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Filecoin Miner RRMine Global Shuts Down Market in China, Moves HQ to Singapore

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Decentralized storage network Filecoin miner RRMine Global announced that it will withdraw from the Chinese mainland market and close its business in mainland China, moving its headquarters to Singapore.

In the press release, the company said that due to the policy of strict restrictions on cryptocurrencies in mainland China and the divergence of its Web3.0 strategy, it decided to completely shut down mining operations in mainland China and move its headquarters to the world’s most cryptocurrency-friendly place, Singapore which is one of the open economies.

Reportedly, several executives of Renren Mine were taken away by the police from their offices in Chengdu, China for investigation last December.

Steve Tsou, Global CEO, RRMine Global

“Very much like other entrepreneurs, we want the best for our company, employees and community. The decision has been made after a profound examination and multiple discussions, and it has not been easy to come back from a downfall, especially when RRMine Global has Continuously provided services to all its users globally without fail despite all the events that happened. From today onwards, we would like to move forward and recreate the prosperous scene from China in Singapore.”

RRMine Global has been committed to solving the problem of lack of liquidity in Web3.0 and has become the world’s leading one-stop service platform for providing Filecoin.

Decentralized storage network Filecoin aims to provide users with decentralized data storage and transmission services through its miners, using its commodity hardware. Miners are also required to stake large amounts of FIL tokens to start their mining operations as part of their “initial staking collateral.”

Filecoin had an initial coin offering (ICO) in 2017 and was listed on major exchanges, including Coinbase. Shortly after FTX went public, the FIL futures contract quickly processed a volume of $150 million.

RRMine Global also announced the launch of “R-Datacap Storage” this time, which will significantly reduce operating costs, improve revenue efficiency, and promote the Filecoin incentive plan.

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CME Group Rolls Out Ether Options for Upcoming Merge

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

CME Group, a leading derivatives marketplace, has launched the options of Ether futures, given that the much-anticipated merge has been pushing demand.

Tim McCourt, the global head of Equity and FX products at CME Group, pointed out:

“As market participants anticipate the upcoming Ethereum Merge, a potentially game-changing update of one of the largest cryptocurrency networks, interest in Ether derivatives is surging.”

Since the merge is slated for September 15, CME Group intends to offer more flexibility with the Ether options. Leon Marshall, the global head of sales at Genesis, stated:

“The launch of the new Ether options contract ahead of the highly anticipated Ethereum Merge provides our clients with greater flexibility to trade and hedge their Ether price risk.”

The merge is anticipated to be the largest software upgrade in the Ethereum ecosystem because it will change the consensus mechanism from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS).

Therefore, the new options will complement CME Group’s Ether futures, which have recorded a 43% surge in average daily volume year-over-year.

Rob Strebel, the head of relationship management for DRW, said:

“As ether transitions through the anticipated merge this week, we expect we’ll continue to see strong demand for this Ether options contract.”

Since the Ethereum merge has been awaited with bated breath by the crypto community, the network’s speculative action has skyrocketed, Blockchain.News. The open interest shown in the ETH network highlighted that buying pressure outweighed selling.

On the other hand, a hard-fork mechanism is expected to be deployed within 24 hours after the merge.

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Tagged : Cme Group / Derivatives / ETHER / Ethereum / Futures / Merge / OPTIONS / Trading

ShareRing Adopts NFC Technology to Enhance eKYC Solutions

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

ShareRing, a blockchain-based ecosystem providing digital identity solutions, has integrated near-field communication (NFC) technology to make the electronic know your customer (eKYC) process more secure and reliable.

Per the announcement:

“NFC technology ensures that ShareRing IDs created with an e-passport have a high confidence level of attestation and trustworthiness since these are issued by a government body.”

The report added:

“It also reduces the likelihood of inability to extract the correct information from a document such as a passport since the information extracted from a chip is more reliable and trustworthy.”

Since ShareRing is a user-focused blockchain platform, it permits sharing, verifying, storing, and issuing personal information and key documents. Therefore, the NFC technology will come in handy for verification purposes. As a result, ShareRing will have more robust eKYC solutions. Per the report:

“NFC will be the future standard for ID cards for some time and therefore is supremely convenient for customers who already have NFC readers in their pockets. It, therefore, provides an excellent method for customers to process their ID documents during eKYC.”

As one of ShareRing’s main products, eKYC enables financial institutions to handle KYC processes faster and more efficiently. This allows users to flexibly give and take consent for data sharing, supported by the blockchain on a decentralized platform.

Meanwhile, the blockchain platform has updated the FaceMatch feature to enhance the face detection success rate. ShareRing pointed out:

“When new users sign up for a ShareRing ID, an official government ID must be provided in addition to a live selfie feature using our own technology called FaceMatch. This feature detects the face from the document and compares it to the user’s live selfie.”

Earlier this year, ShareRing integrated its native ShareToken (SHR) into the Ethereum and Binance networks through Multichain swap for enhanced digital identity solutions, Blockchain.News reported.

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Tagged : Digital Identity / EKYC / FACEMATCH / Industry / Nfc / SHARERING

Asset Tokenization to Expand into $16.1M Business Opportunity by 2030: BCG, ADDX Report

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Asset tokenization will expand into a US$16.1 million business opportunity by 2030, according to a joint report published by BCG and ADDX.

The report suggested that the growth forecast was made by studying the potential of the crypto winter as it has been prompting capital to focus on more viable blockchain use cases.

According to the BCG and ADDX report – titled “Relevance of on-chain asset tokenization in ‘crypto winter’” – the drive behind the projected growth in tokenization of assets is also due to demand from a wide range of investors for more access to private markets.

Asset tokenization refers to the creation of tokens on a blockchain to represent an asset in order to facilitate more efficient transactions. The tokenization and fractionalization of assets lower barriers to investment in private markets by reducing minimum lot sizes.

The report indicated that “assets being fractionalized and tokenized on platforms such as ADDX can reduce minimum investment sizes from millions of dollars to just thousands of dollars.”

“Previously, investments of this kind were only available to institutions. Tokenized investments can also be effectively ‘borderless’, allowing investors around the world to invest in markets they were previously unable to access,” it added.

Backtracking to previous years, assets globally were also held in illiquid formats, and past studies have estimated that the share of illiquid assets was at more than 50% of overall assets.

In comparison to asset tokenization, illiquid assets face challenges such as imperfect price discovery and trading discounts compared to liquid assets, according to the BCG and ADDX report. However, tokenization is simple as it creates liquidity by making it easier for the assets to be distributed and traded among investors.

The BCG and ADDX report has also listed five indications – increased trading volume in tokenized assets, strengthening stakeholder sentiment across many countries, recognition among monetary authorities and regulators, more asset classes being tokenized and a growing pool of active developer talent in the blockchain space – that asset tokenization may be on the cusp of wide global adoption.

In light of this opportunity, institutions have already begun tokenizing private funds on ADDX’s platform. “Partners Group listed its Global Value SICAV Fund on the platform in September 2021, while Hamilton Lane’siii Global Private Assets Fund launched on the platform in March 2022,” according to BCG and ADDX.

The majority of global growth in tokenized assets is expected in real estate, equities, bonds and investment funds, as well as less traditional assets such as car fleets and patents.

“With a 50-fold increase predicted between 2022 and 2030, from US$310 billion to US$16.1 trillion, tokenized assets are expected to make up 10% of global GDP by the end of the decade,” the report states.

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Tagged : BCGANDADDX / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Cryptocurrency / Industry / Tokenization

GameStop’s Blockchain Chief Matt Finestone Departs from Company

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Matt Finestone, head of the blockchain team at Video game retailer GameStop Corp, announced his departure from the company.

According to his official Twitter account, he will continue to focus on dedicating to the Ethereum ecosystem and plan to move closer to protocol/infrastructure.

After starting at GameStop in April 2021, Matt Finestone has grown his blockchain team from zero to dozens.

Establishing a blockchain department at such a large company is not an easy task, noted Matt Finestone, who brings together a lot of talent and energy from all corners and levels of the organization.

By expressing his appreciation for his company and accomplishments during his one and a half years at the company, Finestone expressed his gratitude to the company, noting that the company will help them get better opportunities. However, he did not disclose where he would go, but he said that he will continue to contribute to the blockchain field.

Earlier this month, GameStop, the world’s largest video game retailer headquartered in Texas State, announced that it has signed a partnership with FTX US (“FTX”) to become FTX’s preferred retail partner in the United States.

At the end of May, the video game retailer launched a digital asset wallet for sending, receiving and storing cryptocurrencies and NFTs,

In July, Video game retailer GameStop Corp announced Monday the launch of a public beta version of a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace amid the crypto market’s downturn.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / GAMESTOP / Industry Expert / MATT FINESTONE

Public Chain WormholesChain Receives $10m in Seed Funding

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Multi-dimensional public chain WormholesChain said on Monday that it has completed a $10 million seed round led by Mandra Capital and Timing Capital.

As the Web3 multidimensional value interaction centre, the funds raised by WormholesChain will be used to promote the development of Web3 multidimensional infrastructure.

The lead investor, Mandra Capital, is also an angel investor in the cryptocurrency exchange OKX.

WormholesChain balances the three metrics of scalability, security and decentralization to create a highly scalable and secure blockchain system without sacrificing decentralization.

According to the company, WormholesChain uses the lightweight consensus algorithm DRE combined with PoS to solve the dynamic random algorithm of security implementation and realizes the composition of multiple layers, including the multi-dimensional blockchain of the transport layer, blockchain layer, API layer and application layer. The strong security of the public chain.

Recently, Near Foundation, the Switzerland-based Non-Profit in charge of the Near Protocol, has launched a new $100 million Web3.0 fund.

Last month, Contribution Labs, a Web3-focused startup backed by Alchemy, a pioneer in the blockchain developer platform, raised $3 million through an equity sale.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Finance / MANDRA CAPITAL / WORMHOLESCHAIN

Fidelity to Offer Crypto Trading to Retail Customers

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Fidelity Investments plans to launch Bitcoin trading for retail customers on its brokerage platform, The Wall Street Journal reported the matter on Monday, citing people with familiar sources.

The Boston-based investment management company has more than 34.4 million individual brokerage clients on its brokerage platform. Due to this huge customer base, the firm is exploring allowing these retail clients to trade Bitcoin on its brokerage platform.

During a panel discussion at the SALT New York conference on Monday, Mike Novogratz, CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy, said he had heard Fidelity was moving to offer cryptocurrency to retail customers.

“A bird has told me, a little bird in my ear, that Fidelity is going to shift their retail customers into crypto soon enough. I hope that bird is right,” Novogratz said.

Fidelity responded to a request for comment, saying: “While we have nothing new to announce, expanding our offerings to enable broader access to digital assets remains an area of focus.”

The trillion-dollar asset manager launched its Bitcoin-trading business for institutional investors and hedge funds in 2019. One year later, the firm launched its Bitcoin index fund, which amassed over $125 million in investments in May this year.

Betting on Crypto Investing

In April, Fidelity Investments made headlines when it started allowing investors to add Bitcoin to their retirement accounts.

Fidelity’s decision to let its clients incorporate Bitcoin into their retirement accounts was a landmark first for major retirement plan providers. Fidelity Investments is the country’s largest 401(k) provider.

In May, the crypto winter set in, and the industry suffered nearly $1 trillion in losses over a month. Despite that, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, launched plans to double its headcount on the bet that institutional investor interest in crypto would persevere.

Fidelity’s digital assets arm intended to hire 110 tech workers and 100 customer service employees as it believed institutional crypto trading demand would increase.

During that, Fidelity said falling crypto prices did not affect the company financially, although the flow of new customers slowed down. Regardless, the company maintained its commitment to investing in crypto trading technology.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / BROKERAGE CUSTOMERS / Crypto Trading / Fidelity Investments / Institutional Investors / News

Hard-fork to be Deployed Within 24 Hours of The Merge: Ethereum POW

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

EthereumPoW (ETHW), the splinter of the proof of work from the Ethereum blockchain, announced its plan to launch a hard-fork mechanism within 24 hours after the Merge.

EthereumPoW – the social media account behind the forthcoming ETHW mainnet – has published the plan in a thread detailing the strategy on Twitter.

“The exact time will be announced 1 hour before launch with a countdown timer, and everything including final code, binaries, config files, nodes info, RPC, explorer, etc. will be made public when the time’s up,” the Twitter thread said.

In order to make sure that the chainID switches to 10001 successfully, the mainnet will start at the block height of the Merge block “plus” 2048 EMPTY blocks as padding. Also, the chain is the longest chain of ETHW, according to the thread.

Following the update, + 2049 will be the 1st block on ETHW that may contain any transactions.

“Therefore, the Merge block + 2049 will be the 1st block on ETHW that may contain any transactions. Block rewards for the empty blocks will be directed to the 1559 multi-sig wallet,” according to the EthereumPoW thread.

It also added that mining difficulty in the initial phases would not be lower than ~220 T, or 15 TH/s in terms of hashrate.

However, the strategy has not been clear to everyone. According to The Block, some developers are puzzled because the decision to delay the code release and update the chainID has been pushed until the last minute.

According to a pull request on GitHub by a Coinbase Distinguished Software Engineer, it was noted that a new chainID had yet to be submitted. It also stated that using the same chainID post-merge would pose a significant risk to replay or double-spend attacks.

Per the introduction from online media outlet Decrypt, EthereumPoW, the Proof-of-Work driven protocol, is the core asset of Chinese crypto miner Chandler Guo, who announced the proof-of-work Hard-fork on Twitter on July 27; The Hard-fork refers to a protocol change of a blockchain network that is effectively split into two branches; one that follows the previous protocol while other protocols follow the new version.

The Ethereum merge is expected to conduct on September 15, a software system upgrades from its original Proof-of-Work-based mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake-based system. The upgrade is expected to be more environmentally friendly during the mining operations.

Yet, details of the Merge are yet to be clarified, and much confusion is still hovering, and it remains to be seen how users and exchanges will perceive an ETHW chain.

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Tagged : #ETH / Bitcoin / Blockchain / Crypto / Ethereum / ETHEREUMPOW

Stone Ridge Shutting down Bitcoin Futures Fund, Returning Money to Investors

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

Stone Ridge Asset Management, a global asset management firm based in New York, announced Monday plans to liquidate and dissolve its Stone Ridge Bitcoin Strategy Fund with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to an SEC filing, Stone Ridge said it expects to liquidate the Bitcoin Futures Fund next month, October 21, and from November 3, shares of the funds will not be available to purchase.

“The adviser will reduce the Fund to cash in preparation for the Liquidation Date. Proceeds of the liquidation of the Fund are expected to be distributed to shareholders in cash. The liquidation proceeds are expected to be distributed promptly following the Liquidation Date in full redemption of each shareholder’s shares of the Fund,” the filing said.

The shutdown comes as the Fund launched in late 2019 with a strategy to invest in Bitcoin (BTC) via futures contracts, failing to find interest from investors. Currently, the Fund holds only about $2.3 million in assets under management.

The Fund likely faced obstacles not just from the Bitcoin bear market but also SEC approval of several competing Bitcoin Futures ETFs, at least some of which charged fees less than the Stone Ridge product.

Stone Ridge was founded in 2012 by current CEO Ross Stevens. In 2017, the founder launched the Bitcoin-driven New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), where he serves as executive chairman.

Stone Ridge Asset Management and NYDIG are both Stone Ridge Holdings Group subsidiaries. NYDIG is a full-service, vertically integrated Bitcoin-only financial services company.

Market Struggles to Recover

This year, Bitcoin ETFs have not been as good investments as expected. And the same scenario is being seen in stocks in the S&P 500 (such as Netflix (NFLX), Under Armour (UAA), Ceridian HCM (CDAY), Caesars Entertainment (CZR), Epam Systems (EPAM), among others) whose performance also turned worse this year.

This year, inflation crises have tremendously impacted the economy and the stock market globally. The $822.9-million-in-assets ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF is one of the major ways most investors use ETFs to gain exposure to cryptocurrency.

As of June, the largest Bitcoin ETF, ProShares Bitcoin Strategy, was down 53.6% this year. Such discouraging performance shows the underappreciated risk of the new asset class because most investors were not prepared to face hard questions like What would happen during a market crash? Or What would happen if a crypto exchange company went bankrupt?’

And that makes total sense, as it tracks the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin price itself is down more than 50% this year.

ProShares Bitcoin Strategy is not just the largest Bitcoin ETF that is suffering. The entire crypto ETF universe is not doing well this year.

And the ETFs that own big positions in Bitcoin-based companies are underperforming. The First Trust SkyBridge Crypto Industry and Digital Economy ETF, which puts a bigger piece of its portfolio in Coinbase than any other ETF, is down 69% this year.

Despite the low performance of ETFs, the industry is still pushing for the launch of more Bitcoin ETFs. Several firms have filed with the SEC to get approval to launch their spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Grayscale has been pushing for the SEC to approve their request to convert their Bitcoin trust into a spot ETF.

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Tagged : Bitcoin Etfs / BITCOIN FUTURES FUND / MARKET DOWNTURN / News / Nydig / Stone Ridge

Stone Ridge Shuting down Bitcoin Futures Fund, Returning Money to Investors

by Blockchain NewsSeptember 13, 2022

According to an SEC filing, Stone Ridge said it expects to liquidate the Bitcoin Futures Fund next month, October 21, and from November 3, shares of the funds will not be available to purchase.

Stone Ridge was founded in 2012 by current CEO Ross Stevens. In 2017, the founder launched the Bitcoin-driven New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), where he serves as executive chairman.

Stone Ridge Asset Management and NYDIG are both Stone Ridge Holdings Group subsidiaries. NYDIG is a full-service, vertically integrated Bitcoin-only financial services company.

Market Struggles to Recover

And that makes total sense, as it tracks the price of Bitcoin. Bitcoin price itself is down more than 50% this year.

ProShares Bitcoin Strategy is not just the largest Bitcoin ETF that is suffering. The entire crypto ETF universe is not doing well this year.

Despite the low performance of ETFs, the industry is still pushing for the launch of more Bitcoin ETFs. Several firms have filed with the SEC to get approval to launch their spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Grayscale has been pushing for the SEC to approve their request to convert their Bitcoin trust into a spot ETF.

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Tagged : Bitcoin Etfs / BITCOIN FUTURES FUND / MARKET DOWNTURN / News / Nydig / Stone Ridge