Crypto Weekly 5/31/20
A weekly summary of the latest crypto news
PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($9,497): +6% / +32%
- ETH ($235): +15% / +79%
- LTC ($46): +7% / +11%
- XRP ($0.20): +6% / +7%
- Crypto Market Cap ($269B): +7% / +40%
- BTC Dominance: 65%
THIS week IN CRYPTO
- Goldman Sachs hosted an investment advisory call for its clients this week, where it singled out bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as 'not an asset class'. The bank said Bitcoin lacks legitimacy, provides no cash flow or earnings, does not provide diversification, and is an ineffective hedge against inflation. The scathing review was met with backlash from crypto enthusiasts, who cited a growing institutional presence and Paul Tudors' recent investment into Bitcoin as signals of its legitimacy as an asset class. Link.
- Facebook is rebranding its Libra wallet provider Calibra to Novi, a portmanteau of the Latin words, "novus" meaning new and "via" meaning way. Novi will operate as a standalone app that also has interoperability with Facebook's social messaging apps Messenger and WhatsApp. Link.
- Dapper Labs has launched NBA Top Shot, a blockchain-based collectibles game on its protocol Flow, in closed beta. Top Shot features tokenized NBA highlights that users can buy, sell, trade, and use to complete challenges. The moments can also be used in an upcoming free-to-play mobile game, NBA Top Shot: Hardcourt, which is expected to begin beta testing over summer; the digital collectible highlights can be used to improve players' capabilities in-game. Link.
- Coinbase is acquiring crypto prime broker, Tagomi, in an effort to boost its Coinbase Custody offering. The acquisition enables Coinbase to provide custody, professional trading, and prime brokerage services all on one platform. Tagomi is currently used by hedge funds, family offices and crypto funds like Paradigm, Pantera, Bitwise, and Multicoin. Reports say the price was between $75 million and $100 million. Tagomi has raised $28 million to date and was valued at $72 million when it last raised in 2019. Link. Link.
- Telegram has withdrawn its appeal against a US federal court's injunction that froze Gram token issuance and distribution. Telegram no longer plans to pursue its blockchain-based Telegram Open Network (TON). Link.
- FalconX raised a $17 million seed round led by Accel. FalconX is an AI platform plugs into a network of exchanges and dark pools, providing the best available prices and minimal slippage. The platform provides a solution to wash trading, where exchanges or crypto projects trade against themselves to inflate volumes, drive up prices, and dump assets on unsuspecting investors. Filtering out this bad market data has allowed the platform to scale to $7 billion in volume while still in stealth mode. FalconX claims to have around 100 clients and quarterly growth rate of 6,000% having launched only 10 months ago. Link.
- Russia's largest bank, Sberbank, wants to purchase 4,917 ATMs with a built-in graphic card capable of crypto mining. Link.
- Shopify has partnered with CoinPayments to give its merchants the option to accept payments in more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies. Shopify previously allowed its merchants to accept over 300 cryptocurrencies through BitPay. Shopify also recently joined the Libra Association. Link.
- China has published a new book, Discussing Digital Currency with Leading Officials, which covers topics like central bank digital currencies, cross-border payments, stablecoins, Libra, ICOs, and exchanges. The book describes Libra as a threat to China's leadership in the global payment system because of its potential to become the future world currency. The book says Libra "would allow US companies to build a digital currency system through blockchain tech, which could threaten or even surpass Alipay or WeChat Pay". The book suggests ways to combat this, which includes new regulatory policies regarding ICOs as well as trading and exchanges, which are currently in a legal grey area in China. Link.
- A recent report from JPMorgan shows the bank believes Bitcoin is trading 25% below its intrinsic value following the halvening. The bank has historically been bearish on bitcoin but it has been changing its sentiment as it onboarded crypto exchanges Coinbase and Gemini as customers. Link.
- Polkadot's blockchain mainnet has gone live, allowing users to access their token accounts though they cannot transfer DOTs at this time. Investors can access their accounts to become validators or nominate other validators. Link. Polkadot was valued at $1.2 billion in early 2019. Link.
- Dapper Labs is launching its Ethereum-based collectibles game CryptoKitties on its Flow blockchain. Flow is expected to bring new capabilities and higher throughput to the offering. Link.
- US crypto exchange Gemini is partnering with Samsung to allow its users to use the Samsung Blockchain Wallet which is downloadable on Samsung Galaxy phones. The connection allows users to buy/sell crypto, view their Gemini account balances, and transfer their crypto assets into cold storage using Gemini Custody. Link.
- Coinbase users who have stored Ethereum in their accounts over the past three years are set to receive OmiseGo (OMG) tokens via airdrop. OMG, a dapp for Ethereum, had initiated an airdrop in the summer of 2017. Coinbase did not support the currency at the time, so Ethereum holders on the platform were excluded from receiving the tokens. Now that Coinbase supports OMG, it has said that customers who have held Ethereum in their Coinbase accounts since the date of the original airdrop will receive the tokens. Link.
- JPMorgan Chase is paying $2.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit that it overcharged customers who purchased cryptocurrencies with their Chase credit cards. The bank treated these purchases as "cash advances," which carry higher fees than normal purchases. Link.
- Coinbase Custody has launched staking services for Cosmos (ATOM) and Algorand (ALGO) tokens. Link.
- XRP is now available for trading on the Shapeshift exchange. Link.
- The SEC has ordered crypto firm BitClave to return $25.5 million to investors from its 2017 ICO, which it believes was a sale of unregistered securities. BitClave had raised capital to build an advertising platform where users are compensated directly for accessing their data. Link.
- Users in Thailand are losing faith in Twitter and migrating en mass to Ethereum-based social network Minds. Minds harnesses ERC-20 tokens to reward community members, who can use tokens to promote content or access exclusive content. Minds now has 2.5 million users. Link.
- Square's Cash App now allows users to schedule automatic bitcoin purchases at set time intervals - daily, weekly, or bi-weekly. Link.
- Ethereum developers have built a protocol called Umbra for 'stealth' payments on Ethereum, where only the sender knows the identity of the recipient. The protocol is still in test phase, but is expected to be launched on Ethereum mainnet soon. Link.
- Crypto project PornVisory plans to reward its users with tokens for watching porn on its platform. Users viewing PornVisory's content will view ads and be compensated in PVY tokens. PornVisory doesn't plan to conduct an ICO, but instead will airdrop some of the tokens to users. Link.