JPM Coin Is Live as Bitcoin Rallies

PLUS: DEXs surge, Bitcoin bail funds and more

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October 27, 2020 Sponsored by By Daniel Kuhn If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.  Top shelf JPM Coin will see its first commercial use, banking executives said. Southeast Asia's largest bank by assets, DBS, is eyeing a digital assets exchange. And bitcoin’s recent rise shows a decoupling from traditional markets, like the S&P 500. JPM Coin JPM Coin, the enterprise-minded digital asset stewarded by the titular global bank, will see its first transaction this week,  a JPMorgan executive said. Designed for wholesale and payments and faster transactions, the system is predicted to save the banking industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year. First revealed in February 2019, JPM Coin will run on Quorum, a private version of Ethereum developed by the bank but acquired by development firm ConsenSys in August. Further, the executive told CNBC the bank has created a business unit with around 100 employees called Onyx to house related projects. “We believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business,” the executive said.  Bank’s exchange Southeast Asia's largest bank by assets, DBS, is apparently in the works to build a digital assets trading platform. The Singapore-based bank and financial services corporation posted – and quickly removed – a webpage detailing the DBS Digital Exchange that will offer access to "an integrated ecosystem of solutions to tap the vast potential of private markets and digital currencies." In addition to bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and XRP trading services, the exchange will also offer tokenization services, offering business the opportunity to raise funds by issuing digital forms of securities and assets, per the page. The exchange will be regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state's de facto central bank. BTC funds bail A growing number of donors are giving crypto to bail funds, CoinDesk’s Ben Powers reports. Bail fund projects have taken in thousands of dollars in crypto donations – including major assets like BTC and ETH, as well as smaller market cap coins like BAT – since the summer, according to The Giving Block. Potential benefits include helping bail funds diversify payments streams, attract younger tech-savvy and international donors as well as tax benefits. “We expect that more people will embrace crypto as their preferred method of making donations – especially as people understand the tax benefits of giving via crypto, which are similar to those of donating conventional securities,” The Bail Project’s Chief Financial Officer Zach Herz-Roiphe said. Volume surge Automated market makers Curve and Uniswap traded combined volumes above $4 billion on Monday, perhaps in reaction to a recent exploit of popular DeFi protocol Harvest Finance. Daily trading volume on Uniswap lept 1,200% to a record $2.04 billion, surpassing the previous record high notched shy of $1 billion, while decentralized exchange Curve Finance saw volumes above $2 billion. This weekend, an attacker used a flash loan – a technique that allows a trader to take on massive leverage without any downside – draining some $24 million from Harvest and triggering a bank run. "Volume on Uniswap surged, as the Harvest Finance exploiter likely ran money through the automated market maker," Denis Vinokourov, head of the research at the London-based prime brokerage Bequant, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat. Powell pontificates  Jesse Powell, crypto OG and Kraken CEO, has criticized the decentralized finance (DeFi) space, in light of several recent multimillion-dollar exploits, not the least of which affected Harvest Finance yesterday. In a tweet on Tuesday, Powell said he would “not accept” DeFi projects’ attempts at “externalizing the cost” of “hasty reckless” rollouts. In an expletive-laden tweet he admonished these breakneck coders for rushing out unaudited and uninsured projects. Despite this, CoinDesk’s Sebastian Sinclair notes, the DeFi sector is continuing to grow, having surpassed $12.45 billion in total value locked up in smart contracts on Oct. 25. (That figure dropped by about $1.15 billion after Monday’s exploit of Harvest, and now stands at $11.3 billion, according to DeFi Pulse.) SPONSORED BY FLIPSIDE CRYPTO Bitcoin is now part of the Flipside Data Cooperative - a transparency initiative that provides public and shareable views of networks’ on-chain activity in real time. Flipside Crypto transformed Bitcoin’s blockchain data by labeling every stakeholder and transaction that has ever taken place on the network. The labeled data now powers public interactive dashboards, so anyone can watch where whales and other users are sending their BTC. Learn more about Flipside Crypto. Quick bites Why Wyoming’s Governor Supports the State’s Crypto Banking Law (CoinDesk) Toyota’s IT arm launches digital currency pilot (The Block) Audius Distributes Crypto to RAC, Deadmau5 Listeners (Decrypt) There are already counterfeit wallets of China’s digital yuan (Quartz - paywall) Alibaba’s Jack Ma says switch to a digital currency (Modern Consensus) Most Influential 2020: Cast Your Vote Every year, CoinDesk recognizes the “Most Influential” people working to expand cryptocurrency and blockchain’s reach. It’s a list of the 10 outsized individuals who have gone the furthest and done the most. In this most unusual year, we need your help determining who should be named as Most Influential. Check out the list of the top contenders and cast your vote by Oct. 31. At stake The indicators Bitcoin is rallying, and on-chain and off-chain indicators point to a continuing trend. CoinDesk markets reporter Omkar Godbole placed bitcoin’s new yearly watermark in the context of declining daily deposits to cryptocurrency exchanges as well as a movement of coins off exchanges.  According to Glassnode, the number of daily deposits to exchanges fell to a nine-month low of 26,889 on Monday as the total number of bitcoins held on exchanges slipped to a two-year low of 2,478,799 BTC. These statistics, while imperfect, have traditionally pointed to a market sentiment where traders and investors are prepared to “hodl” into a rally, Godbole noted.  A similar sentiment can be gauged by looking at futures markets, where contracts give the option for buyers to strike a buy at a predetermined price by a predetermined date. According to Godbole’s analysis, one-, three- and six-month put-call skews, which measure the cost of bearing to bullish bets are hovering near zero, an indication that some traders expect for bitcoin’s price to continue rising.  Last week, Bloomberg analysts put out a quarterly report on predictive crypto performance, targeting a $100,000 BTC price level for 2025 and a high of $14,000 as early as this year.  “Still in hangover mode from the 2017 rally, we don't know what specific catalyst might launch Bitcoin to new highs, but demand vs. supply metrics remain price-positive,” the analysts write in “Bitcoin Trend, Adding Zeros.” Among the macro factors they point to is bitcoin’s decreasing volatility compared to the Nasdaq composite, a growing correlation with gold and a likely growing market cap, in part spurred by corporate investment (like MicroStrategy and Square’s) in the cryptocurrency. “In an unparalleled macroeconomic backdrop of rapidly increasing fiscal and monetary stimulus, limited supply stores of value such as gold and Bitcoin stand to prevail, in our view. This should be true when traditional asset classes – stocks and bonds – are overextended,” the report reads.  A separate report by CoinDesk’s sister company Grayscale has found that more than half (55%) of U.S. investors who responded are interested in buying bitcoin (BTC) in 2020. That’s up from 19% from survey responses last year. For the short term? "The next resistance to take out is $13,800 (June 2019 high),” Patrick Heusser, a senior cryptocurrency trader at Zurich-based Crypto Broker AG told Godbole.  Crypto state With the U.S. Election Day next week, much is at stake - including crypto policy over the next four years.   Like it or not, this election will matter for the crypto industry. Our latest limited-run newsletter, The State of Crypto: Election 2020 by regulatory reporter Nikhilesh De, aims to walk you through why. At stake: Will new crypto products be approved or allowed to operate in the U.S.? Will regulators target more overseas exchanges and platforms like BitMEX? Will the U.S. launch a “digital dollar” or some other form of central bank digital currency? These questions will come down to who takes the reins at the various financial regulators and government departments. Over the next several days, we map out the possible outcomes and introduce analysis of the candidates.  Our limited-run newsletter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at least until Election Day. Subscribe to The State of Crypto: Election 2020. Market intel Decoupling? Bitcoin (BTC) is riding at 16-month highs,  trading around $13,420 at press time. The cryptocurrency is now up 25% for the month and 87% on a year-to-date basis, CoinDesk’s Omkar Godbole reports. This comes as coronavirus scares and intermittent U.S. stimulus talks have spooked traditional markets, seen by the S&P 500’s 2% drop yesterday. “In effect, we appear to be seeing a weakening of the positive correlation between bitcoin and the S&P 500 seen since the March crash,” Godbole said. Matthew Dibb, COO of Stack Funds, agreed: "The decline in transfers to exchanges despite risk-off in equity markets is a bullish sign.”  Who won #CryptoTwitter? ATTENTION: Scammers have been sending fraudulent emails with links to sites disguised to look like coindesk.com. If you are in doubt about a link, type https://www.coindesk.com directly into your browser; do not copy and paste. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Blockchain Bites A newsletter from CoinDesk See previous editions Copyright © 2020 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.  Our mailing address is:  250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US  Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences here.

Hyperledger Explains Peer-to-Peer Financial Transactions

Learn how to get past the roadblocks of peer-to-peer financial transactions with Hyperledger. Watch live today!

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A Note to Our Live Attendees: We apologize for the error that occurred during the live webinar experience. We always strive to provide the best attendee and sponsor experience possible. Please enjoy access to the live recording here.   Whether you are eyeing retail or wholesale CBDC opportunities or are looking at digital wallets loyalty programs or other implementations of token-based transactions, you’ve no doubt realized the technology infrastructure is just one part of the puzzle. Learn how to get past the roadblocks of  peer-to-peer transactions with Hyperledger in this free webinar: Governance, Standards and Interoperability: Getting Past the Roadblocks to Peer-to-Peer Financial Transactions.   It’s well documented that distributed ledger technologies can deliver on the mechanics of peer-to-peer transactions. The roadblocks are creating an ecosystem with a level of transparency and security that consumers, regulators and companies trust. The closer you move to central banks and fiat currencies, the higher the barriers to buying in and deployment.   WATCH ON DEMAND This discussion  features experts on three different Hyperledger DLT platforms as they  compare notes about current and future token-based solutions from around the world. The conversations also cover: The role standards and governance must play to successfully implement peer-to-peer financing applications and networks The core requirements for blockchain frameworks powering them The growing need for interoperability to support increasingly complex use cases WEBINAR SPEAKERS Nitin Gaur |  Director, IBM Financial Sciences and Digital Assets, IBM Research Makoto Takemiya | CEO and co-founder, Soramitsu Grace Hartley | Strategy & Operations, ConsenSys MODERATED BY Nathaniel Whittemore | Host, The Breakdown WATCH ON DEMAND This email was sent by: CoinDesk   250 Park Avenue South New York, NY, 10003, US   Want to change how you receive these emails? update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list

FinCEN info on cross-border crypto 👁 / billions still frozen 😳 / personal essay 📝

FinCEN proposes lowering the Travel Rule threshold from $3,000 to $250...

Inside.com Part of   Network October 26, 2020

Market Watch Bitcoin $13,085 7 day: +14.6% Ethereum $413 7 day: +12% All crypto $392b 7 day: +6.8% Bitcoin dominance 61.5% 7 day: +2.2% Prices as of 12:15 p.m. EDT

The U.S. Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have proposed lowering the Travel Rule threshold from $3,000 to $250. The Travel Rule currently requires all financial institutions to transmit the following information alongside any international money transfer with a value exceeding USD$3,000: Name, account, and address of the transmittor, Identity of the transmittor's financial institution, Amount and date of the transmittal, Identity of the recipient's financial institution. Far-reaching implications: According to Chainalysis, 74% of exchange-to-exchange bitcoin transfers were cross-border, and users send a staggering 88% of U.S. bitcoin ATM purchases offshore. On Friday, the Fed and FinCEN simultaneously unveiled the proposal that would lower the Travel Rule's reporting threshold to $250. It would continue to require financial institutions, including banks and cryptocurrency exchanges, to collect, store, and transmit information regarding international payments. The proposed rule change expressly identifies cryptocurrency transfers as subject to Travel Rule requirements. The document acknowledges that, although some cryptocurrencies can technically be transferred across U.S. borders without the involvement of financial institutions, the vast majority of users rely on hosted wallets, exchanges, and banking institutions to assist their transfers. The proposal is FinCEN's most stern warning to cryptocurrency companies that transmit tokens across U.S. borders, insisting that Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules apply to both fiat and cryptocurrencies. This story continues in part 2, below. FinCEN Currency Transaction Report Form 104 U.S. Federal Reserve

25 U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges have responded to the new Travel Rule. The response to Friday's proposed rule change was immediate from Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, Bittrex, BitGo, Circle, and others. U.S. exchanges published a whitepaper outlining a proposal for complying with the law. More: Friday's proposal came from the so-called United States Travel Rule Working Group and relied heavily on exchange-to-exchange secure messaging platforms like CipherTrace's Travel Rule Information Sharing Architecture (TRISA). Bitfinex and Tether, defendants in a consolidated $1.4t U.S. class-action lawsuit, understandably opted out of U.S.-based CipherTrace's platform. They prefer Binance's exchange-to-exchange messaging platform, Shyft Network's Veriscope. China's Huobi also prefers Veriscope. The Block Crypto

OKEx still seizing over $3B of austomer assets Over $3b of bitcoin and untold altcoins of customers' assets are still "temporarily" frozen at OKEx. Founder Mingxing "Star" Xu remains in police custody. As noted on Oct. 16, second only to the indictment of BitMEX's co-founders, the fallout at OKEx will likely be the year's second-biggest story. More: OKEx is headquartered in Hong Kong, derives most of its profits from China, but is licensed in Malta, creating some ambiguity regarding the location of the Oct. 16 arrest. Xu possesses private keys for OKEx's cryptocurrency wallets. Mars Finance suggests that police might be detaining Xu regarding an investigation into a "backdoor listing" of OK Group. Police are still detaining Xu. OKEx is publishing updates to allay concerns about its theft of customer assets. OKEx CEO Jay Hao says that Xu's detention "is a personal matter and wouldn't affect the business." Official statements from OKEx are increasingly distancing Xu's activities from OKEx, claiming that police are more interested in the "separate entities" of OK Group and OK Coin. In reality, OK Coin is the predecessor of OKEx's peer-to-peer trading system. OK Coin is also the former employer of Binance's billionaire founder, Changpeng Zhao. Chainalysis notes that while OKEx claims to be located in Malta, it actually serves non-Maltese and non-Italian clients through a Seychelles subsidiary called Aux Cayes. According to a quote from BitMEX's Arthur Hayes, the price to bribe officials in the Seychelles is "a coconut." Coindesk

A personal journal entry Many readers have asked for my personal views about bitcoin. I've decided to draft a brief essay to share with our supportive Inside Cryptocurrency Premium readers. I write this not as a journalist, but personally, in my own words. I am both a bitcoin supporter and skeptic. We are better together as we educate ourselves and think rationally about this important industry. The future of finance is coming, and it is not as rosy as it might appear. Enjoy! This feature is only available to Inside Cryptocurrency Premium readers. Join us with a free ($0!) 14-day trial on all new Inside Premium subscriptions. UNLOCK CONTENT

QUICK HITS Police have arrested the mastermind of a $1b bitcoin scam in Spain. Santiago Fuentes ran Arbistar, a bitcoin-based pyramid scheme affecting more than 32,000 people. Barry Silbert's Digital Currency Group polled its 150 portfolio companies and published its State of Crypto 2020. Russia claims that it will pilot its "digital ruble" CBDC next year. DeFi darling Harvest Finance (FARM) drops 65% in one day. Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith continues denying that he aided North Korea. Learn how to revamp your remote work strategy in this webinar: How to Build a Better Remote Work Experience With Less Software.* *This is a sponsored post.

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 Jonathan Harris is a writer for Inside.com. Previously, he wrote for The Huffington Post, TakePart.com, and the YouTube channel What’s Trending.

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