Image of The Day, 15 of November: Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist and Others
We're presenting "the image of the day". Bitnewstoday.com has chosen 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 of this day in the most indicative quotes are below!
1. BANKSTERS WORLD (The Next Web)
German Bitcoin exchange buys investment bank
Earlier this week, German cryptocurrency exchange Bitcoin Group SE announced it has successfully bought a 100-percent stake in an investment bank, Tremmel Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH. With this purchase, the group will absorb Tremmel’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) license, opening additional doors for product development.
The BaFin license will allow Bitcoin Group SE to develop and sell cryptocurrency-based investment contracts (like futures contracts or ETFs) and also to deploy Bitcoin ATMs.
2. NO NO SENSE (The Daily Hodl)
Arthur Hayes: trading against his own clients is ‘nonsensical’
BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes has rebuffed a series of allegations made by a blogger named “Hasu” in a widely read, 3,000-word Medium post. The blogger claims BitMEX, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, secretly trades against its customers, “weaponizes” server problems by giving certain traders preferential access, and generates ill-gotten profits by monetizing customer liquidations through their insurance fund.
According to Hasu, the complaints were sourced from interviews with BitMEX customers. The blogger concedes that while there is “not enough evidence to conclude that BitMEX is definitely guilty of these things,” there are “enough incentives for them exist.”
3. EVIL CHILD (Financial Times)
ECB official dubs Bitcoin “evil spawn of the financial crisis”
One of the eurozone’s top central bankers has dubbed Bitcoin “the evil spawn of the financial crisis”. Benoît Cœuré, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, became the latest central banker to lay into the cryptocurrency, saying the problems of Bitcoin were “plentiful”.
“Lightning may strike me for saying this in the Tower of Basel — but Bitcoin was an extremely clever idea. Sadly, not every clever idea is a good idea,” the executive board member said in Basel on Thursday. “I believe that Agustín Carstens summed its manifold problems up well when he said that Bitcoin is ‘a combination of a bubble, a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster’.”
4. ON THE RISE (Blokt)
Hedge fund circuit says crypto adoption growing despite falling prices
The falling prices of digital currencies are not the best gauge on what’s actually happening in the crypto space. This is the belief of Circuit Capital founders, a new hedge fund that is surprisingly bullish on the industry despite the market’s failure to retrace January’s massive correction.
Circuit partner Eugene Ng believes that focusing too much on the falling price of cryptocurrencies might have diverted people’s attention from the positive developments happening in the space. For instance, Ng argues that adoption has actually been growing non-stop the entire time. This explains why most crypto businesses are gearing up for expansion if they have not already done so, as well as the movement of talent into the industry.
5. REACHING A LIMIT (Market Watch)
Bitcoin futures tumble 13% and trigger trading limit
Bitcoin futures on the CME Group exchange reached the 13% limit down level on Wednesday after the price of the world's largest digital currency tumbled to a fresh 2018 low. According to a spokesperson from the CME, the pause came just before 2 p.m. Eastern Time where a two-minute observation was initiated.
"From a technical analysis standpoint, as bitcoin's price falls below $6,000 we're seeing liquidation: stop-loss orders automatically going into effect and/or people trying to play the breakout," wrote Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst at eToro.
6. SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Forbes)
Bridging the demand gap for blockchain talent with education
While the opportunity for developers to make a significant salary is there, the gap between talent demand and supply is still substantial. Many companies with extensive resources and technical talent — such as IBM — are turning to in-house education of blockchain skills as well as outsourcing to a millennial generation that has shown a predilection for blockchain tech and cryptocurrencies.
Formal educational material and services have also emerged among some of the top universities including Stanford’s Center for Blockchain Research, Blockchain at Berkeley, and Kingsland University Blockchain Programming curriculum. These educational initiatives provide developers, and even non-developers, the opportunity to take comprehensive courses on the complicated concepts of the underlying technology as well as how to become professional developers in the field.
7. FANCY TRICK (The Economist)
Stock exchanges find novel uses for blockchain
Exchanges from America and Australia to Switzerland and Singapore are studying the concept of using blockchain. Australia’s stock exchange, the ASX, has moved furthest towards using blockchain to replace its main clearing and settlement platform. It has been testing technology from Digital Asset, an American firm, and will go live in mid-2021. And on November 11th SGX, Singapore’s stock exchange, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), its central bank, announced a prototype using blockchain for delivery, payment and settlement of assets.
These projects are strikingly unlike the vision of blockchain enthusiasts. ASX’s, for example, uses ledgers but remains quite centralised. A single counterparty, ASX itself, must approve participants (which removes the need for energy-intensive verification and updating of records, as with Bitcoin). Though open to all, only some banks and brokers will opt for direct access. Everyone else must trade through them. In contrast to the complete transparency of the Bitcoin ledger, market participants will not have access to the whole dataset (for legal reasons, but also so they do not have to give away their positions). And settlement will not be in real time.
8. NO FORKING CLUE (The Irish Times)
Irish people in the dark as to what blockchain technology is
Despite a burgeoning blockchain community in Ireland, with companies such as Deloitte, Mastercard and ConsenSys all recruiting heavily recently, some 75 per cent of those surveyed by Amárach said they would not think of working in the sector.
The study of 1,000 people, commissioned by Wachsman, found that just over half of those who rejected the idea of a blockchain-related job cited a lack of understanding over what the technology is as their primary reason. Many also cited not having sufficient skills to work in blockchain.
9. TIME TRAVELERS! (The Next Web)
Trump’s attorney general once endorsed a ‘time travel’ cryptocurrency
Some very strange details have surfaced regarding Donald Trump’s newly appointed acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, and his involvement with a cryptocurrency for time travel.
For years, Whitaker sat on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a marketing firm that has since been shut down by order of a federal judge.
World Patent Marketing once claimed to be working closely with a cryptocurrency project described as a “theoretical time travel commodity” pegged to the price of Bitcoin, named Time Travel X. Other insane inventions backed by World Patent Marketing during Whitaker’s reign on its board include a special MASCULINE TOILET, designed to help well-endowed men avoid unwanted contact with toilet water when relieving themselves.
10. THE TRIGGER (Forbes)
What triggered Bitcoin's sharp price plunge?
Bitcoin prices dropped significantly today, falling below $5,400 and reaching their lowest since late last year. The digital currency declined to as little as $5,390.12, losing more than 10% in the space of 24 hours and hitting a fresh 2018 low, CoinDesk price data reveals.
There are three main reasons to blame for that. Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork FUD
Several analysts emphasized the uncertainty surrounding the hard fork that is scheduled to take place in Bitcoin Cash, market factors and while some analysts chose to emphasize either the uncertainty surrounding the Bitcoin Cash hard fork or instead technical analysis, others asserted that the market's price movements were the result of both.