A week in review | Bitcoin plummets, history soars, U.S. crypto regulatory framework emerges

Cryptocurrency

The cryptocurrency market fluctuated sharply this week. At the beginning of the week, Bitcoin, the highest-valued cryptocurrency, once dropped to around $ 6,600, and then quickly rose to around $ 7,200 a day later. In the course of the ups and downs, the long and short sides of the entire network suffered heavy losses from short positions. At present, the market's judgment on the short-term trend of the crypto market is still unclear.

Most other major cryptos have followed Bitcoin's ups and downs, but the decline has been larger and the rebound has been weaker. Therefore, the past week has been dominated by closing and falling. Among them, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization is Ethereum and the third largest by market capitalization. Currency XRP weekly declines were more than 10%.

Yibang International, one of the three giants of the mining machine, was accused of contract fraud in a sales contract dispute with its subsidiary this week. The police have filed a case and are currently investigating. However, Yibang responded to the reporter that it had provided relevant materials for this case as requested by Beijing Chaoyang Public Security Organs. No personnel were taken away by the public security investigations, production operations and personnel stability were not adversely affected by the incident.

Ripple, the company behind XRP, announced this week that it has raised $ 200 million in a Series C round led by Tetragon with participation from SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. This investment will accelerate Ripple's efforts to recruit new talent to meet market needs and serve customers and partners.

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This week, the Libra Association officially released the second version of the Libra Core roadmap that supports the Libra network. As part of the Libra roadmap, developers will focus on three areas, including delivering mainnet functions in order of priority, defining launch standards from Libra preparatory mainnet to mainnet, and making the Libra community valuable to the Libra project. Contributors.

On the digital currency front, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proposed at the Malaysia summit to create a cryptocurrency for Muslim countries to replace the US dollar. He believes that the United States has adopted economic sanctions as a "main tool for hegemony and bullying" against other countries, and therefore proposes the creation of cryptocurrencies to replace the US dollar to trade between Muslim countries.

Supervision

Significant progress has been made in crypto regulation in the United States this week, and a bill providing a comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets including cryptocurrencies has surfaced. The bill is called the 2020 Cryptocurrency Act, and its purpose is to state which federal agencies regulate digital assets and require these agencies to publicly announce whether the creation or trading of such assets (or any other use) requires a federal license, certification or registered. The preliminary review of this draft includes assigning the definition of "federal digital asset regulator" or "federal cryptocurrency regulator" to three agencies: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and financial crime enforcement Network (FinCEN), and divides digital assets into three categories: crypto commodities, crypto securities, and cryptocurrencies, which are overseen by the three regulators respectively.

The SEC this week fined a New York-based startup, Blockchain of Things Inc. (BCOT), with a fine of $ 250,000 and asked it to return $ 13 million in funds raised through an initial coin offering (ICO). In addition, the SEC hopes this week to expand its reach as a qualified investor.

Eight members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to the Director of the Internal Revenue Service this week asking the agency to expand and clarify guidelines on token airdrops and blockchain network forks. The letter states, "We wrote in April this year urging the publication of guidelines for taxpayers using cryptocurrencies, and we are pleased to see that the tax guidelines have been published and have addressed many of our questions. However, we are concerned that this latest guideline will Brings many related new issues, namely the fork and airdrop of cryptocurrencies. "

In Europe, the European Central Bank's official website has published a report titled "Exploring the Anonymity of Central Bank Digital Currency." The European Central Bank System (ESCB) will conduct a proof-of-concept for the anonymous operation of central bank digital currencies. Part of research on the impact of digital currencies on the public's potential benefits.

ECB's new president, Lagarde, said this week that stablecoins solve many of the problems associated with existing cross-border payment systems, provide users with a cheaper and more efficient payment method, and can help promote finance Pratt & Whitney. But regulators will have to address concerns about competition in the stablecoin market, and Facebook may have an unfair advantage over smaller operators because it can use social media platforms to block competitors and promote its own cryptocurrency.

As new anti-money laundering rules will be implemented in Europe on January 10, 2020, several cryptocurrencies will be closed.

In France, the French financial regulator, the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), announced this week that it has approved the first ICO for its first coin offering under its new "ICO Visa" program. French-ICO, a cryptocurrency fundraising platform that has successfully obtained an AMF "ICO Visa", meets the minimum guarantee requirements set by law and has a white paper that investors can understand.

The Greek Attorney General has signed an order this week requesting the extradition of Alexander Vinnik, a BTC-e exchange operator suspected of money laundering, to France, who has been accused of laundering billions of dollars using cryptocurrency. Both the United States and Russia have filed extradition requests with Greece. The Russian ambassador regretted that the Greek government "ignored" Russia's request to extradite Vinnik to Russia, the country of its nationality.

Exchange

Crypto exchange Kraken announced this week that it has purchased Circle's OTC service. Sources said the deal was not surprising, as Circle has been looking for buyers for its OTC platform since this summer.

Wall Street-backed cryptocurrency exchange operator ErisXErisX officially notified its potential customers that its cryptocurrency futures market was launched on December 17. ErisX entered the field of cryptocurrency trading in October 2018, when it promised to introduce trading experience from Wall Street for the cryptocurrency futures and spot trading markets.

CME Group announced this week that it will respond to customer demand for long-term options, which will extend the listing cycle of bitcoin futures to include six consecutive monthly contracts (including December monthly periods starting on December 16, 2019 contract).

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong received a patent this week that allows users to email Bitcoin. According to a published patent document, the patent describes a system that allows users to make cryptocurrency payments using an email address linked to the corresponding wallet address.

Coinfloor, Britain's longest-running cryptocurrency exchange, plans to no longer support Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash next month. From January 3, 2020, Coinfloor will only support Bitcoin.

Gemini Exchange and financial services company State Street Bank have launched a pilot for reporting cryptocurrency holdings. Both parties will launch a pilot for reporting cryptocurrency holdings. Ultimately, the service will enable customers to receive other digital assets they hold. report.

application

Hardware maker AMD has joined the Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA). AMD is also the first major hardware manufacturer in the alliance. Through this program, AMD hopes to provide industry partners with "high-performance computing technologies that have the potential to transform game development, distribution, purchase, and operation."

Fidelity's crypto branch Fidelity Digital Assets opens a branch in the UK. A Fidelity Digital Asset spokesman said on Tuesday, "We plan to provide services to institutional investors in Europe through our UK-registered entity Fidelity Digital Assets. We recognize that the regulatory requirements for service providers in the digital asset space are constantly evolving and we intend Comply with all applicable requirements in the UK and elsewhere as we continue to expand our services to institutional investment globally. "

South Korea's largest telecommunications company KT announced this week the launch of Dongbaekjeon, a blockchain-based local currency for Busan. According to local media donga, the currency will be launched on December 30. It is a card-type local currency issued by Busan City to revitalize the local economy of Busan and reduce the management burden on small businesses.

Thailand is about to launch a new blockchain-based electronic visa (eVOA) system to speed up and protect the digital visa application process, which will soon serve 5 million tourists from 20 countries. Its upcoming eVOA functionality comes from a partnership with Australian travel company ShareRing and Gateway Services, which has an eVOA license in Thailand. Thailand will be the first eVOA service to support the blockchain and will focus on visitors from China and India.

Chinese Internet giant Alibaba has obtained two patents in the field of blockchain in the United States. According to public information from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the two patents approved this week are designed to make its blockchain network more secure and faster. One patent is designed to reduce the time it takes to verify block data, while the other patent is designed to help participants set the validity period of transactions in the blockchain network.

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Fidelity Digital Asset President Tom Jessop said he is not worried about the closure of dozens of cryptocurrency funds in 2019. Jessop sees this as very similar to the early stages of Internet startups. He also said that Fidelity will not track the status of early funds, but rather the range of client types and why they are interested in encryption, which is a better indicator of activity growth in this area.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini executive Jeanine Hightower-Sellitto said that institutional investors will continue to study investing in cryptocurrency investments in 2020. She believes that the key to working with institutional clients is to "match their location" and provide them with institutional services that are customary in traditional markets, such as options and stocks. In her view, 2020 will see institutions spending time figuring out the details of investing in cryptocurrencies, solving asset management, trading, and broader strategies.

Federal Reserve Board member Lael Brainard said on Wednesday at the European Central Bank Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, that social media giant Facebook's crypto project, Libra, is a huge risk. Brainard said that since nearly a third of the global population is an active user of Facebook, the risk of cryptocurrencies to the financial system may be magnified by the widely used universal stablecoin.

This week US mainstream media CNN called Bitcoin a "star investment" over the past decade, with returns exceeding stocks, bonds, commodities and fiat currencies. In the report, CNN, citing data provided by Bank of America Securities, stated that an investment of $ 1 in bitcoin in early 2010 will now be worth more than $ 90,000. Even though the U.S. stock market is the strongest performing stock market in the world, if you invested $ 1 in U.S. stocks at the beginning of this century, it is now worth only $ 3.46. In the same period, a US $ 1 investment in 30-year US Treasury bonds is now worth only US $ 2.08.

The research arm of Binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, released a report on Wednesday stating that the motivation to push Bitcoin SV (BSV) miners to mine is essentially non-economic. The report attempts to estimate the profitability of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Bitcoin SV. The calculation results in the report indicate that BSV miners have suffered very large losses, so they have concluded that these miners are not profit-oriented.

Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said the SEC is paying special attention to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Horsley said, "This year we worked hard to help the SEC build concepts and address their concerns. We wrote a 500-page white paper. We visited the SEC eight times. Nearly ten industry representatives wrote to support us." The SEC keeps rejecting, and Horsley claims that the SEC has been following these ETF projects and has given a lot of attention.

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