There’s never a dull moment in the Coin Rivet newsroom.

Even when the markets are as flat as a single sheet of paper with the word “FLAT” scribbled across it, we still somehow manage to produce exciting stories and break them across the world.

Our journalists bring a vibrancy and energy to our newsroom whatever the day or whatever we’re covering, and it’s a real pleasure to work alongside them as they busily deliver exclusive after exclusive.

Those markets haven’t shifted since winter, but the stories have been coming thick and fast – all delivered with remarkable enthusiasm.

So imagine how it was in our newsroom this week when, from absolutely nowhere, the markets suddenly began to make some dramatic movements? Admittedly, they were, without question, in very much the wrong direction. But it was welcome movement nonetheless.

Couple that with Thursday’s Bitcoin Cash fork – which we are still breaking stories on almost 24 hours later (that’s definitely ‘later’, by the way – we don’t do ‘late’) – and you can probably begin to grasp the definition of ‘a buzzing newsroom’.

Bitcoin Cash fork

Obviously, I can’t allow the Editorial Pick for the week to begin without a bow to the efforts of our team on the Bitcoin Cash fork – particularly Nawaz Sulemanji. His tireless work on this subject – something he is clearly an expert on – delivered some brilliant exclusives.

Each time we unleashed a breaking story on Thursday night/Friday morning I just watched the Coin Rivet analytics page rocket. When we broke the news that the fork had happened, I genuinely thought the numbers might never come down again. We smashed the record for the most number of users per minute on www.coinrivet.com – a remarkable thing to witness.

Earlier in the week, of course, we’d seen plenty of other tremendous stories find their way into the world via our newsroom.

There’s a wry chuckle goes around the desks here when I talk about the Marshall Islands but, believe me, I’m going to keep banging on about this story for weeks to come…

Marshall Islands

Okay, so the Marshall Islands have a population of around 52,000 inhabitants and, therefore, this story might not be getting the same number of hits as the Bitcoin Cash fork or last week’s Stellar airdrop, but it is (in my mind at least, for what my professional opinion is worth) much more significant.

In fact, and for reasons that we attempted to explain recently in the latest episode of CRTV, I think it could end up being one of the most important crypto stories of 2018.

You see, the Marshall Islands rely heavily on the USA and, therefore, are entwined with the US dollar. The atoll’s leader – President Hilda Heine – has been attempting to drive through a cryptocurrency for the islands so they can break away from the US dollar.

Naturally, this received much criticism, and several senators tabled a vote of no confidence in Heine.

However, she survived the vote, and the Micronesian republic is now free to pursue its plans for the SOV coin.

This will be an utterly remarkable step change in the race towards mass adoption of cryptocurrency.

Imagine how many other nations throughout the world are contemplating decentralised economic freedom and independence, but are too afraid to step over that line in the sand? Well, keep watching the Marshall Islands, because they may just be the first to do it!

I’m hoping to interview President Hilda Heine soon, so I’ll look forward to reporting on further developments.

Tone Vays

Next up, we covered a very interesting story about Tone Vays. Although I think, one day, there’s a good tale to be had explaining why he goes by the name ‘Tone’. My best friend also goes by the name Tone, but that’s because his real name is actually Anthony – or Tony to many. Tone Vays, on the other hand, is probably really called ‘Dave’ or something equally unexotic.

The well-known analyst had his BitMEX trading account ripped up on Monday because of his US resident status. It is now not known if he will have to pay back any of the Bitcoins he garnered through affiliate links.

It could yet prove to be quite a costly episode for Tone, or whatever his real name is.

Blockchain’s choice

It’s not often we select a column in the editorial pick for the week, but this intelligent presentation from columnist Alessandra Sollberger about the choices facing blockchain technology really got us thinking…

In this well-thought-out piece, Alessandra walks us through the complex minefield of attempting to understand just what privacy is all about, and where the many different forms of privacy fit in around cryptocurrency and blockchain.

She poses the question: How can you claim superior privacy, but also argue that blockchain is all about transparency?

It’s one of those problems where, if you find yourself thinking too deeply about it, you’ll wind up with a migraine. Thankfully, the article leads us to the correct assumptions and allows us to form a smart opinion.

The Buterin question

Elsewhere, Coin Rivet’s Ross Chalmers delivered a thought-provoking piece about Vitalik Buterin, questioning whether or not the enigmatic Ethereum chief might be more useful redirecting his energies to another project.

Somewhat surprisingly, I haven’t seen or heard anyone else ask this question before. But, once you read the article and think about it, that’s not a bad shout at all.

Vitalik is, undoubtedly, one of this industry’s leading lights. The man’s a genius – no question. But Ethereum really is the most dominant plant species in his garden.

I’ll gladly nail my colours to the mast here and say, you know what, yeah, I think maybe Vitalik should have a look at dedicating some time to the other flowers. His obvious and vast talents are being wasted.

That’s it for this week. Like everyone else in the newsroom, I’m now ready to try and catch up on some sleep over the weekend, and get ready for what will no doubt be another rollercoaster week in the crazy world of crypto!

Darren