The U.S. IPO market was closed during the recent government shutdown, but bankers are still confident that 2019 will be a strong year for deals. That’s according to a new survey by BDO USA, which found 71% of capital market executives at leading investment banks believe IPO activity will increase, or at least be flat, with 2018, the best year for deals since 2014. The survey was conducted in December when markets were already experiencing a correction, but bankers remained optimistic despite more than half of them expecting further corrections in 2019.
Fed Powell spoke on Weds as part of the two day Federal Open Market Committee meeting ended and downgraded the economic growth forecasts from a GDP of 2.3% to 2.1%. The committee reiterated a patient stance, while keeping interest rates unchanged. The Fed now sees no rate hikes in 2019, while leaving one rate hike in 2020. This is a stark difference just from six months ago.
Source
The Markets digested the tone as unexpectedly dovish. While bonds rallied, the 10-year Treasury note yield fell 7.7 basis points to 2.537%, its lowest since Jan. 2018 and the 30-year bond yield fell 5.2
Facebook’s own cryptocurrency, if launched, could potentially generate $19 billion in additional revenue by 2021, CNBC reports on March 11.
Barclays internet analyst Ross Sandler wrote in a client note that a cryptocurrency could establish a new revenue stream for Facebook, aiding its share price that tanked amid a series of high-profile scandals last year.
In his forecast, Sandler pointed out that the crypto-based revenue option is something “sorely needed at this stage of the company’s narrative,” stressing that any advertising-free revenue streams are likely to be well-perceived by Facebook’s shareholders. Sandler said that his more conservative revenue estimate for the new coin is $3 billion.
Independent investment management firm Invesco has partnered with digital asset investment firm Elwood Asset Management to launch a <abbr title="
A record or ledger of all transactions that virtually eliminates third-party tampering. While every exchange of value or data is recorded and visible to users, the identities of those exchanging, and what the money is being exchanged for, is kept private. However, the amount of money is public. New blocks can only be added in chronological order (through mining or other means of block validation), and the inherent value and information cannot be compromised.
“>blockchain exchange-traded fund (ETF) on the London Stock Exchange. The goal of the ETF is to invest in constituents of the Elwood Blockchain Global Equity Index and, in this way, contribute to the performance of the index as a whole.
The ETF, dubbed the Invesco Elwood Global Blockchain UCITS ETF, was first listed on the London Stock exchange on Friday, March 8, and, according to an article in the Financial Times, started trading today, March 11. The blockchain ETF is issuing 500,000 shares with a net asset value of $20 million, meaning individual shares are valued at $40. (They carry an annual management fee of 0.65 percent.)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is going on tour in hopes of meeting with crypto entrepreneurs who otherwise might not engage with the regulator.
FinHub, the SEC’s branch dedicated to interacting with tech startups, posted a notice last week that it would be visiting major U.S. cities, allowing individuals or teams to set up face-to-face meetings with agency staffers to ask questions or provide feedback about issuing tokens or other issues under the regulator’s purview.
Retail giant Overstock.com, Inc.’s blockchain subsidiary, Medici Ventures, has acquired a stake in blockchain banking platform Bankorus, according to a press release published on March 11.
Medici Ventures has purchased a 5.1 percent stake in Bankorus, a blockchain banking platform that enables both individuals and institutions to buy, sell, lend and store digital assets. Jonathan Johnson, president of Medici Ventures, said that “the addition of Bankorus to Medici Ventures’ portfolio of companies will further our work in building the foundation of a blockchain-based technology stack for society.” The financial details of the acquisition were not forthcoming.
Preperation for Governance and Guardian Masternodes.
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
After the big UP on the STEEM yesterday and the current correction on the BTC, STEEM is doing also a consolidation. Till now, there is no drama as we could even touch the support line in blue without damaging the current UP trend. So A touch on that line is possible and even usual but we must have a bounce from it if it happens. Let’s see what will be the reaction if we touch it.
The crypto unit of South Korea’s largest internet conglomerate Kakao Corp will repeat its initial coin offering (ICO) after netting $90 million from investors, Bloomberg reported on Mar. 11.
Klaytn, the blockchain platform which is the responsibility of spin-off firm Ground X, will now seek to raise another $90 million as soon as this week. In December 2018, Kakao had first announced that it was planning to raise around $300 million through Ground X to develop its own token. According to Jason Han, CEO of Ground X, IDG Capital, Cresendo Equity Partners and Translink Capital were some of the venture capital and private equity funds to participate in the ICO round.
Recently, there has been discussion regarding a proposal to migrate ethereum away from proof-of-work called ProgPoW (short for programmatic proof of work). Proponents of ProgPoW want to flip the paradigm of the cryptocurrency mining industry on its head. Their thought is: instead of building hardware to fit the mining algorithms, a somewhat “wasteful” approach, we should be using mining algorithms that are optimized for GPUs to encourage the decentralization of mining.
At first glance, ProgPoW appears to minimize the advantage ASICs have over commodity hardware, making mining more accessible and thus decentralized. But upon further inspection, it becomes evident that ProgPoW doesn’t truly democratize mining as it claims.
The adoption of cryptocurrencies in Venezuela, first due to hyperinflation and later due to dollarization, could come to play a role in the country’s economic rebuilding.
At least that’s according to Venezuela’s most outspoken economist on the subject of cryptocurrencies, professor Aaron Olmos, who dissected the reasons for his country’s current dependency on the US dollar in a new interview with CoinDesk. A passionate advocate of the benefits of cryptocurrencies, Olmos has lectured about the technology for over two years, even leading a program focused on blockchain for IESA, the most prominent business college in the country.
There’s a reason some jokers in business refer to their finance group as the “sales prevention department.” Corporate CFOs and controllers take very seriously their responsibility for safeguarding company resources, especially cash. When it comes to investing in new technology, the typical CFO is likely to say “no” right off the bat, and force the person making the capital request back to the drawing board.
Investing in <abbr title="
A record or ledger of all transactions that virtually eliminates third-party tampering. While every exchange of value or data is recorded and visible to users, the identities of those exchanging, and what the money is being exchanged for, is kept private. However, the amount of money is public. New blocks can only be added in chronological order (through mining or other means of block validation), and the inherent value and information cannot be compromised.
“>blockchain technology, whether as a penny saver or game changer, should involve a different dynamic. People on the business side should be extra careful to avoid hype and instead argue the strategic benefits of exploring and experimenting with this new approach to data storage and verification. CFOs, for their part, will want to check their natural impulses and keep an open mind.
The tweet was in reply to a piece published by crypto news website CoinSpice. The article in question concerned the agreement between the government of Argentina with Binance Labs, the exchange’s investment and social impact arm, to co-invest in blockchain projects that are backed by the exchange.
“Global upgrade of the platform server core for enhanced functionality and performance.”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
Yesterday, I was saying you that we really need to break the previous TOP to continue the nice trend of the last weeks. See what was the reaction when we have broken it. A superb UP break out to confirm the break of this resistance line. We are now consolidating a little after that nice UP and a pull back on the support line is even possible. Anyway, it is again a nice indicator of a UP trend which is taking in place for the STEEM.
Like every morning i checked the STEEM page on Coinmarketcap. And one more day STEEM has been in the green. In a week STEEM has added $35 million to its market cap which is a formidable gain. It begs the question as to why that is happening. Could it be that folks are falsely expecting SMT test net on 15. March? Is it a recovery thats happening now that the STINC FUD has died down a bit? Was Steem in the oversold category? Are Korean exchanges the culprit?
Truth of the matter is that you cant know for sure.
If you can at all.
Great to see, though im still 40% down on my investment
Its hard to guess where we will end up going forward but im sure we wont see a major movement without the whole market recovering. Dont get me wrong. I firmly believe that STEEM has a place in the top 15 with double its Market cap, but im not sure we will see that happen. Thats actually around the price i would need to break even. Not with all the shady business going on right now with the crypto exchanges, the favoritism and the politics of it all. You come to crypto to escape all that just to find more of it. But i trust that over time things will change. You cant hype up failed projects or projects with low potential indefinitely. Even if you could, you just cant hype them up into long term success stories, no matter how hard you might try.
We are definitely trying to get back to SMTs as fast as possible. It’s not at all true that we are giving up on that project. The fact of the matter is that our work on MIRA is just more important now, and it’s not possible to know exactly how long that work will take. It could be a week, it could be a month, we just don’t know and aren’t willing to pretend we do. Once we’re done with MIRA, SMTs is high up on the to-do list.
Andrarchy comment earlier today.
My initial reaction…
But then i remembered that this was Steemit.inc and that they made me a wallet app. Wallet app ill probably never use, that looks the same as their built in whatever but with another font!
I can see it now.
Ned calling up a meeting, PowerPoint presentation ready, wearing his khaki pants, starting a discussion over picking Ariel or Times New Roman for the wallet app.
I cant get this damn projector remote to work Andrarchy! WE WILL DO IT LIVE, WE’LL DO IT LIIIIIIVE!
Will we ever actually see these mythical creatures called SMTs?
I say just hope for a overall market boost and that we manage to maintain inside top 40. Currently being 38th, i cant remember the last time we were this high.
Gaming cryptocurrency Enjin Coin (ENJ) is up 70 percent after news reports earlier today that confirmed a partnership with South Korean technology giant Samsung.
On Friday, media outlets in South Korea reported the partnership between Enjin, the Singapore-based company behind ENJ, and Samsung’s flagship smartphone S10, was confirmed, which ignited Korea’s investor base to jump in.
When reached out by CoinDesk for comment, Enjin provided confirmation regarding a partnership with Samsung Electronics, the specific entity behind the S10 flagship smartphone, but declined to reveal more details.
Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS) will take its time about adding support for ethereum, the executive in charge of the new platform said.
The digital asset trading and custody branch of Fidelity Investments, which went live this quarter, has developed an internal framework for evaluating any cryptocurrencies that may be added in the future, according to FDAS president Tom Jessop.
Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of San Francisco blockchain startup Ripple, gave JP Morgan Chase qualified praise Wednesday for creating its own stablecoin, before dismissing the product’s likelihood of adoption by other banks and questioning its usefulness.
During a fireside chat at the Chamber of Digital Commerce’s D.C. Blockchain Summit in Washington, Garlinghouse said he thinks it’s “great” to have major financial players like JP Morgan “leaning in.”
But, he quickly added:
“That’s the only nice thing I’m going to say about this.”
Japan financial group Nomura has invested in Y Combinator-backed smart contract auditing startup Quantstamp.
U.S.-based Quantstamp announced Wednesday that it is setting up a subsidiary in Japan following a “significant” investment from Nomura Holdings and Tokyo-listed internet group Digital Garage.
Chuzaburo Yagi, senior managing director in charge of innovations at Nomura Holdings, said:
“As blockchain technology is adopted in the financial world, smart contracts will play an increasingly important role. Security assurances through auditing and certification will become increasingly indispensable.”
Exchange and social network for investors and traders eToro has launched its cryptocurrency trading services in the United States, according to a press release shared by the company with Cointelegraph on March 7.
The exchange, which — per the release — has over 10 million registered users, will start facilitating the trade of 13 unspecified crypto assets and release a cryptocurrency multisignature wallet to customers in 31 U.S. states and territories.
The wallet will support Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Stellar (XLM) and Ripple (XRP), and will enable users to send and receive the supported assets. According to the release, support for more cryptocurrencies will be added to the wallet in the future.
“Sponsored by Horizen, the privacy cryptocurrency for everyday use, this meetup is hosted in person by local ASFL hosts…”
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
Yesterday, I was saying you that the 0.43$ resistance line was the line to break to continue the UP trend. Look how we broke it and how it triggered that nice UP Break Out. Except the symbolic resistance line at 0.50$, the next technical resistance line is now around 0.58$. Let’s see if we can reach that level quickly after a little consolidation which is in preparation now.
Facebook is talking to exchanges about potentially listing a cryptocurrency.
That’s the main finding from a New York Times story published Thursday on several efforts to introduce native cryptocurrencies to widely used messaging platforms. The Times reports that Signal and Telegram are also planning to roll out tokens over the next 12 months. Citing “four people briefed on the negotiations,” the Times reports that Facebook has told exchanges it expects to get a product out in the first half of 2019.
Two long-anticipated upgrades appear to have officially activated on the ethereum blockchain, the world’s second-largest by market value, without incident.
At 19:57 (UTC), the sixth and seventh system-wide upgrades to the software, dubbed Constantinople and St. Petersburg, respectively, rolled out on the main network at block number 7,280,000. As seen on blockchain monitoring website Fork Monitor, there is so far no evidence of a chain split that would suggest a portion of ethereum users are still running an older ethereum software.
Past hard forks of the ethereum blockchain have encountered such setbacks, most notably in 2016 with ethereum classic, a group that continued running an older software instance when a controversial upgrade was introduced.
As part of a Twitter debate involving United Kingdom-based entrepreneur and investor Alistair Milne, Ripple’s head of markets, Miguel Vias, broke ranks with previous correspondence from Ripple about Coinbase.
Milne had written to the company asking for comment on rumors, which assert that Ripple either paid or offered an incentive to Coinbase in order to list XRP on its professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro.
Big Four audit and consultancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is conducting a trial of its new blockchain-powered platform for ensuring the integrity of employee credentials. The trial, launched in partnership with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), was announced in a PwC press release published on Feb. 28.
PwC’s “Smart Credentials” platform, earlier unveiled on Feb. 13, implements blockchain to issue, store and securely share digital certificates for employees’ professional qualifications.
For the trial with ICAS, PwC employees, who have qualified as chartered accountants at the Institute within the past two years, are being issued with a blockchain-based certificate from ICAS that becomes part of their unique digital wallet.
The San Francisco crypto exchange Kraken has announced the company is offering a $100,000 reward in exchange for a solid lead toward finding the missing Quadrigacx coins. Kraken has explained the company wants to bring more “awareness and attention” to the case and hopefully locate some of the lost funds.
Livestream AMA from 11 AM – 12 PM PST (may extend to 12:30 PM).
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
Yesterday I was little bit disapointed because my conviction was that we will try very soon to break the resistance line at 0.39$ but the BTC was not helping. The good surprise has been to see that the drop of yesterday on the BTC was a trap and that we are now back on the previous level.
This allowed the STEEM to go test the resistance line at 0.39 and we broke it :-D. We are now consolidating but it is really normal after a move like this. Expect a touch on the 0.39$ line which is now a support line before a possible UP continuation.
This morning i taken a look at the STEEM price and the Steemitblog account talking about MIRA and such. While ill be dissapointed if the SMT testnet doesnt launch on 15th of March its still nice to see them communicating with the community about what they’re working on.
So i was browsing a bit through CMC and thought it would be a good idea to look into some other blockchains with Dapp building potential.
Things like LISK (39th in MC), Zilliqa (36th in MC), ETC (18th in MC). What i found out is that barely anyone is using any of those blockchains. The projects ive looked at for most part havent updated their websites for months. The social footprint is extremely small. There are probably dozens of blogs on STEEMIT that get more attention and engagement then most of these dapps reddits/telegrams/discords.
It very much showed me that while we always talk about adoption, the market rarely considers it when determining asset value.
So i went to take a look at “State of the Dapps” once again to do a bit of comparison with EOS and ETH and i have to say that for a blockchain that has its problems and has a 30 times smaller MC then EOS and 100 times smaller MC then ETH STEEM is doing extremely well, looking at the user numbers.
I mean just consider STEEM at ETH market cap. 1 STEEM = $46. Which blockchain could compete with STEEM in users then?
With all the issues facing STEEM i just have to acknowledge how incredibly undervalued STEEM is right now. And im someone that will point out every single failure of STEEM.
After that i booted up my Discord (Oh, how i love thee) and went on the discord server of another dapp listing site.
DappRadar.
Was interested in seeing when they might list STEEM or if they even were considering adding STEEM to DappRadar. The mod there was pretty nice, considering how many folks must DM them on the daily basis. lol. Which surprised me honestly.
Why would you want your blockchain added besides EOS/TRON/ETH if your dapp adoption is extremely low? Do you want to show that the most used dapp on your platform of investment choice has 10 daily users? (Just take a look at ETC dapp listing site – dappdirect.net)
This is the response i got to my inquiry.
Of course, this could be just a vague answer, but the:
“We are actively looking into it”
fills me with some hope.
I love Stateofthedapps but i still think DappRadar has more detailed Stats and is used more. Even if you look at the Alexa rankings, DappRadar is placed much higher. 60k vs 150k.
I really think that we need to have STEEM compared to “the big boys” as often as possible, even if we STEEM isnt leading in most categories, to show that what they have at billions of dollars of market cap, STEEM has at 100 mil.
Singapore’s Government Investment Corporation (GIC) was reportedly one of the investors to have helped raise $300 million for major United States crypto wallet provider and exchange service Coinbase in 2018. Bloomberg reported the news on Feb. 28, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.
According to its official website, GIC — which was founded to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves — has in excess of $100 billion assets in over 40 countries worldwide.
As reported, Coinbase revealed it had raised $300 million in a Series E equity financing round in October 2018, brining its post-money valuation at the time to $8 billion.
In less than 24 hours, the world’s second largest blockchain by market capitalization is expected to activate its sixth and seventh system-wide upgrades, at which point its global user base will be asked to make two near-simultaneous changes to its code.
Known as Constantinople and St. Petersburg, both upgrades will be implemented as “hard forks,” or upgrades that add new rules to the ethereum software that are incompatible with past versions. Both will also take place at the exact same block number – 7,280,000.
Should users decide to upgrade, St. Petersburg will effectively disable part of the Constantinople code discovered back in January to host a critical vulnerability affecting smart contract security. Further, four out of five planned ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) – the majority of which, according to independent ethereum developer Lane Rettig, will not be noticeable to the average user.
Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain platform, enabled with EDCCs, where a software developer can build games, financial applications, gambling applications, utility and logistics software, social networks and more.”>Ethereum community experienced vicious infighting on social media as people reacted to Afri Schoedon’s controversial tweet about Serenity and Polkadot. The alleged verbal violence directed at Schoedon resulted in his exit from Ethereum and a subsequent letter, signed by dozens of Ethereum contributors, calling the community to develop healthier discussion practices and to “protect each other from threats and violence.”
This wasn’t the first Twitter thread in the Ethereum community to turn ugly, but Afrigate renews pressing questions about discourse. How can members of the community disagree or offer criticism in ways that are generative? In light of this recent display of toxic communication, I sat down with Taylor Monahan of MyCrypto to talk about healthy communication in the <abbr title=”
A record or ledger of all transactions that virtually eliminates third-party tampering. While every exchange of value or data is recorded and visible to users, the identities of those exchanging, and what the money is being exchanged for, is kept private. However, the amount of money is public. New blocks can only be added in chronological order (through mining or other means of block validation), and the inherent value and information cannot be compromised. “>blockchain ecosystem.
Bitcoin could end the five-year March losing streak with solid gains if resistance at $4,190 (high of last week’s inverted bullish hammer) is convincingly scaled in the next week or two.
The cryptocurrency reinforced a bullish triangle breakout witnessed last week with a quick recovery from sub-$3,700 levels yesterday. This “buy the dip” mentality indicates scope for a break above the recent high of $4,190.
The focus would shift to the primary bearish trend seen on the monthly chart if BTC fails to pick a strong bid in the next few days. In that case, the probability of BTC ending March on a negative note for the sixth consecutive year would rise.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has instructed his country’s government to adopt federal laws relating to cryptocurrency by July this year. Russia has earlier broadened the definition of “digital financial assets” to include cryptocurrencies. Putin’s latest order resembles one he made regarding crypto regulation last year.
Putin has approved a list of instructions for 47 orders, according to a document posted on the Kremlin website on Wednesday. Among them is an order for the government to work with the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, to ensure adoption of “federal laws aimed at the development of the digital economy.” They include “determining the procedure for conducting civil law transactions in electronic form, as well as regulating digital financial assets and attracting financial resources using digital technologies,” the order details.
“Stage 2: Balancing and frequency regulation,” in Feb 2019.
STEEM Trading Update by my friend @cryptopassion
Here is the chart of yesterday :
Here is the current chart :
Due to the drop of the BTC, we are currently starting also a correction. No luck because I’m quiet sure that if we would have a UP on the BTC, the resistance line on the STEEM around 0.39$ would have been broken. Anyway, the market decided the other scenario so we have to adjust our hopes. We have now a high risk to go test the support line around 0.31$…
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