Nasdaq: According to sources familiar with the matter, continues plans to pursue BTC Futures, betting on sustained interest despite crashing prices. Nasdaq has been working to satisfy the concerns of the U.S.’s main swaps regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, before launching the contracts and eyeing launch in 1st quarter of 2019—Financial Institution
Japan: National Tax Agency released explanation of crypto taxes in the “Frequently Asked Questions about Cryptocurrency Relations”. Enterprises and individuals involved with crypto transactions should pay taxes. Individuals’ taxes include income, inheritance and donation taxes. However, crypto gained by hardforks are not taxed, as well as personal wages paid by cryptocurrency—Regulation
Tether: Launches redesigned platform allowing verification of new customers and direct redemption of Tether to fiat. This update allows the immediate withdrawal of Tether to fiat 1:1 and all accounts will have new minimal issuance and redemption requirements equal to 100,000 USD and $100,000 USDT, respectively—Project Development
Bitfinex: Adds fiat trading pairs to Tether, with the addition of USDT/USD and EURT/EUR trading pairs. This replaces the previous 1:1 conversion on deposit and withdrawal provided by Bitfinex—Exchange
Coinbase: Launches agency-only OTC desk for its institutional clients. This move allows Coinbase Prime clients to execute high volume orders without causing volatility in the public market. Coinbase will not act as a counterparty to trades and will instead match client orders, and clients will be able to trade any asset which trades on Coinbase Prime’s order books—Exchange
Union Bank: Lagos-based bank threatened to shut down undisclosed number of crypto-related accounts without explanation, claiming that doing so would be in line with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s past warnings about cryptocurrency trading—Financial Institution
South Korea: Started preparations for the assessment of the International Financial Action Task Force against money laundering next year. The gov’t has divided the main domestic money laundering risk factors into nine categories, which includes cryptocurrency due to the difficulty of transactions tracking and the complicated means of illegal income—Regulation
Diar: Reports that drop in BTC prices forced a 20% decrease in the network’s hashrate. Most miners are switching off equipment and waiting for better opportunities as their margins have taken a 30% hit. Despite miner revenues surpassing $5B this year, two major operations closed down: BTCC Pool and US-based GigaWatt who filed for bankruptcy last week—Mining
Goldman Sachs: Digital Asset Head Justin Schmidt comments that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cannot hold cryptocurrency for their clients. They have tried alternatives like investing in custodial services providers like BitGo, but ultimately prevented from doing it themselves because of regulatory hurdles—Financial Institution
ADAM: Association for Digital Market Assets, a group of 10 companies focused on cryptocurrencies and financial services, has been formed to standardize a code of conduct for the digital asset space. ADAM is backed by founding members Galaxy Digital, Genesis Global Trading, GSR, Hudson River Trading, Paxos, Symbiont, BitOoda Technologies, BTIG, Cumberland and XBTO—Other
Ethereum: Vulnerability exposes exchanges that allow withdrawals to arbitrary addresses without setting gas usage limit, potentially driving up transaction fees. There are two different options of exploiting this vulnerability. First option would allow hacker to drain unprotected exchange by making it pay for large amounts of transaction fees. The second option would allow attacker to mint GasToken for substantial profits by imposing a small amount of GasToken as tax for users—Other
“B2B reporter – Content Manager – Contributor – Fintech – Blockchain – Cryptocurrency”
Simon Chou is a B2B reporter and content manager specializing in technology and finance. He has worked with many clients in the fintech and blockchain space. He holds investment positions in bitcoin and other large-cap cryptocurrencies, and has been reporting on cryptocurrency since 2017. Currently, Simon is the content manager for a major cryptocurrency exchange @HybridBlockHQ.
