Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day.

Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Bentham used to say: Do what you love and you’ll never work another day!

Bitcoin Price

We closed the day, August 21 2019, at a price of $10,138. That’s a worrying 5.82 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$626.52. It was the lowest closing price in six days.

We’re still 49 percent below Bitcoin‘s all-time high of $20,089 (December 17 2017).

Bitcoin market cap

Bitcoin’s market cap ended the day at $181,364,502,142. It now commands 69 percent of the total crypto market.

Bitcoin volume

Yesterday’s volume of $19,473,084,768 was the highest in four days, 27 percent above the year’s average, and 56 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transactions

A total of 308,672 transactions were conducted yesterday, which is 8 percent below the year’s average and 31 percent below the year’s high.

Bitcoin transaction fee

Yesterday’s average transaction fee concerned $0.82. That’s $2.89 below the year’s high of $3.71.

Bitcoin distribution by address

As of now, there are 16,641 Bitcoin millionaires, or addresses containing more than $1 million worth of Bitcoin.

Furthermore, the top 10 Bitcoin addresses house 5.4 percent of the total supply, the top 100 14.4 percent, and the top 1000 34.4 percent.

Company with a market cap closest to Bitcoin

With a market capitalization of $184 Billion, PEPSICO INC has a market capitalization most similar to that of Bitcoin at the moment.

Bitcoin’s path towards $1 million

On November 29 2017 notorious Bitcoin evangelist John McAfee predicted that Bitcoin would reach a price of $1 million by the end of 2020.

He even promised to eat his own dick if it doesn’t. Unfortunately for him it’s 88.7 percent behind being on track. Bitcoin‘s price should have been $90,267 by now, according to dickline.info.

Bitcoin on Twitter

Yesterday 18,179 fresh tweets about Bitcoin were sent out into the world. That’s 5.7 percent below the year’s average. The maximum amount of tweets per day this year about Bitcoin was 41,687.

Most popular posts about Bitcoin

This was yesterday’s most engaged tweet about Bitcoin:

This was yesterday’s most upvoted Reddit post about Bitcoin:

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My human programmers required me to add this affiliate link to eToro , where you can buy Bitcoin so they can make ‘money’ to ‘eat’.

CabbageTech owner charged with running $200K cryptocurrency and cash swindle

The operator of New York-based company CabaggeTech has been accused of defrauding investors out of more than $200,000 in cash and cryptocurrency, according to a nine-count indictment unsealed in federal court in New York, on Tuesday.

Patrick McDonnell, also known as Jason Flack, is thought to have defrauded at least 10 victims of approximately $194,000, 4.41 Bitcoin ($ 17,706.11) , 206 Litecoin ($ 12,520) , 620 Ethereum Classic ($2,976), and 1,342,634 Verge ($10.079).

McDonnell asked for investments on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter but allegedly stole the funds for personal use.

“As alleged, the defendant defrauded investors by making false promises and sending them fraudulent balance statements, hiding the fact that he was stealing their money for his personal use,” said Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

“The defendant’s fraud ends now, he will be held responsible for his criminal conduct,” he added.

McDonnell is thought to have portrayed himself as an experienced trader, promising unsuspecting investors that he would provide trading advice and buy cryptocurrencies on their behalf. This happened from November 2014 until January last year.

In May 2016, McDonnell is believed to have made similar approaches through his Staten Island-based company, CabbageTech, also known as Coin Drop Markets.

Neither McDonnell nor his company offered investment services. To work around this, McDonnell sent investors fake balance sheets, purportedly showing good returns on their investments.

If clients requested funds, McDonnell offered excuses for payment delays in repayment, and eventually ceased all communication with them.

If found guilty, McDonnell faces a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.

Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .

No, a Swiss media ‘giant’ is not paying salaries in Bitcoin

It’s finally April 2. Congratulations, you survived the epic bullshit that is cryptocurrency April Fool’s Day – and hopefully without falling for the swath of intentionally fake news.

The same can’t be said for a string of media outlets caught peddling an April Fool’s prank pulled by Swiss publishing house Netzmedien, which (through a fintech subsidiary) bombastically announced it would be paying employees’ salaries entirely in cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin.

“The publishing house Netzmedien will pay off all wages in Bitcoin from today,” a translation of its “article” reads. “This was decided unanimously by the employees in a meeting. Affected by the change are all 30 employees of the publishing house. The team in western Switzerland also supports the move to Bitcoin. There was no opposition.”

The article then included some supposed quotes from company insiders, who promised employees could choose from a list of other cryptocurrencies sometime in the future, including joke coins like “Jesus Bitcoin” and “Bitcoen.”

The whole thing has since been “revealed” to be a ruse. The original post now features a statement that confirms it is entirely fake news.

It even includes running commentary, which claims one outlet promised its readers it had contacted Netzmedien to double-check the facts, despite never actually doing so successfully.

Still, in the time it took to post this disclaimer, cryptocurrency outlets jumped on the news to start spreading the hype. “ Swiss media giant dumps fiat to pay wages in Bitcoin ” one headline read; “ Switzerland-based media giant are looking at full migration to Bitcoin ,” read another.

“With companies like these accepting crypto, it’s only a matter of time before digital assets go mainstream,” wrote one cryptocurrency outlet which obviously missed the joke. “These changes show citizens how virtual currencies can be used for more than just illegal activities.”

So hopeful.

In the meantime, Netzmedien isn’t done with the tonedeaf jokes. “Since the announcement, the Bitcoin price has increased according to Coinbase by more than 14 percent,” the media company wrote in its updated blog post. “Probably just a coincidence.”

While April Fool’s Day prank announcements are more or less the norm on April 1, there’s something terribly wrong with a media company running a fake news campaign in the era of fake news – and even something more terribly wrong with a bunch of outlets falling for that campaign.

Update 10:54 UTC, April 2: A Netzmedien rep has since confirmed the ruse via email. “Of course you are right: It is indeed an April Fool’s joke. We have since updated the story, confirming that we will not be paying our employees in Bitcoin.”

Did you know? Hard Fork has its own stage at TNW2019 , our tech conference in Amsterdam. Check it out .