Freakerz NEWSCAST 📮 01-10-2019

📮 01-10-2019

📈 MarketCap: $224 B

📊 24h Mcap %: 2.88%

⚠️ Bitcoin Dom: 66.9%

Active Coins: 2,617
24h Vol %: 5.31%
24h Vol: $48 B

1. Amidst the crypto rout that has seen bitcoin hit three-month lows, the XRP price is swimming against the tide. In the last 24 hours, the no. 3 crypto has registered gains of 7%. XRP has appreciated by roughly 7% to reach $0.2577 per coin, making it the biggest gainer among the top ten cryptocurrencies. The XRP price is still below the monthly high of $0.3225 recorded on Sept. 18. The XRP price has also fallen by nearly 50% since the yearly high registered in June.

2. Ripple has acqui-hired Iceland-based cryptocurrency trading firm Algrim to expand operations in Europe. Announcing the news on Monday, Ripple said Algrim will play an “integral” role in the ongoing development of its On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) product which utilizes XRP cryptocurrency for cross-border payments. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ripple said that Iceland will now serve as one of its engineering hubs, with plans to hire more people from a technical background in the region with a new office.

3. Coinbase, Kraken, Bittrex and more are developing a ratings system aimed to flag crypto assets that are similar to securities.The Crypto Rating Council says the rating system is based on past U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission guidance and case law, and the legal and technical experience of the firms making up the group. Council will issue a 1-5 rating for a given cryptocurrency. Where 1 constitutes a crypto asset with few functional similarities to a security, while a 5 would be consistent with the definition of a security.

4. Wave Financial has announced the creation of the world's first Bitcoin-based yield fund, which aims to generate an investment yield by selling call options on bitcoin held inside its fund. Wave expects such option sales to generate “attractive premiums” due to BTC's high volatility—which should provide a steady stream of income that can be paid out monthly to investors. The firm hopes to distribute a dividend of 1.5%/month—which, if achieved, would result in an 18% target annual yield.

5. Bitcoin went through a hell of a week, losing upwards of $2,000 of its dollar value in the past few days alone. Currently trading at around $8,100. However, according to popular cryptocurrency commentator John McAfee, once again, there’s no reason to worry. “Ignore this drop in Bitcoin’s price. I am firmly with Peter Brandt in his medium term $50k price prediction. I am also firm on my $1 mil price by the end of 2020. Stop wringing your hands! All is well,” he said.

6. Today has been a generally good day for most of the altcoins with decent gains all round following a week from hell. One of the top performers at the moment is EOS which has surged almost 15% on the news that Block.one has settled with the SEC. Block.One said the settlement only applies to the sale of the original ERC-20 token it sold. EOS holders swapped their ethereum-based tokens with the proper EOS tokens when the network first went live.

7. Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become the highest-ranked “Super Representative” in the Tron (TRX) ecosystem. Binance acquired over 12 billion votes for the top-spot ranking. Binance also revealed that it would add support for TRX staking starting Oct. 1. The development follows the exchange’s recent launch of dedicated staking services last week, which enable Binance users to deposit their token holdings and earn staking rewards.

8. Tron Foundation had announced the launch of the BitTorrent File System [BTFS] mainnet to the BTT ecosystem,Tron Foundation Claimed that, BTFS mainnet focuses on enhancing two major features, which include the removal of files and directories which would allow users to easily delete files on local nodes through the command line. Additionally, the latest upgrade comes as part of BTFS’s aim to become the world’s largest and first scalable decentralized storage system.

9. Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has said that the country’s government will “very soon” activate the cryptocurrency payment method for citizens. “The finance minister and Venezuela’s central bank have new instruments which we will activate very soon so that everyone can do banking transactions, as well as national and international payments through the central bank’s accounts. Venezuela is working within the cryptocurrency world,” Maduro said.

10. A network vote at the end of October will decide whether users are in favor of dropping the inflation tool that was a part of Stellar’s original design.The post reads: “After listening to what everyone had to say and weighing the pros and cons, here’s what the SDF is asking validators to consider: we think it’s a good idea to disable the current inflation mechanism. We’ve implemented a change in version 12 of Stellar core that would do just that, and we encourage validators to vote to accept it.”

11. The German bank is set to help European retailers accept bitcoin payments in early 2020. WEG Bank AG CEO Matthias said, the program is now accepting retailer applications for a sandbox test group, with applications opening to the public in early 2020. “You don’t have to be a customer of the bank,” he said. “All we do is provide the regulatory framework in the background, to make sure when the retailer receives crypto, he actually receives fiat in his bank account, if he chooses.”

12. As part of the settlement, the SEC will not take enforcement actions against Siacoin maker Nebulous or current activity on the Sia network. It will pay disgorgement of $120,000, prejudgment interest of $24,602 and a civil money penalty of $80,000. At the time of the 2014 token sale, Nebulous raised approximately $120,000. The Sia settlement comes just a day after the announcement of Block.One’s $24M settlement with the SEC for the EOS maker’s $4.1 billion securities sale.