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Your daily newsletter for April 24, 2019

Sunshine

“In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.”

— Dalai Lama

Whoopee for Wednesday! Positive vibes only, CMC crew! Be excited, and stay hungry. 🦁

Today in history (2005), Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He took the name Pope Benedict XVI. 🤴

In today's newsletter, we will be covering Societe Generale Group issuing ~$112 million worth of bonds on the public Ethereum blockchain, crypto lending company BlockFi now holding ~$53 million its total interest-earning accounts and crypto exchange Binance releasing Binance DEX ahead of schedule.

Please don't forget to answer the polls down below too! It's a great way for us to interact with you all and hear what you have to say. 💭 Happy reading! 📚

Caution 👀

Over the last 24 hours, total market capitalization stayed at about ~$183 billion, with most coins either seeing gains or losses in the ~1-3% range. 24 hour volume registered ~$50 billion, about 25% higher than the past week's average.

BTC is currently trading at ~$5,670, up ~1.5% over yesterday. BTC is inching towards challenging the 0.786 fibonacci line (drawn from the mid Nov to mid Dec crash). However, there are some signs of exhaustion in this +~75% rally since mid Dec last year. There are now more shorts than longs, something we have not seen since the beginning of Jan this year. We could be due for a retracement in the coming weeks. 😔

Feeling it out 👐

French financial services company, Societe Generale Group, has issued ~$112 million worth of bonds in the form of a security token dubbed "OFH token" on the public Ethereum blockchain. 😲

The OFH tokens represent 100 million euros of covered bonds, a type of security that is backed by specific assets but remains on the issuer’s balance sheet. The bond has a five-year maturity with a 12-month extension period.

However, according to bond rating agency Moody’s Investors Service, Societe Generale issued the securities to itself and no outside buyers were involved. 😌 This was part of a pilot by Societe Generale’s blockchain subsidiary, Societe Generale FORGE. PwC advised the project on the technology and the French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel was a legal advisor as well.

Lending business 💰

Crypto wealth management and lending company BlockFi now holds ~$53 million its total interest-earning accounts. According to BlockFi’s CEO, Zac Prince, they have grown their client base by ~50% in the first half of April alone this year, and expects sustained growth as they continue to lower minimum balance requirements for interest earning eligibility. 👍

The company has recently lowered its minimum balance to earn interest on Bitcoin (BTC) from 1 BTC to 0.5 BTC, and expanded its operations to India. BlockFi now services the entire globe, less U.S., U.K. and E.U. sanctioned territories. However, in response to market conditions, BlockFi has lowered the maximum balance for which it will pay 6.2% annual interest from 500 ETH to 250 ETH.

According to BlockFi, their ability to pay interest to our clients "is based on crypto market lending conditions" and they "work with institutional counterparties to generate this yield." For instance, the demand for borrowing ETH dropped in the past month and hence ETH tier rates were adjusted in tandem. 👀

Ahead of schedule ⚡

World's largest crypto exchange by adjusted volume, Binance, has released its decentralized exchange, Binance DEX, ahead of schedule. This comes after a 2-month testing period, during which 8.5 million transactions were executed. 🤯

The Binance DEX has a similar interface to its existing centralized exchange, but comes with some additional features, such as an option to generate a 24-word mnemonic seed phrase to secure users’ private keys. 😊

While trading will begin at a later date, users can now create wallets on Binance DEX. Trading will reportedly commence as soon as tokens are issued and listed on Binance DEX, which is anticipated to within the next few days. 😄

Blockchain term of the day 🤓 - Hash

The act of performing a hash function on input data of arbitrary size, with an output of fixed length that looks random and from which no data can be recovered without a cipher. An important property of a hash is that the output of hashing a particular document will always be the same when using the same algorithm.

Other news 📰

After a year of operation, crypto exchange Coinbase is shutting down its Chicago office. With it goes a division known as Coinbase Markets (dedicated to creating sophisticated electronic markets technologies such as matching engines and high-frequency trading for cryptocurrency), eliminating 30 engineering jobs in the process. 👋
Joel Ortiz, a 21-year-old U.S. student who stole ~$7.5 million in cryptocurrencies via SIM-swapping hacks has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. 😵
Crypto custodian BitGo claims to have received a SOC 2 Type 2 certification, an advanced security review by an outside monitor. It also claims to be the first crypto startup to receive this level of certification. 👍

Crypto calendar 📅

16 May - U.S. SEC's decision on the NYSE Arca and Bitwise Asset Management's Bitcoin ETF application

21 May - U.S. SEC's initial decision on the VanEck, SolidX and the Cboe BZX Exchange Bitcoin ETF application

TBA - ICE's Bakkt Bitcoin Daily Futures Contract updated launch timeline

Catch the CoinMarketCap team at these community events! 🤝

23-24 Apr - 3rd International Blockchain Life 2019 Asia (Singapore)

25-26 Apr - Trescon World Blockchain Summit Taipei (Taipei, Taiwan)

25-26 Apr - DLT 101 Taipei (Taipei, Taiwan)

23-24 May - Malta Blockchain Summit (Malta)
8-11 Jul - RISE Conference 2019 (Hong Kong)
10-11 Jul - Barcelona Trading Conference (Barcelona, Spain)

Poll of the Day

How much do you agree with this statement: "I am keen on trying out the Binance Decentralized Exchange." 💭

Why or why not? Share with me in the polls! 😆

What you said

"How much do you agree with this statement: "I am more interested in cryptocurrencies as a speculative tool, rather than in its underlying technology.""

The average vote was a 4.6. 17.4% of y'all voted a '10' hahaha. 🤦‍♂️

"Why or why not?"

One of cryptocurrency's biggest potentials is as a method of online payment that can replace credit cards and be much more efficient than credit cards are. - Debit cards and international remittances too! 😊

I'm more interested in what the technology could facilitate than speculating but can't help investing in it's growth. The internet and mobile smart phones have changed our lives, blockchain will too. Glad I invested in those and benefited from their growth but even more glad they are available to everyone and what we do with the technology. - Well said! While it's great that we are able to make some extra money from it, what's even greater is how the technology will be able to improve the numerous inefficiencies in multiple facets of daily life. For one, think about the vast number of unbanked people in the world! Crypto will be able to help them be both more nimble as well as save better. 😄

I am a short term trader and I love to acquire coins - Can't blame ya. It sure is exciting! Nothing beats seeing a coin suddenly break through resistance and go parabolic. 💰

don't agree. i am more interested in underlying technology & future improvements & scalability. also new protocols like lightning.. if progress of these are good, price will come.. i do look for & invest in dapps / tokens if i see good flip candidate. on the whole i am pretty satisfied with the progress. - Yup, I share the same pov about how the price will come along nicely should the underlying technology continue to improve. 😌

Quite the opposite actually, I'm more interested in the underlying technology - That's great! Keep on learning. Knowledge truly is power in this field. 🤓

make a line break - Good recommendation! Trying it out today (:

You certainly can use if for speculation but the underlying technology is transformative. - Agreed. Can't wait to see how the space will be like in like a decade. 🤔

still missing killer apps - All in due time. In the meantime, enjoy cryptokitties gahaha.

I love the technology itself and try to stay on top of everything that's going on but if in the meantime a Lambo suddenly appears in my garage I won't mind either 😉 - I feel ya 😂 Skrrrt 🏎️

Indeed...if it were not it's high speculative nature I wouldnt dare so investing even if it's technology its outstanding..... I think it's speculation nature makes it more exciting because most people invest in Bitcoin and still don't know what is block chain technology even by simple definition 🤣😂 - While I understand how these speculators feel (cause I've been there), over time as I began to be more in tune with the news and what's going on in the industry, I started to really appreciate the amount of effort that people are putting in to push this technology and build the space. I am also convinced that the brightest minds are also in on blockchain atm. 🧠

Showing more interest in speculation as opposed to the ground-breaking ideas and technicalities of crytocurrency can only be described as thoughtless and egotistical behavior. It is like marrying someone for their looks - red flag ! - That's a pretty critical assessment. I think that it's good to have an appreciation of both! 🙏

I think this tech is more important for advancing freedom than speculation
I think cryptocurrency is more like the future of commerce and more than just a tool for earning money or whatsoever. - I agree with this as well. Given the numerous cases of personal data management by big companies, I've grown to become on privacy issues. I believe that crypto and blockchain can really help with this and grant more autonomy to the end user. 😄

I'm more interested in the philosophical aspects from issuing a new type of money - Curious to hear what you have to say about it. Do tell more in tomorrow's poll! 😬

Im in this for the technology 🤖 - Good on you! 👍

Thank you all for reading! Catch you back here again tomorrow for your daily dose of crypto news! 💙