PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($8,110): +1% / +116%
- ETH ($176): +4% / +32%
- LTC ($56): +4% / +84%
- XRP ($0.25): +5% / -28%
- Crypto Market Cap ($217B): +2% / +73%
- BTC Dominance: 67%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- PayPal announced it was withdrawing from the Libra Association, weeks ahead of an Oct. 14 meeting where the 27 other launch partners of Libra are expected to sign a charter formally creating the Libra governance council. The news come days after a Bloomberg report that global payments companies Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and Stripe were all hesitating to officially commit to the project amid ongoing regulatory concerns. Link. Bloomberg Link. 

- US lawmakers want Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, to testify on the Libra stablecoin project by January. Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, is expected to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in late October or later in the year. Link. 

- Despite the recent decline, bitcoin prices have more than doubled in 2019 making it one of the best performing asset classes YTD. US tech stocks are up 31 percent in 2019, gold up 17 percent, S&P 500 up 21 percent, while the 10-year US Treasury is yielding just 1.6 percent. Link. 

- ConsenSys, the Ethereum development studio founded by Joe Lubin, acquired Ethereum infrastructure service provider Infura. Infura's flagship product is an API enabling developers and apps to connect to remote Ethereum nodes. According to its website, Infura is used by thousands of developers and apps including 0x, MetaMask, and CryptoKitties. Link. 

- Coinbase is in early acquihire talks with Omni, the physical storage-turned-rentals startup. Coinbase would acquire Omni's engineering staff and have them work on Coinbase Earn. Omni raised $25 million from Ripple early last year but has struggled with getting its on-demand storage and rental platform off the ground. Link. 

- On October 1, the SEC published a letter stating that bitcoin isn't a security. This was the first confirmation of the position following the framework released by the SEC earlier this year. The letter was in response to a filing from Cipher Bitcoin Fund to become a closed-end fund, with the argument that bitcoin is a security. Link. 

- Chris Dixon, a general partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, announced a new crypto-related startup school. The mission is to push blockchain technology forward and help crypto startups get going. Startups going through the program won't be charged any money, nor will they be required to give up equity. Link. 

- Bitcoin accounts for almost 70% of total crypto market cap, yet it is not the most traded cryptocurrency. US dollar stablecoin Tether, has monthly trading volumes that have consistently exceeded bitcoin since early August at about $21 billion per day, or volumes about 18 percent higher than bitcoin. Tether is frequently used by crypto exchanges, many of which still don't have bank accounts and can't hold dollars on behalf of their customers. Link. 

- The Libra Association has published its first roadmap detailing the milestones to be met ahead of the mainnet launch of the Libra network. For the first milestone Libra expects to bring on five partners deploying full nodes on the network. By launch they are targeting 100 partners to run Libra nodes. Link. 

- SegWit transactions on BItcoin have risen sharply in recent weeks, jumping up to about 55 percent in September from below 45 percent months ago. SegWit is an optional protocol upgrade to bitcoin, helping it accomodate more transactions in one block and thereby lowering costs per transactions. Earlier this week, Binance CEO indicated that the crypto exchange could add SegWit support to its platform by the end of Q1 2020. Link. 

- Blockchain payments provider BitPay will add support for XRP by end of this year, allowing businesses and merchants to accept the cryptocurrency. Link. 

- Mutual fund giant Vanguard Group is testing a new P2P FX trading platform through a partnership with Symbiont, a blockchain tech provider. The trading platform will enable asset managers to trade currencies directly with one another, avoiding the need for investment banks and their high fees. Vanguard has been testing the platform for two months. Link.  

- Crypto custodian BitGo has ventured into the staking space, offering staking support for DASH and ALGO. BitGo clients can now stake the two tokens and earn passive income in the range of 7-13 percent. BitGo recently acquired staking infrastructure startup Hedge to provide the service. Link. 

- Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis has added support for ten ERC-20 tokens including Maker, Dai, 0x, OmiseGo, Basic Attention Token, and others. Over the next three months the firm expects to launch support for XRP, Doge, Dash and ZCash. Link. 

- Algo Capital, a $200 million investment firm focused on the Algorand blockchain, lost a few million in USDT and ALGO tokens after its CTOs phone was compromised, allowing attackers to seize control of a hot wallet administered by Yabo. The firm is taking full responsibility for the loss and plans to reimburse the full amount within 20 months. Link. 

- Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, said the company does not intend to launch its own cryptocurrency. The tech giant is exploring blockchain technology though - earlier this year it outlined its goal of using blockchain tech to track resources, specifically to avoid conflict minerals. Link.