Bitcoin Bomb, Libra Rivals, Twitter Spats: Hodler's Digest, August 19-25



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Every Sunday, Hodler's Digest will help you keep up with all the important news that has occurred this week. The best (and worst) quotes, the highlights on adoption and regulation, the best coins, predictions and much more – a week on Cointelegraph in one link.

Top stories of the week

Binance unveils "Venus" – its own project to compete with Facebook's Libra

With Facebook entangled in the regulatory band and putting Libra on the ice, others are seizing the opportunity to skip the social network and launch their own funds. The People's Bank of China, Walmart, and Binance are now throwing themselves into the ring. Crypto-exchange says that Venus is an open block chain project that will focus on the development of localized coins around the world. Binance believes that it is in a strong position thanks to its existing public channel technology and broad user base. This ambitious undertaking will put the exchange in the place of Mark Zuckerberg's technology giant – and although Venus may step into the sprint to launch a stablecoin, Facebook will easily recover lost ground at its launch. Or, uh, if it starts.

WhatsApp, a company owned by Facebook, plans to launch digital payments in Indonesia

Even as Libra languishes, Zuckerberg continues to search for digital payments, far from interfering with the political minds of the United States. In Indonesia, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging service is in the early stages of discussions with financial technology companies and a public bank to support payments via digital wallets in the region. The tech giant has cautiously confirmed that conversations are underway, but declined to give further details. Sources told Reuters that negotiations were underway with the Go-Jek transport reservation service, the mobile payments provider DANA, the start-up fintech OVO and the state bank Mindri, which operates a service digital wallet. A service should be launched in 2020 – that said, it was at that time that Libra would be supposed to be unveiled to the masses.

The domination of bitcoins is greater than 90%, according to a new study

A new study suggests that the true domination of the Bitcoin market (BTC) could have been significantly underestimated. While major cryptographic aggregators claim that the world's largest digital currency occupies 70% of the market, Arcane Research analysts believe BTC's dominance is over 90%. It states that market capitalization is a "meaningless measure" when liquidity is not taken into account, and that boffins have used the volume of transactions to perform their recalculations. It does not look good for other crypto-currencies that hope to compete with Bitcoin – and this could have consequences for investors, not to mention those who develop a payment infrastructure.

Cameron Winklevoss, Bitcoin bull

Andrew Yang wants to keep the US elections safe from fraud by using the blockchain

The Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, is tired of queuing and waiting to vote in the elections. The blockchain lawyer has promised to implement blockchain-based mobile voting if he won the 2020 race, with records to verify the results. Yang dismissed fears of fraud by pointing out that the old-fashioned ballot box could also be manipulated – and he said that the blocked ballots could "revolutionize true democracy and increase voter turnout to include all Americans. " state-of-the-art solution working alongside modest polling stations. But since Yang's support level is currently 1.8%, According to RealClearPolitics, US voters could stay in these pesky lines for a while.

Bitcoin price in and out of four digits over a relatively stagnant week

Although BTC has jumped into $ 9,000 several times over the past week, it has managed to consolidate support of $ 10,000. Prices briefly flirted close to $ 11,000 before going down again – and the bullish sentiment of the beginning of the week stalled. Bitcoin made gains in the run-up to the weekend, potentially helped by the fact that the trade war between the United States and China has intensified further, President Donald Trump plans to raise tariffs on Chinese imports for hundreds of billions of dollars. Some analysts believe that the economic uncertainty of traditional markets helps to strengthen BTC's value-added status, allowing it to compare itself to "digital gold".

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $ 10,141.93, Ether at $ 190.96, and XRP at $ 0.27. The total market capitalization is $ 265,628,172,936.

Vsync, Bitqy and Decentralized Asset Trading Platform are the top three winners of the week in Altcoin. The top three losers of the week are SounDAC, SealBlock Token and BitBall.

Winners and losers

For more information on the prices of cryptography, be sure to read Cointelegraph's market analysis.

Most memorable quotes

"Scalability is a big bottleneck because the Ethereum blockchain is almost full."

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

"It's ridiculous that by 2020, we are still queuing for hours to vote in obsolete voting booths. It is technically possible to have a vote safe from fraud on our mobile phones today with the help of blockchain. "

Andrew Yang, Democratic presidential candidate

"I think there's a day in the future where we can not live without crypto, or imagine a world before crypto."

Cameron Winklevoss, Bitcoin bull

"You have all these currencies, new currencies coming into play. […] I call them "psycho coins" because it's a question of trust, whether you believe in Bitcoin or any other cyber-currency. I think that as this increases, there will be a demand for real and sustainable assets, including gold. "

Mark Mobius, investor in frontier markets

"We are at a critical point now where Bitcoin is here to stay. This will eventually become part of the portfolio of every institutional investor. "

Anthony Pompliano, co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital Assets

"When Bitcoin became well known, many questioned its legitimacy and, although the jury still has not determined Bitcoin's future, I am convinced that currencies with a base blockchain will continue to surface and could become more widely accepted around the world. "

Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings

"We all know the risk associated with anonymous transactions. We know this because of 9/11 and the terrorist activities that took place in the last 15 years and that had not been satisfactorily followed, did not have the capacity to understand the cash flow and that was transferring money. money. "

Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State

"When you think of really serious crises, a tightening of liquidity, another global financial crisis, I think Bitcoin will have a hard time getting out very well from a price point of view."

Spencer Bogart, General Partner at Blockchain Capital

Prediction of the week

A rookie on Twitter bursts between a gold bug and a bitcoin enthusiast

Peter Schiff and Tom Lee, crypto defender, clashed on Twitter. A tedious exchange began when Schiff wrote that CNBC's Joe Kernen was wrong to be optimistic about Bitcoin. This prompted the CNBC host to remind the skeptical crypto that his long-standing prediction of the value of $ 5,000 worth of gold had not yet materialized. Down but not out, Schiff pulled out his claws and replied, "My gold forecasts are much closer to your forecasts on Bitcoin. In addition, at least gold will eventually reach 5k. Bitcoin will never hit 50k. "The confused spectators expressed confusion because of the fact that Schiff owns BTC and accepts it as a method of payment in its gold business.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum

FUD of the week

Crypto-currencies used to buy illicit drugs, according to the White House

"The United States is at the heart of an unprecedented epidemic of addiction and death." This was the brutal reminder of the White House in notices to financial institutions and digital payment platforms, warning that fentanyl and other synthetic opioids were being purchased through large cryptocurrencies. The documents indicate that "convertible virtual currencies" – such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and Monero – are popular payment methods for illicit substances, many of which come from China. Given that cryptographic transactions "generate a wide variety of information that may prove extremely useful for law enforcement", financial institutions are urged to collect information related to suspicious transactions and forward them to the authorities.

Two thieves caught on a strip stealing Bitcoin ATMs in the United States

CCTV video shows two people stealing a Bitcoin ATM machine in Washington, DC Although the suspects planned their flight, the surrounding stores were closed, but the mall was still open. It took a week for someone to find that the machine was missing. This is the latest incident of a recent spike in Bitcoin banditry – but that said, this has been more successful than some of the other attempts. In July, a bunch of thieving burglars attacked a Bitcoin central in the British city of Birmingham and attempted to steal a Bitcoin ATM with a rope attached to their car. Alas, they left empty-handed.

India: Supreme Court grants central bank two weeks to justify crypto bank

The Reserve Bank of India is facing pressure on how it has handled a ban on cryptocurrency companies. The country's Supreme Court ruled that the central bank had inadequately responded to industry concerns by banning banks from serving cryptographic operators in July 2018. Judge Rohinton Fali Nariman gave the RBI two weeks to explain what was happening at the time. This comes as the country's government is considering making crypto illegal for all citizens – with prison terms of up to 10 years for those who flout the law.

Andrew Yang, Democratic presidential candidate

Best features Cointelegraph

Binance Venus aims to eclipse crypto and Chinese crypto

Stablecoins evolve from a niche perspective to the next major payment method. Henry Linver explores the difference between Binance's Venus and Facebook's Balance.

While coordinated sales coincide with altcoins, how do exchanges react?

Beaxy Exchange was forced to suspend its operations after some users have deliberately price XRP. Nikolai Kuznetsov examines what more established encryption platforms do to ban such reprehensible behavior.

Mike Tyson vs. Fight to Fame: Is the former champion involved in crypto?

The media has hinted that Mike Tyson was taking charge of a blockchain-based fighter platform. Then the legendary boxer denied any involvement in this allegedly fraudulent initiative. Julia Magas of Cointelegraph decrypts the circumstances behind the scandal.

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