Escalation Overflow
Hi Everyone,
Financial markets appear to be reacting to the latest escalation in the trade war between the U.S. and China.
It now appears that the United States may have the upper hand due to the wide trade imbalance between the two nations. Indeed, it would be very difficult for the Chinese to find $200 billion worth of US imports to curtail.
Under the circumstances, I guess you could say that markets are holding up pretty well, as we’ll see below. Even though the declines are sizeable, this doesn’t come close to the volatility we saw in February.
President Trump’s approval ratings are now as high as they’ve ever been despite outrage over recent hardline anti-immigration actions that saw authorities separating more than 2,300 children from their parents.
@MatiGreenspan
eToro, Senior Market Analyst
Today’s Highlights
- Stocks Minor Sell-off
- What Brexit Negotiations?
- Crypto Off the Lows (Focus on ETC)
Traditional Markets
Looking at the financial markets today it seems there is a bit of fear creeping in.
The Chinese stock market is down 3% and the Japanese market isn’t far behind with losses of 2.5%. Though these are quite substantial movements for any stock index, by putting things in context on the long-term chart we can see that it’s not the end of the world.
Please notice how in February, before the whole trade tensions began, the stocks experienced a much sharper sell-off.
On this chart of the VIX we can also see that even though volatility spiked yesterday, it’s still way below the levels seen...
Decentralized Asset Management Network RigoBlock Partners with TokenMarket
Lugano, Switzerland - June 19, 2018 - RigoBlock, the decentralized asset management protocol that allows users to create and run a fund on the Ethereum blockchain, has announced its partnership with leading ICO advisory firm TokenMarket. The recently announced relationship comes as part of RigoBlock’s aim to roll out its blockchain infrastructure programme later this year.
The Rigo token, which is built on top of the RigoBlock platform, allows users to: establish a meritocratic and incentives-based framework for traders, separating the fee logic from the funds and create an incentive mechanism on top of the token. All of these elements will allow the Rigo token to become easily accessible and more cost effective for traders to use, which aims to reshape the $63 trillion dollar asset management industry.
TokenMarket will deliver a set of building blocks in order for the RigoBlock project to run smoothly. These include: token issuance and creation, marketing, PR and community management, as well as providing its award winning advisory services to the RigoBlock team.
“We are very excited to be working together with TokenMarket to ensure that RigoBlock can be a success” Gabriele Rigo, CEO and Founder of RigoBlock, said. “TokenMarket’s experience in this industry is second to none and we are pleased to be working together” Rigo stated....
Colombian Cryptocurrency Exchange Won’t Go Down Without a Fight
In an unregulated crypto environment task of managing a crypto exchange is one of the hardest ones. One of the prerequisites for successful crypto exchange is a good cooperation with a traditional bank. This is a must-have for the exchanges as they need to have some sort of official bank accounts in order to regulate their money flow. In Europe, there are certain regulations and banks are starting to build business relationships with crypto exchanges which are a great sign. European crypto exchanges at least know what to expect, there are no unpleasant surprises dealing with the European banks. Unfortunately, this is not the case in other parts of the world.
Buda to challenge Colombian banks
Buda, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in South America recently encountered problems after three major banks closed their accounts without giving an official notice, as CoinIdol reports. Buda’s director Alejandro Beltran noted that crypto exchange is doing everything in their power to get back their closed account and resume working.
Buda is a crypto-to-crypto exchange with 35,000 accounts in Colombia and over 45,000 in Chile, Peru, and Argentina. Being that large, Buda represents one of the pillars of the crypto community in South America. Buda's director...
Ashton Kutcher Makes a $4m Crypto Donation on Ellen’s show
Here at Main Bloq we like to keep track of the process by which cryptocurrency news seeps into pop culture. Here’s a new instance: a very high profile donation using Ripple (xrp).
Ashton Kutcher is best known as an actor. He starred in Dude, Where’s My Car?, The Butterfly Effect, and Jobs.
He is also a very savvy investor, having gotten early into Skype, Foursquare, Airbnb, etc.
He recently made a drop-in appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. He talked up Ripple, and segued into a discussion of a cause to which DeGeneres is devoted, African wildlife preservation. For the benefit of that cause, he used a ripple app to transfer to her US$4 million, exchanged into Rwandan francs and deposited into a Wildlife Fund.
South Africa: Gang Kidnaps 13 Year Old Boy, Demands Ransom of 15 Bitcoins
The kidnappers of a 13-year-old boy in South Africa have demanded a ransom of 15 bitcoins (BTC) - around $120,000 - for his release, The Guardian reported Tuesday, May 22.
Local police stated that on Sunday, May 20, three gang members pulled up in a car near to where the teenager, Kathlego Marite, was playing with two friends close to his home in the town of Witbank. Witnesses said the men dragged him into the vehicle, leaving their ransom note at the scene. The “non-negotiable” note reportedly threatens to kill the boy if the demands are not met, with the first deadline for payment passing...
Taxation Reinvented by Bitcoin Miners in Hong Kong?
At the Coingeek Conference in Hong Kong recently a prominent group of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) miners got together to discuss the funding of BCH development. Attendees included Jerry Chan from SBI Bits and Jonald Fyookball of Electron Cash.
Press reports indicate that most of the attendees agreed that it makes sense for miners denote a (small) portion of block rewards, between 1% and 5%, to fund community proposed initiatives. The initiatives could be adopted by a supermajority of miners (75% was discussed) then supported automatically by the mandated percentage from every block found.
This created a moment of what one might call ideological discomfort. Jamie Redman wrote about this informal meeting, and that consensus, in a post at Bitcoin.com. The commenters on Redman’s piece proceeded to debate whether the BCH miners were reinventing taxation. The crypto community harbors a number of anarcho-capitalists and other anti-statists and “taxation” is a dreaded word.