Cryptocurrency News Now!: Volume is more dead than we thought

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Volume is more dead than we thought

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Successful investing is anticipating the anticipation of others.”

- John Maynard Keynes

MARKET

COIN	PRICE	24H

BTC	$7,100.455727	+0.67%

ETH	$295.764587	+2.24%

XRP	$0.353745	+1.38%

BCH	$565.997611	+2.35%

EOS	$6.377486	+17.18%

*Information as of 9:30 AM EST

RESEARCH

Volume is more dead than we thought

Report Claims that $6 Billion in Daily Crypto Volume is Fake

FAKE VOLUME

A new report produced by the Blockchain Transparency Insitute (BTI) finds that on average $6 billion out of the average $13 billion traded in crypto each day is falsely fabricated by exchanges
The Institute studied exchange data and found that 7 of the top 10 cryptocurrency exchanges engage in excessive wash trading ranging from 12x to 100x their true volume
Along with wash trading, BTI alleges that some exchanges are using trading bots to pump their volumes

SOME ARE HONEST

While most of the largest exchanges are artificially increasing volumes, there are some that are publishing true numbers
The BTI shares that Bittrex, Kucoin, Bithumb, and Cryptopia are the largest exchanges that have legitimate trading volumes

The researchers shared their reasoning:

“A few differences can be seen where a few exchanges such as Bittrex, Kucoin, Cryptopia, and Bithumb have much higher unique visitor counts than their volume would expect to show. This gives further evidence of their accuracy as they could report much higher volume. Instead they appear to be accurately reporting that their users spend less per session.”

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

BTI assumes the main reason for exchanges to inflate their volumes is to make them more visible on CoinMarketCap
Some exchanges receive as much as 83% of their referral volume from CoinMarketCap
Currently, it is very hard for outsiders to recognize illegitimate volume numbers, this may cause regulators to step in and even the playing field in the market

INSTITUTION

Bitwise and Morgan Creek Digital Assets Team Up to Create New Crypto Index Fund

INDEX FOR INSTITUTIONS

Two cryptocurrency investment firms, Bitwise and Morgan Creek Digital Assets, have joined forces to create a new cryptocurrency index fund that is targeted towards institutional investors
The firms believe that this is a perfect time to launch a fund as investors are viewing this price slump as an excellent buying opportunity

COIN ELIGIBILITY

This fund has some pretty strict standards for inclusion in the fund including:
- Coins can't have more than 90% of their 30-day trading volume on a single exchange
- Coins can't have known security vulnerabilities, such as being prone to 51% attacks
- Coins can't have 30% or more of their circulating supply “held by the protocol’s foundation or related operating business”
These requirements restrict some notable coins from being included in the fund, such as: Ripple, Stellar, Cardano, IOTA, and Tron

BASKET OF COINS

After the coins who do not meet the specified requirements are removed, the fund consists of the largest market capitalization coins and is weighted by market cap

EDUCATION

Coinbase Finds 42% of Top Universities Offer at Least One Crypto-Related Class

THE NEED FOR EDUCATION

One of the most important pieces in the blockchain mainstream adoption puzzle is education
Since cryptocurrencies and blockchain itself are tech-intensive processes for most people, there is a steep learning curve
This steep learning curve is the root of many problems in blockchain that can be solved with education, an easier user experience, or both
For example, in April, Japanese crypto exchange CoinCheck explained that there is a shortage of blockchain developers and this is holding back much more explosive growth

GAINING TRACTION

Yesterday, Coinbase released a study and found that 42% of the world's top universities offer at least one class on cryptocurrencies and blockchain
Inside the 172 classes reviewed, 15% were offered by finance, economics, law, or business departments, 4% were offered by social science departments
In many of the schools examined, students fill the classes fast with Stanford and Cornell students ranking the popularity of blockchain classes at a 9 out of 10

Dawn Song, a computer science professor at Berkley explained the reason for teaching about blockchain technology:

“Blockchain combines theory and practice and can lead to fundamental breakthroughs in many research areas. It can have really profound and broad-scale impacts on society in many different industries.”

NEWS

New Report Finds Crypto Mining Apps Remain on Google Play Store Despite Ban

PAST 30 DAYS

According to a report released by the Next Web, there are still many cryptocurrency mining apps left on the Google Play store despite Google's ban announcement
On July 27th, Google announced that it would be removing all cryptocurrency mining apps with a policy that reads "we don't allow apps that mine cryptocurrency on devices"
As part of the announcement, Google gave cryptocurrency mining apps a 30-day grace period to revise their products to align with Google's new policies
As of yesterday, just over the 30-day mark, several mining apps remained on the Google Play store including NeoNeonMiner, Crypto Miner Pro, Pickaxe Miner, and Pocket Miner

NOT EVERYONE GETS AWAY

One popular app, MinerGate, has been removed from the store due to on-device mining features

MinerGate explained to Hard Fork that it has now shifted its app features to comply with Google's new policies:

“Mining on your phone directly was among the core features of the MinerGate app before the last changes in Google Play Development policies. With the last update, we are removing this functionality to meet the updated requirements.”

So far, MinerGate has not been approved and restored on the Google Play store

New to Cryptocurrency? 21CRYPTOS Magazine is Your Essential Guide.

Crypto can definitely be a confusing industry to get into. Where do you start? Do you just jump into an exchange and buy the first Altcoin that has a kooky name? Are you looking to work in the field? Or even to meet some like-minded folks that want to support the decentralization movement? Whatever your reason, you’ll need a guide. And we hope that we can be that guide for you. Save yourself hours of research and get well-acquainted with the most trusted source of information out there.

Learn to trade, read unique thoughts from industry leaders, stay up-to-date on the latest headlines, get educated on how the tech works, and read reviews of the most interesting up-and-coming coin projects that’ll make you wonder why these haven’t been part of our lives all along!

It’s an exciting time ahead for us all. Lets share this experience together

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BREW BITS

New unicorn startup TMON raised over $32 million from many investors including Binance, Polychain Capital, FBG Capital and more to build a new stablecoin.
The Associated Press news agency announced a new partnership with blockchain-based startup Civil to explore new ways of securing intellectual property rights.
Operation Cryptosweep now has more than 200 active investigations that are examining startups suspected of misleading investors.

TODAY IN CRYPTO

Lisk (LSK)

Core 1.0 on Mainnet

"We expect this block height to arrive on Wednesday, August 29, no sooner than 11:00 AM CEST."

PROOF | SOURCE

Today in Crypto is powered by coinmarketcal.com

LEARN THE LINGO

Dust Transactions

noun

Very small transactions (eg Bitcoin) which, due to their mass, block the blockchain and cause all transactions to be delayed.

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