CoolWallet S: A Year in Review (2019)

It's that time of the year again. While you're gearing up for the upcoming holiday season, let's take a look back at some of the exciting things we did with CoolWallet S this year, as well as some of the biggest headlines in crypto!

On the Road with CoolWallet S

Nothing like that #tradeshow life, right? We took CoolWallet S on the road with us to various shows around the world and had the opportunity to meet many amazing people along the way. Here are some of the highlights.

CoolWallet S Wins an Award in Design!

Major Updates Added to CoolWalletS

With the crypto market always evolving, we are committed to bringing regular updates and feature additions to both CoolWallet S and its mobile app, CoolBitX. Here are some of the major updates and additions we added this year.

• ECH32 address support for BTC, LTC and BCH.
• PIN Code supported added to CoolWallet app for iOS and Android.
• Advanced Wallet Recovery is added.
• The following currencies have also been added to our wallet: Gemini Dollar (GUSD), Tether (OMNI), Icon (ICX), XY Oracle (XYO), Stellar (XLM), and Binance (DEX)

From coin halving to hard forks, here are some of the stories throughout 2019 that stick out the most to us.

• Bitcoin experiences quite a few pumps in the summer, reaching almost $13,000 before crashing in the fall. By late 2019, Bitcoin floats around the $8,000 range.
• Litecoin mining rewards are halved for the second time, from 25 to 12.5. Charlie Lee, creator of Litecoin, reports that it was a smooth transition and even experienced improved mining times.
• Ethereum finally goes through two hard forks, Constantinople and Istanbul, which both bring security and processing updates to the world's second largest cryptocurrency.
• Bitcoin SV (BSV) is removed from Binance, considered to be the largest coin exchange in the world, due to controversy surrounding its creator. Read more about the delisting here.
• Stellar burns 50% of XLM to trim supply down to an appropriate amount for the community. Read more about the burn here.

Hacks and Scams

It's been another rough year for the crypto industry, with $4.3 billion digital assets stolen in the first half of 2019 alone. While the crypto community is always striving to create a more secure and safe environment for all investors, that doesn't mean that it is immune to hackers and scams. It is very important to emphasize that a majority of these hacks happen on exchanges. The only real way to protect yourself from these attacks is to transfer your assets into a hardware wallet! Here are some of the major breaches this year.

• Cryptopia, an exchange based in New Zealand, gets hacked twice in January with almost 90 million wallets being compromised, losing over $23 million worth of ETH and ERC-20 tokens.. The exchange is currently under legal administration and all user assets remain frozen. Worryingly, investigators say that they are unable to separate the funds of users with that of the owners in the recovered wallets.
• Quadriga founder, Gerald Cotten, passes away without leaving the passwords to the popular Canadian exchange with any colleagues or family. This raises suspicion among the community that they have fallen for a classic ‘exit scam'.
• Singapore-based exchanges, DragonEX and BiTrue lose a combined $11.2 million in XRP and ADA.
• XRP ledger wallets at GateHub are hacked with over 23 million XRP being stolen, valued at approx. $9.5 million.
• Bitpoint, based in Japan, loses $28 million.
• Upbit, based in Korea, loses $49 million.

The Turn of a Decade

It will be 2020 before you know it and like many, we look forward to what the new decade will bring. Between the next Bitcoin halving and the Ethereum hard fork, Istanbul, we remain optimistic that cryptocurrencies will continue to evolve into a medium that the mainstream will hopefully adopt. However, with a growing adoption rate also comes hackers and bad actors in which the crypto community has continuously been dealing with over the last decade. Unfortunately, 2019 has been no different. That being said, it is important to emphasize that you should take all the necessary steps in keeping your cryptocurrency safe.

To 2020 and Beyond!

CoolBitX also celebrated our 5th birthday this year! Since its inception in 2014, our team has steadily been growing all over the world! From our main headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan, all the way to the US and even Europe, we hope to continue innovating and providing the best in quality and convenience for all your crypto needs. We also look forward to bringing CoolWallet S to even more places around the world. So here's to another 5 years!

On behalf of everyone here at CoolBitX, we'd like to wish everyone a safe and happy new year! See y'all in 2020!