Weekly News Roundup #14
Welcome to our Snowball cryptocurrency media digest. Here we will provide you with regular updates on trending news from the blockchain and crypto space.
Rundown of what happened last week:
Social media giant Facebook has released the whitepaper for its long-awaited cryptocurrency and blockchain-based financial infrastructure project today, June 18.
What is Facebook’s Libra? The new digital token will be built on blockchain and could not only be used to send funds instantly through Facebook — and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Messenger. Read more.
Ripple Takes $50 Million Stake in MoneyGram in Push to Deploy XRP: Cryptocurrency company Ripple announced a major partnership with MoneyGram, which will see the money transfer service use the digital currency XRP as part of its day-to-day operations. Under the terms of the deal, Ripple will pay $4.10 cents a share to acquire an 8% to 10% stake in MoneyGram. This translates into a $30 million investment and also gives MoneyGram the option for another $20 million cash infusion in the next two years. Read more.
Litecoin Is Up 360% This Year: Litecoin, which has gained more than 360% since the beginning of the year, is outpacing all its crypto peers, including Ether and XRP, as well as the best-known and largest token Bitcoin. It has a market cap of about $8.4 billion, making it the seventh-largest digital asset, according to data compiled by Mosaic Research Ltd.
Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey Expounds on Planned Crypto Team: Jack Dorsey explained that the promise of cryptocurrencies (and, of course, blockchain) are inherently geared towards consumer empowerment, offering previously unprecedented levels of transparency and control. Crucially, he regards both technologies as a logical (and perhaps inevitable) step in the evolution of the online ecosystem. “The Internet for a long time has wanted a native currency. There really hasn’t been a prospect until a few years ago, when the Bitcoin white paper was released,” he said. Read more.
Binance to Stop Serving US Traders: Binance announced that it has updated its terms of use, which notably includes a restriction of services to the United States based individual and corporate traders. The restriction follows news that the company is launching a separate, fully regulated fiat-to-crypto platform for the U.S. market. Read more.
Tweet of the week:
This week our favorite tweet comes from Balaji S. Srinivasan who shared his thoughts about the hot topic of the long-awaited Facebook crypto and also Bitcoin itself:
