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FAST TRADES: Crypto exchanges are getting into the high-frequency trading (HFT) business by offering colocation services. Huobi, based out of Singapore, and ErisX, based in Chicago, are two firms that have begun offering colocation, a practice in which a client’s server is located either physically next to the exchange’s, or in the same cloud environment. The proximity allows for investors to execute trades more quickly than others, sometimes as much as 100 times faster. While this practice provides certain traders an edge over the broader market, it is also thought that high-frequency trades can lead to greater market volatility. In the traditional securities market, many U.S. securities saw their prices rapidly fall and recover within minutes, in the “Flash Crash of May 6, 2010” as a result of HFT. Full story
TAX CUT? The Singaporean government’s taxation agency is proposing to remove goods and services tax (GST) from cryptocurrency transactions that function, or are aimed to function, as a medium of exchange. On Friday, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) published an e-Tax draft guide for treatment on what it calls the “Digital Payment Tokens,” seeking to exempt any entity dealing with such digital assets from GST liabilities. Notably, the agency specified that stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to have a value pegged to an asset such as a fiat currency, may not qualify to be GST exempt. Full story
TARGETING TRILLIONS: Brian McNulty, a former R3 managing director, has emerged from the bushes with a blockchain project to streamline the $100 trillion fund management industry. Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, FundAdminChain (FAC) also boasts R3 CEO David Rutter as an advisor, as well BNP Paribas veterans. Built on R3’s Corda platform, FAC aims to bring the distributors, transfer agents, custodians and other intermediaries involved in the buying and selling of units in a fund onto a distributed ledger. The blockchain is targeting transfer agencies and messaging, to begin with, and then aims to build out into asset services. Full story
EASY LIKE COINBASE? ShapeShift’s new one-stop shop for non-custodial crypto management is launching out of private beta today. The new platform wants to rival custodians like Coinbase for ease-of-use, all while giving users full control of their private keys. “Largely this came from my dissatisfaction with the reality that most of the large companies are custodial,” ShapeShift founder and CEO Erik Voorhees told CoinDesk in an interview. “It offers many services that a company like Coinbase would provide but on ShapeShift it’s done in a much more secure and self-sovereign way.” The new platform – which requires a connected hardware wallet – allows users to buy, sell, trade and track multiple cryptocurrencies in a single place, with over 50 digital assets supported. Full story
‘WAKE-UP CALL’: The European Central Bank (ECB) wants regulators to kick into a higher gear when it comes to developing rules for big tech firms moving into finance, such as Facebook and its Libra cryptocurrency project. According to a report from Bloomberg, ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said on Sunday: “It’s out of the question to allow them to develop in a regulatory void for their financial service activities, because it’s just too dangerous. We have to move more quickly than we’ve been able to do up until now.” Full story
DIGITAL RACE: Also in response to competition from Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, an official at China's central bank said the institution may hasten development of its own digital cash. Speaking at an event at Peking University, Wang Xin, head of the research bureau at the People's Bank of China (PBoC), said if Libra becomes widely used for international payments and effectively acts like money, "would it ... accordingly have a large influence on monetary policy, financial stability and the international monetary system?" This risk means that the PBoC is looking at the situation with “high attention,” and could ramp up development of its own digital currency, he said. “We had an early start … but lots of work is needed to consolidate our lead,” according to Wang. Full story |
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RANGE BREAKOUT: Bitcoin has ended the weekend's range-bound trading with a $500 jump to $11,900 in the European trading hours. The range breakout is backed by an uptick in buy volumes and further gains to key resistance at $12,061 could be seen. Traders, however, should note that longer-duration charts are reporting overbought conditions and a low-volume break above $12,061 could end up a bull trap. Full story |
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| SUSTAINABLE FOOD: Using a blockchain ledger to store data can help the sustainable farming movement, suggests a piece by New Zealand's University of Canterbury in phys.org. Associate professor Michaela Balzarova believes that blockchain tools can eliminate intermediaries when it comes to collecting and storing information about where food items originate and how they’re transported. “We need to focus models on how we can feed everyone on a fair basis, improving comfort and standard of living for everyone on this planet ... We need to encourage users to take ownership of data stored on their behalf and blockchain enables this,” she said in the piece. |
WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER  |
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