First Mover: Bitcoin Steady as Trump Tweets, and Neo Takes on Ethereum

Chinese language tech firms had been as soon as seen as copycats of their Western friends: Alibaba was a knockoff of eBay and Baidu imitated Google. Extra not too long ago, Chinese language corporations like TikTok and Huawei have established such dominant worldwide positions that U.S. authorities have tried to carry them again. 

Now, the technological arms race is taking part in out within the cryptocurrency trade, the place one Chinese language firm is taking up Ethereum, the world’s second-largest blockchain, which U.S.-based builders have used to construct semi-automated buying and selling and lending networks underneath the rubric of decentralized finance, or DeFi.   

Neo took goal at DeFi in late September with its launch of a brand new platform referred to as Flamingo. Da Hongfei, a Neo co-founder, advised CoinDesk in an interview that the protocol will ultimately present customers with features discovered on widespread Ethereum-based tasks like Uniswap, Curve Finance, yearn.finance, and Synthetix. 

Flamingo isn’t merely a product of “copy and paste,” the co-founder mentioned in an interview. “It’s like rebuilding a parallel universe.”

Learn Extra: Amid US-China Tech War, Can Neo’s DeFi Stack Rival Ethereum’s?

Bitcoin defended the psychological assist of $10,500 early Wednesday as Asian shares shrugged off in a single day weak spot on Wall Road, lowering haven demand for the U.S. greenback. 

The European shares, too, are buying and selling larger at press time alongside beneficial properties within the S&P 500 futures. 

Threat sentiment, which weakened Tuesday following Trump’s choice to abort the fiscal stimulus negotiations, was restored earlier right now after the president reversed course and urged Congress to approve a sequence of coronavirus aid measures, together with a brand new spherical of $1,200 stimulus checks. 

That mentioned, a large-scale stimulus is unlikely to come back by way of any time quickly. As such, each bitcoin and shares might have a troublesome time scoring vital beneficial properties. 

Certainly, minutes of the most recent Federal Reserve assembly, due at 18:00 GMT, are anticipated to reiterate tolerance for prime inflation. That dovish message, nevertheless, has already been priced in by markets. 

For now, the cryptocurrency stays trapped in a narrowing value vary. Contracting triangles often finish with violent strikes on both facet.  

Progress within the new bitcoin addresses has not too long ago picked up. Based on blockchain analyst Cole Garner, that has bullish implications for value. Nonetheless, in accordance with Alex Melikhov, CEO and founding father of Equilibrium & EOSDT stablecoin, the deal with development has been fueled, at the very least partly, by the current mass exodus of bitcoins from controversial crypto derivatives alternate BitMEX to different main exchanges like Kraken, Binance, and Gemini. 

Learn Extra: Analysts Can’t Agree What Prompted Big Spike in New Bitcoin Addresses

XRP (XRP): With Ripple executives threatening relocation out of the U.S., volatility might be anticipated for the world’s fourth largest crypto by market cap.

Uniswap (UNI): Uniswap’s massive correction from Oct. 1 heights of $4.46 has some buyers frightened however that hasn’t fazed customers of the Ethereum-based pockets, MetaMask, because it registered 1 million energetic customers per 30 days hinting at continuous development within the DeFi sector.

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin restarts deposits, withdrawals for bitcoin, ether following $281M hack (CoinDesk)

BitMEX case highlights balance between “being a disruptive financial services innovator” and regulatory compliance (CoinDesk Opinion)

OCC Comptroller Brooks says “criminals will take advantage of whatever system is at their disposal,” noting that the percentage of fraud or criminal activity involving cryptocurrency remains low compared with traditional banking system (WSJ) 

Third quarter “felt in many ways like a watershed in crypto asset markets” (CoinDesk Research)

Silvergate Bank says SEN network getting added traffic from DeFi and surge in stablecoin usage (CoinDesk)

Survey reveals “scams, excessive hype and market manipulation” are seen as main obstacles to DeFi growth (Finder)

Survey by crypto insurance provider Evertas says 90% of institutional investors plan to invest more in cryptoassets like bitcoin over the next five years (Evertas)

Chicago-based bitcoin derivatives market Bitnomial raises $11.6M (CoinDesk)

New feature on browser-extension wallet MetaMask lets users swap tokens using DeFi exchanges like Uniswap, Kyber, Paraswap, 1inch.exchange and dex.ag (CoinDesk)

MIT wins ranking as top blockchain university for 2020, followed by Cornell, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Carnegie Mellon (CoinDesk):   

A report by Swiss bank UBS found billionaires increased wealth by more than a quarter from April to July, as central-bank stimulus helped buoy markets (The Guardian)

U.S. President Donald Trump rejects possibility of further COVID-19 stimulus until after the elections (CNBC)

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell calls for Congress to do more by continuing aggressive economic and fiscal policy (CNBC)

U.S. trade deficit for August increases to $67B, highest in 14 years (CNN Business)

Australian shares rise as federal government discloses plan to run record budget deficit for 2021 fiscal year (Reuters)