Crypto weekly is authored by maaria

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($6,395): -1% / -52%
- ETH ($202): 0% / -72%
- LTC ($51): -4% / -77%
- XRP ($0.46): -2% / -76%
- Crypto Market Cap ($209B): -1% / -65%
- BTC Dominance: 54%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Coinbase announced support for Circle's USD stablecoin (USDC) Coinbase customers will now be able to buy, sell, send, and receive USDC in their Coinbase accounts. USDC is the latest stablecoin to come to market, following in the footsteps of Gemini and Paxos who both launched stablecoins in September. Link

- An investigative report published by Breaker found that many crypto news outlets would accept cash in order to cover crypto projects, without disclosing the payment or labeling the article as 'sponsored content'. Reporter Corin Faife created a fake profile and reached out to 28 crypto news sites regarding paid coverage. Of the 22 sites that responded, 12 were willing to publish paid content without disclosing it as such. The prices quoted ranged from a low of $240 to high of $4,500, which reflected the size and reach of the outlets. NewsBTC and Bitcoinist were among the sites offering to publish paid content; both are high traffic sites and regularly rank in the top Google results as news sources when searching for content related to bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Link

- Crypto wallet startup Blockchain announced it was launching a hardware wallet in partnership with Ledger. The hardware wallet , called Blockchain Lockbox, looks just like the Ledger Nano S but with a Blockchain logo and will cost $99. The company is also launching a new trading platform called Swap - this platform will find the best trading prices across a variety of exchanges and liquidity pools so that users can easily exchange crypto tokens straight from their hardware wallet. Blockchain currently manages 30 million wallets, which represent over $200 billion in transaction volume over the last two years. Link

- The Bank of Canada has been experimenting with using distributed-ledger technology to clear and settle stocks. The system is designed to integrate with existing market infrastructure and allows participants to directly trade cash and securities directly on the distributed ledger. The system also allows market participants to maintain privacy when executing trades. Link

- Bitwise, the cryptoasset management firm, announced it was launching Bitwise for Advisors, a portal for financial advisors to access crypto-related news, resources, and tools. With this new offering, financial advisors can build personalized presentations for the clients, access market commentary, and get special insights on crypto trends. Link

- Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange based on trading volumes, announced it had raised an undisclosed investment from Vertex Ventures, a VC fund started by Singapore sovereign fund Temasek. The deal comes as Binance plans to launch a fully compliant fiat-to-crypto exchange in Singapore by year-end. The exchange made headlines earlier this year when Sequoia sued the company after a proposed investment fell apart last year. Link

- Chip manufacturer AMD announced "negligible" revenue from crypto-related GPU sales in the third quarter. Demand for GPUs has fallen along with crypto prices -- in the fourth quarter of 2017, crypto-related GPU sales made up over 10% of AMD's total revenue. Shares fell 25 percent on the announcement. Link

- Boost VC, the incubator founded by Adam Draper and Brayton Williams, invested in its 100th crypto startup last week. The incubator had committed to investing in 100 crypto startups back in March 2014. Of the companies Boost has worked with, 45 percent have secured additional funding and 25 percent have shut down. 5 companies have exited. Link

- A group of researchers released a paper examining 500 crypto-related pump and dump schemes. The researchers found 3,400 pump and dump announcements from 80 active Telegram channels from May 2017 through August 2018. Of the 500 schemes researchers focused on, the price of the token increased by 25 percent on average in the first 70 seconds and trading volumes increased 148 times. The groups typically had target returns of over 200 percent though it's unclear if the groups were able to achieve these returns. Link

- SOSV, a 20-year old fund with $500 million in AUM, announced DLab, a crypto accelerator focused on companies building distributed apps and solutions. SOSV has been running accelerators for years, including a hardware accelerator in SF and Shenzhen as well as a recently launched food accelerator in NYC.  DLab will offer companies up to $200,000 in pre-seed funding and is currently accepting applications for its January cohort. Link

- The four biggest agricultural corporations (Archer Daniels, Bunge, Cargill, and Louis Dreyfus) announced plans to utilize blockchain and AI to bring the global grain trade into the digital age. Though the press release was light on details, the blockchain technology will be used to digitize manual, paper-based processes and bring efficiency and transparency to the grain supply chain. Link

- A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against Coinbase that alleged the exchange allowed insiders to trade bitcoin cash prior to its listing on the exchange. The suit alleged that the price of bitcoin cash was unfairly driven up for non-insider traders. Link

- PJM, a US-based energy grid operator, announced it was developing a blockchain-based system to track electricity from wind and solar power plants as its produced, delivered, traded and sold. The platform has the potential to make transactions faster and cheaper, by opening the market to smaller traders and reducing administrative costs. The pilot program is expected to start by the end of the first quarter. Link

- Earlier this year, Maersk and IBM announced a joint venture called TradeLens, a platform that uses blockchain technology to manage supply chain. The network has struggled to onboard carriers, as larger players raised concerns about joining a platform that was partially owned by its competitor. Accenture has since launched a similar platform, but has made clear to stakeholders that ownership and governance would be distributed amongst all customers. Accenture has successfully signed Singapore-based shipping carrier APL, freight forwarder Kuehne + Nagel, and AB InBev to its pilot program. Link

- Blossom Finance, an Indonesian microfinancing platform for social causes, is planning to issue Sharia compliant bonds on the blockchain in order to fund social projects. These instruments will be tradable and operate with a profit sharing model, vs traditional bonds that have an interest component. The firms plans to issue blockchain bonds to fund a green waste disposal project and a hospital expansion. Link