Crypto Week under review: SEC delays the Bitcoin ETF Ruling, Coinbase lists four Altcoins

In a sense of panic induced by the bear market, the cryptography market in general has stopped responding to developments in the industry altogether, with news from last week coming from one ear, and out of the other. Regardless of this, startups still seem determined to strengthen the infrastructure of this sector. And frankly, this unstoppable drive towards innovation does not come unjustified.

As stated by Spencer Bogart of Blockchain Capital, today's news will become "important building blocks" and "turn on" the next cryptocurrency bonfire.

SEC delays the Bitcoin ETF in February 2019

Since the first blocks of Bitcoin, the true innovators have discovered the value in the cracks in the world of cryptocurrency, finding it logical to cling to this nascent industry in times of desperation and euphoria in the same way. While this zealous faith in this decade-long innovation has taken many forms over the years, in the recent crisis, investors have been looking for a new light at the end of the tunnel: a bitcoin exchange (BTC) with fully regulated headquarters in the US-fund traded (ETF).

However, even after Bitcoin's hopes for ETF consulted with the SEC Securities and Exchange Commission, the US authority recently had to delay its decision on the potential product. In an SEC document issued Thursday afternoon, the government agency said it would exercise its right to postpone the verdict on the application until February 27, 2019.

Although this regulatory judgment was held to be bearish by naive traders, many analysts and commentators in the sector said the delay was expected, citing concerns that the underlying cryptographic market is not ready for the advent of such an instrument.

Morgan Creek Digital bets $ 1 million that Crypto will surpass the S & P 500

On Thursday, Morgan Creek Digital, the crypto-centric branch of Morgan Creek Asset Management, announced that it was inviting a determined investor to make a heavy bet.

The bet, which Morgan Creek has dubbed "Buffet Bet 2.0", sees the criptovalute investment manager praising its cript-valued index fund, claiming it will exceed the Standard and Poor's stock market index of 500 on a 10 year period. In other words, if the Morgan Creek fund exceeds the American markets, expect a $ 1 million check to make it. On the other hand, if traditional stocks manage to outperform the cryptography market, Morgan Creek is tasked with paying $ 1 million to its opponent. The "Buffet Bet 2.0", for those who are not aware, is a clear reference to Warren Buffet's notorious ante, in which the multimillionaire claimed that a large group of hedge funds would have passed the S & P.

Speaking with CNBC on the relevance of this bet, which is more serious than it may seem, Anthony "Pomp" Pompliano, co-founder of the crypto group, observed:

"This [bet] it is a combination of our perspectives not only for the positive side of cryptocurrencies, but also for the prospects for public stocks ".

This brief but regrettable statement, which paints a grim picture for the future of actions, underlines the imperfect loyalty of Morgan Creek to cryptocurrencies. Mark Yusko, the founder of the Morgan Creek brand, recently participated in CNBC Fast Money to claim to "love long-term Bitcoin", adding that the monumental growth of trading volumes only highlights the neglected fact that this sector continues to flourish.

Coinbase adds four Altcoins, tries to add another 27

On Friday morning, with regret of the so-called subset of the "Bitcoin maximalist" investor, Coinbase, based in San Francisco, announced that it would "explore" the offer of support for a list of 31 well-known altcoin projects. and in good faith.

Explaining the reasoning behind this sudden move, which surprised many investors and caused a great deal of reaction to the community, he referred to his goal of "quickly listing" regulatory compliant digital resources issued in September. The activities that Coinbase intends to add include a series of community favorites, namely XRP, Augur (REP), Cardano (ADA), Tezos (XTZ) and Maker (MKR). The complete list can be found through the public statement of Coinbase on the subject.

A few hours after the announcement, which came straight out of the field left, Coinbase Pro, the exchange of startups for professional operators, brought on Twitter to announce that it would be added Civic (CVC), district0x (DNT), Loom ( LOOM) and Decentraland (MANA), four altcoins that were part of the Coinbase list.

At present, full trading has not been activated for the four ERC-20 tokens, but Coinbase Pro expects to start full support for resources within a few days.

Incoming transfers are now available for CVC, DNT, LOOM and MANA. Order books will be in transfer-only mode for a minimum of 48 hours. During this period, traders can move their funds into Coinbase Pro but can not yet place or fill orders. https://t.co/7HV3b41hME

– Coinbase Pro (@CoinbasePro) December 7, 2018

As reported by NewsBTC following Coinbase's decision to add the four altcoins, an unprecedented unexpected, the community exploded into a logical outrage, with a number of analysts criticizing the exchange for its inclination to assist " s-itcoins. " Airswap employee Rob Paone, better known by the "Crypto Bobby" handle for the cryptocurrency community, noted that Coinbase, who previously was reluctant to list a good majority of altcoin, did "YOLO in six months", evidently touching on the unexpected change of society in commercial practices.

Binance Sneak Peaks DEX Once again

For the umpteenth time in a few months, Binance, the most important encrypted resource exchange in the world, has already reached its most promising enterprise, the so-called "Binance Chain" and the decentralized exchange (DEX) which is based on it.

Through a short video, an unnamed member of the Binance team outlined the latest edition of the Binance DEX demo, which features a graphical user interface (GUI) that resembles the world-renowned centralized exchange of startup.

The video outlined a number of relevant features seen in any exchange, including the issuance of commercial orders, which were surprisingly fast, creating accounts and wallets for the Binance chain and the internal block explorer.

Crypto Tidbits

• Grayscale accumulates 1% of all circulating bitcoins (BTC): Since the early years of Bitcoin, the Digital Currency Group (DCG), a consortium of world-renowned encryption startups, has been a giant in the industry. And with a recent report by Diar, a major cryptocentric research unit, it seems that DCG has maintained this hegemony. For publicly available data, Grayscale Investments, DCG's investment management arm, now owns 20,300 BTCs for its Bitcoin Investment Trust (GBTC). This impressive number of BTC amounts to more than 1% of Bitcoin's current offering, and is valued at around $ 850 million. Seeing that much of Grayscale's clientele is made up of individuals and institutions of high market value, it would be fair to assume that large amounts of "smart money" continue to flow into this mass space.
• Ethereum Whales Continue to buy up ETH En-Masse: Just as Grayscale continued to accumulate BTC for its customers, Ethereum's whales of the sea continued to buy their wealth of choice – ETH. According to data compiled by Diar, the amount of ETH that the first 500 portfolios of Ethereum have held increased by 80%. To put this growth figure into perspective, on January 1st, the whales kept 11 million etheres under lock and key, since November 30, the same group of users holds 20 million. This staggering sum is equivalent to about 20% of all the Ethers currently in circulation and $ 2.2 billion in US dollar values, clearly indicating that whales are betting heavily on a market inversion.
• Folds of the Ethereum Classic development team (ETC): To say that the bear market of 2018 was difficult, frankly, one could say it lightly. The value of BTC fell by 83%, while the overcoins followed, publishing losses that would have made shivers and shivers traders. And unfortunately, with the tumult of the market that has hit all the participants in the sector, even start-ups and organizations within this nascent ecosystem have suffered. Last week saw ETCDEV, a major development consortium cheering for Ethereum Classic (ETC), bending, announcing its closure due to funding constraints arising from the falling market and from conflicts within the 39; company. The announcement of ETCDEV's fate comes just days after Steemit, ConsenSys and Spankchain expelled some of their employees.
• Nasdaq enthusiastically confirms the plans of Bitcoin futures: As reported in NewsBTC's last week of review, rumors have suggested that Nasdaq, one of the world's most important financial markets, was in the midst of developing a Bitcoin (BTC) fixed-term vehicle. While the financial instrument was briefly cited by Gabor Gurbacs, digital resource strategist at VanEck, this week, the head of media relations with the Nasdaq spoke with an authoritative British tabloid on the subject. In a statement sent to Express UK, Nasdaq spokesman, Joseph Christinat, enthusiastically checked the rumors, claiming that his Bitcoin mission is scheduled to launch in Q1 / Q2 2019, before adding the vehicle he is waiting for the Approval from the United States. Commission (CFTC). Although the skeptics are firmly convinced that the CFTC will not give its blessing to the proposed vehicle, as made evident by the introduction of the CMO and CBOE Bitcoin futures, this should not be a valid problem. Christinat, emphasizing the interest of the Nasdaq with cryptographic resources, noted that Nasdaq first entered the realm of blockchains in 2013, when 10-year-old innovation "popped up" and "faced window". In closing, the company spokesperson explained that, since the Nasdaq has "put a lot of money and energy" into the vehicle, it would be negligent to put aside its efforts because of the bear market.