CoinMarketCap to Replace Volume With a New Metric + More Crypto News
Crypto Briefs is your daily bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – keeping you up-to-date with under the radar crypto news from around the world.
Exchanges news
- The most popular crypto market data provider CoinMarketCap announced the launch of its new Liquidity ranking metric aimed at fighting “volume inflation” problem. The Liquidity metric is designed to eventually replace volume as the default metric when ranking market pairs and exchanges. Liquidity matters the most to investors and traders, says Carylyne Chan, Chief Strategy Officer at CoinMarketCap. The Liquidity metric will be rolled out in three phases: first it will be applied to influence the ranking of market pairs, followed by exchanges, and finally cryptoassets.
- Exchange Bittrex could be set to return crypto holdings to customers in countries affected by sanctions. A Twitter user posted a photograph of what appears to be a letter or email from the Bitrrex support team, stating that in order to access his cryptocurrency, the customer must complete a process by March 2020 that involves opening an account at an exchange or wallet that is not subject to United States jurisdiction.
- Singapore-based Bithumb Global arm of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has launched a native coin for their recently announced custom blockchain, Bithumb Chain. The new crypto asset is called Bithumb Coin (BT). It enables transactions within Bithumb Chain and provides the necessary mechanism for facilitating incentives and value within the protocol, the announcement states.
Legal news
- Russian police in Novosibirsk will begin making use of software that allows them to extract and analyze data from smartphones, as well as unlock devices, access health tracking apps and decrypt files on some devices, reports Tayga. And, per media outlet Bitjournal, some experts say that the police could even use the solution, which the government has paid for, to access crypto wallets.
- A Dutch court has ordered Facebook to remove all Bitcoin (BTC)-related advertisements that misuse likeness of a local celebrity to promote fraudulent investments, or be fined up to EUR 1.1 million (USD 1.2 million). Reuters writes that the decision comes after Dutch billionaire John de Mol sued Facebook back in June, claiming that the social media giant failed to respond to several, repeated requests to remove ads that used his and other celebrities’ images, which resulted in investors losing EUR 1.7 million (USD 1.8 million).
- Also in Netherlands, the police arrested Sam N., the founder of blockchain game development startup Komodore64 , which allegedly raised EUR 78 million (USD 86 million) from investors. According to Sprout, “countless people” invested in the native coin of this company, K64, which was supposed to create a game platform where transactions would be tracked on blockchain. Instead, it was allegedly a fraudulent scheme, where the founder lied to his employees and investors.
Blockchain news
- South Korea’s Shinhan Bank has struck a blockchain funding deal with the government-run Small Enterprise and Market Service, an agency that helps support SMEs. Per Economy Talk, the bank will use a blockchain platform to speed up the agency’s loan applications, cutting down the need for in-person visits to the agency and reducing paperwork. Loan applications currently typically take 22 days to process, but the parties say that the blockchain platform will let them process applications in under 10 days.
- Hyundai’s building arm, Hyundai BS&C, has announced that it will begin using blockchain technology in its construction projects. According to Paxnet, the company will use blockchain-powered authentication security solutions as part of its new IoT smart homes construction project.
- The Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has expanded the scope of its pilot blockchain platform, reports Global Times. SAFE says that it wants to more than double the coverage of its cross-border financial services platform from nine regions to a total of 19 provinces and cities.
- The American Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has commissioned the Canadian enterprise blockchain provider Mavennet to construct a cross-border oil tracking platform. Per an official DHS release, the agency wants Mavennet to help it track oil flow through pipelines and refinement between the United States and Canada.
- Huobi Group announced that Huobi Chain is now open source and publicly available to the entire developer community. The blockchain is being developed in partnership with the Nervos Network, a public blockchain ecosystem. Blockchain developers, partners, enterprises, and regulators can access the code on Github at any time and track the project’s progress, as well as openly contribute to the development of Huobi Chain.
Adoption news
- Mobile crypto wallet app Abra said that, starting today, their users in the United States will have access to over 60 new cryptocurrencies, bringing the total to 96. And soon, Abra users outside of the US will be able to invest in more than 200 additional cryptocurrencies.
- Fold has announced that it will offer AirBnb customers Bitcoin rewards if they use the company’s Kickbacks rewards program. The company stated, in a tweet, “We’re thrilled to welcome Airbnb to Fold,” adding that customers could “get up to 3% back in Bitcoin on every stay.” The move comes two months after the company raised some USD 2.5 million in investment with a view to expanding the Fold platform.
- Smartphone developer HTC partnered with Binance to include support for Binance Chain in it’s new, limited special edition version of the Exodus 1, the company’s blockchain mobile phone. The announcement says that the Exodus 1 – Binance Edition will offer native support for Binance DEX, a non-custodial exchange, through HTC’s Zion Vault solution, and it will come with Binance’s flagship exchange application and the Trust Wallet.
- Bitcoin rewards company Lolli announced a partnership with Chinese shopping giant Alibaba, which will enable Lolli users to earn up to 5% bitcoin back when shopping with Alibaba online. “Our partnership allows our users to earn free bitcoin on millions of products online every day,” says CEO and co-founder of Lolli, Alex Adelman.
- Banque de France, the central bank of France, is looking to hire a blockchain analyst with experience in crypto-economics, game theory and public / private blockchain, who will be tasked with helping the bank’s creation of a program for implementing digital currency. Additionally, they have a job opening for a development engineer who will study the application of blockchain to key banking functions.
- Evercoin Inc. today announced its new hardware wallet, Evercoin 2. It provides mobile users the end-to-end ownership solution for cryptocurrencies featuring a hardware wallet the size of a house key powered by YubiKey. Evercoin uses cryptographic APIs on the YubiKey to encrypt the user’s private key.
