***RECAP FROM INVEST: NYC***

If you couldn’t make our investor-focused event Invest: NYC last week, or if you did and (most likely) couldn’t make all the panels you wanted to, help is at hand – you can see all the videos from the main stage presentations here.

BIG IDEAS

*Investing in Bitcoin: The Asset Allocator’s Perspective (Byrne Hobart) – On Schelling points, safe haven assets, potential valuation methods and bitcoin’s risk characteristics.

*Bitcoin And The ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ (The Rhythm of Bitcoin) – Millenials will have a greater say in how finance evolves than most of us realise, and almost 20% own bitcoin.

Why Do Crypto Investors Focus So Much on Equities / Recession? (Arca) – When expectation becomes more powerful than value…

An Open Letter to Ray Dalio re: Bitcoin (Robert Breedlove) – What even investment experts get wrong about a decentralized, sovereign store of value.

*2019 Crypto Trends (CoinShares) – The presentation given by Meltem Demirors at our Invest: NYC event last week, packed with good graphics as well as useful big-picture and intriguing small-detail information.

PayPal’s Axing of Pornhub Model Payments May Boost Crypto Conversions (CoinDesk) – This type of “selective access” to payment services highlights a potentially important use case of crypto currencies.

WATCH: Coinmine Adds Interest Payments to Its At-Home Crypto Miners (CoinDesk) – Further evidence of emerging yield in crypto currency holdings.

Avi Felman lays out the “best” and “worst” case scenarios for bitcoin performance.

Willy Woo shares a big-picture look at bitcoin’s role, value and potential evolution.
 

MARKETS

Crypto Derivatives: A Corner of the Market or the Market Itself? (CoinDesk) – Emmanuel Goh, CEO of derivatives analytics platform skew., shares his view of crypto derivative evolution, and what that says about the sector overall.

What the CFTC Chairman Actually Said About Ether Futures and Ethereum 2.0 (CoinDesk) – Yes, ether _might_ be considered a security after the switch to proof-of-stake, although many believe the shift would make the network even _more_ decentralized.

*A History Of Crypto Exchanges: A Look At Our Industry’s Most Powerful Institutions (Nomics) – It’s important to appreciate the retail roots of and the innovation behind the current crypto exchange landscape. 

Tagomi and Coinbase have held acquisition talks, and insiders say it's a perfect match (The Block, paywall) – A merger could boost Coinbase Pro’s market share among active traders, and strengthen Tagomi’s balance sheet, making it a more effective prime broker. 

Bakkt Expands Bitcoin Custody Service Beyond Futures Trading Clients (CoinDesk) – Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital and Tagomi have already signed on as initial customers for “Bakkt Warehouse,” with other “marquee firms” expected to join over the next few weeks.

China Is Poised for Another Crypto Trading Crackdown as Speculative Fever Returns (CoinDesk) – As many pointed out at the time, their “blockchain is good” announcement didn’t have much to do with crypto assets.

No, Royal Bank of Canada Isn’t Opening a Crypto Exchange (CoinDesk) – Contrary to media reports, a spokesperson confirmed that recent patent applications filed by the bank do not indicate any intention to actually launch an exchange.

NEW PRODUCTS

Bakkt in Discussions to Offer Cash-Settled Bitcoin Futures in Singapore (CoinDesk) – The ICE-backed bitcoin futures exchange intends to expand from its current physically-settled offerings to cash-settled futures before 2020, through ICE Clear Singapore, although global customers will be able to access the product. 

CME sets date for options product tied to its bitcoin futures (The Block) – Pending regulatory approval, the regulated derivatives exchange plans to launch the product on January 13, 2020.

CoinMarketCap rolls out new metric 'Liquidity,' aiming to fight fake trading volumes (The Block) – The metric looks at factors such as order-book depth changes and distance from mid-price, and will replace “volume” as the default ranking standard.

Swiss stock exchange SIX lists first income-generating crypto product, tied to tezos token (The Block) – Trading under the symbol AXTZ, the fund will bake/stake tokens on investors’ behalf and return the income via a dividend.

Bitcoin Miner Maker Canaan Sets $100 Million Target for US IPO (CoinDesk) – The Hangzhou, China-based manufacturer of the Avalon bitcoin miner aims to offer 10 million American depositary shares (ADS) with each at a price of between $9 and $11. Reports cite a launch date of November 20.

Fintech Arm of Chinese Insurance Giant Files for US IPO After Blockchain Push (CoinDesk) – SoftBank-backed OneConnect Financial Technology, the fintech arm of China’s largest insurance company Ping An Insurance, filed a prospectus to offer American Depository Shares on NYSE or NASDAQ, in a target raise of $100 million.

AlphaPoint’s White Label Tech Now Lets Crypto Exchanges Offer Margin Trading (CoinDesk) – According to the company, several firms are testing the platform, which is customizable, to account for different markets and regulatory regimes. 

Chainalysis’ ‘Kryptos’ Tool Is an Inside Look for Outside Investors (CoinDesk) – The crypto forensics platform will help institutions parse regulatory hazards and build risk assessment models.

Binance Exchange Is First Client for Paxos’ New Dollar Gateway (CoinDesk) – Regulated blockchain company Paxos has launched a product allowing crypto exchange customers to more easily execute fiat/stablecoin swaps. 

BitGo Offers Institutional Clients New Off-Chain Settlement System (CoinDesk) – The crypto custody provider is launching a new clearing and settlement service for institutional clients, which will ensure that assets never leave custody when being transferred, with BitGo acting as the custodian on either side of a trade, reducing counterparty risk.

ASX-Listed DigitalX Seeds New Fund With Half Its Bitcoin Holdings (CoinDesk) – The first ever cryptocurrency firm to be listed on a major stock exchange has launched a new bitcoin fund, to which it will contribute half of its bitcoin holdings at a market value of almost $1.9 million, with management fees of 1.65% and no performance fees.

PROFILES

*Bakkt’s custody ambitions could trigger market consolidation (The Block, paywall) – The outlook for the sector now that a well-funded institutional player has entered the space.

*The inside story of Binance’s explosive rise to power (Decrypt) – A well-written and gripping profile of the sector’s largest exchange in terms of volume.

As credit concerns loom in crypto, Blockchain.com secretly builds multi-million dollar loan desk (The Block) – Launched over the summer, the firm is now on track to lend over $120 million in November, bringing the total lent, traded or borrowed so far to $1.6 billion.

Two rival trading firms have sprung out of Circle Trade, which faces an uncertain future (The Block, paywall) – As former employees leave to set up their own trading desks, the future of Circle Trade is uncertain.

CRUNCHING NUMBERS

Vision Hill Crypto Hedge Fund Returns: Third Quarter 2019 (Vision Hill) – The firm’s indices show that crypto fund performance declined on average over 20% in the third quarter, with quant funds down only 9%; year-to-date crypto funds are up almost 30%, with fundamental, quantitative and opportunistic funds performing in line.

The Biggest Nightmare in Blockchain Analytics (IntoTheBlock) – “Deanonymization”, necessary for meaningful metrics analysis, is more about “what” you are than “who.”

Dissecting Bitcoin’s Unrealised On–Chain Profit/Loss (Glassnode) – How much of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is at any given point in time in profit or loss, and to what extent?

Analysis of volume per website visit indicates larger traders are re-entering the game (The Block, paywall) – Bitfinex and Bitstamp have the highest traded volume per visit, which either indicates larger clients or that a lot of the traders trade through APIs.

A Model of Supply and Demand for Bitcoin Value (Nick) – This assumes that demand is a function of time.

Chainalysis Says BitForex Trading Volumes Could Be Fake (CoinDesk) – An analysis of the number of times that each bitcoin, recorded entering the exchange on-chain, trades shows that BitForex’s volume is orders of magnitude greater than the average, which hints at questionable reported volume. 

REGULATORS AT WORK

The SEC Is Reviewing the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF Rejection (CoinDesk) – According to the company, Bitwise did not request the review.

Wyoming’s New Crypto Banking Law Could Defang New York’s BitLicense (CoinDesk) – One of the recently enacted crypto-friendly laws allows the state to charter Special Purpose Depository Institutions, a new type of fully-reserved fiat bank that can also custody crypto assets and that might be able to operate in New York even without a BitLicense.

UK Law Panel Defines Crypto Assets as Property (CoinDesk) – The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of the Lawtech Delivery Panel has published a legal statement recognizing crypto assets as "tradable property" under English and Welsh law; it also defines smart contracts as "enforceable agreements" under English law.

SECURITY TOKENS

BnkToTheFuture CEO: 50 Percent of Funding Will Be Through Security Tokens in 2020 (CoinDesk) – The online investment platform will expand its security token offering business to the U.S. with the acquisition of an undisclosed stake in BMI Capital International’s holding company. 

STABLECOINS

Stablecoin Crisis Could Wreck Global Finance, Fed Warns in New Report (CoinDesk) – In its semiannual “Financial Stability Report”, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board expressed concerns that an operational or financial problem with a stablecoin could trigger a “run”, which could weaken asset values and collateral across the board. 

PODCASTS

FUTURES RADIO SHOW: Anthony Crudele talks to Mark Lamb, CEO of CoinFLEX, about the global crypto derivatives market, its growth and the impact of stablecoins.

BASE LAYER: David Nage interviews Haseeb Qureshi of Dragonfly Capital about investment theses, use cases and “protocol wars.”

CHAIN REACTION: Tom Shaughnessy chats to Ryan Selkis, founder and CEO of Messari, about crypto data, the need for metrics and the advantages of decentralized information.

STATE OF CRYPTO: The Amun team talks to Richard Muirhead, founding partner at Fabric Ventures, about the dynamics of open source governance for crypto assets.

THE SCOOP: Frank Chaparro chats to Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex and Tether, about transparency, derivatives and market manipulation. 

A-HA!

"Controllable anonymity" (JP Koning) – China’s blockchain plans are not as dystopian as the media portrays; in fact, it has some nifty features.

"The Sovereign Individual" Investment Thesis (Phil Boniello) – Three fundamental economic shifts are under way: 1) the shrinking of global wage gaps, 2) digital money creates truly global markets, and 3) encryption feeds the growing need for “dissident technology.”

Dovey Wan dispels some myths about China’s relationship with cryptocurrencies.

Inside an Arctic Code Vault (Bloomberg, video) – This is kinda cool… or cold, depending on how you look at it.