Bitcoin 10 years old, Fidelity Investments announce custody services, Coinbase valued at $8 billion, TD Ameritrade and Yale Endowment Fund enter the crypto space.
The News
- The 31st of October marked the 10th anniversary of the white paper published by Satoshi Nakamoto, the start of Bitcoin. businessinsider
- Coinbase, the American cryptocurrency trading platform raised a $300M series E round, valuing the company at $8 billion. cnbc
- Fidelity Investments, the financial services giant which manages $7.4 trillion, announced cryptocurrency custody services. cnbc
- David Swensen, the head of Yale’s $30 billion endowment fund invested in a new cryptocurrency fund called Paradigm. The fund was started by Fred Ehrsam (Coinbase), Matt Huang (Sequoia) and Charles Noyes (Pantera Capital) and raised $400 million. bloomberg
- At Devcon, the annual ethereum developers conference, the creator of the Ethereum network Vitalik Buterin, laid out the network upgrade plan that will see the the move from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. The plan has several different stages of implementation that will occur over the next few years and will increase the transaction speed of Ethereum. trustnodes
- TD Ameritrade announced a strategic investment in an exchange called ErisX, which will enable bitcoin trading for their clients. cnbc
Capital
- Circle, one the big American cryptocurrency marketplaces, acquired SeedInvest, an equity crowdfunding platform. bloomberg
- Bithumb, the largest South Korean cryptocurrency exchange announced a $350 million investment for a 38% ownership stake. coindesk Another European exchange, Bitstamp, was acquired for a rumoured $400 million. fortune
- Starkware closed a $30 million equity round. The company builds a privacy layers on blockchains using zero-knowledge proofs. coindesk
Adoption
- A group of nine Japanese banks will trail a blockchain-powered interbank settlement system developed by Fujitsu. finextra
- GMO Internet Group in Japan announced plans to launch a Japanese yen-pegged cryptocurrency to support reliable borderless transactions. gmo
- Singapore’s National Energy Provider launched a blockchain-based marketplace for trading renewable energy certificates. spgroup
- The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the company that controls Chinese internet censorship published a draft regulation for blockchain start-ups. coindesk
- Oxfam in Sri Lanka announced plans to implement microinsurance for farmers using the Ethereum network. coindesk
Market:
The market slide continued in October finishing the month 6% down with an overall market cap of $200B. Bitcoin fell 3%, finishing the month at $6,400 USD. Bitcoin has now had three consecutive red candles on the monthly chart, the first time since March 2015. Ethereum continued its tumble, finishing the month 12% down at $200 USD.