Welcome to the first installment of this new series, BNN, where we will be giving you all bitcoin and cryptocurrency news of the day in a nutshell. Expect to see only stuff that matters in a condensed layout, no PR or paid articles disguised as news. Let's start.
New York Stock Exchange Files Two Bitcoin ETFs With The SEC
The New York Stock Exchange has filed with the SEC to list two ETFs: the ProShares Bitcoin ETF, and the ProShares Short Bitcoin ETF. Apparently, both ETFs will allow investors to speculate on the Bitcoin price and they will be linked to Bitcoin futures contracts. It seems these funds are designed to track both of the Bitcoin futures provided by CBOE and CMO, as they are the only two companies that officially offer such products to the masses right now.
SEC To Continue Scrutiny Over Suspicious Cryptocurrency Markets
According to the former chairman of US SEC, Harvey Pitt, the investigation of the Commission over shady behavior in the cryptocurrency market will only continue. Last Tuesday, the SEC halted trading of The Crypto Co. over manipulation concerns after a massive stock leap. Following that development, Pitt is sure that regulatory response is coming very soon. “We’re in line for some serious regulatory responses to all of this and that will be forthcoming after the first of the year”, he told on CNBC's Fast Money. For him, insider trading is a very real possibility: "There absolutely can be insider trading. When people have advanced knowledge of the offerings of these interests and take advantage of the offering long before it occurs."
Companies Add "Blockchain" In Their Name To Bump Up Share Price
There's a new craze in the business world, always thirsty for short-term revenue: Companies change their name to include the word “Blockchain” as they expect their share price to soar. As The Verge reports, Long Island Drinks Corp became Long Blockchain, which immediately sent the stock to surge 200%. Likewise, a California-based vaping startup Vapetek changed its name to the unlikely Nodechain, while offering only vague promises about its Blockchain-inclusive plans. This trend is also known in Asia, with Hong Kong tea manufacturer Ping Shan Tea Group now becoming the tenuously tea-linked Blockchain Group Co. Back in October, a little-known UK telecommunications company was rebranded as a Blockchain-centric enterprise, adding the term to its name. Its stock swiftly took off, jumping from £15 ($20) to a high of £84 ($112) in days.
Bitcoin Bull, Mike Novogratz, Turns Bearish - Sees BTC At $8,000 Soon
Early Bitcoin And Ethereum investor, Michael Novogratz, who has been one of the biggest Bitcoin bulls in the past, believes now that the price of the cryptocurrency may plunge briefly as low as $8,000 before stabilizing somewhere around 10-16K.
Belarus Offers Zero Tax Rate To All Crypto Businesses Until 2023
The government of Belarus has passed a new law to encourage cryptocurrency and blockchain companies to invest in the country. The law, a digital economy decree signed by President Alexander Lukashenko on December 22, aims to boost the use of technologies like blockchain and attract related business by offering significant tax incentives. All companies working on smart contract development, token issuance, cryptocurrency trading and mining are legal and will be exempt from income taxes for the next five years.
AGI Token ICO, Promising Next Generation AI, Raises $36 Million in 1 Minute
An AI company raised $36 Million in one minute, selling out all of its native AGI tokens in an ICO. SingularityNET is a company aiming to create a decentralized marketplace of AIs, where each AI can interact with one another to solve customers’ problems. Founder Ben Goertzel gives an example: “If you need a document summarized, as a user you can put a request into SingularityNet...
You may get bids from twenty different document summary nodes...and you may choose one with the right balance of reputation and price. But now that document summary node if it hits something in the document it can’t deal with, it can outsource that...if the document summary node that you’re paying...hits an embedded video it can outsource that to a video summarizing node and it can then pay it some fraction of the money it was paid. Or, if it sees a quote in Russian...it can outsource that ...to a Russian to English translation node that can do that translation, then send it back to the document summary node.”
Anarchapulco 2018 Focuses On Bitcoin - Ron Paul To Keynote
Statesmen, business owners, philosophers, rappers, coders, authors, thought and opinion molders will be gathering for four days from February 15th through the 18th, 2018 in the fourth annual gathering of global voluntaryists in Acapulco, Mexico. The keynote speaker will be the 82 years old, two-time US Presidential candidate, Ron Paul. Along Anarchapulco, there is also Cryptopulco, a sub-conference with a special focus on cryptocurrencies and things bitcoin. Speakers include Bitcoin Core developer Jimmy Song, Bitcoin Cash developer Amaury Séchet, and a handful of other ecosystem luminaries. auspicious
Facebook Messenger In Windows Chrome Exploited By Cryptocurrency Malware - Mines Monero
Trend Micro security researchers discovered malware that infects Facebook messenger with a cryptocurrency mining bot. The bot, dubbed Digimine, harnesses the CPU in the background to mine Monero. It is disguised in a video file using the name video_xxxx.zip coming from someone in the user's contacts list whose machine has already been compromised. The malware is activated only in the desktop version of Messenger on Google Chrome and does not currently affect mobile versions.