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FACEBOOK'S FOCUS: The ideal market for Facebook’s new libra cryptocurrency might be the southeast Asian country of Indonesia. Residents there have the world’s highest rate of Facebook post engagement; nearly 10 percent of residents already own some cryptocurrency; and the country has the world’s fourth-highest number of Facebook users. Pang Xue Kai, co-founder of Tokocrypto, a local exchange, told CoinDesk that “if Facebook’s Libra can address the [local] issues, it has the potential to succeed.” And indeed, the libra white paper was published in Bahasa Indonesia, the language spoken there. CoinDesk’s Leigh Cuen takes a deep dive into what Facebook’s venture into fintech might look like. Full story
BEYOND MONEY: Facebook announced its goal of creating an entire financial ecosystem when it unveiled its libra white paper last week. However, buried in the white paper were two sentences hinting that the social media giant’s ambitions go beyond money and extend into the concept of decentralized identity. “We believe that decentralized and portable identity is a prerequisite to financial inclusion and competition,” the paper states, indicating that the company might be taking on the issue of proving identity online. Full story
DIRECT DEPOSIT: Payments startup Square is slowly letting users deposit bitcoin directly to their Cash App accounts. The app previously allowed customers to purchase, sell and withdraw bitcoin, but they could not deposit bitcoin. It’s unclear how long the company has been rolling out this new feature. According to podcaster Marty Bent, it began at least as early as last week. However, not all Cash App users have the ability to deposit bitcoin just yet. The move is only the latest for Square, which has been investing heavily into the bitcoin ecosystem: the company brought in $65.5 million in revenue from bitcoin during the first quarter of 2019 alone. Full story
ANOTHER ETF: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is opening the comment period for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by investments in bitcoin and U.S. Treasury securities. Filed by NYSE Arca and Wilshire Phoenix Funds, the ETF would offer shares in an investment trust. The company has already lined up Coinbase’s custody wing to store its bitcoin, with $200 million in insurance against theft. Parties interested in commenting have 21 days from the file’s publication in the Federal Register to file their submissions. Full story
GOX SUIT: Jed McCaleb, the founder and former owner of the now-defunct Mt Gox crypto exchange, is being sued by former traders, who claim he was aware of safety issues at the exchange during January 2011 safety breaches, but took no action to rectify the situation. Instead, the suit alleges, “Rather than inform the public that these users were not refunded, nor stay to repair the security issues, McCaleb sold a majority of his interest in Mt. Gox to Mark Karpeles.” Karpeles took over the exchange in March 2011, filing for bankruptcy three years later after the infamous major hack of the platform. Full story
MAJORITY SHARE: On June 25, bitcoin’s price rose above $12,000 briefly. Perhaps more notably, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap also rose above 60 percent in terms of dominance rate for the first time in 17 months. The dominance rate, or how much of the overall cryptocurrency market cap is held by bitcoin, indicates that while broader confidence in the crypto market has yet to return, investors are still buying bitcoin. Full story |
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| BUBBLE BEGINNING? Bitcoin's price jumped to 17-month highs above $13,000 earlier today and could be set to surge further, as the Mayer multiple – a ratio of price against the 200-day moving average – has risen above 2.40. That’s a level that marked the beginning of FOMO (fear of missing out) rallies in both 2013 and 2017. Full story |
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| TELECOM BLOCKCHAIN: IBM, Orbs, ConsenSys and R3 are working together to provide the technology for a blockchain-based telecommunications platform, according to Forbes. Announced Monday at the ITW Global Leaders’ Forum, the Communications Blockchain Network is expected to go live in the coming months and will be overseen by a governing consortium which includes A1 Telekom Austria, China Telecom Global, Colt Technology Services, Deutsche Telekom Global, IDT, Orange, PCCW Global, Tata Communications, Telefonica, Telstra and TNZI. The network will help connect providers with various business vendors, according to the piece. |
WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER  |
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