📰 Weekly Crypto & Bitcoin News Overview: Morgan Creek Is Betting $1 Million That Crypto Will Outperform The S&P 500, User Shows That 51% Attack On Bitcoin Cash SV Is Real and more
Market Review
The United States continues to actively investigate cryptocurrency fraud and rejects bolder steps in the form of Bitcoin ETF, postponing the final decision to a later date. Many exchanges started to offer opportunities for institutional investors, as they declare, creating new platforms, options, and even special "institutional" accounts. Maybe it means something, or it’s just the peak of the buzzword’s popularity - who knows.
This week was another struggle for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market as a whole. At the moment, support levels of $4,000 and $3,600 have been passed, and the price of the first cryptocurrency has fallen below it, dropping by 16%. Among the top 10 coins, the worst results were shown by Bitcoin Cash (BCH, -38%), EOS (EOS, -38%), Cardano (ADA, -26%). However, given the local trend, these values may be slightly adjusted upward.
As for the market capitalization, it fell from a mark just above $136 to $110 billion dollars, i.e. the tendency to decline is fairly confident.
The Decision On VanEck And SolidX Bitcoin ETF Postponed Until February 2019
The US Securities and Exchange Commission took the final break before making a final decision on the exchange-traded funds that use Bitcoin as the basic asset (i.e. Bitcoin ETF). According to the current rules, in February the regulator will no longer be able to postpone the date of consideration of the application, so the commission will have to give a definite answer whether the ETF will be launched or not.
In order to find out the answer, the public needs to wait for a little. February 27, 2019, is the deadline for the consideration of the application(s). However, this is a deadline, while a decision can be made at any time. So, there is no consensus as to whether the SEC will continue to postpone the Bitcoin ETF case, or will take an appropriate decision (ban or permission) "tomorrow".
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on crypto ETF: "Don't hold your breath"
Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) December 5, 2018
It could come tomorrow or in 20 years, she said.
"I do caution people to not live or die on when a crypto or bitcoin ETF gets approved."
Well-known Hester Peirce, commissioner of the SEC, the body studying the ETF case, in general, does not deny the possibility of launching the fund, but argues that the regulator will need to make sure that there are no market manipulations in crypto before approval. It is also interesting if the idea of Bitcoin ETF remains as attractive as when it was announced for the first time because now the price of the asset has dropped significantly.
Researcher: Bitcoin Cash SV Has Double Spending Issues (video)
The 51% attack, one of the main blockchain's dangers, can be made within the new Bitcoin Cash' hard fork, Bitcoin Cash SV. The claimant states that any user could spend the same coins twice on its network in a “0-conf transaction.”
"The first thing I tried to check was whether it was possible to send a transaction to one node and another transaction (with the same input) to another node. That is, a double-spending. The answer is: yes, it is possible as long as it is done accurately".
Of course, November's Bitcoin Cash hard fork, which in turn is a Bitcoin's hard fork, became one of the most controversial events of the month. Already in December, the market continued to fall, including due to manipulations with assets released as a result of the hard fork, as many argue. However, qualities such as decentralization, networking, security, matter in any case.
"Indeed, after a few mined blocks I discovered that the transactions that were being mined were those that were sent almost always to the same nodes. I also confirmed what we already knew, that Bitcoin SV mining is very centralized. Specifically:
- 34% of the hashrate is only 1 node.
- 59% of the hashrate are 2 nodes.
- 68% of the hashrate are 3 nodes.
- 75% of the hashrate are 4 nodes"
Microsoft Patents Method Of Anonymous Transactions Based On Proxy Transfers
Mastercard has filed an application for registration of rights to the technology, the purpose of which is to save anonymity while using blockchain transactions. The essence of the method is that the user's transaction goes through several wallets so that the transfer is more difficult to track.
The methods and systems discussed herein use intermediary addresses to obfuscate the source and destination of funds for transactions conducted via the blockchain,
which would result in showing the user only transferring funds to and receiving funds from a small number of addresses that are also involved in a significantly large volume of transactions with various other users, thereby rendering the data innocuous.
It must be said that this method is used by many users manually. Therefore, the content of the patent and technology looks a bit strange. Microsoft probably wants to standardize this process. And, regarding cryptocurrencies, its not kown how the suffecient transaction speed will be achieved in this case.
Morgan Creek Digital Is Betting $1 Million That Its Cryptocurrency Index Will Outperform The S&P 500 Over The Next 10 Years
Morgan Creek Digital, professional investment managers, bet $ 1 million on the fact that over the next 10 years, the capitalization of cryptocurrencies will outperform the S&P500 index.
"A lot of people might look at this and just think we’re bullish on crypto — but you need to look at what asset we’re going up against. Public equities aren’t exactly at their all time highs either.”
The bet will take effect on January 1, 2019, and the cryptocurrency portfolio will consist of BTC, ETH, BCH, EOS, LTC, XMR, ZEC, DASH, IOTA and NEM. Accordingly, if the complex of these assets will surpass the S&P500, then Morgan Creek will win; if not, someone else will (anyone can participate).
Korean Exchange Bithumb Surpassed Binance By The Trading Volume
According to the report of the CryptoCompare research group, the South Korean exchange Bithumb beat Binance in terms of trading volume last month, considering that this is one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms. The national currency also outpaced the dollar, becoming the most popular fiat currency traded against Bitcoin (46% in KRW, 33% in USD all-market).
"Bithumb overtook Binance as the largest spot exchange with average daily volumes totaling 1.24 billion USD. Binance (641 million USD) and ZB (560 million USD) traded the second and third highest volumes respectively".
Other exchanges in South Korea, including Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Upbit, also appeared in statistics as platforms on which the maximum trading volume is concentrated. Interpretations of this could be absolutly free, however, it is worth noting that SK has sufficient market conditions for crypto, including those which have been approved by regulators. At the end of October, South Korea’s chief financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), officially allowed banks to serve cryptocurrencies.
Sirin Labs Refuses To Release Smartphones Ignoring Promises Given During ICO
A new report by Bloomberg suggests that changes in the cryptocurrency market have structurally affected blockchain startups area. The largest of them were also hit. For example, Sirin Labs intends to abandon the development of hardware solutions and work only on software for smartphones. Now there are very few similar solutions proposed by the company at the beginning of the journey. So, the most popular examples of blockchain smartphones are HTC's Exodus 1 and FINNEY (market name for Sirin Labs' "encrypted" phone).
"Sirin Labs, for example, raised $158 million last year to create a mobile phone that allows consumers to trade and use crypto. The company, which will ship its first batch of a few thousand phones in December,
is now considering abandoning hardware altogether and refocusing on shipping software for other phone makers to use, Chief Executive Moshe Hogeg said in an interview. Sirin now only has enough funds for six to 12 months of operations, he said".
It is also said that Steemit Inc. were forced to seriously reorganize their team of employees, reducing about 70%. The biggest players are forced to minimize costs; as we can see, the crypto-market probably turned out to be the cruelest environment for startups (but, as many think, expensive partnerships and Lambos can also matter).
TRON Will Build A Fund To Rescue ETH And EOS Developers
Justin Sun, the founder of TRON Foundation, promised to protect Ethereum and EOS DApps developers against the collapse of their platforms. In his twitter, Justin informed publicitity about such such intention:
#TRON will build a fund to rescue #ETH and #EOS developers from the collapse of their platform as long as those developers migrate their dapps to #TRON. #TRX $TRX
Justin Sun (@justinsuntron) December 7, 2018
Support will be provided if developers transfer their decentralized applications to the TRON network. Frankly speaking, today TRON apps, as well as the project itself, are increasingly excluded from the media space. Ethereum still remains to be in the main focus of attention, while EOS is a little behind. Probably, in one way or another, all modern ecosystem development has disadvantages, however, it is not known which will survive iduring market's decline.
US Congressmans Want To Introduce Bipartisan Bills Preventing Virtual Currency Price Manipulation
US congressmans Darren Soto and Ted Budd are aimed to introduce 2 pieces of legislation which would help prevent manipulations with prices of cryptocurrency assets. The two bills named "The Virtual Currency Consumer Protection Act of 2018" and the "U.S. Virtual Currency Market and Regulatory Competitiveness Act of 2018" officially have all chances to be accepted and used in the future.
Huobi Meets Institutional Investors
Huobi announced that the platform will work with institutional investors. During the London conference, Huobi representatives said that, thanks to its DLT license, the company will be able to serve small and large financial participants of different types. It is also specified that the platform will provide new opportunities for the over-the-counter (OTC) market.
As we can see, the major players of the cryptocurrency industry continue to focus on the class of institutional investors. It is not known what potential this area has, and what impact it will have on the market, but Huobi has the opportunity to dive here, also because its territorial location (Gibraltar).
See also: 80% of Huobi users voted for the liquidation of re-purchased HT (Huobi Tokens).
Binance Shows DEX
Binance has published a second video demonstrating the interface of the announced decentralized exchange (DEX). Users saw the trading interface, Binance Chain blockchain and how accounts are created. In general, the appearance of the platform resembles the main exchange's platform.
Three things about the @Binance_DEX
CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 5, 2018
1. ONE SECOND block time, ONE confirmation finality = INSTANT TRANSACTIONS
2. You control your funds (private keys). No holding of coins at the exchange.
3. Simple UX, just like https://t.co/9rMMAmtCxH https://t.co/RNLxjn8tlj
Other news
- Ethereum: block 7,080,000 has been chosen for Constantinople hard fork activation. This means that Constantinople can take place between January 14 and 18.
- Coinbase intends to register BUIDL trademark. BUIDL is stylized word made by analogy with HODL which means building of the technology is necessary.
- Ledger Ethereum Wallet Chrome app will be deactivated On Monday, 10 December 2018.
- Coinbase Pro added CVC, DNT, LOOM, and MANA to its listing.
- Gemini added Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to its listing.
- Binance added Sub-Account Feature for multi-account management.
- Poloniex enabled «institutional accounts».
- Bitfinex added USDC, True USD, Paxos, and Gemini USD to its listing.
