Mate take it easy

Your daily newsletter for June 21, 2019

Relax

"Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."

- Leonardo da Vinci

Finally! A much-deserved weekend! I hope everyone had a great week. Time to take a chill pill... 💊

Today in history (2001), Mexican artist Frida Kahlo became the 1st Hispanic woman to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp. 🎉

In today's newsletter, we will be covering eToro successfully conducting a trial of issuing tokenized assets on Facebook’s Libra protocol, PwC introducing a new crypto auditing tool and a city council of Florida agreeing to pay a 65 BTC ransom to a hacker. Today, we will also be covering Waves (WAVES) in our weekly deep dive! Also today in our 'Blockchain term of the day' section, we have another well put together infographic done by cryptocurrency index building and trading automation software, Panda Analytics! So don't forget to check that out below too!

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! 📚

Revisiting old stomping grounds 😬

Over the last 24 hours, total market capitalization rose steadily and broke through the $300 billion total market capitalization mark! Total market capitalization currently stands at ~$303 billion - the last time we were at these levels was back in late July 2018! Most coins are seeing gains in the ~2-7% range for the day.

BTC is currently trading at ~$9,850, up ~6.5% over yesterday. We are inching closer towards that $10,000 mark! The last time BTC was at $10,000 was back in early March 2018. RSI level on the daily chart currently stands at ~71, indicative of strong bullish momentum and possibly overbought. While longs are at the highest they've been at since end May, shorts have also shot up and are at mid March levels. BTC is also trading near the upper limit of its Bollinger Band (+2 SD from its SMA line).

Speedy reaction ⚡

According to a recent official blog post, U.K.-based trading platform eToro has conducted a successful trial of issuing tokenized assets on Facebook’s Libra protocol. 😲

According to its Github repository, eToro's research arm eToroX succeeded in debuting its eToken on Libra. eToken is the technology behind eToro’s tokenized assets.

It was explained in the blog post that through the exploration of Libra’s capabilities and the usage of Move IR (the intermediary representative layer), that eToro was able to "implement an initial version of eToro tokenized assets on the Libra Network". 👌🏻

Nifty tool 🔨

Pricewaterhousecoopers (PwC) has introduced a new cryptocurrency auditing tool as part of its Halo data auditing suite, It will allows users to take a closer look at the cryptocurrency transactions they make, provide “independent, substantive evidence of the ‘private key and public address pairing'” to establish ownership of cryptocurrency and gather information about blockchain transactions and balances. 🔨

PwC is currently using the product in auditing for clients that transact in Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), OAX (OAX) and XRP (XRP). The tool is also being offered to firms to "help them to implement the processes and controls they will require in order to obtain assurance reports from their auditors”.

According to PwC's global assurance leader, James Chalmers, it is important that PwC continues to "keep up with technology changes in the market" and "continue to develop audit tools that meet the needs of emerging technologies and serve the changing and developing demands of our stakeholders." 👍

Pay up, or else... 🤑

According to the New York Times, the city council of Riviera Beach of the U.S. state of Florida recently agreed to pay 65 Bitcoin (BTC) (~$592,000) to regain access to encrypted data in a hacker attack. 💸

On May 29, the city experienced “a data security event” when a police department employee opened an infected email attachment, causing an online system breakdown. The hackers then proceeded to encrypt government records and block access to critical information. This prevented the city from accepting utility payments other than in person or by regular mail. 😂

According to city spokeswoman, Rose Anne Brown, the city council unanimously agreed to pay the ransom to restore access to the data and get their systems back online, even without a guarantee that the hackers will release the data upon receiving payment. Subsequently, the city spent ~$900,000 on new computer software. 🛡️

Blockchain term of the day 🤓 - Lightning network

Crypto deep dive: Waves

Cryptocurrency: WAVES
Market Capitalization Rank: 38th (~$241 million)
Consensus: Proof of Stake (PoS)

The gist of it ⚙️

Waves is a blockchain platform in which users can create their own customized tokens, perform crowdfunding campaings and buy/sell/trade tokens.
Founded in 2016 by Russian entrepreneur Alexander Ivanov, the Waves platform launched shortly after a $16 million ICO campaign.
Somewhat similar to Ethereum, Waves' mission is to offer the world a shared infrastructure equipped with easy-to-use and highly functional tools that will make blockchain accessible to every person or organization.

Why people love it 😘

Waves have been picking up some steam as a viable ICO platform.
The Waves platform is equipped with a decentralized exchange, WAVESDEX, that allows for low fee and fast token/ fiat trading within the Waves platform.
Waves has some good partnerships, such as Deloitte, the Russian Central Securities Depository and Burger King (Russia). It also has strong ties with several Russian banks, allowing them to establish necessary and very beneficial fiat gateways so that the platform allows for trading against fiat currencies like the USD and EUR.

Why people doubt it 🤔

The blockchain platform space is already crowded and saturated. It will take much to stand out.
The Waves platform isn't the most user-friendliest of interfaces. It needs to improve on this to increase adoption rates.

Other news 📰

The "Atlantis" hard fork for Ethereum Classic (ETC) has been officially set to occur at block 8,772,000 on the ETC blockchain, which is estimated to occur on 17 Sept this year. 🗓️
Bitcoin’s (BTC) hash rate has reached a new historical high of 65.19 trillion hashes per second (Th/s). This means that the network is more secure than ever! 🙌
The NEM blockchain project is launching a development studio, NEM Studios, to support its move towards a major protocol upgrade later in the year. 👍

Crypto calendar 📅

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

19 Aug - 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! 🤝

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 believe that Bitcoin (BTC) is truly unstoppable." 💭

Why or why not? What are your plans for the weekend? Share with me in the polls! 😆

What you said

"How much do you agree with this statement: "I believe that the bear run has officially ended.""

The average vote was a 6.9. Hmm, not too convinced yet.

"Why or why not?"

libra=mainstream - It's a great start! 👍

I watch the charts daily and many are like volcanos just before the erupt, I call it my boiling pot, simular to the first man on the sun. - Lol, we are on quite a run up. Seems a little too fast, for my liking at least. 🤔

The market seems confident. - Sentiment is definitely improving! 👌🏻

FOMO is happening.. - And it can hit really hard (: 🤑

i think yes.. we are at BTC 9k+.. ieo's finishing at seconds. a friend of mine called to ask about bitcoin.. i see happy times ahead. - I think so too. You can definitely see the mood shifting. 👀

Of course there are prophets of room still denying this fact which is plain to see. Capitalization, volume and continued price rises - hey, bulls in town ! - Things definitely are shifting. I really like how volume has greatly improved since the start of the year. 😀

While the recent gains could be temporary I'm certainly hoping the bears are hibernating once again. Come on bulls, show us what you got! - We welcome you bulls with open arms! 🤗

coins don't double and triple during a bear run!!! - Haha they most definitely do. Some even 100x. 💰

This IS a controled market & who knows what is coming next ? Possibly another last ditch shake out of weak hands... What could an announcement of war or financial down turn do ??? - It's going to be interesting to see how crypto fares during an economic/ financial downturn in traditional markets. That would reveal a great deal about this asset class.

Its full speed ahead and up, up and away. - Choo choo~ Welcome aboard the moon express.

You know it you you you know it, 💪 6 months strong, and growing 📈 - Gonna be a good run. Happy to have you onboard.

This discussion on weather we are in a bull run is becoming too old. All of us are expecting Btc to reach 10000 dollars then don't know. May be FOMO kicks in and new investors come in, or it could correct but btc halving is upcoming next may... Everybody are going to put their money on Btc.plus institutional whales are holding their cryptos... All this are enough reasons for Btc to keep going up now, in near future. I think just holdbfor now... If not Btc some other altcoin and it will go up, just put larger portions of money in one crypts than jumping on this crypto that crypts like I do. Stick to a strategy and keep playing. - Always fun once in awhile to entertain speculative thoughts! 😂

The normal market I think is about to burst, in my country we have not emerged from the 2008 crisis yet. Only you have to see that Gold has risen to levels of years ago. The crypto market I think it has to shoot, although by technical analysis bitcoin for example, broke the laterality and overcome the next short resistance, his would be to see it consolidate and then go back up. And the big surprise ... or the big disappointment is the Litecoin, we'll see what happens in the next 4 months. - I too believe that we are going to see a global recession soon. Debt levels across a multitude of industries are at insane levels right now. 🙃

I do not it so sure. But what I do know is now is the time to buy your coins when it is cheap. Because when the big money is coming the bull will be sky high. - Buy low! 😬

I believe the big boys will pull out with the profits! - Possible. I do feel some pump-and-dumpish vibes atm. 😔

''cuz!'' - Just cuz! 😊

Signs point to yes, but how much of the buzz is because libra and how much is a bull run. but I'm positive we in a bull run, and it will be a long one. - I think it's gonna be a long one too. 😋

I am really not sure. I think we are still very much in the speculation stage of digital assets. There is very little actual utility and an absolute ton of S**T coins in the market cap. Plus the fact that the market cap is so small that a single whale can crash or surge the price of any asset if not all of them in a single transaction. I still think we need another year or 2 to sort things out. - Yeah, but we have to give it time and let the asset class mature. 😊

When we look the charts then we see clearly the good news of the comming bull. - Haha, there is a saying that goes "show me the charts, and I will tell you the news". Don't trust all you read! 💭

Technical data says it all. - The 2019 run up seems a little too rapid though. 🤔

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