Your Crypto News on Steemit January 8, 2018

• New York Stock Exchange grants Bitcoin ETF!
• Bitzumi: New Competition for Coinbase & Co!
• Ripple plans to get three of the largest money transfer companies in 2018!
• Long Blockchain Corp. enters the mining Business!
• Iran: Bitcoin usage is increasing!
• Exponential Growth: Crypto Exchanges with 100,000 new Users per Day!

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The New York Stock Exchange has requested that a number of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) related to Bitcoin be launched.

Bull & Bear Futures with the Bitcoin ETF

As reported by BusinessInsider, a message sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows that the Exchange intends to launch five different ETFs offering bull and bear futures on the Arca Stock Exchange. These ETFs will be linked to the price of Bitcoin futures listed on the CME and CBOE exchanges, which opened Bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017:

The value of the target benchmark is determined by the last selling price published by the CME or the CBOE or another US stock exchange.

Bitcoin ETF: The Bull Funds

The three bull funds are categorized as 1.25X, 1.5X and 2X and offer 100%, 150% and 200% return on the traded contract.

As stated in the document sent to the SEC, the funds are not designed to be traded for more than one day - and offer percentage returns based on the given contract.

Bitcoin ETF: The Bear Funds

As the name implies, the "Bear Funds" offer investors the opportunity to invest in the depreciation of Bitcoin. The two funds offered are 1X and 2X and offer gains of 100% and 200% should the contract reach its target on the given Dealing Day.

Should the value of the benchmark rise, Bear Funds investors will again have to accept losses, which will be compounded by the multiplier (1X or 2X) agreed upon as described by the Bear Fund:

"If the 2X Bear Fund is to achieve its investment objective, then on a given day, its value should be approximately twice as high as the target benchmark level if the target benchmark falls. Conversely, on a given day, its value should lose about twice as much as the target benchmark level when the target benchmark rises."

Keep up with the stock exchanges

Should the NYSE be permitted to launch these ETFs, they will be the third American exchange to offer Bitcoin futures contracts. CME and CBOE have been trading futures since December.

While Merrill Lynch prevents its financial advisers from offering Bitcoin-related investments to clients, the stock exchanges are looking for different offerings. Evidence that Bitcoin has sparked investor interest in Wall Street.

Once a range of ETFs and trading options become available, there will be more information on how well these options are trading. In view of this knowledge, could we observe a change in sentiment among the financial institutions whose clients want to enter the cryptocurrency market?

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Investor and author James Altucher is currently recruiting for his latest project, Bitzumi Inc., to be built and run for up to $ 10 million. Altucher was once considered one of the harshest critics of Bitcoin. The planned online trading center including its own Bitcoin credit card and newsletter should be aimed at the customers of different countries.

Back in 2013, former hedge fund manager James Altucher was quoted as saying that Bitcoin was nothing more than "a fad," "rip-off," "a pyramid scheme," and worse. Later, the father of the paid newsletter, "A Bitcoin Expert Reveals How to Get Rich in Three Steps," became the figurehead of the US crypto community. In his cocky announcements, he campaigned to increase the invested money tenfold within a year. In addition, Altucher has appeared in the past as a podcaster, book author and as a freelance editor of several reputable publications such as the Financial Times, TechCrunch and much more.

Although he himself will not be part of the executive board, the co-founder is currently recruiting for a Delaware-registered company called Bitzumi Inc. As services, newsletters and an online marketplace for cryptocurrencies are being built. Especially for the trading center at least one million US dollars is needed. The aim of the company should be to be at the top of the Google search engine for cryptocurrencies. In addition to offering its own trading platform to compete with Bitstamp, Coinbase, GDAX and Kraken, it announces investments in companies that also deal with the topic of blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Altucher is already planning a partnership with newsletter provider Agora Financial, LLC. have been received in order to build and market a newsletter run by him in the future. In addition, Bitzumi will be offering its own Bitcoin credit card in the foreseeable future, with which one can pay at all VISA and MasterCard acceptance points.

As a long-term goal, the company wants to offer its customers various self-developed software solutions for cryptocurrencies. In the short term, they want to focus initially on search engine optimization and the publishing business. Altucher once said that he had had 100 ideas over the years, founded 20 companies and failed in 17 cases. No matter what happens, the new competitor can only be right for the users. Competition is known to stimulate business and often cut costs on the part of customers.

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Three of the world's top five money transfer companies will use Ripple's XRP tokens in their payment systems this year, the company said in a tweet this week.

In the tweet, however, the partners are not announced by name. The Communication should be seen in the light of the fact that XRP has a larger market capitalization than Ethereum. Ripple is in second place behind Bitcoin, followed by Ethereum. In the past, Ripple often had to take criticism for his "good weather" policy and partially obscure type of information about the token. Part of the criticism stems from Ripple winning more than 100 financial institutions for its xCurrent product, a non-XRP messaging platform. However, many new investors confuse XRP support through these institutions.

Ripples reaction:

Previously, only one company - the Mexican financial services company Cuallix - had announced its use of XRP for cross-border money transfers. However, the tweet and more comments earlier this week from Asheesh Birla, vice president of products at Ripple, predicts that more companies will be added this year.

In another tweet Thursday night, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to a New York Times article. This raised doubts about the use of XRP by reporting comments from banks and payment providers who have already examined or tested the cryptocurrency. Referring to the Ripple xRapid product that XRP builds on the company's xCurrent messaging platform, Garlinghouse wrote:

Despite its recent development to nearly $ 4 per coin, Ripple announced that it has no plans to list the cryptocurrency (or any other new) on its flagship or GDAX platform.

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From Ice Tea to Blockchain: As US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation said earlier this week, ice block maker Long Blockchain is following its announcement and is in the process of boosting its mining business. With the Chinese infrastructure from Bitmain, the company follows the change announced in December in the company course. Like a multitude of others, the beverage producer not only announced that he would shift his business to the digital market, but also marked this change by name and thus sparked the starting signal for a veritable market share of his stock.

Blockchain - Hardly any word creation seems to be more forward-looking, wit and innovative zeitgeist these days. Where Blockchain is on it sells. This insight from the past year 2017 has left a lot of companies - be it a bank, fintech or supermarket chain - without a trace. Ice tea maker Long Blockchain is one of those freeloaders. After the tea maker, formerly known as Long Island Icetea, announced its name change last year, the next step in the book is the New York Strategic Reorganization.

According to a recent Securities Exchange Commission SEC investigation on Friday, January 5, the company is currently serving 1,000 Bitcoin Antiminer S9 bits from Chinese manufacturer Bitmain. This is the first important step, according to company circles.

Philip Thomas, Managing Director of Long Blockchain Corp. said:

With a view to the future production site, Long Blockchain is currently only trying to gain a foothold in a "Nordic country". Nevertheless, speculation remains as to whether Iceland could become the promised land of entrepreneurial reinvention due to low energy prices.

Incidentally, one wants to continue to hold on the iconic brand name and the associated beverage division of the company.

This is the first time that the company is giving shape to its plan to devote itself to blockchain technology in the future. Managing Director Thomas had previously described this change in the company's course as a unique opportunity.

Gains thanks to name change

In the course of the reorientation and the associated name change in Long Blockchain, the company also achieved a notable coup on the American NASDAQ Stock Exchange.

So the price of the company's stock went from just under two to around nine dollars through the ceiling after renaming and sniffing undreamt of mountain air. Overall, the share managed to gain almost 450% - based solely on undefined future innovations.

However, the case of Long Blockchain is just one of many. At the moment, people are increasingly witnessing strategic name changes, announcements and speculations surrounding the supposedly forward-looking terms blockchain and cryptocurrencies. For example, the British Internet company On-Line Blockchain alone was able to increase its share value by 400% with the addition of the name Blockchain. In Germany, the broker Fritz Nols managed a similar feat at the end of December. Previously, they had announced that they wanted to take cryptocurrencies into their portfolio.

And the trend continues: As Bloomberg reports, the word "Blockchain" was found in 110 press releases in the first four days of the year alone.

So it is clear - as long as the hype persists, it is speculated further and earned money on exchanges with mere words. The case of Long Blockchain will be far from the last case.

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According to [media reports](https://news.bitcoin.com/iranian-bitcoin-adoption-surges-amid-political-protests-censorship/9, the use of Bitcoin by the Iranian population has increased dramatically since the beginning of the demonstrations. Danger for the local economy, because the US government recently threatened Iran further sanctions. Parts of the population fear a devaluation of their currency, the Iranian Rial. According to a recent statistic, bitcoin's nationwide trade has increased by more than 1,000% since Christmas 2017.

Due to the Iranian missile program, the assets are frozen by five companies suspected of being actively involved in the country's rearmament. In addition, the US wants to take action against persistent human rights violations. In this regard, a special meeting of the UN Security Council was scheduled for Friday afternoon in New York. In Iran over 1,000 demonstrators were detained and more than 20 people were shot in the street. Add to this the increasing restriction of telecommunications. For example, the messenger services Telegram and Signal were blocked in Iran in order to prevent the demonstrators from encrypted communication. The cause of the protests was the increased rental costs associated with high unemployment, social injustice and the country's persistent poor economic situation. After the outbreak of the protests, the country's army was sent to three districts to bring the situation under control.

The general uproar seems to push the cryptocurrencies hard. For example, Tehran blockchain expert Ziya Sadr told the International Business Times that he had invested his fortune in various cryptocurrencies. He cited the unstable economic situation in Iran as the reason. Sadr believes that the belief in the national currency is dwindling more and more. In his environment, several people would have done the same to come before a possible devaluation of the currency before. Sadr recommends that all Iranians invest their money in Monero because of their anonymity. So far, there was no indication that the Tehran government wanted to ban the use of Bitcoin or Monero. The members of the community are certainly in a position to circumvent the state censorship measures. In addition to constant Internet failures it is also more likely to come to the failure of the telephone lines and mobile. Apart from that, various technical measures to block social networks were not installed until yesterday. Therefore, within the crypto-community you can handle the censorship quite well with the help of the Tor network or a VPN.

Coin Dance statistics show a 1,000% increase in Iranian trade since November 23, 2017 compared to November. Bitcoin worth more than $ 70 billion is said to have been traded in Iran. The number of state-owned P2P trading platforms is said to have doubled in recent weeks. Although blocked in Iran for a long time, is also called on Twitter, the country's own fiat currency to turn their backs. As the economic situation worsens as a result of protests and US sanctions, a further increase in the use of cryptocurrencies is very likely in Iran.

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The main trading platforms for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the global market add more than 100,000 new users per day. Many of the leading crypto exchanges, such as Coinbase (GDAX), Binanance, Bittrex, Bitstamp, and Kraken, have struggled with the abrupt demand for cryptocurrencies. Some exchanges have reworked their systems to improve their scalability, while others have temporarily stopped opening new accounts.

Crypto exchanges with unexpected growth rate

This week, Changpeng Zhao, the founder and CEO of BINANCE, the largest market for cryptocurrency in the global market with a staggering daily trading volume of $ 9.5 billion, has found that its platform has added more than 250,000 users in a single day Has.

"I'm sorry, existing members have a higher priority at this point. Our team works around the clock. Both technology and support. There is simply too much demand. Over the past 24 hours, 250,000 new users have been added, "Zhao said, referring to the company's official statement.

On January 4, Binance stated:

In December, both Kraken and Coinbase provided a significant portion of their resources and capital to improve customer care and scalability of their platforms. On December 23, Kraken announced that it has implemented key system upgrades and performance enhancements and will further develop its trading platform to support new users.

The Kraken development team admitted that its current infrastructure was "degraded and unreliable" and decided to improve it in January.

Kraken said:

Regional exchanges, such as the South Korean Bithumb, the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume, have also stopped accepting new users.

Why are big crypto exchanges fighting?

At the end of 2017, South Korea's third largest cryptocurrency exchange, Korbit, was acquired for $ 140 million by Nexon, a $ 10 billion gaming giant. Given the size and market valuation of Korbit, major exchanges such as Bithumb, Bitstamp, Kraken and Binance could be worth more than $ 1 billion as Coinbase was valued at $ 1.6 billion in its most recent round of financing.

Even with such high market valuation, high profit margins and many resources, the crypto exchanges are having difficulty satisfying the exponentially increasing demand of investors. The reason for this is the government's policy, which forces companies to accurately identify their customers using the KYC process.

Each new user must be manually approved and verified. Failure to do so could lead to high fines and legal proceedings for the exchanges. Consequently, the verification process of the users is rigorous and requires considerable effort on the part of the employees of the exchanges.

With crypto exchanges adding more than 100,000 users daily, crypto exchanges are also likely to receive more than one million trading account approval requests per month.

That is, if the account approval process takes about 10 minutes per account, employees must manually spend 166,666 hours on a monthly basis.

Over the next few months, the global crypto exchanges will make drastic changes to their systems. Until then, it will be difficult for users, especially for new entrants, to open approved trading accounts.

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