…the bi-weekly newsletter on the underworld of Bitcoin and crypto coins.
This is part of the bi-weekly Bitcoin put out by Millennial Investing. Helping you digest the noise in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency world. Sign up for our )always free) bi-weekly Bitcoin emails.
- Let’s talk about this “split.”
Bitcoin has been volatile as buyers/sellers try to figure out what will happen with the August 1st ‘split.’ Now, bitcoin is spiking as the ‘market’ realizes we’ve avoided a split. Miners have rallied around a singular proposal for the network. That is, miners have signaled they’ll support an upgrade to the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 91. This avoids a bitcoin split on August 1 as the miners reject the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 148. When enough miners are running the software over the next couple days. Over 97% of miners have voted in favor of BIP 91 and it only needs 80% of the bitcoin network running the software.
- From the other day, the SEC has stepped up.
The US Securities & Exchange Commission has said that ICOs – the initial coin offerings, which are just mock-up IPOs, should be considered securities and may be subject to trading regulations. This comes as ICOs are raising tons of cash, over $1 billion already. So, of course, the SEC is looking to get its hands in on some money. ICOs don’t care though, from Reuters, “Some industry participants and analysts had thought such a decision would have a chilling effect on the ICO market. But 20 new ICOs were announced since the SEC’s decision, with more than 120 scheduled to launch this year, according to ICO tracker tokendata.io.”
- The only way to retire, with the coin.
The BitcoinIRA is offering retirement accounts backed by bitcoin and ether. So all the tax benefits of an IRA with all the risk of cryptocurrency. BitcoinIRA is pulling in more than $1 million a month in asset inflows. It’s also adding more cryptocurrencies – two in the next couple months. It hasn’t laid out which currencies it’ll include, but it could be exciting; will it be Litecoin?
- Do it for the coin.
Financiers are jumping ship from their high paying jobs to get in on ICOs. From Bloomberg, “Critics say many ICOs are built on little more than hyperactive imaginations. A cross between crowdfunding and an initial public offering, they involve the sale of virtual coins mostly based on the ethereum blockchain, similar to the technology that underpins bitcoin. But unlike a traditional IPO in which buyers get shares, getting behind a startup’s ICO nets you virtual tokens — like mini-cryptocurrencies — unique to the issuing company or its network. That means they grow in value only if the startup’s business or network proves viable, attracting more people and boosting liquidity.”
- Big money, big crypto.
Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz backing a cryptocurrency hedge fund. MetaStable Capital, a startup hedge fund that invests only in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Since its launch in September 2014, MetaStable has delivered such eye-popping performance that it apparently lets the numbers mostly speak for themselves; it shuns publicity and never announced its recent fundraising round. MetaStable owns about a dozen different cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (which one of the fund’s co-founders, Lucas Ryan, originally received for free in 2011), Ethereum, and Monero (of which the fund holds nearly 1%, or about $6 million worth, of all outstanding coins). Josh Seims, MetaStable’s third co-founder, says the fund takes a value investing approach, “sort of what you imagine a Warren Buffett doing, but it’s kind of oxymoronic to use these terms in the space because everything is so ephemeral.”
- The great mining race has begun – North Korea is launching a full-blown bitcoin mining mission.
North Korea is busting onto the mining scene, where it has no presence in bitcoin mining now, the North Korean government is putting their small firepower to work. That is, very small firepower. North Korea already has poor Internet connectivity and few computers, you would think they’d find better uses of their resources. From Bitcoin.com, “Furthermore, even accessing an Internet connection for common people in North Korea is nigh impossible. The government does not provide access to the worldwide web to many people, unless those individuals are high ranking military or government officials. Most people can only sometimes access the country’s internal intranet, which only has a handful of basic websites. This is another point if why it is probable that State actors in North Korea are running the operation. At this point, no one knows for certain.” However, the fact that any government is launching a state sanctioned mining operation is a big positive for cryptocurrencies. North Korea or not, we’ll take it as a win.
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Article by Millennial Investing
