Crypto Weekly: 1/6/19
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news
PRICE CHANGE WTD/YTD
- BTC ($4,058): +8% / +8%
- ETH ($133): +18% / +18%
- LTC ($39): +28% / +28%
- XRP ($0.38): +8% / +8%
- Crypto Market Cap ($138B): +10% / +10%
- BTC dominance: 52%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Bitcoin fell roughly 70 percent in 2018 to $3,747, a significant reversal from the 1,200 percent gain it experienced in 2017 when it opened the year at $963 and ending the year at $12,897. Link.
- To start the year, the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap were: Bitcoin ($66B), Ethereum ($15.6B), XRP ($14.5B), Bitcoin Cash ($2.8B), EOS ($2.4B), Stellar ($2.2B), Litecoin ($1.9B), Tether ($1.9B), Bitcoin SV ($1.5B), and Tron ($1.4B). Link.
- A Thai government agency is developing blockchain-based e-voting solutions for national, provincial, or community elections. The voting process is easy and does not require any technical knowledge from the user. Users can vote by email through a form similar to an online survey. After the poll is closed, votes are counted electronically so results are available much faster and more accurately, given the decentralized nature of the blockchain. Link.
- Despite the crypto sell-off, lending in the crypto system is still thriving. Creditors are seeing strong demand from borrowers who don't want to sell their tokens at depressed prices, as well as from big investors eager to borrow coins for short selling. BlockFi says its revenues and customer base have grown 10-fold since June when Galaxy Digital Ventures invested over $50 million, and that it is planning to offer more credit products, including a bitcoin interest-bearing savings account and a loyalty card earning crypto. Link.
- Members of Ethereum's open-source development community tentatively agreed to implement a new algorithm that would block specialized mining hardware, or ASICs, such as those made by major mining firms like Bitmain. If approved, the program called ProgPoW would be released as part of a hard fork within the next two to four months. The news comes as Constantinople, Ethereum's fifth major upgrade, is nearing activation. Constantinople brings a number of design changes to streamline the platform's code and will reduce the ether mining reward from 3 ETH to 2 ETH per block. Link.
- Fortnite fans can now buy merchandise for the game using the cryptocurrency Monero (XMR). Bitcoin is not yet accepted, reportedly due to privacy concerns. Fortnite is reportedly very interested in the Lightning Network, which should alleviate some of the privacy concerns with bitcoin. Fortnite is the most popular video game in the world, with more than 200 million registered users. Link.
- Texas regulators released policy guidelines indicating that cryptocurrencies were not considered "money" and therefore not regulated by money transmission laws. However, stablecoins that are sovereign backed may be considered money under the regulation, because the issuer of the stablecoin has "taken on the obligation to provide sovereign currency in exchange for the stablecoin at a later time". Link.
- Estonia-based DX.Exchange announced that it would launch a trading platform allowing its clients to purchase tokens representing shares in different tech firms listed on the Nasdaq. Customers will be able to use select cryptocurrencies and fiat to purchase the ERC-20 tokens which are backed 1:1 to the real world stocks. Link.
- According to a report from The Block, crypto exchange Gemini offered investors a 2% discount on its stablecoin GUSD causing an arbitrage opportunity where traders could purchase GUSD at a discount and trade it for Paxos' stablecoin, PAX, which they could sell at full price. The result was a massive wave of users who wanted to cash out PAX - Paxos is investigating redeeming accounts and delaying redemptions as a result. The move from Gemini was was intended to increase volumes of its stablecoin. GUSD currently has $90.3 million in circulation, PAX has $132.2 million, and USDC (Coinbase's stablecoin) has $287.2 million in circulation. Link.
- Binance announced it was relaunching its token sale platform, Launchpad, and would have at least one new token launch every month. In addition to having access to Binance's 10 million users, clients will be able to use Binance's advisory services to develop projects and increase adoption. The Launchpad platform original launched in August 2017 and facilitated two token sales - BREAD ($6 million raised) and GIFTO ($3.4 million raised). Link.
- Vaishali Mehta, a senior compliance manager at Coinbase, left the company to join TrustToken as its head of compliance. TrustToken operates the TrueUSD stablecoin and has raised $20 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, BlockTower Capital, and Danhua Capital. Mehta is one of several high-ranking or long-tenured employees who have left Coinbase in the last few months. Link.
- Crypto finance firm Circle facilitated $75 billion in value across all its products and services, and $24 billion of trading volume across its OTC trading desk in 2018. The firm saw increased institutional adoption in 2018 and now partners with over 1,000 institutional clients such as exchanges, token projects, OTC desks, asset managers, and other global endowments. Link.
- Digital retail giant Overstock.com plans to pay some of its taxes in Ohio using bitcoin, becoming the first major business to do so. Ohio announced last year that it would allow businesses to pay taxes in bitcoin, though the payments would be converted into dollars by bitcoin processor, BitPay, before the state accepted them. Overstock has been accepting bitcoin as payment for purchases since 014 and has an investment arm dedicated to blockchain startups. Link.
- BitTorrent is creating its own cryptocurrency called BitTorrent Token (BTT), which will run on the tron protocol. With BTT, users can pay someone to send a file to them or pay for more bandwidth so files download faster. The token incentivizes file hosts to make more files available to the network at any point in time. BitTorrent acquired Tron in June of last year. Link.
- Japan's Mizuho Bank plans to launch its own stablecoin called J-Coin in March, pegged to a fixed value of 1 Japanese Yen per unit. J-Coin will enable users to pay for goods using their smartphones through QR codes via a dedicated app. The stablecoin will charge fees significantly lower than for credit card services. Link.
- 2 states of India now consider cryptocurrencies high risk and issued advisory warnings against investing in tokens. The warning coincides with the Reserve Bank of India's announcement delaying the launch of its own Central Bank Digital Currency indefinitely. Link.
- An assemblyman of the New York state legislature announced the state's first cryptocurrency task force aimed at studying the regulation, use, and definition of digital currency. Members of the task force include technologists, consumers, investors, blockchain companies, and academics, and will be appointed by the governor, Senate and Assembly. The task force will reportedly have to submit relevant reports by December 15, 2020. Link.