A few weeks ago we covered the announcement of the soon to launch Voyager platform, created by former executives from Uber and E-Trade.

The platform will allow fiat to crypto purchases, by acting as virtual broker - finding which exchange has the coin you want at the lowest price, and executing the trade all within the Voyager app.

At that time it wasn't yet clear where the coin would go from there - keeping in mind that the Voyager app could find the coin on any of the 20 exchanges it's algorithm searches for the best price, and at some point these tokens need to end up in 1 wallet.

Today we have an answer, as Voyager has confirmes a strategic partnership with leading wallet provider Ethos.

“With this transformative partnership in place, we believe we are offering the first end to end, fully integrated solution in the crypto asset space. We are always seeking out products and solutions that enhance the experience for crypto investors and these best-in-class solutions from Ethos are a perfect complement for us, further strengthening our offerings and goal of operating a unique, pure-play, open architecture platform.” says Stephen Ehrlich, CEO of Voyager.

Shingo Lavine, the CEO of Ethos will also be officially joining the Voyager Advisory Board “This partnership creates a true bridge between traditional and institutional finance within the crypto-asset market to create a dynamic and borderless financial ecosystem” says Lavine.

Voyager is set to launch soon and is currently in it's beta phase of development.  Currently, interested users can put their name on the wait-list for early access.

For more info on Voyager visit www.InvestVoyager.com

Just a couple weeks ago while covering TechCrunch Disrupt here in San Francisco, I wrote a report following an appearance from CoinBase CEO Brian Armstrong where he outlined his vision of one day CoinBase being a marketplace for thousands of tokenized assets.

But other than that, i've ignored all those internet rumors of CoinBase adding a new token, because it's always been bullshit.  Too many times to count now, cryptocurrency communties were thrown into a frenzy following 'credible' rumors that CoinBase was about to add an asset.  Ripple, 0x and Tron all went through multiple rounds of this, and it always amounted to nothing more than people pumping up coins they hold by finding suckers to FOMO buy into them.

But this time is different. Because this time - CoinBase is actually involved!

Just launched on their website is a feature all those exchanges that offer dozens or hundreds of coins have - a form people can fill out to have their token evaluated for consideration to be added to an exchange.

Vice President of CoinBase Dan Romero says  "It’s responding to what customers want. Adding more assets is directly something customers are telling us. So, ultimately, by adding more assets, we are going to increase trust and make the platform easy to user for customers."

Whatever your personal opinion on CoinBase may be - the fact is, they have the largest user base in the US, and many of the people who got into cryptocurrency during the 2017 boom haven't ventured outside of it.  In other words, they don't know how to buy anything CoinBase doesn't offer. 

When CoinBase adds a token, that token is instantly exposed to a massive new investor base that otherwise would have never found them.

If you're thinking this is the end of those fake rumors of the next coin CoinBase is 'about to add' - unfortunately this is probably the beginning of the worst ever run of false information.  So watch out, this is the perfect time for coin pumpers to spread lies - be smart out there folks!

Early last month I covered the announcement of the new cryptocurrency venture called "Bakkt", a company launched by the New York Stock Exchange, Microsoft, and Starbucks.

Today, we're learning about the first product they will offer - Bitcoin futures, with a twist.  The company tweeted:

"Our first contracts will be physically delivered Bitcoin futures contracts versus fiat currencies, including USD, GBP and EUR. For example, buying one USD/BTC futures contract will result in daily delivery of one Bitcoin into the customer’s account."

To understand why they would be physically delivering something that represents a virtual asset such as Bitcoin, you need to understand the very complex legal framework of 'custody'.  The issue is something that's held Wall Street back from offering cryptocurrency investments, until a solution that meets legal compliance is created.

I explained it this way last week covering a company that believes they have a custody solution.

Voyager, a new and licensed crypto-asset broker that provides investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto-assets, today announced that Glenn Barber has joined as Chief Institutional Officer of Voyager Institutional. Voyager Institutional is a newly formed business line that will focus solely on delivering its best-in-class crypto trading solution to traditional buy-side firms, hedge funds, brokerages and market makers, among other professional investors. In his role, Barber is charged with cultivating relationships, driving broader awareness of the brand, and activating new accounts throughout the institutional community. The institutional rollout is expected to commence late in Q4 2018.

The timing of Barber’s hiring and the establishment of Voyager Institutional stems in part from the immediate and increasing institutional demand that Voyager has experienced since it announced plans this summer to launch its first offering later this year – a commission-free mobile trading application for retail investors that delivers best execution via smart order routing technology.

Stephen Ehrlich, CEO of Voyager, said: “Expanding our offering and leveraging our infrastructure to include the institutional community was always a part of our long-term strategic roadmap. Based on the sheer number of conversations since we announced our retail offering, it’s clear that there is a void in the marketplace and an immediate desire by institutions to participate in and offer their clients access to this emerging asset class without the significant resources, costs and time that would be required to develop an in-house solution." Ehrlich noted that institutional investors would be able to connect to the Voyager infrastructure by writing directly to its APIs, thereby enabling them to offer crypto trading to their clients while maintaining their existing user interfaces.

Speaking about the firm’s new Chief Institutional Officer Ehrlich said: “Glenn’s capital markets acumen and deep industry relationships are exactly what we need to create optimal solutions for this critical universe of investors. He is an accomplished relationship manager and business-builder who has a proven track record of harnessing technology to improve the client experience and bottom line.”

“It’s invigorating to join a team that encompasses such a unique combination of trading, expertise, market structure knowledge and disruptive technology professionals. Our goal is to bring the level of access, connectivity and innovation that institutional investors, in particular, are seeking in order to effectively participate in crypto trading” said Barber.

Barber is based in the firm’s NYC headquarters and reports directly to Ehrlich.

Barber was most recently Managing Director of Equities and Co-Head of the NY-based Global Program Sales desk at Deutsche Bank. Prior to that he was Managing Director, Equities at Barclays Capital, Inc., where he was a desk head and the lead business sponsor for building out their international program trading offering. Other roles included being a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers and a number of other equity positions in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

About Voyager Digital

Voyager Digital Holdings Inc. (Voyager) through its subsidiary, CryptoTrading Technologies, LLC is a crypto-asset broker that provides retail and institutional investors with a turnkey solution to trade crypto assets. Voyager offers investors best execution, data and custody services through its institutional-grade open architecture platform. Voyager was founded by established Wall Street and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who teamed to bring a better, more transparent and cost efficient alternative for trading crypto-assets to the marketplace. Voyager is based in New York and is registered with FinCen.

More info http://www.InvestVoyager.com

US Congressman Tom Emmer (Republican) of Minnesota's 6th congressional district has been serving since 2015, he is now also the co-chair of the new Congressional Blockchain Caucus.

He is currently proposing a series of 3 bills centered around cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, the “Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act,” , “Resolution Supporting Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technology, and the “Safe Harbor for Taxpayers with Forked Assets Act.”

He outlines the purpose of each as:

Resolution Supporting Digital Currencies and Blockchain Technology
Expresses support for the industry and its development in the United States. Like the internet, the federal government should provide a light touch, consistent, and simple legal environment. 
Read the full bill here.

Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act
Affirms that certain blockchain related entities that never take control of consumer funds do not need to register as a money transmitter. Examples of these entities include "miners" that validate network integrity and multisignature providers that provide enhanced asset security to users.
Read the full bill here.

Safe Harbor for Taxpayers with Forked Assets Act 
Taxpayers can only comply with the law when the law is clear. This bill will provide a safe harbor for taxpayers with "forked" digital assets. Further it will restrict fines against individuals that attempt to report these assets until the IRS provides any type of guidance regarding the appropriate means of reporting them
Read the full bill here.

The bills are currently in their "draft" phase, with no estimated date on when they could potentially be voted into law.

If these bills were to pass, expect nothing short of a massive, lasting market boom. This would provide the framework that large institutional investors have been asking for - before dumping trillions into the market.

We'll be following this story closely.

Love em or hate em, Ripple has had an amazing week.

Earlier today Ripple actually did officially steal the #2 spot on Coinmarketcap for a brief period of time - at the high Ripple's total market cap was about $26 billion, leaving a $3 billion gap between them and Ethereum when XRP bumped Ether down to #3 at around $23 billion.

As the day progressed though, it appears some XRP investors decided it was a good time to take a profit and sold some tokens - while Ethereum investors appear to have to held firm or buy more.

At the time of publishing - there's barely $1 billion separating them, with Ethereum at $23,269,161,168 and XRP at $22,560,661,106.

Ripple's rise this week comes from two front - the first a rumor that xRapid payment platform is ready to launch, and a confirmed report that PNC Bank will use RippleNet to process international payments.

Coinbase is in for some competition. We mentioned the plan a few months ago, and it appears progress is being made - now the wait-list is open for those who want to get early access when it launches - before the year's over!

The exchange is called "Voyager" and it's founders include Uber co-founder Oscar Salazar, as well as early Uber investor Philip Eytan.

Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich told Fortune magazine.“We saw an opportunity to build a dynamic smart order router that can take advantage of the marketplace and also offer customers no commissions”  Stephen previously ran trading arm of the online stock trading site E-Trade.

Now here's the part that sounds most exciting - Voyager will have the ability to pull price data and make purchases though over 10 global exchanges - and execute the trade on whichever has the lowest price for that coin at that moment. Prices can vary for the same coin from one exchange to another, and sometimes widely - knowing you're always getting the best price is a pretty big advantage.

Then as icing on the cake - there's zero fees (for now), which is why I expect this to take a large bite out of Cobinhood, the cryptocurrency trading platform launched by stock trading app Robinhood which also boasts "zero fees" - but features a lot less coins.

They aim to launch with 15 cryptocurrencies and rumor is among them will be Ripple's XRP, and Stellar - making them the first mainstream US based exchange to feature them.  “If you see it being traded today by some of the most prominent players, we will definitely have those, plus some” CEO Stephen Ehrlich said, describing how they'll decide which coins to include.

Beta testing is under way, with a full launch right around the corner in Q4 of this year! We're hoping to be the first to provide an in depth Voyager exchange review and sneak peak soon.

We suggest getting on the wait-list now so you can be among the first with access https://www.thevoyagerexchange.com

Michael Li is now the latest high-profile hire for Coinbase.  Li served as LinkedIn's head of analytics and data science, but will now be known as CoinBase's VP of data.

"Blockchain technologies are being rapidly created and adopted, and Coinbase is driving this evolution. I’m excited by the opportunity to combine my passion about data and the endless possibilities of data innovations in the cryptocurrency and blockchain world." says Li.

Li will be joining another recently relocated LinkedIn executive Emilie Choi, who was head of corporate development at LinkedIn, and is now the VP of corporate and business development at CoinBase.

Earlier this year CoinBase also snatched up Amazon's general manager of Amazon Web Services, Tim Wagner - who is now VP of engineering at CoinBase.

Blockchain tech is rapidly infiltrating many different sectors across the globe and has therefore become a huge talking point of late. With world-famous enterprises, banks and governments taking interested in distributed public ledger advancements, it’s no wonder that blockchain-related events are becoming more frequent with Decentralized – one of the biggest blockchain summits in Europe – set to take place from 14-16 November 2018 in Athens, Greece.

Organized in collaboration with the University of Nicosia – an educational establishment pioneering blockchain developments in the Mediterranean – Decentralized 2018  will welcome over  1200 attendees, 70 speakers and 50 sponsors including finance-focused marketing agency Contentworks.

Attending a conference of this kind is sure to be a great experience, but it can also take your brand to new and exciting heights, helping you to:

1. Know and understand the blockchain sector in detail.

There’s no doubt that Decentralize will attract some of the brightest minds in the blockchain, crypto and finance sector. The panel of speakers which includes field experts such as Susanne Tarkoswki, founder and CEO of BITNATION, Cherie Aimée, Director of Communications at ShipChain INC and blockchain pioneers from the University of Nicosia such as CEO Antonis Polemitis is a real talking point. Those set to give talks know their industry inside out and can offer a host of valuable insights that are well-worth your time and concentration.

2. Network with industry experts and develop your social contacts.

Networking with attendees and speakers is a great way to enhance your knowledge of the blockchain sector – but don’t just leave it all to the last minute. Why not reach out on social media and start forming professional bonds before the conference? Similarly, arranging meetings with companies like Contentworks could help you tap into blockchain specifics such as content marketing and this in turn could propel your business forward in the future. Don’t forget to ask questions, take notes and do all you can to get the most out of this occasion.

3. Get business from other attendees who value your services.

With so many like-minded people gathered under one roof, this is your chance to shine. While you don’t want to come across as overly pushy or salesy, it’s the ideal opportunity to mingle and discuss what you do with individuals who might be interested. Swapping business cards/marketing materials is a great way to start and may lead to business opportunities down the line.

If you want to make your attendance of Decentralized known, your efforts should start long before the event with well-placed PRs. Let your consumers know you’re making the trip!

4. Come across as a progressive company.

The very best companies out there continue to grow and learn constantly. They never stop trying to better themselves. That’s why it’s such a good idea to attend events like Decentralized as it will show you care about expanding your knowledge. To maximise your efforts, be sure to share stories and news on your social channels. Going live is another option but don’t forget to also put your techy devices down and soak up the atmosphere from time-to-time too

5. Bond with your team and let your hair down.

Decentralized is sure to keep your team busy, but when you’re not attending talks or meetings, how about exploring the beautiful city of Athens? There’s so much to see and do in this part of the world with a Sightseeing Bus Tour being one of the best ways to enjoy top attractions without getting too tired. The Acropolis of Athens is a must as is the Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum. Greece is also well-known for its cuisine, so how about bonding with your team over a meze?

Decentralized is rapidly approaching. If you’d like to know more about how blockchain marketing can improve the authenticity of your business and encourage retention, arrange a meeting with the Contentworks team today. 

Earlier this year, cryptocurrencies reached a market cap of over $800 billion. $21 billion was raised by ICOs alone. 21 billion dollars invested in a relatively primitive way. Global inclusion, since crypto fundraising see no boundaries, made it possible for anyone with an Ethereum address to become part of the investor class.

For regulators, this was a nightmare. For accredited investors it may have been enticing, but ultimately too off-grid and grey-market. When you are used to financial advisors, hedge fund managers, and VCs from the tech world, crypto was no place for a professional. Launched in Germany in 2017, Iconiq Lab became the first “decentralized” venture capital group. They saw the value in crypto, the attention it was gathering, and understand both the curious demand and the apprehension. And so the project was created to clear a path for the more demanding and discerning investors.

Iconiq is attempting to make everything about ICOs easier, safer, and with more successful results. This includes launch services, business development, as well as integrated programs and memberships for investors. They propose a new ecosystem as the backbone of structured and regulated ICO growth.

ICOs that graduate from their accelerator program are vetted, bolstered, and all but proven. Essentially, Iconiq operates like a business incubator for ICOs. They offer financing and professional company building to blockchain and crypto startups And when we say “select”, we mean only 1% of applicants even get accepted to their program. This focuses their services to honing only the best and brightest opportunities.

For the investor, Iconiq offers a variety of services, from asset management and custody to market data and even compliance. It’s essentially a one-stop shop for a hands-off crypto investor looking for the highest returns. While the average crypto-fan may be looking for autonomy and control, most understand the need for custodial services and other on-ramps for mass adoption. Large investment firms and hedge fund operations may be starting to take part in the markets, but Iconiq is creating a premier infrastructure to bridge the gap between accredited investors and viable blockchain startups with a whole lot of promise.

This infrastructure is built around the ICNQ ERC20 token. The token uses are yet to be made completely clear, but based on the ICNQ whitepaper, ICNQ is the value driver of the Iconiq Holding ecosystem, providing membership access to high quality investment vehicles and voucher discounts on ecosystem products and services. While the token apparently has a utility value within this ecosystem, speculative trading on major exchanges will likely be its primary purpose at first.

The Iconiq core team is made up primarily of investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and venture capitalists with experience. Patrick Lowry, the CEO, is a former auditing manager for clients such as Blackrock and Vanguard. Advisory board features a robust team of legal experts and blockchain enthusiasts.

While Iconiq is already underway as a business and token system, many of their flagship ICOs will have their token sales this year and into 2019. Before 2020, Iconiq plans to have ETNs and ETFs in play to make things even easier for the average investor looking into blockchain. The next of their projects to keep an eye out for is called Unibright: a business solution blockchain company.

For full information visit their site at https://iconiqlab.com/

Okay right off the bat, i'm sorry for the clickbait.  But hey, it's not entirely untrue!

Walmart is selling Bitcoins... they're just made of chocolate.

Cryptocurrency traders have been spotting the Bitcoin candy at their local Walmart's and posting their reactions all over social media.  Including "I hated Walmart until today" and "a better investment than my real cryptocurrency has been, at least I can eat this".



The candy's are the creation of Frankford Candy out of Philadelphia.



Here's an idea though - what better way to spread the word than handing these out on Halloween? I'll be stocking up.

He's an expert in reading the charts and predicting what will come next - and he's proven his skills by using them to make BILLIONS on Wall Street.

Now he says when looking at the Bitcoin charts - prepare for crypto to explode once again!

He shared his findings to twitter, saying:


This is the BGCI chart...I think we put in a low yesterday.   retouched the highs of late last year and the point of acceleration that led to the massive rally/bubble...     markets like to retrace to the breakout..we retraced the whole of the bubble.  #callingabottom

Novogratz is a former Goldman Sachs partner, and head of Galaxy Investment Partners. 

Moolya.global has announced that moolyacoin’s Private Sale is now live and has kickstarted the round with active involvement and discussions with multiple global fund houses and investors.

Speaking about this latest development, moolya.global CEO and Co-Founder, Usha Nirmala says: “We are elated to launch our Private Round. We had early success in our Pre-Sale with many investors engaging with us. This helped us exceed our Soft Cap commitments. We invite global Crypto investors and family houses to engage with us understand our value-proposition and how moolyacoin solves the global startup ecosystem challenges”

www.moolya.global is the only LIVE digital global startup platform which integrates all 6 global communities, while exposing workflows and transactions and investment opportunities between the various communities members on the platform. It has already garnered strategic investments from Pecunio VC fund and Alchemy coin.

Rakesh Naik, Executive Chairman and Founder of ‘moolya.global’ says: “We are the world’s first to vision such a digital platform converging all the stakeholders of startup ecosystems. We premise on the power of network effect and the direct and indirect benefits it entails. We look forward to engaging to global fund houses and are excited at the potential.”

Rudra Pratap, Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder of moolya.global says: “moolyacoin is an ERC20 token of our global patent-pending SaaS platform  - moolya.global - a culmination of an interaction network, marketplace and on-demand service platforms offering services using the Ethereum blockchain framework and moolyacoin as its preferred mode to access and conduct transactions. Our Private Round will offer a peek to this futuristic platform to the global investors and crypto funds.”

About ‘moolya.global’: ‘moolya.global’ is the ‘World’s 1st LIVE Global Digital Startup Ecosystem’ which replicates all the global offline startup ecosystems and provides its 6 vital communities such as ideators, startups, investors, companies, service providers and institutions with digital avatars for online interactions and transactions.

It is our effort on ‘www.moolya.global’ to help its global users focus on their core business aspects and use the digital workflows and services on moolya, for activities such as raising investments and getting their operations serviced. Backers can register at www.moolyacoin.io for their ongoing ICO.

For more information on moolya or to participate in the ICO check out: http://moolyacoin.io/

Crypto prices may be reaching yearly lows, but news in blockchain tech couldn’t be more positive. Large financial firms like Citi are offering new investment options. An ETF may actually get SEC approval. Gemini unveiled a new stable coin. And we’ve seen more growth in crypto industry than ever before. To drive this point home, let’s look at the new roadmap for Ethereum 2.0, according to the announcement released this week.

Beacon chain client - a new sidechain that will link to the mainchain to allow improved scalability. 7 different development teams are researching this new process. Each team is focused on a different coding language.

Aggregate signatures - a method of limiting the bottleneck of on-chain transactions. eWASM - a replacement for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Ethereum will likely use what is called a “delayed execution model”. Delaying smart contract execution in theory would mean that shards are responsible for transactions and storing data only. Smart contracts would be transacted in 2nd layer solutions. eWASM will increase transaction throughput.

Rocket Pool - the new version of Proof of Stake which works with Casper, Ethereum’s consensus algorithm.

This detailed info is from Darren Langley, senior developer with Rocket Pool. According to Langley, scalability and new design will be the main features of the next generation of Ethereum.

So while the price of Ethereum my fall to sub-$100 levels, don’t be fooled into thinking this is the end of the worlds 2nd largest blockchain.

With all the talks of regulations coming, and probably soon - this isn't a huge surprise.  The companies that will be effected want to make sure politicians hear their viewpoints before they sign anything into law.

What we know so far is that the lobbying group will be called the "Blockchain Association" and the new organization is backed with funding from Polychain Capital, Coinbase, Circle, Digital Currency Group, and several others.

Speaking to the Washington Post, lawyer for Coinbase Mike Lempres said:

"The Blockchain Association is an effort to get the preeminent companies in the space together know they're hearing from companies that welcome regulation when it's appropriate ... We're not companies looking to game the system, but trying to develop a legal and regulatory system that'll stand the test of time" 

As far as more specifics, I must warn our readers that these details are unconfirmed rumors at this point, from sources unwilling to go on the record yet. When attempting to confirm these rumors I've only received the response of "we cannot confirm or deny" and some have just ignored requests altogether.

But rumored to be heading the group is Kristin Smith, an experienced and connected lobbist and former congressional staffer. Until this week, Smith was with the major lobbist firm Thompson Coburn, but we have confirmed she has left the firm to move on to something else.

Supposedly, before the end of the week we will know the full details following an official
announcement.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that 2018 is shaping up to be biggest growth year for e-commerce to date. Amazon stock is through the roof, several of your friends own Shopify stores, and you actually do buy your pet food online. You are probably have things you need to order from Amazon right now.

And yet, statistics show that the majority of retail purchases still happen in brick and mortar stores. We’re not quite ready to purchase all our clothing and shoes without seeing and trying them on first. Raincheck is a company that began in 2014 to aggregate data between online and offline stores (O2O) and in turn use that information to help the growth of e-commerce. It was a method to track and predict product sales and online product discovery.

With RainToken, they are attempting to take on the issue of loyalty credits. Loyalty credits are the digital points you receive for shopping frequently at the same store, whether it is in airline miles or cash-back programs. While these points often function as a digital currency, there’s no way to transfer or exchange them between businesses. RainToken is a shot at creating a marketplace for these assets through the trade and transfer of Raintokens on the Stellar blockchain.

Loyalty points can credit card schemes will still exist, but Raincheck is hoping to turn the status quo into a decentralized ledger where these points can be swapped for their tokens. While most people are members of a loyalty program, very few actually use or redeem their credits. The idea is that a marketplace for sharing these points will lead to more usage, more loyalty, and more shopping.

These tokens will essentially be smart contracts. The Stellar chain was chosen because of it’s fast speed, low transaction fees, and micro-transaction focus. Stellar upholds strict KYC identification standards and is proven when it comes to security. The Stellar blockchain is purposely simple, as opposed to Ethereum’s flexible and complicated smart contract network.

The public token sale begins in Q4 for this year. Raincheck plans to have a mobile wallet, a cash-back system, and a full ledger completed before 2020. If you are interested in learning more about the platform or the history of Raincheck, visit Raintoken.org

It's a fairly simple idea.  Currently, an ICO faces different rules in each of the 28 nations in the European Union.

European Parliament member Ashley Fox is proposing a process an ICO could go though to verify their legitimacy, once passed they receive an 'ICO passport' that allows them to raise funds from all of those 28 countries.

“What I’m aiming to do is bring transparency to ICO’s, by allowing intermediaries to perform the required due diligence. And the effect of this will be to provide an EU-wide law which will give a passport to the whole market. ICO’s can carry on, but if they don’t fill the [criteria], they won’t benefit. (This new law) will give them a passport to the whole of the EU market, and I also think it increases transparency. Right now you have 28 countries, some have national rules for raising money and some don’t have any rules at all. If you raise money in France, for example, you can only use that money in France.” says Fox.

If it all pans out smoothly, it could be a huge boost to startups taking the ICO route for funding.

But what could go wrong? Well, it would take all 28 nations to agree on the proposal and be willing to honor the 'ICO passports' or the idea is dead in the water, and the specifics of what an ICO would need to do to receive one isn't clearly laid our yet.

However it's important to note no one is proposing that ICO's without this 'passport' cannot fundraise in the EU. ICO's without it will simply conduct business the same way they have been for the last few years - on a country by country basis.

Wrapping up Global Crypto Press' on the ground coverage of this year's Tech Crunch Disrupt in San Francisco we're ending on a big note on the future of cryptocurrency from the CEO of the biggest exchange, at least as far as user base size - Brian Armstrong of Coinbase.

What he sees coming is massive, and he compares it with NASDAQ, envisioning hundreds if not thousands of tokenized digital assets being traded around the clock.

It's a topic he's probably sick of hearing... to be honest, even i'm sick of hearing (or reading) in every cryptocurrency communtiy online - when will Coinbase add new coins, and which will they be?  But this time the answer was a lot more exciting than the 'you'll have to wait and see' that Coinbase usually gives us.

Host of the discussion, Fitz Tepper asked:

"I still feel like... everyone's watching for what you guys at next, like, do you think that's a problem? And how do you move past it to where you can just add 100 and not have the price freak out and not have people watching like that?"

Coinbase's CEO responded with:

"I mean I certainly look forward to a day where we add a new asset to Coinbase and it's a non event and it almost becomes routine and boring." and continued "It will get there... because I think there's going to be, you know, hundreds of on the platform within, you know, years and I think there could be millions someday."

Millions of tokens? To take that literally seems a bit crazy, but tens of thousands? Absolutely possible! But how would we get there? Armstrong believes in the somewhat-near future, a company tokenizing assets and making them available to the public will simply be standard, saying:

"I think in five years, most startups that are created will have some kind of at least tech startups will have some kind of token associated with it, because that's just how you move value around on the internet now.

It makes sense that any company out there who, you know, has a cap table, they should have their own token, every open source project, every charity, potentially every you know, fund or these new types of decentralized organizations, these new types of decentralized apps, they're all going to have their own tokens. And so, you know, we want to be the bridge all over the world where people come and they they take fiat currency and they can get it into these different cryptocurrencies."

Of course, before we can get excited about what may come in the future, first we must deal with the reality of where things stand today.

Until regulators define the rules on dealing with digital tokenized assets, the majority of which fall under the classification of a 'security' and therefore bound to oversight from the SEC - Brian Armstrong, like so many other are forced to keep their dreams on hold.

Decisions made by the SEC over the coming months will decide if these dreams become a reality.

August was a mixed month for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin rose by more than 10% while other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin had double digit losses. Ethereum and Ripple declined by 30% and 20% respectively. YTD, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin have declined by 40%, 60%, 68%, and 83% respectively. The total market cap of all cryptocurrencies started the month at $260 billion. 
Last month, the biggest news in the cryptocurrency sector was the decision by the SEC to reject nine Exchange Traded Funds’ (ETF) proposals. This was a highly anticipated news by market participants because it would mean more demand by institutional investors. The SEC rejected the proposals, saying that they exposed investors to a lot of risk. The senior management of the SEC later announced that they would review the decision, which was made by junior staff members.

This month, traders will wait for the senior management’s decision after reviewing the ETFs. If one or more ETFs will be accepted, it could mean a short-term price hike of the cryptocurrencies. However, in the long-term, the decision could mean nothing for the currencies. Good evidence of this is the decision by the CBOE and CME to list Bitcoin futures in December last year. Traders anticipated that this would attract more demand by institutional traders. Instead, most of them placed short bets, which is a major reason why their prices collapsed this year.

Apart from the Bitcoin ETFs, traders will focus on Ethereum. The Ethereum network was created to provide application developers with a safe and reliable platform to build applications. To access the platform, the developers are required to pay using ETH Gas. This has led to the criticism that ETH could become valueless because the developers can continue to use the network without paying. These concerns have been shared by the founder of Ethereum Foundation, Vitalik Buterin. It is also the reason why the price of ETH has remained within a narrow range near the YTD low. Last week, the announcement by CBOE that it would list ETH futures provided no catalyst for the currency.

Traders will also focus on cryptocurrency fraud. In recent weeks, several criminal activities have been reported. Bloomberg reported that Robert Mueller was investigating a former Bitcoin executive who was accused of transferring fraud money using Bitcoin. If he is indicted, it could call for more regulations to prevent money laundering. Another fraud that will be watched is the Bitcoin Dark, a fraudulent cryptocurrency that has seen its price soar by more than 270% in what is being viewed as a pump and dump scheme.

Events play an important role in the cryptocurrencies sector. It is during these events that experts talk about the future of the currencies. Of course, some of the words from these experts are taken with a pinch of salt because they tend to have conflicts of interest. Some other participants are usually well-placed government sources who have a role in regulating the industry. This month, several high-profile events will take place.

On September 6, the Blockchain Conference for Software Engineers will take place in Atlanta. The goal of this event will be to share insights on ways to build quality decentralized apps and infrastructure. On 20th, the Asset Backed Crypto Summit will take place in Lisbon, Portugal. This event will showcase startups that have their crypto projects backed by common asses like gold, silver, and lithium.

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The exchange took place today as part of a wider discussion on the topics of blockchain and banking.

Hosted by TechCrunch Editor-at-large Mike Butcher, the discussion included Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Michael Arrington who is one of the original founders of TechCrunch in 2005 but has since moved on to other ventures, including some in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space.

Turns out Arrington and Garlinghouse go way back as well - when TechCrunch sold to AOL, the current Ripple CEO was one of the people inside AOL who helped make the deal happen.

As Editor of Global Crypto Press - i'm all too familiar with what comes next - it's something not only our own team here is split on, but the entire cryptocurrency community. 

On one hand, you have people who see banks turning to blockchain as part of a natural evolution of the technology.  On the other hand, die-hard cryptocurrency enthusiasts who see this tech as a means to an end for corporate controlled banking altogether - and anyone helping bring them into our world is undoubtedly evil.

To my surprise, TechCrunch's Mike Butcher chose this as the first thing to address, asking the Ripple CEO:

"The crypto libertarians to this day rail against ripple and XRP, and anyone who will deal with them... some of them actually literally called you the devil - so, are you?"

Garlinghouse responded:

"Look I think it's interesting place to start in part because I think there are a lot of religious zealots in the crypto space. And I think people believe things in a way that you would kind of describe as religious zealotry, ripple took a contrarian view pretty early in our evolution and said, look, if you want to really revolutionize the way payments work, if you really want to revolutionize the way transactions work in this regard, it's not gonna happen by everybody giving up their existing infrastructure and just switching to something new as much as I am actually a bull on Bitcoin. 

The Bitcoin blockchain is not trying to be one ledger to rule them. All ripple invented, is series of technologies built upon the XRP ledger that allows institutions, banks, and even in some cases governments, to take advantage of these technologies and dramatically accelerate the nature of transactions fully into talking points. But I'm trying to explain the thing I'm getting to is simple. The idea that the people who say that ripple is somehow that your word the devil, it's because we were partnering with the man we decided, if you want to enable an internet of value, got to connect the repositories of value - and the repositories of value are the banks."

Now to be clear, I own no XRP - and wouldn't call myself a fan.  But i'd be lying to say I think Garlinghouse is wrong. 

Just pause for second and honestly consider how ridiculous someone sounds making the case that blockchain is a superior method of both transferring funds and record keeping - and then saying they expect banks not to use it. That's literally everything a bank does, so of course they're keeping up with the latest tech that does it the best.  People expecting anything else are among this childish part of the cryptocurrency world that occasionally makes me cringe - your heart is in the right place, but it's a fantasy.

Point is - Ripple or some other company doing the exact same thing was bound to pop up, and when it did I couldn't have been any less surprised.  If Ripple is evil, it's an evil that would have happened with or without Brad Garlinghouse.

This isn't to say everything the Ripple CEO said had me nodding my head in agreement.

At one point, host Mike Butcher asked Garlinghouse about his 'general view' on Ethereum, in which Garlinghouse responded by pointing out that virtually all of the projects built on it's blockchain so far have proven only to be largely "experimental" and have "solved no real-world problems".

That's a statement I don't take issue with - I take issue with who's saying it. 

A deep look into Ripple's relationships with the banks, and it seems pretty damn experimental too.  When you look at the specifics of when Ripple announces a new relationship with a bank, more often than not you learn that 'experimenting' is exactly what the banks are doing with Ripple.  They're agreeing to try it out, not replace what their doing with any of Ripple's tech, and never by using the actual XRP token.

To understand where Ripple actually stands currently, compared to how they are hyped up by their fans, see what Garlinghouse himself recently told CNBC "You know, by the end of next year (2019), I would certainly hope that we would see you know in the order of... dozens  (of banks using their technology)" - that statement makes Ripple's true position today a bit more clear.

Our coverage of TechCrunch contines through the end of the week, with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstong wrapping things up on Friday.

TechCrunch Disrupt, the world’s top technology and startup event, is taking place in San Francisco on September 5-7, 2018. For more information and to tune-in to the livestream, please visit techcrunch.com

The first of 3 days of the annual Tech Crunch Disrupt just wrapped up! Global Crypto Press' team in Silicon Valley was there covering it all - those reports are being produced at this very moment and will be up soon.

But for now, we have obtained the full video of the SEC's Jina Choi appearance at the event - courtesy of our friends at TechCrunch.

TechCrunch Disrupt, the world’s top technology and startup event, is taking place in San Francisco on September 5-7, 2018. For more information and to tune-in to the livestream, please visit www.techcrunch.com 

Few cryptos have been as controversial in 2018 as TRON (TRX). Accused of plagiarism, vaporware, and hyperbolized marketing tactics, the creators of this project have seen the extremes of human emotions in fans and adversaries. 2017 saw unprecedented growth in the token value, and many investors believed TRON was a pump and dump scam.

But so far, everything has gone as planned for Justin Sun and his operation, from the testnet in the Spring, to the first incarnation of the mainnet (called Odyssey 3.0) and the Super Representative election in June. Now we are just starting to see what the technology is capable with the new Tron Virtual Machine, or TVM.

TVM launched on August 30th and came packaged with smart contracts and a developer kit for decentralized applications. According to their press release, TVM is the first step in creating a “World Computer”. Sound familiar? Yeah, they gave the same pitch for Ethereum, and EOS. Dapps on TVM can be coded in Java, a very popular programming language, and apparently anything created for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) will easily port or migrate to the Tron blockchain seamlessly.

Here is a rundown of some of TVM’s features:

- Fully compatible with Ethereum’s solidity language.

- Virtual memory usage—practically limitless for devs, who won’t need to rely on physical
resources.

- Unique resource consumption for smart contracts—easier on end users and callers of
contracts.

- Ability to create tokens.

- Decentralized exchange.

This Summer the Tron Foundation acquired the file sharing network Bittorent which will connect to the Tron network through a new protocol called Project Atlas. Details have been cryptic, but fans are eager nonetheless.

In addition, the TronWallet was announced, which is said to feature multiple accounts for individual users, a peer-to-peer exchange, smart contract storage, and even a cash-back loyalty program using a unique utility token.

Stay tuned to Global Crypto Press as we’ll be reporting on the first dApps as they become available on TVM and the Tron network.