“The U.S. Federal Reserve announced another $2.3 trillion in lending programs on Thursday to stabilize America’s coronavirus-stricken economy. The Bank of England announced it would likely extend billions of pounds to directly finance the government’s crisis response. Deng said he expects the People’s Bank of China to use a digital currency to distribute a stimulus package.
All this inspires inflation concerns around the globe, which appear to be driving demand for bitcoin (BTC) in some corners. While central banks continue printing money, there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. The halving of bitcoin miners’ block rewards is scheduled for May in what some are calling an act of quantitative tightening.
Broadly speaking, dozens of nations are reevaluating which currencies and industries they depend on. Bitcoin fits into this broader spectrum as some nations with strong central governments, like China, shore up hard assets and digital infrastructure. Meanwhile, there has been a surge in retail crypto investors from nations with unstable currencies, such as Argentina and Russia.
We see that interest in cryptocurrencies has grown significantly in Russia … due to the economic situation in the country. Authorities are introducing a new tax on income from bank deposits from next year, which encourages people to withdraw funds from banks.”
See Also: The Bank of England Goes Into Hyperinflationary Mode (Video)
See Also: Crypto Trading Volumes Rise in India After Banking Crisis, COVID-19 Lockdown
“Fidelity Digital Asset (FDA) is signing on as a member of ErisX’s clearinghouse, taking advantage of its central limit order book to provide better liquidity. It makes ErisX’s spot market available to FDA’s customers.
The signing is ‘a great validation of what we’ve been working on for so long, which is to get these sorts of household institutional intermediary names into our market.’ Chippas expects institutions to slowly onboard crypto.“
“Canadian investment manager 3iQ said The Bitcoin Fund began trading on the TSX on Thursday. As with other ETPs, the key attraction is investors who either can’t or won’t buy the underlying asset can still add bitcoin to their portfolios.
The fund works along the same lines as an exchange-traded product (ETP): investors purchase shares in the fund and receive exposure to changes in the underlying assets price over time.”
“The number of dapp transactions that occurred in Q1 of 2020 increased tenfold over the same period in 2019. It’s Ethereum-based DeFi projects that really stand out from the pack. Transaction volume across these dapps has increased by nearly 800% over the last year.
[However], transaction volume across TRON has slipped by about 73%—from $1.57 billion to $411 million—between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020. The same is true of EOS. The transaction volume of EOS dapps between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020 fell 11%. Like TRON, EOS sees most of its dapps devoted to casino activity, though transaction volume in this area fell nearly 75%.”
“The latest Global Times report suggests that 35 multinationals including Microsoft, Walmart, Mastercard, Sony and Intel, had applied for a total of 212 blockchain patents by the end of March 2020.
Of all the foreign companies with blockchain patents in China, Mastercard tops the list with 46 such patents to its name. Although these companies are filing for blockchain patents in China, all of them are yet to start a blockchain-related business within the country.”
“Key crypto infrastructure providers will help Chainalysis and the wider industry to ‘broaden cryptocurrency transaction monitoring via simpler integrations.’ The firm will seek to partner with firms specializing in compliance.
Chainalysis will [also] look to broaden its own intelligence capabilities by partnering with data providers. These could include specialists in ransomware, bolstering Chainalysis’ labeling of suspect addresses.”
“The recent price crash in March has prepared miners early for the halving, which will reduce the sudden impact it could have had on their profitability, [as] those with outdated equipment have already been forced to drop out or upgrade.
What that means is that miners are likely to not have to sell as high of a proportion of their mined coins as before the halving and the actual halving.
If correlations continue to drop, and Bitcoin continues its recovery, it delivers a case study for institutions for how it performs in a global crisis, which is a very key benefit needed to attract that institutional demand.”
“Block.one plans to start actively voting for EOS block producers sometime next month.
As of press time, the most widely supported EOS block producers have support from 2.67 percent of the voting EOS tokens. Block.one’s control of 9.5 percent of the supply means that its support could be potentially decisive for any block producer.“
“Following major accusations of insider stock trading during the coronavirus-induced market crash, Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), the former CEO of Bakkt, is liquidating her holdings along with her husband.
My husband and I are liquidating our holdings in managed accounts and moving into exchange-traded funds and mutual funds.”
The Disrupt 