It's been an eventful week for cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology as we draw to a close.
The focus is on the explosive growth of the major digital currency, BTC. If last week its price fluctuated around $3,000, then this week it confidently passed the $4,000 mark and reached almost $4,500 at its peak. Analysts say the main factors driving the rise in the price of the digital currency are demand in Japan and rising military tensions around North Korea. The price of the alternative cryptocurrency BTC Cash (BCH/BCC) has also increased significantly, rising by 75% in one day. At its peak, the price of BTC Cash reached $547. Now the rate has dropped a little, and BTC Cash costs about $490. The price of IOTA has doubled this week. It has become one of the top five cryptocurrencies with the highest capitalization, and on the Bitfinex exchange, IOTA trading volumes even surpassed Ethereum trading volumes.

Another good news for cryptocurrency enthusiasts was the new refund plan announced by representatives of the BTC-e exchange closed by the FBI.
According to the new plan, 55% of funds in each currency will be returned immediately, and 45% will be converted into tokens. Their own tokens will be created for each of the fiat and digital currencies that were traded on this exchange. Tokens can be traded on an exchange page specially created for this purpose.

The industry of ICO (initial coin offerings) and venture investments in startups is actively developing The 0x project raised $24.5 million in ICO. And Breadwallet, which makes software wallets for BTC, received $7 million in venture funding. Swiss bank Falcon began offering BTC Cash, Ethereum and Litecoin to its clients, in addition to BTC, which had recently become available to the bank's clients. It is important that all these cryptocurrencies can now be purchased directly from a bank account. Australia is ready for the full legalization of BTC, as became known from the official budget report for 2017-2018 of the Australian government. A lot of events happened in Russia, all of them were favorable for the development of cryptocurrencies and blockchain Rosstandart, the agency that deals with standardization, has formed a new committee called “Software and hardware for distributed registry and blockchain technologies.” An advertisement appeared on the Internet about the sale of an elite house on Rublyovka for BTC. And by mid-2018, Sberbank is going to introduce the MasterChain system, this is a blockchain based on Ethereum.