Monday, March 16, 2020

Some EthCC attendees test positive for coronavirus / Bakkt Cash in beta with Starbucks / RBZ wants to regulate crypto with sandbox

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Market Watch: Following a drop in market prices last week, the industry remains down across the board during Monday trading, with the total market cap totaling $142.8 billion, a decline from $242 billion at the start of March.

  • Bitcoin: $5,045 (⬇️ 5.49%) // $92 billion market cap.
  • Ethereum: $113 (⬇️ 8.99%) // $12.5 billion market cap.
  • XRP: $0.145 (⬇️ 6.35%) // $6.2 billion market cap.
  • Tether: 1.00 (⬆️ 0.22%) // $4.6 billion market cap.
  • Top 100 Winner: STASIS EURO: $1.08 (⬆️ 2.38%) // $34 million market cap. 
  • Top 100 Loser: Komodo: $0.274 (⬇️ 25.56%) // $32 million market cap. 

Prices are as of 12:30 p.m. ET.

1. The Cardano Foundation has announced that Z/Yen Group Limited (UK) has initiated legal proceedings against it. The announcement was made on Cardano's website today. Z/Yen Group Limited is a fintech think tank and a former research partner of the foundation. Cardano states that the "proceedings relate to an alleged agreement between the Z/Yen Group Limited and the Cardano Foundation dated July 2017." It doesn't present any further information as to what the agreement was due to the ongoing judiciary process, simply adding that the "Cardano Foundation voided/terminated the agreement for various reasons." -CARDANO FOUNDATION

2. More than a dozen people who attended the EthCC conference in Paris, which took place at the start of March, have tested positive for coronavirus. A list, which has not been confirmed in full, was posted on Twitter over the weekend. According to one attendee, in her 20s, who may have contracted the virus from her partner, there weren't many precautions taken at the event. She said: "There were a few people with masks and hand sanitizer, but not many. Most of the EthCC attendees were young and still thinking the virus wouldn't affect them." She went on to say that she was surprised the conference wasn't canceled and held virtually instead. Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin were both at the event; however, Buterin tweeted to say he had no symptoms. -COIN DESK

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3. Bakkt, whose parent company is the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), has teamed up with Starbucks, with some users of the Starbuck mobile app presented with Bakkt Cash as a payment option. Last October, it was reported that Bakkt was working on consumer apps for digital assets and that it was going to launch its first one with Starbucks. At the time, it was noted that the consumer app would be tested in the first half of 2020. Mike Blandina, chief product officer at Bakkt, said in October that "Bakkt's approach to secure technology, privacy and innovation means that we are an advocate for consumers who have yet to enter the digital asset space." In today's announcement, Starbucks said that the Bakkt Cash option is only in limited beta for now. Bakkt president Adam White announced the integration on Twitter. -@WHITEADAML/TWITTER

4. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) wants to regulate crypto in the country after developing a regulatory sandbox for companies. Josephat Mutepfa, RBZ's deputy director for financial markets and national payment systems, announced that the regulations would ensure that crypto companies are screened so as to meet regulatory requirements, adding: "The framework, which is a regulatory sandbox, will be assessing the crypto-currency companies as to how they are going to operate." Mutepfa went on to note that those who enter the sandbox are either "a bonafide product to enter the market," one that needs guidance or one that requires a license. According to the deputy director, the decision to regulate crypto comes as the industry is "largely tapped by the young generation and in most cases, they are facing challenges of having capital." This is a change of direction for the RBZ, considering that in 2018 it banned financial institutions from dealing with all crypto dealings. -CHRONICLE

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5. Nik Bougalis, cryptographer and leading C++ software engineer at Ripple, has taken to Twitter to offer advice on working from home to companies amid the coronavirus pandemic. In a post from today, Bougalis said: "I've worked remotely for over 20 years and I'm currently leading a large, fully distributed team at @Ripple." He added that if there was anyone new to remote work, particularly as a manager, and has questions, then they should send them across to him - saying that he would try his best to provide "insight." One user asked how they could make sure their employees weren't taking longer to finish tasks. Bougalis replied by saying that this was a "common concern," and that the team was hired for a reason, adding: "trust your team to continue to do good work." -@NBOUGALIS/TWITTER

6. A crypto market analyst has come under criticism for allegedly faking several screenshots that gave the impression that his trades did better than they actually did. A user by the name of King took a screenshot of someone called Jacob Canfield, an individual purported to be the "#1 cryptocurrency analyst" on Twitter. King wrote "Well @JacobCanfield is telling people that since I caught him posting 10+ photoshopped positions that it was 'early on in his twitter career,'" adding that Canfield had "posted this literally yesterday." Canfield admitted that he had photoshopped "a handful of trades" on the social platform "to make them look better" on March 13. The post has now been deleted. The following day, King posted screenshots stating that Canfield had changed a screenshot to show his returns from seven Bitcoins to 15.59. King claims to have evidence of 10 images that have been altered. -@TRAPOUTS/TWITTER

7. Crypto exchange Binance has announced trading pairs for Tezos, which started today at 0900 EST. In a blog post, the platform said: "Binance.US users can now start depositing USD, BUSD, or XTZ to their Binance.US wallets in preparation for trading to go live." According to CoinMarketCap, the price of XTZ is currently valued at $1.33. The addition of Tezos comes at the crypto market across the board remains in the red following last weeks sharp decline in value in response to the coronavirus. -BINANCE

8. Senegalese-American singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur Akon has released the whitepaper for his soon-to-be-launched Akoin coin. According to the document, the cryptocurrency is "designed for entrepreneurs in the rising economies of Africa and beyond" while its "mission is to unlock the potential of the world's largest growing workforce by creating learning, earning, spending, and saving opportunities across Africa and other lean economies." At the end of February, it was reported that Akon chose the Stellar network to launch his coin, which is to be released later this year. Earlier this month, the singer teamed up with BitMinutes, a prepaid airtime token, which is working to launch a decentralized application (dapp) on the network. -COINTELEGRAPH

9. A senior employee working at internet company Baidu has been arrested after he allegedly downloaded Monero mining scripts on 200 Baidu servers between April and June 2018. The employee - named An Bang - mined for the privacy coin before selling it $14,300. Bang was eventually discovered after the extra load was noticed by the organization, who then informed the police. Bang was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $1,570 in sentencing last month. Even though China has banned crypto trading, it hasn't prohibited mining, even though it attempted to last September. -ABACUS

10. Crypto exchange CoinDCX is set to allocate $1.3 million in funding to boost awareness and adoption of cryptocurrencies in India. That's according to an announcement from the company. The money will go towards a long-term project called TryCrypto, which aims to introduce 50 million Indian consumers into the crypto world. Sumit Gupta, CEO and co-founder at CoinDCX, said: "Only 5 million people in India currently hold cryptocurrencies—less than 0.5% of the population. We believe, however, that by educating consumers and combating negative preconceptions of the industry we can boost the number from 5 million to 50 million, so that everyone can unlock the benefits of digital assets." -TOKEN POST

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 Beth Duckett, staff writer at Inside.

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