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WE'LL WAIT: Neither VanEck nor SoilidX was perturbed by the SEC's announcement of a further delay to making a decison on their proposed bitcoin ETF.
Speaking to CoinDesk, Gabor Gurbacs, the director of digital asset strategy for VanEck, stated that he is undeterred by this move by the SEC. Echoing his sentiments, the CEO of SolidX, Dan Gallancy, said that this decision had no effect on his outlook over the proposal.
What sets this proposal apart, from the nine others that the SEC rejected only to later review, is the fact that this ETF would hold a repository of actual bitcoins unlike the others which had proposed to hold bitcoin futures.
Now it's all a waiting game as the SEC's current deadline to come to a decision on the proposal is 180 days after filing. Which will be right before Christmas, unless the agency files one last extension. Full Story
DEEPER DIVE: Running more than 400 pages, the Bitmain IPO prospectus has given the crypto community a wealth of new information to digest about one of the industry's most powerful companies.
According to the document, the manufacturing of cryptocurrency mining equipment has been highly profitable for the company, which logged a 328 percent compound annual growth rate in sales from its start in 2015.
Notably, the prospectus reveals that profit growth has lagged revenue growth, implying that the company is incurring higher manufacturing costs or it is re-investing money in the business. Looking at the numbers, we see that both explanations are plausible.
The document also notes that "the fluctuation of certain cryptocurrencies caused the anticipated selling price of certain mining hardware below their cost." Full Story
THE APOSTATE: Angus Champion de Crespigny, a former EY consultant who advised enterprises on blockchains, discusses his thoughts on permissioned ledgers, once widely touted as the way forward for business.
In a CoinDesk op-ed today, he explains how his outlook on permissioned blockchains has changed, and questions if at all they provide a real business benefit.
The way de Crespigny sees it, most people in the business world seem to define blockchain quite like they define distributed databases. And if there isn’t a difference in the way it’s defined, blockchain shouldn’t be its own concept at all.
He goes on to explain three other major factors to consider when thinking about permissioned blockchains: differentiation, process impact, and necessity. Full Story |
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 Recently, a bug affecting Bitcoin Core versions 0.14.0 to 0.16.2 was discovered after lying unseen for two years. It could have been exploited to print more bitcoins than the 21 million fixed supply, and the worst case scenario was runaway inflation. The bug was fixed in version 0.16.3 released on September 18. However, the bitcoin community is not updating in lock step. About 30 percent of nodes are running the new version while the overwhelming majority, at 70 percent, are not and are thus vulnerable. Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr suggests that any Bitcoin Core implementation before 0.16.3 is at risk of disrupting the network. It’s important to note that not all nodes publicly disclose information. The actual percentage of nodes that have updated could be higher or lower. For more research insights check out the CoinDesk Research section here. |
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| | HANGING IN THERE: Bitcoin's battle to cross over into bullish territory is proving to be quite difficult.. If the cryptocurrency can stay above $6,300, then it has a chance, technical analysis indicates. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST:
FORTUNE: This piece profiles the "first billion dollar company to come out the bitcoin boom," Coinbase and its CEO Brian Armstrong.
In what can be looked at as a constant adrenaline rush, life as an employee at Coinbase is described as "risky," with criminals looking for the location of cryptowallets.
Armstrong got into the crypto space in 2009, like many others, after reading Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper describing the theory behind bitcoins and blockchains.
Wanting to simplify the process of acquiring bitcoin, Armstrong dreamt up Coinbase, now one of the space's bona fide unicorns.
THE REST:
THE BLAZE: Amid a tense atmosphere regarding the upcoming mid-term elections, this conservative-leaning news outlet reports that West Virginia has rolled out a blockchain-based app for absentee voting.
State Secretary Mac Warner spearheaded this project to "fix the problem" that West Virginians living out of state faced each election season.
But some security experts were quite skeptical of "moblie voting," with one saying, paper ballots are “absolutely the safest way” to be assured of election results."
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The business newspaper frames the Bitmain IPO as "one of the first major instances where the traditional capital markets and the newer cryptocurrency world will collide."
The Journal also notes that this IPO comes at a rough time for both the cryptocurrency and public equity markets.
"For a company of this size like Bitmain, it's probably going to get a better valuation on a huge deal like this in the traditional markets than in an ICO, especially in today's market," one asset manager is quoted as saying.
BLOOMBERG: On a slightly disturbing note, Bloomberg reports that crypto exchanges could possibly be "offering incentives that encourage users to inflate volumes" of their transactions.
This comes after BitForex reported transaction volumes comprable to that of London's Stock Exchange.
Claiming no foul play, BitForex explained that it engages in so-called transaction mining to increase its volumes, although Bloomberg notes this practice is also looked down upon. |
We've launched our first-ever podcast, "Late Confirmation," a digest of top stories in the blockchain world, delivered daily from the team at CoinDesk and sponsored by the Oxford Blockchain Programme. |
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