BitDigest May 29 · Issue #668

• Bitcoin picks up in post Goldman call panic
• The Bank of Russia is looking to put mortgages on a blockchain
• France is looking for feedback on the impact of new technologies on payments

I decided to add three coins to my daily tracking list to properly account for the top 10 cryptocurrencies by marketcap. This list currently accounts for 88.5% of the total market cap of the 2,000 + different digital currencies listed on Coinmarketcap.com

Is Grayscale Increasing Activity a Threat to Bitcoin?

I have been thinking a lot about Grayscale and whether their continued buying of bitcoin is a threat to the crypto economy. Yesterday I reported that Grayscale is buying bitcoin at a rate of 1.5x the supply of new daily minted bitcoin and last night I learned that Grayscale added close to 2,000 new bitcoin to their AUM yesterday.

While these numbers are incredibly high, I think we need to look at Grayscale’s activities in context of daily trading volume. According to Coinmarketcap.com, bitcoin’s daily volume is typically over $30 billion. While I report these figure, I also look at  Messari’s ‘real volume’ which reports the 24 hour volume on exchanges identified by Bitwise “as well-functioning markets.” The daily level I look for here is $5 billion. If volume trades outside this figure a mental flag goes up.

The amount of new daily minted bitcoin is 900 BTC or approximately $8.5 million so even at the 2x level this would be a considerable amount of new purchases, but in the context of daily volume, it is not a figure to be concerned by.

Update on Canaan

I have been looking into the recent sell-off of Chinese mining equipment supplier Canaan (NASDAQ: CAN) and it appears that the company’s initial share lock-up period following its November IPO has ended. Furthermore, the company just announced plans to issue an addition $12 million in shares as part of its employee incentive program. Since May 13th, CAN shares have declined 51%.

Weekend Reading (and Viewing)

• Last month digital asset manager CoinShares released a series on the Future of Capital Markets. Five different sessions address how new applications in digital currency markets could apply to traditional capital markets. The sessions include: Automating Execution and Trading Workflows, Cross Margining through a Distributed Clearing House, Decentralized Settlement Protocols, Insights from the Trading Desk, and a panel discussing the Future of Capital Markets.
• Tokeny Solutions has released “Tokenized Securities” the ultimate handbook on how to issue compliant securities on a blockchain through a securities token offering (STO).

The Headlines

Bank of Russia Wants to Put Mortgage Issuance on New State Blockchain

www.coindesk.com

The Bank of Russia’s first deputy chief, Olga Skorobogatove has suggested the state begin to put all mortgage records on the government-backed blockchain platform, Masterchain.

French Watchdog Looking to Understand Impact of Blockchain on Payments Industry

www.bitcoinist.com

France’s competition authority has launched a survey to help gain feedback from the public and French fintech companies on the evolution and impact of new technologies like blockchain and cloud on the payments industry.

China Amends Inheritance Laws to Include Crypto

www.cointelegraph.com

China has amended its civil code to include ‘virtual currency’ into the definition of inheritable property allowing Chinese citizens to legally pass their digital currencies to their heirs.

BitClave Agrees to Return ICO Proceeds

www.sec.gov

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that California-based blockchain data-search platform BitClave has agreed to settle charges of conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (IC) by refunding all proceeds from the offering ($25.5 million plus interest and penalties) and agreeing to pay additional monetary relieve to the investors through a Fair Fund.

Zuckerberg Says Libra Will Help Generate More Ad Dollars

www.cnet.com

Mark Zuckerberg says the development of Libra will allow Facebook’s e-commerce platform to become more effective for businesses and in turn result in higher ad prices for the company.

Ripple Brings RippleNet to Cloud

www.ripple.com

Ripple has launched RippleNet Cloud to provide its financial institution-customers with a simpler and faster integration (no hardware required) to provide set-up and ongoing access on the global payments network.

Nomics Introduces 'Transparent' Market Indicators

www.blog.nomics.com

Crypto data aggregator Nomics has launched two new indicators providing a transparent market cap (the aggregated market cap of all cryptocurrencies listed on crypto exchanges with A+, A, or A- transparency ratings) and transparent global volume indicator (aggregate volume flowing through trading pairs on these exchanges).

Exchange, Custody and Product News

Gemini App Integrates With Samsung Blockchain Wallet

www.gemini.com

Gemini has partnered with Samsung to allowing Samsung users to connect to the Gemini mobile app to buy, sell and trade digital currencies on Samsung’s blockchain wallet.

Genesis Launches Derivatives Trading Desk

www.businesswire.com

Genesis Global Trading has launched a derivatives trading desk which will become a principal liquidity provider across crypto derivative markets and trade both cleared and bilateral OTC derivatives in options and forwards.

Coinbase Adds Tezos Staking in Europe and New Mobile Features

www.blog.coinbase.com

Coinbase is introducing Tezos (XTZ) staking rewards to users in the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Coinbase has also added new feature to its mobile application allowing customers to add an instant payment method to send crypto, view an estimated time forecast as to when the transaction will be confirmed, and benefit from improved transaction batching.