Crypto Roundup: Trading in Bitcoin Futures Reaches All-Time High

In this week's crypto news roundup, we hear about a record day for Bitcoin futures trading while China considers cracking down on mining.

Bitcoin futures trading hits new high

CME Group (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) reported a record trading day for Bitcoin future contracts on April 4, reaching more than 22,500 contracts, equivalent of 112,700 BTC.

To put that into perspective, this new high surpassed the previous high by more than 64,300 BTC, recorded on February 19.

Based on this information it appears the interest in Bitcoin trading continues to increase.

China mulls ban on crypto mining

A state planning agency in China, The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), has put forward the proposition of banning of crypto mining in China.

The NDRC is responsible for a list that contains industries that should be either eliminated, restricted or encouraged.

On Monday April 8 the NDRC came forward with a revised version of this list, including cryptocurrency mining as an industry that should be phased out for a number of reasons, including safety, regulation, pollution and wasting resources.

There's no deadline for the ban of crypto mining yet as nothing is confirmed, but the draft can be reviewed by the public until May 7. Upon finalization of the review, there should be some clarity on what will happen next.

As China has such a strong presence in the crypto mining industry, this ban could have a profound effect on the overall cryptocurrency ecosystem.

Electrum servers reportedly hit

On April 7, the servers of Electrum, a digital wallet that can store Bitcoin and Dash, were hit by a denial of service attack.

Thenextweb reported that the attack was coordinated using a sophisticated botnet, comprising more than 140,000 machines, aiming to direct users to a malicious server that could sync with a user’s wallet, prompting the user to update their client with a malicious version.

Once the malicious version was installed, funds within the old versions of the Electrum wallet were immediately lost.

Losses in the millions of dollars were reported so far.

Stay safe out there.