Binance Launches Margin Trading on Upgraded Platform

From 12:00 on March 12th to 12:00 on the 13th, Bitcoin, the most influential currency in the cryptocurrency industry, suffered two major declines, and its price fell from a maximum of 7,672 USD to a minimum of 3,800 USD (data from Huobi, the next Same), the decline was 50.4%, which means that the price of Bitcoin has achieved a fairly accurate "half price" in these 24 hours.
Previously, Bitcoin's "halving market" was mostly considered to be an increase in market prices caused by Bitcoin's halving production, although many people have questioned the "halving market" as " The price is halved ", but when bitcoin walks out of the current bad market, it still surprises most investors.
First plunge
The bad 24 hours started at 12 o'clock on March 12. Due to the rapid spread of the new crown epidemic in Europe and the United States, the global financial markets have been raining for several days. After several adjustments, the price of Bitcoin has hovered up and down within the range of $ 7600-8200 in the previous three days. However, after 12 o'clock on the 12th, Bitcoin The price fell below $ 7,600 for the first time, breaking the psychological expectations of many investors, entering a rapid decline channel, and dropping to about $ 7,200 at around 18 o'clock.
At this time, the decline of Bitcoin is still around 7%, which is a common occurrence in the history of Bitcoin. However, after 18 o'clock that day, the market turned sharply, and the price of bitcoin plunged again in a short period of time. It fell to US $ 5,555 within tens of minutes, a drop of 28%, and the amount of contractual positions on each platform exceeded US $ 2 billion.
During the decline, most major exchanges such as Huobi, Binance, and OKEx experienced systemic freezes of varying degrees. Many users complained for a long time that the exchange app could not properly display the homepage, market page, and transaction page, and added positions, stops, and withdrawals. Obstacles such as cash withdrawal and cash withdrawal operations have also shown that this situation also highlights that mainstream exchanges still fail to address the ability of their trading systems to respond to extreme conditions.
For this decline, the collective sell-off of large Bitcoin holders is considered to be the main reason. For example, Grayscale Investment, the world's largest crypto asset fund management company, was sold and sold 40,000-50,000 Bitcoins. News from the exchange said that Bitcoin sold 400,000.
For a long time, bitcoin has been called "digital gold" by the blockchain industry, and has good risk aversion properties. During the tense situation between the United States and Iran in January this year and the global stock market fell, Bitcoin rose from $ 7,200 all the way to more than $ 10,000. Bitcoin's safe-haven attributes have been widely recognized in history, but this time caused by the new crown epidemic Under the risk of the global economic downturn, the decline in the price of bitcoin has become the asset with the largest depreciation among various mainstream financial assets, and its high-risk nature will most likely collapse.
Some analysts believe that bitcoin should be further classified as an alternative asset. At a time when liquidity shortage is extremely serious, as a high-risk alternative investment asset with the highest volatility in the world, funds will naturally be drawn from the market by investors. Looking for safer, more liquid assets, prices plummet.
"Everyone in the future will realize that Bitcoin is not digital gold, but" an amplifier of risk. " Its value cannot be anchored. Unlike other asset prices, which are affected by costs and prices, Bitcoin has no normal market value range. As of now, it does not have any convincing valuation basis, more like a swaying boat. Without the anchor, its value fluctuates greatly, and the impact of halving the market and supply and demand on it is far less important than psychological factors. "Said Cai Kailong, senior researcher at the Institute of Financial Technology of Renmin University of China.
However, some people in the industry hold different opinions. "BTC is still the most powerful currency in the history of mankind. It provides liquidity 24 hours a day. This is something that other markets simply can't imagine, but because liquidity is too good, this time it just happened to happen in other markets. When funds are scarce, the first choice for selling supplementary funds has also led to the decline of gold. Of course, the amount of BTC that is currently much lower than gold is certainly unstoppable in a short period of time. "A Weibo blogger" "fhrp".
In addition to the sell-off of large institutions, some mortgage lending platforms have also passively become an important boost for this downturn. In the past six months, the Defi concept has been particularly hot in the blockchain industry, and many cryptocurrency-based cryptocurrency lending platforms were born.
As a result, a large number of large Bitcoin users will pledge the Bitcoin in their accounts to third-party lending platforms and use the USDT to borrow cash to purchase cash, which is equivalent to increasing leverage. However, these platforms are not mature in terms of mortgage rate setting and liquidation mechanisms. Users who increase the mortgage rate of assets have a slower transfer speed on the chain. As a result, during this period of rapid decline in the market, a large number of mortgage orders have lower mortgage assets than loans. As a result, the amount of bitcoin out-of-market positions this time was far more than in the previous period of large market volatility, which further exacerbated the selling pressure of the bitcoin spot market.
From 19:00 on the 12th to the early morning of the 13th, the price of Bitcoin hovered in the range of 5800-6200 US dollars, and the market began to prepare for the next stage of the trend.
Second plunge
On the evening of the 12th, the stock markets of mainstream countries in Europe and the United States successively opened and collectively fell, and the stock markets of at least 11 countries, such as the United States, Canada, and the Philippines, melted down. At the close of the morning on the 13th, both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S & P 500 Index had the largest single-day percentage decline since the 1987 stock disaster. The Dow closed down about 2352 points, the largest drop in history.
The bad performance of the stock market quickly passed to the currency market. Beginning at 7 o'clock on the 13th, the price of bitcoin plunged from the position of $ 5,800 once again, dropping all the way, and successively fell below $ 5,000 and $ 4,000.
For the rapid decline of the market, many people in the industry believe that the main factor is not only the panic selling of the market, but also the mutual stepping on of contract investors. Weibo blogger "AlbertTheKing" pointed out that most of the long positions in Bitcoin leverage are in the BitMEX perpetual contract market. The long positions caused by the decline in bitcoin prices caused a series of short positions, which in turn caused arbitrage spreads and spot arbitrage. The party rushed in to open multiple orders and sell spot arbitrage at the same time, thinking it was okay. As a result, I did not expect Bitcoin to fall more and more fiercely, and his own arbitrage and long positions also burst. So at first, the leveraged bulls stepped down on each other, and later became the arbitrage party. .
"Fhrp" also pointed out that because BitMEX only has BTC margin, ETH's permanent liquidation also needs to be undertaken by btc. The profit portion of the hedge order cannot be included in the margin, and BTC is not sufficient because of the card being in serious shortage. The exploding warehouse order was opaque, so that no one dared to pick up the corpse later, fearing that it would become a corpse. Of course, the key is the lack of a fusing system, so that the market can slowly wait for liquidity to keep up.
Under the interweaving of many risks, the price of bitcoin is about 10:15. It has fallen below 3,800 US dollars in many exchanges such as Huobi and OKEx, which is 38% lower than the price of 0 on the day and 50.4% lower than 24 hours ago. This is the highest record in the 24-hour drop since the birth of Bitcoin.
Such a precise decline cannot be doubted as the bad taste of the bookmaker behind the exchange, if the bookmaker does exist. Of course, it is not excluded that this situation is due to the tacit understanding among the main market participants, or a purely natural phenomenon.
But judging from objective facts, there is indeed some evidence that the situation is unnatural. After bitcoin hit a low of $ 3,800, its price quickly rose in the next 20 minutes, rising by 59% to $ 5,250, but then fell rapidly. At the turning point of $ 3,800, which is 10:16, the BitMEX trading system, the largest bitcoin exchange in the cryptocurrency industry, suddenly stopped until 10:40.
It can be seen that the time point when the Bitcoin price stopped falling rapidly and stopped rising rapidly was close to the time point when BitMEX went down and returned to normal. This shows that BitMEX has a huge influence on the secondary market, and it also makes a lot of One suspects BitMEX is manipulating the market.
Sam Bankman-Fried, chief executive of Derivatives Exchange FTX, tweeted that he suspects BitMEX may have intentionally closed transactions to prevent further crashes and to avoid using exchange insurance funds. Mining company BitPico also tweeted yesterday, "According to our analysis, BitMEX Research has closed its long position of $ 993 million with its own robots and capital. Today the manipulation of the bitcoin market is caused by an entity and the investigation is ongoing. "
In response to this incident, BitMEX responded that there was a hardware problem with the cloud service provider, and in a subsequent announcement, it was pointed out that the DDoS attack was the real cause of the short-term downtime.
Why the downtime of the BitMEX trading system is difficult to verify, but from its objective impact, its short-term downtime plays a vital role in curbing the further decline in the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, which has eased investment to a certain extent. The panic sentiment created by this has created space for the rebound and correction of cryptocurrency prices such as Bitcoin.
Sam Bankman-Fried even speculated that if BitMEX did not go offline because of a "hardware problem" this morning (February 13), the price of Bitcoin could fall to zero.
If compared with the traditional financial market, the effect of this BitMEX outage event is quite similar to the "fuse" mechanism of the stock market. Trading is suspended for dozens of minutes at the moment when investor sentiment is most panic, so this outage event Also aroused the emotions of many people in the industry.
"BitMEX has helped the currency circle" melt out, "otherwise the chainless stepping will not know where to fall. After the fuse, everyone calmed down and the market returned to normal. Weibo blogger "Blockchain William" posted a blog saying, "The market is not afraid of falling, and it is not afraid of stepping on it. That is why. This is why the global stock market has melted down because investors panic. It is a bottomless pit. Once out of control, there is no bottom Now. "
Of course, the factors that cause the market situation to reverse are not limited to this. According to the feedback from multiple users on social platforms, BitMEX and Binance's major exchanges forced the short positions of multiple accounts to close positions at 10 o'clock on March 13th, that is, the automatic lightening mechanism was in effect.
According to the BitMEX platform mechanism, when investor contracts are forced to close out, their remaining positions will be taken over by BitMEX's strong closing system. However, if a strong liquidation position cannot be closed in the market, and when the marked price reaches the bankruptcy price, the automatic lightening system will lighten the investor holding the position in the opposite direction, and the order of lightening is determined according to the leverage and profit ratio .
Specifically, due to the sharp fluctuations in the price of bitcoin, a large number of long single-series bursts and the scarcity of market liquidity. In order to control the risk, the platform will automatically place some short orders with high profit ratios and high leverage on the market, increasing market flow. It also avoids the risk to the platform caused by the inability of the short-selling order to be executed in a timely manner.
According to BitMEX's announcement, about 200 positions were automatically closed by the system. And Twitter blogger Edward Morra said, "On BitMEX alone, short positions worth about $ 500 million have been liquidated." If this data is true, it means that BitMEX's strong liquidation operation has brought more than 5 to the contract market. The market price of 100 million US dollars has a significant positive effect on the market that is being sold out.
However, as a compensation, BitMEX also stated that it would contact each damaged user and compensate them according to the maximum potential profit that the investor obtained during the automatic liquidation.
In any case, through the operation of exchanges such as BitMEX, the price of bitcoin has entered a recovery channel, and it is still hovering at the $ 5,000 mark, while driving the entire cryptocurrency market to pick up.
After this thrilling 24 hours of bitcoin, the ideal "halving market" has disappeared. The real and brutal "halving market" is coming. Perhaps many investors and investment institutions have expressed their confidence in the crypto assets represented by bitcoin. The understanding will change in this regard, and the confidence of the entire industry needs to be rebuilt. This depends on the application value of bitcoin to be deepened.

I did a writeup of the OceanEx Meetup. For VeChain related things scroll down a little. There's actually more of that than information regarding OCE I think.
Here are all the photos of the slides that I took:
OCE slides (inlcuding small roadmap): https://imgur.com/a/pXVGuP6
VeChain slides (including an updated version of a slide Sunny often used in the past): https://imgur.com/a/1OeRZAz
There are also 2 more slides from OCE in this thread that I don't have regarding their growth: https://twitter.com/ex_zerg/status/1152581353604616193
OceanEx Part:
First Nan presented the recent OceanEx achievements and some numbers. One thing I didn't know is that they also have engineers around the world (Europe, America, Canada, etc.) so that there are people ensuring the security of the exchange 24/7. There were also some nice growth numbers comparing this quarter with last quarter.
Afterwards there was a technical Deep Dive by the CTO Jiayu Zhou. He made a really knowledgable impression on me and was able to explain some of the complicated technicals quite well. The focus of OceanEx is on security and that came through pretty well.

• There are only a select few who have access to the production system (to make it more secure).
• They are trying to predict withdrawals but this is a really hard thing to do. The reason they want to do this is because it is needed to know how much of a given asset has to be in the hot wallet at any given time so that there is enough if someone wants to withdraw but not too much in case their system gets compromised and the funds in the hot wallet get stolen (this is an extreme scenario but even if that happens they want the damage to be minimal). They now found a good way to predict these withdrawals quite accurately through OceanBrain. I can't say much more about this than what is on the slides and what I already wrote though.
• They are working with Cornell University to further improve security on the platform.

VeChain Part:
Then the man himself, Sunny Lu, took the stage.

• He started off by repeating that how much TPS you can do is not that important if no one uses your blockchain. What matters is the use cases that drive the technical needs.
• 2016 was a tough year for them. They knocked on about 60 doors of companies and only got into talks with 3-4 of them. 2017 and 2018 have been entirely different though. Businesses (big and small) started to request at VeChain instead of the other way around.
• VeChain has got the startup advantage - flexibility - in comparison to other big companies so they can try a lot of things with little resources. Agile was another word he dropped.
• Governments are looking at Blockchain (as can be seen in recent talks in the US Senate about blockchain) and are starting with the regulations around the world.
• Companies don't care that much about the technology (capabilities), they just want a good solution to their specific problem.
• Blockchain will be as revolutionizing as the Internet in his opinion.
• Because of current legislation, [some] companies are not allowed to hold any cryptos (VET and VTHO included). -> Solution: Set up a sponsor for you that does your transactions on the blockchain (effectively the companies paying VeChain to get the VTHO). They have done this several times already and ToolChain is based on the same principle. I also heard something of "OCE as payment provider" but didn't quite understand it.
• MPP and MTT can work together really well.
• Most companies use MTT. It could for example also be used by a company to pay the salary to your 100 or so employees through only 1 simple transaction.
• Regarding the On-Chain Governance / Voting System: it is currently in internal testing and will be available in 1-2 months depending on how the testing will go. This could also be used in elections.
• If there is the need for a reduction in VTHO/Gas needed for one transaction, the Steering Committee can start a vote (only voted on by the members in the Committee) and if it is successful the change could be implemented instantly via a smart contract. When there will ever be the need to increase VTHO production, this would be voted on by the entire community, bc a hard-fork would be needed for it. The Committee would then in advance vote on how much % of the community would have to vote 'Yes' for the vote to be successful and the change implemented.
• You can do transactions on VeChain that will only execute if certain requirements are met.
• Sunny doesn't believe in total decentralisation, in his opinion there needs to be a balance between centralisation and decentralisation so you still have some control and can remain flexible. Over time you can then implement more decentralisation.
• VeVID is ready since some time and will be used for KYC and AML. VeKey is, if I understood correctly, a hardware device for signing transactions (edit: and voting according to one slide) (e.g. with your fingerprint) to make sure it's really you and to keep the data integrity (he mentioned smth with audits, so that only the auditor could sign the transaction so that there's no tempering with the audit).
• Enterprises don't choose VeChain for nothing.
• I think this was regarding ToolChain: The first step is to get the registration to the blockchain. As a second step you can then easily either create your own ecosystem (as a business) or you can simply join existing ones (like the carbon initiative).
• The new Whitepaper will be on VechainWorld.io once it's out and there you can easily check what was changed compared to the older version and why it was changed.
• Fenbushi Capital only invested in one company in 2019, and that company is OceanEx.

Q&A + questions I asked after the meetup was over:

• Will there be an OCE Token Burn like with BNB? -> There's nothing definite yet but they may just use the trading fees collected for such things, but as I understood them they would rather like to use it for community development / incentives.
• Will the Fiat Gateway be available in China? -> The fiat gateway is pretty much finished and will roll out soon but won't be available in China because of their regulations. They practically don't want any money to leave the country (there apparently is a limit of 50k USD for every citizen that he/she is allowed to send out of the country every year). Nonetheless the Chinese government doesn't have anything against Crypto-to-Crypto trading.
• Some question about the UNDP and what they are doing with them in regards to the SDG (Sustainability Development Goals) -> They have partnered up with UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) and DNV GL to reach the SDGs they set. One step to do this is in fact the Carbon Initiative / Ecosystem. Around the world the current price for one tonne of Carbon emission is around $30 while in China it is around $4,50. Their plan, together with the UNDP, is to mainly reach China with the carbon initiative to raise awareness there and give more incentives to Chinese companies for reducing their carbon emissions. (According to some things I've read in the past hour there may be news on this as early as next week and that another country would use the Carbon project, but I must confess that I didn't hear neither of these so it's just speculation for me.)
• Question regarding X-Node benefits -> They continue to find ways to give rewards to X-Nodes, as seen recently with the Airdrop during the AMA, and they are constantly trying to get more benefits for these Nodes, also on OceanEx. OceanEx at the same time wants to make sure that there are enough benefits for their own OCE-Club members, so there is a bit of a conflict of interests there. They need to find the balance between the two. (This last part Nan told me.)
• Question regarding VTHO/transaction cost price -> The goal is not to keep VTHO stable, the goal is to keep transaction costs relatively stable. The way to do this is not by instantly raising the VTHO generation rate since this would be like instantly pulling the nuke. He compared it to Central Banks - they don't instantly raise or lower interest rates, or print more money (although they do that often enough), they go through all the other options first.

I talked with Nan and Sunny (separately) after the meetup was over:

• Nan said the problem with Tether is that it doesn't have a really good reputation right now but that they will list more pairs against Tether and also other stable coins (like Pax, USDC, etc.) in the future. Also that there will be more pairs against BTC.About pairs against OCE he said there'll be some but not against every coin (like BNB) since they worry about liquidity if there are like a thousand pairs and don't want any flash crashes.
• I also asked Nan how I could know that an X-Node isn't already bound to another OceanEx account if I buy it and what I could do if it already is. He answered that if I buy an X-Node I could simply write a ticket to the support and they would unbind it from the other account and bind it to mine.
• I asked Sunny about the Settlement Coin and if he could give some information. He told me that he can't right now but that we could expect news on it (early) next week, so I guess we won't have to wait much longer til there is some clarification.
• Furthermore I asked him how much a transaction should approximately cost. He couldn't say a specific number but as he mentioned in the AMA, he thinks the cost for a transaction is still relatively low compared to the value it brings to some customers. For example with the milk from Cupid's Farm, they can sell it at a 30% mark up compared to similar products because of this feature (edit: being able to track the milk and guaranteeing a 24-hour timeframe from the cow to the table) and it still sells pretty well.
• He also said that there are a couple of smaller businesses complaining to him that the transaction costs would be too high. He then told me that there are tons of ways to lower your own transaction costs as a business and that this is how it should work in the real world (competition, etc.). He gave me an example with wine bottles: A high priced quality wine bottle would obviously get its own ID, therefore the transaction cost for it would be a bit higher, but compared to the price of the bottle it would be marginal.Now if you got some medium quality wine, like $25 a bottle, you don't really need an own ID for every single bottle. You could just track the whole case, a batch or even more than that (he said a car full of bottles haha) for that and thus your transaction costs would be way lower. Again compared to the value of the whole case/batch/car the cost would be fractional. The point he was making is that there are multiple ways to lower transaction costs as a business. You don't necessarily need the foundation to do that.

On a last note I'd like to say that it was incredible to finally meet Sunny and the others in person. I'm invested in VeChain since October 2017 and it's been a fun ride ever since and this meetup was a great opportunity to make sure I made the right investment - I did! Sunny is a really charismatic and smart guy, you could easily listen to him for hours on end. I was also impressed by the CTO of OceanEx and by Daniel Kelman, their and Sunny's lawyer, both also very smart and knowledgable about their respective fields. I think the latter is someone that gets rarely talked about but who is doing tons of work behind the scenes for both OceanEx and VeChain!
If I forgot anything or if there is a mistake, please let me know.
Edit: I listened to Sunny talking to another guy at the meetup who asked about price suppression / manipulation on Binance. Sunny said he's very aware of that but can't do much against it right now and that it for sure isn't them. He said as regulations start to roll out, phony stuff like this will decrease and VET should then finally get what it deserves. Hopes are that with Binance closing their doors to US customers in September that the suppression will get less. Also if there would ever be something like this on OceanEx, there may be measures taken to ban these users.
One thing is for sure: Both VeChain and OceanEx are doing everything they can to be compliant with regulations and in the long run these will be the players who will succeed in this space.

Short summary of the full Binance review on Reddit:
Advantages

• Simple user interface
• High-security level
• Good selection of digital currencies
• Fast transactions
• 50% discount on fees when using Binance coin

Conclusion
Binance is the cheapest platform to buy to sell, as long as you use Binance coin.
Sign up to Binance here.
About the Binance Exchange
Binance was started in 2017 by the Chinese Changpeng Zhao, popularly called "CZ," which grew up in Canada. Binance was originally started in 2017 in China, but moved to Hong Kong, and later to Japan the same year due to China's cryptographic trade ban. After Japan began to make things difficult for the crypto-currency industry, Binance moved again. Now the crypto exchange's new base in Malta, where the authorities have introduced clearer and more cryptic-friendly laws.
Binance has, in an impressive short time, managed to become the world's largest crypto exchange measured in transaction volume. Every day, values ​​equivalent to over $ 700 million is exchanged at the Binance exchange. This may to some extent have a correlation with the price level (fees for trading and deposits/withdrawals). Binance is one of the very cheapest places to trade with cryptocurrency, as they only charge a 0.1% transaction fee that applies to all transactions, but even with such a small profit per transaction, they do not suffer for that reason. On the contrary, it turns out that Binance has bypassed Deutsche Bank in profit, and is approaching the level of Nasdaq.
Security and reputation
Binance has a good reputation for safety. It is one of the few cryptocurrency exchanges that have never been hacked, despite the fact that they record about a dozen attempts each day, which is perhaps to be expected when considering the enormous values ​​that exist within the crypto exchange.
There are also several examples that Binance has stopped theft and targeting of individual users, using their AI based security systems. This suggests that they definitely take safety seriously and operate according to the precautionary principle. It also shows that they use the best and most advanced technology to secure their users.
There are other areas where Binance has not been as successful in its reputation. This applies, for example, to the introduction of new cryptocurrencies at Binance. There have been a lot of complaints about their treatment of cryptocurrencies trying to list themselves on the crypto exchange. One of these comes from Blocknet, who blames Binance for fishing for information for use in Binance's own competing project. Another example is from Digibyte who complains about what they see as extortion from Binance's side.
Binance's response to the various accusations is that people often tend to get angry and blame Binance for inappropriate behavior when their cryptocurrencies are denied access to the Binance crypto exchange. Among those who buy and sell cryptocurrency at Binance Stock Exchange, few complainants.
Generally speaking, Binance is known for being a professionally run, secure, well-functioning and inexpensive crypto exchange with high liquidity. All of these are good reasons why millions of the most professional crypto-currency investors choose to trade through Binance. Ultimately, it is up to each one to consider how much one is ready to sacrifice in extra fees in exchange for more transparency and better communication.
Ease of use
From the start, it has not been possible to buy cryptocurrency for fiat currency at Binance, which has made it difficult for new traders to get started. Among other things, this has meant that fiat transactions require many approvals, and in many places the legislation has not been fully developed for this type of transaction. Binance long dealt with many of these issues by merely dealing with cryptocurrency that had long been unregulated. Binance has already opened the bank account and office in Malta where the more stable conditions of the crypto industry make it easier to start trading also in fiat currency. Binance has now also made it possible to buy cryptocurrencies for fiat currency using credit cards. This is done via a payment solution called Simplex.To make it easy for its users, Binance has also introduced Trust Wallet as part of the service. Trust Wallet was purchased by Binance in 2017, and now this is being further developed as part of the Binance platform. Currently, the wallet accepts 14 block chains, but more will be introduced eventually. To make it easier for beginners to use Binance, they have created two versions of the dashboard. A simpler version and a more advanced, but compared to, for example, Coinbase's simplified user interface, both the simple and the advanced version of Binance are relatively advanced. This makes Binance often seen as a platform that is adapted to more professional and experienced traders.
Supported Currencies
Binance is one of the crypto exchanges that offer many different cryptocurrencies. A total of 155 cryptocurrencies are available at Binance throughout the 482 trading pairs. At the same time, Binance is not a crypto exchange that focuses on supporting all the cryptocurrencies that exist in the market. Binance considers each cryptocurrency according to its own internal criteria and chooses to list the currencies that they consider to be serious and have sustainable teams and technology. If the situation changes and a cryptocurrency turns out not to meet these criteria anymore, it will be removed from Binance. Binance has decided that this is a process that both protects users of Binance against fraud, while improving the reputation of Binance by ensuring that more investors have positive experiences when investing in cryptocurrencies on the platform. After Binance has now moved to Malta where the rules are more customized with cryptocurrency trading, Binance will soon be offering fiat crypto trading pairs.
Users and Liquidity
Binance has a very large user base with 313,000 daily users and USD 1.5 billion in daily transactions. This means that there is great liquidity at Binance. Although Binance does not have as many daily users as coinbase, the total volume is greater at Binance. This is due to the fact that Binance's average transaction size is $ 2137 compared to just $ 189 on Coinbase. This probably comes from Binance being considered a crypto exchange for advanced crypto investors, while Coinbase is a more beginner-friendly exchange.
Gearing and margin trading
Currently, Binance does not offer gear and margin trading. According to Binance's white paper, gearing will eventually become available at Binance, but so far this has not been prioritized.
Exactly when this is going to be introduced is yet to be published. According to CZ, Binance does not have annual goals that they work towards. They have a 10 year strategic plan that they use as a guide for their work, and then they have short-term goals that they work with that have a time horizon from a couple of weeks to a couple of months.
Therefore, it is not certain whether this is, for example, a service that will be introduced this year or in five years time. It looks like Binance is currently focusing on safety, stability at high demand, and the development of its new decentralized crypto exchange.
​
Ready to join one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges? Join Binance here!

Quadriga is located in Canada, a country presumably "trustful" and full of controlling financial laws. They likely (let's say I'm 100% sure) ran a fractional reserve (i.e. didn't have neither the crypto, nor the CAD to fulfill withdrawals). They are putting up the most convoluted story I've heard in a long time.
Even if it is true the owner had all private keys and died, (i) this is just abysmally stupid and they should lose their license based on this fact alone; (ii) the end-result is the same, you lose all your money and people going to jail won't change that.
Now picture Binance or Bitfinex going under water. I doubt someone is going to jail unless there's something like " ___ terrorist act" blah blah. What do you think will happen to users' funds? And what do you think will happen to the market reserve they keep in BTC?
And BTW, what do you think you see daily in crypto APIs like coinmarketcap (cornerthemarketcap /s)? A BTC market reserve to exit with fiat that they collect in their rigged APIs based on fractional reserve.
There's no organic anything at all. There's no "usage" or "demand" or "liquidity". You deposit crypto, bots trade it for hot-air with different names, take the exchange's cut, shills go to rCC to defend it, and self-fulfilling prophecy keeps on.
The difference between Quadriga and Bitfinex & Binance is that Quadriga likely wasn't part of the tether mafia.
https://www.reddit.com/QuadrigaCX/comments/7h7qr5/does_quadrigacx_use_usd_tether_cad_tether_or_is/
So they were limited to their own CAD token.
I'd honestly avoid binance and bitfinex like the plague and I sincerely hope they go bust. But this won't happen, one can fake volume forever and fake supporters in reddit and fake transactions. Get a patsy to wear some "hodl" t-shirt and similar things, in exchange for some coins.
Obviously miners take a cut to keep volume alive and the lack of LN adoption entails that it is getting very expensive to do so, so they are lowering their margins.
The already issued tether is "laundered" in impossible-to-track levels inside these "black-box" exchanges, at least 40% of all volume has been reporter to have been tether. I think it is way above 40%. I'd honestly guess that it is nearly 99.7%.
Some exchanges I know that are more naive (I won't say honest) and are based on fiat have ~20 BTC daily volume or so, that fluctuates for real. Does the "main pair" coins like BTC and ETH fluctuate?? I'm talking about countries in the top 10 GDP level in the world.
This machinery has a cost and the cost is not so high, it is basically the cost of running software and broadcasting, which is very small compared to the costs of producing PoW.
The costs of mining are obviously not small, but they are shared in the form of handouts from exchanges to miners "supporting BTC". It is a scam that may not go under anytime soon, not until enough people in collusion exit with fiat. The rates of fraud are increasing tho, bottom might not be here yet.
One last thing I'm wondering: I'd bet lots of money that something far beyond the S9 is being used to mine, there's no logic at all to mine BTC now and keep the transaction volume otherwise.

Total Market Cap, as of 07.12.19 at 12:00pm (PST): U.S. $320,641,857,854 (+ 0.47%)

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STORY OF THE WEEK

• Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint has suspended services due to a 3.5 billion-yen (U.S. $32 million) hack on its hot wallets. Of the 3.5 billion yen, 2.5 billion were customer funds.

CRYPTOCURRENCY TRADING SERVICES

• KuCoin launches KuMEX, a platform offering bitcoin derivatives (perpetual contracts) with leverage up to 20x.
• Shapeshift launches custodial platform to allow users to trade crypto whilst having full custody of his/her own private keys.
• On July 8th, 2019, Polish crypto exchange BitMarket abruptly shuts down citing liquidity issues.
• Binance lowers ethereum and erc-20 block confirmations down from 30 to 12 for deposits and withdrawals to and from the platform. Bitcoin transactions are down from 2 to 1.
• Poloniex launches fiat-to-crypto trading and credit card purchases for crypto.
• Binance launches margin trading for Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Tether (USDT), and Tron (TRX). The platform will initially support up to 3x leverage, with the intention to eventually offer up to 20x leverage.

REGULATION

• India’s Ministry of Home Affairs to offer specialized trading sessions dubbed “Investigation of Cases Involving Cryptocurrencies” to help law enforcement combat cryptocurrency related scams.
• The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) proposes a Goods and Sales Tax (GST) exemption scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, 2020 for cryptocurrencies that are designed as a medium of exchange.
• Blockstack becomes the first to receive approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to move forward with its token offering under a Reg A+ listing.
• Amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act of Canada require Canadian and foreign platforms dealing with cryptocurrency to implement full-scale compliance procedures and to report all deposits and withdrawals that are CA $10,000 or more.

TECHNOLOGY

• Samsung releases an ethereum software development kit (SDK) for android developers. The kit provides tools to make it easier to build decentralized applications and the ability to leverage a payment gateway for cryptocurrency remittances.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION

• No significant developments this week pertaining to institutional players in the space

PEOPLE

• Fidelity Digital Assets updates its hiring board to onboard 10 blockchain based job positions. Specifically, the firm is looking for a vice president, director, leading software engineer, blockchain software engineer, product designer and various other roles.
• Bitstamp hires ex. Gemini compliance executive Caitlin Barnett to serve as its new U.S. Chief Compliance Officer.

TWITTER

• @realDonaldTrump– “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity....”
• @jespow – “If you study crypto, you will find much to agree with. Crypto is about personal responsibility and choice. It is about free markets and competition. It is about mathematical, verifiable, perfectly enforceable regulation. Crypto is to commerce what Twitter is to speech: democracy.”
• @APompliano – “It’s a store of value” — Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve talking to the Senate Banking Committee about Bitcoin THE VIRUS IS SPREADING 🔥”

Total Market Cap, as of 07.12.19 at 12:00pm (PST): U.S. $320,641,857,854 (+ 0.47%)

Missed last week’s update? Click here

STORY OF THE WEEK

• Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint has suspended services due to a 3.5 billion-yen (U.S. $32 million) hack on its hot wallets. Of the 3.5 billion yen, 2.5 billion were customer funds.

CRYPTOCURRENCY TRADING SERVICES

• KuCoin launches KuMEX, a platform offering bitcoin derivatives (perpetual contracts) with leverage up to 20x.
• Shapeshift launches custodial platform to allow users to trade crypto whilst having full custody of his/her own private keys.
• On July 8th, 2019, Polish crypto exchange BitMarket abruptly shuts down citing liquidity issues.
• Binance lowers ethereum and erc-20 block confirmations down from 30 to 12 for deposits and withdrawals to and from the platform. Bitcoin transactions are down from 2 to 1.
• Poloniex launches fiat-to-crypto trading and credit card purchases for crypto.
• Binance launches margin trading for Bitcoin (BTC), Binance Coin (BNB), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Tether (USDT), and Tron (TRX). The platform will initially support up to 3x leverage, with the intention to eventually offer up to 20x leverage.

REGULATION

• India’s Ministry of Home Affairs to offer specialized trading sessions dubbed “Investigation of Cases Involving Cryptocurrencies” to help law enforcement combat cryptocurrency related scams.
• The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) proposes a Goods and Sales Tax (GST) exemption scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, 2020 for cryptocurrencies that are designed as a medium of exchange.
• Blockstack becomes the first to receive approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to move forward with its token offering under a Reg A+ listing.
• Amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act of Canada require Canadian and foreign platforms dealing with cryptocurrency to implement full-scale compliance procedures and to report all deposits and withdrawals that are CA $10,000 or more.

TECHNOLOGY

• Samsung releases an ethereum software development kit (SDK) for android developers. The kit provides tools to make it easier to build decentralized applications and the ability to leverage a payment gateway for cryptocurrency remittances.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION

• No significant developments this week pertaining to institutional players in the space

PEOPLE

• Fidelity Digital Assets updates its hiring board to onboard 10 blockchain based job positions. Specifically, the firm is looking for a vice president, director, leading software engineer, blockchain software engineer, product designer and various other roles.
• Bitstamp hires ex. Gemini compliance executive Caitlin Barnett to serve as its new U.S. Chief Compliance Officer.

TWITTER

• @realDonaldTrump– “I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity....”
• @jespow – “If you study crypto, you will find much to agree with. Crypto is about personal responsibility and choice. It is about free markets and competition. It is about mathematical, verifiable, perfectly enforceable regulation. Crypto is to commerce what Twitter is to speech: democracy.”
• @APompliano – “It’s a store of value” — Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve talking to the Senate Banking Committee about Bitcoin THE VIRUS IS SPREADING

• According to cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, short orders are nearing all-time highs. At the moment, there are 39,542 short orders outstanding on Bitfinex, the second highest level since April 12, 2018.
• Bitcoin jumped 4% overnight after Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency futures exchange BitMEX shut down trading for a few hours for a regular maintenance update. In aggregate, the total market capitalization of call cryptocurrencies jumped USD$12bn in over a hour. Bitcoin commentators attribute the jump in Bitcoin to the fact that BitMEX permits traders to short Bitcoin on margin. Some other Bitcoin observers, like Alex Kruger, believe the price behavior of Bitcoin affirms concerns about price manipulation and should lead the SEC to reject the ProShares Bitcoin ETF proposal this week. Unlike the other Bitcoin ETF proposals, the ProShares Bitcoin ETF propose to own CME and CBOE Bitcoin futures.
• Bitmain, the Chinese Bitcoin mining company, announced that it has invested an undisclosed amount in Lambda, a blockchain data storage startup. Bitmain hopes to help Lambda further develop its technology to launch “secure” blockchain-based infrastructure and decentralized applications. The startup, based in Singapore, recently cloised a token private sale round that included investments from FunCity Capital, BlockVC, BlueHill, Zhen Fund, and other well-known institutions.
• Coinbase releases 5 core principles to help guide its release of a suite of institutional crypto products: "fair and orderly" markets, enforcing transparent market rules, offering "fair access to all market participants," disclosing listing practices and market rules publicly, and safeguarding clients "with institutional-grade infrastructure and processes."
• An analysis by Cointelegraph and Chinese law firm L&Y Law Office finds irregularities in the Bitmain pre-IPO investor deck. Specifically, the wording of the document suggests DST Global has already invested in the Bitocin mining equipment company though no investment has been confirmed.
• Diar Ltd, a research firm using data from CoinAPI, finds that cyrptocurrency trading volumes are shifting away from US exchanges to foreign exchanges (primarily Asian). According Diar’s analysis, Coinbase and Bitstamp have seen their total volumes drop 83% and 73% YTD.
• A research firm from Slovakia has reported another scam application on the Ethereum network. Next Web reports that Lukas Stefanko, a malware researcher, found a fraudulent Ethereum app in the Androd Google Play Stores that had an offer price of USD$388.
• Hyper Deflationary Monetary System (HDMS) cryptocurrencies are a new class digital money that is meant to provide mechanisms to support the increase in real buying power. In comparison to other cryptocurrencies, HDMSs have an objective to create upward price pressure on their valuations in comparison to other digital currencies. Some examples include BNB, OPTI, and BAY.
• The South China Morning reports that Kripto University Center has opened the largest cryptocurrency mining site in Russia in a former Soviet fertilizer-producing lab.
• The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced the release of a blockchain explorer on the Ethereum network. The Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) is now hosting the explorer on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) with help from Bitaccess, a blockchain startup.
• The Central Bank of Thailand is exploring the possibility of launching its own digital currency and expects to release phase 1 of the proof of concept by March 2019. The Central Bank-backed digital currency will be on distributed ledger technology developed by R3. In addition to R3 as a technology partner, the Thai Central Bank is also partnering with Bangkok Bank Public, Krung Thai, Siam Commercial Bank, Standard Chartered Bank (Thailand) and HSBC to bring the digital monetary currency to market.
• Ripple Labs is rumored to be thinking of combining xVia, xCurrent and xRapid Solutions to solidify its market-leading positions in cross-border FX transactions. The solution will be called Convergence and will offer the benefits of speed and security while also keeping fees low.
• The United Arab Emirates is preparing to launch the first Shariah-compliant cryptocurrency exchange. The crypto trading platform, First Islamic Crypto Exchange, will operate globally with the hopes of increasing the involvement of Muslims in the global cryptocurrency market.
• The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) announced it successfully used a blockchain-powered Android App to successfully trial a blockchain ticketing system for last week’s Super Cup match between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.
• Several blockchain-powered news apps have been suspended by WeChat according Lanjinger, a local financial news outlet. The accounts were purportedly suspended after being suspected of pushing ICO and cryptocurrency “hype” which is in conflict with WeChat’s terms of services. Deepchain, Huobi News, Node Capital-backed Jinse, and CoinDaily are some of the news apps impacted by WeChat’s decisions.

Sources:
https://www.coindesk.com/bets-against-bitcoins-price-near-record-highs/ https://cointelegraph.com/news/total-crypto-market-cap-jumps-12-million-in-an-hour-as-bitmex-pauses-trading https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-price-surges-4-as-crypto-exchange-bitmex-initiates-maintenance/ https://bitcoinist.com/bitmex-maintenance-minute-bitcoin-price/ https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/08/22/12-billion-crypto-market-pump-already-receding/ https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/08/22/crypto-market-adds-4-after-bitmex-experiences-temporary-outage/ https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-mining-giant-bitmain-invests-in-blockchain-data-storage-startup/ https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-charts-course-for-institutional-crypto-products/ https://cointelegraph.com/news/vague-and-misleading-statements-spotted-in-bitmain-investor-deck https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/08/22/low-volume-on-us-crypto-exchanges-as-sec-bitcoin-etf-decision-nears/ https://bitcoinist.com/binance-volume-growth-coinbase-drop/ https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-scam-app-appears-on-google-play-store-malware-researcher-reports https://bitcoinist.com/new-rising-class-cryptocurrencies-hdms-coins-tokens/ https://btcmanager.com/russian-company-opens-countrys-largest-cryptocurrency-farm-in-former-soviet-fertilizer-laboratory/ https://www.coindesk.com/a-canadian-government-body-has-built-an-ethereum-blockchain-explore https://www.coinspeaker.com/2018/08/22/rumored-ripples-merges-xvia-xcurrent-and-xrapid-solutions-hoping-to-reinforce-market-leadership/ https://www.coindesk.com/thailands-central-bank-is-developing-a-digital-currency-based-on-r3-tech/ https://cointelegraph.com/news/chinas-social-media-giant-wechat-blocks-a-number-of-crypto-media-accounts-sources-say https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/08/22/china-shuts-down-blockchain-news-accounts-on-wechat/ https://www.ccn.com/uefa-distributes-super-cup-tickets-for-madrid-derby-on-a-blockchain/ https://bitcoinist.com/first-islamic-cryptocurrency-exchange-fice-set-to-launch-in-the-uae/

Developments in Financial Services

• Global investment firm Vaultbank has announced that free stock trading will be added to its platform launch in October. The platform will now include the free stock trading, crypto trading, and even trading security tokens. Vaultbank’s platform is currently undergoing beta testing, but users can sign up for the platform’s waitlist on vaultbank.io.
• Popular cryptocurrency debit card provider, Wirex, has added a Ripple (XRP) wallet to its platform. 1.7 million clietns across 130 countries will now be able to use their Wirex Visa Cards to transact with XRP. XRP is currently the third-most popular cryptocurrency by market cap, and was specifically chosen by Wirex due to its unique utility for facilitating global payments.
• Decoin is disrupting the crypto credit card market with its DTEP Exchange & Trading Platform. The Decoin credit card will operate directly the company’s coin wallet and will permit users to spend their digital currencies wherever and whenever they choose. Users registered to this exchange will also supposedly have the ability to earn redistributed revenues, up to 20% of the exchange’s trading revenue.
• Fintech company Digital Asset announced a partnership with Google Cloud to aid in the construction of blockchain applications. Digital Asset and Google Cloud will provide support and software tools to blockchain application developers so that they don’t have to code the applications from scratch. The pair will also be working on Digital Asset’s developer program private beta, giving Google Cloud developers access to its Digital Asset Modeling Language (DAML) software development kit (SDK).

Regulatory

• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has come to the conclusion that they need more time for the consideration of five Bitcoin ETF proposals. Direxion Investments submitted the proposals back in January. The SEC stated that they will announce their decision to either approve or deny the proposal on September 21, 2018. CBOE Global Markets also sent the SEC an ETF proposal last month that is also expected to be postponed.
• The Chinese mountain region of Xinjiang Uyghur is known for its vast areas of land and abundant electricity: key elements for Bitcoin (BTC) mining. However, the local authorities of Xinjiang have announced their plan to shut down all illegal mining operations by August 30,2018. Illegal mining operations are those that fail to comply to registration, tax, social security, and other laws.
• Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association is suggesting domestic trading platforms limit investors to 4x leverage on their deposits. According to the Financial Services Agency, there are 142,000 crypto traders focused on derivatives a/o CY2017 in Japan, still a small portion of the estimated 3mm crypto traders in Japan. Just as a point of reference, 80%of crypto trading volume in Japan for CY2017 came from derivatives trading, recording USD$543bn - - 90%+ of this amount was from margin traders.
• Iran is currently looking to develop a domestic cryptocurrency in order to bypass its economic sanctions. Alireza Daliri, Iran’s Science and Technology Department head in charge of investment affairs, reported that the project is being worked on with the Central Bank of Iran. The cryptocurrency would back Iran’s national currency, the rial, and would allow cross-border transactions ahead of the US sanctions going into effect next month.
• The SEC rejected application for a Bitcoin ETF by Winkelvoss twins again. In its rejection, the SEC cited as a major concern the fact that “a significant portion of Bitcoin trading occurs on unregulated exchanges outside of the United States."
• Hester Peirce, Commissioner of the SEC, has published a letter of dissent regarding the SEC’s recent decision upholding the agency’s past ruling to deny the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin (BTC) ETF. The SEC denied the Bats BZX Exchange’s proposed rule change hoping to allow trading of the Winklevoss’ Bitcoin Trust shares, leading Peirce to say “I believe that the proposed rule change satisfies the statutory standard and that we should permit BZX to list and trade this Bitcoin-based exchange-traded product,” and that the decision “sends a strong signal that innovation is unwelcome in our markets.”
• The Law Commission of India published a report regarding the legal status of sports betting and gambling in the country, referencing cryptocurrencies. The report recognizes cryptocurrencies as a method of payment for betting and wagering. The report also stated that “gambling transactions should be made cashless, making use of electronic means of payment such as credit cards, debit cards, net-banking, virtual currencies (VC – also known as cryptocurrency), etc.”
• US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) Chairman Christopher Giancarlo says the CTFC is falling behind and needs to begin testing the blockchain technology during testimony to House Committee on Agriculture. Chairman Giancarlo suggests the CTFC is four years behind other global institutions like the Bank of England (BOE) as it relates to testing blockchain.

General News

• Lufthansa, one of the world’s largest airlines, has announced a partnership with software firm SAP to create a competition focused on increasing the airline industry’s adoption of blockchain technology. There are currently not a lot of efforts being made to incorporate blockchain in the airline industry, and initial submissions into the competition are due at the end of August. Lufthansa is looking for applications regarding data processing, flight booking, loyalty programs, and supply chain enhancements.
• Cryptocurrency trading millionaires, especially in China, are looking into investments in foreign real estate markets as a form of diversification. Through the use of real estate startup apps, Chinese investors can buy real estate in California using Bitcoin (BTC), for example, through Hong Kong brokers that don’t require the same taxes and documentation as other financial assets held abroad.
• Binance, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange, will soon enter the South Korean market. During the Blockchain Partners Summit in Seoul, Binance CEO Chanpgeng Zhao held a speech noting that Binance will enrich South Korea’s community. While Binance has not made any official announcements regarding the expansion, South Korean media outlets reported it following the summit.
• A New Jersey-based cryptocurrency mining startup, called Honeyminer, has released its free beta platform in June, and has amassed 10,000 downloads around the world already. The platform allows users to mine cryptocurrencies on their Windows laptops by running the app while the processor isn’t in use. Users will be able to mine Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Monero (XMR), and Zcash (ZEC), but all earnings are transferred into Bitcoin (BTC) and sent to the user’s wallet.
• Since cryptocurrencies became popular several years ago, not many cryptocurrency platforms (i.e. exchanges and wallets) have conducted third-party security audits. However, three-month-old XMR Wallet, a web wallet for Monero (XMR) has announced its conclusion of an audit by the firm New Alchemy. Additionally, XMR Wallet has published the results of its audit, and stated that all issues found have already been resolved.
• ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s Xiongan New Area government. ConsenSys focuses on the development of Ethereum (ETH), and will be advising the government on blockchain solutions to make Xiongan a smart city. China’s president Xi Jinping has designated Xiongan a special economic zone and believes that by creating a smart economy using Ethereum, it could bring in USD$348 billion within the next 10 years.
• Bitmart, a global cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it will be listing its own utility token, called BMX, on its exchange. The BMX token is an ERC-20 protocol token, and there will be 1 billion issued. All transaction fees paid on the BMX market will be redistributed to those who backed the project, and using BMX on the exchange lets users pay a discounted fee.
• US-based Coinbase is launching a crypto-backed gift card in Europe. Users of WeGift will be able to convert digital assets held in their Coinbase wallet to gift cards. Gift cards from WeGift can be used at over 120 retailers across the UK, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy.
• The Bank of Canada (BoC) released its Staff Working Paper this week, where it said that the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus system, the same one used by Bitcoin (BTC), held the most promise out of alternative consensus systems like proof-of-stake (PoS). PoW includes a built-in security measure, people with malicious intentions would need to spend a large amount of resources in order to successfully cheat the system. The paper continued that PoS unfairly gives users with the most coins (stake) in the system a higher probability of validating blocks.
• BitGo, a popular cryptocurrency custodial service, has announced its recent support of Zcash (ZEC). BitGo is the largest processor of on-chain Bitcoin (BTC) transactions in the world, and processes $15 billion every month in all cryptocurrencies. The Zcash team said that it is very excited for the recent support of their coin, and that along with their upcoming Zcash Sapling upgrade, this should prove to be a great catalyst for adoption of Zcash’s privacy features.
• California-based Propy, a global real estate company known for its decentralized title registry, has announced that it has successfully executed a real estate deal on the blockchain. The transaction was tracked every step of the process on Ethereum smart contracts, making this deal the first blockchain-recorded property deal in California, and only the second to be done in the world. The transaction used Bitcoin (BTC) as payment, effectively cutting out the role of banks for this deal.
• Waves decentralized exchange (DEX) was hacked on Tuesday, the first day it exited its beta test. Hackers were able to break into the exchange’s website and the company’s main site to phish for information in the personal wallets of users.
• Ethereum Chrome browser extension MetaMask was pulled from the Chrome Web store yesterday. It was listed again, 5 hours later. MetaMask has said it is unsure why its extension was pulled from the Chrome Web store. MetaMask is one of the oldest and widely used decentralized apps (DApps) on the Ethereum network.
• Augur has launched a platform that permits users to bet when certain public figures will die. If a user believes the public figure will die, they buy shares with ETH. If a user believes the public figure won’t die, they can short the bet by selling shares. If a user’s prediction is correct, they profit from the outcome. Augur uses a network of “reporters” who make sure that the bet is settled properly.
• Decenturion, constituted this past January, claims to be the world’s first decentralized blockchain-based digital state. Decenturion has appointed blockchain expert and founder of ICOBox, Nick Evdokimov, as its Minister of Information. The blockchain-based state has no central person of power, but is rather governed by passport holders’ voting using smart contracts.
• Popular cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex announced plans to delist nine tokens from its trading platform. The nine coins in question are FlorinCoin (FLO), FoldingCoin (FLDC), Vcash (XVC), Bitcrystals (BCY), Nexium (NXC), Radium (RADS), Blackcoin (BLK), Pinkcoin (PINK), and Riecoin (RIC). These cryptocurrencies reportedly do not meet Poloniex’s new asset framework. Owners of these coins have until September 2nd to withdraw them from the exchange.

Developments in Financial Services

• Global investment firm Vaultbank has announced that free stock trading will be added to its platform launch in October. The platform will now include the free stock trading, crypto trading, and even trading security tokens. Vaultbank’s platform is currently undergoing beta testing, but users can sign up for the platform’s waitlist on vaultbank.io.
• Popular cryptocurrency debit card provider, Wirex, has added a Ripple (XRP) wallet to its platform. 1.7 million clietns across 130 countries will now be able to use their Wirex Visa Cards to transact with XRP. XRP is currently the third-most popular cryptocurrency by market cap, and was specifically chosen by Wirex due to its unique utility for facilitating global payments.
• Decoin is disrupting the crypto credit card market with its DTEP Exchange & Trading Platform. The Decoin credit card will operate directly the company’s coin wallet and will permit users to spend their digital currencies wherever and whenever they choose. Users registered to this exchange will also supposedly have the ability to earn redistributed revenues, up to 20% of the exchange’s trading revenue.
• Fintech company Digital Asset announced a partnership with Google Cloud to aid in the construction of blockchain applications. Digital Asset and Google Cloud will provide support and software tools to blockchain application developers so that they don’t have to code the applications from scratch. The pair will also be working on Digital Asset’s developer program private beta, giving Google Cloud developers access to its Digital Asset Modeling Language (DAML) software development kit (SDK).

Regulatory

• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has come to the conclusion that they need more time for the consideration of five Bitcoin ETF proposals. Direxion Investments submitted the proposals back in January. The SEC stated that they will announce their decision to either approve or deny the proposal on September 21, 2018. CBOE Global Markets also sent the SEC an ETF proposal last month that is also expected to be postponed.
• The Chinese mountain region of Xinjiang Uyghur is known for its vast areas of land and abundant electricity: key elements for Bitcoin (BTC) mining. However, the local authorities of Xinjiang have announced their plan to shut down all illegal mining operations by August 30,2018. Illegal mining operations are those that fail to comply to registration, tax, social security, and other laws.
• Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association is suggesting domestic trading platforms limit investors to 4x leverage on their deposits. According to the Financial Services Agency, there are 142,000 crypto traders focused on derivatives a/o CY2017 in Japan, still a small portion of the estimated 3mm crypto traders in Japan. Just as a point of reference, 80%of crypto trading volume in Japan for CY2017 came from derivatives trading, recording USD$543bn - - 90%+ of this amount was from margin traders.
• Iran is currently looking to develop a domestic cryptocurrency in order to bypass its economic sanctions. Alireza Daliri, Iran’s Science and Technology Department head in charge of investment affairs, reported that the project is being worked on with the Central Bank of Iran. The cryptocurrency would back Iran’s national currency, the rial, and would allow cross-border transactions ahead of the US sanctions going into effect next month.
• The SEC rejected application for a Bitcoin ETF by Winkelvoss twins again. In its rejection, the SEC cited as a major concern the fact that “a significant portion of Bitcoin trading occurs on unregulated exchanges outside of the United States."
• Hester Peirce, Commissioner of the SEC, has published a letter of dissent regarding the SEC’s recent decision upholding the agency’s past ruling to deny the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin (BTC) ETF. The SEC denied the Bats BZX Exchange’s proposed rule change hoping to allow trading of the Winklevoss’ Bitcoin Trust shares, leading Peirce to say “I believe that the proposed rule change satisfies the statutory standard and that we should permit BZX to list and trade this Bitcoin-based exchange-traded product,” and that the decision “sends a strong signal that innovation is unwelcome in our markets.”
• The Law Commission of India published a report regarding the legal status of sports betting and gambling in the country, referencing cryptocurrencies. The report recognizes cryptocurrencies as a method of payment for betting and wagering. The report also stated that “gambling transactions should be made cashless, making use of electronic means of payment such as credit cards, debit cards, net-banking, virtual currencies (VC – also known as cryptocurrency), etc.”
• US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) Chairman Christopher Giancarlo says the CTFC is falling behind and needs to begin testing the blockchain technology during testimony to House Committee on Agriculture. Chairman Giancarlo suggests the CTFC is four years behind other global institutions like the Bank of England (BOE) as it relates to testing blockchain.

General News

• Lufthansa, one of the world’s largest airlines, has announced a partnership with software firm SAP to create a competition focused on increasing the airline industry’s adoption of blockchain technology. There are currently not a lot of efforts being made to incorporate blockchain in the airline industry, and initial submissions into the competition are due at the end of August. Lufthansa is looking for applications regarding data processing, flight booking, loyalty programs, and supply chain enhancements.
• Cryptocurrency trading millionaires, especially in China, are looking into investments in foreign real estate markets as a form of diversification. Through the use of real estate startup apps, Chinese investors can buy real estate in California using Bitcoin (BTC), for example, through Hong Kong brokers that don’t require the same taxes and documentation as other financial assets held abroad.
• Binance, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchange, will soon enter the South Korean market. During the Blockchain Partners Summit in Seoul, Binance CEO Chanpgeng Zhao held a speech noting that Binance will enrich South Korea’s community. While Binance has not made any official announcements regarding the expansion, South Korean media outlets reported it following the summit.
• A New Jersey-based cryptocurrency mining startup, called Honeyminer, has released its free beta platform in June, and has amassed 10,000 downloads around the world already. The platform allows users to mine cryptocurrencies on their Windows laptops by running the app while the processor isn’t in use. Users will be able to mine Ethereum (ETH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), Monero (XMR), and Zcash (ZEC), but all earnings are transferred into Bitcoin (BTC) and sent to the user’s wallet.
• Since cryptocurrencies became popular several years ago, not many cryptocurrency platforms (i.e. exchanges and wallets) have conducted third-party security audits. However, three-month-old XMR Wallet, a web wallet for Monero (XMR) has announced its conclusion of an audit by the firm New Alchemy. Additionally, XMR Wallet has published the results of its audit, and stated that all issues found have already been resolved.
• ConsenSys, a blockchain technology company, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s Xiongan New Area government. ConsenSys focuses on the development of Ethereum (ETH), and will be advising the government on blockchain solutions to make Xiongan a smart city. China’s president Xi Jinping has designated Xiongan a special economic zone and believes that by creating a smart economy using Ethereum, it could bring in USD$348 billion within the next 10 years.
• Bitmart, a global cryptocurrency exchange, has announced that it will be listing its own utility token, called BMX, on its exchange. The BMX token is an ERC-20 protocol token, and there will be 1 billion issued. All transaction fees paid on the BMX market will be redistributed to those who backed the project, and using BMX on the exchange lets users pay a discounted fee.
• US-based Coinbase is launching a crypto-backed gift card in Europe. Users of WeGift will be able to convert digital assets held in their Coinbase wallet to gift cards. Gift cards from WeGift can be used at over 120 retailers across the UK, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy.
• The Bank of Canada (BoC) released its Staff Working Paper this week, where it said that the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus system, the same one used by Bitcoin (BTC), held the most promise out of alternative consensus systems like proof-of-stake (PoS). PoW includes a built-in security measure, people with malicious intentions would need to spend a large amount of resources in order to successfully cheat the system. The paper continued that PoS unfairly gives users with the most coins (stake) in the system a higher probability of validating blocks.
• BitGo, a popular cryptocurrency custodial service, has announced its recent support of Zcash (ZEC). BitGo is the largest processor of on-chain Bitcoin (BTC) transactions in the world, and processes $15 billion every month in all cryptocurrencies. The Zcash team said that it is very excited for the recent support of their coin, and that along with their upcoming Zcash Sapling upgrade, this should prove to be a great catalyst for adoption of Zcash’s privacy features.
• California-based Propy, a global real estate company known for its decentralized title registry, has announced that it has successfully executed a real estate deal on the blockchain. The transaction was tracked every step of the process on Ethereum smart contracts, making this deal the first blockchain-recorded property deal in California, and only the second to be done in the world. The transaction used Bitcoin (BTC) as payment, effectively cutting out the role of banks for this deal.
• Waves decentralized exchange (DEX) was hacked on Tuesday, the first day it exited its beta test. Hackers were able to break into the exchange’s website and the company’s main site to phish for information in the personal wallets of users.
• Ethereum Chrome browser extension MetaMask was pulled from the Chrome Web store yesterday. It was listed again, 5 hours later. MetaMask has said it is unsure why its extension was pulled from the Chrome Web store. MetaMask is one of the oldest and widely used decentralized apps (DApps) on the Ethereum network.
• Augur has launched a platform that permits users to bet when certain public figures will die. If a user believes the public figure will die, they buy shares with ETH. If a user believes the public figure won’t die, they can short the bet by selling shares. If a user’s prediction is correct, they profit from the outcome. Augur uses a network of “reporters” who make sure that the bet is settled properly.
• Decenturion, constituted this past January, claims to be the world’s first decentralized blockchain-based digital state. Decenturion has appointed blockchain expert and founder of ICOBox, Nick Evdokimov, as its Minister of Information. The blockchain-based state has no central person of power, but is rather governed by passport holders’ voting using smart contracts.
• Popular cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex announced plans to delist nine tokens from its trading platform. The nine coins in question are FlorinCoin (FLO), FoldingCoin (FLDC), Vcash (XVC), Bitcrystals (BCY), Nexium (NXC), Radium (RADS), Blackcoin (BLK), Pinkcoin (PINK), and Riecoin (RIC). These cryptocurrencies reportedly do not meet Poloniex’s new asset framework. Owners of these coins have until September 2nd to withdraw them from the exchange.

Miner Edge is a strategized, diversified and crowdfunded mining facility. We are building world's largest crowdfunded diverse portfolio cryptocurrency techno registered in Belarus and mining operations will be done in Manitoba Canada. With these favorable locations we are headed towards fully fledged mining sites across Canada. Our major sites have been setup in Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland and Quebec. Miner Edge is utilizing pioneering technology in its operations, with multiple mining sites and pretty advanced technology, Miner Edge will be mining in five major cryptocurrencies that are Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ripple and Monero. Miner Edge is launching its ICO with huge benefits for investors and community members. The most notable of them are 9% (calculation based on 9000USD BTC rate) return of investment to token holders each month and 109% of the future revenues. This huge margin of profit sharing has never been proposed by any other organization before. Miner Edge believes in strengthening cryptocurrency by spreading its benefits among people. And our ICO will strengthen us to make our vision possible. Therefore, we encourage more & more investors to participate in this marathon. Highlights of Miner Edge Operations Green Electricity: All the locations chosen by Miner Edge offer cheap green electricity and abound in renewable energy. This very energy is consumed in all our units, ensuring low cost, green electricity supply at less than $0.04 - $0.06/kWh. Technology: Miner Edge is all geared up with avant-garde technology which will help us countering any contingencies. It will also help us to ensure maximum profitability. The wiring and cooling solutions that we have deployed will aid us in achieving the target. We also have plans to invest a certain amount from our revenue into the retrofitting of hardware. Diverse Portfolio: To make the maximum use of resources and gain utmost throughput, we will be mining in five major cryptocurrencies i.e. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Ripple and Monero. This diverse portfolio provides security in case of downtrend faced with one particular coin. Experience: We have a team of experienced and skilled professionals who have pulled off some of the toughest projects. This team consists of experts in every domain from Technology, Finance, Marketing, Real Estate and Operations. Location: Canada is the most preferred location of miners today and our mining operations are based in Manitoba, which is one of the most crypto-friendly cities in the world. With the energy rates between $0.04-$0.06/kWh, Manitoba is a crypto miner's haven. Manitoba is one of the coolest places in Canada which becomes an ideal destination for crypto mining, for the mining rigs generate extreme heat and need freezing temperatures to work properly. Tax-Free: Miner Edge is registered in Belarus which has legalized cryptocurrency. Belarus has also declared the crypto trades to be tax-free. Although, due to operations held in Canada, we become liable to Canadian government for payment of taxes and we will gratefully do so.
About Miner Edge Miner Edge aims to grant investors an opportunity to become a part of the largest techno mining operation. We have acquired the acumen by using cutting edge technology and relatively low-cost Green Energy. We plan to distribute 75% of Miner Edge output to all MET token holders. We also intend to retrofit our facilities for which we are going to invest 25% of the proceeds back into the system. We take care of our community's investment by providing them with an income in ETH on monthly basis from the mining and hosting profits, taking foolproof security measures and maintaining transparency in divulging all the reports to them. Our highly skilled team has encouraged us to expand our operations and we are glad to broaden the MET community.
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