The biggest news for the blockchain and cryptocurrency world last week was Ebang International Holdings, a major maker of Bitcoin (BTC) mining equipment, filed to go public in a $100 million initial public offering (IPO) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Hangzhou, China-based firm seeks up to $100 million from an IPO, in a second attempt to go public after it failed to complete a $1 billion IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2018. Chinese miners currently contribute over 65% of the hash power on the Bitcoin network. Founded in 2010, Ebang is among the earliest Chinese hardware firms to manufacture application-specific integrated circuit chips and integrated circuits for Bitcoin mining machines. Ebang's SEC filing warns that the recent significant plunge in Bitcoin's price is predicted to negatively impact the value of the firm's mining inventory and incentivize the firm to pursue increased credit sales.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

Bundle, a crypto payments app backed by major crypto exchange Binance, launched in Nigeria, aiming to become Africa's premier digital asset provider. Binance stated in a press release on Thursday its social payments app Bundle will give users across Africa a means to store and transact both cash and cryptocurrencies without fees, through a new digital wallet that can be downloaded on mobile phones. The payments app secured $450,000 in seed funding from Binance in late 2019 and runs as an independent entity. Binance said Bundle will use Nigeria as a launchpad to fully operate in as many as 30 other African countries by the end of 2020. The Binance announcement came days after star entrepreneur Akon boasted his own Stellar-based (XLM) crypto project Akoin, is in a great position to become the continent's primary digital payments solution.

Coinbase debuted a price oracle in order to reduce systemic risk in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Coinbase wrote in a blog post that Coinbase Oracle can be pulled in by blockchain networks and joined with other data feeds to be used in DeFi projects to implement functions like lending, margin trading, collateral liquidations, and derivatives. The major exchange said: "A highly reliable price feed anchored into Coinbase's secure infrastructure can help make the DeFi ecosystem safer, reduce systemic risks and unlock the next wave of growth and adoption." Coinbase also offered some details into the technical of the oracle, noting it is provided via an API compatible with Open Oracle, an open-source group of Ethereum (ETH) smart contracts.

Crypto prices rose again to $219 billion this week. For the majors, Tezos (XTZ), Ethereum, and Bitcoin posted outsized gains, while Bitcoin SV (BSV) and Tether (USDT) slipped. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Terra (LUNA), down 13%, Synthetix Network (SNX), down 9%, and Swipe (SXP), down 6%. The biggest gainers were DigiByte (DGB), up a whopping 98%, Aave (LEND), up 47%, and MaidSafeCoin (MAID), up 44%. Next week traders will see if crypto can keep up its recent string of weekly gains.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.