Keep On Keepin’ On

We’ve got another week in green here, folks. Building off of last week’s momentum, the entire cryptocurrency market grew from $207.8B to $209.2B – a whopping 0.7% gain. Okay, it may not be the growth we’re looking for, but at least we’re trending in the right direction. “How about the top coins?” you ask? Great question.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Cryptocurrency Market Stats (10/26/18)

Bitcoin hardly moved, with its price rising just 0.18% this week. It currently sits at just under $6,500.

Ethereum had an even flatter week, moving only 0.02% downwards. The price continues to test the $200 support line.

XRP was the most substantial gainer this week, even though it only climbed 0.89%, stabilizing a little over $0.45.

Domestic News

Coinbase Links Up With Circle for New Stablecoin: Stablecoins, so hot right now. On Tuesday, Coinbase announced a new partnership with frenemy Circle to form the CENTRE Consortium. First on the consortium’s docket? The creation of a new stablecoin, USD Coin, or USDC for short.

Each USDC is backed back one greenback, and the companies will regularly report the status of those reserves. The two organizations chose to use the Ethereum blockchain to create the stablecoin with the ERC20 protocol. USDC now joins a long list of over 50 stablecoins currently in the crypto market.

SEC Gives ICOs an H.A.N.D: The SEC is clearly tired of blockchain projects pleading ignorance when it comes to regulations. The government organization’s newly formed FinHub is hosting office hours to answer any questions you may have about the regulatory landscape (as it currently stands). To schedule time, you simply need to fill out an online form outlining who you are and what you’re interested in learning about.

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict where this is heading. We’ll most likely start to see “SEC approved” stamps popping up on projects who’ve taken advantage of this resource.

People Saying Things

Musk Being Musk: From joking about taking Tesla private to asking for “dank memes,” Elon Musk has gone full troll on Twitter. This time around, the Spaceboy Wonder commented a seemingly random anime image in a post about Tesla account 2FA with the caption, “Wanna buy some Bitcoin?”

Hey what’s happening w 2 factor auth for Tesla account?

— San (@vicentes) October 22, 2018

Wanna buy some Bitcoin? 😉😉 pic.twitter.com/9ZbBJ5fuVq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 22, 2018

International News

HTC Blockchain Phone Available for Pre-Order: The much awaited HTC Exodus 1 is officially available for pre-sale. The phone has a built-in cryptocurrency wallet that holds Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and more coins undisclosed at this time. Putting in an order now will get the phone in your hands by December. The catch? You can only pay with Bitcoin or Ethereum.

HTC Exodus 1

The phone sports a 0.15 BTC, or 4.78 ETH, price tag, placing it right around the $960 mark. To put this in perspective, the new iPhone XR and iPhone XS range from $749 to $1099.

Japan Gives Thumbs-Up to Crypto Self-Regulation: On Wednesday, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) approved the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association to act as a self-regulating organization. This classification enables digital asset exchanges in the association to create a set of rules to protect customers and create guidelines with which they’ll enforce among themselves. This action seems to be nothing but positive news as it keeps the regulatory authority in the hands of those who know the industry best.

Notable figures in the American market, specifically the Winklevoss twins, have been pushing for something similar. However, they’ve been having a much more difficult time with regulators.