PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($10,072): -2% / +169%
- ETH ($210): +11% / +57%
- LTC ($72): +3% / +140%
- XRP ($0.28): +7% / -21%
- Crypto Market Cap ($265B): 0% / +111%
- BTC Dominance: 68%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- North Korea is the in the early stages of developing its own cryptocurrency, which would be used to "avoid international sanctions and circumvent the US-dominated global financial system". Early indications are the currency wouldn't be a digitized North Korean won, but instead would be more like bitcoin. Link. 

- Wells Fargo is going to launch its own settlement service using distributed ledger technology, similar to JPMorgan's 'JPM Coin'. The planned service, dubbed "Wells Fargo Digital Cash", will allow the financial corporation to settle internal cross-border payments across its global network of corporate clients. The service will bring in operational efficiencies including real-time payment processing. The pilot project will launch next year  and is expected to work  with USD transfers initially, though eventually the plan is to add support for multiple currencies and the entire global WF branch network. Link. 

- The CFTC named Coinbase vice president Dorothy DeWitt the new director of the Division of Market Oversight (DMO), the group responsible for overseeing derivatives platforms and products, including potentially bitcoin futures. She was most recently Coinbases's general counsel for business lines and markets, Her new role will see her evaluating and potentially approving new bitcoin derivative products in the US. Link. 

- Square Crypto, the division of the payments company  that focuses exclusively on cryptocurrencies, made three major hires to work  on open source projects. This includes BitGo Alum Arik Sosman, Lightning Labs alum Valentine Wallace, and Google alum Jeffrey Czyz. The division is still deciding what their first project will be. Link. 

- Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro is mandating that the oil-backed petro cryptocurrency must be used in funding an ongoing social housing initiative. The government  believes using the petro would allow private investors to finance the construction of social housing through the stock market. Maduro has been pushing to make the petro a major part  of the nation's economy; earlier this year  he ordered the petro be made available to the public by the nation’s top bank, and forced pensions to be paid in petros, despite there being limited ways to access the value of the token. Maduro has also attempted to persuade other nations to accept the metro as an alternative to the US dollar in the oil markets and for global trade. Link. 

- BitPay, the crypto payment processing platform, is launching support for ethereum, meaning merchants across the world  can securely accept ether payments without any additional integration efforts. BitPay already works with companies like Microsoft, Newegg, Dish Networks, FanDuel, and Avnet and enables them to accept payment in bitcoin. Link. 

- Crypto tokenization platform Harbor, has pivoted from helping companies issue security tokens to helping them tokenize existing securities. Just last week  the startup created tokens on the ethereum blockchain representing the shares of four real estate funds worth $100 million. The move is intended to make these private securities easier to trade for the 1,100 investors that hold them, along with 17 broker-dealers and placement agents that work  with the funds’ manager. Link. 

- Binance US opened account registrations earlier this week, though residents from 13 states won't be able to sign up for the services. Excluded states include Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and Washington. Binance US will not charge users trading fees until November 1. Link. 

- Verizon was granted a patent to use blockchain technology to underpin the dynamic creation of virtual SIM cards. The tech can be used to replace a physical SIM card with a software equivalent - a virtual SIM that is secured with blockchain-based encryption. The virtual SIM could be assigned any of multiple mobile devices linked ot the user account and transferred between devices; it could also be temporarily assigned to other users. Link. 

- Coinbase is reviewing 17 new tokens for potential listing on its platform including: Avalanche, Celo, Chia, Coda, Dfinity, Filecoin, Handshake, Kadena, Mobilecoin, NEAR, Nervos, Oasis, Orchid, Polkadot, Solana, Spacemesh, and Telegram. A number  of these assets have yet to publicly launch including Chia Network which was founded by BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen. Link. 

- SoFi, the consumer finance and wealth management startup, is partnering with Coinbase to offer its users a crypto trading service starting with 3 initial assets: bitcoin, litecoin and ether. Maximum orders will be limited to $50,000 per user per day. Link. 

- Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency Tron (TRX), announced plans to move TRX to proof-of-stake. The company  wants to distribute staking revenues to increase user participation and engagement with staking from industry players like exchanges, wallets, and partners. The solution will also allow dApps built on the platform to consumer less energy and run with higher security and efficiency. Link. 

- CJ, one of South Korea's largest conglomerates, is developing a blockchain-based music copyright management system  using AWS' managed blockchain services. The digital copyright system  would keep a history of the broadcasting of copyrighted songs and store the info on the blockchain; the goal is to increase transparency and fairness in pricing. The CJ group  is South Korea’s 14th largest conglomerate and has almost $30 billion in assets. Link. 

- Facebook acquired Servicefriend, a startup that builds chat clients for customer service teams, to support the customer service layer for the upcoming Calibra digital wallet that Facebook is developing. Calibra is Facebook's wallet platform that will be used to access Libra services including sending money, paying bills, purchasing items, etc. Link.