CoinMetro’s CEO, Kevin Murcko brings you the most recent crypto market news during the weekly AMA every Friday.
Crypto Market News Highlights
1) Kraken OTC Acquires Circle Trade
Kraken is on the move again, making yet another quick acquisition. Acquisitions are healthy for a vibrant industry. Up until just 6–9 months ago, there were next to no acquisitions in the crypto industry. Now we’re starting to see companies buy and acquire smaller entities, to bolster their own revenue sources.
Kevin has said it a million times and will say it again: a crypto exchange that is just a crypto exchange, no matter how profitable they are today — if they don’t start to diversify their revenue streams, they probably won’t be here in the coming years.
Kraken is doing its part to make sure that it has specific revenue streams, so hats off to Kraken.
2) Coinbase Closes Earn.com One Year After $100M Acquisition
When it comes to acquisitions, building out revenue streams is one thing. If you’re a stand at a local market that sells fruit, and you try to branch out your revenue streams by selling supercars, it’s probably not going to work out.
Not all acquisitions work out. Seeing acquisitions in an industry — bigger players looking to cannibalize or expand their business by acquiring smaller players — means that the business is doing well. Maybe it’s top-heavy, which is not the best thing, but it is progressing.
3) Crypto Firms Can Now Apply for a License in France
France has adopted the basic AMLD5 directive, which for the most part talks about AML/KYC. France adopted it and now crypto firms can apply for a license, just as they have been able to apply for it in Estonia, since November 27th, 2017.
Way to go, France. Only 25 months late.
4) Google’s YouTube Goes To War With Bitcoin And Crypto
Lots of crypto influencers got a lot of their content removed. They said the decision was in error. If it was a decision, it wasn’t some type of tech error. They actually made the decision to remove it, saw all the feedback, and had it reinstated. An error of judgment.
Just goes to show that when you feel that you’ve been wronged, make sure that you make your voice heard.
5) Ten Years Of Fintech Megatrends For The Next Decade
Most of this is talking about progression. Some things which were said years ago by tech guys came into fruition. Things like Bill Gates said about the Internet, IBM said this or that etc.
Sometimes it’s not that hard to predict the future. If you’re in the know and you understand trends, it can be pretty easy to predict the future. Predicting the fact that the majority of payments will be communicated through some type of DLT in the next ten years, is an easy prediction for the future. At the end of the day it does reduce cost, and at some point in the future it probably will reduce the level of trust that’s required between intermediaries.
6) Google’s YouTube Goes To War With Bitcoin And Crypto
Lots of crypto influencers got a lot of their content removed. They said the decision was in error. If it was a decision, it wasn’t some type of tech error. They actually made the decision to remove it, saw all the feedback, and had it reinstated. An error of judgment.
Just goes to show that when you feel that you’ve been wronged, make sure that you make your voice heard.
7) Ethereum: Fears Vitalik Buterin Selling 90K ETH as $25M Hits Exchanges
Kevin doesn’t know why people would be fearful. What’s to be feared? The guy owns a lot of Ether. There’s some doom and gloom now because the owner of some asset sells it? Does that mean if you sell your house, your car, those things hold no value?
If you own an asset, you have every right to sell it. Even if it meant that Vitalik himself no longer has confidence in the project. We’re talking about a decentralized project.
The owner of Litecoin sold all his Litecoin. Obviously it didn’t help the price, but since then, the price has pretty much followed the rest of the crypto market.
8) Binance Blockade of Wasabi Wallet Could Point to a Crypto Crack-Up
This is good if it’s true. And Kevin wouldn’t say it’s a “crypto crack-up”. There can be million excuses on why you would want to remain anonymous online, and some of those may be legitimate — but for the most part, if you’re specifically trying to hide your money, there’s a reason. It’s not just because you value your privacy. Those people try to hide inflow and outflows of money, to avoid tax, trying to move illicit money…
At the end of the day, there are a lot of wallets for holding crypto. Get another wallet and make a withdrawal. No big deal.
9) Ten Years Of Fintech Megatrends For The Next Decade
Most of this is talking about progression. Some things which were said years ago by tech guys came into fruition. Things like Bill Gates said about the Internet, IBM said this or that, etcetera.
Sometimes it’s not that hard to predict the future. If you’re in the know and you understand trends, it can be pretty easy to predict the future. Predicting the fact that the majority of payments will be communicated through some type of DLT in the next ten years, is an easy prediction for the future. At the end of the day it does reduce cost, and at some point in the future it probably will reduce the level of trust that’s required between intermediaries.
10) Reserve Bank Of Australia Head Of Financial Stability Mentions Stablecoins
When someone uses the term stablecoin, they probably don’t know the definition. Most of these guys, including the Reserve Bank of Australia, is probably eyeing a pegged-value token, which would be a Smart Token, by definition, not a stablecoin.
From the retail side, there is very little use case for stablecoins. Most of the stablecoin activity that happens is probably tied to what would be considered, criminal activity.
Most of those people are probably avoiding internal limitation inside their country to move cash — which maybe shouldn’t be illegal, but it is — and people trying to avoid tax.
Stablecoin for reserve banks is probably one of the most awesome things that crypto has given us. It allows us to move and settle in real time.
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Tune in every Friday for “This Week in Crypto” with CoinMetro’s CEO Kevin Murcko on our Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/coinmetro
