Day: October 14, 2019

Libra Association Holds Inaugural Meeting, Forms Board

boss

The Libra Association, the governing body of Facebook’s proposed stablecoin, held its inaugural meeting today in Geneva, Switzerland.  According to a report from Reuters on Oct. 14, the consortium reaffirmed their interest in creating a payments-oriented stablecoin that would be balanced by a basked of various, purportedly stable fiat currencies.  Libra Association sets rules for governance In addition to explicitly stating their interest in the project, the consortium’s 21 members also formed a five-member board and agreed to interim articles of association which, according to Swiss law, must describe how…

CME Says Bitcoin Futures Gaining Interest From Big Investors

boss

CME Group, the Chicago-based exchange operator, said its bitcoin futures contracts grew in popularity last quarter, with the number of open contracts up 61 percent from a year earlier because of growing demand from institutional investors. Open interest, or the number of outstanding positions, rose to 4,629 contracts, up from 2,873 in the third quarter of 2018, CME said Monday in a statement. And despite the quarter’s 25 percent drop in bitcoin price, according to CoinDesk, the open interest in the CME’s contracts was down just 1 percent from second-quarter…

Dubai, Emirates NBD Sign MoU on Blockchain Trade Finance Solutions

boss

The Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DCCI) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Emirates NBD. Middle Eastern news daily Saudi Gazette reported on Oct. 14 that the DCCI, which acts as an international business hub in Dubai, has signed an MoU with Dubai government-owned bank, Emirates NBD.  The bank, which is one of the largest banking groups in the Middle East in terms of assets, will provide trade finance solutions for the Digital Silk Road, a Dubai 10X initiative, which uses blockchain technology to digitize trade processes…

Price Analysis 14/10: BTC, ETH, XRP, BCH, LTC, EOS, BNB, BSV, XLM, TRX

boss

Most major cryptocurrencies are in a consolidation, which will soon result in a large directional move. How should traders be placed in order to benefit from it? A draft report by the G7 group of nations outlined the risks associated with “global stablecoins.” The report said: “No stablecoin project should begin operation until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks are adequately addressed.” This report is likely to increase the troubles for Facebook’s Libra project. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo believes that Libra and the prospects…

Crypto-Ransomware Remains Most Prominent Cyber Attack

boss

The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) released its 2019 Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) report. Crypto exchanges continue to be a magnet for hackers On Oct. 9, Europol presented its IOCTA report of the cybercrime threat landscape. According to the EU-focused law-enforcement organization, cybercrime must be approached in a holistic sense, saying: “Countering cybercrime is as much about its present forms as it is about future projections. New threats do not only arise from new technologies but, as is often demonstrated, come from known vulnerabilities in…

Booking Holdings Leaves Facebook’s Libra Association

boss

Leading online travel company Booking Holdings has ditched the Libra Association, the governing consortium of Facebook’s proposed Libra stablecoin. Booking Holdings has thus become the latest in an array of companies that abandoned the project, leaving it with 21 founding members out of the initial 28 organizations, Bloomberg reported on Oct. 14. A promising start Booking Holdings — which stands behind travel sites booking.com, priceline.com, agoda.com and Kayak, among others — became a founding member of the Libra Association in June. In August, Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said that…

FINRA Approves Grayscale’s Public Quote for Crypto Fund Shares

boss

New York-based digital asset management fund Grayscale Investments has received regulatory approval to publicly quote the shares of its diversified cryptocurrency fund. First publicly-quoted diversified crypto fund Grayscale was approved by the United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to publicly quote its Grayscale Digital Large Cap Fund (GDLCF) on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, according to a press release on Oct. 14. The recent approval purportedly enables the first publicly-quoted security based on a selection of digital currencies in the U.S., the firm stated. The shares will be available for purchase…

2 Key Indicators Suggest Accumulation Underway Below $10K

boss

Bitcoin (BTC) finished a volatile week at $8,282 which is a 5% increase for the week but still 6% away from the highs of over $8,800. This morning, Bitcoin took another knock at opening, trading slightly lower alongside the rest of the cryptocurrency market and traditional markets. XRP has thus far bucked the trend and is up 3% at the time of writing. With Bitcoin’s move out of the consolidation being hammered back last week, we will take a look at what may have been behind the rejection and what is…

LiquidApps Releases Horizontal Blockchain Scaling Solution

boss

Blockchain development firm LiquidApps has introduced a new blockchain scalability solution for decentralized application (DApps) developers. The new service called vCPU aims to scale blockchain processing power horizontally, which provides more computing power per action than native blockchains, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 14.  LiquidApps states that vertical blockchain scaling creates a barrier to entry for potential miners and block producers, as it requires the validation of nodes to add more capacity. More power to developers VCPU ostensibly allows developers to access a greater supply…

US Treasury Secretary Says Firms Left Libra Due to Compliance Issues

boss

United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has attributed the recent spate of firms abandoning Facebook’s Libra stablecoin project to regulatory concerns. On CNBC’s Squawk Box on Oct. 14, Mnuchin stated that companies are abandoning the Libra project because it is “not up to par” with American Anti-Money Laundering standards, saying: “If they don’t meet the standards of our money-laundering standards and the standards that we have at FinCEN, we would take enforcement actions against them. I think they realized that they are not ready, they are not up to par…