockchain solution to tracking the legitimacy of high-end clothing goods.

Binance prepares for upcoming coin burn

Binance is one of the cryptocurrency space’s favorite coin-coin exchanges. Their dedicated token, Binance Coin (BNB, #17) finds its purpose in paying for trading fees on the exchange, and has been performing incredibly well of late.

As detailed in the Binance Coin whitepaper, every quarter, Binance will use “20% of our profits to buy back BNB and destroy them” — a process which is known as “burning”. This is scheduled to take place for Q2 2018 in just under two weeks time.