Author: Anna Galvez

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Crypto Markets News

Bitcoin (BTC) Futures trades increased By 93% Over The Past Four Months, According To CME Group

Bitcoin (BTC) futures have experienced a significant 93% growth in daily volume over the last four months, according to CME Group, the market leader in this type of financial assets. According to information shared through Twitter, interest in contracts reached a rate of 2,400 contracts, an increase of 58% in future contracts over the previous four-month period of 2018.

Also, the CME Group issued a press release stating that it had reached a daily volume of 4.2 million futures contracts in the second quarter of 2018, nearly 13% more than the same period last year. Bitcoin (BTC) is part of the future contracts traded by this company, including metals and agricultural shares.

CME also manages the Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and Bitcoin Real-Time Index (BRTI) indices, the former being a benchmark price averaged daily with global markets and the latter a real-time index for trading. The indices have been in operation since 2016, taking into account multiple cryptocurrency exchange platforms such as GDAX, Kraken, and Bitstamp.

It has been a semester of growth for CME Group’s Bitcoin (BTC) futures markets since they were launched in December last year

Another brokerage platform, which recently requested authorization from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to trade Bitcoin (BTC) futures was the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), which opened its offer of futures contracts before CME Group.

Thus, the SEC has received some comments regarding the approval of the Listed Investment Fund, and it is expected that, by August 16th, the decision will be made.

On the other hand, the current CBOE statistics maintain that Bitcoin (BTC) futures contract markets have a daily volume of 2,272 and 5,261 interest rate contracts, a 36% change concerning the previous four-month period.

In this way, the insertion of Bitcoin (BTC) in traditional financial dynamics is stimulated, on markets that are interested both in trading in cryptocurrencies and in knowing the benefits of distributed accounting technology, and as has been the case of dozens of companies that have launched investment funds in cryptocurrencies. In fact, the CME Group also filed a patent to create a private blockchain that can be modified for application in various industries.

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Bitcoin (BTC) Mining Operations Unregistered With The Chinese Government Will Be Shut Down In China

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China will be shut down next September by order of the Economic and Information Commission (EIC).

According to information published last Saturday by a local media outlet, the EIC wrote a notice requesting local companies to suspend illegal crypto mining activities. The leaked announcement mentions that these companies will have until August 30th to submit reports on the process of cessation of their operations.

Illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining activities are defined in the publication as an operation that is not registered with the Chinese government, and that requires a high consumption of unauthorized electricity, in the absence of formal contracts with utilities.

China and illegal Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations

This requirement of the EIC is unprecedented in measures taken earlier this year. In January 2018, the miners of the area were instructed to report on the 5th of each month for instructions on their orderly exit from the business. That is a measure that seemed to respond to the guidance of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), which, since January 2nd, has instructed local governments to take action to regulate electricity consumption, land use, taxes and environmental protection, in the face of the demand for resources by companies engaged in crypto mining.

In that sense, some reports indicate that many of the Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies located in the region are leaving for Canada and the United States in search of better conditions to dedicate themselves to this activity, even if they have to start from scratch once again.

These kinds of decisions have been generating concern within the cryptocurrencies market, as they are seen as part of a plan by the Chinese government to eradicate mining from the Asian country. That is due to the implications that such decisions could have on the niche, as it is a country that concentrates more than 50% of the large Bitcoin (BTC) mining pools, according to estimates made at the end of 2017, and a significant percentage of the processing power of this network.

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Jon Montroll, Founder of BitFunder Crypto Exchange, Pledged Guilty

The founder of now-defunct crypto exchange platform BitFunder, Jon Montroll, has declared himself guilty of the federal accusations of obstruction of justice and securities fraud, according to a Reuters press release.

Montroll, BitFunder crypto exchange platform’s founder, pledged guilty

The prosecutors said that Jon Montroll, 37, also called Ukyo, admitted to pleading guilty to the obstruction of justice, acknowledging that he gave false account statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during an inquiry into the falsification of the BitFunder hack of 6,000 BTCs in 2013.

Montroll, who is originally from Saginaw, Texas, ran BitFunder, where people could sell virtual shares of companies in exchange for Bitcoin (BTC), along with the exchange and Bitcoin (BTC) depository, WeExchange Australia Pty Ltd. which was one of the largest crypto-related companies in the world. Montroll seized the WeExchange’s users’ BTC and traded them for fiat money, which he later used for personal expenses.

In July 2013, Montroll also started soliciting investments in a security it named Ukyoan Loan, vowing for a daily interest rate and a straightforward withdrawal procedure. However, after the hacking of 6,000 BTC, Montroll could not afford to pay the sums owed to the loan investors or to WeExchange and BitFunder clients. Montroll kept on soliciting investments but did not disclose any information about the hacking.

At the beginning of this year, the SEC and the DOJ filed the charges against Jon Montroll

In February this year, the SEC and the Department of Justice (DOJ) formally filed charges against Montroll, accusing him of conducting operations on an off-the-record crypto exchange, deceiving the users of that exchange and making “false and misleading statements in connection with an unregistered offering of securities.”

In the case of BitFunder crypto exchange platform, the cyber attacks led to the loss of over 6,000 BTC, which back then totaled approximately $720,000, while now would represent more than $45 million.

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Bank Of Canada Study Reveals That Bitcoin (BTC) Awareness Increased Among Canadians

Canadian citizens used Bitcoin (BTC) primarily for investment purposes in 2017, according to a recent study by the Bank of Canada (BoC) published on July 23rd. The study is an update of the results of the Bitcoin Omnibus Survey conducted by the Central Bank of Canada in a short period between December 12th and 15th 2017, just days before Bitcoin (BTC) reached its record high of $20,000 on December 17th.

According to the survey results, Canadians have mainly used the leading cryptocurrency in the world for investment purposes in 2017, rather than for transactions, which had previously been cited as the main reason for dealing with Bitcoin (BTC) in 2016.

While 58 percent of respondents said the primary motivation was “like an investment,” 12 percent of Canadian Bitcoin (BTC) holders allegedly used BTC because “My friends own Bitcoin,” 7 percent because of their interest in new technologies, while 6 percent to buy goods and services on the Internet.

Among non-transactors, those who used Bitcoin (BTC) did that “once or twice, but not regularly,” while the vast majority of them, 77 percent, responded that they invested in Bitcoin (BTC).

Bitcoin (BTC) awareness increased among Canadian in 2017, in comparison to 2016

Residents of British Columbia presented the highest level of knowledge about Bitcoin (BTC), with reported growth from 77 percent in 2016 to 93 percent in 2017. The prairies ranked second in the Canadian provinces regarding BTC awareness, while Ontario residents came third.

Canada’s provincial financial regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), had published a report in late June concluding that only three percent of Ontario residents had completed a brief test on the basics of Bitcoin (BTC), while 34 percent demonstrated common knowledge.

In early June, the Bank of Canada ‘s executive, James Chapman, said that cryptocurrencies pose no risk to the fiat money system, saying the only thing that can be a threat in a case of hyperinflation. Ontario in third place, according to the study.

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The Ex-VP Of JPMorgan Chase Claimed Blockchain Could Avoid The Next Global Financial Crisis

The ex-Vice president of US investment banking JPMorgan Chase, Pang Huadong, has claimed that the blockchain technology “may be the key to avoiding the next global financial crisis,” reported the China Economic Times today.

Pang Huadong, who is now an honorary academic consultant at the Blockchain Asian Institute, remarked that his involvement with JPMorgan in the 2008 financial crisis had prompted him to consider that blockchain may well be the underlying technology for building transparency and reliability in the global financial system.

When I started working at JPMorgan in 2007,] 13 people managed more than $40 billion[in assets]…. when the 2008 financial crisis was at its worst, the average daily loss was $300 million. Only little by little did I realize that blockchain technology could be the key to avoiding the next global financial crisis.

Pang Huadong, ex-Vice president of JPMorgan Chase

Blockchain technology could help avoid the next global financial crisis, said Pang Huadong, the ex-VP of JPMorgan Chase

Huadong continued by saying that “while the technology is still at a very early stage,” its perspectives for growth are boundless. Pang Huadong considers that the core of blockchain’s breakthrough, more specifically, its property of developing decentralized and accountable systems can drastically mitigate global financial crises risks and “establish confidence-building mechanisms at the lowest cost.”

While the Chinese government’s stance on decentralized cryptocurrencies continues to be tough, the blockchain technology has been increasingly popular among leaders in politics, the academic sector, and the financial world. Moreover, even the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, has publicly applauded blockchain technology’s potential.

Additionally, only the past week, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology’s official journal informed that China would be leading an international research team focused on the Internet of Things (IoT) standardization and blockchain technology. Also, on July 16th, the assistant director of China’s Ministry of Information Technology called on China to “join forces” to encourage blockchain as a central technology within the new digital financial age and pleaded for alleviating institutional bottlenecks in optimizing the conditions for its successful integration.

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