 After one of the worst years in decades, 2019 is not looking too promising for the stock market. Trump's announcement that the government shutdown could go on for months threatens to further destabilize the market. However, the future could be much brighter in the crypto market. This week, back to raise $182.5 million dollars, BitTorrent launches Tron-based token and, despite calling 90% of crypto projects BS, Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb is bullish on crypto. Also this week, an exclusive interview with the CEO of Civickey and Shark Tank South Africa's host Vinny Lincoln. Hi, I'm Mike and this is your Hollywood Digest. The week's best performer is Ethereum, which surpassed XRP reclaiming its position as a number one altcoin. Here are the latest market updates. 90% of crypto projects are BS. Harsh words from Jed McCaleb-Steller and Ripple co-founder, who is pretty scathing about most crypto projects. One project in particular provoked desire. Things like Tron, it's just garbage, but people dump tons of money into it. These things that just do not technically work. Steller's co-founder also thinks the majority of financial institutions won't use Bitcoin. McCaleb, who is also the Ripple co-founder, is clearly not a believer, but does have faith in blockchain. He said, it doesn't need to be the Bitcoin blockchain, but if it's not a public chain, then you're missing the point. McCaleb did not completely dismiss the leading crypto, rather that there isn't a cryptocurrency that provides all the solutions. There are some things Bitcoin is good at, some things Ethereum is good at, and some things Steller is good at. And none of them can do all the things well. That's just how software works. Despite the fact that he was so dismissive of 90% of the market, McCaleb remained a bullish about the 10% that he deems worthy. Rather than calling 2018 the year of the bear, he simply described it as a crypto calming down. His comments, of course, are to be taken with a pinch of salt. Last month, Steller partnered with crypto wallet provider blockchain.com to expand the circulation and uptake of lumens, with a massive $125 million air drop. Peer-to-peer file sharing platform BitTorrent launched its own native token based on the TRON protocol, the BitTorrent token, or BTT. According to the company, by exchanging the BitTorrent token, users will be able to optimize the network speed, thus allowing faster downloads. The BitTorrent protocol has always had a system of incentives built in. Users who upload faster are more likely to be able to download quickly. Even before the TRON acquisition, our R&D team was looking at ways to add blockchain-based incentives to the protocol. Now with the addition of TRON's expertise, we can accelerate that effort. Let's talk about some of the key features of the project. The first is faster downloads. By creating a system where people can bid to accelerate downloads, you'll be able to choose to get things more quickly than you otherwise would. Which leads me to the next point, more seeds. Currently, there's no incentive for users to seed files for long periods of time. By adding tokens, we'll make it so that you can effectively earn proceeding and create incentives for users not only to seed longer, but to dedicate more of their bandwidth and storage overall. BitTorrent, which claims to have over 100 million users globally, was acquired by TRON for an undisclosed amount in July last year. Back then, TRON CEO Justin Sun defined BitTorrent as the first decentralized internet protocol with large-scale global application. In August, BitTorrent announced its plans to merge its peer-to-peer network to the TRON blockchain in what is called Project Atlas. The BitTorrent protocol, which pioneered peer-to-peer online file sharing, served as a major source of inspiration for the authors of the TRON White Paper. With launch of the BTT, it is considered a major step in realizing TRON's ambitions to create a decentralized content distribution platform based on blockchain. Commenting on the launch of the new token, Justin Sun said, in one giant leap, we can introduce blockchain to hundreds of millions of users around the world and empower a new generation of content creators with the tools to distribute their content directly to others on the web. January 3rd was a special day for Bitcoin. Exactly 10 years ago, the first block was created on the Bitcoin blockchain. The so-called Genesis block contains no reference to previous blocks. It is hard-coded in the network software and contains all the variables from which the ensuing blockchain was generated. Three months after the release of the Bitcoin White Paper, the block zero was mined on January 3rd, 2009 with a reward of 50 Bitcoin, which today would be worth around $191,000. At the time, however, Bitcoin value was still inestimable as Bitcoin's very first trading price was established over a year later. Many see the creation of Bitcoin as a response to the 2008 global financial crisis. Bitcoin was supposed to offer an alternative financial system. Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Bitcoin blockchains, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong called Bitcoin his first love. In a series of tweets, he pointed out that Bitcoin is the most popular asset on Coinbase among new customers and longtime holders. He also expressed an optimistic view for the future of the first cryptocurrency. He said, I think most people right now are very skeptical about crypto and that's a good thing. It's not about the technology, it's about the adoption cycle and curve and there's no adoption of crypto in mainstream. The number one use case is obviously trading, right? So other than trading, what do you do with it? And the trading is very much a speculative game. We have to prove ourselves to the rest of the world that what we're building has value and that people will use it and there'll be adoption. And if we can't do that, then by definition has no value. So how do you replace existing systems with blockchain-based ones which are orders of magnitude better than what people have today? In many cases, the improvement doesn't exist. So people aren't moving towards blockchain. It's all a bit of a pipe dream right now. I do not think we've reached the bottom yet. I think there's more pain to come. So I think we've dropped below 3,000 on Bitcoin and I think if things get worse and it'll get worse before it gets better, I could be wrong. But my gut feels that we go below 3,000. And I think it's another probably two or three or four months in that range and then if we don't get out of there, then it dips and goes down further. So these things take time to play out, but I think there's just too much fiat pressure on the system. I don't think we can hold the current close. I think there are a limited number of coins that will make it. I mean, there's 3,500 coins out there. Honestly, we're probably looking at 100 or 200 that actually make it into real utility and that's 3% of the market surviving, which is okay. 3% to 5% makes sense. I don't think we can go with the one-size-fits-all Bitcoin as the only coin that will ever survive approach. It doesn't make sense. There's just so many things Bitcoin can't do that other coins can do and there are use cases in society for those other coins and they'll find markets. It's like the same way the world doesn't have one more currency right now, which is kind of a good thing in a sense. Bitcoin is focused on being a store of value and I think there's other use cases and needs that need to be tackled. So typically keep your crypto investments 5% to 10% of your portfolio and you might think, well, that's crazy. I can make so much money, but you can also lose it all in a year. We've seen people go bankrupt literally this past year. It's a speculative investment driven thesis mania. And in the long term, I'm totally fine. I'm very excited about being part of the industry. I've tried to keep crypto a very balanced part of my portfolio so I don't lose perspective because it's very easy to lose perspective when all your wealth is stuck in Bitcoin or crypto or whatever and then you lose perspective on the rest of the world and how the world thinks. And so I think people need to just have a good common sense, practical investment mindset. If you want to gamble, then go to casino. The return is way better if you hit it. If you want to follow a strong investment portfolio that gets you to retirement, you've got to be a little more conservative. You can't take these risks. Now if you're young, take as many risks as you want because you have time to fix it. But as you get older, you should be a lot more cautious about where you put your money and make sure that you go for returns which are hopefully market beating and great and be cognizant of what volatility can do to a portfolio because volatility kills returns. One day you're wealthy, the next day you're not. Bacht is back, baby. On the last day of 2018, the institutional investor-focused crypto platform announced it has completed the first round of funding of $182.5 million from 12 partners and investors including Boston Consulting Group, Galaxy Digital and Horizon Ventures. Bacht is planning to introduce physically-delivered Bitcoin futures unlike CME and CBOE which both launched Bitcoin futures with cash settlements a year ago. Bacht's futures will pay out in Bitcoins for this company is now seeking approvals and exemptions from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission since CFTC statutes are written to account for cash, securities and agricultural commodities, but not Bitcoin. In a separate announcement, Bacht's parent company, ICE, posted a notice that they expect to provide an update launch timeline in early 2019 for the trading, clearing and warehousing of the Bacht Bitcoin Daily Futures contract. Bacht is not the first investment in the crypto space for ICE. The exchange giant has also a stake in Coinbase. Many believe Bacht will lead to a market rebound. Among them, Tom Lee, who we spoke to last year. Bacht is going to be, I think it's going to become a very regulated and large pool of liquidity. I think it's going to attract a lot of miners to sell production into that exchange and a lot of institutions will be there. And as you know, if something becomes a center of liquidity, that's the sorts of price transparency, especially because ICE is a regulated entity. Let's get optimistic. 2019 could be the year regulators ease up on crypto and institutional investors get on board. But is this a good thing? Are rules good? Or do they compromise the decentralized dream? Let us know in the comments below. And as always, like, subscribe and huddle. Cointelegraph, like, subscribe and huddle.