Crypto Black Lotus

Decentralized card games, new China bans and a central bank coin for Thailand

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Sponsored by   August 22, 2018 A LUCKY CARD? Gods Unchained, an online card game built using ethereum, just saw the sale of a card at a price rivalling the value of Magic the Gathering's famous Black Lotus. The startup has already drawn attention of venture capitalists as well as players. Full Story THEY DID IT: The Bank of Thailand (BoT) has announced plans to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC) by March 2019. The currency will use Corda, a platform by R3, as its basis, and is aimed at facilitating interbank transactions. Full Story NO CRYPTO PARTIES: Events related to cryptocurrencies are now banned in shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, and office buildings in downtown Beijing. The news follows a crackdown on cryptocurrency-related media on WeChat. Full Story  Cryptocurrency adoption is expected to first take hold in countries with problematic monetary environments. The Turkish lira has been losing value, which is down about 45 percent this year. Soon after recent tariff remarks by US President Donald Trump, the lira dropped 20 percent. Eighteen percent of Turkish respondents held cryptocurrencies, according to a recent survey from ING. This figure is notably more than double than that of the USA and United Kingdom. Further, those countries also happen to support some of the highest number of crypto-startups. This trend can be seen in last week's 63 percent increase in bitcoin trading volume on Turkey's largest exchange, Koinim, as well as a 35 and 100 percent bump on BTCTurk and Paribu exchanges, respectively.  For more research insights check out the CoinDesk Research section here. SPONSOR SECTION   Join us in Singapore on September 19-20 for two days of content focused on blockchain development in the APAC region. Beyond just Consensus, there are five other technology events that you can attend with your TechXLR8 ticket. Save 40% by using the code CONSENSUS40. ​Register Here   HOPES AND NIGHTMARES: Bitcoin is trading at $6,650.66 as of press time on Wednesday -- more than 60 percent below its all-time high. But how might a possible end to the prevailing bear market play out? CoinDesk's Sam Ouimet explores the ways in which a market "capitulation" may unfold. Full story  BEST OF THE BEST BUSINESS INSIDER: Venezuela is said to have seen an unexpected surge of popularity of the cryptocurrency dash. This was mostly thanks to the cryptocurrency team's development and investment in the country, the magazine writes.   THE REST FORTUNE: Well-known blockchain dapps like CryptoKitties and Augur have watched theur user bases shrivel to almost nothing. "Now that a growing number of DApps have gone live, it's apparent there's an enormous gulf between speculative and real world interest in these projects," Fortune notes. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST: The newspaper sums up the recent crackdown on crypto media and events in China. The SCMP notably got comment from Tencent, operator of WeChat, which said that the media accounts were "suspected of publishing information related to ICOs and speculations on cryptocurrency trading."  THE WEEK: Los Angeles stay-at-home moms have made a shared pool to invest in cryptocurrencies together. According to one mom interviewed by the publication: "This is just the beginning of something that's better. That's the exciting part."   We've launched our new podcast, Late Confirmation, which are the top stories in the blockchain world, delivered daily from the team at CoinDesk, sponsored by the Oxford Blockchain Programme.  Listen to Latest Episode and Subscribe   WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER   ConsenSys Jobs Blockchain Jobs Circle Jobs BitGo Jobs Copyright © 2018 CoinDesk. All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: 636 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY, 10011, US Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list