Law & privacy

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February 14, 2020 HOLIDAY NOTICE: Blockchain Bites will publish next on Tuesday, Feb. 18. Happy Presidents Day to our US readers. And Happy Valentine's Day to all. _________________________________________________________________ ILLEGAL MIXING: After Larry Harmon's arrest for allegedly participating in a money-laundering conspiracy worth more than $300 million in cryptocurrency, the Department of Justice has said mixing, the process of obfuscating transactions on a blockchain, is illegal. “This indictment underscores that seeking to obscure virtual currency transactions in this way is a crime," Brian Benczkowski, a DOJ Assistant Attorney General, said. Full story $1M MINIMUM: Cryptocurrency investment firm Polychain Capital is raising $200 million for a second fund aimed at venture investing, that’s $25 million more than its first fund. According to an investor slide deck obtained by CoinDesk, the new fund opened at the beginning of 2020 and is accepting minimum investments of $1 million for up to three years. Full story TOUGH TALK: Tensions with Iran may be behind U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s cryptocurrency compliance comments on Wednesday. The New York Times reported the Trump administration “has expressed growing concern” that this technology is being used to “evade American sanctions on countries like Iran.” Full story SMALLER GALAXY: Galaxy Digital, the cryptocurrency merchant bank founded by Michael Novogratz, has laid off 13 people, roughly 15 percent of its workforce, sources said. The layoffs occurred across the board in early January, though all of the New York-based firm's business divisions were left intact. Full story BLACK SWANS: The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence is advertising for a post-doc researcher to study what would happen if the U.S. dollar lost its status as the world’s reserve currency. The agency said the research – the first of its kind for the intelligence community’s post-doc program – could help the U.S. prepare for “black swan” events that would threaten the dominance of the dollar. Full story NEW SERIES: CoinDesk Research has launched Monthly Reviews, which feature a series of charts that reveal insight into institutional participation in crypto assets and adoption of fundamental user narratives. Download January’s for free here. GOLDEN PROSPECTS? Bitcoin’s short-term and long-term daily moving averages look likely to converge soon, forming a golden cross, a bullish pattern not seen for nearly 10 months. Based on historical data, that could springboard the recent rally to new highs. That said, there are still some signs of overbought conditions, indicating buyer exhaustion, which could produce a pullback. Full story   MAJOR IMPLICATIONS: With bitcoin holding above $10,000, CoinDesk senior reporter Leigh Cuen joins Markets Daily to discuss the developments and implications in the case alleged against Larry Dean Harmon. Harmon’s case before the DOJ raises pressing questions about developer liability and the future of privacy-concealing transactions in the crypto industry. Listen in WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER   Copyright © 2020 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  Our mailing address is:  250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US  Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

Binance adds 15 fiat options for crypto / OKEx teams up with India's CoinDCX / Coinbase's CEO bank problems

Inside Bitcoin.

Presented by Subscribe | View in browser Market Watch: Most coin prices are in the green today with Bitcoin up by half a percent in 24 hours. Hedera Hashgraph, however, is down by over 20 percent in the same time. Bitcoin: $10,221 (⬆️ 0.69%) // $186.2 billion market cap. Ethereum: $270 (⬆️ 2.92%) // $29.6 billion market cap. XRP: $0.325 (⬆️ 4.17%) // $14.2 billion market cap. Bitcoin Cash: $484 (⬆️ 4.58%) // $8.8 billion market cap. Top 100 Winner: Bytecoin: $0.0004 (⬆️ 33.77%) // $86 million market cap. Top 100 Loser: Hedera Hashgraph: $0.054 (⬇️ 23.21%) // $171 million market cap. Prices are as of 1:35 p.m. ET. 1. Binance has added 15 extra fiat options for purchasing crypto with Visa and Mastercard through Simplex. The additional currencies are the British pound sterling, South Korean won, Russian ruble, Australian dollar, Swiss franc, Czech koruna, Danish krone, Norwegian krone, New Zealand dollar, Polish złoty, Swedish krona, Turkish lira, South African rand, Hungarian forint, and Israeli shekel. To access this, users can visit the Buy Crypto page, which permits the purchase of Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, XRP, Litecoin, and Binance Coin. -BINANCE 2. Crypto exchange OKEx is teaming up with CoinDCX, a crypto trading platform in India, in a bid to tap into the country's "huge potential." As part of the partnership, the two are launching a new crypto futures product, DCXfutures. This will enable users to trade futures contracts with cryptocurrencies with up to 15x leverage trading on coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Cardano, and Tron. Speaking about the partnership, CoinDCX CEO and Co-founder Sumit Gupta, said that this would take "India one step closer to joining the '5 trillion dollar club' as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world." -AMBCRYPTO A MESSAGE FROM VIRTWAY Virtual 3D Business Events: Cutting costs and sky-rocketing results with Virtway Events’ Technology Traditional events are expensive, time-consuming and their environmental cost is high. Virtway Events' 3D technology is invigorating corporate events of all sizes allowing people to connect with a personal device, network in real-time and engage in a life-like way. Meetings, conferences or fairs, the possibilities are endless. Ask For a Free Demo Now! 3. Follow Friday: Crypto Capital Venture Dan is the founder of Crypto Capital Venture, a blockchain recruiter in the U.S. He also has a YouTube page where he discusses all things crypto, with his most recent post two days ago indicating the Bitcoin could hit $20,000 again by June 2020. Focusing on the crypto space, Dan is an avid Twitter user and claims to be a Bitcoin and Litecoin connoisseur. Earlier today, he posted a tweet noting that someone on YouTube commented that he never discusses his crypto exit plan. His response? "That's because I will never discuss my exit plan." 4. Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, recently spoke about his payment troubles with U.S. banks. Taking to Twitter, Armstrong noted that two popular fiat payment apps were unable to process his request after he tried to make a payment to a friend. The two apps were PayPal and SquareCash. PayPal informed him that the "recipient is unable to receive money," whereas SquareCash said his bank had declined his payment. While he said that crypto has its own challenges, he added that by "building on new underlying infrastructure there is an opportunity to make things better, and finally have payments that "just work." -@BRIAN_ARMSTRONG/TWITTER A MESSAGE FROM SALESFORCE Drive Productivity for Enterprise Employees with Salesforce Learn how savvy IT departments can provide better workplace technology as the key to improving employee experience and driving organizationwide growth. Learn More 5. Crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital has laid off 13 people, amounting to around 15 percent of its workforce. A former employee of the company, which was founded by Bitcoin bull Mike Novogratz, said that Galaxy Digital had hired people expecting the digital assets market would develop quicker than it has. Around 80 people remain at the company. -COIN DESK 6. A new report has found that blockchain spending will increase to 400 percent by 2023 in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). That's according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), a U.S.-based market research company. It notes that blockchain spending within these regions last year amounted to $21 million; however, by 2023, that figure will rise to $105 million, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 50 percent. Authorities in the MEA are working at developing blockchain solutions to cut fraud, improve public administration, and increase security. - COINTELEGRAPH 7. MakerDAO's DAI stablecoin is now available on Coinbase Commerce to be used as a payment method for online retailers. In a blog, MakerDAO said that the integration means that it opens some of the web's biggest shops, including those on Shopify and WooCommerce, giving users access to 800,000 stores and three million shops, respectively. Merchants worldwide can accept the USD-pegged stablecoin as payment without having to pay a fee to use Coinbase Commerce. -MAKERDAO 8. Poloniex, a crypto exchange, has added the Russian language to its platform, stating in a blog post that it has started introducing a "partially localized" version of the platform for Russian users. The exchange noted that what they are rolling out "is just the starting point" and that they will continue to introduce newly translated pages in the coming weeks. It said it plans to have a "fully localized version" of its website and apps in the coming months. -POLONIEX/MEDIUM 9. El Salvador has received its first Bitcoin ATM in the city of La Libertad. Located in the Café Cocoa shop, users have the option of purchasing Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Athena Bitcoin operates the ATM. In an interview, Athena Bitcoin CEO and co-founder Eric Gravengaard said that the company is continuing to grow in the U.S. and Latin America. -DECRYPT 10. The Tron Foundation has teamed up with Steemit, a blockchain-based blogging, and social networking website. As part of the partnership, Steemit and other Steem blockchain-based decentralized applications will move over to the Tron blockchain. After the news, the Steem token enjoyed a surge of 26 percent. -COINTELEGRAPH This newsletter was written and curated by Rebecca Campbell. She has been writing and reporting on various industries for the past 10 years, more specifically tech in the last three. Connect with her on Twitter. Edited by Sheena Vasani, staff writer at Inside. Ad Your 3D Space for Conferences. Ad Empower everyone to build apps fast with low code on the Lightning Platform.

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