Ethereum Archives - The Industry Spread

Solactive Powers CoinMarketCap’s Crypto 200 Index Listed on Major Data Feeds

March 21, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Amun ETP, Bitcoin, Coinmarketcap, Ethereum, Fabian Colin, Hehmeyer Cryptocurrency Index (HCI), Solactive, Vela Trading

CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap, the leading platform for the cryptocurrency market capitalization rankings and charts, has partnered with German index provider Solactive to create new Cryptocurrency Benchmark Indices, labeled: CMC Crypto 200 Index. The indices were launched on financial data feeds of Nasdaq Global Index Data Service (GIDS), Bloomberg Terminal, Thomson Reuters Eikon (Refinitiv) and Germany’s Börse Stuttgart.

Both indices are cover 200 cryptocurrencies, but one index includes the top cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and the other one excludes the most prominent cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), which currently dominates 50.8 percent of the market. The top 200 cryptocurrencies make up for more than 90% of global crypto market capitalization. The ex-BTC version of the index was created to display the general market conditions while avoiding market bias. The indices are weighted according to market capitalization and are rebalanced quarterly.

Brandon Chez, CEO of CoinMarketCap, said:

“We are excited to launch and share these indices with the market. These indices will promote greater accessibility to cryptocurrency data in an easier-to-digest format. In partnership with Solactive, our chosen index administrator, we hope these professionally-calculated indices will serve to expand the reach of cryptocurrencies into the larger financial markets.”

Fabian Colin, Head of Sales at Solactive, commented:

Fabian Colin, Head of Sales at Solactive

“The ability to access CoinMarketCap data gives us the opportunity to develop custom indices for new clients. Conversations already started.

We are looking forward to developing more crypto indices in the future, which, at the second step, optimistically speaking result in investable indices and might lead to further products. We are very proud to be chosen as CMC’s index provider of choice in this exciting journey.”

The indices were developed in collaboration with Solactive, which used CMC’s data for index calculation. The direct access to CMC’s crypto market data allows Solactive to provide tailormade index solutions to its clients going forward.

In November 2018, Vela Trading partnered with CoinMarketCap in order to add coverage of cryptocurrencies for its Market Data Feed service, SuperFeed. Its institutional client base now gets access to over 1800 coins and tokens.

In May 2018, Bloomberg had announced the launch of the BGCI, an index designed to track the performance of the largest, most liquid portion of the cryptocurrency market, measuring the performance of the top ten USD-traded cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero, Ripple, and Zcash.

Chicago-based proprietary trading firm Hehmeyer Trading + Investments announced in March the launch of its cryptocurrency index fund. The service provides access to the cryptocurrency market by investing in a fund that aims to track the performance of the proprietary Hehmeyer Cryptocurrency Index (HCI).

In November 2018, SIX Group opened its doors to the Amun ETP, the world’s first crypto index ETP listed on a regulated stock exchange.

DX.Exchange Opens STO Platform Called DXtech Exchange for Eligible Security Token

March 15, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Blockchain, crypto, crypto entrepreneurs, DX.Exchange, DXtech, ESMA, ETF, Ethereum, ICO, IGWT, MiFID II, MPS MarketPlace Securities Ltd, STO, tokens

DX.Exchange, which shot to fame after launching tokenized stock and ETF trading earlier this year, has moved a step forward with its plan to include more security token on its platform. Effective today, any eligible security token can submit an application and get listed on the platform.

As per the Estonian startup, all tokenized securities must be compatible with ESMA’s guidelines and the MiFID II rules. With this structure, the exchange is targeting mainstream interest by crypto enthusiasts across the world. The exchange started offering tokenized security big-stocks like Amazon, Alphabet on a blockchain-based contract.
As per the exchange, the tokenized securities or the virtual stocks can be split and offered in fractional tokens, allowing users to build diverse portfolios with lower costs and in smaller values. This allows users to buy high-priced stocks like Amazon or Alphabet at a fraction of cost, thus providing more access.

The official statement by DX.Exchange reads: “Now, blockchain and crypto entrepreneurs are looking at raising funds via Security Token Offerings (STOs). STOs are swiftly replacing ICOs. The noticeable shift is largely driven by softening demand from retail investors for ICOs, due to lack of investor confidence.”

All US STOs, the digital asset will be tokenized with the help of Ethereum blockchain and will be backed by real-world stocks that will be held by DX.Exchange’s partner MPS MarketPlace Securities Ltd.

In order to make the project successful, the DX Group has restructured into a new entity called DXtech Exchange and will launch the first security token offering on the platform, dubbed IGWT. The IGWT token will be offered in an exclusive private security token and will regularly distribute 10 per cent of the whole group company profits.

CoinFLEX Launches Physically-Settled Crypto Futures Exchange

March 14, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: BCH, Bitcoin, CoinFlex, crypto, cryptocurrency, Digital Currency group, ETH, Ethereum, Polychain Capital, Roger Ver, stablecoin, Trading Technologies

The innovative cryptocurrency operator was launched with the backing of renowned investors Digital Currency Group and Polychain, as well as Trading Technologies and Roger Ver. The physically-settled futures exchange is set to capture order flow from a wide range of market participants, from speculators to institutional players.

To encourage liquidity and reward members who trade on the platform, the crypto exchange has also announced the daily distribution of FLEX Coin tokens. The leading physically delivered crypto futures exchange will pay them out to traders based on the proportion of the volume they trade as a taker, relative to the total daily volume on the platform.

The digital token then can be exchanged for a discount on the cost of using the platform up to 50% of their total trading fees from the previous 24 hours. The operator argues there is market demand for a global, scalable and secure crypto futures exchange providing bitcoin futures and stablecoin-to-stablecoin futures contracts that ensure hedging with zero index or settlement manipulation risk. physically delivered futures means that at the time of a contract’s expiration, traders will be given the underlying cryptocurrency instead of a cash payment.

Coinflex is the result of a reorganization of United Kingdom crypto exchange Coinfloor’s unit, Coinfloorex. Touted as a competitor to the not-yet-launch Bakkt, CoinFLEX is preparing to offer futures and spot contracts for each of bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), and ether (ETH) with as much as 20x leverage.

Mark Lamb

Mark Lamb, CEO of CoinFLEX, said, “With FLEX Coin we want to reward early traders of the platform and build loyalty using a shared exchange coin. We have a growing number of high profile backers, a clear roadmap for delivery and are moving closer to our goal of helping crypto futures trading achieve its full potential.”

Investment firm Digital Currency Group and blockchain investment company Polychain have recently backed CoinFLEX as investors, joining a consortium of high-profile technology companies, market makers and crypto investors backing the firm, including Trading Technologies, Roger Ver, Mike Komaransky and Dragonfly Capital Partners, as well as a number of leading market making firms.

Olaf Carson-Wee

Olaf Carson-Wee, CEO of Polychain, said, “We believe that Mark and his team have identified a gap in the fragmented landscape of cryptocurrency exchanges. As a physically-settled futures exchange, CoinFLEX will be well positioned to capture significant order flow from speculators, institutional traders and Proof of Work miners seeking to hedge against crypto price and hash rate volatility.”

Travis Scher, VP, Investments at Digital Currency Group, said, “The development of a robust digital currency futures market is critical to the long-term sustainability of the asset class. Mark and his team have built a strong model for CoinFLEX, and we believe this new exchange will successfully increase liquidity and market participation.”

Dukascopy Launches ICO for Its Own Payment Token

March 5, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Andre Duka, Blockchain, crypto, cryptocurrency, Dukascopy, ESMA, Ethereum, ICO

Dukascopy Bank has launched its own initial coin offering on February 28, one day prior to Mizuho Bank. Dukascoin (DUK+) is a payment token using the ERC-20 standard on the Ethereum blockchain.

With DUK+, customers will be able to execute free and instants transfers of coins inside Dukascopy by simply knowing the receiver’s phone number, with associated counterparties being duly identified as they become clients of a Swiss bank. Dukascoins are protected by the Swiss deposit insurance scheme covering CHF 100,000, protection against bankruptcy of the bank, according to Andre Duka, CEO and CTO of Dukascopy.

“Issuance of new tokens will be free of charge and limited to new current accounts opening at Dukascopy Bank, whereby each new client will get 5 Dukascoins for free and an equal amount will be granted to a referrer if any exists. The bank itself will receive 10 new coins from undistributed tokens every time a new account is created. These coins will be used to pay rewards, support liquidity and for other similar purposes.”

Andre Duka, CEO-CTO of Dukascopy Bank

“All clients have an opportunity to use standard banking services like payment cards, investments, cheap currency exchange etc. And finally, bank’s clients are always free to move their coins outside of the bank, exiting the secure area of the regulated bank in favor of risks and freedom of the blockchain”, Duka added.

A secure internal marketplace has been created to allow clients to post conditional orders (providing liquidity) or picking the desired orders from other participants (using liquidity) as they transact DUK+. A special program to remunerate large providers of liquidity has been set up by the broker, as well as a rewards program motivating Dukascoins savings, based on both crypto and fiat currencies. Trading clients may benefit from using Dukascoins to fund trading accounts.

“As a CEO of the bank, I’m excited about the project and invite everybody to take a look at the unique opportunities which will be offered at the initial stage of the project. I guarantee there are many interesting options worth exploring. Those who are interested to follow the Dukascoin project, I welcome to check the web site www.dukascoin.com that was specifically created for the ICO project. There you can find all the latest news, features, dates as well as the project’s white paper”, Andre Duka concluded.

Dukascopy first announced its plan to launch its own cryptocurrency in October 2018. Dukascoins are designed as a crypto means of payment to be created in limited quantity to serve both as payment and speculation means. The bank will also launch Dukasnotes which are designed to be stable in value and are guaranteed by Dukascopy via a guarantee fund subject to independent audit and deposited with Dukascopy.

In 2018, when ESMA announced new stricter rules for CFD trading, Dukascopy’s Chief Revenue Officer Laurent Bellieres told The Industry Spread that measures imposed in such an open world as the internet are hardly effective. The new restrictions will surely fuel a run towards less stringently regulated brokers and “ESMA will get the situation exactly opposite to the objective: clients will be exposed to higher risks”. The broker favors an alternative approach: regulating smartly, imposing higher ethical and risk management standards, raising the level of the industry and risk awareness within the public.

Nasdaq Adds BTC and ETH Liquidity Indices from Brave New Coin

February 28, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Bitcoin Liquid Index, Blockchain, Brave New Coin, Cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, Ethereum Liquid Index, IOSCO Principles, NASDAQ, Ripple

Nasdaq, the US-based multinational financial services corporation that owns and operates the NASDAQ stock market and eight European stock exchanges, has listed BTC and ETH indices on its platform starting Monday, February 25.

The listings were launched with real-time price data, refreshed every 30 seconds, provided by the Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX) and the Ethereum Liquid Index (ELX), which aggregate real-time information based on the most liquid ends of their markets.

Both BLX and ELX indices were created by market data company Brave New Coin, a data and research company focused on the blockchain and cryptographic assets industry.founded in 2014.

Focused on the development of a marketplace for incumbent and third-party applications, news-feeds, research and market data products unlocked through the BNC token utility, the company’s products have been chosen by some of the world’s leading firms within the capital markets industry, including TP ICAP, Thomson Reuters, Trade Smith, Barchart, and Amazon Alexa.

Its XchangeFeed service provides access to near real-time streaming of price and volume data from over 240 exchanges. Nasdaq decided to use the BLX and ELX indices to help “traders get in and out of a given position”. “The BLX is one of the most widely-referenced BTC indices among crypto traders and has been calculated back to 2010. Likewise, the ELX has been calculated back to 2014″, said Nasdaq in a recent statement.

The two new indices have joined Nasdaq’s Global Index Data Service, the firm’s premier real-time data feed that consolidates all Nasdaq indexes and ETF valuation data as well as third-party partner data. Through that feed, BLX and ELX have become part of several Nasdaq’s indices, including Nasdaq Composite.

Fran Straijnar

Fran Straijnar, Chief Executive Officer at Brave New Coin, commented: “The LX [Liquid Index] program was born out of a need for clear and transparent price discovery of liquid cryptographic assets and is a bigger need today then it was back in 2015 when we started this program. BNC endorses the IOSCO principles and fully embraces the IOSCO’s goals of addressing the obvious conflicts of interest in the benchmark-setting process, which the nascent crypto industry is vulnerable to.”

“The crypto derivative wave is inevitable. Once custody was solved, first with Fidelity’s announcements last November, and now with indices that align with IOSCO principles being available through the Nasdaq, there’s going to be a rush to produce all manner of financial instruments, which the institutional users have been asking for, for almost 3 years now”, Straijnar added.

Nasdaq’s partnership with Brave New Coin comes ahead of the launch of a index tracking the price of Ripple (XRP).

Coinbase Acquires Italian Blockchain Analytics Surveillance Company Neutrino

February 20, 2019 by Karthik Subramanian Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Blockchain, Brokers, Coinbase, Cryptocurrencies, Cryptocurrency exchange, Ethereum, financial services, Neutrino, risk management

San Franciso based crypto exchange, Coinbase has stroked another major acquisition. And this time it has made a very different acquisition by acquiring Neutrino, an Italian blockchain surveillance company for an undisclosed sum.

This acquisition comes soon after it had acquired US exchange Blockspring, made major improvements to its overall client offerings and added first stablecoin to its portfolio.

The latest acquisition of Neutrino has eyebrows of several industry participants, as the company has links to some suspicious roots in its development. The COO of Neutrino, Giancarlo Russo is a former COO of HackingTeam, and that company was in the business of selling offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies, and corporations.

As per the release from Coinbase, this acquisition is a strategic one and will help the exchange in pushing a broader class of digital currencies internationally. As a part of the deal, Neutrino will operate as a standalone business with all of its eight employees moving to London. From there it will serve external clients and expand its businesses. As per the blog post by Coinbase, it said:

“By analyzing data on public blockchains, Neutrino will help us prevent theft of funds from peoples’ accounts, investigate ransomware attacks, and identify bad actors. It will also help us bring more cryptocurrencies and features to more people while helping ensure compliance with local laws and regulations.”

“Neutrino’s technology is the best we’ve encountered in this space, and it will play an important role in legitimizing crypto, making it safer and more accessible for people all over the world.”

In another blog post yesterday, the exchange has also enabled its wallet service for Bitcoin Cash. The new wallet update will roll out to all users and will be available to all iOS and Android users over the next couple of weeks.

Coinbase wallet app now supports Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic and over 100,000 different tokens built on ERC20 and ERC71 collectibles.

Crypto MidWeek Buzz: Markets, Morgan both reverse course on crypto

February 20, 2019 by William Freedman Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: Bitcoin, Bitcoin liquidity Index, BitPay, BTC, CITY, Coinbase, crypto, crypto debit cards, cryptocurrency, ETH, Ethereum, Liberstad, NASDAQ, Shift, stablecoin

Cryptocurrencies

Bulls are back. We hesitate to make such market pronouncements in this space, but at this point it’s a fairly solid thesis to state that cryptocurrencies have bounced off their lows and are inching their way back into speculators’ good graces. At the time of this writing, midday Tuesday in New York, the benchmark BTC has risen from around $3,600 to around $4,000 in less three days, with a proportional rise in trading volume, according to CoinMarketCap. ETH tracked that pace, rising from approx $125 to $145, reclaiming the No. 2 market cap spot. Its rival XRP, meanwhile, lagged a bit but still rose from roughly $0.30 to $0.33. Bitcoin.com reports that BTC has gained more than 16% in two weeks, and has signalled in incipient bull market by breaching its 100-day moving average for the first time in nine months.

BTC

P2P volumes surge in Lat Am, Pac Rim. Localbitcoins correspondents have been struggling to keep up with a sudden surge in volume across a broad swath of the globe. Bitcoin.com reports that average daily BTC volumes against the Indonesian rupiah increased by a factor of 10 between February 2 and February 9. Less dramatically, BTC volumes denominated in South Korean won rose 125%, and record or near-record volumes were seen in Peru, Colombia, Argentina and – no surprise – Venezuela.

Jamie Dimon

Jamie Dimon self-owns on crypto. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who famously called bitcoin a “fraud”, cooked and ate some crow this past week when his bank announced that it would be offering its own digital token. Hugh Son at CNBC broke the news. JPM Coin will be a dollar-pegged stablecoin operating on a private blockchain accessible only to wholesale institutions that have passed all scrutiny required by regulators. This has led to some Dimon apologists to parse semantics and declare JPM Coin “not a cryptocurrency” but, you know, close enough. We could engage in schadenfreude that a bulge-bracket bank chief had to backtrack on his crypto-skepticism, but maybe we should take it easy on him. Dimon is, after all, the guy who waited for $30/share Bear Stearns drop to $2 before agreeing to buy it – with U.S. government money. The man has proved he knows a bargain when he sees one, and his stepping in at this moment just underscores the return of confidence to crypto markets.

End of Shift. While the value of your digital assets has been gaining, your ability to spend it on coffee or shoes or groceries was dealt a blow last week when Shift announced, “We, unfortunately, will be retiring the service” in an email to cardholders. Shift is a Visa debit card linked directly to U.S. consumers’ Coinbase accounts and, after three-and-a-half years, is expected to shut down April 11. The email hinted of a potential “relaunch” but, until and unless that day comes, the only widely accepted option the States will be Bitpay, although other crypto debit cards are available worldwide.

Isn’t it good / Norwegian ‘hood? Liberstad, a settlement located between Kristiansand, Norway, and a herd of reindeer somewhere, announced that CITY will be its local currency. This proof-of-stake token is affiliated with City Chain, “a smart city platform that enables the design, implementation and use of next-generation services for smart cities and their inhabitants,” according to Liberstad’s release which goes on to say that this platform gives cities “the opportunity to build and offer services conducted on a private, internal and voluntary basis.” The release states that CITY will be “the only medium of exchange within Liberstad,” which is bound to be an unwelcome surprise to the executive council of the krone-printing Norges Bank. This reporter has documented elsewhere that local currency supplanting national currency has been a positive force in world history, even digging the Weimar Republic out of its hyperinflationary spiral and perhaps even delaying the rise of Nazism. But it’s hard to see what the adoption of CITY does for two-year-old, 100-resident Liberstad, aside from burnishing its anarcho-capitalistic reputation and status as a self-styled “private city”.

LOOKING FORWARD: Starting February 25, Nasdaq, through its data dissemination relationship with Brave New Coin, will send real-time BTC and ETH index level information on the Nasdaq Global Index Data Service, according to a press release from the exchange. Keep an eye out for the Bitcoin Liquidity Index and the Ethereum Liquidity Index. Crypto enthusiast and professional luck-presser Tim Draper told Fox Business that “in five years, we will try to go in and buy coffee for fiat money and the barista will laugh” although “criminals will still want to operate in cash.” So if you think you might want to grab a latte in 2024, you should probably give Draper all your cash in exchange for bitcoin right now at whatever exchange rate he offers. (Regulators: The preceding sentence was intended with sarcasm.)

This Featured Article appears on a weekly basis on TheIndustrySpread.com. If you feel you have missed out on the previous week’s Buzz… You can find it here.

Crypto MidWeek Buzz : Questions persist on key crypto fundamentals, but investors dive in

February 13, 2019 by William Freedman Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: Bitcoin, bitcoin futures, Blockchain, Chainalysis, crypto, Cryptocurrencies, Ethereum, U.S.Pensioners, Voyager Digital

Ethereum

Ethereum mining declining. According to analytics site Etherscan, ETH is being mined at the lowest rates since its 2015 launch. On February 11, only 13,131 new coins were created. Aside from a three-week swoon in the autumn of 2017, it has never fell to comparable levels. Over the course of the previous 12 months, 20,000 was a typical day. While the price has been steady to positive – currently around $120 – and volumes have been enough to maintain liquidity – around 3 million daily – there’s less incentive to mine because of plans to wean ETH off proof-of-work. After the Constantinople update, the coin is expected to adopt a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin fees drop, volumes rise. Analytics site Diar reports that median fees for trading BTC have dropped to 2015 levels. Meantime, the report notes that daily volumes are crossing the 9 million threshold, which is where they were right before the peak just over a year ago. That said, the dollar-denominated value per transaction is as low as it’s been since Diar started tracking in 2014.

BTC futures, though, are another story. Separately, analytics company Tradeblock discovered that futures contracts for BTC offered through both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board Options Exchange have plummeted relative to spot markets. “While December saw the spot market post a healthy retracement, trade activity in the futures markets fell by more than half to post its worst performing month since launch,” Bitcoin.com reports, “suggesting a shift away from the cryptocurrency derivatives offered by CME and CBOE in favor of the traditional cryptocurrency markets.”

First U.S. pensions invested in crypto. Institutional investors have been slow – perhaps wisely so – to invest in cryptocurrency, and pensions have understandably lagged other institutions. So it was something of an earthshaking event when two retirement plans from Virginia pooled $40 million to invest in Morgan Creek Digital, as Bloomberg reports. Morgan Creek Digital is the venture capital firm’s crypto-focused portfolio.

Voyager Digital goes public. Canadian token broker Voyager Digital listed on the Toronto Venture Exchange February 8, with the ticker symbol VYGR.V. “The idea of a young company going public may at first glance seem out of the norm. For us, the choice made perfect sense,” blogged CEO Stephen Ehrlich. “It offered Voyager the chance to bring transparency to our business, maturity to the crypto market and to provide the world with an opportunity to invest in a public crypto trading company through the traditional market.”

Chainalysis secures second round. Cryptocurrency compliance firm Chainalysis, fresh off last year’s $16 million initial funding, announced a Series B led by Accel with existing investors subscribing. The newly raised $30 million will go toward opening a London office, expanding into Asia-Pacific markets and other corporate purposes. Chainalysis markets its tools mainly to law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

LOOKING FORWARD: Patrick Byrne, the Overstock CEO who became an early and influential cryptocurrency enthusiast, told MarketWatch that blockchain technology could enable “government-as-a-service” that would be more efficient as well as resistant to bribes and corruption. “We could step into Venezuela with six laptops and create not only a functioning society but arguably one with the most advanced government systems in the world,” he said. … A stablecoin linked to the Japanese yen is in the planning stages and will be launched this year, according to Cointelegraph, which listened in on a GMO Internet earnings presentation. “Regarding the plan to launch GYEN as announced last year, we plan to issue it in overseas this year,” reporter Adrian Zmudzinski quotes a top executive as saying.

This Featured Article appears on a weekly basis on TheIndustrySpread.com. If you feel you have missed out on the previous week’s Buzz… You can find it here.

Invstr Launches Crypto Index Available on Mobile App

February 7, 2019 by Ricardo Esteves Leave a Comment Filed Under: Industry News Tagged: Cryptocurrencies, DriveWealth, Ethereum, FINRA, invstr, Litecoin, Monero, OmiseGo, SIPC, tradingcentral, Zcash

Mobile trading technology platform Invstr has launched its Cryptocurrency Index to make it easier for everyday investors to follow the markets. Currently comprising 18 cryptocurrencies, the index features a range of categories, including asset, payment and utility tokens with their weights being calculated according to their respective market volatility rather than their market capitalization. The index will be adjusted quarterly.

Holding cryptocurrencies in a diversified portfolio with a modest exposure can both improve the return of the portfolio as well reduce the volatility of its returns. The choice of departing from traditional market-capitalisation weighting methodologies was seen as appropriate taking into account the high volatility in the cryptocurrency market.

Kerim Derhalli, Chief Executive Officer at Invstr

Kerim Derhalli, Chief Executive Officer, said: “Retail investors want to know whether they should be invested in cryptocurrencies and what the impact of that investment will be on their portfolios. Traditional indices measure impact on the asset class not an investor’s portfolio. If you are a large fund manager you want to know what impact you will have on the market when you enter or exit an asset class. This is not a relevant consideration for smaller investors who want to know what the impact will be on their portfolios. The Invstr Crypto Index addresses this by using weightings that optimise risk-reward based on the volatility of the constituent assets”.

The Invstr Crypto Index will be freely available to Invstr app users who will be able to easily compare the price performance of specific cryptocurrencies against the overall index. Every quarter, the index may be subject to weight rebalancing, the addition of new and stable crypto assets, and the removal of suspended or distorted cryptocurrencies.

The index is made up of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Dash, EOS, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, IOTA, Litecoin, Monero, Neo, NEM, OmiseGo, Qtum, Ripple, TenX, Verge, and Zcash.

For the purpose of US-traded securities trading, including fractional trading, Invstr is partnered with US-based broker-dealer DriveWealth LLC, a regulated member of FINRA/SIPC.

DriveWealth was founded in 2012 to provide brokers, digital advisors and mobile online financial services companies seamless access to the U.S. securities market. In August 2018, the company partnered with robo-advisory technology provider Bambu to launch a white-label, end-to-end robo-advisory platform solution for the wealth management industry. In December 2018, DriveWealth partnered with Miami-based online brokerage Avenue Securities to provide Brazilian retail investors. with access to securities traded on U.S. exchanges.

TradingCentral has also partnered with the broker-dealer in late 2018. The deal enables both the companies to leverage common elements of their businesses: seamless, digital, mobile-first transaction capabilities and sophisticated, accessible and actionable financial content.

Crypto Midweek Buzz : ETC hacked, most countries look at CBDCs but none go forward

January 9, 2019 by William Freedman Leave a Comment Filed Under: Feature Articles Tagged: Bitcoin Cash, Blockchain, Ethereum, Facebook, Mckinsey, Occam, Swiss

Ethereum Attack

Ethereum Classic attacked. Coinbase has suspended trading in Ethereum Classic following at least 13 double spends. These appear to be the result of a so-called 51% attack, which deliberately disrupts the consensus algorithm. According to Coinbase’s blog, more than $1 million was double-spent. ETC is the 18^th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. It is not to be confused with ETH, the second- or third-largest depending on how it’s doing against XRP. The two Ethereum chains separated following a hard fork in 2016.

Most central banks looking to crypto. According to the Bank for International Settlements – the Zurich-based central banks for central banks – 70% of national monetary authorities are investigating the formation of fiat cryptocurrencies. Central bank digital currencies are a still-theoretical construction, more famous for the number of times that they’ve been considered and either tabled or outright dismissed, and the number of times – zero – that they’ve been adopted. “A survey of central banks shows that a majority are collaboratively looking at the implications of a central bank digital currency,” the BIS report states. “Although many have reached the stage of considering practical issues, central banks appear to be proceeding cautiously and few reports plans to issue a digital currency in the short or medium term.”

Kevin Ulrich

Crypto enthusiast elected Swiss president. Finance Minister Ulrich “Ueli” Maurer has been elected president of Switzerland, which is widely considered a positive development for Crypto Valley. Bitcoin.com reports that the 68-year-old accountant deserves much of the credit for the confederation’s knowledgeably constructed regulatory framework governing digital assets and, as a result, its status as a destination for blockchain entrepreneurs. While the role of the president is largely ceremonial – the Swiss are notoriously suspicious of centralized authority – Maurer could find himself the tiebreaking vote in public policy debates, many of which are likely to involve cryptocurrency in some form.

McKinsey: Occam’s razor shreds blockchain. “Blockchain has yet to become the game-changer some expected,” according to a recent post on McKinsey & Company’s website. The problem, the consultancy believes, is that the best solution to a problem is generally the simplest and that existing technology can often solve what digital ledgers are being repurposed to. That observation, often referred to as Occam’s razor, is why adoption has been so slow. William of Occam was a 14^th-century English monk and logician. Later admirers referred to his “razor” as a metaphor for how he would shave away unnecessary assumptions which led to unnecessary complexity.

Married to the blockchain? Reno, Nevada, hosted almost 1,000 blockchain-recorded marriages in 2018, according to public records obtained by the local Associated Press-affiliated newspaper. The town’s well-earned reputation as a place where a marriage can be sealed or severed with all the ceremony of a drive-thru order at Burger King renders it a unique use case tokenized record-keeping. Reno’s Washoe County is also looking at distributed ledger technology to digitize public records and recover them after a disaster. The Reno Gazette-Journal further discovered that remote Elko County, which borders on Idaho and Utah, is testing distributed ledger technology to record birth certificates.

Has the next Facebook arrived – on Bitcoin Cash? Last April, a new social network called Memo.cash emerged on the BCH chain. It’s still alive and growing because, at least in some circles, the security breaches, lack of privacy and socio-political misbehavior characteristic of such popular sites as Facebook are more troubling than the volatility of the crypto market. Of course, just being in the right place at the right time isn’t enough for a successful launch. Another BCH-native social platform, Blockpress, has long since gone dark. Memo itself has a long way to go before it can claim the kind of ubiquity necessary for a mainstream social media site. It still counts its profiles in the hundreds, not the billions.

LOOKING FORWARD: Two American states are moving forward to clarify their positions on cryptocurrency. Colorado recently passed the Colorado Digital Token Act to provide cryptocurrencies with exemptions from existing state securities laws, Bitcoin Exchange Guide reports.Meanwhile, Texas might soon consider stablecoins to be, for all intents and purposes, physical money. The Texas Department of Banking released new guidance on crypto regulation that parses the difference between “centralized” and “decentralized” assets, with stablecoins being a type of the centralised variety. Now if Texas can figure out the difference between currencies, securities, and utilities, it might catch up with Malta.

This Featured Article appears on a weekly basis on TheIndustrySpread.com. If you have missed out on the previous week’s Buzz..You can find it here .