BitDigest August 14 · Issue #721

• Ether jumps 8.5% overnight driving bitcoin dominance below 59%
• The Fed discusses digital dollar research activities
• China expanding digital yaun to Beijing

Weekend Reading

• Libra executive Dante Disparte published an article in The Harvard Business Review suggesting that blockchain-based payments can help bring more than 1.7 billion unbanked and underbanked people into the formal economy and help eliminate the expense structures that currently exist.
• The Financial Times published a profile on Ripple and its effort to “ find [a] compelling [use] for the blockchain technology underpinning … currency .”
• 👍German based crypto VC Greenfield One has published a detailed report on the state of governance on blockchains.

Naysayers Buying Bitcoin

One of this week’s biggest headlines was the announcement by MicroStrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) Chairman and CEO that the software firm was investing $250 million in bitcoin. Michael Saylor has definitely had a charge of mind regarding digital gold. In 2013 he tweeted that bitcoin’s days were numbered and it was only a matter of time before bitcoin would suffer the same fate as online gambling. He may have been wrong about that too.

Corrections

• Yesterday I reported that Coinbase was planning to lend cash at a rate up to 20%. This was incorrect, they said they planned to lend at a rate around 8% and not the 20% that other groups are charging.
• I also previously reported that Kazakhstan was proposing a 15% tax on crypto mining to support COVID-19 assistance; this source has been updated to identify neighboring Kyrgyzstan as the central Asian nation considering this policy.

The Headlines

Exchange, Custody and Product News