Thursday, January 24, 2019

Adiós ETF 😞

January 24, 2019

The Long-Awaited Bitcoin ETF Was Withdrawn

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

For months the Cboe BZX Exchange was discussing with regulators to change a rule that would allow it to list a new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by VanEck and SolidX.

With the decision deadline set on February 27th and no chance of appeal if the proposal got turned down, the pressure was mounting to get approved.

But one thing was in the way: a government shutdown.

"Temporarily" withdrawn

According to VanEck CEO Jan van Eck, the companies were actively engaging in discussions with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about "bitcoin-related issues, custody, market manipulation, [and] prices" when the meetings had to stop.

Now, more than a month later, the Cboe BZX Exchange is "temporarily" withdrawing the proposal from a pending decision.

Approved on a technicality

Actually, if the shutdown continued through February 27th, it's possible the ETF could get approved if no decision was made.

However, Ethan Silver, an attorney familiar with the matter, was quick to dismiss that scenario.

Silver told CoinDesk:

"If [the SEC] were forced to deal with [the proposal], they would sooner deny it than be put in a position [where it is approved on a technicality]."

Looking forward in a nutshell

It's not clear when the Cboe BZX Exchange will reinstate their proposal but it's likely discussions with the SEC will continue soon after the government shutdown is lifted.

This is probably the reason SEC member Hester Peirce told the crypto community "not to hold your breath" waiting for a Bitcoin ETF.

LEAK

Leaked Pictures of the Galaxy S10 Show Built-In Crypto Wallet

The Galaxy S series has been Samsung's baby for the past 9 years. Now, with the S10 looking to land into customer's hands on February 20th, a new leak is shaking the crypto community.

Posted on Twitter Wednesday morning, the leak shows that the Galaxy S10 will host a built-in crypto wallet, complete with a secure way for customers to manage their private keys called Blockchain KeyStore.

The theory continues

Samsung's supposed interest in crypto has been rumored for awhile. Back in July, crypto hardware wallet Ledger closed a $7 million Series A round that included the mobile phone mogul.

Following that, Samsung went to the European Union and quietly trademarked Blockchain Key Box, Blockchain Core, and Blockchain KeyStore - a name that matches perfectly to the recent leaks.

Simply speculation

Although these leaks are all speculation, the theory holds some weight. For now, the crypto community will just have to anxiously await the release in late February.

GOVERNMENT

New Hampshire is Considering Accepting Bitcoin for State Payments

A new bill, released originally on January 3rd, is aiming to make Bitcoin acceptable for state fees and taxes in New Hampshire by 2020.

Dubbed NH HB470, the bill made its public debut on Wednesday, but has an ultimate decision deadline on March 14th.

Back in '15

This idea was originally proposed back in 2015, but saw little success in becoming a reality.

Now, backed by Republicans Dennis Acton and Michael Yakubovich, the bill has much more steam heading into discussions as local governments and the state of Ohio are experimenting with the same idea.

BITS

But wait, there's more...

👎 Hong Kong Stock Exchange revealed that it could be incompatible with Bitmain IPO.
📣 JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon isn't celebrating despite Bitcoin's decline.
🇯🇲 The Jamaica stock exchange is looking to list security tokens.

MEME

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Wednesday, January 23, 2019

📌 No More ETF, Grin FAQ, & The Year of the DAO

MUST READS

Breaking News: CBOE Withdraws Proposal for VanEck-SolidX Bitcoin ETF

Earlier today, the SEC reported that the CBOE BZX exchange withdrew it's ETF application (yes – the highly anticipated VanEck-SolidX one). So far, we've yet to see an official reasoning surface but the withdrawal may imply two things: (1) that the CBOE was expecting a denial and (2) that they didn't want another SEC order to create unnecessary market mayhem.

Some are speculating that the ongoing government shutdown was a major factor behind the decision. Nevertheless, there will be no more bitcoin ETF in Q1 2019.

Now before everyone panics, let's look at the positives:

👌 It's highly unlikely this is actually bad news on a mid-to-long term perspective
💸 As of right now, the market doesn't seem to actually give a damn. Prices have been quite stable since the news drop.
👥 CBOE wasn't "denied" by any means. Instead, this decision was simply voluntary. It's safe to assume the involved parties have been in active discussions with the SEC and any feedback was used prospectively.

U.S. Investors Lost $1.7B After Selling Bitcoin, but Many Don't Plan to Deduct it – Here's Why They Should

Credit Karma's recent survey found that US bitcoin investors realized losses of $1.7 billion after selling their BTC... and the investors who are still holding are sitting on unrealized losses of $5.7 billion. Nothing surprising here.

The main point of the survey was to find out how many folks are planning on reporting the realized losses on their taxes this season. Interestingly enough, Credit Karma found that only 53% of these BTC sellers plan on reporting their losses. But the big eye-opener is that 58% of respondents didn't even know that they could claim a tax deduction for their cryptocurrency losses.

To refresh everyone's memory, we featured a piece over the holiday break covering this (evidently) overlooked tax strategy.

How to Trade Without Being Chained to a Desk

As a schoolteacher, Jason Bond was $250,000 in debt, working side jobs grinding 90+ hours a week but still stuck with no hope… Until he put his passion and hunger for success into the stock market, where he learned THREE simple patterns that would forever change his life.

Jason gained 188% in 2015, 30% in 2016, 284% in 2017 and is on pace to do it again in 2019. Take a minute and watch exactly how Jason did it.

Learn how here.

DEEP DIVE

Grin FAQ: Everything You Wanted to Know About Grin

Since launching last week, the crypto community has been buzzing about Grin. So what is it, and why are people excited? Saddle up, here's your Grin FAQ.

On the same note, we also wanted to share a neat "though of the day" from the guys at Token Daily that focuses more on the pros & cons. In their own words, Grin coming online sent the cryptosphere into a tizzy for a few reasons:

Grin had a "fair launch"
Credible people in the space have been vocally positive about the project
Privacy is an actual use case
Grin has a predictable monetary policy
Grin was launched under a pseudonym, reminiscent of bitcoin's go-to-market.

A Darknet Vendor May Be Selling Your Images & Data

A darknet vendor is supposedly selling 100,000 personal documents that were used to pass KYC on Binance, Bitfinex, Poloniex and Bittrex. The documents were supposedly 'dumped' early 2018 when a third party KYC solution provider suffered a breach. The documents allegedly include selfies, scans of identity documents and proof of address of each person.

Following the publicity, the vendor is now debating whether to start a crowdfunding campaign to delete all the hacked documents.

Why 2019 Will Be The Year of the DAO

One story in crypto is the price story — how speculative investments in cryptoassets are performing. In 2018, that story wasn't so positive, seeing a massive return to earth after 2017's run up broke gravity.

Another part of the crypto story, however, is the evolution of the underlying tech stack. Still another is the broader global social context that creates a need for those decentralized, censorship-resistant technologies. In those contexts, 2018 tells a very different story.

At Aragon, they sit at an interesting vantage point, not only developing technology but getting to watch as hundreds of projects and organizations start to build on top of that technology. From where they sit, 2019 is poised to be the year of the DAO.

The Year in Ethereum & Why Constantinople Was Delayed

There was a lot of talk last week surrounding Ethereum's highly anticipated Constantinople upgrade and its hours-before-launch emergency delay that took place. So we wanted to share @Mycrypto's thread who took the time to defuse all the misinformation and clamor.

For more of a background on Ethereum, we suggest you read this year in review essay written by Josh Stark, Evan Van Ness, and Daniel Zakrisson.

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REGULATORY FRONT

Demonstrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network in Congress

So not everyone up in D.C. has stopped working...

Here's our favorite non-profit research and crypto advocacy group demonstrating the Lightning Network (LN) in front of Congress last week. The well-attended briefing was the first of many that the Congressional Blockchain Caucus plans to hold in 2019.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

What you're looking at is a demo of an in-game payment made via the LN. While this may not seem significant today, we can certainly see this changing the dynamics of in-game commerce while providing more demand over time. Pretty neat, right?

COIN	PRICE	24H

BTC	$3,595.31	- 0.37%

XRP	$0.316995	- 0.51%

ETH	$117.34	- 1.18%

BCH	$129.15	- 1.18%

EOS	$2.45	- 0.14%