e_abrams Posted February 5, 2021 Share Posted February 5, 2021 The cryptocurrency industry reached a staggering market cap at 1.1 trillion US dollars after Bitcoin and Ethereum sharply jumped in both price and demand recently. The crypto market added 50 billion US dollars to its market cap once the price of Bitcoin passed 38,000 US dollars. Bitcoin has been pretty bullish for the past day, up 5% compared to the previous day, and its market cap lingers around the 700 billion mark. The second most popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum is currently priced at 1600 US dollars which is also a record price. It has seen a 30% increase for the past week and its current market cap is 190 billion US dollars. The other cryptos that have had a good run since the beginning of the year are Cardano, Litecoin, and Stellar. Source The crypto industry has boomed in the past few months. I wonder what the market cap will be when BTC reaches 50k. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted February 18, 2021 Author Share Posted February 18, 2021 Elon Musk, who had recently dubbed himself “Dogecoin CEO” in his own Twitter bio, has once again endorsed Dogecoin on Twitter, which caused the formerly joke cryptocurrency to soar to new heights. Before this Elon Musk-caused rally, Dogecoin was traded at around 0.008 USD per token and then rose to 0.082 USD per token, i.e. its value increased ten times. Currently Dogecoin is being traded at around 0.05 USD, so the hype has subsided a bit since then. Dogecoin may have been considered a joke once, but it has managed to achieve the impressive market cap of 10 billion US dollars, which is more than XLM and BitcoinCash can boast, and it takes the tenth spot in the ranking of the world’s most valuable cryptocurrencies. Source Elon Musk and other celebrities are definitely pumping Dogecoin, I think. I wonder what the consequences will be, once the bubble bursts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted February 26, 2021 Author Share Posted February 26, 2021 China has been developing a digital yuan for quite a while now – since 2014. Recently that development entered a new stage as the country is planning for the digitial currency to be tested by major food chains like Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Subway. A meeting was organized by the development and reform bureau of Xiong’an New Area management committee and in it participated certain cryptocurrency research institutions and pilot merchants. Among the latter were representatives of the abovementioned major food chains, plus a representative of he popular Chinese dumpling eatery chain Qing-Feng Baozi. The other present parties, members of four large Xiongan banks - the Agricultural Bank of China, the Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China – were there to discuss the testing of the digital yuan. China seems to be planning to launch the cryptocurrency in mid-2021. Source The pandemic has certainly accelerated any plans that existed before for a cashless society. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 3, 2021 Author Share Posted March 3, 2021 Singapore has formed a new industry group called Blockchain Association Singapore (BAS) that intends to promote crypto blockchain as a whole. This happened after two existing entities merged - the Blockchain, Enterprise and Scalable Technologies (BEST) and the Singapore Blockchain Association (SBA). The new group has stated that its main goal is to push development of new and already existing blockchain companies. Chia, the former SBA chairman, made the following statement: “Singapore has become a burgeoning hub for blockchain and there is a need for an industry push to facilitate and encourage the development of new and existing players in this space. I am confident that the establishment of [the] Blockchain Association Singapore will add more vibrancy and support to the current ecosystem while providing guidance for enterprises who are keen to adopt blockchain solutions.,” Source It is really quite impressive how Singapore has embraced cryptocurrencies and blockchain. I have no doubt others will follow suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 7, 2021 Author Share Posted March 7, 2021 Scammers crawl out of the woodwork like snakes to take advantage of the many vulnerable people left by the health and economic crisis everyone are suffering from. Criminals have been extorting people by threatening them to infect family members if they do not transfer them $4000 in Bitcoin, since Bitcoin is untraceable. Apparently some of them are even going so far as to impersonate World Health Organization employees and ask for “donations” – again in Bitcoin. And as if that is not enough, scammers are also trying to infect people’s computers with malware through COVID-19-related documents. Source It is absolutely repulsive that people are doing this, but as the pandemic worsens we will probably see even more extreme examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 10, 2021 Author Share Posted March 10, 2021 Considering the health crisis the Singaporean regulatory body Singapore’s Monetary Authority (MAS) has issued a a conditional registration relief for some cryptocurrency exchanges, which allows them to operate without a license. This is a similar act as the FCA decision to request all ts listed companies suspend the publication of preliminary financial reports by two weeks at least. MAS allowed over 400 cryptocurrency exchanges to work without a license, which means that they are are exempt from registering under the Singapore Payment Services Act (PSA). They are supposed to get a license by July 28th but due to the pandemic that date remains unfixed. Among the listed cryptoexchanges operating like this are Binance, Ripple, CoinBase, and Paxos. Source Hopefully this won't lead to any negative consequences, like a rise in scams, for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 14, 2021 Author Share Posted March 14, 2021 Considering the health crisis the Singaporean regulatory body Singapore’s Monetary Authority (MAS) has issued a a conditional registration relief for some cryptocurrency exchanges, which allows them to operate without a license. This is a similar act as the FCA decision to request all ts listed companies suspend the publication of preliminary financial reports by two weeks at least. MAS allowed over 400 cryptocurrency exchanges to work without a license, which means that they are are exempt from registering under the Singapore Payment Services Act (PSA). They are supposed to get a license by July 28th but due to the pandemic that date remains unfixed. Among the listed cryptoexchanges operating like this are Binance, Ripple, CoinBase, and Paxos. Source I hope this doesn't have any negative consequences like an increase in scams, for example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 17, 2021 Author Share Posted March 17, 2021 Coinbase Global Inc. shares were recently traded at about 350 USD at a private auction that was held by Nasdaq, which means that they gave the company a total valuation of around 90 billion US dollars before the company has even gone public. The Nasdaq Private Market auction finished last Thursday and it was the last chance investors had to trade Coinbase stocks before the company goes public, which will likely happen at the end of March. At the beginning of the auction the shares were traded at above 350 US dollars would have given the company a total valuation over 100 billion US dollars. That said, since private auction trading volumes are quite a bit smaller than the volumes of public market, these prices are not yet indicative of the real value of the company. Not to mention what effect the hype had on these prices. Source Still, I think that was pretty impressive and it will be very interesting to see what will happen once Coinbase does go public. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 21, 2021 Author Share Posted March 21, 2021 South Korea’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), has integrated a new penalty system aimed at cryptocurrency providers. The regulator will use these new powers to impose significant penalties on the crypto exchanges in the country when they don’t report suspicious activities on their platform. The FSC requires all South Korean crypto exchanges to keep a separate and scrupulous record of all transactions that occur between them and their customers. What is more, all exchanges are supposed to verify their clients’ identities. If any financial institutions and virtual asset service providers violate data maintenance procedures and internal protocol duties then they will receive hefty penalties by the regulator. Source Considering how popular cryptos are in South Korea, it makes sense to regulate them to make the industry safer for ordinary people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 24, 2021 Author Share Posted March 24, 2021 Kraken is poised to raise new capital will more than double its valuation to over 10bn US dollars. Apparently Kraken is negotiating with Fidelity, Tribe Capital and General Atlantic to raise a yet unknown amount of cash. Kraken’s current valuation is 4 billion US dollars. According to anonymous sources, if the investors’ demand remains high, the company’s valuation may end up rising to the staggering 20 billion US dollars. This report comes on the heels of news that Kraken users were threatening the company with lawsuits due to a recent flash crash that occurred on February 22nd, when Ether was traded for just 700 USD while on other exchanges its price was over 1300 USD. That, in turn, led to cascading liquidations on Kraken. Source What do you think, is this a PR move or a genuine effort? I can't make up my mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 28, 2021 Author Share Posted March 28, 2021 The US Department of Treasury announced that all central bank officials and financial ministers of the G7 countries are supporting the idea of international cryptocurrency regulation. US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, hosted an online meeting on which the central bank governors and finance ministers from Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the U.K, Canada, and the European Commission were present. The group discussed the growing popularity of a CBDC all over the world as well as privately owned digital currencies. The German Finance Minister was the bluntest in his criticism of the new developments. He harshly criticized the upcoming launch of Facebook’s Diem stablecoin and insisted that Europe is not ready for a privately owned cryptocurrency. Everyone present agreed that in this ever-evolving crypto market a clear regulatory market is very necessary to govern it. Source I think at this point such a push for proper regulation of the industry is not only inevitable but necessary as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted March 31, 2021 Author Share Posted March 31, 2021 Gibraltar has decided to implement new rules regulating the cryptocurrency trade in its jurisdiction. So far they have been considered to be one of the more friendly cryptocurrency destinations, but now there is a push for new legislation to keep the crypto market under some measure of control. Gibraltar has a minister of minister of digital and financial services - Albert Isola – who recently spoke about the impending changes. “We considered regulating crypto assets, but concluded that it was too challenging to do it safely…Therefore, we opted for regulating this space in a more financial services-based way” he said. In other words, they are planning to regulate cryptos like the financial sector, rather than treat them as just assets. Source Regulation makes the industry safer so that is likely a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted April 4, 2021 Author Share Posted April 4, 2021 The Philippine police apprehended 31 people involved in a cryptocurrency scam. The group was called Roses 4U Inc. and scammed people through an online call center to solicit investments in foreign exchange, commodities and crypto currencies by offering them fake trading accounts. The vast majority of victims were foreign citizens. The Philippine police Anti-Cybercrime Group along with agents from the Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Anti-Money Laundering Council raided the offices of the company in Cavite and Pasay City, which led to these arrests. An interesting detail is that the company in question, Roses 4U Inc., was properly registered with the Philippine SEC, but had no license to offer or sell securities. Source The apprehension of scammers is always good news, especially for an industry like this one, so heavily plagued by such individuals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e_abrams Posted April 10, 2021 Author Share Posted April 10, 2021 Coinbase, which postponed its public listing last month, announced that the new date for it is on April 14th. That is when the San Francisco-registered exchange will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol COIN, as it has been approved by SEC. Coinbase also announced that they intend to egister nearly 115 million shares of Class A common stock. This listing is considered to be a turning point for the crypto industry, having recently gained additional momentum from the immense Bitcoin rally and the very visible interest in it expressed by various institutional investors, which, up until this point, had ignored the aforementioned industry due to cryptocurrency volatility and the risks associated with it. Source Coinbase is, I think, the first crypto exchange to gain such public listing. I have little doubt that other big exchanges will follow suit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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