Day: October 11, 2019

Bank of Ireland Execs Back Out of Testifying in OneCoin Scam Hearings

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Bank of Ireland (BOI) executives have backed out of the testimony before the United States Government in the criminal proceedings regarding a $400 million worth money laundering scheme through cryptocurrency scam OneCoin. No testimony on voluntary basis As fintech-focused news outlet FinanceFeed reported on Oct. 11, the U.S. Government filed a Letter with the Court on Oct. 10, in which it clarified that over the past week it had tried to get voluntary witness testimony in Ireland. However, the witnesses changed their stance toward the prospect of testifying and would…

4 Reasons Why Bitcoin Improves Investment Portfolio Upside

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Major United States investment management firm VanEck has listed four reasons why Bitcoin (BTC) improves an investment portfolio upside. On Oct. 8, VanEck released research titled “The Investment Case for Bitcoin,” aiming to determine what role the cryptocurrency can play in an investment portfolio. According to VanEck, a firm that attempted to list a Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) with U.S. regulators in 2018, Bitcoin’s combination of “durability, scarcity, privacy, and its nature as a bearer asset all contribute to it holding monetary value.” 1. Monetary value instead of intrinsic value…

CME Anticipates Major Interest from Asia as Bitcoin Options Launch Looms

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CME Group’s global head of equity products, Tim McCourt, believes that Asian traders and miners will welcome their Bitcoin options product with open arms come Q1 2020. As per an interview with South China Morning Post, CME anticipates greater demand for options contracts given the immense benefits of using it as a hedging mechanism, October 10, 2019. Why Miners Could Turn to Options Futures contracts give investors direct exposure to changes in the contracts dollar value based on bitcoin’s price movement. This is fairly rigid as the parameters are market generated.…

Visa, EBay, Stripe and Mastercard Abandon Facebook’s Libra Project

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Visa, EBay, Stripe and Mastercard have all announced that they are dropping out of Facebook’s Libra Association and its associated stablecoin project. Four companies abandon ship On Oct. 11, Bloomberg reported that Ebay, Stripe and Mastercard had decided to drop out of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency project. Within minutes, Visa said it had also decided not to join the Libra Association, according to The Block. The news comes one week after payment processor PayPal announced its withdrawal from the Libra stablecoin project as regulators continue to scrutinize the project. The companies…

Ethereum Is No Longer a Monopoly Platform for Stablecoins

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Just a few years ago, it was hard to imagine that a stablecoin would come to represent a significant portion of the cryptocurrency industry. Market players tended to base their money-making strategies on a cryptocurrency’s volatility rather than its stability. There were only 11 stablecoins on the market in 2016, and another 10 were added in 2017. Nowadays, there are 66 stablecoins, and over 134 others still in development. The overwhelming majority of these stablecoins were running on Ethereum before 2018, without any indication suggesting that this might change. But…

US SEC Deems $1.7 Billion Telegram Offering Illegal, Orders Halt

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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced that Telegram and the forthcoming GRM token constitute an unregistered digital token offering. Per an Oct. 11 press release, the SEC has filed an emergency action and restraining order against Telegram and the Telegram Open Network (TON) in a complaint filed with federal district court in Manhattan. The allegations The full complaint alleges that Telegram and TON did not register their sale of GRM tokens, which the SEC considers securities. Because the Securities Act of 1933 requires that all securities…

Mark Zuckerberg to Testify Before Congress Over Libra

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will defend the proposed Libra cryptocurrency in a testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on October 23. The highly scrutinized proposed cryptocurrency, which is being led by Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), has come under fire from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic due to its potential threat to monetary sovereignty. Now, Zuckerberg must defend the plans before US lawmakers for a third time when he speaks at a hearing entitled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors.” Previously, Libra had…

Founder of Alternative to Facebook’s Libra Exaggerates ‘Partnerships’

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The founder of the OpenLibra project, Lucas Geiger, reportedly misrepresented some of the organizations involved in the project. OpenLibra founder apologized through Telegram On Oct. 11, Coindesk reported that at least four individuals and organizations denied the fact that they support the OpenLibra project. Others are minimizing their involvement in OpenLibra, which aims to become an alternative to Facebook’s Libra. Ethereum developer Lane Rettig excitedly took to Twitter on Oct. 8 to share Geiger’s announcement of OpenLibra at the Ethereum developer conference Devcon 5, in Osaka, Japan, adding: “Seeing #openlibra…

Updated Bitfinex Mobile App Now Includes Derivatives Trading Support

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Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has announced the latest updates and optimizations to its mobile app. New version features support for derivatives trading  On Oct. 11, cryptocurrency trading platform Bitfinex presented the newest version of the Bitfinex mobile app, which includes derivatives trading support as well as in-app access to Bitfinex Reports 2.0. Version 3.19.3 of the Bitfinex mobile application features support for derivatives, including pairs, charts, order form with a leverage slider, order history and positions.  Users of the updated mobile app can now also gain access through an in-app browser…

Coinbase Custody Announces Support for Maker Governance Voting

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Coinbase Custody now allows Maker (MKR) holders to participate in the project’s governance without withdrawing their funds. The announcement comes from a Coinbase blog post published on Oct. 11. By implementing the governance feature, Coinbase Custody enables MKR holders to participate in on-chain governance directly on the platform, avoiding the need to withdraw their funds from third-party custodians. This, according to the post, will purportedly attract more participants to the MakerDAO Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD) voting, which is expected on Nov. 15. MakerDAO’s upcoming vote The launch of MCD is expected…