Friday, October 5, 2018

Financial meltdown incoming

October 5, 2018

A Financial Meltdown Could Be On Its Way, International Monetary Fund Warns

Hey debt levels, relax for a bit

No one can predict the next financial crisis, but the International Monetary Fund believes one may be looming as debt levels reach new highs.

According to the report, global debt levels in 2018 are estimated to be far higher than the levels seen before the 2008 financial crisis as the public and private debt together surged 60% to a total of $182 trillion.

As for government debt to GDP ratios, numbers prior to the financial crisis hovered around 36% while numbers now have topped 52%.

Developing economies have skyrocketed

In addition to the alarming debt levels the IMF reported, the researchers discussed the implications of developing economies growing too fast.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, developing economies have swallowed an extra 16% of global GDP after launching from 44% in 2008 to 60% in 2018.

While this looks like developing economies are doing well, it also showcases that advanced economies have had a weak recovery in comparison.

The IMF acknowledged crypto

After the IMF discussed possible risks that could cause the next financial crisis, it also pointed out that cryptocurrencies may pose a risk themselves.

The report asked regulators to remain vigilant as assets move into the digital realm:

“Despite its potential benefits, our knowledge of its potential risks and how they might play out is still developing. Increased cybersecurity risks pose challenges for financial institutions, financial infrastructure, and supervisors. These developments should act as a reminder that the financial system is permanently evolving, and regulators and supervisors must remain vigilant to this evolution and ready to act if needed.”

Bitcoin as a hedge?

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have yet to experience a global financial meltdown since they have only been around since 2009.

So far, researchers have seen a close to 0% correlation between Bitcoin and global markets, however, Bitcoin is still a relatively new asset.

Although, if Bitcoin retained its 0% correlation with global markets during a recession, investors could seek Bitcoin as the next greatest hedge in their portfolios.

RESEARCH

54% of Institutional Investors Believe Bitcoin is at its Bottom

Time to jump in

According to a survey conducted by Fundstrat Global Advisors, 54% of institutional investors believe that Bitcoin has already hit its low price for the year. Not only do these respondents think Bitcoin has bottomed, but 57% of them also have a price target higher than $15,000 for 2019.

Institutional investors see Bitcoin’s decline as a perfect opportunity to enter the market. As time passes, Bitcoin is being more accessible to institutional investors and is becoming a legitimate part of firms’ strategies

Crypto Twitter not as bullish

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee also ran a similar poll on Twitter to get retail investor’s perspective. Surprisingly, Crypto Twitter is not quite as bullish as institutional investors.

66% of the Twitter respondents predict that Bitcoin will fall even further and only 40% predict Bitcoin to reach $15,000 in 2019.

The discrepancy between institutional investors and Crypto Twitter is probably due to the fact that institutional investors are more level-headed and trading with less emotion. Crypto Twitter has been around for the highs of late last year and could be too discouraged by the drop off.

WARNING

Scammers are Using Malware to Target...Fortnite Players?

Scammers join the Fortnite wave

Cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes revealed their newest finding that scammers are targeting Fortnite players to steal cryptocurrencies.

In a bizarre move, the scammers chose to target the most popular game in the world right now (125 million active players) by offering downloads that promise free packages and cheat codes but instead, contain malware.

The good ol' trojan hack

Within each download, a malware, dubbed Trojan.Malpack, scans the victim's computer and searches through browser data to reveal any possible wallet information that it can steal.

So far, one malicious file was found to have over 1,200 downloads after the file was promoted through a scammer's YouTube channel.

However, as of now, there are no reports of stolen funds...yet.

EXCHANGE

Bithumb Announces Plans to Launch Decentralized Exchange

Keeping pace with Binance

According to Business Korea, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has started developing a decentralized exchange to supplement its current, centralized exchange. Bithumb is already one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, ranked 6th in daily volume by CoinMarketCap at the time of this writing.

With this venture, Bithumb is following in the footsteps of Binance, who announced earlier this year that it is also building a decentralized exchange which is supposed to launch at some point next year.

Teaming up to compete globally

To build the exchange, Bithumb is teaming up with One Root Network, a firm that has previously developed its own decentralized exchange.

According to a source close to the matter, the new partnership will help fulfill Bithumb's desire to compete globally:

“Bithumb is one of the leading global exchanges in terms of transactions but it is true that most of its users are Korean. The latest decision seems to be the company’s strategy to compete with other leading exchanges in the global market by opening a decentralized exchange that receives attention in the global market.”

BITS

But wait, there's more...

Coinbase has announced that veteran employee Adam White, head of its institutional platform group, is leaving the firm.
BlackBerry announced Thursday it was working with ONEBIO to support a new blockchain platform aimed at storing and sharing medical research data.
Goldman Sachs-funded Circle Internet Financial Ltd. has launched a new feature for its crypto investment app Circle Invest dubbed “Collections.”

COIN OF THE DAY

Pundi X (NPXS)

Pundi X is a payment platform that will leverage the Ethereum blockchain to ease the cryptocurrency payments or transactions. The platform will feature retail intelligence, inventory management, order management, marketing, loyalty programs and transactions through mobile wallets and bank cards.

MEME

Bri7ryQf8RIt7CQA0WQsFjZPo7tcNZ28nih_2hs6xQU.jpg?fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&arh=2&w=640&s=f7336f0a414e141f45bed2dd026bbf6d

0 REFERRALS

https://www.unbankd.co/?ref=192f87b56d

You currently have 0 referrals. All you need is 1 more to receive a FREE Fundamental Analysis Checklist for analyzing crypto projects.

SUBSCRIBE	FEEDBACK	ADVERTISE

CryptoWeekly #74

CRYPTO WEEKLY
October 5, 2018 | #74

THE MARKETS

BTC: $6,538.01 | -$96.22 (-1.45%) since last week
ETH: $222.68 | +$2.85 (+1.3%) since last week
LTC: $57.98 | +$3.72 (-6.03%) since last week

WeTrust Spring - The platform to raise funds
WeTrust Spring is the world's first, crypto to crypto donation platform offering rewards for participating and immediate tax savings. Come and join our beta!

Sponsor

MUST KNOW

Biggest news story: Ripple's XRP crypto product has gone live for the first time
In another first for the cryptocurrency startup, Ripple's xRapid payment protocol has officially gone live. Announced at the company's annual Swell conference this week, the protocol is now available for use by financial services firms.

This is what we know:

The new protocol will act as a "bridge" between currencies, and is specifically designed to enable faster, more seamless cross-border transactions. Banks like Santander are presently experimenting with similar products, but Ripple's is the first to go live in full.
xRapid has undergone limited testing at payment companies like Western Union and MoneyGram, but it hasn't yet picked up any paying pilot customers (which makes sense, as it's still early). Banks in emerging markets are looked at as strong contenders to be the first to use the xRapid platform, as their regulations around digital assets are more forward-looking than countries like the US or China.
Despite its biggest product announcement to date, the price of XRP has been struggling ever since. At one point, the Ripple cryptocurrency declined by 13% after the announcement. This market challenge is indicative of a wider trend in crypto that's seeing tokens increase in value before key announcements and then decline after (the inverse of most normal market dynamics on Wall Street).

Bitcoin Core 0.17.0 Is Released: Here's What's New
This week saw the 17th release of the Bitcoin Core platform, which remains the dominant Bitcoin implementation on the web today. The 0.17.0 release is full of new features, as well as some key performance improvements and bug fixes.

This is what we know:

This release of Bitcoin Core includes support for more efficient coin selection through the "Branch and Bound" algorithm, which was designed by a former BitGo engineer. The algorithm calculates fees for each chunk before a transaction is conducted, and matches different chunks to avoid changing addresses mid-transaction.
With Bitcoin Core, users can now easily create and use multiple new wallets. Wallets can now be created at anytime, and even better, they're now available through Bitcoin's GUI.
Bitcoin Core can now handle complex, multi-signature transactions easier than ever through the implementation of Partially Signed Bitcoin Transaction (PSBT) framework. This new feature allows users to partially sign a multi-signature transaction before passing it on to the next user in the transaction.

Federal Court Finds that Virtual Currencies Are Commodities
In a key court ruling this week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ruled that virtual currencies should be considered commodities from both an economic and legal standpoint.

This is what we know:

The CFTC ruling revolves around My Big Coin (MBC), a virtual currency that has been around since 2014. Its owners have allegedly made repeated false claims about the currency's value and defrauded customers of more than $6M in fiat currency in the process.
This is the first ruling in which the CFTC has taken a firm stance on cryptocurrencies. By ruling that virtual currencies should be treated as commodities, the CFTC is setting a clear legal precedent that will increase the legitimacy of virtual currencies within the US.
The case also confirms that the US government is taking virtual currency fraud seriously, and will be taking serious measures to combat it moving forward.

GOOD READS

Here's how China's crackdown helped Binance become the world's largest crypto exchange
This in-depth profile details exactly how China's tighter regulations on crypto pushed Binance to leave the country, re-incorporate in Malta, and become the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange in the process.

Institutional investors are starting to use this backdoor for crypto purchases
Institutional investors are already moving into the crypto market, but most of their trading volume remains obscure. This is due to most institutions leveraging private brokers to conduct crypto purchases, for the time being at least.

Visa and Mastercard have yet to be disrupted by crypto and blockchain
Bitcoin is fizzling out as a method of payment, but other digital payments solutions (Visa and MasterCard among them) are still going strong. Just like crypto, these payment providers also benefit from network effects, and this competitive moat continues to be seen even today.

This is a great index of where to find all of the best Dapps out today
This report from Blocktimes is an excellent rundown of all the best Dapp resources on the market today. Though the overall number of Dapps on the market today is still low, they're rapidly growing in number - and the trend looks set to continue in the months ahead.

Bitmex has released a new piece of research on Ethereum holdings in ICO treasury accounts
According to a recent study done by Bitmex, most Ethereum projects seem to have sold almost as much crypto as they've raised - meaning that many projects still have unrealized gains, instead of massive losses.

A new documentary shows how a man with 1 BTC is traveling the world using crypto
After purchasing 1 Bitcoin early last year, one entrepreneur decided to set off a journey around the world, using nothing but crypto. He's now producing a documentary on the topic, which is set to be released later this year.

There's a simple explanation for why Nvidia isn't going all-in on crypto
This article does a good job of summing why, despite servicing massive demand for crypto mining GPUs earlier in the year, Nvidia has to date shied away from offering standalone crypto mining offerings.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Bithumb has announced plans to launch a global decentralized exchange platform. Link
Yale University is said to invest in crypto fund that raised $400 million. Link
Tiger Global is in talks to invest up to $500B in Coinbase at a $8B valuation. Link
Binance is investing $2.5M in Australian blockchain startup Travelby. Link
Meet MoneyTap, the Ripple-powered app for domestic payments in Japan. Link
Acinq has raised $1.7M to double down on Lightning development. Link
John McAfee and Roger Ver talk crypto, investing, and more on the most recent Blockchain Cruise. Link
One of India's largest crypto exchanges, Zebpay, has just shut down. Link
TokenData has just released its ICO funding report for September. Link
A vote buying scandal is stoking fears around EOS's potential for failure. Link
Coinbase is hiring a Business Operations Lead in Tokyo. Link
Join the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami on January 16-18. Link
We just added 17 new crypto companies, 103 new ICOs, 1 new exchange and 1 new crypto media outlet to CryptoList. Link

Check out our other projects: CryptoList | CryptoFirst | Crypto100 | LamboIndex

Edited by Chris Osborne in Barcelona (in town? reach out to get a coffee). Reply to this email with feedback and/or suggestions.

Nothing shared or published by CryptoWeekly constitutes an investment recommendation, nor should any data or content published by CryptoWeekly be relied upon for any investment activities. CryptoWeekly strongly recommends that you perform your own independent research and/or speak with a qualified investment professional before making any financial decisions.

Copyright © 2018 CryptoWeekly. All rights reserved.
No longer want to receive CryptoWeekly? Unsubscribe.

Cardano Foundation Newsletter - 5th October 2018

Hi contacto1745.send-mail@blogger.com,

In the past week, the project celebrated its one year anniversary, we saw the release of a new light-client wallet and met up at Cardano community meetups all around the world. Read on to learn more...

Cardano One Year Anniversary

This past weekend, the project celebrated a milestone as it reached its one-year anniversary of the Cardano mainnet launch. We were happy to celebrate this momentous time with all of you with our community hashtag campaign - #CardanoMainnetAnniversary. Our campaign asked community members to tweet in to let us know where in the world they were. We received responses from all over the world! Check out our global community with the campaign map as well as a roundup of the anniversary's celebrations on the Cardano Forum.

Yoroi Wallet Launch

On Monday, Emurgo released Yoroi on the mainnet. Yoroi is a light-client wallet that runs as a Chrome extension and does not require you to download the entire blockchain. This wallet can be used as an alternative to Daedalus. Download the Google Chrome extension by clicking the button below!

Cardano Meetups

Last week was another successful week for Cardano community meetups! From Moscow, Russia to Palo Alto, California to Bogota, Colombia, we had community members coming together to meet and discuss all things Cardano. Javier, a community member in Bogota, hosted a successful meetup in Colombia with over 120 attendees and media presence.

Community Questions

Image Credit

This week's community question comes from a Reddit community member.

Is Cardano 51% attack resistant?

Answer: To answer this question, we'll start by defining what a 51% attack is. It refers to an attack on a blockchain by a group of users that control more than 50% of the network's hashing/computing power for a PoW system or stake for PoS system. The main concern of this attack is that by controlling the majority of the resources on the network, an adversary can interfere with the process of recording new blocks.

No PoW or PoS system is resistant to an adversary holding 51% of the resource and Cardano as a PoS based system is no different. It is, however, resistant against 34% attacks. The full answer and resources on Cardano's protocol can be found on the Forum.

COIN	PRICE	24H

BTC	$6,581.48557	+0.14%

ETH	$223.679085	+0.03%

XRP	$0.516958	-3.19%

BCH	$514.896881	-0.78%

EOS	$5.741834	+0.85%