Market Watch | Bitcoin | $11,824 | 7 day: +3% | | Ethereum | $442 | 7 day: +18.4% | | XRP | $0.305 | 7 day: +5.4% | Prices as of 4 p.m. ET
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 U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard continues Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) research. The Fed governor confirms years of research activities at the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston, Dallas, Cleveland, and New York. MIT faculty are also participating. CBDC advances: - Fed governors are still exploring the legality and feasibility of CBDC. This week's commentary merely confirmed their intention to continue research.
- Small islands have launched relatively advanced CBDC projects, including the Bahamas and the Marshall Islands, as well as the members of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. Sweden has developed its CBDC the most of any European country. In total, some 45 countries are researching a form of CBDC.
- China's so-called Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) will likely be the first CBDC to launch in a major country.
Bloomberg 
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 The Winklevii claim that bitcoin is a hedge against Elon Musk mining gold from asteroids. It's Friday, so sure, let's talk about it. Asteroids threaten gold's supply, therefore good for bitcoin? - The billionaire co-founders of Gemini, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, have spent millions on New York City taxi toppers, TV ads, and billboards promoting their belief that bitcoin is superior to gold.
- The value of all mined gold exceeds $10t; the market capitalization of bitcoin is $217b.
- In a social media interview with Dave Portnoy, the twins claimed that a key risk to the value of gold is asteroid mining ventures, especially Elon Musk's SpaceX.
- The twins claim, "gold's supply isn't fixed like bitcoin."
- Due to mining, the above-ground gold supply increases 1.5% annually, in-line with world population growth.
- The twins did not mention the threats to bitcoin such as quantum cryptography, Chinese hashpower dominance, or Bitcoin's dependence on government-controlled fiat onramps for the vast majority of its valuation.
- China-based bitcoin mining pools BTC.com, F2Pool, AntPool, Huobi, Poolin, BTC.top, ViaBTC, and Bixin account for over 70% of bitcoin's current hashpower.
- Notably, although Russia and China have been de-dollarizing and accumulating gold in their central banks, the U.S. still owns double their reserves.
- On February 7, 2018, Cameron Winklevoss claimed that bitcoin's market capitalization would ultimately exceed $3t.
- The largest private asteroid mining company, excluding rocket companies that might have distant plans for asteroid mining like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin or Elon Musk's SpaceX, was Planetary Resources which Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin acquired.
- Estimates for the timeline of the first successful asteroid mining activity start at 5 years and extend several decades.
CoinTelegraph
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China expands the number of pilot cities for its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). As of last week, the city list was limited to the Hong Kong Bay Area comprising Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau. More cities: - China will expand its so-called Digital Currency/Electronic Payment (DC/EP) to Beijing, the Southern Yangtze River Delta, and the northern providences of Tianjin and Hebei.
- A CCP spokesperson provided no timeline, merely saying that DC/EP's "policy design" would be completed by the end of the year.
- Earlier this year, China's central bank completed a brief DC/EP pilot in certain businesses within Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, and a satellite city of Beijing. The test run was preparation for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Wall Street Journal
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BitMEX will require ID verification by February 12, 2021. The bitcoin futures exchange offers sizeable leverage and is popular among retail traders. Seemingly inevitable: - Many cryptocurrency exchanges like IDEX, LocalBitcoins, EtherDelta, and ShapeShift launched without Know Your Customer (KYC) identity verification.
- Eventually, the threat of any action similar to the SEC's charge against EtherDelta usually prompts management to begin KYC practices.
- BitMEX claims to process $2.4b in daily derivatives trading volume.
- VanEck accused BitMEX of operating an unregistered securities exchange.
- The Financial Conduct Authority said that BitMEX "has been providing financial services or products in the UK without our authorization."
BitMEX
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Quick Hits: - A New York judge orders attorney Aaron Etra, who prematurely released bitcoin from escrow, to pay $5.2m. Due to missing an arbitration hearing, the judge ruled in favor of San Francisco-based investment firm Benthos Master Fund.
- Coindesk reviews the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) fad, summarizing it as a crossover between MMO video games and pump n' dump schemes. The reporter notes the meme token du jour, Based.money, which is trading at $122 as of the time of publication (already 80% lower than its intraday high of $615).
- Craig Wright delays his $60,000 payment to Bitcoin veteran Hodlnaut.
- Mike Novogratz purchased a Financial Times print ad for Galaxy Digital's bitcoin offerings.
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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 | Edited by Eduardo Garcia in New York. Eduardo is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School M.A. Science program and writes regularly for the New York Times Climate Fwd: newsletter. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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