 QUOTE OF THE DAY  |
| “All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy.” - Spike Milligan |
Happy Tuesday! Buying a cup of coffee and crypto mass adoption are often mentioned together...so has anyone actually bought a cup of coffee with crypto?
Cheers,
Blockchain Brew Team
| COIN | PRICE | 24H |
|
| BTC | $6,440.840946 | -0.36% |
|
| ETH | $279.818159 | -3.57% |
|
| XRP | $0.330145 | -1.7% |
|
| BCH | $531.244169 | -3.03% |
|
| EOS | $4.81795 | -5.16% |
|
*Information as of 9:30 AM EST
Introducing the new crypto Justic League
US Crypto Exchanges Team Up, Form Self-Regulatory Group
VCA IS BORN
- On Monday, Gemini, Bitstamp, Bittrex, and bitFlyer USA aligned to form a new self-regulatory organization called the Virtual Commodity Association
- The Association was formed with the mission, "To work toward the goal of establishing an industry-sponsored, self-regulatory organization (SRO) to oversee virtual commodity marketplaces"
- All of this originates from a proposal from the Winklevoss twins back in March for a self-regulatory organization that won support from key government players
UPCOMING MEETING
- The Association has only been formed, they have yet to establish any policies so far
- A meeting attended by representatives of the member firms is scheduled for September
- At the September meeting, the group will draft best practices for the industry and write guidelines for membership to the Association
TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS
- The US government has majorly let down the cryptocurrency space, acting slowly and unclearly on regulation
- Exchanges felt like they needed to take control and have acted on their own behalf in hopes it leads to a benefit for the entire market
Venezuela Pegs Fiat Currency to Their Crypto 'Petro'
HYPERINFLATION IN VENEZUELA
- Over the past few years, the people of Venezuela have been victims to runaway hyperinflation, witnessing the value of their hard-earned bolivars crash to becoming essentially worthless
- Normal inflation rates are usually around 2-3% and is healthy for the economy, in Venezuela, the inflation rate has risen more than 43,000% in the past year
- An initial coin offering was held in February and the government claims to have raised $735 million selling tokens to private investors
- It is not really clear how successful the cryptocurrency has been, especially because it is only on one exchange in the country and the hyperinflation seems to be growing faster than ever
PETRO
- In December of last year, the government announced that they are establishing a national cryptocurrency to combat the hyperinflation problem
- The government-backed coin is called 'Petro' and is claimed to be backed by the country's oil reserves
- The hyperinflation has been caused by the country's central bank endlessly printing more currency to pay for the massive deficit the government is running
- The economic effect has been even more severe than the Great Depression and the impact of the falling of communism on Russia
- As a result of the hyperinflation, it now costs 1,000,000 bolivars to buy a cup of coffee (29 US cents) and rather than counting bills, merchants instead resort to weighing stacks of cash to estimate its value
When Venezuela announced the new government crypto, they stated:
"Venezuela will create a...cryptocurrency to advance monetary sovereignty, as it will help to overcome the financial blockade and thus move towards new forms of international financing for the economic and social development of the country."
PEGGED TO FIAT
- In a last-ditch effort to save their fiat currency, the Venezuelan President has pegged the fiat currency to Petro
- The new currency is renamed to the "sovereign bolivar" and is devalued relative to the old currency by 95%
- In theory, the value of the "sovereign bolivar" should be far less volatile than its predecessor as it is backed by Petro which is backed by the nation's oil reserves, but the currency may be devalued too far already
Research Suggests Bitcoin Cash Concentration Causes Low Use in Commerce
WHO HAS BITCOIN CASH?
- 67 Bitcoin Cash wallets, excluding exchanges, control almost 56 percent of the cryptocurrency, according to Chainalysis
- In addition, between 10,000 and 100,000 Bitcoin Cash is held by just two wallets
- With low distribution, Chainalysis believes the wealthiest holders are also the ones sending the most traffic to merchant services
BITCOIN CASH USE IN COMMERCE
- In correlation with the low distribution of Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Cash also has seen a low adoption of use in commerce
- After analyzing the world's 17 largest crypto merchant processing services, Chainalysis discovered that Bitcoin Cash payments dropped to $3.7 million in May from a high of $10.5 million in March
BITCOIN USE IN COMMERCE
- Likewise, Bitcoin payments dropped to $60 million in May from $80 million in March
- The decreasing use in commerce for all cryptocurrencies is likely due in part to the 2018 bearish trend the bulls haven't beat yet
Breaking Down Bakkt, CEO Releases Platform Details
Kelly Loeffler, CEO of Bakkt, took to Medium yesterday to release some details about the upcoming Bakkt platform. Here is what you need to know:
FRAMEWORK
Loeffler released the framework followed by Bakkt:
- Consistent regulatory construct
- Transparent, efficient price discovery
- Institutional quality trade infrastructure
BAKKT VS. PRICE DISCOVERY
- Loeffler expressed that physical delivery is a "critical element" to create efficient price discovery
- Thus, for Bakkt to have efficient price discovery, Loeffler explained that all "buying and selling of Bitcoin is fully collateralized or pre-funded"
Loeffler went on to explain that Bakkt will be differentiated from existing futures and leverage exchanges:
"...our new daily Bitcoin contract will not be traded on margin, use leverage, or serve to create a paper claim on a real asset."
READY FOR INSTITUTIONS
- Loeffler notes that Bakkt will be useful for institutions since the platform will offer a secure and regulated warehouse solution
- To end, Loeffler points out that though the crypto market is down 70% from the 2018 peak - venture investing, initial coin offerings, and blockchain-related corporate research and development are all expected to pass 2017 levels
- The United States Government will help fund a distributed ledger platform being built by researchers at the University of California-San Diego.
- A new report found that most crypto hedge funds are down by as much as 50% since the start of 2018.
- Gizmodo compiled stories from the recent 2018 crypto crash and some are hard to read.
Cryptojacking
verb
Cryptojacking is the unauthorized use of someone else’s computer to mine cryptocurrency. Cryptojacking malware can be spread throughout the internet and it's likely users wouldn't notice a difference in their computer performance.
| Omni (OMNI) |
| Omni is a platform for creating and trading custom digital assets and currencies. It is a software layer built on top of the most popular, most audited, most secure blockchain -- Bitcoin. Omni transactions are Bitcoin transactions that enable next-generation features on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Our reference implementation, Omni Core is an enhanced Bitcoin Core that provides all the features of Bitcoin as well as advanced Omni Layer features. |
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