Bitcoin Daily: BitGrail Plans To Refund $195M, Ethereum Takes A Price Beating

Bitcoin dipped below $8,000 for a short time on Thursday (March 15), CNBC reported. The fall comes as central bankers and finance ministers are likely to discuss cryptocurrencies in Argentina at the G20 meeting this weekend. Bitcoin was trading at $8,305.39 as of 8:25 p.m., according to CoinDesk.

In cryptocurrency exchange news, Italy’s BitGrail said it plans to reimburse its users for Nano (XRB) coins they lost in a hack back in February, The Next Web reported. The company said users should already have 20 percent of the lost XRB coins in their accounts, and the exchange plans to issue the remaining value in new BitGrail Shares (BGS). However, only customers who accept the company’s settlement agreements will be able to receive the refunds.

And Lightning Labs is now offering a beta version of its Lighting Network software, CoinDesk reported. The technology enables users to send Litecoin and bitcoin to other users without having to settle those transfers on the blockchain. The company has notched $2.5 million in funding from backers such as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

In other news, bitcoin is trading at almost the level it costs to make the digital coins – at least as of Thursday evening, CNBC reported. According to an estimate by Fundstrat‘s Thomas Lee, it costs $8,038 to mine a bitcoin. As a result, some miners may stop mining bitcoin until the cryptocurrency trades higher.

Ethereum is now trading at its lowest point since December, when the currency jumped from $475 to $700, NewsBTC reported. The cryptocurrency has lost over 20 percent of its value over the week, and has fallen almost 40 percent over the past month. Ethereum was trading at $613.59 as of 8:25 p.m..

And L.L. Bean has ended its test of embedding sensors in its coats and boots that connect to the blockchain, The Wall Street Journal reported. Apparently the creep-out factor won out, as Chad Leeder, who was heading up the project for L.L. Bean, confirmed in an email that it had been shut down.

In New York, a hydro dam is powering mining of Ormeus Coin, the company said in an announcement. The company teamed up with local authorities and the Moses-Saunders Power Dam, which is located on the border between the U.S. and Canada.