Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Cryptocurrencies are mostly red as Bitcoin trading volumes in South American countries reach another all-time high

Crypto News

  • According to a tweet from one of its senior employees, Blockchain trust company, Paxos, has issued approximately USD$50 million worth of its US Dollar-backed stablecoin, Paxos Standard (PAX). PAX received regulatory approval from the New York State Department of Financial Services early in September. Paxos claims that PAX has, “achieved the fastest, wildest institutional adoption of any digital asset.” So far, six of the ten largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and OKEx, have listed PAX as a trading pair.  
  • DocuSign, a San Francisco-based company with over 400,000 customers, announced in a press release this weekend that it would begin to integrate the Ethereum blockchain into its electronic signature and transaction management service. DocuSign will offer customers an option to have evidence of a DocuSign agreement listed on the Ethereum blockchain. According to Ron Hirson, Chief Product Officer at DocuSign, the record on the Ethereum blockchain will act as “tamper-proof evidence for the transaction” that “enables any completed document to be validated independently.”
  • Following an announcement yesterday by OKEx that the cryptocurrency exchange would list 4 stablecoins, Huobi has announced that it would soon begin listing four US Dollar-pegged stablecoins on its cryptocurrency exchange. In its announcement, Huobi detailed that it would list TrustToken’s TUSD, Circle’s USDC, Gemini’s GUSD, and Paxos’ PAX. Huobi Is currently the fourth-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by daily trading volume.  
  • Kenya’s government is planning to leverage blockchain technology to manage its government housing project responsible for 500,000 units, according to a report by Kenyan news outlet, Star. The housing project entails the construction of 500,000 housing units by 2022 and mortage assistance for Kenyans making less than 100,000 Kenyan Shillings (USD$992) who cannot afford mortgages. Blockchain technology will be used in the project to evenly distibute the housing to deserving participants.  
  • Notable investor and creator of Galaxy Investment Partners, Mike Novogratz, has pulled back his forecast for Bitcoin, telling Bloomberg on Monday that he does not believe Bitcoin will surpass USD$10,000 in 2018. In explaining his forecast, Novogratz said, “I think Q1 [or] Q2 [2019] if the institutions start coming in, we’ll put in new highs.” Novogratz happened to be speaking while Fidelity Investments announced the creation of a new venture, Fidelity Digital Asset Services. In regards to Fidelity, Novogratz said, “They’ll probably be up and running in January or Q1.” 
  • Peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading volume levels in Argentina, Venezuela, and Egypt have hit all-time high levels so far through October 2018. In Argentina, citizens have flocked to use Bitcoin as a result of the recent economic crisis in the country -- Argentinian regulators have even relaxed regulations to allow for more Bitcoin ATMs in the country. In Venezuela, citizens have been gearing up for the November 5th launch of the state-backed Petro cryptocurrency, although reports indicate that there is little pointing to the Petro’s existence in the country. Meanwhile, Bitcoin transaction volumes in Croatia and Switzerland have hit 2018 lows.  
  • Ping An Insurance, one of China’s largest insurers, is pursuing innovation in blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and cloud technology. At Ping An Insurance’s Investor Day last week, top Ping executives delivered presentations and analyses of Ping’s business in relation to the innovative technologies. Chief Finance Officer, Jason Yao, said at the event, “We will further improve the strategy of Finance and Technology and pursue Finance and Ecosystem. By leveraging five key technologies, namely AI, blockchain, cloud, big data, and security, we will keep improving efficiency, lowering costs, optimizing user experience, and strengthening risk control, to enhance competitiveness.”  
  • While speaking at the Institutional Crypto: Laying the Foundation conference in New York City hosted by Bloomberg, Gary Gensler, former chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that most cryptocurrencies sold through initial coin offering (ICO) should be classified as securities. Gensler went on to say, “I think cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin need more protection, and probably more protection than even the oil markets.” When asked about blockchain technology, Gensler replied, “we should be technology-neutral.”

Sources:

r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/paxos-says-it-has-issued-50-mln-of-recently-launched-dollar-backed-stablecoin 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/paxos-claims-50-million-in-price-stable-cryptocurrency-issued-in-first-weeks/ 
r/https://www.ccn.com/docusign-will-add-ethereum-blockchain-integration-to-verify-signatures/ 
r/https://www.docusign.com/blog/follow-docusign-fall-18-release/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=Blog_Fall18Release 
r/https://bitcoinist.com/argentina-venezuela-and-egypt-post-record-p2p-bitcoin-trading-volumes/ 
r/https://www.coindesk.com/another-top-10-crypto-exchange-is-adding-4-stablecoins-this-week/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/kenyan-govt-to-use-blockchain-in-new-affordable-housing-project 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/mike-novogratz-institutions-will-get-into-bitcoin-in-q1-q2-2019-bringing-new-highs 
r/https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/10/16/novogratz-bitcoin-will-breakout-in-2019-but-institutions-still-want-crypto/ 
r/https://coinjournal.net/chinese-insurance-giant-ping-an-bets-on-blockchain-ai-cloud-in-fintech-push/ 
r/https://cointelegraph.com/news/former-cftc-chairman-gary-gensler-icos-should-be-considered-securities 
r/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-15/most-tokens-from-icos-are-securities-former-cftc-head-says 


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