Thursday, February 14, 2019

Dimon's new baby 👶

February 14, 2019

What You Need to Know About J.P. Morgan's New "JPM Coin"

Thursday morning, CNBC released details of the first cryptocurrency created by a U.S. bank: JPM Coin.

The new digital asset created by JP Morgan will help the financial giant move some of the $6 trillion it moves daily through its wholesale payments business.

All in on blockchain

Outside of the faster payments, engineers at the bank have a much larger vision for the new creation.

Umar Farooq, JP's Head of Blockchain, explained:

"The applications are frankly quite endless; anything where you have a distributed ledger which involves corporations or institutions can use this."

Three main parts for now

But Farooq knows that the world is not ready for such wide blockchain applications just yet.

He does, however, note three important use cases JPM Coin has right now:

International payments for corporate clients
Instant settlement for securities transactions
Treasury services

In the future, the team hopes JPM Coin can be used for micropayments on internet connected devices.

Now, though, the team is focused on capturing market share with its first-mover advantage.

ICO

The Current ICO Market is Still Larger than the Start of 2017

According to data from CoinShedule, last month brought in $291.6 million capital for initial coin offerings (ICO).

The number falls massively below $5.8 billion raised in March in 2018 but still stands almost 3 times larger than the $81.8 million raised in April 2017.

Moreover, the number of ICOs in January continued to decline from previous months as projects either:

Hold off on funding
Look for capital elsewhere

Another trend to note

Outside of ICO funding, projects are finding new places to call home.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, many ICOs are opting to stay away from United States regulations as they would rather launch in more welcoming places like Switzerland.

Tough money

Though the ICO environment is still hotter than it was in the beginning of 2017, it's tough money.

According to research from GreySpark Partners, nearly half of all ICOs last year failed to raise any funds at all.

Still though, popular projects, like BitTorrent's BTT $7 million token sale late last month, have shown strength in the beaten market.

REGULATION

CFTC Official Argues Against SEC Bitcoin ETF Disapproval

In a panel discussion alongside SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce, CFTC official Brian Quintenz called the SEC out for its reasoning against approving a Bitcoin ETF.

Previously, the SEC has turned down Bitcoin ETFs time and time again for their low resistance to price manipulation.

While the CFTC also has such standards, Quintenz explained that any product with enough resources could be manipulated.

Quintenz continued to explain ways to avoid manipulation:

"There are mathematical ways through a settlement index to design a contract where even if there isn't a lot of liquidity on one exchange referenced, the index itself is not readily susceptible to manipulation."

BITS

But wait, there's more...

🚀 Chinese tech giant Baidu launched its Baidu Blockchain Engine (BBE) to help facilitate decentralized application development.
🕵️‍♂️ Five wallets have been tied to QuadrigaCX after an in-depth analysis posted on Reddit.
💰 Coinbase just paid $30,000 to a hacker that found a critical software bug.

MEME