Tag: News

Libra is a security, says a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairman in prepared remarks to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Gary Gensler, who chaired the CFTC from 2009 to 2014 and previously held leadership roles at the U.S. Treasury Department, says in written testimony that Facebook’s new cryptocurrency project looks like an investment vehicle and that Libra may even resemble some banking structures.

Gensler will testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, as part of a panel of expert witnesses on the potential implications of Libra. He will join Public Citizen president Robert Weissman, Columbia University law professor Katharina Pistor and Georgetown University law professor Chris Brummer.

Cubans are quietly exploring cryptocurrency use-cases on the politically isolated island, even watching Facebook’s Libra project with cautious optimism.

Cuban expat Claudia Rodriguez of the Brazilian startup Fusyona, the sole bitcoin exchange proactively serving Cubans, told CoinDesk the exchange has nearly 700 accounts since launching in 2018. She said up to 60 users purchase a total of one or two bitcoins every week.

“For Cuba, that is a lot,” Rodriguez said. “Cuba is probably going to be very interesting for Libra [developers] and I hope there will be some potential there.” In its launch materials for the Libra stablecoin, Facebook has focused heavily on the potential to connect the world’s underbanked with digital financial services.

Facebook’s blockchain lead David Marcus told lawmakers he would be willing to accept 100 percent of his salary in the social media giant’s proposed Libra cryptocurrency.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the controversial project Tuesday, the ranking member of the panel, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), asked Marcus if he trusted Libra enough to put skin in the game this way.

“You really think people should trust you with their hard-earned money, I think it’s delusional,” Brown said, after enumerating Facebook’s history of privacy abuses. He then posed the question: “Will you accept all of your compensation in that new currency?”

The volume of blockchain in healthcare market worldwide is forecast to reach more than $1.7 billion by 2026.

In a press release published on July 16, consulting services to information technologies firm Acumen Research and Consulting (ARC) has projected that the global blockchain in healthcare market on the global scale will reach over $1.7 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate of 48.1%.

Based on geography, America purportedly dominates with the largest share in the global blockchain in healthcare market, wherein the United States is a mature market that hosts the greater adoption of smart technology in manufacturing and healthcare.

Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says he is in favor of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because he likes competing currencies. Ron Paul delivered his remarks in a “Squawk Alley” interview on CNBC on July 15.

According to Paul, cryptocurrencies are a great idea, and governments should only step in to regulate the space to prevent fraud:

“… I’m for the least amount of regulation. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to cryptocurrencies. I think it’s a great idea. And I only have one rule: no fraud … I think that the government has a role. And [if] somebody has a case that there is fraud, I think it should be investigated …  What I want to do is legalize the freedom of choice, absent blatant fraud.”

“We are excited to announce the official release date of Equal Wallet Connect on the 17th of July.”

Workshop with dApps and writing smart contracts on WAVES blockchain in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

“Join the SDF team and @Coinsquare for a #StellarMeetup on Wednesday, July 17.”

Fireside chat with Ted Livingston, CEO of Kik and Founder of Kin from 18:30 – 21:00.

“Join us in Cambridge, England, 17 July to design the best trading agent.”

We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.

The Takeaway

Congressional hearings on Facebook’s Libra project are likely to focus more on the company’s privacy failings than on unresolved policy questions for cryptocurrency.

Lawmakers will probably also grill Facebook blockchain lead David Marcus on the company’s choice of Switzerland as the home for the Libra Association.

Though Facebook intends to launch Libra next year, regulatory and congressional scrutiny may throw that timeline into jeopardy.

Bitcoin has come under pressure ahead of the U.S. governmental hearings on Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency on July 16 and 17.

The price of a single bitcoin, which stood near $13,000 five days ago, fell below $10,000 earlier today and tested the 50-day moving average at $9,900 for the first time since February 18.

Facebook’s head of Calibra – one of the entities set up to govern and develop the crypto project – David Marcus is scheduled testify to lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday and the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shares President Donald Trump’s concerns on the use of cryptocurrency to finance illicit activity, and stresses the role of enforcing FinCEN regulations with respect to crypto-dealing organizations. Mnuchin made his remarks at a press conference on July 15.

Mnuchin called the use of cryptocurrencies to fund illicit activity a national security issue, saying that billions of dollars have been used for this purpose:

“Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity, like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, randomware, illicit drugs, human trafficking … This is indeed a national security issue.”

Say hello to the IFO.

The cryptocurrency futures exchange CoinFLEX, backed by Polychain Capital and investor Roger Ver, will launch its first initial futures offering (IFO) this week.

“This is the first time we’ve made a futures market for a coin that doesn’t actually exist yet,” CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb told CoinDesk. “It’s a determiner of the price before the asset exists.”

Notably, Polkadot’s DOT will be CoinFLEX’s flagship IFO.

Stepping back, CoinFLEX launched in April with four futures contracts including bitcoin and ether. The platform then launched its own exchange token called FLEX earlier this month.

The Polkadot IFO on Wednesday will be the first sale that requires participants to buy the exchange’s native token. Modeled after the Binance initial exchange offering model, up to 300 FLEX token holders will have access to “discount” contracts priced at $75 per DOT.

Former Republican congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul says he is in favor of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology because he likes competing currencies. Ron Paul delivered his remarks in a “Squawk Alley” interview on CNBC on July 15.

According to Paul, cryptocurrencies are a great idea, and governments should only step in to regulate the space to prevent fraud:

“… I’m for the least amount of regulation. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to cryptocurrencies. I think it’s a great idea. And I only have one rule: no fraud … I think that the government has a role. And [if] somebody has a case that there is fraud, I think it should be investigated …  What I want to do is legalize the freedom of choice, absent blatant fraud.”

The new EQL BEP-2 total supply will be 665,059,059.35937 EQL.

“Particl is hardforking on the 16th of July at 12:00:00 UTC to move its RingCT and Bulletproofs #privacy protocols on mainnet!”

“Enjoy 50% APR for 1 day. The snapshot will be taken at 9:00am, July 16(PDT) sharp.”

“Join us this coming Tuesday in the Ethos Telegram Channel for a Community AMA. We’ll be collecting questions for Shingo & Capone to answer”

ABBC launches Buyaladdin, their online shopping platform, at the Rockefeller Center in NYC.

We are currently consolidating just upper the major resistance line at 0.24$ while the BTC is having a very nice bounce. It is becoming hard for all the altcoins and STEEM is not better than other and is sometimes even worst. What to say, we have to wait for better days, the market doesn’t really care currently for the altcoin market and I really don’t know how many time it will last like that. Courage and perhaps focus on the BTC if you want do short term trades.

Donald Trump saying he is not a fan of Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrency is “yuge” for the industry, commentators were suggesting after new tweets on July 12.

In the hours after the United States’ president delivered his lackluster appraisal of crypto, the Bitcoin price stayed stable, only to then begin growing to hit 1% gains Friday. 

Negative or not, for proponents, the event marked a psychological milestone for Bitcoin, as Trump had previously held off from mentioning it in public. 

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said he can envision a return to an era where multiple currencies are in use in the United States.

During Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on Facebook’s planned Libra cryptocurrency, he said: “The size of Facebook’s network means it could be, essentially, immediately systemically important.”

Though the initiative raised “a lot of serious concerns,” including privacy, money laundering, consumer protection, and financial stability, he began to speak favorably about other cryptocurrencies.

Mining difficulty on the Bitcoin (BTC) network has taken its steepest upturn in almost a year, data from major Chinese mining pool BTC.com reveals.

On July 9, difficulty surged by over 14% to hit 9.06 trillion (9.06 T), at an average hash rate of 64.85 EH/s — a new all-time-high in the network’s history.

The last time the network posted such a sharp increase in block producing difficulty was back in late July 2018, when it soared almost 15% over a 2,016 block interval. 
At that time, however, average hash rate was at 42.59 EH/s and absolute difficulty was at a significantly lower 5.95 T.

Anchorage, a company providing crypto custody services for institutional investors, has just raised $40 million in a Series B funding round.

In an announcement Wednesday, the firm said the round was led by Blockchain Capital, with Visa Inc. and existing investors such as Andreessen Horowitz also participating. Anchorage has now raised $57 million in total funding since 2017.

Diogo Monica, Anchorage co-founder and president, said:

“Our mission at Anchorage is to advance institutional participation in the digital asset class, and this funding will improve our ability to do precisely that. To have the support of pioneering organizations like Visa and Blockchain Capital is a validation of Anchorage’s vision for the emerging economy of digital assets.”

A loose group of developers are testing out the idea that the combination of bitcoin and orbital communication might provide a means for stopping governments or other powerful entities from suppressing news they don’t like.

Censorship is a worldwide problem, with one of the more recent examples include a new law strengthening the Russian government’s control over the internet, which pundits worry will be used to censor information that reflects poorly on it. As such, technologists have long tried to chip away at this problem with technology that ranges from privacy browser Tor to the walkie-talkie messaging app Zello, the latter of which Venezuelans used to read information that’s uncontrolled by the government and to organize protests a few years back.

A more recent effort is being waged by a small but global group of developers who are sending messages using satellites paired with software from the bitcoin technology startup Blockstream, initially deployed with the grand goal of allowing people worldwide access to bitcoin even if they didn’t have internet.

“Third (stage 3 at block 1 500 000) reduction of POW miner’s reward,” in Q3 2019.

HUOBI Listing

“We are hosting an AMA this Friday, July 12th at 3:00 pm EST here on Reddit to go over an agenda of items and answer community questions.”

HarmonyAsia Korea from July 12 – 18.

“Ask us anything! Live Telegram AMA Friday 12 July starting at 8:00 AM GMT”

The correction is still in progress on the STEEM and looks really powerfull. Today we broke the support line around 0.29$ and we are continuing to drop. We have a high risk now to go in the direction of the 0.24$ support line in red… yeah it is really low but we don’t have real support before. Let’s see !