Daily Crypto Recap: Relative Calm After the Bitfinex / Tether Storm

Top Crypto Headlines for Jan 31st

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• State-Owned Russian Sberbank to Launch Crypto Exchange in Switzerland
• HOT! — Cash App Introduces Instant Bitcoin Transactions
• HOT! — Santander to Launch XRP-Powered International Payment System in Q1
• Rai Exchange NANEX Goes Live
• HOT! — RaiBlocks Rebrands, Introduces Nano
• Koin Blockchain ETF Available on NYSE
• Michigan State University Has Been Selected as the First VeResearch Participant
• HOT! — Local Court Confiscates Bitcoins — The Korea Times
• HOT! — S. Korea’s FinMin: Government Has No Plans to Shut Down Cryptocurrency Trading
• Huobi’s Chief Strategy Officer: “The U.S. Will be Our Focus”
• Blocknet Releases Their Roadmap and Future Plans
• Samsung Enters the ASIC Supplier Market
• 3iQ Corp. Becomes Canada’s First Portfolio Manager to Invest in Cryptos
• OpenBazaar 2.1 Releases with Bitcoin Cash and Zcash Integration
• HOT! — ICON Reveals 2018 Roadmap at Annual Summit
• HOT! — Japanese Social Media App LINE to Launch Crypto Exchange Platform
• Robot Cache Joins Forces with WAX
• Taipei Municipality and IOTA Team Up
• HOT! US Regulator Sent Tether and Bitfinex Subpoenas Back in December 2017
• HOT! Facebook Bans Adverts Related to ICOs, Bitcoin and Other Cryptos

Market Summary for Jan 31st

Calm after the storm, that’s how we perceive the state of affairs in the Crypto space in the last 24h, with top cryptos by market cap experiencing a consolidation near weekly lows, with some outliers recouping a fair portion of its losses.

The main winners were Stellar Lumens, which continues to build partnerships while aiming for SDEX & LN as main goals in its technical roadmap thi year. We also saw EOS recovering from its lows, as investors cheer up the new partnership with Bitspace and Harmoychan. As per Lisk, its rise was driven by the listing in Japan’s largest exchange (Bitflyer). Meanwhile, Raiblocks saw its name re-branded to Nano, and NANEX launched, which the market welcomed by pumping the price over 25%. Lastly, two more projects that stood out were Steem, which keeps adding millions of new visitors per month (blockchain with the most transactions) and Bitshares, with DEX a hot topic this year, especially after the Coincheck cyber hack fiasco. As per the main losers, ironically, those projects building up the most momentum this week — NEO, ICON — failed to live up to the expectations. Whales taking profits? With Ignis and Ardor joining the group.

Unfortunately, we must go back to the main theme currently driving prices, that is, the Bitfinex / Tether conundrum, which as we all know, has resulted in market participant erring on the side of caution. The market has, understandably, lost confidence as the number 1 enemy of any investor will always be uncertainty, and oh boy, has Bitinex done its fair share to cause those with skin in the game to be extra careful on holding UST as part of their portfolio. The market had to digest a tsunami of negative references to the shady business run by Bitfinex and Tether this week (from Friedman no longer engaged in the audit of the exchange, the USDT/USD peg decoupling, US regulators increasing the scrutiny over Bitfinex, BTCUSDT propped up by USDT issuance, etc). There is an English say, that goes ‘when it rains, it pours’. The market needs clarity on this issue. While the break of the USDT/USD in Kraken is a red flag, the semi-stabilization of the USDT/USD peg circa 0.9850 projects a false sense of comfort.

Besides, one cannot help but notice that regulators, governments, large companies, and lobbyist groups are stepping up its efforts to gradually implement new regulations, while keeping scammers away from the industry — long way to go -, or at least, create new barriers of difficulty to access mainstream via Facebook, Twitter, etc. It was precisely the social giant Facebook that, in a coordinated move with the US government, announced that advertising related to ICOs, Bitcoin or other cryptos would be banned. In the US, the SEC and CFTC are due to testify on Cryptocurrencies by Feb 6, we will keep an eye on that front as further regulatory measures are coming, and that is great news for the industry as a whole.

Back to more inspiring news, in the last 24h, we saw a fair share of those, with ICON, the interoperability network, finally revealing its 2018 roadmap at its Annual Summit, which against expectations, failed to boost the price; we have recently reported on the constant outflux of ICONs from the Binance wallet as evidence that whales, having scored 50 to 80x from its purchases around 10–20 cents, are probably active taking profits off the table (search ICON news). Another exciting news we reported saw Japanese Social Media App LINE, set to launch a crypto exchange platform, which will undoubtedly help in the efforts of adoption due to its large client base, mainly in Asia, of over 200 mill users. It was also reassuring to learn that S. Korea’s FinMin stated that the government has no plans to shut down cryptocurrency trading, even if it served as a symbolic gesture, as its legality had already been well documented over the past week. More than 200k petitions had the government rethink its priorities. Remember, what happens in South Korea has far-reaching effects in the crypto space. Anyone remembers what happened when the highly popular crypto price tracker CoinMarketCap removed several South Korean exchanges from its listings on Jan. 8?

In other project-specific news, shout out to IOTA for its partnership with Taipei’s Municipality on planning to develop it as a leading smart city. To ARK on teaming up with Kotlin to help users interact with the network. To Stratis for its recent partnerships and hosting of the first ICOs. To Ox on the alliance with Blocknet. To Status releasing its alpha 0.9.13 version. To Waves entering the gaming world by powering up RewardMob. To Raiblocks for its decision to re-brand into what seems a more catchy/fresh name congruent with blockchain (welcome Nano!). To EOS for its new powerful collaboration with Bitspace and Harmoychain. To Aelf for its partnership with Theta Token. To Samsung for its move to create healthy competition with Bitmain as plans were made public of its interest for ASIC cards to miners. To ICON for its global event. To Blocknet on its new roadmap (the prior day was Augur). Not to forget Bitcoin and Ethereum communities on its progress with Casper and Lighting Network. Vechain and Walton, as announcements on new collaborations and exciting initiatives keep pouring in. To Ripple on its global expansion, with the listing on the largest Dubai exchange a very positive input, other than the adoption / test by banks. For those not mentioned, make us regret tomorrow by justifying your name on the list.

Main Gainers / Losers Top 100 Coins

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