Author: Anna Galvez

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Crypto Markets News

BlackRock, The World’s Leading ETF Provider, Aims At Bitcoin (BTC) Futures

The world’s largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider BlackRock has announced the creation of a working group to investigate a possible entry into Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading, Financial News (FN) reported today, July 16th.

The move would be a 180-degree turn for BlackRock, as the company had spoken out against cryptocurrencies in the past. Following the example of competitor Goldman Sachs, the cross-industry working group led by BlackRock is to investigate, among other things, whether the company should invest in Bitcoin (BTC) futures, reports FN.

In a general commentary to FN, a spokeswoman for BlackRock announced that the company had been “looking at Blockchain for several years.” Cryptocurrencies were not mentioned.

On the other hand, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein is said to have told the media that Bitcoin (BTC) “is not for him” before he suddenly announced that a dedicated research team was investigating how Goldman could offer a range of crypto-related services to meet customers demands.

BlackRock exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider follows Goldman Sachs steps and explores Bitcoin (BTC) futures trading advantages

BlackRock seems to match the actions made by Goldman Sachs, despite the fact that managing director Larry Fink described Bitcoin (BTC), shortly before the currency’s all-time high last year, as “an instrument for money laundering.”

In February 2018, the company announced that it was investigating cryptocurrency solutions and was considering a “broader” application in the future.

BlackRock recorded revenues of almost $6.3 billion in 2017.

The bottom line of the news is that institutional funds seem to be waiting for an ideal entry point, as many commentators on the scene describe it. Over the weekend, CNBC’s trade advisor Ran Neuner suggested that a future influx of institutional money in 2017 will make it look like a warm-up.

BTC surged by 4 percent in just 2 hours this morning, apparently due to the bullish news that BlackRock aims Bitcoin (BTC) futures. At the time of this article, BTC trades at $6,622 appreciating by about 4% in the last 24 hours.

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Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) To Reach $15,000 By The End Of 2018, Thinks Goldman Sachs Ex-VP

Cryptocurrencies have been on a downward trend for several weeks until recently when the market began to surge. Although Bitcoin (BTC) peaked in December last year at almost $20,000, it is now worth about $6,500, which has risen some concerns among the cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors. But, fortunately, this dark period might end, as a former Goldman Sachs employee thinks that the leading crypto by market cap will hit $15,000 by the end of the year.

Christopher Matta, the former vice president of the investment management division at Goldman Sachs, is a firm believer who, despite the downturn season, does see a bright future for Bitcoin (BTC). For this reason, he assured that by the end of the year the price of this crypto would be around $15,000.

After leaving the famous financial firm, Matta devoted himself entirely to the cryptocurrencies market, becoming co-founder of Media Luna Crypto Asset Management, a crypto investments consulting firm.

Bitcoin (BTC) to hit $15,000 by the end of the year, says the former Goldman Sachs VP

Due to his great optimism for cryptocurrencies, Christopher Matta believes that Bitcoin (BTC) has a long-term upward trend, so he urges people not to panic, bet on digital currencies and invest in them, especially on BTC.

“The bullish sentiment has not changed in the last six months,” Matta said, according to CCN. “The regulators have begun to intervene. We believe that smarter regulations can be good,” he added.

As for the introduction of Bitcoin (BTC) into the futures market, which has been listed by many experts as the reason why this digital currency has not experienced a significant rise in prices yet, the former director of Goldman Sachs assures that the volatility of the BTC prices has been maintained or even increased. Thus, it is quite difficult to determine whether futures affected the worth of this cryptocurrency.

Like Christopher Matta, there are many other somewhat optimistic opinions regarding the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital currencies for the end of the year. However, it is important to remember that these are all speculations and that nobody can know what would happen in the cryptocurrencies market in the future.

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Crypto News

Blockchain Technology At The Base Of An Upcoming Hong Kong Trading Platform

Hong Kong’s de facto central bank will roll out its proprietary trading finance platform based on the blockchain technology, along with other 21 banks, during this August, as reported by the Financial Times (FT) on Sunday, July 15th.

The multi-bank blockchain-based solution aims to reduce bureaucracy and costs of security risks

The joint venture of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Chinese company Ping An Group, a branch of the OneConnect Fintech group, is intended to significantly lower the bureaucracy and cost of security risks for market participants, informs FT.

A primary goal of the 21-party framework is to cut down on the time-consuming activities and bureaucratic work required to enroll new businesses in the banking services. The project means to do that by easing transactions.

With the use of blockchain, several transactions would be dealt with in only one day versus a fourteen-day limit under current procedures, as stated by the Financial Times.

Blockchain technology brings banks together in Hong Kong and China

Announced in November 2017, initially, the move signals the first case of a regulator “bringing banks together” to enhance trading finance market, as outlined by Jessica Tan, the Ping An Executive Vice President. As reported by the Cointelegraph earlier in May, a preliminary HSBC trading finance arrangement was a small-scale affair, with the participation of a single bank.

“Instead of individual banks trying to do this, the regulator is trying to bring the banks together,” stated Jessica Tan for the Financial Times.

Ping An has already deployed blockchain-powered solutions for the Chinese national market and is hoping that the very same technology will be successful beyond borders, as stated by FT. The business, China’s second-largest insurance provider with total assets of 4.7 billion yuan ($704 billion), teamed up with the R3 Consortium centered on distributed general ledger technology through 2016.

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Crypto Markets News

Coinbase Works On Adding Five New Cryptocurrencies, Including 0x (ZRX) and Cardano (ADA)

The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange platform, Coinbase, has announced that it is considering the addition of five new coins, according to an article published July 13th. Accordingly, the crypto trading platform is considering adding new assets to its trading lists, including Cardano (ADA), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and 0x (ZRX).

Also, Coinbase said it would negotiate with local banks and regulators to add assets to as many jurisdictions as possible.

In June, Coinbase announced that it would support Ethereum Classic (ETC) on its platform, after which the ETC price increased by more than 25 percent. According to Coinbase, the process of adding ETCs to its trading platform is “proceeding as planned.” Also, Coinbase pointed out that, unlike the addition of ETC, which is technically similar to Ethereum (ETH), the new assets “will require additional exploratory work.”

We may also allow only certain ways to interact with these assets through our site, such as allowing only deposits and withdrawals of transparent Zcash addresses. Finally, some of these assets may be offered in other jurisdictions before being listed in the US.

Coinbase

Coinbase doesn’t know if all these five cryptos will end up listed on the cryptocurrency exchange platform

The crypto trading platform’s representatives said these assets require further study and they have not yet determined when or whether these currencies will be available on the platform. Coinbase further states that “some of these assets may be available everywhere, while others may only be backed in specific jurisdictions.”

At the time of this writing, all the before-mentioned cryptocurrencies are trading green.

In March, Coinbase announced its intention to support ERC20 tokens in its exchange, saying that its decision to add the ERC20 “paves the way for supporting the ERC20 assets in all Coinbase products in the future.”

Coinbase currently supports four different assets, namely, Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). Last month, the company embarked on the process of becoming a fully regulated stockbroker with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This move would help Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange platform expand its offering and then emerge into the non-crypto financial market.

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Crypto News

Paradoxically, The United States Is The Most Friendly Country In The World For ICOs

The United States, Switzerland, and Singapore were classified as the three most friendly countries for Initial Coin Offers (ICOs) in a new briefing, as reported by researchers in a press release they issued on Cointelegraph on July 14th.

The United States is the most crypto-friendly country, while Switzerland comes second

The analysts affiliated with the Crypto Finance Conference collected the data from publicly accessible information from the top 100 ICOs per country regarding the funds raised and ranked them by the number of completed projects that were launched.

The report points to the United States as the most ICO friendly country in the world as having some 30 ICOs operating in the area. The second-ranked country is Switzerland, which accounts for half of the projects, while Singapore comes in third place with 11 projects.

The paper also lists Russia, Estonia, and the UK as among the most encouraging nations for funding crypto ventures.

ICOs have a great year in 2018, as their fundraising projects returned twice as much as throughout 2017

As it was reported in the news last week, just four months ago was the biggest month in the history of ICO investment, and 2018 has also seen that the time needed to complete an ICO, and the success of those projects, have changed considerably since last year.

Cryptocurrency analysts also recently revealed that ICO volumes reached new records in the first half of 2018, which were already double what they had achieved throughout 2017.

As one of the main places to carry out large ICOs and crypto-projects, the United States continues to combat cases of illegal activity in the crypto-verse. Earlier this week, the Texas State Securities Board (SSB) issued an emergency cease order to a network of companies related to cryptocurrencies allegedly accused of offering fraudulent crypto investments to state residents.

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