PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($7,174): -17% / +91%
- ETH ($147): -21% / +10%
- LTC ($46): -24% / +51%
- XRP ($0.23): -15% / -35%
- Crypto Market Cap ($196B): -17% / +56%
- BTC Dominance: 66%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Bitcoin prices hit a six-month low this week, falling briefly to below $6,800. 

- Bison Trails, a blockchain infrastructure company that is one of the 21 founding members of Facebook's Libra Association, raised $25.5 million in Series A funding led by Blockchain Capital. Other investors include Coinbase Ventures, A Capital, Sound Ventures, Initialized, and Galaxy Digital. Bison Trails helps customers deploy participation nodes on any blockchain, without having to develop their own tools to support the protocols. Link. Link. 

- Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis cut its workforce by 20 percent this week, laying off 39 employees, as it shifts its focus to profitability. The layoffs affect positions across the company, though R&D teams saw the most departures. Chainalysis now has a total of 155 employees. Link. 

- UK based Cashaa, a banking services platform, will be launching bank accounts for stateside crypto firms denominated in USD. The new accounts will offer full banking features with access to all nations globally and will be domiciled in the US. Crypto companies in the US have traditionally struggled to find banks that will serve them and in the past have set up their financial infrastructure in crypto-friendly countries like Switzerland. Link. 

- Fidelity Digital Assets has been using over-the-counter trading desks to place trades for its institutional clients, but has plans to connect to their first exchange before year-end. Connecting to an exchange would give Fidelity access to a broader market and liquidity for smaller trades. Link. 

- Fidelity received approval from NYDFS to custody bitcoin for institutions, joining 22 other companies that have been approved to custody virtual currencies. Link. 

- Whinstone US, a Louisiana-based developer of high-speed data centers, and Northern Bitcoin AG, a Germany-based bitcoin mining firm, have merged to open a 100-acre bitcoin mining farm in Texas. The farm is expected to be the largest bitcoin mining facility worldwide with a capacity of one gigawatt. Construction is expected to begin in Q1 2020 and complete Q4 2020. Currently around 70 percent of the crypto mining market is dominated by Chinese miners, who benefit from low electricity prices and easy access to mining equipment from local manufacturers. Link. 

- JPMorgan filed a patent application that describes using distributed ledger technology to digitize floor plan financing (used by car dealerships to purchase inventory) and bring efficiency to the lending process. The proposed project plans to register every car onto a blockchain registry so that all lenders, dealers, and automakers can access real-time information such as GPS location. The bank plans to finance 100% of the inventory system, but it needs counterparties like lenders, dealers, and automakers to agree to use the ledger. The bank is currently talking to auto manufacturers to make the tech a built-in capacity for all new vehicles. Link. 

- FEMA is considering using a blockchain registry to speed up disaster relief payments. In many disasters, communities lose the type of information needed to file a claim such as policy documents, land ownership records, and personal identification. Using a blockchain-based registry system allows FEMA to access these records in real-time and improve the speed of insurance claim payments without sacrificing accuracy. Link. 

- The IRS is looking at bitcoin ATMs and crypto kiosks and their potential to facilitate illicit activity such as tax evasion or money laundering. Although no public cases involving crypto kiosks have been filed to date, the IRS is looking at the illicit activity enabled by these kiosks, which often do not implement any AML / KYC practices. Link. 

- South Korea's ministry of science and technology has plans to invest ~$382 million for blockchain research and development, over six years from 2021 to 2026. The goal of the initiative is to create a foundation of data economy powered by blockchain tech. Link. 

- Binance acquired WazirX, giving it an opening into the Indian crypto market. The move is interesting given regulatory concerns in the country - the government recently announced a ban on banking services for crypto firms forcing a number of local exchanges to shut down. Binance plans to circumvent some of these regulatory hurdles by allowing users to purchase the stablecoin tether (USDT) with rupees, and allowing then to trade any cryptocurrency offered by Binance. Link. 

- Mythical Games raised $19 million in funding led by Javelin Venture Partners. The company will use the capital to launch its upcoming game "Blankos Block Party," which aims to give plays more control over the creation process. The company's tech uses the EOS blockchain to allow brands and game developers to more easily create in-game, customized assets. Link.