Friday, January 11, 2019

Well this is Aug-kward 😳

January 11, 2019

Augur is Allegedly Overestimating its Market Size

With a market capitalization of $102 million, Augur is one of the more well known decentralized apps on the market.

Its decentralized prediction market it had been building for 2 years successfully launched in July, but now its running into a new problem - finding users.

Overestimating usage

Apparently, while the project reported $2 million of Ethereum circulating in its market in its weekly roundup, the number is actually closer to $100,000.

According to Alex Sunnarborg, the analyst who found the discrepancy, Augur is including predictions that have already ended to pump its numbers.

Not the first time

Though Augur hasn't commented on the matter, this isn't the first time critics have called out its weak user base.

Just last month, analyst Jimmy Song pointed out that the project pulls a measly 25 active users per day.

He continued to say that for a project with a $102 million market capitalization, that's a massive amount of value out for each user on its platform.

Regardless, the project still stands as one of the most successful initial coin offerings (ICO) after it brought a real working product to the markets.

ETF

New Bitcoin ETF Application Submitted by Bitwise

Newest ETF Application

Bitwise Asset Management is the latest company to apply for the listing of a Bitcoin ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The proposed fund is titled the "Bitwise Bitcoin Total Return Index", and would track the value of bitcoin plus any "meaningful hard forks."

This proposal differs from the others because it would derive its value from spot prices of various exchange and physically settled futures contracts, instead of cash-settled futures contracts.

Bitwise global head of Exchange-Traded Funds John Hyland stated "we are optimistic that 2019 should be the year that a bitcoin ETF launches" and also said:

"We believe the crypto trading ecosystem has evolved in significant ways in the past year … Having a regulated bank or trust company hold physical assets of a fund has been the standard under U.S. fund regulation for the last 80 years, and we believe that is now possible with bitcoin."

SEC's current stance

The SEC has previously stated that that the custody and price manipulation issues need to be figured out before an ETF will be approved.

A decision will be made on the appeal of the last batch of denies ETFs by February 27th, 2019. On that date, according to the SEC rules, the commission must make a decision to approve or deny - it can't be delayed again.

However, it is uncertain how the current government shutdown may affect this delay.

REGULATION

Canada's Elections Agency Asks for Help on How to Handle Crypto

Canada's regulatory agency that oversees the nation's elections, Elections Canada, has requested opinions relating to how cryptocurrency donations should be handled.

Elections Canada is preparing for the next election cycle, which is set to occur in the next few months and set a deadline of January 21st for crypto-related comments.

At the same time the agency asked for help, it also published an interpretation note to guide political parties on how to handle cryptocurrency donations.

An excerpt from the interpretation note reads:

SPECIAL PROJECT

In celebration of Bitcoin's 10th birthday...

After months of brainstorming, planning and designing, we are so excited to launch something special from a fruitful collaboration between Unbankd and Abra. We both believe education is an extremely important piece to the crypto puzzle. So, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the launch of Bitcoin's network, we created an illustrated book that breaks Bitcoin down in three lucid parts:

🕵 The Beginning: Get to know the foundation that was laid up until the launch of Bitcoin!

🎢 The Rise: Ride through the ups and downs of the past decade on the Bitcoin rollercoaster.

🔮 The Future: Envision a global economy with true economic freedom made possible by Bitcoin.

We hope you love reading this as much as we loved making it! After you're done enjoying it, send it to those relatives that were asking you about Bitcoin over the holidays. Or maybe those friends who don't quite get why you talk about crypto all the time. Who knows, maybe this will end up as a book on your coffee table one day.

CHECK IT OUT 🚀

BITS

But wait, there's more...

👀 Circle's CEO is calling for more regulation clarity to help unlock crypto markets.
🇰🇷 7 out of 21 exchanges have passed South Korea's new government security audit.
🚀 NASA is looking to use blockchain technology to secure flight data.

MEME