The first week of April has been exciting for the blockchain and cryptocurrency world. Perhaps the biggest news is that blockchain startup Coda received a $15 million investment from Coinbase and Paradigm. Founded last May with seed funding from angel investors like Polychain, Coda is building a "disappearing" blockchain that lets any user, even mobile wallets, to participate in consensus. Described as a succinct blockchain, coda aims to limit the size of its blockchain to just 22 kilobytes in perpetuity. Coda is using a technical innovation called zero-knowledge proofs to try to achieve its goals. Its protocol is open source on GitHub, and the project plans to release Coda tokens in the near future.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom (OGZPY  ) announced it will soon use blockchain technology to executive and track business contracts. Gazprom chief executive Alexey Miller said that in partnership with banking subsidiary Gazprombank, the firm has developed a blockchain prototype that automates the execution and monitoring of contracts. He added that the prototype is accessible by all parties involved in the transaction and is fully protected from tampering and unauthorized changes. Gazprom said it will soon work with major industrial customers to use the blockchain prototype. Gazprom has been experimenting with blockchain in different ways since February 2018.

On Wednesday, Coinbase landed on LinkedIn's top 50 US employers for 2019 at number 35. The American cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase beat out financial giant and blockchain experimenter JPMorgan (JPM  ), ranked number 44 on the list. The report said that Coinbase has recently hired staff for engineering, information technology, and human resources, and currently has around 600 employees. Big tech firms Alphabet (GOOGL  ), Facebook (FB  ), and Amazon (AMZN  ) topped LinkedIn's list of preferred employers. LinkedIn said it rated the popularity of firms by analyzing interest in the firm, employee engagement, employee retention, and job demand. With the "crypto winter" and hiring cuts still underway, no other blockchain or crypto company made the list this year.

Crypto prices skyrocketed this week, reaching a market cap of almost $180 billion. For the majors, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin SV (BSV) led with high double-digit gains. In the top 100, the biggest losers are MetaHash (MHC), down 19%, TokenPay (TPAY), down 14%, and Tezos (XTZ), down 9%. The biggest gainers are Bitcoin Cash, up a whopping 86%, Dogecoin (DOGE), up 63%, and Asch (XAS), up 60%. Next week, traders will surely watch carefully to see if this week's unexpected massive pump is sustainable or if a big dump occurs.

The author owns a small amount of BTC and LTC.