Bitcoin’s (BTC) plunged today, dragging the whole crypto space along with it. The total crypto market capitalization has broken below the $209 billion mark from where it had bounced on two previous occasions in late September. It has psychological support at $200 billion and below this point the total market capitalization could drop to $170 billion. Cryptocurrency daily performance. Source: Coin360 At the moment, there is not a direct reason that explains today’s strong correction. Some analysts believe that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the United States Congress on Libra might have triggered the fall. They believe that the …

San Francisco-based blockchain startup Ripple has announced three new appointments to its global regulatory team and that the company will be joining the Blockchain Association. Per an Oct. 22 blog post, Ripple has onboarded four new members — Craig Phillips, Michelle Bond, Ron Hammond and Susan Friedman — to its global regulatory team based in Washington D.C. Michelle Bond will also sit on the board of the Blockchain Association. Execs with financial sector regulation backgrounds Phillips joined Ripple from the United States Treasury Department, where he served as Counselor to the Secretary and worked on the Executive Order 13772, a …

Monday, Oct. 21 — After turning green earlier in the day, cryptocurrency markets have been trading sideways, with Bitcoin (BTC) continuing to hover around $8,200, according to the data from Coin360. Cryptocurrency market daily overview. Source: Coin360 The leading coin, Bitcoin, is down 0.39% over the past 24 hours and is trading at around $8,186 as of press time. In terms of its monthly performance, BTC is still down almost 19%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin advocates continue to focus on the May 2020 block reward halving this week as the impact on price becomes more apparent. Some community members noted that next …

The global economy is on weak footing. This has led to rate cuts by several central banks across the world and many are planning to implement additional measures to support their respective economies. This has ballooned the balance sheets of the central banks and there appears to be no end in sight. Since mid-September, the Federal Reserve has resumed its bond buying initiative, leading its balance sheet to expand by $210 billion. The Fed’s balance sheet is now about $3.97 trillion. While the supply of fiat currencies has been steadily increasing for the past few years, Bitcoin’s (BTC) block rewards …

Blockchain payments network Ripple has announced that it sold $66.24 million worth of XRP in Q3 2019 — down a staggering 73.66% compared to the record sale worth of $251.51 million in the previous quarter. According to the third quarterly report released on Oct. 18, Ripple had previously announced the plan to sell XRP tokens slower in Q3. Ripple’s XRP sale rate is lower than ETH’s inflation Ripple also stated that “XRP distribution rate since the beginning of the quarter has been lower compared to the inflation rates of ETH and LTC, and similar to BTC.” The company also addressed …

The traditional financial system is heading to a disaster with about $17 trillion in global bonds returning negative-yields. “The whole concept of negative yields, of people paying for the privilege of lending money, is insane behavior to me,” said William Eigen, a veteran fund manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, in an interview with Bloomberg. Gemini crypto exchange co-founder Cameron Winklevoss believes that the staggering amount of negative-yield bonds is a compelling reason why investors should gravitate towards Bitcoin (BTC). Stafford Masie, the general manager of WeWork South Africa, also believes that Bitcoin is the best technological gift to mankind and …

The crypto market has been struggling since topping out in June but this does not mean institutional interest in crypto has diminished. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group tweeted that customer interest in CME Bitcoin (BTC) futures remained strong in Q3 2019 compared to Q3 2018. The total increase in open interest during this period was about 61%, which shows that the involvement of institutional traders is on the rise. Similarly, digital asset manager Grayscale Investments reported that its products received a total investment of $254 million in Q3 2019. That was a sharp increase over Q2 2019 when the …

Ripple’s investment arm and tech incubator Xpring has invested in Swedish cryptocurrency self-custody startup Towo Labs to build hardware wallet firmware. Xpring announced the news in a blog post on Oct. 16, stating that the startup plans to develop a new version of the XRP Toolkit and hardware wallet firmware supporting all XRP Ledger transaction types, as well as a non-custodial web interface. In a parallel announcement, Towo Labs said that the firmware will support signing cross-currency payments, escrows, orders, and trust lines, among other things. It will also enable users to prepare transactions from untrusted devices prior to auditing …

London-based Finastra — the third-largest financial services technology firm in the world — has partnered with Ripple to grant its customers access to the RippleNet blockchain network. As reported by the Fintech Times on Oct. 16, the cooperation between the two firms will see Ripple’s over 200 existing clients reciprocally access Finastra’s extensive banking network, which includes 48 of the top 50 banks globally. Partnership with a financial software “global behemoth” Finastra was formed in 2017 after a merger between Misys and D+H, with the development hailed at the time as the establishment of “a global behemoth in the market …

A draft report by the G7 group of nations outlined the risks associated with “global stablecoins.” The report said: “No stablecoin project should begin operation until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks are adequately addressed.” This report is likely to increase the troubles for Facebook’s Libra project. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo believes that Libra and the prospects of central bank digital currencies will increase regulator's intrusions into the crypto space. This can work as a double-edged sword. If regulators provide clarity, it is likely to attract large institutional players into the game, but if …

Ripple, the firm behind the third biggest cryptocurrency XRP, has led an investment round in Bitso, one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the Spanish-speaking world. The first Mexican crypto exchange An early partner of Bitso, Ripple has led the new investment round to support the first cryptocurrency exchange in Mexico, the company officially announced on Oct. 14. As reported by crypto publication The Block, the new investment round also involves major investors including United States-based crypto exchange and wallet provider Coinbase, Jump Capital as well as existing investors such as Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital. The amount of …

Ripple, the blockchain firm behind crypto asset XRP, fused three of its services into features of its RippleNet offering. Industry news outlet CryptoNews reported the change in Ripple’s product offering on Oct. 9. Little more than the names changed Per the report, a company’s spokesperson explained that now, “instead of buying xCurrent or xVia, customers will connect to RippleNet — on-premises or through the cloud — and instead of buying xRapid, clients will use On-Demand Liquidity.” The Ripple representative also said: “Other than the names of the product, very few things have changed and will not affect our customers.” More …