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BOT ADVANTAGE: Savvy crypto traders and their trusty trading bots seem to have taken advantage of the listing of the ZRX token on Coinbase's professional platform, Coinbase Pro.
Data shows prices for ZRX began to surge on other exchanges a few minutes before Coinbase made its official public announcement at 17:00 UTC. But while there were whispers online about the possibility of insider trading, a charge the exchange has denied in the past, there's another explanation that is perhaps more plausible.
Savvy traders may have simply been making use of well-timed trading bots, computer programs that automatically scout technical price charts and exchange APIs to identify actionable and profitable developments.
The bots can then either immediately act on their findings by placing a trade, or send a signal to their users in the form of a message via social media. Full Story
AWS + QTUM: The China-based arm of Amazing Web Services is working with Qtum to develop a new blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) offering.
The Singapore-based crypto project has become a member of the Amazon Partner Network, which affords Qtum "business, technical, sales, and marketing resources" from Amazon, according to Mike Palencia, Qtum's chief information officer.
Qtum, which raised $1 million last January from investors including Anthony Di Iorio, OKCoin CEO Star Xu, BitFund founder Xiaolai Li and Fenbushi partner Bo Shen, launched its public blockchain a year ago. Full Story
SAME RULES, NEW TECH: At an event in Dubai on Tuesday, Brian Quintenz, a commissioner for the U.S. Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that smart contracts used to predict the future fall under the existing definition of a "prediction market."
As such, the rules for that case are already defined, he said. "In the past, the CFTC has generally prohibited prediction markets as contrary to the public interest."
The commissioner continued to add that the CFTC will regulate everything in its jurisdiction: "If the contract is a product within the CFTC's jurisdiction, then regardless of whether it is executed via a written ISDA [International Swaps and Derivatives Association] confirmation or software code, it is subject to CFTC regulation." Full Story
KEVLAR COINS: On Thursday, Oct. 18, the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency monero will test a newly developed technology called “bulletproofs."
Invented by cryptographers Benedict Bunz and Jonathan Bootle, the technology was developed to significantly decrease the computational "weight" of confidential transactions.
The first major cryptocurrency to deploy the technology, monero has been focused on how to implement bulletproofs for the past year – in an effort to cut the size of its confidential transactions by at least 80 percent.
"We're excited about it," developer Sarang Noether told CoinDesk. "Part of the reason we do the upgrades is so we can be safely on the cutting edge, and I think this is a really, really good move forward." Full Story |
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Stablecoins aren't very stable, as the data shows.
Over the past few days, stablecoins broke their pegs with the US dollar. Tether (USDT) started the decoupling when traders valued it 2 percent less than the actual dollar. Thus it took more USDT -- $6,709.16 -- to buy one bitcoin vs. $6,585.52 in US dollar terms.
Conversely, bitcoin was the cheapest when bought with Gemini's GUSD. One GUSD was worth 9% more than one USD. This indicates that the crypto market had more confidence in a month-old stablecoin than in tether, the one that's been around the longest. This data was sourced from CoinMarketCap at 2 p.m. EST on October 16.
For more research insights check out the CoinDesk Research section here. You can also follow CoinDesk's research analyst Peter Ryan on Twitter for the latest insights. |
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| | BULL HURDLES: Even as some investors hope that the bulls will regain control over the bitcoin market, there are several kinds of resistance at play. One factor at play: there appears to be sellers exhaustion as BTC's price doesn't stray too far from the $6,000 mark. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST
BLOOMBERG: Believing that he can make investors into insiders. Arya Bolurfrushan is very optimistic about his digital coin fund.
Bloomberg profiles the well-dressed Harvard business alum and his hedge fund, Accrete Capital Technologies, which he hopes will upend both Wall Street and cryptocurrencies by creating something with lower fees than asset managers and less volatility than bitcoin.
Bolurfrushan is joined by five Goldmann alumni, according to the publication.
THE REST
BLOOMBERG QUINT: Colleges or universities have been known to be picky about the kind of donations that they accept, due to tax considerations.
The Quint reports that the University of Puget Sound, a private liberal arts college in Tacoma, Washington, began accepting cryptocurrency donations back in 2014 -- one of the first institutions of its kind to do so.
But to make it work, the university had to tweak its policies to actually allow the crypto-gift, and strike up a relationship with a bitcoin payment processor to make it work.
EAST BAY EXPRESS: Changing the outlook of music festivals, the DJ who famously "turned down Wall Street," Justin Blau -- also known as 3LAU -- is spearheading the blockchain-based Our Music Festival.
Local new outlet Easy Bay Express reports that the music festival is being marketed as a blockchain-powered event, which is complete with its own ethereum-based token.
Reportedly, concert-goers will be able to use the token to purchase tickets, obtain VIP upgrades, and buy merchandise and other items at the event as well as future OMF-branded happenings. |
We've launched our first-ever podcast, "Late Confirmation," a digest of top stories in the blockchain world, delivered daily from the team at CoinDesk. |
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