Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Tom Lee thinks interest rate cuts in the U.S. will help Bitcoin in its emerging role as a macrohedge against riskier assets
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: Fundstrat Co-Founder Tom Lee: US Fed Rate Cuts Are Helping Bitcoin
Bitcoin SV creator Craig Wright claimed that he created Bitcoin as Satoshi Nakamoto—Bitcoin Cash founder Roger Ver called him a fraud. The two took the matter to court, and today, England’s high court ruled in favor of Ver.
In April, Craig Wright invoked the wrath of the Bitcoin community by threatening legal action against a host of people claiming he was a fraud (for claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto).
The incident began with Hodlonaut, the founder of the Lightning Network Trust Chain and a longstanding Bitcoin advocate. The astronautical feline denounced Wright as a fraud, and in response Craig Wright threatened legal action.
Wright’s legal threat enraged the Bitcoin community, with many rallying behind Hodlonaut. Many in the community performed acts of solidarity, such as changing their profile picture and Twitter handles to match Hodlonaut’s to obfuscate the cat’s identity.
Other high-profile crypto advocates also solidified their positions, publicly calling Craig Wright a fraud for his unsubstantiated claims of being the person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto alias. Figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, podcaster Peter McCormack, and hundreds of others called Wright a fraud.
One other figurehead who called Wright a fraud was his former partner, the founder of Bitcoin Cash Roger Ver. Previously, the two had a falling out that resulted in a split that created Bitcoin SV during the famous hash wars.
On Apr. 15, 2019, Roger Ver’s website Bitcoin.com posted (a now redacted) video, which in short, said Craig Wright fraudulently claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. Ver went a step further, publicly calling Wright a fraud on his personal Twitter on May 3, and goading Wright to sue him.
My response to CSW’s 100,000 GBP lawsuit: pic.twitter.com/Ob1WZITrM3
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) May 3, 2019
In response to the message, the Bitcoin SV founder took the matter to the England and Wales High Court, Queen’s Bench Division. Wright claimed that his reputation was materially damaged by Roger Ver’s defamatory statements.
“The defamatory attacks by Roger Ver damaged my integrity within the United Kingdom’s community of business people with whom I primarily deal. Being labelled a fraud has a repellent effect with regard to future business—if people view me as a fraud, my proficiency as a computer scientist as well as my life’s work will be called into question. Moreover, no one would reasonably enter into business dealings with someone thought to be a fraud,” said Wright in the court documents.
In addition to Ver’s supposedly defamatory remarks, Wright claims that it encouraged others to participate in damaging remarks, citing one tweet in particular.
— BkkShadow (@BkkShadow) May 3, 2019
However, the British court determined that the U.K. was not the appropriate venue for the lawsuit. Based on the audience of the Bitcoin youTube Channel and Roger Ver’s Twitter account, the overwhelming majority of viewers were based in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom.
Even though Craig Wright had moved from Australia to the U.K. with his family in 2015, and intends to apply for British citizenship, the court deemed that Wright had a “global” reputation in line with the global nature of Bitcoin.
Instead, the statements from the judge may suggest that the U.S. would be a more appropriate place to decide the lawsuit. Roger Ver consented to taking the lawsuit to the United States, said the court documents. CryptoSlate reached out to Roger Ver for comment on the matter and has yet to receive a response.
The judge also stated there Craig Wright did not sufficiently prove his reputation was harmed. As Roger Ver’s counsel aptly argued:
“Specifically, there is no evidence at all of any actual reputational harm that the Claimant [Wright] has suffered as a result of any of the Defendant’s [Ver’s] publications.”
The judge more or less agreed with the counsel’s statement.
“There is no objective evidence of any harm to reputation in England and Wales. The Claimant [Wright] has failed completely to address whether and to what extent the publications complained of have harmed his reputation in other jurisdictions. The evidence demonstrates clearly that the Claimant enjoys a global reputation, the vast majority of which was generated before he moved to the UK. It is impossible for the Claimant to divide his reputation into neat jurisdictions; it is clearly global.”
And, more conclusively from the judge:
“In my judgment, the Claimant’s evidence as to the extent of harm that the publications have caused (or are likely to cause) is weak, lacks detail and [Craig Wright’s claims] put forward evidence at a level of generality that is almost entirely speculative.”
Craig Wright is engaged in several other lawsuits hinging around his supposed status as Satoshi Nakamoto. Based on the evidence so far, it seems unlikely that these cases will go in Wright’s favor until he can conclusively prove he is not fraudulently claiming to be Satoshi.
The post Court rules for Roger Ver in Craig Wright’s Satoshi defamation lawsuit appeared first on CryptoSlate.
Source: CryptoSlate
Original Post: Court rules for Roger Ver in Craig Wright’s Satoshi defamation lawsuit
About the class action lawsuit
Karpeles is currently been sued by a former customer of Mt. Gox, Gregory Pearce, who is claiming one count of negligence and one count of fraud against the former CEO. Karpeles was in charge of the exchange transactions after buying it from the developer and former administrator Jed McCaleb in 2011.
Mr. Gregory Pearce represented himself and many others with the same situation of been owners of 850,000 bitcoins, worth around $450 million, which was lost during the 2014 Mt. Gox hack. According to Reuters, Mr. Pearce showed some documents to the court which threw more light on the allegations brought against the CEO. Karpeles claimed that his firm was the world’s most established bitcoin exchange platform and sole designer of its software and the operating system even when he was aware there were some security breaches in the system. He simply “did nothing and also did not make these defects known to the general public or at least to the participants or customers”.
Mark Karpeles’ lawyers argued that the Philadelphia court did not have jurisdiction to trial him in the lawsuit because all of the exchanges and transactions was based, operated and took place in Tokyo, Japan. District Judge, Robert Kelly, however, refuted the claim, stating “former CEO Mark Karpeles administered the Mt. Gox website, which solicited the business of thousands of Philadelphia citizens, giving the court the authority to trial the case.”
Mark Karpeles has been entwined in many legal crisises such as embezzlement and breach of trust in a Japanese criminal case. He was found guilty of data manipulation, a very similar class action lawsuit in Canada, and before the collapse of Mt. Gox, a hacker was able to gain company credentials and transfer bitcoins illegally. Mt. Gox had also been involved in a security breach three years before the events of 2014. If found guilty, Karpeles is bound to serve jail time.
The post Former Mt. Gox CEO Faces Class Action Lawsuit appeared first on Altcoin Buzz.
Source: Altcoin Buzz News
Original Post: Former Mt. Gox CEO Faces Class Action Lawsuit
Security tokens platform TokenSoft has officially launched Know Your Business support in order to comply with new regulations recently introduced by FinCEN
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: US Security Token Platform Adds New Policies to Comply with FinCEN
Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey have a lot in common. Both are genius tech entrepreneurs and both are at the helm of multiple companies – Twitter and Square for Dorsey and Tesla, The Boring Company, and SpaceX for Musk. But only two out of three publicly traded companies named are beating the S&P 500, while […]
The post Elon Musk Could Learn a Thing or Two from Jack Dorsey appeared first on CCN Markets
Source: CCN.com
Original Post: Elon Musk Could Learn a Thing or Two from Jack Dorsey
A judge has thrown out Craig Wright’s libel case against Roger Ver due to questions of jurisdiction and whether actual harm was committed
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: Judge Dismisses Libel Suit Against Roger Ver Over Lack of Jurisdiction
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the apex bank of the country, has warned investors to be wary of a scam bitcoin investment website that has been soliciting for funds from members of the public by using false statements purportedly made by Goh Chok Tong, the former Prime Minister of Singapore, according to a press
Read MoreRead More. The post by Ogwu Osaemezu Emmanuel appeared first on BTCManager, Bitcoin, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency News
Although the crypto industry has been closely watching to see when the highly anticipated physically settled Bitcoin (BTC) futures platform Bakkt officially launches, they have now been beaten by their competitor – LedgerX – who officially launched today.
The platform is open to all US-based investors with a government issued ID and is not limited to institutional clients or high-net-worth clients. Despite this, most analysts believe that the benefits that physically settled futures contracts will bring to the crypto markets come primarily from the institutions that will trade them.
Currently, there are three main platforms that are competing to gain the attention of investors who are interested in trading physically settled Bitcoin futures contracts, with LedgerX, the ICE-backed Bakkt, and the TD Ameritrade-backed ErisX, all launching similar products.
The primary benefit that a physically settled future contract brings is that it allows traders to deposit and collect Bitcoin in order to directly trade the contracts, without having to use USD or other fiat currencies as the trading pair, thus subverting the traditional banking system entirely.
This is a critical feature for a decentralized currency like Bitcoin, assuming that it will one day be utilized as a currency in its own right, and not one that is denominated and traded against fiat currencies.
Importantly, it does appear that there is significant interest in these contracts, as LedgerX has previously noted that multiple institutional investors have asked for these contracts in the past.
Although retail interest in the crypto markets has been diving as of late, many analysts and investors alike are closely watching to see how interested institutions are in the nascent markets, as they may be the next source of major funding that propels Bitcoin (BTC) and the aggregated crypto markets.
Sam Doctor, a strategist at Fundstrat Global Advisors, recently explained that Bakkt – one of LedgerX’s competitors – could be a major catalyst for institutional demand for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“We think #Bakkt could be a huge catalyst for institutional participation in the #crypto market. Here are our takeaways from the Bakkt institutional summit yesterday at the NYSE,” he said while referencing the talking points seen in the image below.
We think #Bakkt could be a huge catalyst for institutional participation in the #crypto market. Here are our takeaways from the Bakkt institutional summit yesterday at the NYSE… #bitcoin #BTC #ETH @fundstrat @fundstrat_ken pic.twitter.com/lkRylD1P4C
— Sam Doctor (@fundstratQuant) July 19, 2019
Although it still remains unclear as to how interested institutions truly are in the volatile crypto markets, interest in physically settled futures contracts could be a bullish sign, and these platforms will undoubtedly provide a gateway for a massive influx of fresh capital into the markets.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
The post First Physical Bitcoin Future Hits U.S. Market as Institutional Bakkt Hype Swells appeared first on NewsBTC.
Source: News BTC
Original Post: First Physical Bitcoin Future Hits U.S. Market as Institutional Bakkt Hype Swells
The long-anticipated Sony PlayStation 5 took a step closer to launch this week when a Swedish retailer began taking PS5 preorders. However, the announcement left gamers speechless for another reason: the device’s insane SEK9,999 (~$1,050) price tag. However, with all due respect to the Twitter outrage machine, you’d have to be an idiot to believe […]
The post Only an Idiot Would Believe Sony’s PS5 Will Cost $1,000 appeared first on CCN Markets
Source: CCN.com
Original Post: Only an Idiot Would Believe Sony’s PS5 Will Cost ,000
Bittrex has partnered with crypto exchange and custodian provider Rain Management WLL to launch a regulated digital asset exchange for the Middle East and North Africa
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: Bittrex Launches Crypto Platform for Middle East Following New Partnership
Main takeaways from the latest U.S. congressional hearing on crypto: Digital currencies and blockchain are “inevitable,” but won’t help with financial inclusivity, senators argue
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: US Senate Crypto Hearing Key Takeaways: Blockchain Is ‘Inevitable’
Source: YouTube: Ready Set Crypto
Original Post: Create Consistent Income Trading Crypto In 4 Simple Steps 💸
Ethereum celebrated its fourth birthday yesterday. Here's what insiders had to say about the blockchain's next four.
Source: Coindesk
Original Post: Ethereum: What the Next 4 Years Look Like
The Bitcoin price recovery that began in April has flatlined, with the price remaining around USD $10,000 for most of this month. Although Bitcoin remains firmly in the top position in terms of market value, its status as the flagship cryptocurrency continues to face challenges. The current state of affairs within the blockchain space reflects significant growth and development, making it very difficult to determine the true value of any significant platform. In this context, Bitcoin is facing ever more competition from well-designed altcoins.
Bitcoin maximalists have had reason to celebrate during the recovery period. In addition to more than doubling in fiat value, Bitcoin has seen its market dominance increased from fifty percent at the start of April to around sixty-five percent in mid-July. This figure is particularly important, as it is the single most significant metric in determining whether or not Bitcoin is successfully fending off rival platforms for overall investment and adoption. Ethereum, the second most valuable platform, sits at under nine percent and is thus nowhere close to entering first place any time soon.
Nevertheless, this figure can be deceptive as the collective value of the platform does not reflect other important variables such as liquidity, trade volume, and price movement. A lesser valued altcoin could have significantly more investor interest, which is worth considering when examining overall value. Additionally, Bitcoin’s market dominance has begun to move down again over the past few days. Given how active the altcoin space has become, it seems unlikely that it will ever move much higher than it is now.
Institutional adoption is one key area where Bitcoin’s hegemony is clearly under threat. For example, Vechain’s recent partnership with Walmart and Ripple’s partnership with MoneyGram are substantial moves that could dramatically increase the use of these platforms. Many such deals are presently taking place across the altcoin space, which is all but certain to eventually cut into Bitcoin’s relevance as a blockchain asset.
It is worth noting that Bitcoin is seeing an uptick in adoption. More specifically, businesses are increasingly accepting it as payment, and development continues to move ahead on the Lightning Network. Also, fees have remained stable, averaging about USD $2, for the past several weeks.
The most important takeaway from the current data on blockchain use is that Bitcoin remains far and away the most important cryptocurrency, yet the blockchain space is continuing to diversify. Many altcoin platforms are gaining strength, even if such progress is not presently reflected by their market caps. Although Bitcoin will no doubt remain the most important, and valuable platform in the near term, its ability to permanently remain in that position is far from guaranteed.
Featured Image via BigStock.
Source: Crypto News (.net)
Original Post: Bitcoin’s Dominance Challenged As Price Recovery Stalls
The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned the public that is should beware of investing in crypto assets. The regulator states that digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have no intrinsic value and therefore offer a high level of risk.
The comments come as part of the FCA’s newly-published guidelines for companies operating in the space. The document aims to provide information to firms to assess their own compliance with the UK’s existing financial regulations.
As reported in Reuters today, the FCA has issued guidelines for firms working in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. In a statement accompanying the document, the regulators say:
“This will allow firms to have a better understanding of whether they need to be authorised and what they need to do to ensure they are compliant.”
The guidelines come as regulators around the world are speeding up their efforts to apply existing regulations to the industry, as well as mulling the possibility of new frameworks to govern the emerging asset class.
Consumers should be mindful of the absence of certain regulatory protections when considering purchasing unregulated cryptoassets. Unregulated #cryptoassets (e.g. Bitcoin, Ether, XRP etc.) are not covered by the Financial Services…https://t.co/CxsI7hjdrI https://t.co/dDncibUeYz
— FF
(@KomandanteFrank) July 31, 2019
Many within the cryptocurrency industry argue that regulations penned in the twentieth century are poorly suited to the specific requirements of an entirely digital financial industry. They therefore state that new regulatory frameworks should be drawn up that consider the unique qualities of blockchain-based currencies.
Adding a real sense of urgency to the task of global regulators is the plans detailed by Facebook to launch its own digital currency last month. Libra, as it will be known, has faced such intense regulatory scrutiny already that the firm now has doubts over whether it will launch by 2020 as it previously stated.
The guidelines specifically state that crypto assets, like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ether, are exempt from the United Kingdom’s existing regulators and therefore do not need to register with the FCA.
However, it did issue a familiar warning to investors in the UK:
“Consumers should be cautious when investing in such cryptoassets and should ensure they understand and can bear the risks involved with assets that have no intrinsic value.”
Interestingly, the FCA does not issue a similar warning about pound sterling. Although the UK’s fiat currency is backed by a government, it is currently backed by a government that was not voted into power by the public. Boris Johnson, an incredibly unpopular candidate for the position of premier, recently took power from Teresa May after the latter was forced to step down after showing nothing but incompetence during the ongoing Brexit debates with the European Union.
As the October deadline for the UK’s departure from the EU looms and no progress towards a favourable trade deal with the nation’s former partners looks in sight, the pound is currently taking a nose dive versus the dollar and is falling versus an almost equally weak euro. This is causing UK citizens to explore alternative ways of preserving their wealth away from the sliding fiat currency.
Additionally, the FCA neglects to admit that Bitcoin is backed by something. It’s backed by computer science and cryptography. It’s also been reliably working for its users longer than almost any democratically-elected government on the planet. Although clearly a risky investment worth warning the public about, the FCA’s choice to use the words “intrinsic value” is interesting, particularly given the fact that they would apparently rather see the public’s money rapidly devalue at the hands of a prime minister they did not vote for, with savings sitting in pounds in a bank that is more likely than not to have played a part in the 2008 economic meltdown that inspired Bitcoin and other crypto assets’ very creation.
Related Reading: Bitcoin is Better! Aussie Bank Note Typo Highlights Inferiority of Fiat
Featured Image from Shutterstock.
The post UK Regulators: Beware of Crypto Assets, They Lack “Intrinsic Value” appeared first on NewsBTC.
Source: News BTC
Original Post: UK Regulators: Beware of Crypto Assets, They Lack “Intrinsic Value”
More than 50% of bitcoin users across the European continent have not even finished their university program, according to BitPanda’s latest study.
Titled ‘Understanding Cryptocurrency Holders in Europe,’ the report explored personalities of the men and women who hold cryptocurrencies as a part of their portfolio. It found that about 54% of the European cryptocurrency investors did not have a university degree; including 30% who only attended school until age 18, 5% who have done the same until age 16, and 19% who have taken a trading/technical course or at least have a college diploma.
Nevertheless, it is the age of an average bitcoin investor that takes the cake. People in their 16s and late 24s make up to 27% of the overall European cryptocurrency holder. On the other hand, people between the age group of 25 and 34 are 33% – the highest in the lot. Senior citizens are not behind either, with 5% of them holding some form of cryptocurrency – let’s hope bitcoin – in their investment portfolio.
Bitcoin Demographic Statistics across Europe | Image Credits: BitPanda
BitPanda said their survey had amassed the most extensive samples of cryptocurrency holders in the world and Europe. Other than their education status and age groups, the retail broker also covered geographic distribution, mindset & lifestyles, media habits, and marketing touchpoints of 20,000 cryptocurrency investors, out of which 5,000 were from Europe.
Bitpanda stated,
While business leader surveys and ad-hoc surveys on cryptocurrency are commonplace now, [our] report is able to draw on a much wider set of data points to paint a more holistic, nuanced picture of the men and women who hold cryptocurrency as part of their savings or investment portfolio
London is not a Crypto Valley. But still, the capital of the Brexit-hit UK has the maximum number of bitcoin users at 1,105. That makes 11.1% of the total European participants, which is three times the average rate.
“It even exceeds the Zurich,” the report read, indicating how Switzerland is a better place to do a crypto business than the UK. Nevertheless, Swiss excels somewhere else in the study. Excerpts:
As a wealthy country with a large concentration of the professions, we would associate with greater cryptocurrency ownership – as well as a large, well-developed financial services sector. it should come as no surprise that Switzerland has the highest rate of cryptocurrency ownership in Europe and among the highest in the world.
Russia contributes only 2% to those numbers, the least by any country.
Read the full report here.
What do you make of Bitpanda’s new research? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
Images via Shutterstock, Bitpanda Global Web Index report.
The post 54% of Bitcoin Users in Europe Don’t Have University Degrees: Research appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.
Source: Bitcoinist.com
Original Post: 54% of Bitcoin Users in Europe Don’t Have University Degrees: Research
On July 31, the U.S. Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell officially announced a 25-basis point cut. The U.S. stock market and the S&P 500 reacted with a sharp correction, indicating that the rate cut has been priced into the equities markets. Kathryn Rooney Vera, chief markets strategist at Bulltick Capital Markets, said in […]
The post S&P Sharply Drops but It’s Safe to Re-Enter After Retracement: Analyst appeared first on CCN Markets
Source: CCN.com
Original Post: S&P Sharply Drops but It’s Safe to Re-Enter After Retracement: Analyst
Most crypto assets continue to rise along with the price of Bitcoin. BTC is up 4.59% at $9,983 according to COIN360 at time of publishing. Ethereum is up 2.78% at $215.53, XRP is down 0.16% at $0.3168 and Litecoin is up 8.93% at $98.11. Analysts are looking to see if Bitcoin’s latest breakout is sustainable, […]
The post Crypto Forecasts – Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Binance Coin, Tron appeared first on The Daily Hodl.
Source: Daily HODL
Original Post: Crypto Forecasts – Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Binance Coin, Tron
According to CoinDesk, LedgerX has launched the first physically-settled Bitcoin futures contracts in the US. The news comes at a time when Intercontinental Exchange’s Bakkt and TD Ameritrade’s ErisX have struggled to launch amid regulation issues.
LedgerX Launches Bitcoin Futures Contracts
LedgerX is now the first Bitcoin futures provider in the US that offers physical futures. This means that the customer receives Bitcoin when the contract expires as opposed to fiat dollar as per the more traditional futures contracts out there.
The Chicago-based exchanges CME and Cboe have offered “cash-settled futures contracts” since 2017. ...
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Source: Cryptocurrency News
Original Post: LedgerX Launches Physically-Settled Bitcoin Futures Contracts
The Dubai International Financial Centre, Mashreq Bank and Norbloc will jointly launch a blockchain-based KYC data-sharing consortium in the first quarter of 2020
Source: Cointelegraph.com
Original Post: Dubai to Launch KYC-Focused Blockchain Consortium for Businesses in 2020
