Friday News Roundup
Top News from Tuesday to Today
Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu’s 2020 Commentary on the Halving and Mining Machines: https://bit.ly/3bqjcAb
‘SAFU’ or Not, Japanese Retail Investors are Still Interested in Buying Bitcoin Despite the Thursday Bloodbath: https://bit.ly/3bur6sm
GCR Trend Update 2020; Crypto Trends in China and Hong Kong. https://bit.ly/33Sz5N5
5 Reasons Why Miners Haven’t Shut Down Despite the March Crash. https://bit.ly/3anTLyW
The Coingecko team released a comprehensive e-book on “How To DeFi”, complimentary for readers until April 30th. GCR interviews the team to hear their thoughts on the book. https://bit.ly/39gTE76
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has formally announced that Ripple Labs Singapore, Coinbase Singapore, Binance Asia Services and others, can provide specific crypto payment services under exemption with the recently released Payments Services Act. Global Coin Research reported this as breaking news two weeks ago. http://bit.ly/2IK3G5W
Exchange and Markets News
Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges Bithumb and UPbit suffered a sharp drop in sales last year along with the virtual asset trading volumes in the exchanges. https://bit.ly/2vQCeQY
Binance Charity, the blockchain-powered donation platform launched by major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has launched a Coronavirus Relief Campaign. It aims to collect $5 million in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, XRP, Binance Coin and Binance USD, to give to coronavirus relief efforts. https://bit.ly/33NxurP
Binance says it’s producing a Visa debit card that allows users to spend crypto with merchants around the world. https://bit.ly/3dBmxhs
At least four out of seven Indian crypto exchanges are looking to raise funds to either expand or relaunch their operations in the country – but risks related to the coronavirus pandemic have hampered such efforts- including Unocoin, BuyUcoin, CoinRecoil and Belfrics. https://bit.ly/3an9jmB
Investments
Singapore-based Edufied, a credential validation startup, said it has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding at a valuation of nearly US$4 million. It is looking to use blockchain to keep certificates gets seed funding. https://bit.ly/2WIMq9k
⛏️Mining
Bitcoin has seen its mining difficulty decline to 13.91 T from a high of 16.55 T, down 15.95 percent at 2:51 UTC on Thursday, March 26, two weeks after the March 12 price crash. It is estimated that the mining difficulty will continue to drop, by 16.04% to 11.68 T in 14 days, according to BTC.com. https://bit.ly/2QO7CqO
Report on how Bitcoin price bottoms are closely associated with points of miner capitulation. https://bit.ly/39imnIM
Coins
Why Security Token Offerings Are a Big Yawn in Parts of Asia. https://bit.ly/2wGh20w
Hive Continues Independence Push as Steem Stakeholders Migrate to New Chain. https://bit.ly/3ap4N79
Block.one invests $150M in its social media app Voice to fund independent operations. https://bit.ly/2xn7QhI
Brave has partnered with crypto exchanges Binance to let users trade cryptocurrencies on its new tab page. https://bit.ly/2vQDh3v
CasperLabs Partners with BitMax.io to Conduct Innovative Exchange Validator Offering. https://bit.ly/39kFKAT
🧳 Business
KB Kookmin, the largest bank in South Korea, is set to launch crypto custody service for assets such as bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). https://bit.ly/2UTqciv
The alleged ringleader of a notorious Telegram sex crime chat group has been paraded in public after millions signed a petition demanding the Korean Government publicly name him. https://bit.ly/33MFsS0
Hong Kong’s first virtual bank Zhongan officially provides services after acquiring its license in 2019. Google translate
⚖️Regulations
A Japanese self-regulatory organization established in February 2020, the Blockchain Contents Association shared that they had written new guidelines to deal with laws related to gambling and online scams. https://bit.ly/39lJpOT
Russia may create regulatory sandbox to legalize blockchain and cryptocurrencies. https://bit.ly/3bqEXji