Monday, October 8, 2018

Solvent and surviving 💸

October 8, 2018

Bitfinex Responds to Insolvency Rumors

Rumors make their rounds

Last week, rumors circulated around the crypto community that the popular crypto exchange Bitfinex is insolvent after reports claimed Noble Bank, Bitfinex's bank, was listed for sale.

Suspicions grew stronger following a Medium post that highlighted Bitfinex's strange activity including:

Exchange connection issues
Serious problems with withdrawals and deposits
Poor customer support

Most alarming, however, was the allegation that Bitfinex subreddit moderators were deleting the customer complaints of users who never received their funds.

In addition to warning users about staying away from Bitfinex, the author also warned the crypto community to stay away from Tether (USDT), a stablecoin controlled the crypto exchange.

Solvent and surviving

Yesterday, in a blog post that was addressed directly to the exchange's investigators, Bitfinex struck back at the rumors and provided proof that Bitfinex is solvent.

To do so, the exchange provided three wallet addresses it owns and operates with:

Combined together, the wallets hold over $1.77 billion and that number is apparently only a "small fraction" of Bitfinex's cryptocurrency holdings. That number also doesn't account for any fiat the exchange has on the sidelines.

New bank, new Bitfinex

In regards to Noble Bank's demise, the blog post claimed that the "stories and allegations" surrounding Noble Bank have no impact on Bitfinex whatsoever.

Instead, it seems that Bitfinex has moved on to banking with HSBC, the world's 7th largest bank, after crypto analyst Larry Cermak discovered HSBC is the new recipient bank account for incoming wire transfers.

However, Bitfinex has yet to confirm it is using HSBC as its new bank.

TECH

Sidechains Will Bring ICOs to Bitcoin

The idea of ICOs started on Bitcoin

In 2013 before the term initial coin offering got its name, an inventor named J.R. Willet raised a half of a million dollars for the "mastercoin" using Bitcoin. The coin was later renamed to Omni.

Willet now takes credit for the idea of ICOs and the mania that has surrounded crypto during the past years.

ICO coming to Bitcoin in November

Utilizing the power of RootStock, a smart contract network built for Bitcoin, a South Korean startup named Temco will be hosting an initial coin offering on the Bitcoin network in November. The company has the goal of raising $19 million during its offering.

More about RootStock

RootStock has been in development since 2016 and plans to become a Turing-complete smart contract sidechain for Bitcoin. RootStock smart contracts are written in the same language as Ethereum's smart contracts, Solidity.

Currently, the network is not operating on the actual Bitcoin network but uses a coin called "Smart Bitcoin" or SBTC. Smart Bitcoin is pegged to the price of Bitcoin.

INTERNATIONAL

No, Petro Won't Help You Escape Sanctions Venezuela

Same difference for sanctions

Expanding on an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that extended US economic sanctions to cover Venezuela's new national digital currency Petro, a group of senators is looking to further the order's reach through a newly proposed bill.

While the new bill cements the contents of Trump's executive order, it also adds a new line that prohibits US residents from "providing software" to the Venezuelan government for its new Petro digital currency.

What is Petro? Petro is a digital currency introduced by the Venezuelan government in late 2017 that is backed by the country's oil and mineral reserves. Venezuela created the coin in an attempt to access international financing after the country was sanctioned by the US and other governments around the world.

Novel, but a failure

In regards to the Petro's goal of accessing international financing by going around economic sanctions, the digital currency will fail.

Jerry Brito, an executive director at Coin Center, commented on the matter:

"While Venezuela’s attempt to issue a cryptocurrency is novel, there’s nothing new about the U.S. restricting financial dealings with sanctioned countries."

As of right now, Petro is set to officially go on sale on the 5th of November.

EXCHANGE

Binance Announces All Listing Fees Will Go to Charity

Listing fees for good

Monday morning, in an announcement made by Binance CEO Changpeng 'CZ' Zhao, the exchange revealed it will now be donating 100% of listing fees to charity.

CZ hopes this change will "further push Binance's charity intiatives" and help increase the use of blockchain in humanitarian efforts.

To learn more about Binance's charity initiatives, visit here.

Pick a number, any number

Binance's listing policy has been controversial in the past as all projects propose their own listing fee.

This means that Binance was encouraged to list projects that had more funds, regardless of project quality.

Transparency wins

Now, according to the announcement, while projects can still dictate how much they are willing to donate to charity, Binance will also make the listing fees transparent.

By doing so, Binance is not only encouraging a fairer listing review process but is also giving projects an idea of what they should propose as their own listing fee.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

Over 9,000 people have signed a petition that wants XRP to become the official cryptocurrency of the 2020 Summer Olympics.
The mayor of Seoul plans to invest $100 million over the next five years to develop the South Korean capital as a smart city powered by blockchain.
American Economist Nouriel Roubini has stated that cryptocurrency is more centralized than North Korea as miners, exchanges, and developers wield power.

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