General News
Bithumb is expanding across the Middle East starting with the launch of a licensed fiat-to-crypto exchange in the UAE. They have signed an MoU with the UAE-based firm Nvelop to form a joint venture for the initiative. The company plans to further expand in MENA nations.
General Motors is partnering with blockchain startup Spring Labs on solutions for identity verification. The startup – which counts former Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn on its board of advisors – said GM is may acquire stake in the firm alongside other use cases.
IBM is using blockchain and IoT to help manage groundwater usage. California’s Sacramento San Joaquin River Delta will be tracked in “real-time” through a joint effort between the Freshwater Trust, a U.S-based nonprofit working to preserve freshwater ecosystems and SweetSense, a provider of IoT sensors. Water credits will be tradeable. This comes as IBM released its blockchain main net out of its data center located in Melbourne – allowing Australian customers to run their applications on the company's cloud.
Reality Shares ETF Trust, a branch of Blockforce Capital, which already launched an ETF with blockchain products, filed a Form N1-A with the U.S. SEC in partnership with NYSE Arca for the Reality Shares Blockforce Global Currency Strategy ETF. If approved, the fund would invest in a portfolio which includes “high-quality, short-term sovereign debt instruments,” as well as bitcoin futures, money market mutual funds and cash equivalents. 15 percent of the fund’s net assets will be allocated to cash-settled BTC Futures.
Voyager Digital — the crypto asset brokerage co-founded by the ex-CTO of Uber — has officially gone public on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange; trading under the ticker VYGR.V.
Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin $3,627.68 USD (-0.73 percent) scaling solution, lightning network, will soon be coming to Square’s Cash App for mobile payments – according to CEO Jack Dorsey.
Binance Coin $9.12 USD (-5.35 percent) has extended its recent gains to set a new all-time high in bitcoin-denominated value – now the 10th largest coin. This comes as Binance aims to launch a testnet version of its new decentralized exchange on Feb. 20.
Ripple $0.301321 USD (-0.93 percent) is looking to hire more than a dozen engineers and technical experts, including a new head of engineering for its xCurrent project. Coindesk reports XRP bonuses for engineers generally range from $1 million to $6 million – a huge sum which Ripple is happy to pay to attract the best talent during a bear market. Ripple is still facing certain litigations over their influence on XRP. This comes as Ripple just ousted Cory Johnson and his role as chief market strategist – citing “changes in market conditions”. Meanwhile, foreign-exchange firm Finablr has joined RippleNet. Remittance firms UAE Exchange and Unimoni – which are under Finablr’s network of brands, have gone live with blockchain-based payments using Ripple technology, starting with payments for its international customers to Thailand; in a partnership with Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank. Other destination countries are expected to be added. Lastly, Ripple partner SendFriend has just raised $1.7 million from MasterCard, Barclays, MIT Media Lab and Ripple itself. SendFriend will utilize Ripple’s xRapid for remittances to the Philippines.
Elon Musk is "highly confident" that Spacex will land humans on Mars about six years from now. He believes that Mar… https://t.co/iI74PwYmud
2020-12-31 03:17:18
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Spacex and Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that Mars' economy will be run on #cryptocurrency. #bitcoin #marscoin… https://t.co/2yrxGKiiLH
2020-12-31 09:07:45
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#cryptocurrency,bitcoin,marscoin,
Coinbase knew cryptocurrency XRP was a security rather than a commodity and “illegally” sold Ripple Labs’s tokens a… https://t.co/rKcQvUxdaL
2020-12-31 02:50:17
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TRON Foundation $0.024394 USD (-4.60 percent) has partnered with the ALS Association to launch a charity campaign using blockchain technology to track donation distributions for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Tron have donated $250 thousand themselves.
– WN.com, Jamie Saarloos