The Month in Crypto — August 18

NYSE owner launches a regulated crypto exchange, China crackdown continues, a16z and Polychain Capital lead $102M round in Dfinity.

The News

• The owner of the NYSE launched a company called Bakkt that aims to be a Global Regulated Ecosystem for Digital Assets (a regulated exchange). To do this, Bakkt teamed up with Microsoft, Starbucks and BCG. fortune
• Nine bitcoin ETF proposals were rejected by the SEC on the same day citing manipulation and fraud concerns. businessinsider. The SEC backpedalled 2 days after, stating they will reconsider the decisions. coindesk
• China continued cracking down on crypto with Alipay, a mobile payments service owned by Alibaba, banning cryptocurrency OTC crypto related payments. Additionally, Tencent’s WeChat, the country’s largest messaging and social networking platform, banned eight cryptocurrency news services. ethereumworldnews
• Speculation continued around the potential upcoming Bitmain IPO in Hong Kong. Bitmain are a chip producer and control 80% of the cryptocurrency mining market. Reports indicate they might raise anywhere between $3–18 billion in the IPO. bloomberg

Capital

• Hedera Hashgraph, completed a $100M funding round using a SAFT (a simple agreement for future tokens). The company is developing a new generation blockchain to increase transaction speeds whilst maintaining security. venturebeat
• a16z and Polychain Capital led a $102M round in crypto start-up Dfinity. The Swiss based company are building a decentralised cloud based computer to rival AWS. techcrunch
• U.K.-based Argo Mining, a cryptocurrency mining company, completed an IPO on the London Stock Exchange raising $32.5M in the process. coindesk
• Huobi, the world’s third largest cryptocurrency exchange who are based in Singapore, acquired Pantronics for $70M. Pantronics is listed in Hong Kong and has fuelled speculation for a potential back door listing. pantronics

Adoption

• Line, the Japanese messaging application launched its own cryptocurrency. Instead of an ICO the company will issue tokens as rewards to users of applications in the line ecosystem. The company is NYSE listed with 200 million monthly active users. channelnewsasia
• Another 94 companies joined a blockchain trade platform developed by Maersk and IBM. The platform will boost efficiency in the global shipping industry. reuters
• Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant bought a bitcoin exchange as they “expect that the role of cryptocurrency-based payments in e-commerce, offline retail and in P2P payments will grow in the future”. rakuten
• Australians can now pay bills with cryptocurrency thanks to a partnership between Australian exchange Cointree and billing platform Gobbill. bitcoinist

Market:

• The market fell for the first half of August reaching new lows for 2018, before recovering slightly over the last week. The overall market cap fell from $274B at the start of the month, to $191B on the 14th August and finished the month at $230B. Bitcoin fell 7% over the month and finished with a global average of $7,000 USD. Ethereum didn’t perform well in August, falling 32% and finishing the month with a global average of $284 USD.