DAILY TL;DR W/ CHESLINK
JANUARY 15TH – 19TH
January 15th
- BTC NEWS
- IN OTHER NEWS
MARKETCAP ANALYSIS
Recap from 11/20
Market Cap: $243,311,416,536
24h Vol: $7,403,167,283
BTC Dominance: 56.2%
As of 12/11
Market Cap: $462,879,608,891
24h Vol: $25,098,117,991
BTC Dominance: 61.7%
As of 12/31
Market Cap: $592,941,301,681
24h Vol: $33,207,433,786
BTC Dominance: 38.0%
As of 1/8
Market Cap: $743,509,110,252
24h Vol: $49,897,768,988
BTC Dominance: 34.2%
As of 1/10
Market Cap: $688,568,200,691
24h Vol: $50,217,684,266
BTC Dominance: 34.2%
As of 1/15
Market Cap: $644,874,662,903
24h Vol: $38,996,461,258
BTC Dominance: 34.4%
BTC NEWS
Bitcoin Manipulation from $150-$1000
• https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/905222/bitcoin-price-news-latest-manipulation-cryptocurrency-surge-plummet-stock-exchange
New research from Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, and Tali Oberman indicates it is likely bitcoin’s price was manipulated by just one or two major players. Outlining their discoveries the researchers wrote: “Our paper identifies and analyses the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188million (£136million) were fraudulently acquired.”
They added: “During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. “Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months.”
As well as being able to declare only one or two people were responsible for the manipulation of the market, the researchers have also managed to pinpoint the exact bots involved in the activity. Called Markus and Willy, the bots appeared to perform valid trades in bitcoin, despite not owning any of the cryptocurrency. They were therefore able to successfully complete fake trades and make millions of pounds.
GDAX Opens BCH/BTC Pair on Wednesday
• https://news.bitcoin.com/gdax-will-open-the-bitcoin-cashbtc-order-book-on-wednesday/
GDAX exchange, a subsidiary of San Francisco-headquartered Coinbase, has announced that it will open its BCH/BTC order book on Wednesday January 17 at 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time (PST). Besides pitting the two cryptocurrencies against each other in a way that allows speculating on the stronger instrument, it will also create a way to acquire BCH for GDAX users who otherwise couldn’t buy it (such as Europeans as the venue doesn’t currently offer a BCH/EUR pair). The company specified that the BCH/BTC market will open in ‘post-only’ mode for a minimum of thirty minutes before entering ‘limit-only’ mode followed by ‘full trading’ mode.
IN OTHER NEWS
Korea Will NOT BAN Cryptocurrency
• https://www.ccn.com/south-korea-govt-confirms-no-cryptocurrency-trading-ban-market-optimistic/
“First, the South Korean government will pursue the crackdown on anonymous cryptocurrency trading accounts and will punish market manipulation, money laundering, and fraudulent transactions through joint investigations participated by the local law enforcement and financial authorities.
Second, the cryptocurrency trading ban proposal introduced by Justice Minister Park Sang-ki was a suggestion made by the Justice Ministry on December 28 to bring speculation within the cryptocurrency market under control. The proposal will be discussed and changed by the task force participated by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, central bank, Fair Trade Commission, and other agencies.
Third, excessive speculation and fraudulent activities will be met with severe consequences. But, the government will support and even finance blockchain technology development.”
Budbo – Marijuana Blockchain
https://coinidol.com/budbo-one-blockchain-infinite-possibilities/
Having launched in 2016, Budbo, a U.S. based startup, initially developed a “tinder-like” mobile application to help users find their favorite strains and products at nearby dispensaries. Now boasting of nearly 100,000 users and 2,000 dispensaries as part of its network, Budbo’s platform consists of a mobile phone app and a cloud-based backend business intelligence platform, which also provides a delivery tracking service aimed at ensuring full visibility and compliance of the cannabis delivery process. Budbo is now a respected and established presence in the cannabis ecosystem, and is looking to elevate its offering in a major way by tapping into blockchain technology.
“Blockchain possesses the power to streamline the processes of cannabis industry,” says Budbo CTO Jacob Patterson. “This system we are working on will ensure that cannabis moves safely and through proper channels, with all movements and history accounted for in a decentralized and immutable ledger.” By bringing together growers, manufacturers, lab experts, dispensaries and other cannabis industry stakeholders, Budbo aims to construct a completely transparent, and standardized system for the cannabis trade.
$OST Partner with New Start Ups
• https://medium.com/simple-token/startups-are-choosing-ost-to-power-their-blockchain-technology-announcing-11-new-ost-partners-ea786dc3c7f9
Simple Token aims to help you launch your own Branded Tokens and turn your business into a dynamic ecosystem. The OpenST protocol enables any business to stake Simple Tokens against minting their own Branded Tokens. The Simple Token Software-as-a-Service gives you the tools to manage, customize, and analyze your token economy.
We chose to partner with these 11 companies because their DNA matches ours: development centric, innovative, and committed to helping us shape the OST product so that it scales to be the blockchain on-ramp for thousands of businesses across a wide variety of industries and use cases.
NEO vs ETH
• https://hackernoon.com/neo-versus-ethereum-why-neo-might-be-2018s-strongest-cryptocurrency-79956138bea3
Ethereum: Ethereum’s goal is to be the platform for DApps and they are largely accomplishing this. They own the DApp market right now. Their roadmap is all about giving users and developers more control and more options in developing their applications.
NEO: NEO is working towards developing a product for the future. It not only rebranded from Antshares to NEO in June of 2017, but they refocused their marketing as well — with enormous success. Neo’s objective, while ultimately utilizing many of the same technologies as Ethereum, is to be the platform for a new smart economy.
In short: Ethereum is developing in response to new demands. NEO is developing their platform in anticipation of future demands. Ultimately, if I had to categorize NEO and Ethereum in a few words, I would say that NEO is Ethereum but with a specific purpose: to enable a smart economy. Ethereum is just a platform to enable entrepreneurship, innovation, and development — the direction it goes is up to those individuals building on Ethereum. NEO has a direction; it is shaping its platform with a goal in mind.
EthMS – Cross Border Payments/Contracts
• https://bitsonline.com/ethms-ethereum-cross-border-services/
6 January, 2017, Singapore – Tech startup ETHMS has announced its intention to implement blockchain technology through its ERC-20-based token to revolutionize the cross-border services market. The company is building an infrastructure based on ethereum technology to bring general services, contractual agreements and specifically cross-border services into the digital realm.
ETHMS is a marketplace for smart contracts. It enables its users to exchange, buy and sell contracts in an extremely convenient way. Allowing users to purchase contractual templates written by professionals within a matter of a few minutes. In addition to this ETHMS enables legal professionals to earn money and commission by selling contractual templates. Best of all, ETHMS uses Ethereum Share Tokens, offering its users anonymity, convenience and reliability. It also enables its users to audit smart contracts thus, most importantly improving security significantly.
Nice Writeup for Basic Ethereum Programming
• https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/15/a-modest-proposal-for-ethereum-programming/
Long, but well written intro into Solidity.
NASA Using Ethereum
• https://www.ethnews.com/nasa-awarded-a-grant-for-ethereum-blockchain-related-research
In late 2017, NASA awarded a three-year grant worth $330,000 (with an action obligation of $224,152) to the University of Akron for research into a "resilient networking and computing paradigm" (RNCP) that makes use of "decentralized computing infrastructure." The proposed system would rely on such technologies as the Ethereum blockchain and an AI scheme involving "deep learning techniques and fuzzy logic methods."
A write-up published by the Collier Report of US Government Spending, which shares a significant amount of language with a project summary ostensiblypenned by Wei, describes plans to develop a "data-driven resilient and cognitive networking management architecture." Wei's team will also conduct research into decentralized computing mechanisms that could prove instrumental in processing "the massive amount of high-dimensional data" often collected by NASA spacecraft.
XRP Lawsuit
• http://bitcoinist.com/twelve-billion-dollar-ripple-lawsuit-saga-deepens/
A decision made back in 2016 by former Ripple boss Chris Larsen causing a rift between him and the company took another twist this week. A deal was signed with a bank consortium which included an option for its partner to buy 5 billion tokens at when they were valued at a pittance. Ripple has countersued, claiming the deal was made in bad faith.
The filing claims that Ripple does not need to honor the contract as the consortium failed to hold up its end of the deal which was to sign Ripple up with a bank. It also claims insider knowledge that R3 knew both JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs were pulling out of the consortium.
A key paragraph in the countersuit states:
Rather, R3 had misrepresented its resources and current ability to perform solely to induce Ripple into executing the Agreements. For example, although R3 represented to Ripple that it would have access to its large consortium of leading banks, R3 knew and had reason to know that several key banks that would be instrumental to Ripple’s success would soon be departing from its consortium.
In R3’s complaint, it claims a decision by Ripple last June to terminate the option was unjustified, and the real motive behind the decision was related to XRP’s sudden increase in value.
XRP Increasing in 2018
• https://ripplenews.tech/2018/01/14/analysis-xrp-will-boost-soon/
- The price isn’t increasing due to no new buyers.
- The price could be being forced down, in an attempt to scare XRP holders to close their position, take their profits (or a portion of it) which will enable whales to buy up cheap XRP.
- There is serious demand from new buyers to enter the market.
- When new buyers do enter the market (via fiat – xrp exchanges (coinbase/coinsquare) or btc/eth – xrp exchanges (binance/bittrex) they are likely to buy XRP
- This will drive the price up
- With a massive influx of new buyers it will much more difficult for market manipulators to keep the price artificially low
- There are currently 1m XRP wallets, this could increase 20-30x in the coming months which exponentially increase the price (impossible to estimate by how much)
China Rooting Out Exchange-Like Platforms
• https://gizmodo.com/report-china-plans-to-root-out-crypto-platforms-offeri-1822094585
The Chinese government is continuing to intensify its crackdown on the cryptocurrency market, Bloomberg reported, and is planning on extending its ban on crypto exchanges to pursue alternative “online platforms and mobile apps that offer exchange-like services.”
Chinese regulators will seek to prohibit domestic access to foreign platforms that “enable centralized trading” as well as “target individuals and companies that provide market-making, settlement and clearing services for centralized trading,” sources told Bloomberg. They will still allow the public to conduct relatively small peer to peer exchanges.
As Bloomberg noted, until early 2017 China was the biggest market for bitcoin trading on exchanges, and some of the largest cryptocurrency miningoperations on the planet are located there.
QASH Growing Well in January
• https://cryptovest.com/news/qash-qash-grows-nearly-300-in-january-as-it-looks-to-address-crypto-liquidity/
The key problem in the crypto world is tackling the liquidity issues of converting fiat to cryptocurrencies. Not only does QASH aim to make it easier to bring money into the cryptosphere, but it also wants to automatically search global exchanges for the best prices of entry.
On January 1, QASH was trading at just $0.86. Today, it has touched $2.35, and there are a few good reasons for this rise. Arbitrage is the process of taking advantage of different prices in different markets. It is a practice as old as markets themselves but particularly rife in the crypto world. QASH plans to build on this activity with the introduction of The World Book (TWB).
The product will be a feature of the Cash exchange (Quoine Liquidity) launching in the second quarter of this year. Its main function will allow for a much easier conversion of fiat currency into crypto, in a way that automatically takes advantage of the best market rate at that moment for any particular crypto. So, for instance you are in Korea, but at that moment a US exchange has the best spot rate for a certain token - in this case, TWB will execute the purchase at the US rate.
The platform housing the TWB will exist on an exchange called Quoine Liquid, which will link all major exchanges to one platform. Quoine Liquid plans to go live in the second quarter of this year and has already struck up partnerships with Bitfinex, Dash, Binance, Blockwave, Gibraltar, ZB.com, BW.com, EXX.com, and CEX.IO.
Hot Coins for January
• https://www.cryptobull.org/hot-coins/
CEFS (CryptopiaFeeShare) - CEFS is an interesting token that distributes 4.5% of the gross fees collected each month on the Cryptopia exchange to those who hold it. The price is strikingly high at about $7,500 USD right now, but there are only 6,300 tokens in circulation and that is a hard cap. At current trading levels, one coin would yield ~$90 USD a month, which would be about $1,000 USD a year. CEFS is greatly undervalued in comparison to similar exchange tokens on Kucoin (KCS) and Binance (BNB). What makes it even more enticing is that Cryptopia added one million users in december, and that number is set to double in January. As the exchange grows, so grows the dividend, and maybe even the price of CEFS. It trades exclusively on Cryptopia at the moment.
ODN (Obsidian) - Obsidian is a project that is building a private data-exchange platform, centered around private messaging. It is definitely an early stages project as the app is in beta, but it is relatively unknown and sits at a market cap ranking of 363. The team is growing and if they deliver on some Q1 goals, ODN should see a sharp increase. It trades at $1.30 on HitBTC and Cryptopia.
MOD (Modum) - Modum is a project aimed at the improving the pharma supply chain, which offers a passive monitoring solution, ensuring GDP compliance and auditability by using blockchain and IoT technology. Modum’s tested solution offers a significant cost savings over the active-cooling methods currently used, while providing valuable data to drive continuous improvement in supply-chain logistics. We like this project because it addresses a direct use case and is built specifically for it, we think of it as the Samsara of the Pharma industry. Furthermore, the product is built to satisfy recently updated EU regulations, which will make it easier for companies to adapt the necessary processes. MOD currently trades at about $8.20 USD on Binance. With a Circulating supply of ~18mn and a market cap ranking of 164, this coin has a lot of potential to run, and has picked up steam in the past few weeks alone.
LINK (ChainLink) - ChainLink is blockchain middleware that allows smart contracts to access key off-chain resources like data feeds, various web APIs, and traditional bank account payments. By providing smart contracts secure access to these key resources, ChainLink allows them to mimic real world agreements that require external proof of performance and need to make payment in widely available payment methods e.g. bank payments. This project is a powerful integration technology that is working with big names like SWIFT and Gartner, and has somehow flown under the radar until recently. Rowlinstone, a heralded Cryptocurrency Research Group, named LINK their sleeping Giant for 2018. It trades at just $1.08 on Binance at the moment and is starting to command the attention it deserves.
EVX (Everex) - Everex is a project that has recently gained some deserved attention for their financial services platform that aims to bring banking to the unbanked, and help small/medium businesses thrive with Blockchain. EVX is applying blockchain solutions to cross-border payments, trading and lending; and the team is loaded with folks who have tremendous experience in the industry. Although the token has increased over 100% in the last week, it is still outside of the top 200 market caps, and should continue to increase as they continue to deliver. EVX trades at $5.20 on Binance right now.