As the week draws to a close, we note the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper, a new annual high for the leading cryptocurrency, Harvest Finance’s $19.8 million loss, and other key events.
Bitcoin price
Over the last week of October, Bitcoin, amid heightened volatility, twice set annual highs.
At the start of the week the price dipped below $13,000, but by the night of October 28 the quotes of the first cryptocurrency rose to $13,867. After that followed another pullback to $13,000 and a new wave of gains, culminating in the price above $14,000 on Saturday, October 31.
BTC/USD chart from TradingView (Bitstamp).
Some may say it was a coincidence, but on that very day the Bitcoin community celebrated the 12th anniversary of the Bitcoin white paper — an innovative payment network and a new form of money. The creator of the first cryptocurrency remains unknown, as well as whether this person is singular or a group.
At the time of publication on Sunday, Bitcoin was trading around $13,800. Over the past seven days it rose 6.5%, over the last month about 30%. Market capitalization: $255 billion, dominance index: 62.6%.
For October, the monthly candle on the Bitcoin chart closed above $13,000 for the first time since December 2017. This year it is the second-best month for the leading cryptocurrency after April, when the market recovered from the March crash.
Among the negative consequences is the ongoing rise in transaction costs. On Saturday, October 31, the average transaction fee in the Bitcoin network amounted to $13.14. The last time such a figure was seen was in the second half of January 2018, a month after Bitcoin hit its all-time high of $20,000.
The number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool, which had become crowded in recent days, had declined somewhat by Sunday.
Source: Blockchain.com.
Altcoins, in the wake of Bitcoin’s rise, show negative momentum – all assets in the top ten for the week ended in the red.
Source: GoinGecko.
The Verkhovna Rada Committee on Digital Transformation endorses the ‘On Virtual Assets’ bill
On October 28, the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Digital Transformation endorsed the revised draft law ‘On Virtual Assets’ and recommended lawmakers to adopt it as a basis and consider it at the next parliamentary session.
One of the authors of the document, MP Aleksei Zhmerenetsky, told ForkLog that in this version key remarks and proposals from central authorities have been taken into account.
“The status of a virtual asset is defined as an intangible asset. A term ‘financial virtual asset’ has also been introduced, which falls within the regulator of the National Bank and the Securities Commission,” he said.
It is expected that in early November the Verkhovna Rada will consider the bill in its first reading.
For details on what changed in the bill’s text, read ForkLog’s special material.
Without mining, but with Bitcoin’s circulation: what changed in the draft law ‘On Virtual Assets’
Earlier, Ethereum developers, concerned about excessive concentration of the Geth node, postponed the Berlin hard fork at least until August.
However, since then the situation has only worsened. As of writing, according to Ethernodes, Geth is used by more than 81% of nodes. In early July this figure stood at 79%.
JPMorgan revives the JPM Coin stablecoin project
An unnamed technology company began using JPMorgan’s JPM Coin stablecoin to send payments worldwide 24/7. This prompted the bank to create the Onyx division, focused on blockchain and digital currency projects.
Another client, which already uses JPM Coin in its operations, could soon be joined by several more companies.
JPMorgan also plans to rebrand the 2017-launched Interbank Information Network (IIN) payments system based on blockchain with JPM Coin as its foundation. It will get a new name Liink. The functionality of the network, whose clients include more than 400 corporations and banks, will be enhanced with the ability to verify payments before they are sent.
Another application area for Liink is the processing of paper checks. Currently the bank and its partners rely on a large workforce at check-in points. JPMorgan believes this process could be replaced by adding check-related information to the blockchain and doing away with physical media. The project launch is expected in a few months.
JPMorgan is also ready to offer services to build payment infrastructure for national digital currencies (CBDCs).
Binance accused of deceiving U.S. regulators
The operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance reportedly developed a strategy in 2018 to deliberately mislead regulators and extract hidden profits from U.S. customers. The document was published this week by Forbes.
The document, titled “Tai Chi”, contains a roadmap for using the U.S.-based subsidiary, later transformed into Binance.US.
A source for the publication says the author was the well-known serial entrepreneur and former Binance employee Gary Zhou. The presentation was given to Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao by mergers and acquisitions manager Jared Gross.
The primary aim of the U.S. unit was to soften enforcement. The document describes a detailed strategy to deflect attention from FinCEN, OFAC, the SEC, the CFTC, and the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
Changpeng Zhao declined to comment to Forbes, but after publication described it as FUD (a tactic of psychological manipulation that aims to sow doubt and fear in the audience and create alarm about it).
New charges against BitMEX
The leadership of the BitMEX bitcoin derivative exchange is alleged to have wired more than $400 million from company accounts after learning of an ongoing investigation. The charges are contained in additional documents to a lawsuit filed earlier this year in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by Consensus Law on behalf of The Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement LLC (BMA).
It is alleged that on October 15 and November 19, 2019, as well as in January 2020, HDR Global (BitMEX operator) through Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed transferred a total of $440,308,400.
How exactly the transfers were made is not specified in the document. A HDR Global representative rejected these allegations.
Central Bank of Iran to use Bitcoin to pay for imports
According to local media reports, Iran’s government approved a mechanism to pay for imports using Bitcoin mined by local miners.
“Miners must supply the original cryptocurrency directly and within the permitted limit through channels created by the Central Bank of Iran,” says the report by the monetary regulator and the Ministry of Energy.
The limit per miner will be determined by the level of subsidized electricity used for mining and by the Ministry of Energy’s instructions.
The Central Bank of Iran thus becomes the first central bank in the world to directly use Bitcoin as a means of payment. The country has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018. The SWIFT payment system in Iran is unavailable, making dollar settlements for imports inaccessible.
Releases
- Dash Platform v0.16
Developers at Dash Core Group (DCG) announced the release of a new version of the tech stack for launching decentralized apps on the Evonet testnet. This is the fifth release of the platform since launch. The DCG team typically issues updates every six weeks, gradually porting Dash Platform functionality to Evonet.
DCG said it has entered the final stage of implementing this plan and will merge two releases into the next update to reduce operating costs. The releases are planned for late December / mid-December
- Ocean Protocol v3
Singapore-based blockchain project Ocean Protocol launched the third version of its software. Its main component is data tokens that follow the ERC-20 standard, representing the value of data assets and providing access to them.
The release includes an automated Ocean Market marketplace, the ability to stake on Balancer DEX technology, and initial data offerings. According to the project founder Bruce Pon, Ocean v3 is a key component of the new data economy.
It was also announced that the German central bank chose the Singaporean Ocean Protocol to develop a decentralized network for secure publication, transmission and handling of public and private data.
ForkLog Exclusives
This week we published an exclusive interview with Zooko Wilcox, the creator of the Zcash cryptocurrency and CEO of the Electric Coin Company behind its development.
We also explained how Palantir — one of the most enigmatic companies today, arming intelligence agencies with surveillance algorithms — works, and looked into the history of China’s digital currency, its key characteristics and the reasons for heightened activity around the new payment instrument.
The host of the ForkLog Live channel ForkLog Live was renowned trader and analyst Tone Vays — in conversation with him we discussed prospects for further Bitcoin price growth and factors influencing its future moves.
ForkLog will host an online conference on Monday, November 2: Centralized exchanges and DEX: Pros, cons, differences.
With our guests we will discuss which exchanges are more convenient and safer to use, how to become a liquidity provider, and how to spot fake tokens on DEX. Start at 16:00 MSK.
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