Market Watch | Bitcoin | $16,304 | 7 day: +6.6% | | Ethereum | $456 | 7 day: +2% | | All crypto | $465b | 7 day: +5.4% | | Bitcoin dominance | 65% | 7 day: +0.6% | Prices as of 9 a.m. EST
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 Xi Jinping Entranceway Xi Jinping has reiterated his absolute control of China's financial system: Wall Street Journal reporters confirmed that Xi personally canceled Ant Group's $37b IPO, which would have been the largest in world history. Xi also controls substantial aspects of bitcoin and the world's cryptocurrency industry. More: - China has the most cryptocurrency miners by far and owns over 60% of bitcoin's hashpower. (Readers can check here for live dominance of China-based bitcoin mining pools BTC.com, F2Pool, AntPool, Huobi, Poolin, BTC.top, ViaBTC, and Bixin.)
- China is also the world's leading sovereign investor in quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and theoretical mathematics - industries that underpin all forms of cryptography, including bitcoin's security.
- Writer's note: For any readers interested in my full thoughts about Chinese bitcoin dominance, see this prior edition of Inside Cryptocurrency.
- This story continues in part 2, below...
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Stopping history's biggest IPO with one phone call: - Xi personally halted Ant Group's IPO, suspending it just days prior to its listing.
- Ant's billionaire shareholder, Jack Ma of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), offended Xi. Ma has described state-run Chinese banks as "pawnshops," criticizing their high levels of collateral. Ant specializes in microloans and small business lines of credit that undercut the collateralization requirements and social credits score of China's state-run lending facilities.
- Ma has quietly voiced some concerns about the Chinese government. Even minor statements were consolidated into a Chinese government report on Ma and delivered to Xi personally, outlining the party's unease with Ma's success and growing influence.
- The report particularly highlighted concerns about Ma's speech on Oct. 24, 2020.
- Xi directed regulators to investigate, stopping Ant's listing on Nov. 3, 2020.
More details: - Ant's dual listing on the Hong Kong, Shanghai, and U.S. stock exchanges could have fetched more than $34b.
- Another report indicates that the People's Bank of China (PBoC) expects that China's upcoming central bank digital currency could compete with Jack Ma's Alipay, an online payment platform, at a time when China is struggling with its banking sector and financial uncertainties.
- China processes $8t worth of mobile banking transactions per quarter. Alipay controls 55% of China's mobile banking market and Tencent's WeChat accounts for 39%.
Wall Street Journal 
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 Decentralized Finance (DeFi) project Akropolis (AKRO) lost $2m to hackers. Different hackers also stole $6m from another project, Value DeFi. The attacks resembled losses at other DeFi projects, including Harvest Finance (FARM) and bZx (BZRX). Vulnerable to individual hackers, not decentralized - Akropolis (AKRO) admitted the losses on Nov. 12, 2020, saying hackers had exploited the protocol through its sister project, Curve (CRV).
- Hackers exploited the Curve Y and Curve sUSD "savings pools" and withdrew funds worth approximately $2m in Dai (DAI) stablecoins, according to a Twitter admission.
- The price of AKRO fell by 20% in the immediate aftermath. It is now 30% down from its 7-day high and 97% down from its all-time high.
- The hacker executed a series of $50,000 attacks to empty the savings pools.
- The attackers stole 2.03m DAI tokens from Akropolis savings pools and then transferred them to another wallet.
- The Akropolis team has published a post-mortem, detailing the effects of the attack and how they have responded to it.
Shady dealings: - Allegedly based in the tax haven of Gibraltar, Akropolis stated that CertiK, a security company that offers blockchain audits and hacker-resistant smart contracts, audited the affected protocols twice before.
- CertiK also audited the bZx lending protocol, which has been hacked three times this year.
- The Akropolis team indicated that hackers utilized a reentry attack and dYdX flash loan origination for the exploitation.
- Blockchain security company, Quanstamp, revealed that unknown hackers involved in the bZx protocol's February incident also used the same flash loan method.
- The CEO of Akropolis, Ana Andrianova, dismissed similarities between yesterday's incident and a flash loan economic attack suffered by another troubled DeFi project, Harvest Finance, on Oct. 26, 2020.
CoinTelegraph
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 Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov Russia's Ministry of Finance has amended cryptocurrency laws, threatening even higher prison times. - According to the new amendment, cryptocurrency owners could face three years imprisonment for failure to report or pay cryptocurrency taxes.
- Failure to report cryptocurrency transactions over USD$585,000 (45m rubles) could result in three years of confinement.
- In a previous proposal by the Russian Ministry of Finance, Vladimir Putin asked for disclosure of all cryptocurrency transactions totaling USD$7,800 (600,000 rubles). The new proposal would require disclosing all annual transactions of just USD$1,300 (100,000 rubles).
- The amended laws would require digital asset owners and over-the-counter (OTC) brokers to report information about cryptocurrency transactions to RosFinMonitoring, controlled by Putin.
Coindesk
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 Bitcoin ATM installations have increased 85% this year, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. - Worldwide, the number of bitcoin automated teller machines (ATM) installations has increased YTD to a total of 11,834.
- The coronavirus pandemic has benefited bitcoin this year, with an impressive price rally past $16,000 and growth of interest in contactless payments.
- Users send a stunning 88% of U.S. bitcoin ATM purchases offshore.
Coindesk
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QUICK HITS: - Bitcoin Cash has hard-forked, as scheduled. It almost lost PayPal's listing in the process. PayPal and its BitLicense holder, Paxos, refused to speak to Coindesk regarding the fork.
- Tezos (XTZ) has completed its Delphi upgrade which has decreased most smart contract transaction fees by 75%. We have covered this troubled project here and here at Inside Cryptocurrency.
- Chainalysis, a blockchain forensic intelligence company that assisted the U.S. government's capture of over $1b worth of Silk Road digital assets, announced an "Asset Realization" program. Chainalysis will now help government agencies and insolvency practitioners handle, store, monitor, and sell seized assets in compliance with court orders.
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- Uniswap (UNI) community members discussed the imminent conclusion of UNI farming, expected on Nov. 17, 2020, an event that could free up to $1.1b worth of locked up ether (ETH).
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Alexander Huls is a Toronto-based journalist. He has contributed articles about true crime and pop culture to The New York Times, Men's Health, Popular Mechanics, and other fine publications. Follow him on Twitter @alxhuls. | |
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