Ripple's big leap / Crypto ignorance = confidence / Why France, Germany don't like Libra

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Presented by Subscribe | View in browser Good afternoon fellow Bitcoiners! Today's issue of Inside Bitcoin has a diversity of offerings I think you'll like, including why nations are getting the jitters about Facebook's Libra. There's also some interesting news about Litecoin, Binance, EOS, and Ripple. Enjoy! And, need I say it? Don't forget our Twitter Bitcoiners list. -- Allen, guest editor       Market Watch: Of the top 10 by market cap, only Stellar is up, and it's the #6 biggest gainer of the day. XRP is back down, the seventh biggest loser, after a rally earlier in the week. Bitcoin: $9,901 (⬇️ 3.09%) // $177.6 billion market cap. Ethereum: $209.80 (⬇️ 2.01%) // $22.6 billion market cap. XRP: $0.29 (⬇️ 7.55%) // $12.5 billion market cap. Bitcoin Cash: $310.50 (⬇️ 5.52%) // $5.59 billion market cap. Top 100 Winner: ABBC Coin: $0.17 (⬆️ 14.25%) // $98.8 million market cap. Top 100 Loser: Cosmos: $3.00 (⬇️ 10.44%) // $571.6 million market cap. Prices are as of 12:25 p.m. EDT.       1. Ripple gained 17.16 percent in 24 hours to jump over $0.30 per coin on Wednesday, although it has retreated slighty so far today. Over the course of three days, Ripple's price increased 22 percent. Speculation about the BITMAX cryptocurrency exchange going live is one suggested reason for the sudden leap. Another suggested reason is a rumor of Ripple partnering with Coinbase. Forbes likened it to a threat of a hard fork, which Inside Bitcoin reported on three days ago. -- CRYPTONEWSZ Why do you think Ripple rallied this week? Email me at allen.taylor@inside.com and let me know.       2. The less people know about crypto the more positive they are about its future, says Dutch bank ING. In a survey of more than 14,000 people, ING showed the people largely misunderstand some basic tenants of cryptocurrency. For example, the study found that 21 percent of people thought the cryptocurrency industry has a controlling body, which is untrue. Another 51 percent said "most" stores accept cryptocurrency payments. The misinformation, though, did not stop those surveyed from having a positive outlook on cryptocurrency, something ING ties to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias known as "illusory superiority" where a person overestimates their lack of competence. -- THE NEXT WEB       A MESSAGE FROM AIRBNB Earn money by sharing your space. Millions of travelers stayed in an Airbnb last year. Turn your extra space into extra money. Learn More 3. France and Germany are reportedly afraid Facebook's Libra could threaten their national monetary policies. The two nations have issued a joint statement saying they'll block it and create their own national cryptocurrencies. The Reserve Bank of India has also criticized and rejected cryptocurrencies. In July, President Donald Trump tweeted that he is not a fan of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies and said they aren't money. The statement was in response to Libra. Computerworld quoted Gartner fellow David Furlonger as saying nations are concerned about the potential implications of Libra on their monetary policies, citing Facebook's clout among consumers. China is the largest nation to actually take action against cryptocurrencies and says it is close to launching a central bank digital currency. -- COMPUTERWORLD       4. EOS, the seventh largest blockchain by market capitalization, is losing ground with its support base because it may be too centralized, says CoinDesk. The majority of entities governing the blockchain are located in China, which hasn't been too friendly to crypto. DApps developers are reporting no income from their efforts and one of them publicly pulled back from plans to be a block producer. Eugene Luzgin of EOS Tribe said he couldn't make money from maintaining the blockchain without EOS whale, people with large holdings of EOS, support. The top 21 block producers are earning income while the next 50 or so earn "meaningful revenue," CoinDesk reports. Many others don't quality for rewards. -- COINDESK       A MESSAGE FROM AUDIBLE Start listening with a 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook plus two Audible Originals are free. Explore all the ways listening on Audible can help improve mind, body, and soul with entertainment, information, and inspiration. Sign up at audible.com/insidenews for your 30-day Audible free trial.   5. Binance is adding Monero, Zcash, and Dash to its list of cryptocurrencies for lenders. Annualized interest rates will be 3.5 percent with a two-week lending period that begins September 20. Maximum subscriptions for Dash and Monero will be 30,000 coins. For Zcash, it's first-come first-serve. The lending limits are 300 coins per individual for Monero and Dash and 600 coins per individual for Zcash. The crypto exchange is entering phase five of its crypto lending program, which started on August 28. -- CRYPTO ECONOMY       6. Bankless called ETH a reserve asset for money proocols. A reserve asset is an asset held by a financial institution in order to back up the value of other assets. Quoting Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, he said "It's the only fully trustless asset that can be used as collateral for a lot of decentralized finance applications." In other words, ETH can be used for collateral backing in lending transactions, security deposits, and used to balance transactions on a ledger. He said ETH has an intrinsic utility. One example where ETH is used as a reserve asset is how it backs up DAI, the money protocol for Maker, which uses $316 million of ETH to mint $86 million of DAI, he said. In other words, 1.3 percent of the current ETH supply backs DAI as a reserve asset. While real world assets can be used as a collateral for cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance, what Buterin and Bankless are saying is that ETH is the only trustless asset that can be used that way. -- BANKLESS       7. The Litecoin Foundation selected crypto lender Celsius Network as its preferred crypto wallet. The Foundation will allocate an undisclosed sum to the Network while Litecoin holders can get up to 10.53 percent per annum in returns. They can also take out loans at an APR as low as 4.95 percent. The Litecoin Foundation has also partnered with the Miami Dolphins to be the football club's official cryptocurrency. -- COINDESK       8. Bitcoin's mining difficulty is expected to grow 60 percent this quarter after growing 42 percent per quarter for three years, according to Kevin Rooke. From May until today, the computer power to mine bitcoin has doubled, says Marty's Bent. What this means in non-technical terms is that it is getting harder to mine bitcoin over time. Bitcoin mining difficult is calculated based on how long it takes to discover 2016 blocks compared to the time it took to discover the previous 2016 blocks. If those blocks were found faster than the previous 2016, the mining difficulty is raised. If slower, the difficulty is lowered. -- MARTY'S BENT       9. Raven Protocol is joining the Binance Chain Association. The association is an association of blockchain projects and their founders/CEOs who have migrated successfully to Binance Chain and are now listed on the Binance decentralized exchange. Raven joined that company this morning and boasts of being one of only a few projects that have issued their entire token supply on Binance Chain. -- MEDIUM / RAVEN PROTOCOL       10. Coinbase legal counsel Dorothy DeWitt has been appointed to be the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight director. She'll be responsible for supervising derivative platforms and evaluating new platform-traded products. -- REUTERS       Inside Bitcoin is written and curated by award-winning journalist and former newspaper editor Allen Taylor. Recognized by the Dallas Bar Association three times for excellence in legal reporting, Allen has since gone on to author, edit, or ghostwrite several white papers, books and e-books, and over 10,000 blog posts for clients ranging from small business owners to global management companies and corporate executives. Learn more about him on LinkedIn. Editor: David Stegon (senior editor at Inside, whose reporting experience includes cryptocurrency and technology).       Ad Earn money by sharing your space. List your place now. 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