The Mystery of the Missing Bull
Can we get to the bottom of this already?
Thanks to our speakers and the Crypto & DWeb Meetup for last Monday’s talk on the Basic Attention Token. If you missed it, you can see Brave’s feature video here.
In other news…
YAP is expanding its team!
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Bitcoin slid further last week, dropping to a low of $3,200 before recovering slightly. Ongoing regulatory pressure and yet another delay on rulings of potential Bitcoin ETFs from the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission have weighed on investor sentiment, despite other bullish news in the sector, including pro-blockchain news and adoption from major corporations across the globe.
Bitcoin ETF decision pushed back. The highly-anticipated ruling from the U.S. SEC on investment firm VanEck and blockchain company SolidX’s application to list Bitcoin ETFs on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has been delayed once again, pushing the date to February 27th, 2019. An official statement from the regulatory body explained, “The Commission finds it appropriate to designate a longer period within which to issue an order approving or disapproving the proposed rule change so that it has sufficient time to consider this proposed rule change.”
Canadian hydroelectric company welcomes cryptocurrency miners. Despite the downturn in Bitcoin prices, Canadian utilities firm BC Hydro has rolled out the welcome mat for new miners, even offering discounted rates to attract potential clients. Though the move is good news for crypto miners, some critics have raised warning flags, suggesting that the mining industry offers little economic benefits. Werner Antweiler, an economics professor at the University of British Columbia, highlighted this point, stating, “We really want to create jobs and create economic activity and benefit communities, and it’s far from clear that is the case with bitcoin operations because they employ very few people, and basically all the benefits go to those companies.”
G20 agrees on crypto plan. The G20 summit concluded with an agreement on the need to create an international framework to tax cryptocurrency transactions. G20 leaders agreed that tax evasion and loopholes should be closed, and as it currently stands, national tax authorities are having trouble collecting tax on cryptocurrency transactions. “We will continue to work together to seek a consensus-based solution to address the impacts of the digitalization of the economy on the international tax system with an update in 2019 and a final report by 2020,” the G20 leader’s declaration says.
SWIFT scrambles to stay relevant. With blockchain technology becoming a greater threat to the financial status quo every day, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is racing to adapt. On Wednesday, SWIFTannounced a new payments system focusing on faster-and-more-reliable international payments. The pilot program aims to compete with the likes of Ripple, JPMorgan and Transferwise, who, in the past year, have been working towards greater adoption of their own international payments platforms. SWIFT’s new system is set to launch at the beginning of 2019, with 14 selected banks, including Barclays, Bank of China, Citigroup and more.
Oil deals using blockchain. Oil majors and trading firms can now ink deals using a live blockchain-based platform, a milestone for the technology. Blockchain has been held up as a potential revolutionary breakthrough for commodities trading, promising lower costs and greater transparency. London-based Vakt is the first to go live, a platform created by a consortium of companies including BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Equinor. These companies can already use Vakt to sign deals and the platform will be opened up to a broader market next year.
