1. The Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP), a non-profit Hong Kong-based news website covering local affairs, has started promoting the Brave browser and its basic attention token (BAT) as a tipping method to support it. Its readers can reward it with the BAT token simply by viewing ads and tipping it. Less than a day after enabling Brave browser donations, HKFP’s editor-in-chief tom Grundy revealed the firm had already received 153 BAT, worth about $33. Read Full on CryptoGlobe
2. Square Crypto is hoping to galvanize Lightning development with a new tool kit, currently under construction. The new kit includes an API, language tools, demo apps and other features to help developers integrate support for Lightning payments into their own wallets. "For bitcoin to become a widely used global currency – one that can’t be stopped, tampered with, or rigged in anyone’s favor – improvements to bitcoin’s UX, security, privacy, and scaling are required," the group said. Read Full on CoinDesk
3. A Venezuelan team is developing Locha, a decentralized mesh network that doesn’t rely on the internet to transact with Bitcoin (BTC). The system, based on radio waves, was born in response to frequent electricity and internet outages in Venezuela. Locha Mesh is an open-source project led by Randy Brito, a member of the Bitcoin Venezuela organization. Their primary use case is for critical situations such as in Venezuela and Iran, where infrastructure issues or government restrictions often lead to protracted shutdowns of the Internet. Read Full on Cointelegraph
4. Cryptocurrency payment solution BitPay has added support for XRP to its wallet app on Tuesday, after first announcing its intent to do so in October 2019. BitPay worked alongside Ripple developer platform Xpring to complete the XRP integration. Ecommerce domain eGifter and humanitarian organization CARE have already announced their adoption of XRP for commerce and donations following the addition, BitPay said. XRP joins fellow cryptos bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH) and ethereum (ETH). Read Full on CoinDesk
5. Huobi, the fifth-largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume as of press time, will now provide brokerage service to its institutional clients. Huobi Brokerage is integrated with other crypto exchanges and OTC platforms via smart order routing technology in order to improve price execution and boost liquidity. Huobi Brokerage will initially support Bitcoin (BTC) and United States-dollar pegged stablecoins. Ether (ETH), XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), EOS, and Litecoin (LTC) is expected to be available by the end of January 2020. Read Full on Cointelegraph
6. Circle’s CEO, Jeremy Allaire and Neha Narula, the director of the Digital Currency Initiative in the MIT Media Lab, projected that in the next two or three years the possibility of securitization of assets through tokenization will become more realistic. Discussing real-world use cases for tokenized assets, Allaire gave the example of a farmer in India, who might tokenize their future yield or their property and offer it on a global marketplace, where an individual investor says that they are interested in the product. Read Full on Cointelegraph
7. A total of $2.5 trillion worth of BTC were transacted on the Bitcoin network last year. The average transaction value on the Bitcoin blockchain is 2.75 BTC, worth about $23,000, and that the median transaction value if of 0.029 BTC, or $250. The estimated transaction value in USD terms shown per day seems to mostly revolve around the $5 billion mark, with some days hitting $10 billion. In July, the total USD value transacted on the BTC network per day high a high close to $20 billion. Read Full on CryptoGlobe
8. Switzerland’s banking industry has long been known to privately safeguard wealth, so some bankers see bitcoin as a natural fit for the nation’s financial sector. Zurich-based SEBA Bank and Falcon Group are the bitcoin-friendly Swiss banks. Bitcoin Suisse has also applied for a universal banking license. Matthew Blake, the World Economic Forum's monetary systems lead, described crypto-friendly, fully licensed banks as an emerging trend. "It's something institutions can do to hedge," he said. Read Full on CoinDesk
9. Despite the collapse of altcoin markets in 2019, the Litecoin network still saw massive usage which brought its yearly trading volume to over $100 billion. The amount is still lower from the yearly volume of 2018, although this is mostly due to the bull market that was still raging in January 2018. Before the bear market kicked in and the prices started to drop, each day brought over $5 billion in transactions. In the first half of 2019, daily transactions — on average — saw only $200m -$300m. Read Full on litecoin