October 2, 2018
QUOTE OF THE DAY 
“It will fluctuate.”
- John D. Rockefeller
| COIN | PRICE | 24H |
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| BTC | $6,575.023026 | -0.2% |
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| ETH | $228.174509 | -0.44% |
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| XRP | $0.5621 | -0.26% |
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| BCH | $536.380622 | +0.93% |
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| EOS | $5.651224 | +0.05% |
| | ||
*Information as of 11:00 AM EST
Bill Clinton Headlined Ripple's Swell Conference, Here is What the Former President Had to Say
What happened at the conference
Ripple’s Swell Conference kicked off on Monday. The conference started with the announcement that Ripple’s xRapid has gone live and is being used by three firms.
Payment providers Mercury FX and Cuallix, as well as Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union, are xRapid’s three first users and are the first to use XRP for commercial use.
The event, which continues Tuesday, also features some notable guest speakers, including former President of the United States Bill Clinton.
What is Bill Clinton doing at a blockchain event?
Many were perplexed when Bill Clinton was announced as the keynote speaker for Ripple’s Swell Conference. As crypto Twitter does with just about everything, it was made into a meme.
It makes a little more sense when you realize that one of Clinton’s former White House advisors, Gene Sperling, is on Ripple’s board of directors. Sperling accompanied Clinton on stage on Monday.
Clinton who has not been known as a blockchain proponent had some interesting quotes on the subject including:
"The more you develop new technologies like blockchain … AI technologies, robotic technologies … the more the disparity of access is going to be felt."
“This whole blockchain deal has the potential it does only because it is applicable across national borders, income groups. The permutations and possibilities are staggeringly great. But we could ruin it all by negative identity politics and economic and social policy."
"You can't apply [an] old regulatory regime to a new technology. You end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg."
Ripple’s surge leading up to Swell
Ripple has been one of the hottest cryptocurrencies over the last month or so. The currency grew 67% over the month of September and has been neck and neck with Ethereum for the number two position by largest market capitalization.
Investors have been anticipating the release of xRapid. In theory, the more entities using the network, the more demand there will be for XRP, creating buy pressure. However, XRP is still well below its 2017 high of $3, but then again, so are all cryptocurrencies.
Institutions are Joining Crypto, But Through the Back Door
Sneaking in the back door
According to Bloomberg, institutional investors are joining the crypto market without drawing much attention. That's because the institutions aren't purchasing coins on exchanges, but rather, through private over-the-counter (OTC) transactions.
In April, researchers at Digital Assets Research and TABB Group estimated that the OTC crypto market facilitated anywhere from $250 million to $30 billion in transactions per day. For reference, CoinMarketCap shows that exchanges have recently handled around $15 billion in daily trades.
For crypto startup Circle, the OTC market has shown promising results since the firm has seen "triple-digit growth" in their OTC business and is banking on it to be a "big growth area" in the near future.
A miner's dream turned reality
The question is: Who is selling massive amounts of crypto to institutional investors in these private OTC transactions?
The answer is miners. According to Bobby Cho, global head of trading at Cumberland, miners are beginning to regularly schedule crypto sales with institutional investors instead of waiting to sell during market rallies.
One big reason institutions demand miner sales is that miners sell newly-minted coins, or rather, coins that have never been involved in money-laundering operations or criminal transactions.
In some cases, these coins can command a premium of up to 20%.
The Wild West days of crypto are fading
While the market in 2018 has taken a nose dive from January highs, crypto market volatility has also declined.
This means the market is becoming more comfortable for institutional investors as the crypto market continues to trade in a tight range and it seems high growth in the OTC market is telling a similar story.
Think Twice About Boasting About Your Crypto Bags
Google executive warns to not share crypto information online
Google executive Mark Risher is assigned to oversee email fraud and protect against cyber attacks at the tech conglomerate. Risher recently appeared on CNBC where he discussed increasing cyber attacks on crypto wallets.
He warned that publicly disclosing that you own cryptocurrencies, especially how much you own, makes you a target for hackers looking to steal your funds.
He also spoke about how people’s emails are usually accessible online and can be used by attackers to reset exchange passwords. For this reason, it is smart to use a unique email and password for each exchange that you trade on.
Custody is a unique trait of crypto
At the UN General Assembly, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat preached to the leaders of the world the potential of blockchain technology. Muscat proclaimed the cryptocurrencies will inevitably become the future of money.
Unlike traditional assets, you are the custodian of your cryptocurrency holdings. This is both a benefit and a risk. Owning your own assets means you have total control of them and they can not be frozen. However, there is no insurance for loss of cryptocurrencies. It is your job to protect your own assets.
You should take all precautions with your crypto holdings. Attackers are constantly trying to deceive investors to steal their funds. Make sure that if you are speaking about crypto online, use an anonymous identity and account information that has no connection to any of your exchange or other other accounts.
ShapeShift CEO Fires Back at WSJ After 'Deceptive' Money-Laundering Claims
'Factually inaccurate and deceptive'
Last week, the Wall Street Journal released an investigative report that alleged $88 million was laundered through crypto exchanges with $9 million belonging to the popular crypto exchange ShapeShift.
Now, in a blog post released yesterday, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees is firing back at the WSJ report by stating the report is "factually inaccurate and deceptive."
To back up his claims, he wrote that the WSJ worked with ShapeShift for almost a year but the final piece "omitted relevant information."
Further, Voorhees explained that "the authors do not have a sufficient understanding of blockchain and our platform in particular."
Calling out the journalists
According to Voorhees, the WSJ journalists don't understand that ShapeShift is only a crypto-to-crypto exchange, meaning ShapeShift has never once touched a dollar, euro, or yen that has been laundered.
On top of that, Voorhees claimed that the journalists cannot read blockchain transactions correctly since they falsely flagged $70,000 worth of crypto as 'dirty money' after it was sent to ShapeShift in a completely unrelated transaction 10 months later.
To dig deeper, ShapeShift has allegedly asked the WSJ for all additional transaction information to verify the investigation, but so far, the WSJ has not provided anything.
Trust in transparency
To end, Voorhees reiterated that if ShapeShift had not been so helpful and transparent (unlike other crypto exchanges) to the WSJ's investigation, the journalists would have never been able to publish their report.
Adding on to that, Voorhees showcased ShapeShift's willingness to comply with regulations, even if they are sometimes cumbersome:
"We don't expect to be loved by the old ... yet ShapeShift has always been in favor of complying with the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates, even though many of these laws are unclear, ever-changing, contradictory, and in some cases ineffective."
- Deloitte has outlined five basic areas of development for blockchain technology in order achieve widespread adoption.
- After nearly a year of acrimonious debate, the Sia blockchain is moving to give big mining companies the boot.
- Block.one, a developer of blockchain protocol EOS, vowed to uses its tokens to prevent block producer collusion.
Selfkey (KEY)
SelfKey is a blockchain based self-sovereign identity system that allows individuals and companies to truly own, control and manage their digital identity, securely manage their cryptocurrency portfolio and instantly onboard onto financial, immigration and cryptocurrency services.
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