Coin News

Cryptocurrency advocates often tout bitcoin as “digital gold,” but famed short seller Jim Chanos said that BTC is the “last thing” he’d want to own in a full-blown crisis. Chanos, who rose to fame by predicting the collapse of US energy giant Enron, made this claim during a recent interview with the Institute for New

The post Bitcoin the “Last Thing I’d Want to Own” if Grid Goes Down: Short Seller appeared first on CCN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Citing the need to comply with local regulations, Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange HitBTC has suspended its operations in Japan and has outlined a plan to launch a regulated subsidiary in the coming months. Hong Kong-based HitBTC, the world’s seventh-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, says the precautionary measure to ‘temporarily’ suspended services to Japanese residents

The post HitBTC Suspends Japanese Users, Plans to Launch Regulated Crypto Exchange appeared first on CCN

A new initiative seeks to convince bitcoin cash miners to remove the dust limit and being processing a limited number of zero-fee transactions in every block, and it has backing from several high-profile individuals. Announced on Tuesday by nChain Group and CoinGeek, the so-called “Miner’s Choice” initiative asks miners to eliminate the current BCH dust

The post No More Fees? Craig Wright Urges Bitcoin Cash Miners to Process 0 sat/B Transactions appeared first on CCN

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, expects dozens of banks to be using XRP by the end of next year, given its speed of transaction and low cost. Garlinghouse was interviewed by CNBC at Money 20/20 Europe being held in Amsterdam. Garlinghouse also commented on a lawsuit by someone who lost money trading XRP who claims

The post Ripple CEO Garlinghouse Expects ‘Dozens’ Of Banks to Use XRP by 2019 appeared first on CCN

Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider's roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

Bitfinex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume, was down Tuesday morning after it experienced a cyber attack. 

"The platform is under extreme load," the exchange said at 9:39 a.m. ET. "We are investigating. Seems a DDoS attack was launched soon after we relaunched the platform."

Here are the current crypto prices:

SEE ALSO: A secretive Chicago trading firm has built a bitcoin platform that shows crypto is growing up

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Welcome to Crypto Insider, Business Insider's roundup of all the bitcoin and cryptocurrency news you need to know today. Sign up here to get this email delivered direct to your inbox.

Bitfinex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume, was down Tuesday morning after it experienced a cyber attack. 

"The platform is under extreme load," the exchange said at 9:39 a.m. ET. "We are investigating. Seems a DDoS attack was launched soon after we relaunched the platform."

Here are the current crypto prices:

SEE ALSO: A secretive Chicago trading firm has built a bitcoin platform that shows crypto is growing up

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This $530 Android phone is half the price of an iPhone X and just as good

Bitcoin Core developer Wladimir van der Laan said that Microsoft’s acquisition of GitHub should spur discussion about moving the Bitcoin code repository off GitHub and to an independently-hosted platform. Reports first emerged over the weekend that Microsoft had reached an acquisition agreement with GitHub, and the two parties confirmed the $7.5 billion deal on Monday.

The post Bitcoin Core Dev: BTC Source Code Should Be Removed from GitHub [Eventually] appeared first on CCN

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.

Economy doomed for failure? 

When it comes to predicting a stock market crash, all roads lead back to the economy.

That's why it's so jarring to hear someone claim that today's economic system is "dysfunctional," which is what the world-renowned market skeptic John Hussman just did.

Hussman, a former economics professor who is now the president of the Hussman Investment Trust, is no stranger to such bearish proclamations, having made a name for himself by repeatedly predicting a stock market decline exceeding 60% and forecasting a full decade of negative equity returns. He has now turned his sights on the economy, which he says is setting the market up for unprecedented failure.

Big departure at RBC

Blair Fleming, head of RBC Capital Markets in the US, has left the firm after more than 30 years, according to people familiar with the matter.

Fleming, who also served as the head of US investment banking at RBC, had worked at the firm since 1986 beginning in London, Ontario. He assumed his current responsibilities in 2009, according to the bank's website.

Crypto is growing up 

Cryptocurrencies are viewed by many of their evangelists as one of the most groundbreaking financial innovations of the modern age. But the way crypto trades looks like something out of an old-school Wall Street flick.

For the most part, trading firms are making multimillion-dollar crypto trades over the phone, not electronically. DRW's crypto arm, Cumberland, uses Skype calls to conduct its bitcoin dealmaking. 

But Jump Trading, the Chicago-based firm, has built a platform that will allow it to take the other side of large crypto trades electronically with its counterparties, according to people familiar with the matter.

Banker poaching heats up 

JPMorgan has hired a senior investment banker from Morgan Stanley to add more firepower to the firm's industrials coverage, according to an internal memo viewed by Business Insider.

Lawrence Steyn, formerly a managing director with Morgan Stanley, is joining JPMorgan as a vice chairman of investment banking, according to the memo from Eric Stein, the firm's head of North American investment banking. Steyn worked with many major industrials companies during his time at Morgan Stanley. 

It's been an active year in senior investment banking moves generally, and the industrials sector, despite being middling in terms of deal activity, has seen a number of moves.

Tough test for Microsoft CEO

When it comes to the $7.5 billion acquisition of GitHub, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella urged software developers to "judge us by the actions we have taken in the recent past, our actions today and in the future."

From Microsoft's and Nadella's perspective, GitHub fits right into the master plan. Microsoft has been investing heavily in open source in the four years since Nadella took the reins. In fact, Microsoft is the single biggest corporate contributor to open-source projects on GitHub, edging out competitors like Google and Facebook. Microsoft even uses GitHub internally to build some of its products.

And yet if Nadella sounds defensive, it's with good reason, as not everyone in the tech industry loves the deal. Some GitHub users are already even decamping to competitors like the venture-backed GitLab and Atlassian Bitbucket before the deal even closes.

More here. 

In markets news

• America's biggest companies are handing investors trillions of dollars this year — here's what their reaction says about the future of the market
• Twitter was just added to the S&P 500 —here's what that means for its stock 
• Citi scrutinized the investment accounts of thousands of its super-rich clients, and the findings reveal crucial lessons for every investor

Join the conversation about this story »

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Japanese IT giant GMO Internet has revealed prices and specs for its new-from-the-ground-up bitcoin miner – the world's first based on a 7nm chip.

• One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges shut Tuesday morning because of a cyber attack. 
• "The platform is under extreme load," Bitfinex said at 9:39 a.m. ET.
• Bitcoin was trading slightly lower at $7,421 a coin, according to Markets Insider data. 

Bitfinex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volumes, was down Tuesday morning after it experienced a cyber attack. 

According to its incident page, the exchange shut early Tuesday morning after it experienced problems with its trading engine. For a short period the exchange was back online after the issue was addressed. But the exchange was then hit with a so-called denial-of-service attack, which is when a network of virus-infected computers overwhelm websites with massive amounts of data. 

"The platform is under extreme load," the exchange said at 9:39 a.m. ET. "We are investigating. Seems a DDoS attack was launched soon after we relaunched the platform."

Crypto exchange outages were common at the end of 2017 as bitcoin soared to all-time highs near $20,000, but have been less common in 2018 as prices and volumes across the digital coin market have fallen back to earth.

In 2017, the breakneck growth of the market forced some exchanges to stop onboarding new users altogether. A flash crash at Bitfinex in December left customers demanding answers and refunds.

Hacks and cyber attacks have long been a problem for the crypto space. Notably, Mt. Gox, which was the world's largest bitcoin exchange, witnessed a massive DDoS attack in 2013. It shut in 2014 after a $450 million hack. JPMorgan estimates that a third of bitcoin exchanges have been hacked. 

2018's less volatile trading environment has given exchanges an opportunity to catch their breath. Bitfinex didn't experience any technical incidents in the entire month of May. 

Bitcoin was trading lower in the aftermath of the DDos attack. The cryptocurrency was down 1.04% at $7,421 a coin, according to Markets Insider data. 

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A major reprieve just may be in the offing for the battered bitcoin bulls in the next 36 hours – if, that is, historical patterns repeat themselves.

Tokyo-based tech services company GMO Internet has this week unveiled the first bitcoin mining rig wholly-developed by a Japanese company. In addition to being the first bitcoin mining device developed in Japan, the B2 is also the first miner to use 7nm semiconductor chips, enabling it to achieve performance and efficiency gains over devices that

The post GMO Unveils Japan’s First-Ever Bitcoin Mining Rig appeared first on CCN

On yesterday’s report, CCN noted that the $7,700 mark is an important support level for bitcoin and if BTC fails to secure momentum above $7,700, a short-term decline to the $6,000 region is likely. Today, on June 5, bitcoin fell to $7,400, increasing the probability of a further drop to $6,900. End of Another Corrective

The post Bitcoin Price Drops to $7,400; Retreat to $6,900 Likely as Market Bleeds appeared first on CCN

• Jump Trading, a Chicago-based firm, has built an OTC platform for electronic bitcoin trading, according to people familiar with the matter. 
• Its graphics user interface, or GUI, allows it to trade with counterparties electronically in a way that leaves a clear audit trail and records, rather than via phones or Skype.
• The development shows the company is seriously exploring the crypto market and is a sign that  market is maturing. 

Cryptocurrencies are viewed by many evangelists as one of the most groundbreaking financial innovations of the modern age. But the way crypto trades looks like something out of an old school Wall Street flick. 

For the most part, trading firms are making nine-figure crypto trades over-the-phone, not electronically. DRW's crypto arm Cumberland uses Skype calls to conduct its bitcoin deal-making, Reuters reported. 

But Jump Trading, the Chicago-based firm, has built a platform that will allow it to take the other side of large crypto trades electronically with its counterparties, according to people familiar with the matter. The so-called graphic user interface or GUI allows those counterparties to interact with Jump on a desktop. It does not allow users to connect to external trading exchanges. 

Jump is known for its ultra high-speed trading strategies, but it's also been developing what it calls a "lower frequency trading strategy." It's also known for its discretion, with little information on the firm available on its website.

The new platform shows that Jump is taking the new market for cryptocurrencies seriously, according to a person familiar with the firm's thinking. Also, the firm believes that voice and chatroom environments don't leave a clear audit trail, the person said. 

Jump Capital, the venture capital firm affiliated with Jump Trading, has made crypto a focus for 2018, as previously reported by Business Insider. 

"GUI's are not unique," Michael Dunworth, the chief executive of Wyre, a blockchain tech company, told Business Insider. "But it is impressive that Jump built it."

The move shows the cryptocurrency market is maturing in a similar way to the now multi-trillion dollar foreign exchange market, which in its earliest days saw trades conducted mostly over the phone, says John Spallanzani, a former FX trader at Sumitomo Mitsui who is now a portfolio manager at Miller Value Partners. 

"We used to call 20 banks at once for spot FX prices," Spallanzani, said of forex trading in the 1990s. 

"It's without doubt maturing just by the fact that there's so many OTC desk's out in the mix," Dunworth added. 

Kraken, the crypto exchange, set up an OTC desk in New York, Business Insider first reported. There's also Genesis Global Trading and itBit, the OTC run by Paxos.

At the same time, crypto-focused investment funds are opening up at a record-pace, according to new research by CryptoFundResearch. 61 new funds have launched in 2018, according to firm's research, bringing the total number above 366 globally. To be sure, such funds manage in total a paltry $5 billion, a fraction of the $3.2 trillion managed by the entire hedge fund industry. 

SEE ALSO: A stock exchange behemoth is quietly powering crypto markets across the world

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Here is what you need to know. 

Mexico is ready to hit back against Trump's trade war. Mexico will place a 20% tariff on US pork leg and shoulder imports, according to Reuters. 

Japan's finance minister is forfeiting a year's salary. Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso has agreed to forfeit one year's salary as punishment for his role in a bargain sale of state land to a school tied to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife.  

The stock market's biggest bear unloads on the 'economic Ponzi scheme' he says will cause the next crash. Outspoken investor and former professor John Hussman argues one of the biggest problems facing the market right now is the "dysfunctional" economic system that has allowed consumers and companies to gorge on debt.

Short seller Jim Chanos rails against bitcoin. "That's exactly what it is," Chanos said when asked if bitcoin is a libertarian fantasy. "And if you say, well, fiat currency is going to bring the world down, which could, of course, happen, then I say the last thing I'd want to own is bitcoin if the grid goes down."

Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz is stepping down. Schultz is stepping down after more than three decades at the coffee giant amid rumors he is considering a presidential run. 

Tesla is blowing through an insane amount of raw material and cash to make Model 3s, and production is still a nightmare. Internal documents seen by Business Insider show scrap at the company's Gigafactory may have cost the company at least $150 million this year. 

Apple hits an all-time high. Shares touched a record high of $193.42 ahead of the company's WWDC developer's conference. 

Twitter closes at its best level in 3 years. Shares rallied 3.41% Monday to settle at $37.90, their best since July 2015.

Stock markets around the world are higher. China's Shanghai Composite (+0.74%) led the gains in Asia and Germany's DAX (+1.06%) paces the advance in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.12% near 2,750. 

US economic data flows. Markit US Services PMI will be released at 9:45 a.m. ET while JOLTS Job Openings and ISM non-manufacturing are both due out at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is down 2 basis points at 2.93%. 

Join the conversation about this story »

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Bitcoin's retreat from Sunday's high of $7,779 has poured cold water over the bull mood generated by the weekend's positive price action.

• Short seller Jim Chanos says bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are a product of the long-running bull market, which is pushing investors to take more risk and "believe things."
• Chanos agreed that bitcoin is a "libertarian fantasy" and said its main utility is avoiding tax.
• "This is simply a security speculation game masquerading as a technological breakthrough in monetary policy."

LONDON — Renowned short seller Jim Chanos thinks cryptocurrencies are a product of the run-away global bull market and have little use beyond avoiding tax.

Chanos, known for predicting the collapse of Enron, addressed the topic of cryptocurrencies in an interview with the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Chanos, who runs New York-based Kynikos Associates, said investors are getting "a little bit jiggy with their capital" and are more "willing to take risks, willing to believe things" the longer the current bull market goes on.

"So today we’ve got bitcoin and ICOs [initial coin offerings], which went ballistic in 2017," Chanos said. "I suspect going forward we’re going to see more and more evidence of questionable companies as this bull market keeps advancing and aging."

"We’re now nine years into this bull market, same as the ‘90s, so I suspect that now things are starting to percolate. I think bitcoin and the ICOs are just one manifestation of that," he said.

Chanos expressed scepticism about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies more generally. Huge amounts of capital flowed into the sector last year, which peaked at over $800 billion in value in December.

Bitcoin's original enthusiasts were drawn to the fact that the cryptocurrency was independent of any nation state or central bank, making it theoretically immune from things like quantitative easing. They also argued that its independence made it a more viable long-term currency.

Chanos said: "For those who believe it’s a store of value in the coming apocalypse, the idea is that you’re going to have to safeguard your key under a mountain with fingerprint and eye scan security while the hordes are outside your bunker trying to get in to use it — for what, I have no idea. Because for those who believe that you need to own digital currency as a store of value in the worst-case scenario, that’s exactly the case in which a digital currency will work the least. Food would work the best!"

The interviewer then suggested bitcoin is a "libertarian fantasy," to which Chanos replied: "That’s exactly what it is. And if you say, well, fiat currency is going to bring the world down, which could, of course, happen, then I say the last thing I’d want to own is bitcoin if the grid goes down."

He added: "Bitcoin is still the area for people who are trying to avoid taxation or other examinations of their transactions. That’s one thing where I think it probably still has utility, but the governments have figured that out.

"This is simply a security speculation game masquerading as a technological breakthrough in monetary policy. Someone at Grant’s interest rate conference recently said that it was as if we had intentionally created a 'monetary Somalia'."

You can read the full interview here.

SEE ALSO: A startup just closed a huge $4 billion ICO — but the crypto fundraising method is 'absolutely and unequivocally slowing down'

DON'T MISS: A top crypto hedge fund lawyer explains the 4 main trading strategies that funds use to make money

NEXT UP: The Justice Department is investigating crypto market manipulation — here's why it's such a big problem

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A city-level court in Russia has revoked a ban issued in 2016 that blocked cryptocurrency media site bitcoininfo.ru, among others.

• Crypto lawyer: "We’re seeing some academic institutions getting involved on a limited basis for strategic reasons."
• Universities around the world are increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that underpins them.

LONDON – Some universities on the east coast of the US have begun making small investments into cryptocurrency hedge funds, according to a lawyer in the industry.

John Lore, the founder of Capital Fund Law Group, told Business Insider: "We’re seeing some academic institutions getting involved on a limited basis for strategic reasons.

"I can’t say the names of [the academic institutions] because that’s attorney-client but we have people mostly on the East Coast that have begun doing investments in this space on a fairly modest basis."

New York-based Capital Fund Law Group specialises in providing legal services to the hedge fund industry and has advised around 30 cryptocurrency hedge funds on setting up over the last year, according to Lore.

Lore said that the majority of investment in these new funds comes from "high net worth individuals and, on a very limited basis, family offices."

"Yes there are investors but at this point, investors are putting in very small percentages of their net worth as we would expect and as I believe is appropriate," Lore said.

He said he doesn't expect to see institutional investors such as pension funds invest in crypto any time soon, due to regulatory uncertainty and the lack of a track record for many funds. One exception is university endowment funds, some of which have begun to invest in the space on a limited basis.

"We see academia as a tie between these somewhat young and enthusiastic fund managers and capital raising," Lore said.

Universities have been growing increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that underpins it. Blockchain is a shared, uneditable ledger of all transactions and is encoded with complex cryptography.

One of the developers of ethereum helped set up blockchain facilities at the universities of Edinburgh and Tokyo, and Ripple this week announced a $50 million research fund for blockchain and cryptocurrency. Leading universities around the world are also introducing courses on the technology, including Cambridge and Oxford.

SEE ALSO: The University of Edinburgh is launching a blockchain research lab with one of the cofounders of Ethereum

DON'T MISS: Crypto company Ripple is giving $50 million to universities including Princeton, MIT, and UCL for blockchain research

NEXT UP: A top crypto hedge fund lawyer explains the 4 main trading strategies that funds use to make money

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE KRISTIN LEMKAU INTERVIEW: JPMorgan Chase's CMO explains how she deals with disruption on two fronts at once, why she's moving some ad dollars back to TV, and why it matters what your credit card feels like

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is a big believer – though not an investor currently – in bitcoin.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn’t convinced that bitcoin will supplant national currencies to become a de facto global currency, but he says that he hopes this will one day be the case. Speaking on the sidelines of Money20/20 Europe, Wozniak told CNBC that he is attracted to the “purity” of the idea that people around

The post I Want Bitcoin to Be the World’s Single Currency: Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak appeared first on CCN

Court records show that distributed ledger startup Ripple is being represented by two former SEC officials – including its former chairwoman.