Image of The Week, 19-23 of November: CNBC, Reuters, Financial Times and Other
We're presenting “image of the week”. Bitnewstoday.com has chosen only the most important news about the digital economy and virtual currencies. Only the most valuable stories from only the trusted sources. Each and every event from this list will change the world of the digital economy either way. The most important stories in the most indicative quotes are below!
19 of November
STRAIGHT OUTTA CRYPTO-COMPTON (The Next Web)
Switzerland sets precedent with world’s first cryptocurrency ETP
Switzerland’s leading stock exchange has given the go-ahead for the world’s first cryptocurrency ETP, the Financial Times reports. The ETP is called the “Amun Crypto exchange traded product (ETP)” and will be trading from next week on the “Six” exchange in Zurich.
The Amun Crypto ETP will track an index made up of five leading cryptocurrencies including: Bitcoin, XRP, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin. Each of these coins will be weighted at 49.7 percent, 25.4 percent, 16.7 percent, 5.2 percent, and 3 percent, respectively. The fund also holds a 2.5 percent annual management fee.
WE NEED TO GO DEEPER (The Daily Hodl)
Bitcoin price will go even lower
The senior market research analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence says Bitcoin remains on a bearish trajectory. Mike McGlone says the price of BTC could drop all the way down to $1,500. According to McGlone, the slump “was sparked by the pump for the Bitcoin Cash hard fork. That pump that began a few weeks ago got the market a bit too offsides with speculative longs playing for the good-old days. But this is an enduring bear market.”
A CHANGE OF FAITH (Bloomberg)
Former DLT supporter loses faith in blockchain
For years, a common mantra among corporate executives has been that "the blockchain," the technology underlying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, is where the real value lies in the future. As such, we've seen numerous initiatives and consortiums designed to port various business practices off of legacy, centralized systems and onto the blockchain. However sometimes this does not last.
Angus Champion de Crespigny, who formerly advised numerous companies on how to use blockchain technology, now doesn't believes that ultimately it will get them anywhere.
20 of November
BIG NEWS (Quartz)
India’s ready to clarify its stance on cryptocurrencies
A finance ministry panel set up in November 2017 could be ready with draft regulations next month. This was clarified by the Narendra Modi government in a counter-affidavit, a copy of which has been reviewed by Quartz, filed in the supreme court on Nov. 19. India’s top court is hearing a case filed by a clutch of cryptocurrency exchanges who have accused the government and the central bank of choking the ecosystem.
Previously it was mandated that the panel will submit draft regulations by July this year but it has been delayed. Subhash Chandra Garg, a top civil servant, currently a secretary in the department of economic affairs had earlier stated that regulations on cryptocurrencies are likely by the end of march next year, but it doesn’t seem like that anymore.
GOOD DAY TO PANIC (Financial Times)
As crypto prices have swooned enthusiasm has morphed into malaise
A year ago, Bitcoin was near the peak of a frenzied rally to almost $20,000 — a surge that fired up crypto enthusiasts who declared that the digital currency revolution would render fiat money and traditional finance useless.
Today Bitcoin has tumbled towards $4,000 and the online bravado among crypto fans on Reddit has given way to snipes at other digital tokens and a general sense of malaise. One user summed up the primary question facing a group of traders who once extolled the virtues of HODL’ing, or endlessly hanging on despite market ructions: “Is it finally safe to say Bitcoin is dead?”
21 of November
FOUL PLAY (CNBC)
The U.S. Justice Department is reportedly looking into the potential crypto shenanigans
The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether traders used tether, a controversial cryptocurrency that founders say is backed 1:1 by a U.S. dollar, to prop up Bitcoin, according to a report from Bloomberg News, which cited three people familiar with the matter. Tether and Bitfinex did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.
Federal prosecutors launched a criminal probe into the cryptocurrencies earlier this year, Bloomberg reported. But they now suspect that traders on crypto exchange Bitfinex might have been using tether to coordinate Bitcoin's price moves illegally, Bloomberg reported. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also subpoenaed Tether and Bitfinex, who share many of the same executives, in December in part to prove that these tokens are actually backed by a reserve of U.S. dollars. The potential market tricks include "spoofing," or placing fake orders until the price hits a certain level, then pulling those orders.
A PIPE DREAM (Reuters)
Bitcoin for payments a distant dream as usage dries up
The use of Bitcoin for commercial payments has dropped dramatically this year, even as the original digital coin starts to fulfill one of the basic features of any payment currency: stability. Months of relative calm in Bitcoin prices after the wild swings of last winter had fueled hopes it would become widely used for payments, its intended purpose. But its collapse in use as a payment currency has instead left big finance and crypto insiders eyeing better technological infrastructure to help Bitcoin take off as a way to pay.
“The lack of volatility is a good step in the right direction that starts to make it viable for some of the non-retail use cases,” said Zeeshan Feroz, UK CEO of Coinbase, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. But both mainstream financial firms and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs say stability is not enough. To gain traction, Bitcoin needs to be faster and cheaper, they say. Clearer rules on an asset that has vexed financial regulators across the world would also help to give users a sense of legitimacy, UBS’s Teves said.
22 of November
AMAZON’S PATH (The Daily Hodl)
Crypto venture capitalist says bitcoin is following the path of internet giant Amazon
Bitcoin believer and CryptoOracle partner Lou Kerner says that the trajectory of the decentralized digital economy is long, and the ride will be bumpy.
Bitcoin is not the first long-winded, disruptive platform to post epic wins followed by jaw-dropping crashes. Amazon, promising to reinvent how people shop, first made big waves on the tech scene back in 1997 with high-flying stock prices. After Amazon’s initial public offering in May of that year, its stock price went from $18 per share to an average of $106 by December 1999 – before nosediving to $5.97 in September 2001. Amazon traders lost fortunes.
GAULOISES, BAGUETTE, BITCOIN (The Next Web)
French tabacs introduce questionable plan to sell Bitcoin coupons
The French confederation of tobacconists is hellbent on allowing tobacco stores (tabacs) across the country sell special coupons for Bitcoin and Ethereum, as a way of keeping up with the times.
Announced suddenly via local media, confederation president Philippe Coy declared between 3,000 and 4,000 tabacs across France would be permitted to sell cryptocurrency vouchers, starting next year.
23 of November
BAD NEWS EVERYONE! (Financial Magnates)
Norwegian Government Revokes Electricity Subsidies for Crypto Miners
The Norwegian government has taken action to end subsidies for electricity purchased by Bitcoin mining companies, according to a report y local news source Afterposten on Nov. 21st. Previous to the subsidies’ end, mining firms paid the equivalent of just $0.05 per kilowatt; starting in January, they will have to pay the equivalent of $1.94 per kilowatt — a whopping 3880 percent increase.
Norway cannot continue to provide huge tax incentives for the dirtiest form of cryptocurrency output,” said Lars Haltbrekken, a member of the country’s Socialist Left Party. “[Bitcoin] requires a lot of energy and generates large greenhouse gas emissions globally.”
MAKE BLOCKCHAIN, NOT BEDSHEETS (The Wall Street Journal)
Patrick Byrne is so certain about the technology’s possibilities, he’s planning to sell Overstock’s retail business
In August 2015, Overstock.com Inc. Chief Executive Patrick Byrne rented out Nasdaq Inc.’s Times Square broadcast studio for a lavish party to unveil his newest project, a blockchain-based trading system called tZero.
Three years later, tZero still hasn’t launched commercially, and it is burning through millions of dollars a month. Yet Mr. Byrne is staking his company’s future on it and more than a dozen other blockchain startups.