October 4, 2018
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“You can get in way more trouble with a good idea than a bad idea, because you forget that the good idea has limits.”
- Ben Graham
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| COIN | PRICE | 24H |
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| BTC | $6,575.314971 | +1.2% |
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| ETH | $223.754892 | +2.35% |
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| XRP | $0.533379 | +1.23% |
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| BCH | $519.280835 | +0.89% |
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| EOS | $5.68545 | +2.0% |
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*Information as of 9:30 AM EST
TD Ameritrade and Virtu Make Investment into Cryptocurrency Exchange
If you haven't heard of TD Ameritrade or Virtu
TD Ameritrade is a US-based brokerage firm. The company provides online investing services to retail and institutional investors and has more than 11 million customers that carry over $1.1 trillion in assets.
Virtu is a lesser-known financial institution. Operating out of New York City, Virtu uses technology to deliver liquidity to global markets and also offers trading solutions to its clients. The company is one of the largest high-frequency trading and market making firms in the world. Currently, Virtu has a market capitalization of almost $4 billion.
Proud new owners of a crypto exchange
On Wednesday, it was released that TD Ameritrade and Virtu teamed up to invest in a US-based cryptocurrency exchange called ErisX. Alongside TD Ameritrade and Virtu are CBOE Global Markets and Digital Currency Group, a digital asset investment firm managed by Barry Silbert. Altogether, ErisX has a backing from some significant players in the traditional finance space.
What makes ErisX special
ErisX was established back in 2010 as a traditional futures market. Now, it is reshaping itself as a cryptocurrency exchange.
At launch, ErisX will only list crypto derivatives. Eventually, however, the exchange will list spot trading (think normal crypto trading, buy/sell) and Bitcoin futures contracts. Unlike CME and CBOE's futures contracts, ErisX's futures contracts will be settled in actual Bitcoin, rather than cash.
ErisX has a primary focus on institutions. The exchange's new investors should give the exchange credibility with other financial institutions, however, it won't be easy since ErisX will have to compete with other exchanges like Bakkt and Coinbase for that much desired institutional money.
IBM Claims that Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work Protocol can be Made More Efficient
Bitcoin's massive energy consumption
Bitcoin uses what is known as a proof-of-work (PoW) protocol to verify its ledger. While the PoW protocol keeps the network secure, it consumes a lot of energy in the form of computing power.
Critics slam Bitcoin for its impact on the environment. Bitcoin mining is said to consume 1% of all of the energy consumption in the world or rather, as much as New York City in a day.
Even as the price has declined, the number of miners and hash rate has grown and is expected to continue to in the future.
IBM thinks PoW can be improved
IBM recently released a blog detailing its research into using blockchain in Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The company believes that implementing a decentralized network can make IoT devices more efficient.
IBM toyed with Bitcoin's proof-of-work protocol to create its own and developed an analytical system to "optimally cluster the IoT devices into separate blockchains, or sub-blockchains". According to tests performed by IBM, its new PoW protocol was able to scale better and be more efficient than Bitcoin's PoW protocol.
Could Poloniex Spark a Wave of Delistings Across Exchanges?
Three coins just got the boot
Poloniex announced that in addition to removing margin trading for US-based customers, the exchange will also be delisting three assets on October 10th.
According to the announcement, customers have until November 9th at 12:00 PM EST to close out trades and withdraw their holdings in Synereo (AMP), Expanse (EXP), and Gnosis (GNO). If customers don't follow the guidelines prior to the deadline, Poloniex won't be able to process transactions.
Tidying things up
Regarding the delisting decisions, Poloniex reasoned that the move was part of an ongoing effort to "continuously professionalize and improve" the platform.
This isn't the first time the exchange has done this. Since it was acquired by parent company Circle, a cryptocurrency mobile payments platform, the exchange has delisted multiple pairs including a decision to delist 9 cryptocurrencies in August.
But Poloniex isn't alone. Delistings are happening on many exchanges as coin trading volumes struggle to stay above water. One of the biggest batches of delistings came last month when OKEx decided to halt support and trading for 28 different trading pairs after the exchange found the projects to be low quality.
The wave is coming
Regardless of how successful the cryptocurrency market is as a whole, many individual projects will fail. Naturally, when they do, a wave of crypto exchange delistings will happen and we may be seeing the start of it already.
A lot is happening in the crypto world right now...here's what we're paying attention to:
VENEZUELA
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro officially announced the launch of the country's new oil-backed digital currency Petro to replace the Venezuelan Bolivar since hyperinflation caused the national currency to inflate uncontrollably. For reference, some estimates suggest the bolivar inflation rate will top 1,000,000% in 2018. Because of this, researchers have seen a spike in cryptocurrency awareness and purchasing from platforms like LocalBitcoins as Venezuelan citizens try to preserve the value of their assets.
ISRAEL
The Israel Securities Authority (ISA) is reportedly using blockchain to tighten up the security of its messaging system. Further, the regulator is also looking to implement blockchain-based voting for internal decision making and a blockchain-based file storage system. The ISA claimed the reasoning behind creating the new systems was to increase credibility and transparency within the organization.
BRAZIL
Brazil's antitrust regulator, the Brazilian Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), has sent questionnaires to crypto exchanges that have recently had their bank accounts closed in an effort to further understand the conflict. If the exchanges fail to answer by October 19th, the regulator will fine the platforms over $25,000.
But wait, there's more...
- Cryptocurrency exchange and custodian Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) has secured insurance coverage for custodied digital assets from lending services firm Aon.
- Digital currency wallet and exchange Abra has launched support for a new token, BIT10, that tracks the Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index.
- A bipartisan bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives this week proposes creating a "consensus-based definition of blockchain."
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