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PERSIAN POWER: While some bitcoin miners are estimated to have shut down hundreds of thousands of machines or more, others are still out there looking for alternative ways to keep operating. And Iran, with its extremely cheap electricity is proving an attractive option – as far as costs go, anyway.
The process of setting up shop in the nation is proving to be anything but simple, with the legal gray areas, the risk of sanctions and questionable border controls. Importing miners to the country is a fraught process, one miner explained. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military that controls the border, can just choose to confiscate the machines.
There are also concerns about U.S. sanctions. As a result, potential investor Chinese millionaire Chandler Hongcai Guo explained, large companies are hesitant to move to Iran.
On the other hand, Iran does provide extremely cheap electricity – prices are often below $0.01 per kilowatt-hour, compared to anywhere from $0.02 to $0.04 per kilowatt-hour in China. And at least one firm told CoinDesk that it has shifted 2,000 miners to the country already. Full Story
WAR CHEST: Jesse Powell, CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, has told CoinDesk that his company is seeking investors for a fundraising round valuing the firm at $4 billion.
"There is presently a limited time opportunity available to a very small, select number of clients to purchase Kraken shares" with a $100,000 minimum, he told CoinDesk via email.
Kraken has not yet determined how much it will look to raise, with any final number depending on how much interest investors show. The amount of shares is "relatively limited," and the exchange will close its offer on December 16.
“We’re profitable and sitting on significant reserves so fundraising is not a necessity, however, further aligning interests with our top clients while building a war chest for acquisitions in the bear market presents a win-win opportunity,” the firm said in an email to potential investors. Full Story
ETH UPGRADE: Ethereum's most popular client, Go-ethereum (Geth), has just locked the network's upcoming Constantinople hard fork into its code. The upgrade, if enacted by users, would bring a number of additional features to the network.
Ethereum developers proposed activating Constantinople at block 7,080,000 earlier this month, after postponing activation from the upgrade's original November timeline due to bugs. As a result, if users adopt the new code, Constantinople will go live between January 14 and 18 next year.
The upgrade seeks a variety of design changes, with the most notable reducing ethereum's block reward from 3 ETH to 2 ETH. It will also push the so-called "difficulty bomb," a feature aimed at promoting upgrades, by 18 months. Full Story |
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 Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper set the foundation for the crypto industry. Ten years in, individuals surveyed by CoinDesk have differing views about whether to change it. A plurality of 43 percent suggested that the original Satoshi White Paper should never be changed. However, if you add up the other segments with varying degrees of demand for change, you observe actually a majority of 57 percent indicating that they would either now or at some point consider altering it. Only 8 percent feel that it's necessary to change the White Paper "now" compared to the 49 percent who said maybe or a possible change in the future. Learn more about the crypto market in Q3 across price, network, exchange, developer, and social fundamental metrics in our recently released State of Blockchains report here. |
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| RAY OF HOPE? A recent "inverted hammer" candle on bitcoin's 3-day chart offers a hint of a potential price bounce to $4,000 or higher. That would only come to fruition if prices find acceptance above key resistance at $3,633, though, and bear in mind the overall mood is still bearish. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST FORTUNE: The New York Department of Financial Services unveiled its landmark cryptocurrency regulatory framework, the so-called “BitLicense,” more than three years ago. In that time, only 10 companies have been approved to receive it, out of 36 total that have applied, reports Fortune. However, that does not mean 26 startups were rejected – rather, Freedom of Information Act requests have found that only five were rejected, with the remaining 21 are still awaiting word. What may be more startling, however, is the low rate of applications. The agency last disclosed the number of applications it had received in mid-2016, when the number was 26. In the two and a half years since, it has apparently only received 10 more. While NYDFS has been slow to approve projects, it has sped up the process in recent months. If it continues at its new rate, it may approve as many as 12 projects in 2019, though if it sticks to its current average, that number may fall to as few as three. THE REST ZDNET: A massive effort to compromise ethereum wallets and mining equipments is underway, ZDNet reports. Malicious actors are scanning for devices with a vulnerable port exposed online which, if exploited, can allow an attacker to move a victim's ethereum funds. The vulnerability, port 8545, was first disclosed years ago by Ethereum developers, who warned users to ensure their mining equipment was either password-protected, or had a firewall to filter traffic. While some miner manufacturers and wallet developers have taken steps to protect their projects from the vulnerability, many devices remain exposed. Attacks grew during the crypto bull market, but even with prices down, scans are still occurring. According to ZDNet, nearly 4,700 devices, including Geth miners and Parity wallets, currently expose their 8545 port. QUARTZ: Separatists in Southern Cameroons seeking independence for the self-proclaimed “Federal Republic of Ambazonia” have launched a bond in the form of a cryptocurrency, according to Quartz. Called AmbaCoin, 100,000,000 of the ethereum-based tokens have been put on pre-sale at a price equivalent to 25 U.S. cents as of Nov. 10. With 20,082 already sold in the early offering, a public ICO is slated for Dec. 24. AmbaCoin and a planned new fiat currency – claimed to be backed by the region’s resources – offer the separatists the advantages that they will be able to seek direct investment from outside the region without obstacles from the Cameroons government and distance the would-be state from the country’s official currency, the Central African franc. |
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