Thrilling market news with CoinMetro’s CEO, Kevin Murcko in This Week in Crypto!
Crypto Market News Highlights
South Korean parliament passes a historic bill making cryptocurrency trading legal
It was never actually illegal. They want to be able to apply regulation, and to eventually apply tax. So, they wrote it into the law that trading is now basically akin to any other type of financial trading, which would require reporting, regulations, licensing, oversight, and so on.
This isn’t a groundbreaking news story, it’s just South Korea going “they’ve been doing this here for a while, maybe we should actually make sure they are doing it correctly”.
As crypto credit bubble concerns loom, BitGo announces launch of a $150 million lending business
Collateralized crypto lending is where you give someone a Bitcoin, and they give you 25–50–70% of that Bitcoin in cash. If you don’t pay back, they keep the Bitcoin (or other asset).
It’s a risky business model in a volatile market, which can be difficult to manage. BitGo will probably manage better than most.
At the end of the day, people are seeing less volatility now, and they assume that’s going to carry on.
Cool to see BitGo expanding their business. Anything that BitGo does comes onto our radar, since we are using them for wallet custody. If they offer something that we can offer to our clients, there may be a new product offering lurking for CoinMetro. So we will have to see how this pans out.
BitMEX gets reprimand from UK’s financial regulator
It was bound to happen. Someone was asking “why now” — well, why not? They are promoting a regulated financial product directly into a country without authorization.
They have probably gotten Cease and Desist letters before. Same as the famous 2–3 month period where Binance, BitMEX and others stopped accepting US clients because they received letters from the US governments.
This is a bit more public, but Kevin expects this to continue. 2020 is the year of regulation.
Crypto Exchange Digitex Removes KYC to Protect User Data
This is one of the most ridiculous things Kevin has ever seen. Adam Todd looks like a complete buffon to Kevin.
This is ridiculous on many levels. Adam Todd mentioned that the only reason KYC is required globally, is to make sure that US clients don’t have access to certain services. Kevin was laughing so much at that point that he was worried about a heart attack.
Being the US police for retail clients is not the reason that globally speaking, KYC is required in pretty much every country in the world, when doing financial services.
How do you think most criminals get caught? Do most drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, get caught because the clients go and complain to the Better Business Bureau? No. They usually get caught because they operate below surveillance. Their clients don’t complain or file reports. Most of them are caught in the end, by following the money.
Money laundering was one of the only use cases for Bitcoin in the beginning. That’s a fact. Not anymore. The amount of money laundering in Bitcoin vs the amount laundered in cash, the ratio doesn’t even show up after three or four decimal flows. But there definitely is illegal money flowing through crypto.
What world do you want to live in? A world where you can move your 33 euro in Bitcoin without having to be detected and do KYC, and save you three minutes in onboarding time? And everyone else laundering money is doing this too, potentially causing more crime in the world, and people committing these crimes aren’t being caught?
Or do you want to live in a world where you take three minutes of the day to do KYC, and that may mean that some kid from Eastern Europe isn’t trafficked to Mogadishu for sex crimes.
Kevin picks the former rather than the latter. That’s why KYC is required. It has nothing to do with the US governments. Anybody who says that, doesn’t understand the industry they are in, and should shut up and go home.
CoinMetro’s AML, CTF and KYT practices keep criminal activity away from CoinMetro.
Indian Crypto Exchanges Resume Fiat Services 24 Hours After Supreme Court Ruling
Cool. This is actually a ruling that was expected, but has much broader implications on the industry than the South Korea ruling. India had a lot of issues. Now almost 2 billion people have access to what will become a regulated market place.
Bitcoin derivatives muted as Fed cuts interest rates
Interest rate cut mainly due to Coronavirus. The market doesn’t overgo?. And Kevin thinks that it makes sense. A volatile market becomes less volatile based on the fact that the rest of the world is actually more volatile than the volatile market.
Bitpanda Pro Is Now Focusing On European Crypto-To-Fiat Markets And Regulatory Compliance
Makes sense, especially because the AMLD5 is being pushed onto every financial platform in the world, and if they weren’t being focused on Regulatory Compliance before — being based in Europe — now is a pretty good time to get focused on it!
Crypto-To-Fiat is still an underserved market.
Google Cancels I/O Developer Conference 2020 Due to Coronavirus Concerns
We are going to see millions of cases before this is over with. However, the only alarming thing about Coronavirus is how quickly it can spread from person to person. Most of the people who die from this are 80+. There is definitely a slightly higher indice of people 40+ compared to the flu.
We must consider where it started, and where they are dying, and compare it to their overall age and health situation.
Kevin thinks this is highly over-inflated, and economical warfare if anything else. Cancelling a conference makes sense to limit the spread, or not causing more spread. Closing down schools and not going outside is ridiculous.
No Bitcoin Manipulation: Analyst Defends 2020 Price Surge of 57%
There is always manipulation in this market, and any market that is undercapitalized and has low liquidity. Bitcoin still has low liquidity compared to any other liquid market on the face of the planet.
How do you call 57% a “price surge” with an asset that has grown millions of percentage over the years? Anyway, this little blip on the screen doesn’t necessarily say that there is more manipulation, or specifically caused by manipulation — Kevin agrees with this. But there definitely is manipulation. And there will continue to be manipulation, until the market becomes capitalized to a certain extent where manipulation becomes too costly.
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