Ripple Signs Up 13 New Companies Scoring 200 Customers Worldwide

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London-based Euro Exim Bank will become the first bank to publicly announce using the XRP cryptocurrency for cross-border payments. Meanwhile, RippleNet managed to 
achieve next milestone scoring 200 consumers worldwide.


Ripple, San Fransico based provider of leading enterprise blockchain solutions for payments, has announced that now 200 global customers are signed up for RippleNet.


In a blog post, the company stated that 13 financial companies had already signed up for Ripple’s payment technology, RippleNet. Among them are Euro Exim Bank, JNFX, SendFriend, Transpaygo, FTCS, Ahli Bank of Kuwait, BFC, ConnectPay, Bahrain, WorldCom Finance, Pontual/USEND, Olympia Trust Company, and Rendimento.

Kaushik Punjani, Director at Euro Exim Bank, commented:


As a result, Euro Exim Bank, along with JNFX, SendFriend, Transpaygo, and FTCS will use the digital asset XRP for liquidity when sending a cross-border payment, which helps financial institutions avoid the hassle of pre-funding accounts in destination currencies, allowing them to make faster, lower cost payments than they can through the traditional correspondent banking system.

David Lighton, the founder of SendFriend, said:


The existing correspondent banking system is slow, inefficient and costly. SendFriend was founded at MIT with the belief that there must be a better way to send payments. We are excited to partner with Ripple to do just that. Through our partnership, we are bringing our customers a next-generation, blockchain payment solution that leverages XRP to address many of the efficiency and equity problems with existing remittances. For them, that means cheaper and faster payments.”

Other institutions that have recently joined RippleNet, like CIMB or Olympia Trust Company, will use Ripple technology for immediate settlement and more transparency payments.

Currently, RippleNet operates in over 40 countries across six continents. According to Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse, RippleNet is seeing two or three new customers join each week since last year. He said:



A number of other companies have already started using xRapid, which uses the XRP cryptocurrency, for international payments. Among them are MercuryFX, Cuallix, and Catalyst Corporate Credit Union. Back in June 2018, Ripple’s CEO predicted that major banks would use xRapid as a liquidity tool, and his prediction seems to be true. London-based Euro Exim Bank, which focuses on providing financial services for export and import companies, will become the first bank to publicly announce using the XRP cryptocurrency for cross-border payments.



SWIFT vs RIPPLE
Since Ripple has started gaining traction, it can not remain unnoticed by companies providing the same services. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), the global provider of secure financial messaging services, is considered as Ripple’s major competitor.

The two companies are set to face off in Germany at the ITC conference that will take place in February. The companies will be represented by their global heads of banking – that’s Marjan Delatinne for Ripple and Wim Raymaekers for SWIFT. The debate will be mainly centered on each company’s perception of what the future looks like.

Just for a reminder, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse recently dismissed all the rumors around Ripple-Swift potential partnership, highlighting:

“What we’re doing and executing on a day-by-day basi

Gold Backed Crypto Exchange Offers Safe Haven for Crypto Investors

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Turbulence in the global markets is nothing new but the cryptocurrency community has faced an unprecedented 18-month period of flux.

The need for a fully decentralised, stable, self-regulated and community-led exchange that can offer investor confidence amidst a chaotic global economy has never been stronger.

Setting the Gold Standard with Crypto’s Founding Principles
With a scalable inter-blockchain and decentralised exchange the GOLD.IO platform is not only self-regulated and led by its stakeholders, but asset linked – offering exchange investors unrivaled portfolio security.

Gold has Always Set the Market Standard and has Benchmarked Traditional Finance for Centuries, So Why Should the Cryptocurrency Market Be Any Different?
As a commodity, it has weathered many a financial storm and continues to do so today. Aside from a little price volatility it has consistently retained its market value, and with an unstable geopolitical, crypto-economic outlook the precious metal can provide a safe port for crypto assets.

In short, a gold-linked and backed exchange offers not only security of your assets but a piece of mind – the world has been through tougher times than we face today, but gold has always survived the course.

GOLD.IO – Providing a Defensive Asset Protection to Your Investments
With a team of over 30 experienced developers, GOLD.IO has simply put a sister chain of the EOS Project which has the mission of creating a Decentralised Exchange (DEX) of smooth inter-block communications that not only eliminates persistent market influences but has the unique benefit of being backed by a commodity asset class.

Combining the proven power of gold as well as a growing community that is not only self-regulated but also stakeholder-led – GOLD.IO is also seeking to develop a fully-fledged Decentralised Autonomous Community (DAC) based on the founding principles of the blockchain. The DAC will serve as regulatory oversight of the exchange with all stakeholders enjoying full voting rights, a say over project development and more importantly the ability to define their profits.

Gold Backed Tokenomics Offers Trading Efficiency & High Liquidity
With global stock volatility at best and a downward trajectory at worse – according to Goldman Sachs the markets are gripped with a fear of what may come in the coming year, a gold-linked exchange, with inherently high liquidity can part-mitigate investor risk.

With no independent or fair exchange yet to provide what GOLD.IO can, the benefits of the platform as a market leader are clear but the real magic comes with the EOISO blockchain system itself – it eliminates third-party manipulation and offers a unique architecture to ensure users remain the custodian of their gold.

NEO is Becoming the Most Developer-friendly Blockchain for Smart Economy Vision

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Open-source blockchain project NEO is promising an exciting mix of tech, business, and regulatory speakers at its 2019 DevCon event.



Hundreds are expected to attend the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Seattle between February 16-17th to listen to more than 40 speakers and view more than 30 projects across 20 separate exhibits.

In addition, NEO will host a one-day workshop that will introduce developers to the fundamentals of NEO blockchain development. With support for multiple programing languages such as C#, Python, and JavaScript, NEO aims to be the most developer friendly smart contract platform.

NEO founders Da Hongfei and Erik Zhang will open the event giving visitors insight into NEO’s promise of a Smart Economy and plans for platform growth over the next 12 months.

The rest of the opening day will focus on topics such as platform architecture, innovation, the regulatory landscape, and the transition to a Smart Economy.

Scheduled speakers include Miha Kralj, managing director of the world’s largest consulting company Accenture, who will talk about the big trends in blockchain, and Dr Chris Berg of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), who will discuss crypto-economics and its role in the future of the global economy.

Another confirmed speaker is Joseph Williams, Governor Jay Inslee’s ICT industry sector lead & State of Washington ICT economic development director. Williams will give visitors an insight into how regulators view the development of blockchain.

Day two of NEO DevCon will shift gears and take a deep dive into technical blockchain topics such as consensus mechanisms and decentralized storage, as well as explore a range of decentralized application (dApp) use cases, patterns and practices.

Co-founders of the NEO Saint Petersburg Competency Center, Sergei Liubich and Anatoly Bogatryrev, will present research progress on their NEO based distributed decentralized storage platform.

The Coelho brothers and founders of NeoResearch, Igor and Vitor, will discuss how high performance computing can advance consensus mechanisms and how the NEO blockchain can be used as a problem solving network.

Representatives from ecosystem projects such as Neon Exchange, Moonlight, Blacat and Archon will also share insights on dApp development and their contributions to the Smart Economy.

Erik Zhang, founder of NEO, said:

“We’re excited to have such a high profile list of speakers at DevCon 2019.  The future for blockchain, and for NEO in particular, is bright. The market is emerging out of an extended downtrend, but the fundamentals of the technology on which we’re building the smart economy of tomorrow are stronger than ever. Over the next 12 months and beyond, we’ll be working to make our platform even better, to further decentralize our network and begin to push out the dApps and experiences that will aid greater adoption and understanding of blockchain.”

Development Workshop

NEO DevCon will also feature a workshop for participants who are interested in learning to work on NEO’s developer-friendly platform.

The workshop will guide developers through how to set up a NEO development environment, design a smart contract, deploy to the blockchain, and interface with a smart contract.

It aims to give participants all the skills required to start building their own dApps on the NEO platform.

NEO DevCon will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Seattle, February 16-17th.

Early bird tickets are on sale now for $149 and are available until January 15th. Full price tickets will be $299.

Dogecoin Price Loses the 60 Satoshi Level Following Minor Dip

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When it comes to determining the polarity of a specific altcoin or digital asset, comparing it to Dogecoin’s success is often a valuable metric. This meme currency of the internet has carved out its own path and proven to be successful on many different occasions. As a result, the Dogecoin price is still holding its own fairly well across the board.

Dogecoin Price Momentum Remains Somewhat Stable


It has become more than apparent price stability is a valuable trait in the world of cryptocurrency. Many currencies see an uptrend and following dip occur on a rather regular basis. While that makes speculators and traders some good money in the process, the holders and long-term investors would rather see some price stability emerge. Dogecoin, oddly enough, checks the right boxes in this regard for a lot of people.


Even in early 2019, it would appear the Dogecoin price remains rather stable first and foremost. Although there is a 2.1% loss in USD value and a 2.7% loss in BTC value, one DOGE is valued at $0.0023 or 59 Satoshi. That is still a more than respectable level for this altcoin, although it may prove somewhat difficult to turn this ship around in the near future.

On social media, there are always a few interesting Dogecoin-related discussions to take note of. It would appear a relatively new site, known as Dogeweather, is currently getting some people excited. It is a very interesting, albeit niche site, but one that can effectively help spread the word about Dogecoin is an interesting manner as well. It is always heartwarming to see new projects themed around Dogecoin launch at opportune times.


As is usually the case where Dogecoin is concerned, there will be some arbitrage opportunities worth to explore. An interesting price gap between Gate and LiveCoin has become apparent in the past few hours, although it remains to be seen how long this price difference can remain in place. Even so, it is an extra way of making money while being involved in Dogecoin, which is always an option worth exploring.



Every day needs a funny Dogecoin meme and the one shared by CryptoSurfer is quite interesting for multiple reasons. Not only does it create a sense of “Dogeception”, but it also shows how everyone should have a little Doge. Given the value of this coin and the ease of which it can be mined, earned, or bought, there is no reason for cryptocurrency enthusiasts to not have at least one Dogecoin.



Under the current market conditions, it would appear the Dogecoin price downtrend might remain in place. It seems doubtful any massive crash will occur in the coming hours and days, although that may primarily depend on what Bitcoin’s price does in the days to come. The loss of the 60 Satoshi level may be somewhat of a downer for Dogecoin traders, but it can easily be recaptured if the trading volume continues to grow a bit.

Can Ethereum Hit The $200 Mark Before The Hard Fork?

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Ethereum continues to see a massive increase in contrast to the stagnant and continuous bearish trend of the crypto market. The recent gains experienced by Ethereum made it the best performing of the top cryptocurrencies in the past 30 days. Ethereum had seen gains as it attempts to recover the huge loss it took when the crypto market took a huge plunge in November.

The plunge that struck the crypto market in November saw the value of ethereum drop from around the mark of $220 to $80 and equally lost its position as the second-rated cryptocurrency to Ripple’s XRP within the same period. However, throughout the past three weeks, it has seen a considerable reversal in value as there has been about 80 percent gain. The gains from the $80 mark to $159 as at report time. Also, on the 2nd of January, the cryptocurrency overtook Ripple’s XRP, taking back its second position among other cryptocurrencies


The Reason For The Drastic Gains of Ethereum

The drastic gains that the cryptocurrency has gained has made crypto enthusiasts to adduce the recent success to the impending hard fork that is already scheduled to take place on January 16.



Alex Krüger, an economist and a cryptocurrency trader, stated through a tweet on the eve of Christmas, 2018 that “Ethereum’s Constantinople fork is coming on block 7080000, around January 16, 2019. Constantinople will reduce the block rewards from 3 to 2, decreasing new ETH supply accordingly. On the long run, this is decidedly bullish.”

The historical record of Ethereum’s hard fork has led to an increase in its value afterward. Ahead of the hard fork, the cryptocurrency has seen a boost because of the possibility of positive gains after the hard fork has taken place.

Can Ethereum Surpass $200 Ahead of its Hard Fork on January 16th

The cryptocurrency increase to the value of $200 will see it near the mark it was in November 2018 before it took the deep plunge with other cryptocurrencies. This will make the cryptocurrency distinctive in the market.

The progress Ethereum has made in the past couple of days and the historical antecedent of increase after a hard fork has taken place has increased the interest of investors in the cryptocurrency ahead of January 16. With the recent move in the past days, reaching the mark of $200 before the set date at this point looks possible.

Does Stock Market Crash: Good or Bad for Bitcoin?

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The two events in the first two days of the trading in 2019 have dragged down nearly every index in the United States

The utmost question doing the round currently is whether it is worth investing in cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin, which is the most valuable digital coin. This is because of some weakness was seen in the stock market in the current week following the weak economic data, as well as, the warning issued by Apple on iPhone sales, which could miss expectations. On the hindsight, it looks like the new asset has an edge after having suffered the most in 2018.

Twin Blow

There was a twin blow for the stock markets, and both have the origin of China. However, cryptocurrencies movement does not depend on either China or its encouragement currently because of a ban of digital coins in any form in the country. In short, there is little dependence on the biggest economy of the world to promote the new age asset class. This would mean that any unfavorable events or economic weakness in China will not have any impact either on bitcoin or on any other cryptocurrencies.

However, the same cannot be said about the stock markets. This was due to the drop in PMI to a contraction territory and Apple’s warning about weak iPhone sales due to people preferring repairs rather than new phones and weaker than expected sales in China. Significantly, this weak scenario came amidst the trade disputes tension between the country and the United States threatening to deteriorate the condition further. As far as cryptos are concerned, the trade tensions have got little impact either currently or in the upcoming periods.

Major Indices Fall

The two events in the first two days of the trading in 2019 have dragged down nearly every index in the United States. For instance, Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.04 percent on Thursday while Dow Jones Industrial Averages and S&P 500 fell 2.83 percent and 2.48 percent respectively. The biggest drop happened in PHLX Semiconductor and NASDAQ Computer Indexes by 5.94 percent and 5.03 percent respectively. While Oil index slipped 0.86 percent, gold and silver index advanced 1.73 percent.

Green in the 7-Day Period

On the other hand, nine out of the top ten cryptocurrencies are trading in the green in the seven-day period with bitcoin gaining 5.03 percent despite losing 1.0 percent in the 24-hour period. Ethereum gained the most among the top ten with 31.96 percent including 1.76 percent advancement in the 24-hour period. Though bitcoin cash has lost 2.82 percent in the 24-hour period, the digital coin gained 9.73 percent in the seven-day period. Similarly, EOS jumped 16.65 percent in the one-week period even after losing 2.89 percent during the 24-hour period.

Though these cannot be termed as favorable completely, the fact is that cryptos, especially, bitcoin, remain the potential bet to gain if the stocks continued its downtrend. Possibly enough, Bitcoin can become a ‘Safehouse’ for all stock market traders in near future.

How Blockchain Can Help Revolutionize the Gambling Industry

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Gambling is one of the most valuable industries out there with a market capitalization that is expected to cross $520 billion by 2023.

Just like in any other major industry, new technologies infiltrate the gambling sector and provide future opportunities and open new markets. It does therefore not surprising that countries like Malta offer a legal framework for gambling companies to start working in the European territory.

Apart from cryptocurrencies, as means of payment, the blockchain technology itself can make significant transformations in the existing gambling industry. One prime example of how blockchain can be used to help revolutionize the gambling industry is betbox





Betbox is an online application which is designed to work as a high-tech betting platform powered by Ethereum Virtual Machine. Betbox app users can bet on events that are listed on the platform and also create individual events by themselves. Events can be private for a selected audience or shared in public so anyone can join.

Apart from betting events, betbox users can also list personal challenges within the platform so other users can bet on whether the challenge will be accomplished or not. Additionally to this, betbox aims to provide futuristic features to entertain its followers and give them a chance to secure earnings or win a life-changing jackpot.

By making use of the blockchain technology, betbox aims at storing all betting-related information and votes in decentralized locations thus providing transparent and secure data on each bet. (Try the MVP now on www.betbox.app).

Betbox also ensures secure payments within the platform by providing decentralized wallets which will be connected to the user accounts. The betbox coins, which are used to fuel the native OX-Chain will ensure smooth flow of payments within the betbox platform and also makes it convenient for users to place bets quickly. But not only the betbox coins can be used for taking part in events. The ecosystem is designed to enable betting with other currencies and also with FIAT in the future.

What Blockchain Means For Gambling Industry?

As we mentioned in the beginning, the gambling industry is among the most prosperous industries globally. With the introduction of blockchain in gambling, more people will be interested in trying their hands in gambling and betting, thanks to the transparency and security offered by blockchain.

Betbox is one of the best blockchain-backed betting and gambling apps out there and offers a completely legal, convenient and secure environment.

As blockchain becomes more prominent everywhere, we will surely be able to see more platforms like betbox that incorporate the features and efficiency of blockchain into the gambling industry. But will there be space next to this industry leader?

New York is “first state in the nation” to have its own Crypto Task Force

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The new task force will be required to submit its first crypto report by December 2020.

New York has become the first state in the nation to have its own cryptocurrency task force, according to a Facebook post published yesterday.

The news was shared by Clyde Vanel, Chair of Subcommittee on Internet and New Technologies and New York state assemblyman. In the post, he said that the New York had become the first state to have its own crypto task force, which will be used to “study how to properly regulate, define and use cryptocurrency.”

New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law last week, which will henceforth be known as “The Digital Currency Study Bill.”

The members of the task force will be appointed by the Governor, Senate and Assembly, the announcement states, and will include technologists, consumers, institutional and small investors, blockchain businesses and academics.

The team will assemble various reports on the digital currency, crypto and blockchain industries in the state, including the number of digital currencies currently being traded, their market share, and the impact such currencies have on the state and local tax receipts. They’ll be required to submit these reports by 15 December next year.

“New York leads the country in finance. We will also lead in proper fintech regulation. The task force of experts will help us strike the balance between having a robust blockchain industry and cryptocurrency economic environment while at the same time protecting New York investors and consumers.” Vanel said in the announcement.

Julie Samuels, Executive Director of Tech: NYC also believes that the new task force will play a vital role in positioning New York at the centre of the nation’s innovative strategy.

“New York’s cryptocurrency task force – the first of its kind in the nation – shows how our state is leading the way in studying and understanding these technologies to ensure they can thrive in a responsible and effective way, further solidifying New York’s position as a global hub for smart innovation.”

Bitcoin Trading Volue Exceeds 2$ Trillion in 2018 Despite year long Bearish Market

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With a few weeks still left in 2018, the total Bitcoin trading volume for the year has already crossed $2 trillion. Many countries have also seen record BTC trading volume at different points of the year with more everyday people seemingly adopting the popular cryptocurrency.

BITCOIN TRADING UP 61 PERCENT SINCE 2017

This volume of trade is especially profound given the tirade of criticism from vocal naysayers who continue to engage in Bitcoin bashing. According to Satoshi Capital Research, the notional value of BTC traded so far in 2018 stands at $2.2 trillion.

The figures posted so far represent a 61 percent increase from last years total volume of $870 billion. However, the growth recorded in 2017 – 96 percent still dwarfs that recorded in 2018 and will remain so unless a massive spike in BTC trading occurs between now and the end of the year.



To put things in perspective, Mastercard recently published its Q3 2018 financials which showed a total transaction volume of $4.4 trillion for the year. The world’s second largest payment card company also settles about $12 billion worth of transactions per day.

From these figures, Bitcoin $4151.76 -0.03% is already at half the transaction settling capacity of Mastercard despite losing close to 70 percent of its value during the year. BTC’s daily volume which is at $8 billion, isn’t a million miles away from Mastercard’s.

WHY DO THE NOCOINERS RAGE?
Some might argue that the analysis above is akin to comparing apples and oranges. This is because Mastercard’s figures only cover payments made to retail merchants on both online and offline platforms. The figures for Bitcoin come from merchants, futures trading, exchanges, and even international payments.

However, the fact that a cryptocurrency with a sub-$100 billion market cap is posting figures in the same ballpark as Mastercard is a glowing endorsement of BTC’s uptake. This assertion is especially true given the negative rhetoric espoused by critics such as Paul Donovan of UBS who recently said that the world’s most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin is on the verge of falling apart.

Things may even get better for cryptocurrency trading as a whole. Earlier in the year, Bitcoinist reported that digital currency trading might grow by 50 percent in 2019 based on a study by Satis Group.

Why Chicago is Fast Becoming the Crypto Trading Capital of the World

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Beginning with the founding of the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) in 1848, Chicago has a long and illustrious history as a trading town.  The CBOT introduced standardized futures contracts, and more than a century later spun off the CBOE which pioneered standardized option contracts.  The Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched in 1898 as an egg & butter exchange and in 1972 spun off the International Monetary Market, the first exchange to trade financial futures.  For the past 45 years, the CBOT, CBOE, & CME have established Chicago as the derivatives capital of the world trading both options and futures on grains, meats, stocks, bonds, foreign currencies, and other financial products. 

Fast forward to 2018 and Chicago is once again leading the charge as it has begun to trade derivatives on a revolutionary new product.  In December 2017, both Cboe Global Markets and the CME Group began trading futures on bitcoin.  The two derivative exchanges are the most prominent local enterprises to enter the cryptocurrency markets but an entire ecosystem has begun to emerge in Chicago and is rapidly gaining momentum.    

Chicago is home to a number of spot exchanges which trade the cryptocurrencies that underlie the derivative contracts.  Athena Bitcoin operates more than 70 crypto ATMs in 8 states across the USA and has entered Latin America.  Digital Mint has over 70 crypto ATMs in Chicago alone and close to 200 nationwide.  Bcause runs the largest mining operation in North America and is building the world’s first full-stack cryptocurrency ecosystem.  Seed CX offers institutional trading and settlement for both spot and derivatives in cryptocurrencies.  Beaxy aims to create an all-in-one cryptocurrency exchange.  The Eris Exchange, which is backed by Cboe Global Markets, DRW, ED&F Man Capital Markets, NEX Opportunities, Susquehanna, TD Ameritrade, Valor Equity Partners and Virtu Financial, is launching a platform to trade both spot and futures which will settle with the physical delivery of cryptocurrency.  Edge Financial Technologies is on target to launch a cryptocurrency platform for both retail and institutional traders in the first quarter of 2019.  CFX launched the first platform in the U.S. to facilitate the trading of regulated security tokens.  The Bitnomial Exchange is waiting for approval from the CFTC.                           




Exchanges from other cities are establishing a foothold in Chicago, too.  Coinbase opened a permanent office in Chicago and announced plans to hire 90 software developers in the next three years.  The San Juan Mercantile Exchange is launching the world’s first digital asset exchange for high frequency traders and plans to open offices in three cities including Chicago.  Kraken is moving its headquarters from San Francisco to Chicago.

Why are Kraken, Coinbase, and the San Juan Mercantile Exchange coming to Chicago?  The answer is that they want access to our trading community with its abundance of resources including traders, liquidity, technology, and developers.  According to Paul Bauerschmidt, former CME executive and leader of Coinbase’s Chicago office:  “Chicago is super valuable to us because of the talent that’s here.  If you move to one of the coasts, you…will get access to talent, but it’s much harder to come by.  And, in Chicago, we’ve got an incredible exchange and trading community.”  And, according to Fred Grede, CEO of Bcause:  “They’re starting to figure out that the real center of liquidity in these kinds of markets is right here in Chicago, and that it’s a tremendous pool of resources.  I don’t mean to get into any disrespect for New York.”                        

DRW, founded by billionaire trader Don Wilson, was the first trading firm in Chicago to jump into the crypto space.  In 2014, DRW spun off Cumberland Mining which runs the largest over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading desk in the world.  In 2017, Akuna Capital, Blue Fire Capital, CMT Digital, DV Trading, and Consolidated Trading launched cryptocurrency trading desks.  In January 2018, Trading Technologies announced a partnership with Coinbase to provide cryptocurrency trading in both spot and derivative markets.  In April 2018, Hehmeyer Trading launched the first cryptocurrency index fund.  Jump Trading, the largest trader of U.S. Treasuries in the world, ‘jumped’ into cryptocurrency trading in mid-2017 and, in June 2018, launched an over-the-counter cryptocurrency trading platform.  XR Trading and TransMarket Group also began trading cryptocurrencies in 2018.  Geneva Trading is in the process of forming a cryptocurrency trading team.   

In summary, Chicago has all the ingredients to become the ‘Crypto Trading Capital of the World’ with its abundance of derivative exchanges, spot exchanges, traders, investors, developers, etc.  One of the keys will be to bring together the major players in Chicago’s emerging crypto ecosystem to foster collaboration.  There is competition to be sure among the various players but there is also such a thing as co-opetition.  As the saying goes, a rising tide lifts all boats.  For many years, the CBOT, CME & CBOE have competed against each other but find another city or region in the world which could boast three of the biggest and most successful exchanges on the planet.     

Stay tuned as FinTank (FinTank.org), a local Fintech hub and accelerator specializing in crypto assets, is getting ready to facilitate collaboration by launching Chicago’s first online crypto community for traders, investors, miners, entrepreneurs, developers, consultants, senior-level executives, and other blockchain/digital currency players and enthusiasts.  FinTank is partnering with two startups in its accelerator—Crypto Markets and Coinifide —to build a platform that offers in-depth content, experiential learning, and job leads to enhance the knowledge, skill set, and economic opportunities for participants in Chicago’s burgeoning crypto community.

Nasdaq and VanEck join to launch new Bitcoin futures Contracts

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World’s second-largest stock exchange Nasdaq is preparing to launch its bitcoin futures contracts in the first quarter of 2019.

A couple of weeks ago, the cryptographic ecosystem suffered a sharp drop in its prices, when the Bitcoin’s value fell around 70% compared to the peak reached in the last quarter of last year.

Despite the recent collapse of the crypto market, the New York stock exchange has announced that it maintains its plans to launch bitcoin futures in the first quarter of 2019 in a joint initiative with the investment management firm VanEck.

In this regard, Gabor Gurbacs, director of digital asset strategy at VanEck, said the companies plan to launch a variety of bitcoin derivatives in the first few months of 2019, including the aforementioned regulated futures contracts. The announcement was made during the Consensus Invest conference held in New York, on Tuesday.

Gurbacs confirmed the information in his Twitter account, ensuring that Nasdaq and VanEck will present transparent, regulated and monitored products of digital assets, such as bitcoin futures contracts.

“@Nasdaq and VanEck’s @MVISIndices announces #index #partnership and intention to bring to market transparent, regulated and surveilled #DigitalAssets products, such as #Bitcoin futures contracts. More info to come,” the publication said.



Bitcoin Futures Contracts

In the last year, Nasdaq has openly shown interest in launching bitcoin futures, but they did not do so before because according to Adena Friedman, CEO of Nasdaq, they wanted their contracts to be different from those that already exist.

On the other hand, after the collapse of the market, several reports indicate that the second stock exchange in the world has taken into account the concerns of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of the United States – a government independent agency which regulates futures markets – and Nasdaq has been working on it.

The CFTC, which regulates bitcoin as a commodity, has so far approved only two encryption futures products: one from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and another from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).

However, they are not the only ones who have shown interest in Bitcoin futures.

For its part, ICE (Intercontinental Exchange), Nasdaq’s main competitor, has announced their plans to launch a bitcoin futures product liquidated physically in the first quarter of 2019.

Similarly, the cryptocurrency exchange created by ICE, Bakkt, announced that it would launch bitcoin futures to the market on December 12, but later decided to postpone the launch for next year’s January 24.

Is Bitcoin dead? 8 reasons why it is NOT

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Is the price of Bitcoin down to zero? 
No.

Bitcoin is trading above $4000 at the time of writing. Yes, that's far from the all time high of close to $20K, but people are still buying Bitcoin every day, every hour, every minute. Don't forget that only two years ago, one Bitcoin was worth $736, and in September of 2017 BTC was still trading below $4000.

Many people got hurt post-bull run, but zoom out and look at the bigger picture. Patience is the name of the game here.


Is this the worst Bitcoin bear market EVER?
Nope, we've been here before.
We've seen worse.
And we survived.

Be like the hodlers who got through the 2011 crash. Who dealt with the -83% retracement in 2013. Who were not afraid anymore during the 2013-2015 bear market because they knew that Bitcoin would come back stronger, eventually.



Hi CNBC Crypto Crew, can you please discuss about the gains after each of the last 4 major Bitcoin crashes (80% or more) in the past 9 years. 

The 2014-2016 bear market resulted in a 13,100% gain from the bottom of $150.




Did Bitcoin stop working? 
No. 
Every 10 minutes or so, a new block is created on the Bitcoin network. Every 10 minutes, assets, sometimes worth millions of dollars, are being sent across the world, fast, for a low fee. Bitcoin dead? Miners are still mining, blocks are still being created, transactions are still being confirmed. The fact $BTC dropped in price didn't change anything to that.





Are institutional investors walking off because of the BTC price drop?
No.
What would institutional investors be more interested in? Buy at the all time high together with the retail investors, or wait for the inevitable correction and buy in 5 times cheaper?

And if they buy at those cheap prices, would they send out a tweet right away, stating 'I just bought 9000BTC on Bitfinex'? No. They accumulate quietly, knowing that, at some point, retail FOMO will push their ROI.

Some big players might be buying already, some institutional investors might be waiting on the sidelines for the price to drop even further, or for regulation to be implemented, or for the right products to be launched. But one thing that's certain is that when it comes to buying, institutional investors like blood on the streets more than hype.

As Michael Novogratz says, when the time is right, institutional FOMO will kick in too.



Did the fundamentals of Bitcoin change?
No.
Let's just steer away from the price action for now. Is transaction volume on the Bitcoin network still high? Are people actually using it? 'Pomp', take it away and explain to us why Bitcoin fundamentals haven't changed at all.

Tom Lee Has Slashed His Price Target on Bitcoin from $25,000 to $15,000

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The popular digital currency supporter has sharply reduced his price target from $25,000 to $15,000 on bitcoin for the year-end.


Sherlock by Sherlock   November 17, 2018  in Crypto news, Opinion


As the bitcoin price traded below the psychological level of $6,000 mark, Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder, Tom Lee, has slashed his price target on bitcoin nearly half. However, the revised target price is much higher than the current trading price. Significantly, his comments come on the heels of seven out of top ten cryptocurrencies witnessing a double-digit drop in the 7-day period.

Break-Even Point
The popular digital currency supporter has sharply reduced his price target from $25,000 to $15,000 on bitcoin for the year-end. He believes that the important driver is ‘break-even’ point. This meant that mining costs should match the trading price. According to him, the matching level reduced to $7,000 from his previous estimate of 8,000. This is based on the Bitmain’s S9 mining machine. This would mean a fair value of roughly 2.2 times of the fresh break-even price.

Bitcoin is trading around $5,450 at the time of writing and has shed 13.56 percent for the one-week period. Despite the existing sluggishness or the bearishness, Lee is confident of a recovery in bitcoin price. In a research note to clients, he pointed out the earlier bear market during the period 2013 – 2015 and said that it “never sustained a move below breakeven.” The former chief equity strategist at J.P. Morgan Lee thinks that the psychological breaking down of $6,000 has driven a fresh wave of pessimism.

Negative Swing in Sentiment
He also pointed out that there is a negative swing in sentiment that is much worse relative to the fundamental implications. Lee said that most of the price movement was fueled by certain events like the argument over bitcoin cash. There have been several tweets on bitcoin cash hard fork and splitting into bitcoin ABC or bitcoin SV. Significantly, bitcoin cash itself was a fork from bitcoin.

Though the bitcoin price remained somewhat stable in October, the sell-off has started a few days back after remaining around $6,400 levels. However, Lee is unmoved by the current condition and sees bullishness on the most valuable digital coin with the belief that institutional involvement will boost the price before the current year ends. He pointed out the wider infrastructure creation for institutional involvement to support his belief.

How Will The US Midterm Elections Impact Bitcoin

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Tuesday the 6th of November 2018 marks the next big election date in the United States, the midterm elections that allow the country to decide who represents individual states at Senate level. It’s an important election, as this is the first chance the people of the United States have a chance to show newly elected Donald Trump what they really think of him, sort of anyway.


It’s a little complicated if like me, you don’t know a lot about US politics, however the general feeling is that due to Trump’s politics, these elections are some of the most important to ever take place within the United States, suggesting that not only will this impact politics and public feeling, this is sure to have an effect on the cryptocurrency markets too.

What will happen to Bitcoin

During the 2014 midterm elections, Bitcoin didn’t really react to the political movements, therefore some expect that in this instance, Bitcoin will remain steady at a price nearing $6,500.00. Others however believe that during 2014, Bitcoin was still very immature, it didn’t truly fly until the end of 2017, so, a response to US politics in 2014 would have been far less likely. As a result of this, many are unsure about what will happen with Bitcoin.

The same goes for the actual election of President Donald Trump in November 2016. During this time, Bitcoin was valued at a price around $730.00 and remained steady throughout the duration of the election. Even when Trump came into power in January 2017, Bitcoin remained very slow and very steady.

History tells us nothing

The history of presidential elections in the United States and their relationship can’t tell us anything, because the relationship is so new. Therefore, we can’t really predict what will happen to Bitcoin come tuesday. Hopefully, the elections run smoothly and there isn’t too much of a political shake up. We have a feeling though that suggests if there is a bit of a shake up and Senate level, Bitcoin might react accordingly. If people are happy with the outcome in the US, Bitcoin might start to climb, if things don’t go to plan, Bitcoin might take a tumble. We won’t know until tuesday, so at the very best see this as a warning that things do have the chance to change slightly this week. Our advice, hold on and see what happens.

#Hong Kong Regulator Brings New Rules To Regulate Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Funds

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Hong Kong’s security watchdog – The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) – has announced new regulatory rules and guidelines for the country’s local cryptocurrency market. However, the highlight of this announcement is that the regulator wants to have a watchful eye on the operations of cryptocurrency exchange and cryptocurrency funds.

In its official announcement, the SFC notes under the existing rules, virtual assets do not fall under the definition of “securities” or “futures contracts”. Hence they do not come directly under the regulatory oversight of the SFC. As a result, investors who are dealing with virtual assets through unregulated platforms do not get the protection under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (SFO). Thus the SFC has decided that to protect the investors’ interest, it will bring crypto exchange operators under its regulatory purview.

“…It is proposed that the standards of conduct regulation for virtual asset trading platform operators should be comparable to those applicable to existing licensed providers of automated trading services,” the SFC adds.

The definition of “virtual assets” provided by the SFC includes all blockchain-based tokens like the utility tokens, digital currencies, and the asset-backed tokens.

Licenses for Cryptocurrency Fund Distributors and Portfolio Managers
Under the new regulatory guidelines, cryptocurrency fund distributors and portfolio managers will require to get an official license from the SFC. Fund managers with more than 10 percent exposure into virtual assets will have to mandatorily get their licenses. Also, “firms managing funds which solely invest in virtual assets that do not constitute securities or future contracts” will require a license for the distribution of their funds. The statement reads:

“In order to afford better protection to investors, the SFC considers that all licensed portfolio managers intending to invest in virtual assets should observe essentially the same regulatory requirements even if the portfolios (or portions of portfolios) under their management invest solely or partially in virtual assets, irrespective of whether these virtual assets amount to ‘securities’ or ‘futures contracts.’”

Ashley Alder, the chief executive of the SFC praised the agency for its new approach towards investors protection.

“The measures announced today allow us to regulate the management or distribution of virtual asset funds in one way or another so that investors’ interests would be protected either at the fund management level, at the distribution level, or both. We hope to encourage the responsible use of new technologies and also provide investors with more choices and better outcomes,” added Alder.

The Growing Regulatory Demand Due to Increasing Risks
The SFC cites several risks associated while dealing with virtual assets. The regulator says that the inherent nature and characteristics of the virtual assets are some of the reasons behind it. As crypto assets lack any intrinsic value, they are subject to high volatility and price fluctuations.

Furthermore, the anonymous nature of virtual assets makes them vulnerable to all sorts of illicit activities like terror financing, fraud, and money laundering.  Additionally, the cryptocurrency market is facing huge challenges in terms of cyber-security risks and thefts. Most of the centralized exchanges across the globe have faced huge losses this year due to external attacks. On top of it, the lack of secure storage solutions is another reason preventing investor participation.

The regulator thus mandates proper regulatory rules to have a cleaner and safer environment for investors. It notes:

“While virtual assets have not posed a material risk to financial stability2, there is a broad consensus among securities regulators that they pose significant investor protection risks. The regulatory response to these risks varies in different jurisdictions, depending on the regulatory remit, the scale of the activities and their impact on investor interests and whether virtual assets are deemed financial products suitable for regulatio

Morgan Stanley Report: Cryptocurrency Popularity is Growing as Institutional Investment

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The report says that a growing number of institutional players from the global financial space are moving towards investing in Bitcoin and the overall cryptocurrency market.



The research arm of banking giant Morgan Stanley recently released a report showing the increase in institutional participation in the cryptocurrency market. On Wednesday, October 31st, Morgan Stanley released an update to its report – “Bitcoin Decrypted: A Brief Teach-In and Implications”.

In the report, Morgan Stanley highlights the trends over the past six months of Bitcoin and the overall crypto market. However, Morgan Stanley says that even though the institutional investment is on a rise, the retail participation is stagnant.

Observations Made Through the Rapid Morphing Thesis
Morgan Stanley report started by specifically emphasizing on the “rapidly morphing thesis”. The thesis noted Bitcoin as “digital cash” and said that investors had full confidence in the cryptocurrency. Furthermore, the thesis noted how Bitcoin has emerged as an answer to the issues within the traditional financial system.

Moreover, the thesis also mentions several issues discoveries which have helped the Bitcoin ecosystem to evolve as a whole. It takes a tour through all things like a number of hacks, hard forks, price volatility, and others. Moreover, it also lauds the most important aspect i.e. the permanent blockchain ledger which records all transactions.

The most important thing which the thesis mentions is that for almost a year now, Bitcoin has emerged as the “rapidly morphing thesis”. It also says that since January 2016, there is a gradual increase, in the crypto investments, made in institutional crypto products. Venture capital firms, hedge funds, and private equity firms have stored a total of $7.11 billion so far.

This figure is certainly expected to shoot up as big players like the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Fidelity Investments get their platforms released. ICE is currently preparing itself for the launch of its Bakkt platform expected by the end of 2018. Furthermore, ICE announced that the Bakkt platform will offer physically-settled Bitcoin Futures contracts. As a result, it is likely to usher more liquidity in the crypto market.

On the other hand, financial services giant Fidelity Investment announced its crypto-centric platform Fidelity Digital Assets. The platform will offer crypto storage and trading solutions specifically targetted towards institutional players.

The Growing Importance of Stablecoins
The report touches down on one of the most popular topics currently i.e. stablecoins. Stablecoins are basically fiat-pegged digital currencies used for quick execution of crypto trades. However, the report goes the cite the use of controversial stablecoin Tether (USDT). The report notes that Bitcoin is “moving increasingly towards trading vs the stable coin USD-Tether (USDT) [sic]”.

It further notes: “USDT took an increasing share of BTC trading volumes as cryptocurrency prices started falling. This occurred because many exchanges only trade crypto->crypto and not crypto->fiat. Trading crypto->fiat requires going through the banking sector which charges a higher fee. Also as bitcoin prices fell, so did most all other coins so if owners wanted to come out of bitcoin holdings, they needed to go to another asset which was closer to the valuation of the U.S. dollar.”

Off lately, there is a growing number of stablecoins introduced within the crypto market. Or we can say that the market is preparing for institutional trading making the trading process simple.