Cryptocurrency Daily News Bulletin: October 22, 2018
October 22, 2018 1:23 pm
General News
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said global jurisdictions will have to bring into force regulations for crypto exchanges and possibly digital wallet providers under the new rules. FATF’s president, Marshall Billingslea, designated June 2019 as the month in which the group will begin publishing its global guidelines.
ING Bank have released their blockchain privacy solution, dubbed the Zero-Knowledge Set Membership (ZKSM). ZKSM allows for alphanumeric data to be validated within a specified set. For example, in a KYC check, a user can be validated to be part of a group (say, an EU citizen) without disclosing the exact country that he/she lives in.
Samsung SDS is collaborating with ABN AMRO for a logistics blockchain pilot tracking the shipment of a container from Korea to the Netherlands. Specifically, the pilot will link Nexledger, Samsung’s enterprise blockchain, and ABN AMRO’s Corda platform, as the project brings two different blockchains together for the first time. This comes after Abu Dhabi Ports partnered with its Belgian counterpart to begin a blockchain-powered supply chain pilot project.
Armenia has opened a new mining farm touting itself as one of the “world’s largest.” The Armenian Prime Minister and other top officials were reportedly in attendance. Around $50 million has been invested in the creation of the new mining farm, which is said to currently have 3,000 Bitcoin and Ethereum mining machines, and a planned capacity of 120,000.
China’s top-level internet censorship agency, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) published a draft policy called “The Regulation for Managing Blockchain Information Services.” The rules, if enacted, would apply to any China-based entity regarded as a blockchain information service provider, and would represent one of the country’s first regulatory frameworks drawn up specifically for the blockchain industry.
Gibraltar’s government in collaboration with the University of Gibraltar have created an advisory group focused on the development of blockchain-related educational courses.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) has proposed that fintech firms, including those focused on blockchain and crypto, are best regulated under existing financial regulations.
Swiss online financial services provider Swissquote announced it had become “the first bank worldwide” to offer purchase and custodial services of ICO tokens for clients.
Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin $6,479.29 USD (-0.94 percent) congestion on the network reached 95 percent last week, but transaction fees remained approximately at $0.1, a sign that the network performance may be improving. Meanwhile, Bitcoin ATM firm LibertyX and regular ATM manufacturer Genmega have partnered which will make it possible to purchase bitcoin using a debit card at up to 100,000 locations in the United States. A “technology enabler” startup known as Cyclebit has also now enabled 130 coffee shops in Europe to start accepting BTC.
Ethereum’s $204.42 USD (-1.39 percent) next hard fork, dubbed Constantinople, will now be postponed until early 2019 after originally being scheduled for this November.
Ethereum Classic $10.12 USD (4.13 percent) and Ripple have been added on new crypto exchange Bitvo.
Litecoin $52.48 USD (-1.61 percent) announced on Twitter that the upcoming software upgrade to Litecoin Core 0.17 will see the average network fee be slashed by a factor of 10.
Monero $104.63 USD (-0.73 percent) transaction fees have fallen sharply following the activation of its highly-anticipated form of cryptography named “bulletproofs.” The new technology seeks to make the monero network’s privacy features more scalable by restructuring how its confidential transactions are verified. Fees fell from about $0.54 cents on Thursday to $0.021 cents as of Saturday – a 96 percent drop.
Ravencoin $0.052209 USD (44.77 percent) have announced their mainnet for the protocol asset layer will be released on Oct. 31, 2018. This is the also the one-year anniversary of the Ravencoin founding and the 10-year anniversary of Bitcoin. Ravencoin was up over 200% this weekend following its listing on Binance with no listing fee and it continues its upward momentum today.
Ripple $0.453824 USD (-1.78 percent) has signed on Flutterwave to RippleNet to help realize its goal of providing a state-of-the-art payment infrastructure that connects Africa to the world. Meanwhile, XRP has been added to Alphacat, a crypto startup based in Hong Kong. Furthermore, Moneymatch says it has also joinedRippleNet and successfully used Ripple’s blockchain-based payment solution xVia to move money from Malaysia to Spain.
Tether $0.981450 USD (-0.46 percent) tokens are flooding into a wallet address controlled by the Kraken exchange, one of the few places where the troubled stablecoin can be converted into U.S. dollars.
Tron $0.023925 USD (-2.54 percent) Foundation met with Oracle, the fourth-largest software maker by revenue, at Tron’s San Francisco headquarters to explore potential partnership opportunities.
Waves $1.95 USD (-2.37 percent) announced a new browser extension called Waves keeper which makes it easier for a site or DApp to sign a Waves transaction.
– WN.com, Jamie Saarloos
