CRYPTO CONFIRMATION: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp officially appointed Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler to the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, where she will fill current Senator Johnny Isakson’s seat. It remains unclear who will take the helm at Bakkt after Loeffler takes up her new position on Jan. 1, 2020. Full story
WEAKER HAVEN? If "digital gold" means "a safe-haven asset where investors park their money during financial market turmoil," then bitcoin doesn't fit the bill as well as it used to. For most of the year, bitcoin's price showed a modestly negative correlation with the S&P 500, but that relationship has now weakened. Full story
DLT CUTS: State Street, the global custodian bank, has taken a new direction with its blockchain strategy and cut scores of developer jobs in the process, people familiar with the situation said. The focus is now more on digital assets, rather than the heavy lifting work of re-plumbing its systems with DLT. Full story
SLOW FUSE: A newly proposed ethereum hard fork may punt a key network feature two years down the road to avoid complicating ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS). The fork would delay the “difficulty bomb” – which would raise mining difficulty – from going off for another four million blocks. Full story
HEROIC FAILURE? Did Virgil Griffith go too far with the idea of ethereum as a "world computer"? The Ethereum Foundation researcher was arrested in the U.S. for traveling to North Korea and giving the regime information on how to use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions. Across the ethereum community, the jury is still out as to whether Griffith’s choices are heroic, reprehensible or just plain foolish. Full story
BIG BOUNCE: Bitcoin's low-volume pullback to one-week lows has ended with a sudden $500 climb to $7,770. Invalidating the bearish lower-highs setup on the daily chart with a move above $7,870 would bolster the short-term bullish case and open the doors for $8,500. Full story
MANIFOLD MANIPULATION? CoinDesk's senior research analyst Galen Moore joins the Markets Daily team to discuss the mechanics of market manipulation. On May 17 a large bitcoin sell order placed well below market on Bitstamp sunk the market. Moore looks at on-chain indicators and asks whether this was manipulation. Listen here
Crypto senator