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POOL PARTY: Cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain is locked in a legal battle with three former employees who started a rival mining pool. The owner of BTC.com, the world’s top bitcoin mining pool by hash rate, Bitmain is suing the co-founders of Poolin, the seventh-largest pool, for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement – and it’s demanding $4.3 million in damages from one of them. For their part, the three Poolin co-founders say they were no longer bound by the agreement, claiming Bitmain invalidated their contracts by failing to pay compensation on time as agreed. Full story
WRONGLY BLAMED? Russian hackers, not North Korean, may be the bad actors behind what was probably the biggest ever theft from a cryptocurrency exchange. Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun reports that virus variants known to be linked to Russian hackers have been found on employee computers at the Tokyo-based Coincheck exchange. Coincheck suffered a breach in January 2018 that resulted in the loss of 500 million NEM tokens worth around $530 million at the time – an amount even bigger than that lost by Mt. Gox. Past reports have linked North Korea with the breach. Full story
CRYPTO CHIEF: BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has taken over as CEO of his current company, Chia Network, CoinDesk has learned, while former CEO and co-founder Ryan Singer has stepped away from the company to focus on family priorities. Cohen is viewed as a pioneer of the decentralized internet for creating the BitTorrent filesharing protocol. In August 2017, he left BitTorrent to found Chia, an alternative to bitcoin created to be a less energy-intensive cryptocurrency. Full story
DIGITAL RUBLE? The head of Russia’s central bank has said the institution could one day launch its own digital currency. Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina told a student conference that, while such a project “cannot be realized immediately,” various central banks, including Bank of Russia, are investigating the possibility, TASS reports. Key to the utility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), she said, is that the technology must ensure “reliability and continuity.” Another question mark is whether citizens are ready to leave cash behind. Full story
DR DOOM: Noted economist and cryptocurrency skeptic Nouriel Roubini has said Facebook’s soon-to-be unveiled cryptocurrency, reportedly called GlobalCoin, is not really a crypto. In a conversation with CoinDesk, Roubini (also nicknamed “Dr. Doom” for his financial predictions) said: “It has nothing to do with blockchain. Fully private, controlled, centralized, verified and authorized by a small number of permissioned nodes. So what is crypto or blockchain about it? None.” Full story
APPROVAL HALT? The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the self-regulatory organization responsible for approving broker-dealer applications in the U.S., has held off on doing so for some 40 blockchain startups over the past 12-14 months, numerous individuals told CoinDesk. It is not certain whether FINRA is waiting for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which oversees it, to provide greater clarity on how tokens fall under securities law; whether the SEC has imposed a moratorium; or if the applications are missing details. However, what’s clear is that these startups cannot provide services or products related to tokens that are also securities (or may be securities) unless this state of affairs changes. Full story |
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FACEBOOK PUMP? Bitcoin's rise to 13-month highs above $9,300 over the weekend was likely fueled by the hype surrounding Facebook's imminent cryptocurrency unveiling and other factors. Long-term technical charts indicate bulls are in control and the doors have been opened for a test of the psychological resistance at $10,000. BTC could, though, see "sell the fact" trading following Facebook's announcement, expected Tuesday. Full story |
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| YE OLDE PROBLEM: While indeed blockchain and distributed ledger tech can likely save billions as financial firms avoid the need to stump up funds to clearinghouses as margin to ensure instant trades, there’s a big problem, according to a report from consultants Greenwich Associates. As reported by the FT, the firm says turning to blockchain systems means that companies will have to pre-fund all trades before they are executed. This is reminiscent of the medieval state of Venice, which in 1584, ordered that all trades must be funded in advance after a number of companies went bankrupt due to high-risk accounting techniques. “From the standpoint of secure, accessible books and records, DLT represents an important step forward. From a funding perspective, it is a gigantic step backward,” says the report.. |
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