Market Watch | Bitcoin | $10,680 | 7 day: -1.6% | | Ethereum | $352 | 7 day: -3.5% | | All crypto | $342b | 7 day: -1.5% | | Bitcoin dominance | 57.9% | 7 day: unch | Prices as of 2:15 p.m. EDT
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 Atari gaming console Atari will conduct its Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) on Roger Ver's Bitcoin.com exchange. Ver is the leader of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), a fork of bitcoin (BTC). - On Oct. 2, the iconic California-based gaming company Atari signed an agreement to conduct its public token sale on Bitcoin.com's exchange.
- Atari has scheduled the listing for November.
- An IEO is substantially equivalent to an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), except that an exchange takes on responsibility for some payment processing, marketing, and user support tasks.
- Bitcoin.com will manage a portal where users need to clear the KYC/AML verification process before entering the upcoming token sale.
- The event is good marketing for bitcoin.com, which champions BCH as the superior fork of BTC.
- The Atari group plans to enable access to different platforms and users through atarichain.com. The Atari group is eligible to keep 35% of IEO proceeds.
Bitcoin.com 
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 Diginex's SPAC onto NASDAQ is complete. The company's shares (NASDAQ:EQOS) were trading at $7.60 on Monday morning, 25% lower than their pre-deal trading range of $10.15. - Diginex, the parent company of derivatives platform EQUOS.io, has listed on Nasdaq via a backdoor listing after completing a merger with 8i, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
- SPACs are a popular way to avoid the burdensome Initial Public Offering (IPO) process.
- The companies were merged on Sept. 15, when 81% of 8i shareholders approved the business combination transaction with Diginex.
- The Hong Kong-based ecosystem consists of a digital trading technology platform via Diginex Access, a digital asset custody provider, an investment management business, and a securitization advisory firm, Diginex Capital.
Coindesk
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 Shenzhen Stock Exchange China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange co-launches a blockchain platform for trading shares of private, unlisted companies. China announced the Security Token Exchange (STO) and tokenization initiative in a local news report. - The exchange will be in partnership with Shenzhen's equity market, Beijing Fourth Board Mark, and will be a part of the Beijing Regional Trading Centre.
- China's Securities Regulatory Commission approved five main municipal stock markets in July to execute blockchain-based pilot projects, including Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shenzhen.
- Shanghai stock exchange subsequently confirmed its intention to work on the pilot project with China's Securities Regulatory Commission.
CoinTelegraph
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The European Central Bank (ECB) applies for "Digital Euro" trademark and publishes a long-awaited report. - ECB officials applied for the trademark on Sept. 22.
- The ECB has released a detailed assessment of the pros and cons of creating a digital version of the Euro.
- ECB President says that her primary purpose is an open dialogue between European residents. The ECB has enlisted more expertise from countries across the bloc.
- The Digital Euro report, published Oct. 2, consists of seven explanatory sections distributed in 55-pages. Its foreword indicates that it is too early to decide upon a specific design for a CBDC. The report merely serves as a starting point for public consultations.
- Read more about ECB's report here at Inside Cryptocurrency.
Bloomberg
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 OMFIF report on small island CBDCs OMFIF publishes a journal describing use-cases of CBDCs in small island economies. - In May, the Official Monetary and Financial International Forum (OMFIF) launched its Digital Monetary Institute consisting of regulators, financiers, and technologists to explore the digital finance sector.
- The institute has published the fourth issue of its journal for September, with a focus on island central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
- The journal describes CBDC experiments in island countries including the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, and a coalition of participating East Caribbean Dollar islands.
- The institute's commercial director, Julia Demidova, notes that many islands have underdeveloped financial infrastructure that allows exploitation for shadow banking activities. CBDCs could reduce these financial crimes and tax evasion.
- The publication pays special attention to the Bahamas' USD-pegged CBDC, the Sand Dollar.
- The journal includes an overview of plans by the European Central Bank and Banco Central do Brasil to issue CBDCs.
OMFIF
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Quick Hits: - The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) warns that paying off ransomware hackers can constitute a breach of OFAC regulations.
- The World Health Organisation announces a partnership with the Estonian government to generate blockchain-based digital vaccination certificates for COVID-19 vaccines. Estonia-based cybersecurity company Guardtime will spearhead the 12-week pilot.
- Victims of the OneCoin Ponzi scheme are petitioning the European Parliament for the establishment of a compensation fund. See our prior edition for another update on OneCoin.
- On Oct. 2, Jon Barry Thompson, head of Volantis Escrow Platform LLC, pleaded guilty before a U.S. federal court for his involvement in a $7m crypto fraud in 2018.
- Forensic crypto intelligence company CipherTrace published its 2020 Geographic Risk Report on Oct. 1. CipherTrace reveals that 56% of virtual asset providers (VASPs) have weak Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, which makes them vulnerable to cybercriminals. According to the report, the U.S. is the country with the most VASPs with weak KYC.
- Reddit releases a pilot of crypto-based community points called "Bricks" within a Subreddit for Fortnite game, r/FortNiteBR. The subreddit has 1.4 million subscribers. Users can trade Bricks worth $0.05 for cash, at a transaction cost of $8.89, on a decentralized exchange called Honeyswap.
- The Australian government announced Prime Minister Scott Morrison's digital business plan to drive economic recovery on Sept. 29. The government plans to invest $800m and allotted $6.9m to 2 blockchain projects to decrease business compliance costs.
- FinCEN issued an advisory to alert financial institutions about the trends of ransomware and money-laundering activities. The advisory highlights the use of anonymity-enhanced cryptos as denominations during most ransomware attacks.
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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 writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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