Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down–But Only Barely

Another week of losses in the books, but don’t worry, y’all. It’s not as bad as it looks.

At the time of press, the cryptocurrency market’s total capitalization is $329bln, down 2% this week. Sure, we’d all like to stay above $400bln at this point, but the current market cap is a helluva lot healthier than the $300bln we touched in a beginning-of-the-week slouch this Tuesday.

As we move forward into next week, keep on eye on Bitcoin’s price action as we continue to search for support. The fact that we’re just barely below last week’s price levels should be encouraging, but if crypto’s big boy drops below $7,000, brace for some downward selling pressure.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin is down a slim 1% from its position last Friday with a price of $7,440.

Ethereum: At $574, Ethereum has lost 4% of its value over the course of the week.

Ripple: We’ll chalk Ripple’s price action up as stagnant, seeing as its $0.61 price tag has it losing a measly 0.3% over the week.

Domestic News

Norfolk Southern Corporation Joins Blockchain Transportation Alliance: One of the United State’s largest railway companies, Norfolk Southern Corporation, announced this week that it would be joining the Blockchain in Transport Alliance (BiTA). Founded in 2017, the association was formed to promote the application and adoption of blockchain technology in the transportation industry. With its admission into BiTA, Norfolk Southern will join 250 other companies, including FedEx, Uber, General Electric Transportation, and UPS.

SEC Acquires Emergency Order to Halt Scammy ICO: The United States Securities and Exchange Commission is charging an ICO and its president for securities fraud. A court-approved complaint freezes some $21mln raised by Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Inc., while its president, Michael Stollaire, is charged for defrauding investors by falsely advertising a relationship with the Federal Reserve and partnerships with Verizon, Disney, PayPal, and Boeing, among others. “This ICO was based on a social media marketing blitz that allegedly deceived investors with purely fictional claims of business prospects,” Robert A. Cohen, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit, is quoted in the official press release.  “Having filed multiple cases involving allegedly fraudulent ICOs, we again encourage investors to be especially cautious when considering these as investments.”

Poloniex Freezes Legacy Accounts in Surprise KYC Policy Change: The cryptocurrency community was up in verbal arms across social media this week over Poloniex’s poorly handled implementation of its new KYC. Legacy users complained of frozen accounts in the wake of an unannounced change to the exchange’s KYC policy. Poloniex made an announcement last December that it would require enhanced ID verification in the near future, but users claim that it broke its promise to give account holders a timely warning, as well as back-tracking on its commitment to not freeze withdrawals until the advanced KYC has been satisfied.

Stormy Daniels Integrates Tokenized Reward System with Her Website: A few months after blowing the top off of her affair with Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels is making her foray into the cryptocurrency realm. The adult film actress announced this week that she would implement Vice Industry Token, a cryptocurrency with ties to the porn industry, as a reward’s program for her website’s content and services. With the partnership, users will be incentivized to consume content in exchange for VIT tokens. “With VIT, everyone is going to make money – from the users on my sites, to myself and the performers. The way the VIT blockchain works, we all get a piece of the token, and the guaranteed genuine data is the icing in the cake,” said Rob Murray, president of the firm that manages Daniel’s site.

Alabama Securities Commission Issues Cease and Desist to Three ICOs: One of Alabama’s regulatory arms has had a busy May rooting out ICO offerings in its state. The Alabama Securities Commission has issued three separate cease and desists this month, targeting Extrabit mining company, LEV, and Platinum. According to the orders, the ICOs are in violation of Alabama state law for selling unregistered securities and promising significant returns on investment. Cease and desists are become more common from state governments in the US as they attempt to staunch the flow unscrupulous solicitations directed towards their citizens.

Bittrex Inks Banking Agreement to Offer Crypto-to-Fiat Options for Corporate Clients: Signing a deal with Signature Bank in New York, Bittrex will soon offer fiat options for its corporate clients. The trading will only be allowed in New York, Washington, California, and Montana initially for regulatory reasons, and clients will be able to trade Bitcoin, Tether, and TrueUSD for cash. While this option is only open to corporate clients at this time, the company is looking to make them available to the general public.

Paxos Raises $65mln in Venture Capital Funding: The New York-based technology company Paxos has raised $65mln in venture capital, coming from investors of such caliber as PRE Ventures, Liberty City Ventures, and Jay Jordan. “We will use the capital to help grow the business which is broadly our settlement business on the Paxos side and the crypto asset exchange and custodian on the itBit side,” CEO Charles Cascarilla said in a statement.Originally founded as the exchange iBit in 2012, Paxos is a blockchain-as-a-service organization that is registered as a trust company in New York.

 

TRON Tests Beta as it Prepares for Mainnet, Departure from Ethereum: The tenth largest cryptocurrency by market cap is taking its first steps towards its own blockchain. Currently running on Ethereum, TRON launched a beta for its mainnet this Thursday.Dubbed Odyssey 2.0, the mainnet is scheduled for June 25, with token migration occurring from June 21-24. TRON’s development has been an odyssey in its own right. Valued at $4bln, the top asset caught flack earlier this year for plagiarizing its whitepaper, all the while with its team claiming that it’ll eventually out-compete Ethereum as the platform for decentralized application development.

Yet Another Exchange is Moving to Malta; This Time Out of Necessity, Not Will: Poland’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, BitBay, is moving its operations to Malta to bask in the sun with Binance and OKEx. The migration comes after Polish banks have ceased working with the exchange, siphoning off its access to liquidity. BitBay will now use a supplier in the Republic of Malta to continue its services, while trading in Polish złotys ceased on May 31st. Polish Banks turning their backs on BitBay coincides with the Polish government’s own crackdown on the cryptocurrency industry.

South Korean Government Looks to Re-Legalize ICOs: A South Korean National Assembly committee dedicated to examining blockchain and cryptocurrencies may make a push to legalize ICOs. Part of its initiative to evaluate what it calls the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” the task force wants to increase market transparency and foster a healthier ecosystem for cryptocurrency development, and part of this entails rolling back the government’s decision in September of last year to ban ICOs. “We need to form a task force including private experts in order to improve transparency of cryptocurrency trading and establish a healthy trade order…We will also establish a legal basis for cryptocurrency trading, including permission of ICOs, through the National Assembly Standing Committee,” the committee said in a statement.

Too Close for Comfort: EOS Security Flaws Exposed Days Away from Mainnet: A Chinese cybersecurity firm unearthed a critical security flaw in EOS’s code this week. The “epic vulnerabilities” were discovered just four days out from EOS’s mainnet launch, and the EOS team was quick to patch the flaws. “The attacker can steal the private key of super nodes or control content of new blocks. What’s more, attackers can pack the malicious contract into a new block and publish it. As a result, all the full nodes in the entire network will be controlled by the attacker,” the security firm’s report revealed. In response to the vulnerability, EOS has issued a $10k bounty for any whitehat who can discover additional flaws in the platform’s code.

Sherpa Perishes in Ukranian ICO Publicity Stunt on Mount Everest: The Ukranian Social Network ASKfm thought climbing Mount Everest to promote its ICO was a grand ide, until it resulted in the tragic death of Lam Babu Sherpa, one of the climbing team’s guides. Roman Gorodechnii, Taras Pozdnii, and Dmitrii Semenko were sponsored by the ICO to summit Everest and place a Ledger Nano S with 500,000 ASKfm tokens at its peak; as part of the promotion, the ICO challenges anyone “brave enough” to climb the mountain to retrieve the (quite literal) cold storage wallet valued at roughly $50,000. On their descent, the team lost Lam Babu to snow blindness and physical exhaustion.

Chinese President Breaks Silence on Blockchain, Calls Technology a “Breakthrough”: At a conference hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi Jinping, the president of China, gave a speech wherein he lumped blockchain into a list of emerging technologies which he recognizes as “breakthroughs.” “Ever since the start of the 21st century, a new generation of industrial revolution is substantially reshaping the global economic structure,” Xi Jinping stated in his address, “with artificial intelligence, internet of things and blockchain constantly making application breakthroughs.”

IOTA Partners With Largest Bank in Norway to Test the Tangle’s Distribute Ledger: IOTA, a cryptocurrency project that utilizes the tangle in lieu of blockchain to support its distribute ledger, has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with DNB ASA, the largest financial firm in Norway. The two organizations will collaborate to test IOTA’s proof of concept and explore how it could fit in business models across various industries. “As Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine to Machine (M2M) communication and payment for microservices seem to escalate in the future, we think engaging in a Distributed Ledger based technology like IOTA gives us valuable experience and know-how on future revenue streams and business models. We are looking forward to dive into the IOTA space,” Lasse Meholm, the head of distributed ledger technology at DNB is quoted in the press release.