“A central bank-supported digital currency could replace the dollar as the global hedge currency” ~  Mark Carney, Bank of England governor

The total cryptocurrency market dropped from $278 billion to $256 billion over the last week. Currently the market is recovering back to $262 billion. During the week Bitcoin briefly dropped to $9800 then quickly recovered back above $10000. Bitcoin’s market dominance reached as high as 69.6% last week which means altcoins are getting less and less attention. Many have blamed the Chinese ponzi scheme called PlusToken for the recent price drops. PlusToken has managed to collect at least $4 billion from its investors. Dovey Wan, founder of blockchain based investment company Primitive Ventures, pointed out that Bitcoin’s dip under $10000 might have been directly linked to PlusToken’s large amount of Bitcoin sell-off and urgently called on exchanges to blacklist them. However investigations by researchers at TokenAnalyst, London-based cryptocurrency analytics firm showed that PlusToken operators couldn’t have caused the recent price drops as they did not move significant funds during the price drop.

Most coins have dropped recently. Ether dropped by 15% to $186 since last week. Ethereum is updating its code on the 4th of September. It will be the 8th hard fork for Ethereum which has two parts. The first part will be rolled out this fall and the second part will be activated in the first quarter of 2020. Bitcoin Cash dropped below $300 during the last week. Currently it’s trading at around $304. Litecoin broke down to $70 last week. Following its recent halving event, Litecoin miners shut down their mining machines as they struggled to make a profit. 

Large corporations and even central banks continue to show interest in different forms of digital currency initiatives. Mark Carney, Bank of England's governor suggests that a network of global central bank digital currencies can replace the US dollar. Glenn Fogel, CEO of booking.com predicted that cryptocurrencies will continue to grow and become more widely accepted across the globe, specifically outside the United States.

The property of an asset whose individual units are indistinguishable from each other in terms of value and functionality:

1. Fungibility
2. ERC-20
3. Divergence

Scroll down to see the answer at the end of the newsletter.

Maerki Baumann, the 87-year-old Swiss private bank affirmed that 400 new clients approached the bank for their cryptocurrency service. The bank has $8.2 billion in assets under management and became the second Swiss bank to accept money that was generated through business involving cryptocurrencies since August 2018. The bank is facing the challenge of rejuvenating its client base as half of its existing clients are aged over 70 and only 5% are under 40. Maerki Baumann CEO Stephen Zwahlen said that “It’s rather rare for clients to just knock on our door. We suddenly had 400 people wanting to talk with us.  And they were exactly the kind people we had been struggling to access for 10 years with traditional private banking offerings. We found that they were typically between 30 to 40 years old, very well educated and with an entrepreneurial mindset.” He also added that the bank is now aiming to become the go-to private bank for those who are interested in cryptocurrency market and look for crypto related banking services. However, the bank will not be dealing directly with cryptocurrencies. In a first phase, the bank is offering business accounts and advice for start-ups raising capital via digital shares that can be offered directly to the public (so-called Security Token Offerings). At the beginning of next year, it plans to partner with cryptocurrency specialists to provide outsourced storage and trading services for the likes of bitcoin. The bank is now looking to establish the right partnerships that could help it to offer the best products for its clients. A third string, to be added later, is advisory and asset management services for private banking clients who want to invest in the predicted wave of new crypto asset classes. “I would expect over time that digital assets such as crypto/blockchain might even take on a greater significance than our traditional private banking business, particularly in terms of asset growth,” said the CEO of the bank.

On the 23rd of August 2019, in a speech given at the annual gathering of central bankers Jackson Hole Symposium summit in the US (which is one of the most important global economic forums), Bank of England governor Mark Carney urged to establish  a new international monetary and financial system (IMFS). The central banker noted that the US share of the global economy is reducing while the dollar remains dominant in the currency markets. The US accounts for only 10% of global trade. But the dollar is still used as the primary settlement currency for international trade. Trade wars are hurting the economies of many countries and multilateral cooperation. He therefore pointed out that the dollar’s dominance as the world’s reserve currency must end. According to Carney first best would be to build a multipolar system, which include multiple reserve currencies, rather than swap one currency hegemon for another. Carney dubs such a basket of reserves a Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (“SHC”) and thinks that such a platform would be based on the virtual rather than the physical. That means that he suggested a central bank-supported Libra-like digital currency basket, that could replace the dollar as the world's new reserve currency.

The identity of Bitcoin’s anonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto has remained a big secret. Many have self proclaimed to be Satoshi from the Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright who is suing anyone who doesn’t believe him. Yet no one has managed to provide cryptographic proof of identity. Another person has recently tried to claim the title of Satoshi Nakamoto. This Satoshi revealed their real name and wrote a memoir blog post called My Reveal. In the three part blog post he wrote about the origins of Bitcoin and why he hasn’t moved his 980000 Bitcoins etc. The contact email of the blog leads to Ivy Mclemore & Associates which is a marketing agency based in New York. The crypto community wasn’t moved by the new Satoshi and didn’t believe him. If the real Satoshi wanted to reveal himself, he would sign a message using his private key.

The property of an asset whose individual units are indistinguishable from each other in terms of value and functionality:

The correct answer is “A”. 

Thank you for reading :) 

Have a great day!

Cheers, 
MrCoin
💌 hello@mrcoin.eu
📞 +36 16 555 333