The biggest news affecting blockchains and cryptocurrency in the last week of January is perhaps the Wuhan coronavirus from China negatively impacting the crypto industry. Last week Bitmain, Canaan, and MicroBT, notified customers the application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) they ordered would not be immediately sent, after the Chinese government extended the New Year holiday season due to the outbreak. MicroBT published a notice on WeChat (TCEHY  ) citing a decision by the Guangdong provincial government to extend the Chinese New Year holiday another week through February 9, and Bitmain and Canaan sent similar notices to customers. The notices stated the ASIC deliveries will be delayed by at least a week. Over 50 million Chinese people are currently under quarantine as the central government rushes to contain the virus outbreak's global impact. Although a week is a short delay, investors are worried the country's halt in economic activity will eventually hurt the rest of the world.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

Nomura (NMR  ) Research Institute announced it will launch a benchmark rank to compare Japanese cryptocurrency assets on Friday. The Tokyo-based management consultancy and research firm said the "NRI/IU Crypto-Asset Index Family" will be available through NRI's financial information database to domestic and overseas institutional investors, financial information vendors, and cryptocurrency exchanges. The benchmark is intended to pool together data specific to the Japanese cryptocurrency market, including on crypto-yen pairs and closing values, all in local time. NMR stated: "The increasing investment needs for crypto assets have, in turn, led to a high demand for a benchmark to appraise those investments." The NRI/IU benchmark will track Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Ripple (XRP). It uses data supplied by CryptoCompare.

The Zcash community agreed to continue funding the development of its privacy coin ZEC as spearheaded by the Electric Coin Company (ECC) and the Zcash Foundation, according to voting results the foundation published on Thursday. The ECC and Zcash Foundation are still developing Zcash, especially as its use case faces heightened scrutiny from global regulators concerned with privacy and security issues, so the funding is a lifeline for hiring top talent. Zcash Foundation Executive Director Josh Cincinnati told CoinDesk: "I am thrilled to see the convergence from the Zcash community after a long and fruitful debate." If current ZEC prices hold at around $65 per coin, the ECC can expect about $480,000 per month in funding after the network's first ever block halving in November 2020.

Crypto prices jumped to about $263 billion this week. For the majors, Cardano (ADA), Litecoin, and EOS made outsized gains, among other coins, while Tether (USDT) edged down. In the top 100, the biggest losers were Molecular Future (MOF), down 36%, Seele (SEELE), down 22%, and DxChain Token (DX), down 17%. The biggest gainers were BlockStamp (BST), up a whopping 109%, KickToken (KICK), up 101%, and ICON (ICX), up 91%. Next week traders will see if the bullish rally has more steam ahead.

The author owns a small amount of BTC and LTC.