Droppers of btc

2021-01-01 20:00:23 ​​Coinbase to Face Class Action Suit over XRP Listing

An alleged customer of the crypto exchange giant Coinbase has hit the trading platform with a class-action lawsuit – claiming that the crypto firm “illegally sold” him “securities” in the form of Ripple’s XRP tokens, which has actually enjoyed a surprising rally today.

In a legal document submitted to a District Court in California on December 30, a lawyer for the plaintiff, identified as Thomas Sandoval of St. Louis, wrote that as Coinbase is a “digital exchange” and as a “commodities broker for cryptocurrencies,” it is “not licensed to sell securities.”

The lawsuit alleges that given the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s action against Ripple and insistence that XRP is a security, it is clear that Coinbase flaunted the rules by listing XRP, claiming that doing so had provided it with “an unwarranted competitive advantage over digital asset exchanges that only sold commodities.”

But the plaintiff claimed Coinbase did all of this knowingly.

The lawyer added,

“Investors such as [Sandoval] invested capital in XRP with the expectation of profit from Ripple’s sole efforts.”

And the suit went on to allege that Coinbase had defrauded its customers on a massive scale, claiming the exchange “knew at all times” that XRP “did not meet the definition of a commodity,” was perfectly aware that was a security, and knew that to go ahead and trade in it was outside the legal parameters of its business operations.

Sandoval claims that he bought XRP in early November this year.

Despite the more recent surge, XRP prices have been in freefall since the SEC launched its legal action against Ripple. The regulator claims that XRP is little more than an unregistered stock in its issuer, a claim that Ripple denies, citing legal rulings as evidence that the SEC is mistaken.

Coinbase decided to suspend trading in the token earlier this week.

Meanwhile, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, Ripple is unlikely to beat the lawsuit alleging the company violated federal securities laws by selling the digital asset XRP without registering it as a security: "At stake in the Dec. 22 suit may be the ability to trade XRP and more than a billion dollars, though settlement for a fraction of that is also possible." Open / Comment

2020-12-28 20:00:21 ​​Bitcoin Rallies Above USD 28K with Market Cap Over USD 0.5 Trillion

The most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin (BTC) accelerated its rally, hitting USD 25,000, USD 26,000, USD 27,000, and USD 28,000 less than a day, while its market capitalization jumped above USD 0,5 trillion. (Updated at 11:43 UTC with the latest price data.)

At the time of writing (11:41 UTC), BTC trades at USD 28,257 and is up by 14% in a day and 20% in a week. The price rallied by 64% in a week and 278% in a year.

BTC is the best performing cryptoasset among the top 10 coins by market capitalization today. Its dominance, or the percentage of the total market capitalization, jumped above 70% for the first time since March 2017. Open / Comment

2020-12-25 20:00:27 ​​Economists Speak of ‘Once-in-a-Millennium Change’ in Monetary History

Leading economists are suggesting that the world is heading for a sea change in terms of the way people use money – and think that cash’s days are numbered as digital forms of currency edge toward mainstream adoption.

Per the Japan Times, Masashi Nakajima, a professor of Economics and Business Administration at Reitaku University, in Chiba Prefecture, and a former central Bank of Japan (BoJ) official, stated,

“We are seeing a once-in-a-millennium change in the history of currencies after the long-time use of currency notes following the world’s first introduction in China about 1,000 years ago.”

And while 11th-century Chinese economic thinkers may have been the first to develop the precursor to the modern banknotes, Nakajima and others like him appear to think that it may be the Middle Kingdom’s modern antecedents who deal paper money the death blow.

The government’s digital yuan project is in its final testing stages, and Beijing seems adamant that it wants the token up and running well ahead of the Winter Olympic Games – set to kick off in early February 2022.

And China remains something of a center of gravity for the crypto world, too. Despite a state crackdown in September 2017, some of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world still remain in Chinese hands, while many bitcoin (BTC) and altcoin miners are still based in the nation. BTC and altcoin ownership also remains high in China.

The same media outlet quotes Hiromi Yamaoka, a former senior official in charge of payment and settlement systems at the BoJ, as stating,

“China has prompted moves toward digital currency (around the world). It (has done so at) surprising speed, as central banks tend to take a cautious stance [on new systems].”

Nakajima, meanwhile, reportedly said that “advances in technology including blockchain to counter cyberattacks and counterfeiting” have “largely contributed to the realization” of digital currencies “while people are now able to use digital currencies anywhere at any time via their smartphones.”

The Japanese experts’ comments come just weeks after Niall Ferguson, a Scottish economic historian, author and the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, stated,

“We are living through a monetary revolution so multifaceted that few of us comprehend its full extent.”

Ferguson added that the revolution has been expiated by the coronavirus pandemic, which, he said has “accelerated our advance into a more digital word” and “significantly increased our exposure to financial surveillance as well as financial fraud.”

Ferguson also opined, on the subject of BTC,

“Rather than seeking to create a Chinese-style digital dollar, Joe Biden’s nascent administration should recognize the benefits of integrating bitcoin into the United States financial system.” Open / Comment

2020-12-21 20:00:42 ​​Few Tokens Besides Bitcoin To Become SoV, Ethereum To Reshape Finance - Novogratz

Mike Novogratz. Source: A YouTube video screenshot
Very few cryptoassets will stand the test of time and become lasting stores of value (SoV) outside of bitcoin (BTC), Mike Novogratz, the CEO of digital asset-focused financial services firm Galaxy Digital, said, adding that he is increasingly confident that the Ethereum community will help reshape the future of finance.

In an interview with Raoul Pal on Real Vision, Novogratz said:

“When you criticize litecoin (LTC), you get hammered by people. It was a variation of bitcoin. A lot of people bought litecoin and say, well, I cannot afford a bitcoin, but I can afford a litecoin, which makes no economic sense but that was their argument. I think in pure store of value coins, I do not think a lot of the smaller ones will have long-lasting gigs. Now, then there are utility coins like, protocols, you think about ethereum (ETH), definitely, EOS, hashgraph, all of these coins that want to be the base layer of trust, where lots of things get processed.”

However, Novogratz estimates that “90-95% of the real talent that is entering the space as programmers are programming around the Ethereum world.”

And on the subject of Ethereum, he added,

“That is really where you are going to rebuild the future of finance and the future of lots of things.”

As reported, Ethereum already has more developers than Bitcoin.

Novogratz, who already warned banks over DeFi, opined that while “bitcoin is an easier story on a risk-adjusted basis,” he was “liking Ethereum more and more as I see this thing go.”

The businessman recalled that, back in 2017, he “would invest in sexier projects with good founders and decent communities, and as soon as there was liquidity, I would sell them.”

Novogratz also claimed that previous crypto bubbles have strengthened his focus on key investment parameters, such as market capitalization and fully diluted market capitalization.

Saying that this was the best investment lesson he learned in 2020, he advised investors to focus on the second marker, which refers to what a token’s market cap would be if all available coins in total supply were issued.

He stated,

“When you get the growth at an accelerating rate, you can stay long. Even if prices do not make sense, because that compounding of the second derivative really creates the excitement around it. If it was Zoom, like I am going to short Zoom, that was a mistake to short Zoom. They were growing at an accelerating rate.”

The CEO added that, as a rule of thumb, when market cap levels get to “stupid levels” and “when the community is valuing this new protocol at stupid levels, even in this wild bubble already with all equities,” investors have “got to sell.”

“You’ve got to take some profits off the table,” the Galaxy Digital CEO said.

Novogratz also cautioned crypto investors that paying attention to these markers would turn certain individuals into “momentum traders,” but would also help people “know the good projects,” so they would “not buy fundamentally on the big dips.” Open / Comment

2020-12-11 20:00:42 ​​Sweden Launches E-krona Feasibility Review

Sweden’s central bank, the Riksbank, has edged another step closer to launching its much anticipated central bank digital currency (CBDC), dubbed the e-krona – with a lengthy government review of the consequences of a national CBDC rollout beginning today.

Back in February this year, Sweden gazumped many of its European and intercontinental counterparts by announcing that it had begun testing the e-krona, which makes use of blockchain technology. The Riksbank has been working with technology provider Accenture on its token.

And in a new development, Bloomberg reported that Per Bolund, Sweden’s financial markets minister, has officially launched a feasibility review into the e-krona. The review will probably be complete by late November 2022, and will be spearheaded by Anna Kinberg Batra, the ex-chairwoman of the Riksbank’s finance committee.

The country has remained firmly agnostic about whether or not it will go ahead with the CBDC issuance, with the central bank stating categorically on its website that “no decisions have yet been taken on issuing an e-krona.”


However, the central bank governor Stefan Ingves wrote, back in mid-October, “There shall be digital state money as legal tender, an e-krona, issued by the Riksbank.”

Ingves will still need to convince both the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) and the government of the wisdom of the move, but has already submitted a proposal to parliament this year, asking it to appoint a panel of experts to judge the e-krona feasibility.

The Swedish government has taken pride in the fact that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) declared in 2018 that the nation was the world’s most cashless region. The central bank claims that 90% of all monetary transactions in the nation are done completed without the use of cash.

Bloomberg quoted Bolund as stating,

“It’s crucial that the digitalized payments market functions safely, and that it’s available to everybody.” Depending on how a digital currency is designed and which technologies are used, it can have large consequences for the entire financial system.”

However, as reported, over the past few years Swedes have been increasingly concerned about the elderly, those living in rural areas and people from migrant backgrounds being left behind by businesses switching to Swish no longer accepting cash.

Last year all but one of Sweden’s political parties supported new laws requiring Sweden’s major banks to continue to offer cash services across the country. Open / Comment