...: 2020

Heavy hitters of crypto call for users to comment on proposed FinCEN wallet rule

Coinbase is the latest company to go public with its concerns regarding the U.S. Treasury proposal on crypto wallets.
A number of players are encouraging individuals to speak out against FinCEN’s new crypto rules before comments close next week.Crypto exchange Coinbase and the foundation behind Monero are the latest firms to join in calling for crypto users to share their thoughts on the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s new rules. In a blog post today, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the proposal would represent “too big of an intrusion” on users’ privacy, stating that crypto exchanges would need to collect and share names and addresses for anyone sending or receiving more than $3,000 in crypto in a single transaction. The CEO called on users to submit their thoughts to FinCEN before Jan. 4 when comments would be closed.Source: TwitterMonero Outreach issued a similar plea on Monday with seemingly more assertive language, specially requesting crypto users "voice their opposition" to the "dangerous new rules." The group claimed that once FinCEN had the necessary customer information, regulators would be able to track all user transactions without a warrant, data that could be potentially compromised."This [rule] not been required before, and it will not only threaten the privacy of every cryptocurrency user today, but it will also impede creative future uses of cryptocurrency," said Monero Outreach. "This is in an area that can easily go very wrong."FinCEN proposed the new rule on Dec. 18, giving individuals 15 days to comment with their thoughts. If implemented, the rule would require registered crypto exchanges to verify the identity of their customers under certain conditions, including using "an unhosted or otherwise covered wallet" and if the transaction exceeds $3,000. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal later responded that the deadline to provide feedback was inadequate given the holidays and the ongoing pandemic. He requested the regulator provide a 60-day period for comments on the proposed rules. At the time of publication, the Jan. 4 deadline is still firm.Meanwhile, non-profit crypto advocacy group Coin Center is encouraging "everyone in the cryptocurrency ecosystem" to file a comment on the FinCEN proposal. More than 920 parties have already submitted their thoughts to FinCEN, including Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith and Compound General Counsel Jake Chervinsky. In a Twitter thread, Chervinsky claimed the rule would not "stop the flow of funds to bad actors or help law enforcement do its job." Smith, on the other hand, sent his comment directly to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. In a blog post last week, the Blockchain.com CEO said he believes the rule needs additional consultation and review before being considered, given the potential impact:“Crypto is a nascent and growing industry. We have talented teams and entrepreneurs across the United States who are innovating yet would buckle under the weight of this regulation.”

NY Times report alleges history of pay discrimination at Coinbase

“The pay disparities at Coinbase appear to be much larger than those in the tech industry as a whole," wrote the New York Times.
San Francisco-based crypto exchange Coinbase may have had a problem with paying its employees fairly based on gender and race. According to a report from New York Times journalist Nathaniel Popper, Coinbase paid salaried Black roughly 7% less than people in similar positions based on payroll data from 2018. Across the company, this averaged out to a difference of $11,500. When factoring in the firm's stock options, the gap between white and Black employees compensation at Coinbase was closer to 11%.The report also alleges a pay disparity by gender. For example, male level 1 managers at Coinbase earned 20% more than their female peers. On average, women at the crypto firm were paid 8%, or $13,000, less than their male counterparts in 2018.“The pay disparities at Coinbase appear to be much larger than those in the tech industry as a whole, and at the few other tech companies that have had to release data,” wrote Popper.Source: NY TimesChief People Officer of Coinbase L.J. Brock was quick to respond to the allegations. In an internal company email posted to the Coinbase blog today, the firm claimed that it had done "significant work to ensure [Coinbase’s] pay-for-performance philosophy is transparent and fair" since 2018. He said that "all eligible employees" received at least a 3% increase in compensation in early 2019, and that employees pay targets were made transparent later that year. The email also reported that staff at the crypto firm has grown from 830 in 2018 to more than 1,000 in 2020.“Coinbase is committed to ruthlessly eliminating bias in all our internal processes,” stated the company blog. “We also recognize that it is best practice to regularly check our work, and while pay equity is critical at any stage of maturation, we believe that we have implemented the framework to ensure we are driving equitable outcomes.”The exchange has been in the spotlight for issues concerning race before. In October, CEO Brian Armstrong said the company would adopt an “apolitical culture,” offering exit packages to any employee who disagreed with the policy. Armstrong said that 60 staff members planned to leave in response to the announcement, roughly 5% of Coinbase’s workforce at the time.

Coinbase announces it will suspend XRP trading as price drops another 10%

Coinbase plans to suspend trading for the token on Jan. 19 but added it "may be halted earlier as needed."
Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will suspend trading for XRP in response to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission taking legal action against Ripple.According to a blog post published today by Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal, the exchange will fully suspend XRP trading starting on Jan. 19 at 10:00 am PST. Coinbase clarified that “Trading may be halted earlier as needed” to maintain the exchange’s market health metrics."The trading suspension will not affect customers' access to XRP wallets which will remain available for deposit and withdraw functionality after the trading suspension,” said Grewal. "We will continue to support XRP on Coinbase Custody and Coinbase Wallet."The U.S.-based exchange is the largest so far to take a position on XRP following the Dec. 22 announcement that the SEC will charge Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen with conducting an "unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering." Earlier today, crypto exchange OKCoin announced that it will suspend XRP trading and deposits beginning on Jan. 4. Bitstamp stated it will halt XRP trading for U.S. residents, while smaller exchanges including OSL, Beaxy and CrossTower announced they will take similar actions against trading the token.Grayscale Investments is also reportedly distancing itself from XRP. According to Twitter user "ShardiB2," the firm may be ending subscriptions for its XRP Trust by announcing it would no longer accept new subscriptions or process pending ones.Following the Coinbase announcement, the price of XRP immediately dropped more than 10%, falling from $0.28 to $0.25 at the time of publication. This is the latest in a series of bearish movements for the token, the price of which has fallen 44% since the SEC announcement.This story is developing and will be updated.

Did CBDCs affect the crypto space in 2020, and what’s next in 2021? Experts answer

CBDCs are one of the major topics in crypto this year, and the experts that Cointelegraph spoke to have a lot to say about it.
It is hard to imagine that just two years ago, the general discourse around central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, was mainly focused on the potential and possibility of issuing them. Even in 2019, the question was about whether we need state-owned cryptocurrencies, with only 70% of central banks worldwide studying the potential of issuing a CBDC, according to a survey published by the Bank for International Settlements at the beginning of 2019. But this year, everything is indeed different. 2020 started with a major event within the financial world: the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the WEF released a toolkit for policymakers regarding the creation of CBDCs. And according to a recent BIS report, 80% of the world’s central banks have already been evaluating CBDC adoption. The news that central banks worldwide had started actively researching, studying, testing, etc., kept coming every month this year: Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Estonia, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lithuania, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, to name a few. Even Japan, which two years ago was among the major critics of central bank digital currency, changed its mind. Although the inevitability of central bank digital currency becoming a global phenomenon became certain this year, there is an important trend that has also become clear: Central banks in emerging market economies are moving toward issuing CBDCs more rapidly than developed countries, which are taking a more cautious stance. For example, the European Central Bank is discussing launching a consideration phase for a digital euro next year, and launching a digital euro is at least a five-year plan. Canada is also developing a CBDC at "a good pace,” according to Timothy Lane, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada. Japan’s digital yen will take years to issue, according to a former Bank of Japan official, while this fall, the Bahamas became one of the first countries in the world to officially launch a CBDC. Russia is expected to launch the first pilots for its digital ruble next year.The situation is quite different for the world’s major economies, the United States and China, whose technological competition has resulted in a “digital cold war.” The Chinese digital yuan project — referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or DCEP — already has years of history, and this year, the project made a lot of progress, although many details remain limited. Concerns about issuing a digital dollar ahead of the digital yuan opened the year and soon enough were followed by the Digital Dollar Project’s white paper release. The conversation of this tech competition between the two countries was even brought to the U.S Senate. Some even controversially argued that the 2020 U.S. election sealed China’s victory in CBDC leadership. Though, the question of whether being the first in launching a CBDC will be enough to win global reserve currency status remains open. Most importantly, China does not intend to replace the U.S. dollar with the digital yuan, and collaborative efforts between the two great powers on developing CBDCs might be indeed the best option for the world.There may be many reasons for such rapid CBDC development all over the world, but the major reason is the COVID-19 pandemic, which was highlighted by the European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements and many other experts. The coronavirus pandemic, which has driven humanity’s technology development at least 20 years forward, has become a serious challenge for global economies, and CBDCs have started to be seen as an appropriate tool to fix the financial system.Related: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the crypto space? Experts answerAnd while some are raising serious privacy concerns in regard to CBDCs and emphasizing that they would be a step toward a more centralized system, the potential of national digital currencies is surely becoming our present reality, not just the financial system of the future. CBDCs are a serious step in financial system development, as they can improve bank accounts, alter traditional finance entirely, reshape world economies, change our conceptions of money and how we use it by replacing cash, and even become a part of a “new monetary order.” And as 2020 will be ending soon, Cointelegraph reached out to experts in the blockchain and crypto space for their opinions on the impact of CBDCs on the crypto space and beyond. How did CBDC development affect the crypto space this year, and what can we expect in 2021?Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger:“The level of competency within the technical teams at central banks, particularly in regard to CBDCs and their potential and limitations, would astound many in the crypto community who would assume otherwise. This year, we have seen not just hints dropped and research projects engaged, we’ve seen pilots and even some production systems and complementary institutions like the BIS and OECD tackling the regulatory issues head-on. A key question is whether these networks will be accounts-based or bearer-based — the latter being what most in the crypto community intuitively understand as ‘Not your keys, not your coins.’There’s a substantial risk that the regulatory imperatives to fight crime and fraud clash with the freedom to run the software of one's choice, echoing the long battles to be able to run the cryptography of one’s choice as a first principle, and we may find regulators hurtling toward banning noncustodial wallets. That would be a bad thing for everyone, from the crypto community to CBDCs and all other sorts of digital assets. My belief is that regulators and central banks will be satisfied by KYC/AML implemented using digital identity systems — probably of the self-sovereign variety, often running on these same networks — to make those kinds of regulatory decisions ‘late binding’ at the time of transaction, no matter where keys are stored, for matters of sheer practicality. Banks in countries whose regulators understand that better than others will have a competitive advantage, and that might not be the countries we think of today as being furthest along in CBDC deployment.”Brian Brooks, acting comptroller of the currency of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:“Central bank digital currencies are among the most important topics being discussed right now. The question at this point is not whether but how to accomplish the digitization of the dollar and other fiat currencies. The United States usually wins when we unleash the power of our innovative, dynamic private sector, with the government setting the rules rather than building the products. But either way, given the intense focus of other countries in this area, let me say that because of the important role of the U.S. dollar, we need the United States to step forward on this field.”Da Hongfei, founder of Neo, founder and CEO of Onchain:“It will certainly be a boon to the blockchain space as the rapid development of CBDCs further affirms the integral role blockchain will play in building the world of tomorrow. As blockchain innovation accelerates, I believe countries around the world are increasingly recognizing the need to build a truly digital future that will resolve the current inefficiencies and shortcomings of today’s global order. As asset digitization picks up steam, I am confident that we will move toward the smart economy of the future.”Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation:“CBDCs can and will be a huge innovation in our lifetimes, particularly as a tool for financial inclusion. This year, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how impactful CBDCs could be. Policymakers, governments and central banks increasingly are recognizing there are ways to better serve citizens and create more equitable access to the financial system in a way that’s faster, cheaper and more efficient.From our discussions with governments around the world exploring this technology, I think 2021 will see central banks take the learnings from this year and start putting CBDCs into practice.As for which countries will take the lead, China seems to have a head start, but development will likely be slower and more complicated in less restrictive societies. There are so many countries exploring the possibilities of CBDCs at the moment that it is hard to pick a front-runner, but the increased focus around the globe makes that an exciting race to follow.”Dominik Schiener, co-founder of the Iota Foundation:“CBDCs will be developed in parallel to advancements in the crypto space. While CBDCs are very interesting, they tackle a very different use case than familiar crypto assets like Bitcoin or Iota. They are issued and backed by a central bank with the authority to print new capital at will. They are also not necessarily intended for consumers or everyday people. Crypto assets, by contrast, are generally controlled by a public algorithm that manages their supply and distribution.In 2021, we will see central banks piloting internal tests of CBDCs. However, they will probably be doing so on private or even non-blockchain networks. They may even decide to launch their own networks. CBDCs will not be hampered by technical hurdles but regulatory uncertainty. This will drag out the deployment of CBDCs in the real world past 2021 and into 2022, or even 2024 and beyond.China is clearly the leader when it comes to CBDCs. They are taking the technology way more seriously than other countries and seem to have less regulatory controls blocking innovation of blockchain and digital-asset technology.”Emin Gün Sirer, CEO of AvaLabs, professor at Cornell University, co-director of IC3:“Libra really kicked monetary authorities and central banks into gear, as the existential threat of Facebook’s network triggered a ‘fight or flight’ response. Regardless of the catalyst for their efforts, it is indisputably positive to see the gatekeepers of the traditional financial system realize the importance of crypto.China has been the clear leader thus far in activating public and private organizations to try and seize the first-mover advantage. By public accounts and information, it has made significant strides.I can think of few clearer motivations for U.S. politicians and regulators to accelerate their own efforts and fend off the first real threat to the hegemony of the U.S. dollar in decades.”Heath Tarbert, chairman and chief executive of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission:“We have seen a lot of countries touch CBDCs in 2020. An impetus for a lot of work was the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw how a CBDC helped with government payments to individuals that could not access them otherwise due to the pandemic. I could imagine a lot of other countries are going to be looking at what has been learned during this pandemic and identify how to move forward with their own CBDC.Here in the United States, U.S. dollar CBDCs are principally a matter for the Federal Reserve. We are tracking the work of the Boston Fed and MIT on exploring CBDC design and technology. We are also encouraged by the work of the BIS’s Innovation Hub on CBDCs. My personal belief is that America must lead here. However, we must not just look to our government for the solution. The private sector moves faster; partnering with it while we determine a regulatory solution is probably the best path to move things forward.”James Butterfill, investment strategist at CoinShares:“We believe CBDCs are highly unlikely to replace crypto assets such as Bitcoin due to their inherent differences, primarily with the latter being distributed ledger, peer-to-peer systems. Bitcoin, in particular, has a predetermined monetary policy where the supply cannot be altered, making it far more attractive as a non-sovereign store of value compared with a CBDC, which will be designed to replicate its respective central bank’s fiat currency.The concept of central bank digital currencies has garnered considerable attention from central banks in the second half of 2020. We expect there to be increased hype and confusion in 2021 as the details on how they are structured are revealed. There are considerable challenges to overcome.A central bank issuing a CBDC would have to ensure the fulfillment of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorist Financing as well as satisfy the public policy requirements of other supervisory and tax regimes.Some proposals have suggested the central banks administer the core ledger with an interface for regulated entities such as banks to connect to, but this hardly achieves the promised efficiency gains that a peer-to-peer ledger system should have.If a central bank becomes a wallet provider, it runs the risk of hollowing out commercial banks, depriving them of a cheap, stable source of funding like retail deposits. In crisis periods, this could lead to a run on weaker banks as clients prefer the safety of a central-bank-backed wallet.As the ledger will be central rather than distributed, can they ever be as secure and trustworthy?Many of these issues will be difficult and time-consuming to resolve, and therefore, CBDCs aren’t coming anytime soon. Furthermore, while they are likely to come with efficiency gains that digital currencies offer, they are much closer to their underlying fiat currencies, not offering the diversification benefits and store-of-value features that digital assets such as Bitcoin offer.”James Wallis, vice president of central bank engagements at Ripple:“National CBDCs have been a positive development for the crypto space and have served as confirmation at the highest level that digital currencies are the future. In 2021, I expect to see a world where cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and CBDCs each have their place in finance and payments, with more defined use cases. As governments continue to pilot CBDCs and test new technology in the space, I think it’s likely that more regulatory clarity in those jurisdictions will follow suit and become more defined. It’s likely this will have an impact on other countries’ regulatory bodies that have been slower to embrace cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.The focus of CBDCs in 2020 was primarily on domestic solutions. The true potential for CBDCs is in interoperability among CBDCs and between CBDCs and other digital currencies and cryptos. This will require collaboration between central bank networks and private blockchains and will foster innovative use cases. We’re going to see a growing demand for a neutral bridge for currencies to provide liquidity and instant settlement for cross-border transactions.China has led the charge for retail CBDCs by tying into e-commerce platforms — expect further expansion, including cross-border into Macau, Hong Kong and more. We will certainly see others following suit in 2021 and testing solutions that have the option to interoperate with private companies. Similarly, I think we will see more CBDCs that address specific use cases, like replacing cash as we have seen in Sweden with the e-krona project or the Sand Dollar implementation in the Bahamas that aims to bring inclusive access to regulated payments and other financial services for underserved communities.To keep up with other CBDC projects and to address the issues raised with the COVID-19 pandemic, we should expect more central banks to accelerate their CBDC initiatives, including the EU, South Africa, Brazil, the U.K. and, hopefully, the U.S., which has been lagging behind.Due to the Chinese DC/EP initiative, we expect many more countries/regions to accelerate their CBDC efforts. China may be leading, but others will be moving quickly. Europe is actively exploring the feasibility of a digital euro, with several member states, including France, conducting experiments currently. In the United States, the Fed has an active collaboration with MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative to perform research related to CBDCs. We think these developments are positive and will lead to better designed, better functioning CBDCs.Many developing countries are already leading the way with CBDC applications; it’s a natural next step that these governments will develop standardized digital wallets for every citizen. Whereas many developed countries — like the U.S. — are still debating the benefits of CBDCs. It’s unlikely that we will see anything of that scale deployed and adopted by its citizens in the next five or more years.”Jimmy Song, instructor at Programming Blockchain:“I don’t think it affects crypto that much, other than maybe bringing more people in that don’t like surveillance. CBDCs are a way for central banks to control our financial lives more than they do already.I suspect that China will be one of the first, as it’s very authoritarian. I imagine it will cut out banks altogether and give each citizen a direct bank account with the central bank.”Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, founder of ConsenSys:“When ConsenSys published its white paper ‘Central Banks and the Future of Digital Money’ at the World Economic Forum in January, the backdrop was a dramatic shift in the mechanics of money. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accelerated technological changes to how money moves. Privately issued stablecoins have nearly doubled from the beginning of the year, now with a market capitalization of $23 billion. It’s really interesting what’s going on in that space, which has actually been ongoing for several years now. China’s DC/EP approach already had live trials in four major cities. This year, the Bahamas and Cambodia became the first nations to use digital currencies in their financial infrastructure. And in November, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde signaled that her institution could create a digital currency within years and that policymakers intend to decide around mid-2021 whether to prepare for a possible launch. ConsenSys also announced four separate CBDC projects with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Societe Generale - Forge, the Bank of Thailand and the Reserve Bank of Australia in the third quarter of this year. In this era of rapid advancements in the way that money moves is the recognition that we need systems to collaborate and trade with one another. Motivations for a CBDC around the world will be different — in some cases to provide greater control and in other countries, more efficient systems. Banks have monopolies and will compete for reserve status, and we’ll see about the regulation of stablecoins. But I firmly believe that blockchain-based systems can end up becoming the foundation for increased trustworthy collaboration.”Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph and Swirlds Inc.:“CBDCs are, in essence, a validation of the overall crypto space, given that they borrow many of the same concepts from cryptocurrency. In this regard, central bank digital currencies will continue to put a spotlight on the broader cryptocurrency and distributed ledger industry. However, they are likely to differ in one primary, fundamental way — and that is they will remain centralized, rather than embracing the public, transparent nature of cryptocurrencies. In 2021, we will see small countries issue their first digital currencies — probably using private, permissioned ledgers — and we will continue to see advancement from China with regard to the digital yuan, where it seems to enjoy a first-mover advantage over other digital currencies.”Paul Brody, principal and global innovation leader of blockchain technology at Ernst & Young:“When it comes to central bank digital currencies, China already has the lead and is likely to stay in that position for the foreseeable future as it deploys this tokenized currency. It has a clear roadmap, it has been conducting tests, and it also has clear policy objectives bound up in the deployment of the Digital Currency Electronic Payment program.Even though other countries are mostly just studying the concept, real-world experimentation is also going on with the use of stablecoins in smart contracts on Ethereum. This is a real-life laboratory for how CBDCs are likely to be used, if they are made accessible to the public, and I think the decision by the Bank of England to build a regulatory framework for them is a really good step to start understanding and managing the likely impact of CBDCs.”Roger Ver, executive chairman of Bitcoin.com:“That’s the fun part about being in this ecosystem: We don’t know where the next big thing will come from. It could be from a nation-state anywhere in the world, a Facebook or a lone wolf like Satoshi Nakamoto. The one thing we do know is that the pace of innovation is going to increase.”Samson Mow, chief strategy officer of Blockstream:“CBDCs don’t compete with Bitcoin; they compete with stablecoins and commercial banks. China is definitely leading the way in CBDC development, and I would expect other nations to attempt to follow quickly. We've also seen the government of Bermuda experimenting with a stimulus token issued on the Liquid Network, which is very exciting.”Sheila Warren, head of blockchain and DLT at the World Economic Forum:“We’ve certainly seen increased attention in 2020 toward the digital currency space, especially from regulators and economists, which is slowly moving us toward normalizing crypto. In contrast, when we released our CBDC Policy-Maker Toolkit in January, these conversations were not yet as prominent in the public sphere.This year, we’re starting to see things moving into production and the results of experiments becoming increasingly clear. Emerging economies continued to take the lead on experimentation and deployment — with interesting work out of Bermuda, the Eastern Caribbean and Cambodia — and of course, China remains the country to watch.”Todd Morakis, co-founder and partner of JST Capital:“There will likely be a number of CBDCs that launch in some limited form over the next year or two. We also expect continued growth in the number of banks issuing their own digitized currencies, with a particular focus in developing parts of the world. We think that 2021 will be an interesting year for the adoption of digitized currencies and how that intersects with the evolving DeFi world.”Vinny Lingham, CEO of Civic:“China will take the early lead on central bank digital currencies. It has been clear that it wants to be the global unit of account. So, at some point in the future, we’ll see China and the U.S. duel to become the world leader on this front.In terms of the effects on the crypto space, it’s important to remember that CBDCs are fundamentally different from crypto. A central promise of Bitcoin is that it’s non-political, and that’s important to many people who use Bitcoin. They do not want the currency to be open to manipulation by the state. Governments, by nature, cannot be non-political. So, CBDCs and crypto may coexist, but they will never be the same. Further, I think there’s less than a 1% chance that any government-sanctioned fork would replace Bitcoin. And if this ever did happen, it would likely strengthen Bitcoin.”These quotes have been edited and condensed.The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

‘Blow-off top’ or $30,000? Traders muse Bitcoin’s end-of-year fate

Traders and analysts mull what's in store for Bitcoin after a historic day.
After a historic day in which the headlines could hardly keep up with price action and Bitcoin set a new all-time high above $26,500, traders and analysts are now turning their attention towards what could be in store for the digital currency over the next five days as 2020 comes to a close.Historic candleWhile a 8-9% daily gain might be pittance compared to Bitcoin’s historical volatility — there was a 42% rally as recently as 2019 — as Messari founder Ryan Selkis pointed out, today’s rally featured only the second $2,300 candle in the digital currency’s history:Bitcoin’s first $2300 candle took 8.5 years.It’s done that again today. pic.twitter.com/FfiCrG9OhX— Ryan Bitcorn Selkis (@twobitidiot) December 26, 2020
Perhaps caught in the euphoria, some traders are already looking towards when daily candles eclipse five figures:When will #Bitcoin have its first $10k daily candle?— Luke.hodl (@Coinosphere) December 26, 2020
Clamoring for $30,000Positive headwinds are swirling for Bitcoin’s next step. “Bitcoin” is currently trending on Twitter with 164,000 recent tweets — comfortably outstripping the next highest trending item, the archeological discovery of a street food stall in the ruins of Pompeii. Additionally, as Cointelegraph has previously reported, this recent rally has put Bitcoin back on the path plotted by the popular Stock to Flow (S2F) model, which forecasts a price of :Another popular folk metric indicated that Bitcoin mania still has a long ways to climb towards 2017 peaks as well. According to Google analytics, search history for “Bitcoin” is barely at a fifth of all time high levels: Google Trends data:Searches for 'buy #Bitcoin' are around 1/5th of their all-time peakWill searches eventually 10x the last peak? It has begun. pic.twitter.com/MUgRfPsvlD— Alistair Milne (@alistairmilne) December 26, 2020
All together, the positive sentiment and parabolic price action have a greater and greater number of traders clamoring for ‘30k by the 30th” — a $30,000 price on the 30th of December:Retweet for 30k #BTC by the 30th— Stacking (@StackingUSD) December 26, 2020
Blow off top?Despite the positive sentiment and price action that puts Cape Canaveral to shame, some traders are already lining up possible short positions. One trader is calling for a blow-off top in the next two weeks:Update - Weekend blow off in full motion. I suspect the hammer will come within the next 2 weeks pic.twitter.com/3xAirpOJrz— Crypto Leo (@CryptoLeos) December 26, 2020
While it remains the minority sentiment, he’s not alone and thinking turbulence could be ahead for Bitcoin. $2.3 billion worth of Bitcoin futures expired on Christmas day, which historically has led to choppy markets.

Binance enables SegWit support for Bitcoin deposits as adoption grows

Traders on Binance can now deposit and withdraw to SegWit (bech32) addresses.
Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has incorporated Segregated Witness, or SegWit, support for Bitcoin (BTC) deposits. The SegWit support was extended to deposits on Christmas Eve, Binance said in an official statement. The protocol upgrade was initially enabled only for withdrawals. Effective immediately, Binance users can transfer funds to a SegWit (bech32) address by selecting the BTC (SegWit) network. Binance explained:“Please note SegWit should help reduce fees; however, if you incorrectly send incompatible assets to the address, your funds will not be recoverable and will result in permanent loss.”Implemented in 2017, SegWit is a Bitcoin protocol upgrade designed to help scale the network and fix associated bugs. SegWit is known for the way it updates data on the blockchain, namely, by segregating signatures from transaction data. This protocol upgrade allows more transactions to be stored in a single block, thus increasing transaction capacity. Data from transactionfee.info show that roughly two-thirds of Bitcoin payments currently use SegWit. Although Bitcoin has emerged as a monetary instrument for storing value, it continues to face scalability limitations, which some argue has impeded adoption for everyday use.The Lightning Network has been offered as a viable layer 2 scaling solution for Bitcoin as a payment protocol. Unlike SegWit, which was a soft fork update to the Bitcoin protocol, the Lightning Network is an additional layer that could enable instant, lower-cost transactions.Despite limited transaction capacity, Bitcoin remains the de facto leader of the digital currency market. Its dominance over other crypto assets recently hit one-year highs. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s dominance rate was 68.7%, according to CoinMarketCap.

Miami mayor calls Bitcoin ‘stable investment’ during unstable year

Mayor Francis Suarez is learning about Bitcoin from the Winklevoss twins and Anthony Pompliano.
Miami mayor Francis Suarez is the latest high-profile figure to tout Bitcoin (BTC), offering more evidence that mainstream adoption is growing. In a Thursday tweet, Suarez called Bitcoin a “stable investment” during an “incredibly unstable year,” adding that he’s learning about the flagship digital asset through figures like Tyler Winklevoss and Anthony Pompliano. Great insight into how @Bitcoin has been a stable investment during and incredibly unstable year...currently reading Bitcoin Billionaires @tyler. @APompliano any other good reads? https://t.co/nenQ5xmfi7— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) December 24, 2020
Winklevoss and Pompliano both responded to Suarez’s tweet. Tyler said he and his brother Cameron will bring the Miami mayor a “signed copy of Bitcoin Billionaires,” a book written about the twins, while Pompliano touted Miami as a future Bitcoin city. Miami is well on the way to becoming the Bitcoin city— Pomp (@APompliano) December 24, 2020
Earlier in the day, Suarez indicated that his administration is exploring the idea of Miami becoming the first crypto-centric government in the country. “Absolutely exploring that,” he said in response to a tweet. No further details were provided. Absolutely exploring that @APompliano @GrapefruitTrade https://t.co/mbpbSMkfEI— Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) December 24, 2020
Suarez was elected the mayor of Miami in Nov 2017 after running as a nonpartisan candidate. Before entering politics, he worked as an attorney and also founded a title real estate title company. Miami has been described by some news outlets as one of the hottest American cities for cryptocurrencies due to lax state oversight and an influx of foreign capital. The North American Bitcoin Conference, which featured names like Charles Hoskinson, Roger Ver and Riccardo Sagni, was held in Miami at the start of the year. Bitcoin's explosive rally this year, fueled in part by corporate and institutional adoption, is driving new conversations about digital assets. Bitcoin adoption is increasingly viewed as a competitive advantage in an economy wrought with financial instability, asset-price inflation and record central-bank intervention.

Was 2020 a ‘DeFi year,’ and what is expected from the sector in 2021? Experts answer

Experts in blockchain technology and the crypto space take on the question: What impact has DeFi had in 2020, and what can we expect in 2021?
Figuring out the point at which decentralized finance began almost always ends up in a rhetorical debate. Some argue that Bitcoin’s (BTC) invention a decade ago marked the start of it, as the major cryptocurrency was the first peer-to-peer digital money and represents the conceptual core underpinning DeFi. Others say — and would be technically correct in doing so — that DeFi started back in December 2017, when Ethereum-based protocol MakerDAO was launched, followed by Compound Finance and Uniswap, released in September and November 2018, respectively. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that DeFi’s true ascent started this year. DeFi’s monumental rise in total value locked — starting this summer and surpassing $16 billion this month — has undoubtedly made the sector one of the most discussed topics of 2020. And, as expected, there are those who support it and those who criticize. Related: DeFi adoption 2020: A definitive guide to entering the industry Despite being among the hottest topics this year, some still argue that DeFi remains mostly a niche financial tool in the world of global finance. The rapid growth of the money flowing into the space unsurprisingly caused some to compare DeFi with the initial coin offering boom of 2017, predicting its potential failure. Meanwhile, others claim that multiple projects in the space are not really decentralized and don’t represent the true idea of DeFi.Other concerns are strongly bound to the transaction fees on the Ethereum network, which reached its highest level several times this year, calling the network’s long-term sustainability into question. But it would be incorrect to blame DeFi alone for high gas fees, as they are also influenced by the way institutions store and secure digital assets. One of the solutions might be unlocking Bitcoin’s $250 billion treasure chest for DeFi products. Related: The butterfly effect: Why DeFi will force BTC to break its 21M supply ceilingWhile the very concept of DeFi is promising, there are some pitfalls, obvious financial risks and a number of technical risks as well. It seems only necessary that the underlying infrastructure for most decentralized applications are improved upon.Related: DeFi-ing expectations: Great opportunities in crypto can come at a priceIn the long run, decentralized finance has the potential to change our world, where 1.7 billion people still lack access to traditional financial services. To get back to rhetorical debates about the origins of decentralized finance, it could be said that DeFi is completing the job Bitcoin started, becoming the second step in decentralized evolution, with potential to solve the problem of financial inclusion.As 2020 comes to an end, Cointelegraph reached out to experts in blockchain technology and the crypto space for their opinions about a “DeFi year.” How has DeFi affected the crypto industry in 2020, and what should we expect from the DeFi space in 2021?Brendan Blumer, CEO at Block.one:“Decentralized finance has certainly been one of the year’s most headline-grabbing features. The billions of dollars of funds that surged into the ecosystem underscores the widespread interest in DeFi; however, this spike in attention has also drawn increased skepticism from regulators, who want to understand the limits and viability of DeFi applications.At Block.one we believe that there must be an evolution from DeFi to achieve a sustainable connection to the legacy economy and the creation of a more open financial system. We call it Open Programmable Finance, or ProFi. We think about ProFi like a bridge from the transparency and integrity of the EOS blockchain to the regulated financial world.A key differentiator between DeFi and ProFi is that ProFi businesses incorporate risk-based, permissioned access to transactions based on regulations and compliance. Crypto compliance and regulatory frameworks are taking shape and maturing rapidly. The real winners in the digital economy will be those that think long-term and take the time to ensure their products meet jurisdictional and professional service requirements.”Brian Brooks, acting comptroller of the currency of the United States Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency:“Decentralization is one of the two great forces reshaping financial services. Along with the unbundling of the three traditional core banking activities of lending, payments and deposit-taking, decentralization is transforming how we consume financial services and how banks operate. My view is that we are still in the first quarter of a longer game and many of the greatest benefits and advancements are still ahead.”Da Hongfei, founder of Neo, founder and CEO of Onchain:“While blockchain-backed financial solutions are not new, we witnessed exciting and innovative breakthroughs in DeFi this year, ranging from exciting new protocols to improved cross-chain asset bridges. Moving forward, I believe it’s clear that the blockchain space has embraced both decentralization and interoperability, and I’m confident that both will rapidly advance in the upcoming year. Through cutting-edge interoperability protocols such as Poly Network, we are building the foundation for the smart economy of the future, a world which is truly globalized and boundary-free.”Dan Simerman, head of financial relations at the Iota Foundation:“I agree that 2020 was a ‘DeFi year,’ primarily because DeFi projects dominated in terms of technical innovation and development. I would also say that DeFi showed the crypto world that innovation is still possible, and that new projects can still bootstrap liquidity, funding and engagement in novel ways. After the end of the 2017 ICO craze, it was assumed that it would be difficult for new projects to find their footing in a market prioritizing private funding over crowdsourced innovation. Thanks to the tools created within the DeFi bubble, we will see a great deal more innovation in the coming months.In 2021, we will see some of the core innovations, like pool lending and liquidity mining, permeate into applications we wouldn’t consider ‘financial.’ Entrepreneurs, developers and companies looking to pick a blockchain will expect these core components to be available as part of their DApp toolbox. What we considered radical financial tooling in 2020 will become de-facto requirements for blockchain and ecosystem selection in 2021. We may even see some of the core innovations in DeFi make their way into the world of centralized finance.”Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation:“I have seen a growing focus and an increase in headlines on DeFi across our industry in 2020. But even if the term is ubiquitous these days, I think DeFi means a lot of different things to people and translates in many different ways in existing and emerging projects. As a result, I have a hard time classifying the year as a whole as a DeFi year, but I do think that the DeFi craze has brought a lot of new talent and interest to blockchain and crypto, which is good for the industry as a whole. On Stellar, there is already a lot that you can do that falls in the realm of DeFi.Still, I think that this raises important considerations for all of us as to why DeFi has been a keen focus and whether there are adaptations that we can make to ensure we are satisfying those needs.”Emin Gün Sirer, CEO of AvaLabs, professor at Cornell University, co-director of IC3:“DeFi on Ethereum skyrocketed this year, establishing a vibrant community of applications and users. At the same time, however, the hacks and scams we’ve seen underscore just how much work is left to harden the community, while enormous volumes have shown the limits of DeFi on Ethereum 1.0.Network congestion pushed fees to new highs, introducing systemic risks with so much of the market being driven by high leverage and collateralized lending. In the event of a price swing — which can normally be absorbed by the system — we saw domino effects of liquidations triggered because users can’t post collateral or exit their position.The main problem here is that the layer one on which DeFi activity is taking place is too congested. I believe that the launch of new, scalable layer ones, such as Avalanche, will change this. We will begin to see DeFi expand even further.”Heath Tarbert, chairman and chief executive of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission:“DeFi is a growing global trend and its emergence highlights how innovation continues to reinvent the financial services space. By combining multiple technologies to provide financial services in new ways, DeFi could potentially provide a way to expand financial market access to a broader range of individuals and entities. It is a new way to look at finance that leverages and reflects the new ways we all interact. We cannot be thinking only of the prior way of going to a bank or a broker that you know for years, particularly if you are looking to expand access to financial markets and financial services. Historically, innovation has driven our markets forward and been the lynchpin of their success. I think, as a regulator, we should expect DeFi to evolve and grow. Each regulator will need to work to identify how DeFi touches their own jurisdiction. In the absence of regulation, industry will need to figure out how to ensure there is market integrity and consumer protection — all areas that regulators will be focused on in the future.”Jimmy Song, instructor at Programming Blockchain:“As far as it being the new scam vehicle, absolutely true. We haven’t seen scams like this proliferate since the ICOs of 2017–2018. This is nothing new, of course, as altcoins from 2011 and token sales from 2013–2014 attest. As far as it adding anything beneficial to the ecosystem, I have serious doubts. If three years from now, DeFi turns out not to be a zero-sum game benefiting the people creating the tokens, I’ll reconsider.I expect 2021 to be more of the same, as people have a hard time learning that all this stuff is minimally useful at best. I expect 2022 to be the year when it finally comes to a grinding halt.”Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, founder of ConsenSys:“That the value attributed to DeFi protocols rose from $675 million to nearly $15 billion in one year is evidence that DeFi, or as I refer to it, ‘open decentralized finance,’ is having a big year. However, this isn’t just a new exciting use case for crypto — it’s the coming together of an entire decentralized financial ecosystem whose constituent parts have already been in place for several years now. Many in our space refer to these as lego blocks or composable open-sources systems that allow for more complex financial applications, accessible to anyone. It started with a collateral-backed stablecoin (DAI), borrowing and lending of these stablecoins, and ways to efficiently trade without going through a centralized exchange (automated market makers like Uniswap and 1inch). We are now seeing insurance protocols, asset management platforms and even new financial innovations like flash loans.Our wallet and portal to any DeFi application, MetaMask, improved its user experience over the last few years, making it easy for anyone to switch between accounts and grant permissions only to applications and sites you trust. Their mobile app also is making it easier for DeFi apps to attract a broader, mobile-first audience, which by some estimates, is close to 2 billion people, or about 60% of the internet-connected population. Over 65% of MetaMask Mobile beta users were based outside of North America and Europe, where mobile is prevalent. We’ve heard from users that using MetaMask Mobile has been convenient for individuals to swap crypto tokens, sell NFT art, and earn interest from providing collateral — all from a cell phone.ConsenSys started when there was no real ecosystem, no infrastructure and no developer tools. Now our developer tools like Truffle serve millions of developers who want to build their own applications. Infura supports more than 130,000 developers by providing node-optimized cloud infrastructure, making it easier to deploy applications without running infrastructure. And with many millions of dollars on the line, our auditing team, ConsenSys Diligence is making sure that smart contracts are tested and safe before deploying. All of this is contributing to the rise of DeFi, because it is easier for a developer to spin up a project based on a vibrant open-source ecosystem.One trend I anticipate to pick up steam in 2021 is that institutional money and professional traders will increasingly want exposure to DeFi. For that reason, we built an institutional version of MetaMask and are beginning to onboard custodians and professional traders to integrate MetaMask into their tech so they can seamlessly get exposure.I think that the macroeconomic trends of low (and even negative) interest rates globally will mean that DeFi will increasingly be relevant to normal people. It’s not just the tech and financial nerds that will find this interesting. If bank accounts offer lots of different features that make borrowing and lending easier, allow more people to participate in the upside of markets, and even provide more yield, we could see more people making the move to the decentralized financial rails. As long as the legacy finance world keeps breaking, people will be pushed in our direction.I also am keeping an eye on how gaming will act as a catalyst for introducing Ethereum-based NFTs, for consumers.”Mance Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Hedera Hashgraph and Swirlds Inc.:“The rise of DeFi in 2020 has laid the groundwork for enterprises to embed componentized financing directly into their business processes. While the DeFi bubble of 2020 looks in some ways similar to the ICO craze of 2017, the fundamentals of the DeFi movement will change the face of finance in the future.DeFi will make traditional financing operations faster and less costly, across enterprises, government and for individuals. It will transform every financial transaction that we perform as organizations, as well as in our personal lives.”Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares:“Much of the finance industry is based on two core concepts — securitization and lending. The crypto industry has been engaged in securitization and lending since its earliest days, with the advent of colored coins for Bitcoin and the ERC-20 standard, which made this much more accessible and enabled securitization via tokenization, and the growth of asset-backed lending markets, where holders of Bitcoin and other highly liquid cryptocurrencies could use their holdings to access cash and obtain additional leverage. In 2020, securitization and leverage have found new mediums in the form of DeFi, effectively taking these activities which have traditionally been coordinated by trusted intermediaries like banks, brokers and asset managers, and have migrated them to a peer-to-peer, blockchain-native medium, effectively displacing trusted intermediaries with verifiable technology in the form of open-source code, i.e., the contracts that govern DeFi projects.DeFi is one step in a journey many of us in the industry have viewed as an inevitability — that securitization, lending and many core finance functions performed by banks and other intermediaries can be effectively migrated into low-trust crypto primitives. With millions of people around the world being net-long billions in crypto assets, it is only inevitable that a market would develop around making these assets financially productive. We’ve been investing time, energy and capital into the DeFi space and look forward to continuing to do so in 2021. Institutions are not quite ready for DeFi, but make no mistake — they’ll look to replicate their existing business models (and the associated revenues) using crypto as collateral. We expect to see more regulatory pressure, and therefore more anonymous dev-founded projects, as well as the emergence of stablecoins that don’t have any single point of control, like Empty Set Dollar (ESD) or Basis Cash (BAC), two early leaders in this space. We expect to see more assets to be “wrapped,” i.e., securitized, and made available as collateral on-chain, and we look forward to seeing a more robust rate market that begins to price risk and duration across the DeFi space.At the end of the day, leverage is a helluva drug, and the industry will continue to innovate to keep capital flowing freely. Without access to a money printer, innovation will continue to drive liquidity in the trading ecosystem, where demand for cash and leverage continues to outpace supply, which will drive further asset securitization and tokenization as firms begin to explore more esoteric types of collateral and under-collateralized or potentially even unsecured lending.”Michael Zochowski, head of DeFi at Ripple:“2020 may not have been ‘The year of DeFi,’ but it certainly served as its coming-out party. Within the crypto community, DeFi was the most buzzed-about topic as we started to see its potential, but we have yet to see it jump to the mainstream, as most current users are those that were already engaged within crypto. For DeFi to break out of its bubble, we’ll need to see a strategic partnership with a conventional player like a financial institution or fintech.History will repeat itself — like we saw with the altcoin boom in 2017–2018, many projects will fizzle out, consolidate or get acquired, including some of the 2020 darlings, as we’re already seeing. The ones with true utility will have earned a spot in crypto. The most successful will likely be the simpler applications replicating basic financial services, like wrapped assets and decentralized exchanges.New DeFi platforms will gain traction as it becomes more and more obvious that performance and cost need to improve significantly. Expect more sidechain projects, bridges between networks and smart contracts building momentum on new networks — as these new systems emerge interoperability and efficiency will rise in importance. With Eth2 still years away, I anticipate at least 25% of the value deployed in DeFi by the end of 2021 to be on networks besides Ethereum, with strong momentum going into 2022 if Ethereum falls further behind on its upgrade plan.”Mike Belshe, CEO at BitGo:“This was the year when DeFi became a household name, or at least a recognized term in most financial circles. BitGo has been involved in DeFI for a long time and one of our products — Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) — burst onto the scene in January 2020 and is now widely used across DeFi. In under a year, the market cap for WBTC has risen to $1.6 billion.BitGo has the role of sole custodian for WBTC. This means we secure every Bitcoin deposited to mint WBTC. For every 1 WBTC, there is 1 BTC sitting inside BitGo’s vaults being securely stored.WBTC’s core strength is the transparency and verifiability of the system, which, combined with BitGo’s track record of security, has enabled it to attract the institutional and retail users of DeFi and build a significant amount of liquidity with the market cap continuing to grow.We’re confident that DeFi applications and use cases will continue to gain momentum in 2021. We will see innovations from decentralized lending to collateralization and insurance that can be built on top of the DeFi infrastructure even without our involvement. The diverse blockchain community identifies exciting use cases far beyond what the technology was initially designed for. This unbound potential for new development is why we’re so passionate about building in this space.”Paul Brody, principal and global innovation leader of blockchain technology at Ernst & Young:“DeFi is terrific and exciting because the truth about smart contracts is that most of them are not very smart. Historically, they’ve been little more than registers of asset ownership. With the arrival of DeFi, we’ve moved on from having stuff to doing stuff, and so we’re getting much closer to actually fulfilling the goal of smart contracts.We’re now entering the exciting and scary era when smart contracts are going to move assets and money in automated ways, they are going to be hacked and exploited, and we’re going to learn how to manage those risks while creating value. We’re seeing a bit of this already, but in 2021, it will advance a lot further.My hopes for 2021 are not only that we will see DeFi contracts mature, but we will also see a transition from DApps towards something we are calling Zapps — zero-knowledge applications — privacy-centric versions of DApps that can be used by enterprises. I think we will see a much more serious approach to auditing and security as well.Finally, I hope in 2021 that we will see the emergence of decentralized applications beyond finance. Decentralized operations, business systems and infrastructure are all ahead of us, taking the concepts first deployed in DeFi and applying them to a much wider array of services and systems, from inventory to manufacturing to procurement.”Roger Ver, executive chairman at Bitcoin.com:“Like cryptocurrency in general, DeFi is just getting started. It is just one more area that Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention has enabled.Cryptocurrency, tokens, decentralized crowdfunding like Flipstarter, ICOs, and so much more are now possible. The ecosystem is still just getting started, and we are all lucky to be a part of it.”Samson Mow, chief strategy officer at Blockstream:“2020 was a DeFi year if we’re defining a year based on hacks and failures. Much like Ethereum, DeFi has served to enrich some insiders and made many others lose money. I’d expect that 2021 will just be more of the same.”Scott Freeman, co-founder and partner at JST Capital:“2020 has been a remarkable year for all of crypto, not just DeFi. That being said, we’ve found the institutional growth within DeFi to be remarkable and maybe even more surprising than institutional Bitcoin adoption. We’ve also seen liquidity dramatically improve on decentralized exchanges and lending platforms.We expect 2021 to see continued growth within DeFi as we see more solution-oriented projects instead of interesting technology in search of a problem to solve.”These quotes have been edited and condensed.The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Ripple has Many Ongoing Lawsuits, but This One Just Got Settled

Ripple lawsuits

There are so many ongoing Ripple lawsuits that you have to count them with both hands. Sure, it’s unfortunate, but it keeps Ripple in the public eye, providing the masses with constant XRP news; this isn’t the case for many altcoins as Bitcoin (BTC) often hogs all the attention and altcoins get left behind.

Recently, however, the company has scored small victories, such as on August 14th, the day a Judge denied one of the suits.

The latest victory came this week.

Ripple Lawsuits: XRP vs. R3

Last year, a lawsuit between ...

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Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR) Rise from the Ashes

Ethereum (ETH)

The cryptocurrency market is rebounding today, after a brutal couple of weeks on the market. Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Monero (XMR) are among the coins making the biggest surge this morning.

Recently, the market hit its year-low, and many of the coins reached their yearly lows as well.

Let’s take a closer look at these three coins and their latest developments.

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by its total market cap, hit its year-low this week, sinking below $180. ETH hadn’t been under the $180 price point since late June ...

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Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Derivatives are Ready to Go

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Derivatives

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) plans to offer its customers complex derivatives that will be tied to Bitcoin (BTC), Bloomberg reported this morning. The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin derivatives will push the investment bank in the running with its competition currently dabbing in the cryptocurrency space.

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Derivatives

According to a person familiar with the venture, Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest investment banks, is trying to create ways for its client to get involved in the digital currency market.

Institutional investors have shown that they don’t want to actually own any Bitcoin but ...

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OKEx Founder Released from Custody and Denies Fraud

OKEx Founder

Yesterday, it was announced that OKEx founder Star Xu had been taken into police custody for fraud allegations. If no substantial evidence was found, Xu would be released from custody in a 24-hour period.

According to local news reports, Xu has been released and isn’t pleased.

OKEx Founder Strikes Back

“I have no fictional facts, concealing the truth and defrauding anything, and there is no fact of ‘fraud.’ After I explained it to the police, I left the police station normally,” Xu told the local news outlet, Honeycomb Finance.

Xu faced problems ...

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Huobi Global Buys Large Chunk of BitTrade

Huobi Global buys BitTrade

In a major announcement, Huobi Global buys BitTrade. Huobi Japan Holding Ltd, Huobi Global’s wholly owned subsidiary, just acquired the majority stake of Japan’s BitTrade. Huobi Global owns and operates Huobi, the third largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trade volume.

Huobi Global Buys BitTrade

Huobi will partner with BitTrade, one of the only 16 regulated and Japanese government-approved crypto currency trading platforms.https://t.co/7dBwXX5Yag@bittrade_info #Huobi #HuobiGlobal

— Huobi Global (@HuobiGlobal) September 12, 2018

BitTrade is one one of only 16 Japanese-government approved and regulated cryptocurrency trading platforms. Huobi currently serves millions of ...

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‘If the water\'s too clean there\'ll be no fish’: China’s CBDC may hurt Macau’s casinos

Blockchain Set to Change the Face of Commercial Real Estate As We Know It

Major drawbacks of the real estate industry

Real estate investment has three major drawbacks: the presence of intermediaries, the lack of affordable funding options, and fraud.

Agents take up to six percent of the total payment made on a real estate asset. This means that intermediary fees would account for over $23,000 for a house that costs $400,000. Unfortunately, up to 80 percent of home buyers still use an intermediary and continue to pay these fees according to a report by the National Association of Realtors.

Real estate is also expensive and the prices continue to climb, limiting access for a greater part of the population. According to research by CNBC, an investment of $1 million will most likely buy about 270 square feet of prime property in New York. However, only about 10 percent of US residents can afford such a price tag.

Finally, the commercial real estate industry is rife with fraud, not just in the United States, but globally as well. According to a statement by the FBI, the internet crime complaint center saw a 480 percent increase in real estate fraud complaints filed in 2016. These crimes, including title fraud and online sale scams are aided by the rarity of trusted platforms where real estate documents can be verified.

How exactly can blockchain fix these issues?

A blockchain is an immutable ledger in which transaction data can be recorded. Its benefits include transparency, traceability, accessibility, and enhanced security. When implemented in the real estate industry, these properties can solve its major issues.

Blockchain real estate platforms eliminate the need for intermediaries like lawyers and agents by providing a means of property verification and payment to buyers. Paying for property using cryptocurrencies can also help buyers bypass bank fees. It cuts the fees associated with escrow by offering smart contracts that can be customized according to a users’ needs.

The tokenized nature of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum makes crowd ownership of real estate possible. Those who cannot afford to purchase the whole property can simply buy a part of it, like buying shares in a company. Such investors would receive transferrable tokens that represent their shares and can be verified easily on a blockchain. This makes real estate investment accessible to more people.

Blockchain can also prevent fraud in the industry by providing a way to easily authenticate property documents. As these properties are transferred, their records are added to the blockchain and a comprehensive history is formed. In the event of a sale, buyers can easily check if property is fraudulent.

Bringing blockchain innovation to real estate

Several companies are working to bring these solutions to the commercial real estate industry. One such company is i-House.com, which implemented a series of ATO (Asset Tokenization Offering) projects in less than a one- year span. These projects allow users to crowdfund real estate development projects using IHT, the company’s cryptocurrency. So far, their reach has extended to the U.S., Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines.

The i-House ATO model provides real estate accessibility and a verifiable platform for related transactions. By Implementing such a concept in the industry, the i-House ATO platform is positioned to disrupt it positively. i-House.com Chairman and Founder, Ricky Ng., said:

"We aim to create a shared economy asset management ecosystem that spans across the globe, i-House ATO provides real estate owners, developers, and end users the means to own and share assets easily”

Cryptocurrency that empowers real estate investors worldwide

IHT was recently listed on the Bittrex exchange and South Korea’s largest exchange, UPbit. IHT is currently listed on nine other exchanges including Cashierest, KuCoin, Gate.io, Coinw, LBank, HitBTC, CoinBene, CoinTiger and Allbit. The company stated that it hopes to get listed on more top global exchanges in the future.

The future of blockchain real estate

Blockchain presents an opportunity to change how real estate transactions are handled. Everything from land registry to provenance and payment systems currently have a lot of room for improvement. With better systems in place, there will be more incentive to invest in the industry and further bolster economic growth.

As companies like i-House.com make these changes to the industry, the real question lies in how quickly others will follow suit. Will this be one of those things that don’t become mainstream until there is a crisis in the industry? We may have to sit back and watch.

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.

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Hodler’s Digest, November 5-11: Star Trek’s Captain Kirk Defends ETH Decentralization, While Fake Elon...

The central bank is China comes out against crypto air drops, while a flood of fake Elon Musks take Twitter promising crypto giveaways.

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you to track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Most Memorable Quotations

“His viewpoints don’t take into account the fact that the code has to be audited by an auditing firm and approved by consortium or it doesn’t get accepted. He thinks it exists in a bubble.

That’s why we have ERC-20, ERC-721... ERC-1701”— William Shatner (Captain Kirk), defending the Ethereum network’s decentralization

“We are NOT tolerant. We will not capitulate. We will not surrender. We will not negotiate. We will not end,” — Craig Wright, speaking about his own Bitcoin Cash (BCH) faction before the upcoming hard fork

Laws and Taxes

Thai Revenue Department Plans to Use Blockchain to Track Tax Payments

Thailand’s Revenue Department is planning to track payments using blockchain and machine learning, utilizing the tech to verify the validity of taxes paid as well as increasing the speed of the tax refund process. The machine learning use will help to expose tax fraud and support more transparency, as a digital tax collection system based on modern technologies is a stated goal of Thailand’s government.

French Parliament Finance Committee Adopts Amendments to Crypto Tax Bill

The Finance Committee of the lower house of France’s parliament has adopted regulations this week that would ease taxes on cryptocurrency sales. The Finance Committee of the National Assembly has submitted a draft of the government finance bill for 2019, specifying that the tax on crypto sales will be equal to capital income tax. If the amendments to the budget are accepted in the hearings scheduled for next week, the rate will be reduced from 36.2 percent to 30 percent starting Jan. 1, 2019.

US Judge Ends Freeze on Charlie Shrem’s Assets Amidst Winklevoss Lawsuit

A U.S. judge has ruled this week to end the freeze on Charlie Shrem’s assets in a lawsuit brought against him by the Winklevoss twins. The twins alleged in their lawsuit that Shrem took part of their $250,000 investment in his now-defunct exchange BitInstant to buy 5,000 Bitcoins (BTC). Shrem’s lawyer has said that his client is innocent, and that the claims have “no basis in fact or law.” According to the Winklevoss’ lawyers, the freeze should continue as Shrem possess $12 million in crypto, real estate holdings, and other assets. However, at present time only $10 in assets have been identified.

Thailand’s Securities Regulator Promises to Certify One ICO Portal in November

The general secretary of the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said this week that “at least one” ICO “portal” will be able to operate legally in the country in November. Rapee Sucharitakul said that they “might” starting approving ICO offerings in December, noting that five such “operators” are currently under consideration by the Finance Ministry. Thailand’s legislation requires that the Thai SEC vet crypto entities like ICOs, exchanges, and “digital asset operators” who wish to operate in Thailand.

Adoption

Wallet Provider Blockchain.Com to Airdrop $125 Mln in XLM After Adding Stellar Support

Crypto wallet provider Blockchain.com will now support altcoin Stellar (XLM), accompanied by an airdrop of $125 in XLM to its user base. The provider noted that the large airdrop is a “great way to drive decentralization and adoption for new networks,” noting that crypto airdrops allow consumers to “test, trade, and transact” newer crypto assets without need to mine or invest in them first. The choice to add support for Stellar was driven by the scalability of the token’s network, as well as its ability to create custom tokens that represent “real-world or virtual goods and services.”

Decentralized Network Bancor Partners With EOS for Cross-Blockchain Trading With ETH

Decentralized liquidity network Bancor said this week that it had partnered with EOS in order to allow for cross-blockchain swaps between Ethereum and EOS-based tokens. Bancor has now expanded to the EOS blockchain, using its DApp BancorX for the conversation. Bancor noted that the cross-blockchain DApp was built in collaboration with LiquidEOS, Bancor’s EOS “Block Producer.” According to the press release, this conversion DApp paves the way for “vastly more blockchain” to be included in cross-blockchain trading.

Trading Platform eToro Releases Crypto Wallet Supporting Bitcoin, Three Altcoins

Global crypto and fiat trading platform eToro has released its own cryptocurrency wallet this week with support for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. The platform noted that they plan to add a “whole host of additional functionality” including additional crypto and fiat tokens, crypto-to-crypto conversion, and fiat deposits. eToro currently supports 14 total cryptocurrencies on its platform and has more than 10 million registered users.

Major Crypto Wallet Coinbase Launches Support for Basic Attention Token

Crypto exchange and wallet Coinbase announced this week that it would add support for a rollout of full trading of the Basic Attention Token (BAT) for its Android and iOS apps. As per the announcement, Coinbase customers can now buy, sell, send, receive, and store BAT on the platform, except for initially those residents of New York. Last week, Coinbase had noted the addition of inbound transfers of BAT to Coinbase Pro, specifying that the token would undergo four listing stages until it reached full access.

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships

Port of Valencia Integrates Maersk and IBM’s Blockchain Shipping Platform

The Port Authority of Valencia, Spain, has joined IBM and Maersk’s blockchain ecosystem, the TradeLens platform, which aims to apply blockchain tech to global supply chains. According to the announcement, the port has integrated into the platform as “Early Adopters,” meaning that the port will be a part of the platform’s early development. There are currently more than 20 participants in the TradeLens ecosystem, which has already reportedly processed 154 million “data-sending events.”

Deloitte Partners With Identity Management Startup for Digital ID System

“Big Four” accounting firm Deloitte has partnered with identity management firm Attest Inc. in order to create a blockchain-based digital identity system. The Chicago-based Attest offers a shared identity platform that allows its clients to conduct transactions, including its governmental customers, which can provide identity services to citizens. The partnership plans to develop a digital identity offering for government-compliant identifiers to be used for existing products, including a cryptographically secured identity storage wallet.

South Korea’s Bithumb Partners With E-Commerce Giant Qoo10 for Crypto Payments

South Korea’s leading virtual currency exchange Bithumb announced a partnership this week with Asian e-commerce fim Qoo10 to create a cryptocurrency payment service. Qoo10, which covers Asian markets including Singapore, Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia, will work with the Bithumb Cache system to purchase products through Qoo10. The two companies will use both the Qoo10 settlement service and the cache system, which is a password settlement service that allows Bithumb customers to convert their funds for use in payments with their password.

Nine Major Shipper Operators Launch Blockchain-Based Global Business Network

Nine major terminal operators and shipping companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to develop an open digital platform based on DLT. The MoU is aimed at forming a consortium of shipping operators to develop the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN), noting that the software solution will be provided by Hong Kong-based shipping and logistics firm CargotSmart. The new alliance includes such shipping giants as PSA International, a Singapore-based company and one of the world's largest port operators, and Shanghai International Port Group, leading operator of ports in China.

Funding Rounds

Major Mining Provider Bitfury Raises $80 Million in Closed Funding Round

Bitcoin mining infrastructure provider Bitfury raised $80 million this week in a closed funding round led by European venture capital fund Korelya Capital. Other participants in the funding round included South Korean Internet giant Naver Group, Asian institutions Macquarie Capital and Dentsu Japan, and Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital. The funding round comes several weeks after rumors circled that Bitfury was considering an IPO.

Winners and Losers

The crypto markets are seeing mixed signals, with Bitcoin trading for around $6,404.13 and Ethereum at $211 by press time. Total market cap is around $212 billion.

The top three altcoin gainers of the week are Traco, Pedit, and the Internet of Things. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Simmitri, empowr coin, and OBXcoin.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

FUD of the Week

Turkish Police Arrest 11 in Reported Hack of Crypto Wallet Accounts

The Cybercrime Department of the Turkish National Police arrested 11 suspects this week while investing the alleged hack of crypto accounts, with victims reporting more than $80,000 in losses. 14 individuals so far have reported crypto wallet hacks to local prosecution authorities, noting that their Bitcoin had been transferred to other wallets. Police have since seized two fake identity cards, as well as a number of devices allegedly used in the hacks such as 18 mobile phones and SIM cards, 22 memory sticks, from the hackers. The investigation notes that it found the suspects by tracking new SIM cards registered to exchanges by the hackers.

Texas Regulator Issues Emergency Cease and Desist to Australian Cloud Mining Company

The Texas State Securities Board has issued an emergency cease and desist order this week to Australian cloud mining firm AWS Mining PTY LTD for selling unregistered securities. AWS Mining, along with many of its employees, are charged with violating the Texas Securities Acts by convincing Texas residents to purchase AWS’ unregistered cloud mining power contracts promising a “200 percent passive return on every investment.” The cease and desist notes that AWS did not follow through on its promised profits to investors, as well as failed to register as a securities broker-dealer.

Swiss Financial Regulator Recommends Banks to Set Crypto Risk Coverage at 800%

The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) said in a report this week that banks and other financial institutions could calculate risk coverage for cryptocurrencies at 800 percent of their current market value. The confidential letter, seen by a local Swiss news outlet, noted that the recommendation for a flat risk weight at 800 percent are to "to cover market and credit risks, regardless of whether the positions are held in the banking or trading book.” The news outlet reports that 800 percent is at the upper end of the range, meaning that FINMA sees crypto as a volatile asset.

US SEC Charges EtherDelta Founder With Operating Unregistered Securities Exchange

Zachary Coburn, the founder of crypto token trading platform EtherDelta, has been charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with operating an unregistered securities exchange. EtherDelta has operated as a secondary marketplace for trading ERC20 tokens, letting users buy and sell digital assets using an order book and smart contracts on the ETH blockchain and placing a total of more than 3.6 million orders (some involving those considered securities) over an 18-month operating period. Coburn neither denied nor admitted the findings, but agreed to pay $300,00 in unlawful profits, as well as $13,000 in prejudgement interest and a $75,000 penalty.

Chinese Mining Giant Bitmain Sues Unknown Hacker for $5.5 Million Crypto Theft

China-based BTC mining firm Bitmain has sued an anonymous hacker for the reported theft of crypto work about $5.5 million from Bitmain’s account on Binance this April. As stated in the U.S. court documents, the “John Doe” hacker used stored Bitcoin after taking over Bitmain’s Binance account to manipulate the price of altcoin Decentraland (MANA) and then abscond with the profits. Bitmain notes that the hacker was able to steal $5.5 million in digital assets, including about 617 BTC. The documents also note that the hacker carried out transactions between BTC and MANA from Bitmain’s wallet and their own, completing the theft by transferring BTC from their Bitmain account into a digital wallet on Bittrex.

Prediction of the Week

Tim Draper Maintains Bitcoin Prediction of $250,000 by 2020

Venture capital investor Tim Draper said this week that he still believes that Bitcoin will experience 40 times returns and reach $250,000 by 2022. Although his initial prediction was for the coin to hit this price point in April of this year, Draper said that the industry merely needs to make it so that “Bitcoin could be used to buy Starbucks coffee” and the world will “open up.” Draper also added that he didn’t trust “political currencies” that are “determined by some weird political party,” adding that he sees a future with blockchain and smart contracts taking on a more prevalent role in states.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Morgan Stanley Report Shows Strong Institutional Investment for Bitcoin

At the end of October, multinational investment bank and financial services firm Morgan Stanley released a report on how Bitcoin has been a new “institutional investment class” since 2018. The report, which shows a relatively bullish outlook for 2018, brings attention to the stablecoin phenomenon, noting that not all stablecoins active currently will survive.

The SEC Stops Accepting Public Comments on Bitcoin ETFs, Takes Time to Make Decision

Last week, the cryptoverse buzzed with misinformation that the U.S. SEC was finally going to make a decision about Bitcoin ETFs. However, last week’s deadline concerned a close to the acceptance of public comments, leaving the SEC to now make their decision on the nine BTC ETFs on their own. Cointelegraph delves into the possibilities for the SEC’s decision, as well as looks into the root of where this deadline confusion came from.

Blockchain Advocates Storm Governors’ Mansions and Retain House Seats in US Midterm Elections

The U.S. saw midterm elections that week that led to the Democratic Party taking back the House, leaving the Republicans still in control of the Senate. Amidst the party lines, the governorships in both California and Colorado were won by crypto- and blockchain-friendly candidates Gavin Newsom and Jared Polis respectively. Beyond his strong blockchain policy push in his state, Polis (also the first openly gay elected governor), co-founded and co-chaired the Congressional Blockchain Caucus, a bipartisan group of Members of Congress. Electorally, the Caucus has done exceptionally well in the midterms: both of the co-chairs and 10 out of 12 regular members who stood for reelection retained their seats.

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