PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- BTC ($6,324): -2% / -53%
- ETH ($209): 0% / -71%
- LTC ($51): -6% / -77%
- XRP ($0.51): +10% / -74%
- Crypto Market Cap ($212B): 0% / -65%
- BTC Dominance: 52%
THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Crypto exchange Coinbase announces a new $300 million round of funding
valuing it at over $8 billion. The round was led by Tiger Global with
participation from Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Polychain, and
Wellington Management. Coinbase was previously valued at $1.6 billion back
in August 2017. Link.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/coinbase-is-now-valued-at-8b-after-closing-new-300m-round/
- The SEC brought its first regulatory charges against a cryptocurrency
exchange, EtherDelta, accusing the platform of failing to register with the
SEC and violating securities laws. EtherDelta sold more than 3.6 million
ERC20 tokens over an 18 month period, and was being fined for enabling
trading of tokens that were considered securities without being properly
registered. The action opens up potential lawsuits against decentralized
exchanges, which are not registered with the SEC but allow users to trade
what could be considered security tokens. EtherDelta agreed to pay $388,000
in penalties and fines. Link
https://www.coindesk.com/expect-the-sec-to-target-more-token-exchanges-after-etherdelta/
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- Bitcoin Cash, which itself was a controversial hard fork from bitcoin
back in 2017, is facing its own contentious hard fork on November 15th.
Back in August Bitcoin ABC, the leading implementation of the Bitcoin Cash
network, announced it would add new features such as smart contract
abilities and scaling improvements to the network. A week after Bitcoin
ABC's proposal, blockchain research firm nChain announced its own
implementation of Bitcoin Cash called Bitcoin SV, which would expand
Bitcoin Cash's block size from its current 32MB to 128MB. Bitcoin SV is the
brain-child of Craig Wright, the controversial figure who has claimed
(without evidence) that he is Satoshi Nakamoto. The two implementations are
incompatible, so the hard fork in November could trigger a hard fork
creating two entirely new separate chains. Bitmain, a major holder of
Bitcoin Cash, is supporting Bitcoin ABC though some of the largest BCH
mining pools appear to be backing BSV. Link
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/04/summing-up-the-bitcoin-cash-hard-fork-debate/
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- A bitcoin millionaire spent $170 million purchasing 67,000 acres of
undeveloped land in Nevada, with the hopes of building the first
blockchain-based community. The community will rely on blockchain for
governance - all decision making power for the project and 90 percent of
any dividends it generates will be held by residents, employees, and future
investors. The structure, called a "distributed collaborative entity" is
supposed to operate on a blockchain where everyone's ownership rights and
voting powers will be recorded in a digital wallet. Construction on the
land won't begin until late 2019. Link
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/technology/nevada-bitcoin-blockchain-society.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
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- Dapper Labs, the company behind the hit game CryptoKitties, announced a
new $15 million round of funding led by Venrock, with participation from GV
and Samsung NEXT. Dapper Labs will use the funding to continue developing
games centered around digital asset ownership. Link
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dapper-labs-the-company-behind-cryptokitties-raises-15m-in-financing-to-drive-consumer-adoption-of-blockchain-technology-300741850.html
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- Coinbase announced it was adding web browser Brave's Basic Attention
Token (BAT) to its retail trading platform, less than a week after listing
it on Coinbase Pro. The Brave browser blocks broad advertisements and
trackers, but allows advertisers to directly target consumers by paying
them in BAT. BAT can also be used to directly fund content creators via
micropayments. BAT is the second ERC20 token to be listed by Coinbase,
after 0x. Link
https://www.coindesk.com/coinbase-users-can-now-buy-and-sell-braves-basic-attention-token/
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- Bitfury, the London-based company that sells mining equipment and
provides blockchain development services to governments and companies,
announced $80 million in funding from investors including Galaxy Digital,
the merchant bank founded by ex-Fortress Hedge Fund manager Mike Novogratz.
The latest funding values Bitfury at more than $1 billion. The company is
expected to be Europe's first major crypto IPO, with expectations it will
go public in the next 2 years. Link
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-06/crypto-startup-bitfury-raises-80-million-from-novogratz-others?srnd=cryptocurrencies
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- Square generated $43 million in revenue and a profit of $500,000 from
Bitcoin in Q3 2018. Square allows customers in all 50 states to buy and
sell Bitcoin via it's Cash App. Crypto represented nearly 5% of the
company's total revenue for the quarter. Link
https://s21.q4cdn.com/114365585/files/doc_financials/2018/2018-Q3-Shareholder-Letter-Square.pdf
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- Stellar announced a partnership with Blockchain, a popular crypto wallet
provider, to airdrop $125 million worth of Stellar lumens (XLM) to
Blockchain's customer-base. Stellar is hoping airdropping lumens to
Blockchain's 30 million wallets will help with its adoption compared to
rival currencies like XRP and Ethereum. Link
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/06/stellar-is-airdropping-125-million-to-blockchain-wallet-users/
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- Israel-based Starkware announced a $30 million Series A round led by
Paradigm, the venture firm founded by Matt Huang (ex-Sequoia) and Fred
Ehrsam (co-founder of Coinbase) The funding will be used to develop
blockchain privacy and scalability solutions. StarkWare describes itself as "providing
cryptographic proofs that are zero-knowledge, succinct, transparent (no
need for a trusted setup), and post-quantum secure." In a zero-knowledge
proof one party can prove to another that they know a specific value
without actually having to do anything more than stating knowledge of the
value. Link
- Roughly 30 mobile apps built around kin - the cryptocurrency launched by
mobile messaging app Kik - are expected to launch in the coming weeks. Kik
raised $98 million in one of 2017's biggest ICOs and earlier in the summer
had announced it would support apps built to enable users to use and earn
its Kin token. The apps have various use cases (dating, language learning,
networking, mental health, productivity, and instant messaging) but all
enable users to earn, use and trade the Kin token. Link
https://www.coindesk.com/apps-for-kiks-crypto-are-beginning-to-appear-on-apple-and-google-stores/
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- AT&T and T-Mobile are being sued by victims who were subject to "SIM
swapping" cellphone hacks that led to cryptocurrencies being stolen.
Hackers were able to infiltrate mobile devices to access crypto wallets and
two-factor authentication codes. In one case, an AT&T customer had $621,000
of crypto stolen via a SIM swap attack, despite AT&T assuring the customer
they had increased security on his account following an earlier attempted
hack. Link
https://www.coindesk.com/victims-sue-att-t-mobile-over-sim-swap-crypto-hacks/
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- Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, announced it was
launching a new division called Binance Research. The newly formed division
will provide consumers and partners with institutional-grade research
reports on cryptocurrencies listed on its exchange. The move is intended to
bring accountability and transparency into crypto projects. Link
https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/08/binance-is-launching-binance-research-in-an-effort-to-keep-projects-accountable/
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