Duy, Author at SynQ • Page 7 of 9

Author: duy

June 2020 Weekly Recap #1

Posted 02 Jun / In Business Analysis, Investigation

June Weekly Recap 1

May 26th - June 1st, 2020

Welcome to our 1st weekly recap for June.

Overview 

 

 

 

Crypto News

  • South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance is preparing an amendment to apply to the nation’s Income Tax Law. This could include rules for profitable sales of cryptocurrencies as well as profits from national crypto mining projects.

  • Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has been racking up the number of BTC it has purchased since the third Bitcoin halving. During the two-week period, Grayscale Investments bought a total of 18,910.47949263 bitcoins.

  • The third session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, voted on and passed the “Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China” on Thursday. In addition to general and supplementary provisions, the civil code ”includes six parts on real rights, contracts, personality rights, marriage and family, inheritance, and tort liabilities,” Xinhua News Agency reported.

    The new civil code states that the property rights of individuals are equally safeguarded to those of the State and collective, and online virtual assets are protected, too.

  • Earlier this month, JPMorgan signed Coinbase and rival bitcoin and crypto exchange Gemini after a lengthy vetting period. JPMorgan approved the two bitcoin exchanges’ accounts last month and is already processing transactions, potentially signaling the end of the crypto industry’s banking woes.

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May 2020 Weekly Recap #4

Posted 25 May / In Business Analysis, Investigation

May Weekly Recap 4

May 19th - May 25th, 2020

Welcome to our 4th weekly recap for May.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • The Litecoin Foundation has announced a partnership with the legendary videogame company of Atari. LTC will now be accepted as a means of investing in the Atari token, to be issued in September 2020, and as a payment option for purchasing the new Atari VCS gaming console.

  • Albania’s Parliament signed a bill into law on May 21 plenary session a legal framework for cryptocurrencies. The legislation looks to regulate the conditions for licensing all crypto activities in the country. Beyond digital tokens, the law looks to monitor all infrastructure where DLT technology operates.

  • The proposal unveiled Thursday describes the currencies as a “stablecoin”. The basket of underlying collateral would follow the special drawing rights (SDR) model of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where each country’s currency is assigned a different weight based on its economy.

  • According to draft bills submitted by a group of deputies to the Russian parliament recently, individuals may face up to seven years in prison and fines of up to $7,000 for using BTC in financial transactions. People will also be penalized for buying crypto with cash or transferring to accounts opened with Russian banks.

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May 2020 Weekly Recap #3

Posted 18 May / In Business Analysis, Investigation

May Weekly Recap 3

May 12th - May 18th, 2020

Welcome to our 3rd weekly recap for May.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • The value of assets for all stablecoins surpassed $10b on Tuesday, having surged by over 70% in just two months, according to Coin Metrics. Most of the stable coin growth comes from tether, which represents almost 90% of the total stable coin supply. The largest tether markets measured by traded volume are supported by two Asia-based exchanges, Binance and Huobi.

  • Cryptocurrency hedge funds’ assets under management more than doubled in 2019, according to a new survey by PWC and Elwood Asset Management Services Ltd. The data comes from “the largest global crypto hedge funds by assets under management (AUM).

  • For the three months to March 31, 2020, the Canadian bitcoin firm, Hut 8 Mining, said it mined 1,116 BTC, down 54% from the 2,405 BTC a year earlier. It blamed the decline on “increasing network difficulty (that) impacted the company’s production negatively”.

  • A court in Shanghai, China, has reportedly ruled that bitcoin is an asset protected by Chinese law in a case that has dragged on for years. The case involves the theft of two different cryptocurrencies, one being bitcoin, from an American. The defendants argued that bitcoin was not recognized under Chinese law; the court disagreed, citing documents by the central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
  • On Friday, cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, FTX, launched a hash rate futures tool that allows Bitcoin (BTC) miners to hedge against mining difficulty risk. Hash rate is the amount of processing power dedicated to a Bitcoin network at a given time and determines the strength and security of the network. FTX leverages this mining difficulty that validates bitcoin transactions.

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May 2020 Weekly Recap #2

Posted 11 May / In Business Analysis, Investigation

May Weekly Recap 2

May 5th - May 11th, 2020

Welcome to our 2nd weekly recap for May.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • Iran has issued a bitcoin mining license to Iminer, a Turkish-based company. Iminer will operate up to 6,000 rigs, with a computing power of 96,000 terahash per second (TH/s) in total. According to reports, the miner has spent $7.3 million setting up the mining facility, located in Iran’s central city of Semnan.

  • The number of bitcoin ATM locations has been growing rapidly amid nationwide lockdowns and the coronavirus crisis. With hundreds of new machines added each month, there are now more than 7,700 bitcoin ATMs spread all over the world.

  • The Indian cryptocurrency industry has been growing rapidly despite the nationwide lockdown and the coronavirus crisis. Two new cryptocurrency trading platforms are launching in India while existing crypto businesses seek clarification from the central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

  • A court in Shanghai, China, has reportedly ruled that bitcoin is an asset protected by Chinese law in a case that has dragged on for years. The case involves the theft of two different cryptocurrencies, one being bitcoin, from an American. The defendants argued that bitcoin was not recognized under Chinese law; the court disagreed, citing documents by the central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

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May 2020 Weekly Recap #1

Posted 05 May / In Business Analysis, Investigation

May Weekly Recap 1

April 28th - May 4th, 2020

Welcome to our 1st weekly recap for May.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • The spot price of gold surpassed the $1,700 mark after dipping more than 1% on Tuesday. The rise comes as central banks announced plans to expand monetary stimulus and jobless rates soar.

  • Bitcoin is now outperforming the S&P 500 for the first time since the market crash in March and the equities sell-off that started in February. In a big 24-hour move, BTC crossed $8,000 and is currently trading at $8,592, up 10.5% at the time of writing. The S&P 500 is up 2.9% at 2,946.

  • On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell explained what the central bank of the U.S. is currently doing and what it is prepared to do in the future to help the U.S. economy fight the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are advising their clients against purchasing Bitcoin, a unique asset whose US dollar-rate has surged 8,000 percent since 2009.Digital Asset Investment Management (DAIM), a California-based digital asset wealth manager, alleged that it risked losing a vital client upon the intervention of the two financial moguls. The firm claimed that it has an institutional player who was ready to invest in Bitcoin but changed his mind after speaking to his advisors at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

  • Donald Trump and the Federal Reserve have gone to extraordinary lengths to prop up the U.S. economy in recent weeks.

    The coronavirus pandemic and the lockdowns put in place to slow its spread have ravaged the U.S. economy—with the Fed and the Trump administration pumping a staggering $6 trillion into the system since March and taking interest rates back to record lows to keep it on its feet.

    Now, as the economic reality of a post-coronavirus world sinks in, Trump and the Fed are edging closer to negative interest rates—something legendary investor Warren Buffett has warned could have “extreme consequences.”

     

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April 2020 Weekly Recap #4

Posted 28 Apr / In Business Analysis, Investigation

April Weekly Recap 4

April 21th - April 27th, 2020

Welcome to our 4th weekly recap for April.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • Tether mints an additional $120,000,000 in USDT tokens Tuesday morning. This comes after Tether minted $480,000,000 last week, bringing the months total to $600,000,000. Tether has minted more tokens this month than the entire market cap of Ethereum Classic.

    Tether CTO, Paolo Ardoino claims that these new tokens are for “inventory replenishment” and will be used for future demand.

  • Binance said its social payments app Bundle would provide users across Africa with a fee-free means to store and transact in both cash and cryptocurrencies, through a new digital wallet that can be downloaded on their phones.

  • Bittrex Exchange announced its significant global extension of Visa support accross 125 countries on April 20.

    In addition to making fiat deposits and trading directly using their Visa cards, users can now access further features such as conditional orders and trading with euros on the platform’s recently-launched Bittrex Euromarkets.

  • Cryptocurrency market data platform CoinDance showed that LocalBitcoins volume in Chile reached a new record of over 330 million Chilean pesos in the week ending on April 4.

    It’s noted that these figures are also influenced by the depreciation of the Chilean peso. According to data from foreign exchange website XE,  the currency fell by over 6.45% against the dollar in the last two months alone — and has lost a whopping 27% over the last year.

     

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April 2020 Weekly Recap #3

Posted 25 Apr / In Business Analysis, Investigation

April Weekly Recap 3

April 14th - April 20th, 2020

Welcome to our 3rd weekly recap for April.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • Central banks have been pushing for heavy-duty regulation of centralized, privately-issued global stable coins. Fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies are coming under scrutiny, based on recommendations from the Financial Stability Board.

    New numbers from the digital asset management giant Grayscale show investors are collectively throwing big money into Ethereum for the first time, on top of record investment numbers for Bitcoin.

    According to Grayscale’s Q1 2020 report, institutions have been taking a serious interest in ETH.

    Spencer Noon, the head of crypto investments at DTC Capital, says the numbers show Ethereum has reached a turning point with high-net-worth investors.

  • Darren Sadana, CEO of Choice IoT (Choice Business Connections Inc.), an IoT management platform, told Decrypt that blockchain could prevent hacking, and predicts that most computer programming will transition to blockchain. “ As 5G coverage increases and smarter applications are built that require complex and huge amounts amid data at high speeds, there is also going to be increased danger of hacking,” he said.
  • “This is where blockchain can help tremendously because of its advanced security,” Sadana said. “Even if a small part is hacked, it does not affect the whole program. In fact, most coding will move to blockchain in the future as it is more resistant to hacking,” he added.

 

April 2020 Weekly Recap #2

Posted 13 Apr / In Business Analysis, Investigation

April Weekly Recap 2

April 7th - April 13th, 2020

Welcome to our 2nd weekly recap for April.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • On March 4, India’s highest court quashed a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) order dated April 6, 2018, which prohibited banks from providing services to entities dealing with cryptocurrencies. Activity on exchanges immediately picked up.

    The activity on exchanges further improved after Yes Bank, India’s fourth-largest lender, collapsed on March 6, damaging confidence in the country’s banking system.

    The nationwide panic triggered by the Yes Bank crisis worked in favor of bitcoin, boosting Cashaa’s sales at a daily rate of 250 percent to 450 percent, according to data provided by the platform.

    Digital money transfer service, Azimo, has partnered with Siam Commercial Bank (SCB), the oldest bank in Thailand, to launch an instant cross-border payments service from Europe to Thailand through Ripple’s global payments network, RippleNet.

  • Institutional investors at Fidelity Digital Assets can now trade Bitcoin on the US-based exchange ErisX. Through a strategic partnership designed to increase cryptocurrency exposure for big players, Fidelity’s “stable of vetted institutional investors” will have increased access to Bitcoin liquidity.Fidelity Investments, which manages $8.3 trillion in customer assets, is also an investor in ErisX.

April 2020 Weekly Recap #1

Posted 13 Apr / In Business Analysis, Investigation

April Weekly Recap 1

March 31st - April 6th, 2020

Welcome to our 1st weekly recap for April.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • Opera now enables users to access decentralized web pages through a partnership with Unstoppable Domains.

    The collaboration entails Opera’s integration of Unstoppable Domain’s .crypto domain extension. This will allow the browser’s users to surf decentralized websites, as well as make cryptocurrency payments.

    Microsoft has proposed a system that can mine cryptocurrencies using data collected from humans as they exercise or read an advertisement.

    The system could use physical exertion to mine cryptocurrencies: sensors could detect when the body is doing a physical task, such as a faster pulse, and use that data to unlock blocks. Scanners connected to the head could even use brainwaves, signals sent out during mental exertion, to mine for cryptocurrencies.

  • After more than 18 months of work, the Byron reboot was officially launched on the Cardano network. This reboot entails a number of updates to the Cardano network including the Cardano node, the Cardano explorer, the wallet backend and Daedalus wallet.IOHK stated that the revamped design is modular. This means that it will differentiate the ledger, consensus and network components making it easy to upgrade any of them without affecting the rest.

    n a coordinated strike against some of the best-known companies in crypto, a US law firm issued a barrage of class-action lawsuits aimed at Binance, Block.one, Bitmex, Tron and several others. The lawsuits allege that the firms bilked investors by selling unlawful securities in the form of digital tokens.

     

 

March 2020 Weekly Recap #4

Posted 30 Mar / In Business Analysis, Investigation

March Weekly Recap 4

March 23rd - March 30th, 2020

Welcome to our 4th weekly recap for March.

Overview 

 

 

Crypto News

  • Cardano launched its off-chain scalability protocol, Ouroboros Hydra, on March 25th, after 5 years of development.

    The protocol claims vastly increased scalability and low latency for the Cardano blockchain while using little storage on the network’s nodes. The solution also allows for applications such as micropayments, voting, insurance contracts, and other uses that require low fees or instant transactions.

    According to IOHK, Hydra could theoretically scale to a million transactions per second.

    In Hydra, each user who connects to the network generates 10 heads, which are throughput lanes for data and transactions. Because of that, the system reportedly gets faster and decreases its latency as it scales.

    The global coronavirus lockdown has put a strain on Venezuela’s internet, which could logically make crypto participation difficult.

    Already, within the first seven days of a shelter-in-place movement, Venezuelans have pushed the country’s internet capacities to the limit.

    As the crypto space is largely an internet-based industry, digital asset trading and usage might logically become difficult for Venezuelans.

    Trump’s use of DPA represents the depth of the problems facing the US economy. Additional stresses to the economy will continue to unfold as supply chain concerns and stock sell-offs have continued. As pressures increase, the need for the production of medical supplies has increased as well.