Crypto Week #37 Overview

After the previous week finished with flying colors, the results of this past week indicate that the market took a tumble, with four out of the top five cryptocurrencies reporting losses. It was still an eventful week, with Bitcoin dipping below the $10,000 mark a couple of times, but the market recovered in time. Other important developments of the week include the announcement of a launch timeframe for Libra, a potential new IEO platform, a new decentralized finance index backed by Nasdaq, and the launch of the Binance futures trading platform.

Here’s what you need to know about last week’s happenings in crypto.

1. Cryptocurrency Market Analysis

Bitcoin (BTC) opened the week at $10,443.23. Later on Monday, the highest price of the week occurred at $10,450.31. Two days later on Wednesday, Bitcoin bottomed out for the week at $9,980.78, 4.5% lower than Monday’s peak. On Sunday BTC closed at $10,347.71, losing almost 1% of its value throughout the week. The market capitalization for Bitcoin grew slightly during the week, increasing 0.2% and closing on Sunday at roughly $185.6B.

Ethereum (ETH) started Monday at $181.36. Its lowest price of the week also took place on Wednesday, when the coin’s price dropped to $176.50. The highest price of the week took place on Sunday at $190.40, although by the end of the day ETH had gone down a bit, closing at $189.79 and increasing its value 4.6% during the week. ETH’s market capitalization grew 4.9% during the week, closing at approximately $20.5B.

Ripple (XRP) started at $0.263247 on Monday and three day later on Thursday, XRP bottomed out for the week at $0.252555. The highest price of the week didn’t come until Sunday when the coin peaked at $0.264858. By Sunday’s closing hour XRP was at $0.261628, losing 0.6% of its value during the week. Ripple’s market capitalization grew 0.9% throughout the week, closing at roughly $11.3B on Sunday.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) opened at $307.81 on Monday and later during the day, BCH peaked for the week at $310.72. The lowest price of the week occurred two days later on Wednesday at $294.45, 5.2% lower than Monday’s peak. On Sunday BCH closed at $304.23, shedding 1.2% of its price throughout the week. BCH’s market capitalization also shrank during the week, losing 0.3% and closing the week at roughly $5.5B.

Litecoin (LTC) opened the week at $70.62. On Tuesday LTC peaked for the week at $72.67, and three days later on Friday bottomed out at $67.91. On Sunday LTC closed at $70.32, losing 0.4% of its value throughout the week. The market capitalization for Litecoin, on the other hand, increased 0.2% during the week, closing at approximately $4.4B on Sunday.

2. Libra Aims to Launch in the Second Half of 2020

Amidst comments from France’s economy and finance minister Bruno Le Maire that classified Libra as a “threat to the monetary sovereignty of states”, Bertrand Perez, Managing Director and COO at the Libra Association, stated that the stablecoin would be released in the second half of 2020. He also stated on Thursday that the concerns about Libra destabilizing the economy were “unfounded” since Libra had no intention of creating new supplies of money.

In other news, it was also reported that Libra intends to file an application with Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to get a payment system license.

3. Coinbase Considers Launching Proprietary IEO Platform

During the Invest: Asia conference on Sept. 11, Coinbase’s head of institutional sales in Asia, Kayvon Pirestani, revealed that the US-based exchange was considering launching an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) platform, much like Binance Launchpad and Huobi Prime. During the conference, Pirestani stated that a formal announcement regarding the potential platform could be made in the upcoming months. He also revealed that Coinbase has been “carefully exploring Security Token Offerings (STOs)” as well.

4. Nasdaq Unveils Decentralized Finance Index for Blockchain Markets

In accordance with an official press release from Sept. 9, London-based brokerage firm Exante was in charge of streamlining the index, named Defix (DEFX). Defix will purportedly include “the most promising blockchain projects working in decentralized finance”, and will be available on the Exante platform, with projects such as Amoveo, 0x, Augur, and MakerDAO.

5. Dapper Labs Raises $11.2M to Develop New Blockchain

The CryptoKitties creator collected this amount from investors, including Digital Currency Group and Warner Music Group, to build the firm’s new blockchain Flow. With a “developer-friendly” approach, the blockchain will “support the next generation of games, apps, and...digital assets”. According to Jeff Bronikowski, senior vice president of business development at Warner Music, the company is looking to create unique tradable merchandise of their artists through this new partnership.

6. Binance Futures Hits $170M Trading Volume on Its First Day

According to information from crypto analytics firm Skew, Binance Futures achieved a daily trading volume of over $170M during its first day. This placed Binance Futures lower than other futures trading platforms such as BitMEX ($2.52B), bitFlyer ($860M), and CoinFlex ($330M).

7. CME Wants to Double Monthly Open Positions Limit for BTC Futures Contracts

In a letter addressed to CFTC Secretary Chris Kirkpatrick, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group announced on Sept. 12 that they wanted to double the limit of maximum open positions for their Bitcoin futures contracts from 1,000 to 2,000 contracts. Given that each contract is for five coins, the new maximum exposure for users will be of 10,000 BTC. If not objected, the new limits will take effect on Oct. 1.

8. Amazon Announces General Availability of Proprietary Ledger Database

Amazon Web Services announced on Tuesday that their proprietary ledger database, Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), was available to the general public. The announcement describes Amazon QLDB as a “fully managed ledger database that provides a transparent, immutable, and cryptographically verifiable transaction log owned by a central trusted authority”. At press time, it is available in Ohio, North Virginia, Oregon, Ireland, and Tokyo with more regions reportedly being added soon.

9. Domino’s Pizza Launches a Game Where People Can Win $110K in Bitcoin

To celebrate their 30th anniversary, Domino’s Pizza launched a game where users can get entry codes by purchasing pizzas at any Domino’s in France, and redeem them for a chance at multiple prizes. The biggest prize of them all is a sum of €100,000 (or $110,000), which can be delivered in cash or in Bitcoin. The game, which will reportedly reward all participating customers, will last until Oct. 6, and includes prizes such as football tickets, video game consoles, and various different rewards from Domino’s.

10. France Won’t Tax Crypto-to-Crypto Trades, but Crypto-to-Fiat Trades Will Be Taxed

Bruno Le Maire’s declarations also made headlines this Thursday when he stated that French authorities will not apply a tax to crypto-to-crypto trades. However, in regards to crypto-to-fiat transactions he stated, “we believe that the moment the gains are converted into traditional money is the right time to assess tax.” He also talked about applying Value-added Tax (VAT) to crypto, though only when they are used to purchase assets or services.

11. Bobby Lee Will Launch a New Hardware Wallet

The creator of the BTCC exchange in China announced the launch of the credit card-sized hardware wallet Ballet on Sept. 12. The wallet offers cold storage for Bitcoin, Ether, and more than 10 other altcoins. The project is signing up users for the public beta stage of the product, and the first shipment of the card is set for October with prices starting at $29.95.

12. Ripple’s CEO Denies Accusations of Dumping XRP

Brad Garlinghouse stated in an interview with CNN that the company hasn’t been actively dumping XRP on the market to manipulate its price and that nobody is actually in a position to do so. He also stated that Ripple is the largest owner of XRP, and therefore “are the most interested party in the success of the XRP ecosystem”. Garlinghouse had previously mentioned that the company had, in fact, decreased their sales by volume regarding the previous quarter but also mentioned that XRP’s sales would help to expand XRP’s utility.

Final Thoughts

Last week saw multiple important developments take place. Out of all of them, the one that will perhaps prove to be the most important is the announcement of an estimated release date for Facebook’s Libra. After the Libra whitepaper was published, the harsh regulatory backlash it garnered led some to believe that Libra might not be released at all. We are still far away from the second half of 2020, but having an estimated timeframe for the project will likely invigorate the project, and might get people talking in a different tone about the stablecoin sooner than later.

In addition to this, this week also saw the official launch of the Binance futures trading platform and the intentions from CME to double the maximum amount of open positions allowed on the platform. These developments are vital for cryptocurrencies right now, as it has been theorized that crypto is on the verge of reaching massive adoption, and that improvements on institutional investment could help finally achieve it.

We wish you a great week,

The COIN360 Editorial Team