LOYALTY TRACKER: Following Xi Jinping’s bombshell speech last week urging his countrymen to “seize the opportunity” created by blockchain, China’s Communist Party (CPC) released a decentralized app (dapp) for members to attest their loyalty. The dapp, in literal translation called “Original Intentions Onchain,” allows members to pledge their party allegiance and store it on a blockchain, which can be shared and seen by others. Full story
MINER IPO: Canaan Creative, one of the world’s largest bitcoin mining equipment makers, has filed to go public again – this time in the U.S. The firm’s IPO prospectus, filed with the U.S. SEC on Oct. 28, indicates the company intends to list on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol “CAN” and sets a placeholder (notional) amount of $400 million for the raise. Full story
BITMAIN SHOCK: Beijing-based bitcoin mining giant Bitmain unexpectedly ousted co-founder and executive director Micree Ketuan Zhan. Jihan Wu, another Bitmain co-founder and now chairman of the board, sent an email to staff Tuesday, saying he'd "decided to dismiss all roles of Ketuan Zhan, effective immediately.” A source close to the company said staffers were shocked by the sudden notice and that Bitmain is holding an urgent all-hands meeting. Full story
LIBRA TROLL: A former high-ranking official said China's central bank is likely to be the first to issue a national digital currency. Speaking at a Shanghai event, Huang Qifan followed up by saying that Facebook-led Libra is doomed to fail. “The decentralized blockchain-based currencies are not supported by sovereign credit and hard to [turn into] real wealth,” he said. Full story
SEC GO-AHEAD: Paxos aims to modernize the equities settlement process using a now regulator-approved blockchain process. The SEC granted Paxos no-action relief Monday to settle equity securities trades on a blockchain platform for broker-dealers. The company announced that Credit Suisse and Societe Generale would be the first two clients to utilize the new Paxos Settlement Service, which will operate on a private and permissioned network. Full story
GREEN SHOOTS? A bitcoin price indicator with a strong track record of predicting big moves (technically: the "moving average convergence divergence histogram"), has just turned bullish. By year-end, BTC may be set to challenge the 2019 high of $13,880. But, in the short term, a pullback to $8,820 looks likely: the short duration charts are reporting buyer exhaustion. Full story
REALITY CHECK: Some financial analysts are worried about the $5 billion crypto credit market, reports Bloomberg. While the number of loan lenders has spiked, the pool of borrowers has not kept pace, causing crypto credit firms to relax lending standards and strike riskier deals. Although the total crypto industry is not large enough to spread contagion to the rest of the market, Jason Urban, a former trader at DRW Holdings and Goldman Sachs, sees warning signs that shouldn't be ignored.
Loyalty dapp