Bitfinex and Tether Chief Strategy Officer Resigns
Chief Strategy Officer Phil Potter of Bitfinex announced Friday that he has decided to resign.
He is also leaving the same role at Bitfinex’s partner company, Tether Ltd., issuers of a stablecoin (USDT) that is pegged 1:1 in value to the US Dollar.
Potter Steps Down
In an emailed statement released to the media on Friday, Potter stated:
As Bitfinex pivots away from the U.S., I felt that, as a U.S. person, it was time for me to rethink my position as a member of the executive team.
The dubious timing on Potter’s departure, which comes in the wake of both companies being served subpoenas by the United States Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in December of last year, has raised questions as to whether the investigation was related to the split.
All Eyes Are on Bitfinex
Bitfinex is currently the sixth largest cryptocurrency exchange, with a 24-hour trade volume of more than $432 million. The exchange has been under scrutiny from...
Huobi Global Crypto Exchange Moves into Brazil
The chances are you have heard of one of the most prominent players on the market. The Huobi global exchange with trading volume of $1 140 189 009 – and a wealth of remarkable features.
Hongkong-based Huobi has recently confirmed they will be expanding their services into the Brazilian market. Let’s take a look at what consequences this may have for the crypto market and how it will affect you directly.
Who are they again?
Huobi is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges around. It bears a proud .pro status (this isn’t an award, it just means the address is at huobi.pro, but it still sounds cool), been around since the beginning of times (meaning 2013), and trades, according to the stats, more or less 127 000 BTC every 24 hours, which means it is the third largest trader around. How is that for the power of presence?
With very simple verification and registration procedures and optional delicious offerings like using marginal trading or a credit shoulder, it is indeed one of the most popular choices around. The fact that it is becoming so successful that the management has decided to throw a considerable part of their funds into extending into Brazil is undoubtedly an argument in crypto’s favor.
Background:
Huobi’s main strengths, as you will no doubt learn from their website now that we have intrigued you, are:
“Strategic insights based on research, trends, and 50+ unique indicators to properly evaluate investment potential and risk and in-depth, comprehensive information on 190+ cryptocurrencies.”
We’d also like to point out the importance of “advanced distributed system architecture built to protect against DDoS and other potential threats”, in light of recent hacker attacks.
Also, you will be glad to know this isn’t their first endeavor to explain the potential foreign lands hold:
“Huobi Global Professional Cryptocurrency Exchange has covered global clients and has opened trading offices and operation centers in Singapore, the United States, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and many other countries”.
With all the experience Huobi has in asset acquisition and extension of their areas of influence there can be no doubt this enterprise will be as much of a success as the other ones, and we are very much looking forward to hearing more good news from them on their recent enterprise.
What happened?
Huobi’s relocation may have been a consequence of some internal struggle to do with governmental restrictions on currency trading in China, where Huobi originally comes from.
Well, all we care about is that it does the job, and does it very well. There are more than 190 currency pairs available with Bitcoin taking the lead. There are also many options available for users who may want to get heavily involved with graphs, use timelines, and learn massive...
EOS 1st, BTC 17th in China's Latest Government Crypto Rankings
The 2nd China government-backed cryptocurrency rankings were released.
The second round of China’s state-backed monthly ratings of cryptocurrencies and blockchain projects has been released, Cena News reported June 21.
Dubbed the “Global Public Chain Technology Evaluation Index,” this latest round was announced at the Shanghai Science Hall on June 20, and ranks EOS 1st, Ethereum (ETH) 2nd, and Bitcoin (BTC) 17th, out of a total of 30 analyzed cryptocurrencies.
China’s monthly “Global Public Chain Technology Evaluation Index” is published by the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID) of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and is said to be compiled by “first-rate domestic experts and scholars,” according to the original Index press release.
EOS’ top ranking is attributed to the “outstanding technical advantages in transaction confirmation efficiency, network throughput, and transaction costs” of the protocol.
While conceding the EOS...
Fintech Chamber in Uruguay to Propose Crypto Regulations
TheTokener recently reported about the hardships South America’s crypto community is facing. This region of the world is desperately seeking for certain regulations. There will be a lot of potential for Fintech companies and crypto-related businesses in South America as people are beginning to realize new opportunities that might arise from these innovations. In the midst of confusing banks and governments actions towards crypto space, Uruguay might bring new regulations that could serve as a spark for other countries to regulate their crypto space, creating one fully regulated crypto market consisting of all South American countries.
New Uruguay Regulations
As BNamericas reports, fintech chamber in Uruguay is about to form a special committee which will have a task to propose certain cryptocurrency regulations in the country. This committee should work with the authorities in the area of laws in order to find the best solution for growing crypto community.
Sebastian Olivera, Uruguay fintech chamber founder, and their former president stated that new cryptocurrency drafts will need to pass through established institutional channels. Olivera also said that they realize that there cannot be any activity developed outside of the reach of the regulatory sphere, especially regarding...
PlayChip Universal Gaming Currency ICO Review
PlayCip is a new fantasy sports ICO with a freemium model.
The PlayChip™ is brought to you by the team behind PlayUp and will be the exclusive gaming token of some of the world’s leading gaming operators with a combined user base of over 500,000 and an annual turnover exceeding US$430 million in 2018 alone – and we are just getting started.
Fantasy sports are now ubiquitous and every year more aspects of sports are being worked into the competitive oeuvre. For many players, the more complex the game, the better. But, for some more novice players, they just want an easy and user-friendly experience. Playup Limited is an Australian-based daily sports experience that is free to play but still rewards winners with prize money.
The company has amassed a following of over 500,000 users from 70 countries across 6 sports like basketball, football, hockey, cricket, and soccer. Playup will generate more than $200 million in turnover this year. Furthermore, Playup has enjoyed a lot of success in India. Already, PlayUp is one of the 10 most trafficked sports websites in India and ranked #1 in dwell time and #2 in bounce rate. The company has done exceedingly well in other emerging markets as well, so in order to continue their expansion, the company has launched an ICO with their ERC20 token, the PlayChip.
The PlayChip, built on the Ethereum blockchain, incentivizes fantasy sports and uses the “freemium” to “premium” model to build out their already growing user base. According to the company, PlayChips are distributed to our users in a process called activity-based ‘mining’ i.e. the PlayChips we...
LookRev's LookCoin Token Sale
LooksCoin is the digital token used on LookRev's open network for discovering and creating new products, verifying origins of creative assets through a truly transparent blockchain system.
LookRev offers a visual interactive product design, virtual outfit and shopping network built on modern technologies. It already has more than a dozen launched applications, customers and millions of shopper usages.
The network primarily concentrates on creating a winning business solution for creative product makers, designers, distributors and customers. Using LookRev, users can create immutable and time-stamped digital signatures for their creative works, watermarked onto the product images and register their creative assets on LookRev network. Secured by the blockchain, the origin and attribution of a product remains safe, verifiable and immutable, recorded with smart contracts, encrypted and watermarked onto the product images....
The Regulatory System(S) And Cryptocurrencies
Source oneQube by Christopher Faille
Edmund Mokhtarian and Alexander Lindgren have written a fascinating discussion of “operational issues and best practices” for cryptocurrency traders. As part of this broader discussion, they have provocative things to say about the regulatory system in the U.S. and about where, if anywhere, bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies fit into it.
The regulatory system in the United States is both fragmented and functional. There is no single administrative body whose job it is to oversee the capital markets as a whole, working toward efficiency on the one hand and working against fraud on the other. Instead, there are several agencies involved in this task or these tasks, the most important of which (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission) are distinguished from each other by the sort of investment vehicle they oversee. As the names suggest, the CFTC oversees commodities trading, the SEC securities trading.
The fragmentation is “functional” in character in that the distinction is defined by the function the two types of instrument perform. Commodities and securities have much in common. They are both traded on markets, they are both quite liquid, and they both serve both profit seekers and risk hedgers. But what distinguishes them? Seventy years ago the Supreme Court gave the following ffunction definition if a security: it is an instrument by which “a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party.”
The Function of a Security
By design, that definition is very broad, in order to make it difficult for security fraudsters to escape responsibility by saying that they aren’t really securities fraudsters. The function of a security, whether called a stock or bond or something else, is to allow an investor to gain exposure to the gains of an enterprise (commonly a listed corporation) without making any further ‘effort’ other than the infusion of the money itself.
Indian State to Use Blockchain to Streamline Food Supply
Blockchain technology is starting to gain ground by being used to address critical global issues such as food supply, fraud, and finance.
The world is slowly starting to realize the immense potential of the blockchain technology. The latest implementations are taking place in the field of finance, but this is just a tip of an iceberg. The huge power of blockchain lies in the fact that it could bring much more effective administrative outlook. By cutting out the middleman, time and resources could be much better used in order to create a better administrative environment for the people.
Kerala to implement blockchain to streamline supply
One of the most recent decisions regarding blockchain comes from the Indian state of Kerala. As Business Standard reports Kerala’s government has decided to apply the strategy to leverage blockchain tech in order to streamline distribution network and purchase of food supplies.
Supervision and implementation of the project will go through Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC). Every product will be registered on the newly created network. This will ensure that the information about manufacturer, origin, quality, and movement of the product are easy to find. Also, blockchain will do one of its main purposes in cutting out the middleman. This will be done in the field crop loss where...
US Government Officials Must Disclose Crypto Holdings
The U.S Office of Government Ethics has moved towards creating transparency in government officials cryptocurrency holdings.
Those working for the executive branch of the U.S. government must disclose their cryptocurrency holdings, ethics officials said Monday.
In a legal advisory released Monday, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) clarified that cryptocurrency is "property held … for investment or the production of income" instead of a "real" currency or legal tender. As a result, the OGE will now require executive branch employees to report holdings of digital currencies because they "may create a conflict of interest for employees who own it."
The disclosure requirement is a major move, requiring members of the U.S. executive branch – officials working for the White House as well as the galaxy of federal agencies – to reveal their crypto holdings. Earlier this year, a member of the U.S. Congress submitted a petition seeking similar requirements for federal lawmakers.
The OGE's document also specifically...
‘A Moral Hazard’: Bank of Korea Opposes Central Bank Digital Currency
The Bank of Korea (BoK) has revealed it is against the idea of issuing a central bank digital currency following a feasibility review.
South Korea’s central bank isn’t keen on issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) citing concerns related to its impact on the basic mechanics of monetary policy and implementation as well as the bank’s influence on open market operations, a report released on Monday revealed.
As reported by the Korea Times, the BoK is also concerned about costs related to issuing a digital currency alongside the potential ‘moral hazard’ it could cause. Pointedly, BoK researcher Kwon Oh-ik at the central bank’s economic research institute argued that a central bank digital currency would ‘destabilize the market order’ by claiming digital currencies do not function as money.
The researcher said in the report:
We reviewed the possible feasibility of digital currencies as currency; however, our thoughts are that digital currencies have been exposed to various categories of risk associated with credit, liquidity...