According to Ukrainian media reports, the Russian IT specialist and employee of the Exmo exchange, Pavel Lerner, kidnapped in Kiev on December 26, was released. Kidnappers in Ukraine have released an employee at a UK-registered cryptocurrency exchange after getting more than $1m (£750,000) in Bitcoin as a ransom, an adviser to the Ukrainian interior minister told Reuters on Friday.

The South Korean online portal for employment Saramin interviewed 941 employees and found out that 31.3% of them invested in cryptocurrencies. The average investment volume was 5.66 million won ($ 5,300). Of the surveyed employees who invested in the cryptocurrency, 44.1% invested less than 1 million won, 18.3% - 1-2 million won, 9.8% - 2-4 million won, 7.8% - 4-6 million won, 12.9% - more than 10 million won. 54.2% of respondents said they invested in cryptocurrency because I think this is the fastest way to earn, and 47.8% said it was an easy investment, as the amount was insignificant.

Cyber security specialists have discovered a new type of virus, which is distributed through the Facebook Messenger application. The malicious bot uses a lot of infected computers for cryptocurrency mining at the expense of the affected users. New malicious software distributed through Facebook Messenger, called Digmine. Like many similar exploits, the bot uses infected systems to run one of Monero's most beloved hackers.

Anonymous charity Pineapple Fund, which makes donations in the Cryptocurrency, provided $ 1 million in Bitcoins to the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization founded to "store the history of the Internet." According to the representative of the fund, the Internet Archive becomes more valuable every day, collecting books, abandoned games, websites and communities that have closed.

In recent weeks, discussions around commissions for Bitcoin transactions and the time of their confirmation have become increasingly tense. Many community members complained about unconfirmed transactions and high cost for medium-sized transactions, which often cost more than $ 30, and a transaction with a large number of inputs can cost more than $ 50.

Such large handlers of Bitcoin payments like Coinbase, Bitpay and Shapeshift warn their users about delays. Bitpay even issued a special application and notified customers that it would no longer process payments in Bitcoins for less than $ 100 due to rapidly growing commissions. However, the next day the platform changed its decision and returned to processing payments of $ 5, but noted that it still recommends making larger payments. This was achieved by sending group transactions for small payments.

According to the statement of the member of the Board of Directors of the Bundesbank (the central bank of Germany), Carl-Ludwig Thiele, the issue of digital currencies by the central banks of the Eurozone and their equating to the fiat in the near future is excluded.

Goldman Sachs, one of the largest banks on Wall Street, plans to launch its own platform for trading cryptocurrencies. This became known to the agency Bloomberg from sources who are familiar with the strategic plans of the banking group. As it became known to the agency, the bank plans to launch a new business unit in July 2018, but it may happen earlier. Sources say that Goldman Sachs is currently collecting a team in New York, trying to solve security problems, and how the assets will be stored.

The creator of VKontakte and Telegram Pavel Durov is preparing to release his own cryptocurrency under the name Gram, said a former employee of VKontakte and subordinate Durov Anton Rosenberg. 

Dan Morehead, a Cryptocurrency investor, president and founder of Pantera Capital, told CNBC that next week, that is, the last week before the New Year, the price of Bitcoin could drop 50% to its lowest level since early November. This statement looks a bit strange on the background of the recent news that the company's hedge fund, Pantera Bitcoin, owns a record profit of 25,004%! Perhaps, after fixing such an excellent result, the company wants to repeat the success, for which it would be extremely useful for a temporary collapse of the Cryptocurrency? Later Morehead added that eventually Bitcoin would far exceed its current value.

Yesterday the Bitcoin network marked another "anniversary" figure. This time it was not the value of the course or any important date. On December 18, a block numbered 500,000 appeared in the blockchain. This event does not bear any technical or fundamental consequences. However, this coincided with the fact that the capitalization of the cryptocurrency market increased by another $ 100 billion and now amounts to more than $ 600 billion.