Ripple’s Q2 2019 markets report. XRP is listed on over 130 exchanges and Ripple will reduce future sales, which amounted to $251.51 million in Q2 2019. XRP’s price seems to be modest compared to its achievements.
Crypto market at a crossroads. The market is struggling at the moment after Libra put on hold by regulators in the U.S. Bitcoin is down, EOS is facing obstacles, BNB is bearish, Bitcoin Cash is pushing hard against resistance, and Tron is holding. What will happen next?
Institutional cryptocurrency exchange San Francisco Open Exchange (SFOX) suggested that Ether (ETH) may not be an altcoin anymore, in its latest market report published on July 24.
In light of this analysis by the SFOX, LTC being designated as a full-on digital asset is wholeheartedly possible. A couple of weeks ago, the Flexa integration of LTC was hailed as a phenomenal move, as the platform has access to over 39,000 merchants across the globe. Most people said that this deal came about as the halving is to occur in a short while.
Litecoin founder Charlie Lee took to Twitter to provide a counterargument and explanation for LTC’s instamine, a cryptocurrency that was launched eight years ago.
Overall market capitalization of digital assets sharply increased in Q2.
Ripple sold $251.51 million XRP in Q2 2019 and is substantially reducing future sales of XRP.
Given the concerns about overstated market trading volumes, CryptoCompare will be Ripple’s primary benchmark for XRP market volume going forward.
Three billion XRP were released out of cryptographic escrow, 2.10 billion returned to escrow.
XRP is now listed on over 130 exchanges worldwide.
Sales Summary (dollar in millions)
Q1 2019
Q2 2019
Institutional direct sales
61.93
106.87
Programmatic sales
107.49
144.64
Total sales
169.42
251.51
Global XRP volume
Q1 2019
Q2 2019
ADV XRP (dollar in millions)
595.28*
1753.57*
429.51**
Total XRP volume(dollar in billions)
53.85*
159.57*
39.09**
Total sales as % of total volume
0.32%*
0.16%*
0.64%**
*data from coinmarketcap.com; **data from CryptoCompare Top Tier
In Q2 2019, Ripple sold $106.87 million XRP in institutional direct sales and $144.64 million in programmatic sales. In total, the company sold $251.51 million XRP in Q2.
With three Billion XRP valued at $251 Million released into the markets and roughly two-thirds of it were brought back as escrow, it is obvious that Ripple Labs and a few people control the market share.
Through partnerships with MoneyGram, the deployment of Xrapid which is its tool for quick value transfers is going to allow for XRP to be used in a real-life best-case scenario.
As part of a policy-making exercise, the US Securities and Exchange Commission is about to create an XRP Node.
This shows the US Government’s interest in trying to get its share of the crypto pie.
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, and Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chairman of the firm, have jointly penned an open letter to U.S. Congress over regulatory issues in the cryptocurrency space.
In their letter issued Sunday, Garlinghouse and Larsen say, without regulatory clarity, there is a risk to innovation, tax revenue, and jobs that blockchain technology has to offer.
The bitcoin price is once again hovering below the $10,000 level, which the bulls see as a buying opportunity and the skeptics take as a chance to make digs. Gold bug Peter Schiffis among the first to pounce and rather than buying is doubling down on his bearish sentiment.
Cryptocurrency investor and entrepreneur Justin Sun apologized on Chinese social media for what he described as “excessive self promotion,” after a tumultuous few days following his postponement of a charity lunch with Warren Buffett this week.
“I feel deeply ashamed of my excessive self-promotion as well as my penchant for hyping up things,” the 29-year-old said in a long post in Chinese on Weibo, a Twitter-like microblogging site in China.
Genesis today released its Digital Asset Lending Snapshot for the second quarter of 2019. Genesis posted its best quarter since launching the business in March 2018, originating more than $746 million in loans and borrows, a 48% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) increase. Total active loans also increased to $454 million, a 149% QoQ uptick from the end of the first quarter. In total, Genesis has originated $2.3 billion since launching the lending business last year.
The Genesis loan portfolio continued to be dominated by Bitcoin, with 62% of the overall composition. However, USD and “stable coin” borrowing increased 100% for the quarter, and now accounts for nearly a quarter (24%) of the active loan portfolio. There is strong demand, especially among international investors, to borrow USD and stable coin, which are frictionless, borderless asset-backed coins purportedly pegged to the dollar.
ETH loans accounted for 3.9% of the active loan portfolio, followed by LTC (3.7%) and XRP (2.5%).
Abra, an all-in-one cryptocurrency wallet and exchange, announced on Thursday it is restricting services to U.S. users due to regulatory issues in the country.
The HashCash Reseller Program allows partners to generate revenues by bringing the leading products and services offered by HashCash to a wider customer base. The Reseller Program requires a company that endeavors to collaborate with HashCash to become a Channel Partner through which it can create connections and expand business.
In a recent post, the team behind the Steemit platform seem to be taking the user-onboarding process more seriously than ever before. The post details the root causes behind the platform’s initial rapid adoption and also address some of the potential issues that may be hindering its further growth.
According to the post, the developers are working on implementing a few crucial feature upgrades simultaneously. One is the addition of ‘Communities’ onto the platform. The other is a new type of token dubbed ‘Smart Media Tokens (SMT),’ which would be used by the new Steemit communities to provide an incentive to valuable community members.
Along with these two gradual upgrades, there are also talks of ‘Light Accounts.’ These accounts are essentially wallet addresses that would be handed out for free to new users and then, later on, be selectively upgraded.
2. According to Gulfnews, the US is suing and seeking extradition of the Russian owner of a cryptocurrency exchange (BTC-e) for violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and is attempting to recover $100 million in penalties. The Russian was charged in 2017 for stealing Bitcoin from other cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the United States’ government’s tax organization, has issued a firm warning to cryptocurrency users–or rather, over10,000 firm warnings that were sent out in the form of letters sent out to cryptocurrency holders last week. Each letter contained a firm admonition: report your crypto on your tax form, or pay the price.
The Wall Street Journal reported that at least three variations of the letter were sent out in accordance with the information that the IRS has about each individual. One of the variations demanded that its recipient sign a statement declaring that they were in compliance with tax law under the penalty of perjury.
The account has been created in the name IRS_Throwaway_BTC and the “IRS employee” claims that he has been working in the IRS for many years and has worked on similar letter campaigns to tax evaders in the past.
Attorney General Mark Brnovich agreed to allow Alta to form what the company calls a “digital payment club,” with the eye specifically on marketing its service to the marijuana industry, which has no legal access to banks.
A community of developers are currently combating unintended file-sharing use of the XRP ledger.
On July 23, a tweet announced a beta release of software to upload files to the XRP ledger, allowing “users to upload files of ANY SIZE to the ripple blockchain and exist forever to be downloaded, indestructible and immutable”. The tweet was accompanied by a website detailing how to fund accounts on the XRP ledger using privacy browsers, VPNs and cryptocurrency swap services.
In the few days, the service has been active, more than 1100 files have been uploaded, totalling close to 100 MB of data, this in ~111,000 chunks, a total cost of 1,443,000 drops, 1.443 XRP or roughly USD 0.445.
However, the public nature also has a dark side, as we have seen before on, e.g. Bitcoin, where Mashable reported in March 2018 that child pornography had been uploaded to the public blockchain.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued its first no-action letter for a blockchain token made for the game industry. Quarters (Q), a cross-game, cross-platform premium game token, provides a player-friendly and industry-friendly alternative to in-game tokens traditionally locked to a single game.
Players can buy 400 Quarters for a dollar with their credit card or in the Apple App Store and Google Play. With Quarters, gamers can play participating titles on mobile, web, and PC. In addition, players can use Quarters to enter esports tournaments for the most popular games. Publishers and developers can collect Quarters and exchange them for Ether. Quarters have a fixed price, and like all premium game tokens, can never be exchanged or sold for financial value. Quarters are for entertainment purposes only.
Re: Pocketful of Quarters, Inc.
Incoming letter dated July 25, 2019
Based on the facts presented, the Division will not recommend enforcement action to the Commission if, in reliance on your opinion as counsel that the Quarters are not securities, PoQ offers and sells the Quarters without registration under Section 5 of the Securities Act and does not register Quarters as a class of equity securities under Section 12(g) of the Exchange Act. Capitalized terms have the same meanings as defined in your letter.
In reaching this position, we particularly note that:
PoQ will not use any funds from Quarters sales to build the Quarters Platform, which has been fully developed and will be fully functional and operational immediately upon its launch and before any of the Quarters are sold;
the Quarters will be immediately usable for their intended purpose (gaming) at the time they are sold;
PoQ will implement technological and contractual provisions governing the Quarters and the Quarters Platform that restrict the transfer of Quarters to PoQ or to wallets on the Quarters Platform;
gamers will only be able to transfer Quarters from their Quarters Hot Wallets for gameplay to addresses of Developers with Approved Accounts or to PoQ in connection with participation in e-sports tournaments;
only Developers and Influencers with Approved Accounts will be capable of exchanging Quarters for ETH at pre-determined exchange rates by transferring their Quarters to the Quarters Smart Contract;
to create an Approved Account, Developers and Influencers will be subject to KYC / AML checks at account initiation as well as on an ongoing basis;
Quarters will be made continuously available to gamers in unlimited quantities at a fixed price;
there will be a correlation between the purchase price of Quarters and the market price of accessing and interacting with Participating Games; and
PoQ will market and sell Quarters to gamers solely for consumptive use as a means of accessing and interacting with Participating Games.
ILCoin is one such platform that has been making some significant changes to the technology. Unlike most of the blockchains out there, the ILCoin’s Command Chain Protocol is already certified quantum-resistant by Palo Alto Networks Partner – a California based network and enterprise security company. According to the certification, the protocol is Quantum and 51% attack resistant on a sha256 POW based blockchain. This makes ILCoin futureproof as the concept of quantum computing becomes more prevalent.
Last year the Secretary of State’s office allowed 141 West Virginians in 31 counties to vote, using what’s known as blockchain – the same distributed ledger system cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin use.
In an article for Slate magazine, tech reporter Yael Grauer criticized the contractor for being secretive.
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $9.527.45, Ether at $210.19 and XRP at $0.31. The total market cap is at $264,072,410,254.
The top three altcoin gainers of the week are Regalcoin, Dexter G and Xchange. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Bolenum, Claymore and SpectrumNetwork.
The Bitcoin mining process is what truly separates the peer-to-peer digital cash system from other forms of online payment. Instead of having a centralized third party who processes transactions, Bitcoin uses a number of dynamic, potentially-anonymous entities to move money around the network.
It is this removal of a trusted third party that allows Bitcoin to operate in a permissionless, uncontrollable, and censorship-resistant manner. All of Bitcoin’s differentiating use cases are built on top of this base feature.
As the world continues to move online, sports teams and organizations are beginning to embrace the use of cryptocurrencies and digital tokens to give fans access to exclusive content and items using these new technologies. This move toward crypto-acceptance has been happening for some time in the sporting space. As early as 2014, the NBA team Sacramento Kings began accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment method for tickets and merchandise, in a move that was considered a first in the sports industry.
Football — or as it is called in United States, soccer — is by far the most popular sport on Earth. According to FIFA’s audit of audience data following the 2018 World Cup in Russia, over 3.5 billion people tuned in to watch the global showpiece.
Belarus is among a handful of smaller countries coming up with specific rule books for digital currencies. Their efforts could help shape the development of the global market and the growth of industry players, from exchange platforms to brokers.
Conversely, lightly-regulated jurisdictions like the Seychelles and Belize allow far easier market access. But states with light rules can offer less protection for investors and have looser checks on money laundering, lawyers say.
The likes of Belarus and other newer entrants – including Bahrain, Malta and Gibraltar – are seeking to offer a third way: crafting specific rules for the cryptocurrency sector, betting they can attract companies by providing regulatory security as well as perks like tax breaks.
ZPX, a Singapore-based crypto firm, will launch a cryptocurrency trading platform, Qume, next month catering to institutional investors such as high-frequency proprietary trading firms and hedge funds.
A crypto-resource management firm, Bitwise, has studied 81 trades, concluding that 71 of them showed trends that reflected fake exchanging volume. The investigation provided details regarding 71 out of the 81 trades was wash exchanging, a term that depicts an individual at the same time selling and purchasing a similar stock, or Bitcoin, to make the presence of action in the market, which is not genuine.
The trades reported a collection of $6 billion in an average of daily Bitcoin volume. The research finds that just $273 million of that is legitimate.
Natalia Ameline, mother of ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and co-founder of the educational nonprofit CryptoChicks, is trying to establish blockchain literacy programs around the world.
She told CoinDesk that CryptoChicks has run programs so far from Pakistan to Toronto with 608 students and young developers. CryptoChicks works with Blockgeeks, an educational startup spearheaded in part by Ameline’s ex-husband, Dmitry Buterin, on blockchain-agnostic curricula that cover everything from bitcoin to smart contracts to basic business principles.
The Ethereum-powered MakerDAO is a decentralized Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) platform that supports the stablecoin DAI, which aims to maintain its value one-to-one with the US dollar. Users can open a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) by locking up Ether (ETH) as collateral to receive DAI as debt against the locked up Ether. Interest payments are made using the MKR token and the DAI and MKR paid are burnt once the CPD is closed out.
IDEX is one of the leading Ethereum-based decentralized exchanges that enables Ethereum users/holders to buy and sell ETH against ERC20 tokens in a secure, decentralized manner. The decentralized exchange (DEX) was launched in 2018 and has quickly managed to establish itself as the go-to platform for traders who prefer to trade on smart contract-powered, non-custodial exchanges than their centralized counterparts.
Compound Finance is an Ethereum-based, open-source money markets protocol that enables users to borrow or lend against collateral. Any digital currency user can take part in Compound’s liquidity pool and can start to earn interest on their digital asset holdings. The interest rates adjust according to the supply and demand on the platform. Compound currently supports BAT, Dai, ETH, REP, USDC, and ZRX as currencies.
ETHLend is an Ethereum-powered, decentralized peer-to-peer marketplace for borrowing and lending digital assets. The peer-to-peer lending platform enables borrowers and lenders to agree on the terms of a loan that is then executed using smart contracts.
The 0x protocol is a decentralized exchange infrastructure that enables traders to buy and sell Ethereum-based tokens in a secure, decentralized manner with the use of smart contracts.
Dharma is a non-custodial, peer-to-peer marketplace for borrowing and lending powered by the Ethereum blockchain that officially went to market in April 2019. Dharma enables digital asset users to earn a fixed interest on their desposits while borrowers can submit loan requests that are matching up with the marketplace’s lenders. The platform uses DAI and USDC as its currencies.
dYdX is an Ethereum-powered, non-custodial margin trading platform for advanced traders. Powered by the open-source protocol, Solo, dYdX enables traders to borrow, lend, and margin trade Ether (ETH) using DAI or USDC without charging any trading fees.
The Nuo Network is an Ethereum-based, non-custodial decentralized debt marketplace that enables users to borrow, lend, or margin trade a range of digital assets such as BAT, ETH, Dai, KNC, LINK, MKR, REP, TUSD, USDC, WBTC, and ZRX. Lenders earn interest by placing their digital assets as collateral to the platform’s pooled debt reserves that are utilized to find loans and margin trades.
The Set Protocol is an Ethereum-powered platform that enables users to build, manage, and invest in baskets of tokenized digital assets. Set provides a complete solution to develop tokenized asset businesses such as decentralized brokerages, robo-advisors, and issuance order bulletin boards.
The emergence of bitcoin spawned a myriad of blockchain use cases extending far beyond the designation of cryptocurrency that was originally intended. It all started with a P2P system concept. Today, there are far more uses than we can imagine.
The blockchain company behind the 24th major digital currency of the world, Ontologyhas recently inked a joint venture with Opera browser. The association is intended for the growth of dApps and decentralized finance (DeFi).
A known Crypto wallet, Magnum has recently announced that it has completed integration with leading hardware wallet Trezor for the NEM crypto project. It said that XEM token holders will now be able to use the Trezor wallet with Magnum’s interface.
Crypto enthusiast John McAfee was arrested onboard his yacht in the Dominican Republic this week, with reports suggesting that authorities seized high-caliber weapons, ammunition and military equipment from the vessel. The millionaire later posted pictures as he left detention after four days of confinement. Hours later, he was detained again. McAfee shared a photo of himself lounging topless on a bare bunk bed, writing: “My second arrest in one week — a record I think.”
“Can a person run for, and be, President of the United States and Prime Minister of Great Britain simultaneously? Yes. Absolutely. Without question. But I believe I am one of the few people still alive who could qualify for the combined position.”
A new study, from the San Francisco Open Exchange (SFOX,) suggests that “it may no longer be accurate to classify ether as an ‘altcoin,’” because its correlation to bitcoin is significantly higher than bitcoin’s correlations to other coins. In the previous month, according to the study’s author, ether’s correlation to bitcoin was 0.788, whereas Bitcoin Cash scored 0.638, Litecoin, 0.577, Bitcoin SV was 0.619 and Ethereum Classic managed only 0.602. The team concluded that Ethereum is gradually becoming “a blockchain that is publicly recognized as an asset on its own terms, much like Bitcoin.”
Ethereum is the biggest blockchain by volume. There are over 1,600 dapps on the platform, according to a study by dapp.com.
Of the top 100 tokens by market cap, 94% are built on top of the platform.
According to a tweet by financial ratings agency Weiss Ratings, on July 25, 2019, Binance Coin’s (BNB) is a success due to its centralized nature. Currently, BNB is ranked the 6th largest digital currency by market capitalization and this year it has had a good run.
ARPA— the layer two, privacy-preserving computation technology for blockchains — was recently announcedas the latest project to open trading pairs on Binance DEX, which is swelling in popularity.
On July 17, an almost 70-person team led by Swiss cryptocurrency company Bitcoin Suisse conducted a BTC trade atop the Breithorn Mountain in the Pennine Alps on the border between Switzerland and Italy.
Having taken place at approximately 4,164 meters above sea level, the trade is believed to have ever been executed from a higher altitude.
Glu, a UK-based cryptocurrency community platform, has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign on Seedrs. The company is offering 3.61% through the funding round, at an £8,006,530 per-money valuation. Founded in 2018, Glu is the community for all the world’s cryptocurrencies and tokens.
The infographic humorously shows the story of Bitcoin, starting with the publication of its whitepaper in 2008, the mining of the first 50 BTC in 2009, 10,000 BTC Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz paid for pizza in 2010, and other big milestones ending with the announcement of Facebook’s Libra.
The infographic starts with the words:
“Bitcoin was once known as the “Myth of Riches”, and at the end of 2017 it was once the highest price of $20,000. So what is Bitcoin?”
In a press release, it was detailed that Oranco is now testing its “blockchain-based anti-counterfeiting laser recognition proprietary technology.” This particular project is the result of a collaboration between the company’s Fengyuang Huaxin Liquor Development Co., Ltd. and the Guangzhou Silicon Technology Co., Ltd. (GSTC).
Australia’s Department of Treasury recently published a new set of preliminary guidelines that govern the size of cash-based currency payments. The draft legislation proposes that a “payment limit of $10,000 for payments made or accepted by businesses for goods and services”.
Interestingly, one will note that cryptocurrency is not listed as a form of payment in need of additional oversight or restrictions.
A virtual currency is a digital representation of value that can be digitally traded and functions as (a) a medium of exchange, and/ or (b) a unit of account, and/or (c) a store of value, but, unlike fiat currency like the rupee, it is not legal tender and does not have the backing of a government. A cryptocurrency is a subset of virtual currencies, and is decentralised, and protected by cryptography.
O3 Labs, the Japan-based NEO development team responsible for the O3 Wallet, has released version 3.0 of its desktop wallet. The update includes enhanced Coinbase integration, offering secure management of users’ Coinbase accounts through the O3 Wallet. The “O3 Swap” service has also been updated to allow direct, one-button exchange of NEO-USDC, NEO-BTC, and NEO-ETH.
The government of South Korea has given its approval for the city of Busan to be designated as a “regulation-free blockchain zone.” It comes after Busan was selected as the preferred bidder for the designation by the Korean Ministry of Startups and SMEs in April of this year.
Shinhan Card Co. has recently been granted a patent[7]based on the application of blockchain technology on the credit system. Titled as “Credit virtual money generation device and credit virtual money management device“, the invention is basically a money generation device comprising of three distinct units.
The copyright certificate is not just a paper certificate. Its revolutionary change is popularized with the development of blockchain technology. The Internet has brought convenience to copyright protection, but it still has many uncertain factors. The tamper-resistance characteristics of blockchain have made the industry see new hopes, and copyright industry practitioners say:
“Fortunately, the ‘time stamping’ feature of the blockchain is naturally suitable for copyright protection.“
Bank Digital Asset L.P. (“iBankEx” ,”iBank Digital ” or the “Company”) announced that the iBOFi lending platform had launched connecting fiat currencies with digital asset and to yield interests continuously powered by the ZOS Blockchain (“ZOS”) . iBOFi has launched the issuance of cash loans in Canadian dollars and Stablecoin USDT to individuals utilizing Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral. It is expected that in the near future additional currencies will be available soon.
Perlin, a blockchain firm based in Singapore with ties to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), recently acquired Dispatch Labs, Cointelegraphreports. This development follows reports about the latter suffering from several major setbacks, including losses after a market slump.
A report from IIDO-owned Mehr News Agency on July 29 revealed that the decision was taken this weekend, during a Sunday cabinet session chaired by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani.
A taskforce set up by Kenya’s government to look into emerging technologies has recommended the development of a digital asset framework to enable citizens to raise funds through blockchain-based crowdfunding mechanism, Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).
On July 22, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) reached a settlement agreement with cryptocurrency firm CoinLaunch Corp regarding the company’s promotion of unregisteredinitial coin offerings.
The cryptocurrency consulting firm has agreed to pay more than CAD 50,000 (approximately $38,000) in penalties, profits, and legal fees as part of the agreement. The firm is also prohibited from acquiring or trading securities for five years.
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