New day new opportunities

Happy last Friday of October! Go out and enjoy your halloween weekend!  You know you've earned it. 

Today in history (1861), the Toronto Stock Exchange was launched. 

In today's newsletter, we will be covering Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy firm launching a new Bitcoin fund, Finder reporting the number of Americans owning crypto doubling in 2019 and Bakkt announcing first regulated options contract for Bitcoin.

Today, we will also be covering IOTA (MIOTA) for our weekly deep dive! Also today in our 'Blockchain term of the day' section, we have another well put together infographic done by cryptocurrency index building and trading automation software, Panda Analytics!

Please do not forget to answer the polls down below too! It's a great way to interact with you and hear what you have to say. Happy reading!

Rebound 

If it's any consolation following the massive selloff on Thursday, over the last 24 hours total market capitalization rebounded slightly from ~$204.1 billion to ~$209.8 billion, with most coins seeing gains in the ~1-4% range. 24-hour volume registered ~$60.1 billion. Notable mover of the day is Bitcoin SV (BSV), up ~16.6% over yesterday. 

After breaking into a new trading pattern yesterday, BTC is currently trading at ~$7,640, up ~1.9% over yesterday. BTC's next level of support is the ~$7,000 - ~$7,300 level which if breached, could see BTC easily drop to the ~$4,000 levels. On the daily chart, BTC continues to trade below its 100-day EMA line, and RSI is at ~36, indicative of significant bearish momentum. On the weekly chart, BTC just broke to the downside of its 100- EMA line - a level it has held since it broke to its upside in April this year. 

Easy peasy

Galaxy Digital CEO and chairman Michael Novogratz suggested that Galaxy Digital Asset Management intends to establish a new Bitcoin (BTC) fund to give people easy access to the cryptocurrency. 

The fund, which handles custody and pricing, allows people to "invest in Bitcoin without having to set up a Coinbase account, without worrying that their phone is going to get lost."

Novogratz also displayed positivity towards BTC's future, but agreed that it requires “new energy to really make the big move".

Awww yeah 

A new survey by Australia-based financial services company Finder, released on 14 Oct, revealed that the number of Americans owning cryptocurrencies in 2019 is almost twice of that in 2018.

The figure jumped from 7.95% in 2018 to 14.4%, or 36.5 million people, in 2019, with men owning cryptocurrency at nearly double the rate of women.

Finder also reported that most Americans own some form of cryptocurrency because they consider it a form of investment, while some use it for transactional purposes, and the rest for storing money outside of traditional financial institutions.

More options 

On 24 Oct, Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchange Bakkt declared the impending launch of its first regulated options contract for BTC futures on 9 Dec, termed the Bakkt Bitcoin Options contract.

The contract includes European-style options, and option contracts that restrict the chances for early execution with lower operational burdens. 

The new product is designed to hedge/ gain BTC exposure by leveraging "the benchmark futures prices and institutional-grade custody to meet the needs for a regulated options contract". 

The contract will be based on Bakkt's major BTC futures contract, the Bakkt Monthly Bitcoin Futures contract, and each option contract will be priced at $1.25 in January 2020.

Blockchain term of the day - Utility Tokens

Special announcement  - CoinMarketCap 'The Capital' Global Conference

Crypto deep dive: IOTA

• Cryptocurrency: MIOTA 
• Market Capitalization Rank: 17th ($717 million)
• Consensus: Tangle (Directed Acyclic Graph)
• Notable Supporters: Richard Soley (OMG's CEO), Johann Jungwirth (Volkswagen's Chief Digital Officer), Rolf Werner (Fujitsu's Head of Europe)

What is it about

• IOTA was founded in 2015 by David Sonstebo, Sergey Ivancheglo, Dominik Schiener, and Dr. Serguei Popov. It held its ICO on November 25, 2015, and was created with a fixed supply of 2,779,530,283 MIOTA coins.

Why people love it 

• Tangle has good scaling potential, as it theoretically scales according to the network size. Network integrity is upheld by everyone, as a small PoW of 2 past transactions is needed to send a transaction. This also makes IOTA energy efficient.
• The IOTA network has a data marketplace for connected devices to transfer, buy and sell data sets. Data access can now be monetized. It also helps that machine learning and AI are both rapidly growing industries.
• Existing partnerships with strong brands like Microsoft, Volkswagen, Fujitsu and Samsung.
• IOTA is theoretically quantum resistant. MIOTA tokens are sent from different addresses, each connected to the seed wallet, for every transaction. This might be increasingly advantageous in the future, when the threat of quantum computing on security becomes more prevalent.

Why people doubt it 

• There is currently a presence of a 'Coordinator' entity that monitors transactions. It has the authority to stop bad actors. Although it will be removed once the network is ready, this is currently a centralization issue.
• IOTA does not have smart contract functionality. However, the team is working on bringing this up.
• Network presently has insufficient nodes and is small, hence only processes about 5 TPS. However, this will scale as the network grows.

Other news 

• In an interview with finance and economics-focused publication Economic Value on 24 Oct, Visa's CEO Alfred F. Kelly, mentioned that the company is still in discussions with Facebook on the Libra project.

• Thailand has created permissive regulations for digital currencies and cryptocurrency fundraising means as the country's first legal initial coin offering (ICO), SE Digital, is launched.

• U.S.-based exchange Binance US has listed the cryptocurrency industry's favorite meme-coin, Dogecoin (DOGE), under the DOGE/USDT trading pair. 

Crypto calendar  

TBA         - Justin Sun's lunch with Warren Buffett

Poll of the Day

How much do you agree with this statement: "I do not hesitate in loading up my crypto bags."

Why or why not? Share with me in the polls!  

What you said

How much do you agree with this statement: "I believe that the Facebook Libra coin will eventually be given the green light by Congress."

The average vote was 6.1. 

"Why or why not?"

I believe that the (Crypto paradigm) will overtake the (Fiat FED currency) and although Libra is Centralized it still will be adopted and this will help the Decentralized currencies, Like Bitcoin to flourish. – It could be the mainstream’s foray into cryptocurrencies. 

He still hasn’t fixed the platform if existing issue he should be concentrating on instead of coin. Earn trust first. – True. 

it might take sometime but eventually Libra will see a green light.. it is possible Libra starts to operate from nations which are friendly to crypto.. tokenisation is now inevitable, we will be seeing lot of assets appearing in blockchains.. stock, insurance & all... – But Zuck said that Libra wont start operations until it gets approval from all U.S. regulators specifically. 

Actually it’s mor like I do not want any more Facebook Period – lolol, understandable. 

With so much FUD around it, I think it's screwed. – Lol I would never count Facebook out. 

If they do I’m worried bitcoin won’t be used as it’s supposed to, super scary, I’ll probably put everything on a hardware wallet lock it away, cause I know the dream will be foiled, start investing in land or something else – I disagree. They both serve different purposes. BTC is used more as a store of value. Libra is more for transactions. 

I say maybe, but the key factor here is time (and maybe a bit of circumstance). Libra lit a fire that has other companies/countries simmering their own crypto ideals. – I agree. It definitely shone a light on cryptocurrencies as a whole. 

I just don't think they can totally trust the Man. I mean, he has deceived us in the past. – Damn Zuck-er.

They will keep pushing – Can’t lose if you don’t give up, right? Hahha 

Because it will be a centralized coin – Don’t think regulatory bodies will allow those member association companies to have too much control over the coin.

With parts of his interview with Congress I saw, I was impressed by him pushing the unbanked and keeping America's place as a superpower. However, from what i gleaned in conversation, they also asked why not use a wepay type platform, And with US still being seen as a major decision maker/ trend setter on global scale, I hope they do and blockchain adoption is sped up. But they grilled him on privacy, and I think ultimately that will be a major deciding factor. I also got the idea that lack of knowledge on blockchain and the amazing wide range of possibilities it offers was at play for some members of Congress. – Yeah, the losing to China and helping the unbanked is quite a narrative. Pretty convincing. The US may be a trend setter on the global scale, but not for blockchain tech for sure. The wave is stronger in the Asia region. I think this is in large part due to Congress still not placing an emphasis blockchain tech, possibly because they still have not quite understood it and the potential.

Outside his domain. – Disagree.

The Zuck does not have many friends on Capitol Hill and even less friendly cohorts in the corridors of power within the Finance sector with his Libra offensive – Yeah. You should’ve seen the hearing lol. He really had a tough one. 

It will take some time, but dinosaurs will cave in – I think so too. They will relent eventually.

hopefully asap, but i doubt cause the congress is to old and backward, innovation is a relic of the past to them given the way they handle any blockchain based project... – Think they have yet to wrap their heads around the concept of blockchain just yet.

Because money talks and Facebook has plenty!! – Yeah Facebook is rolling in it. 

May be a few hurdles to jump over but it will happen .Zuckerburg did not by chance mention China in his chat with them . - As far as I recall, he did not. Believe he only mentioned that the U.S. will lose its edge as a technological global leader if they don't act upon China releasing the digitized yuan. 

China vs USA & World – #grabbedmypopcorn

See you again on Monday!

our newsletter? Share with a friend!

our newsletter? Spam your enemy!

Seek out opportunities