🗞 Daily Crypto News, July, 19th 💰

Will Ether Price Hit $400 if DeFi Keeps Eating Bitcoin’s Lunch?;
Digital Yuan CBDC Momentum Grows as More Chinese Firms Get to Testing;
Is There A World Beyond YouTube for Crypto?;
Twitter Hacker Is Mixing Bitcoin Loot Using a Wasabi Wallet, Elliptic Says;
Canadian Regulator Accuses Coinsquare of Market Manipulation With Wash Trades Worth 590K BTC;
🗞 Daily Crypto Calendar, July, 19th 💰

Welcome to the Daily Crypto News: A complete Press Review, Coin Calendar and Trading Analysis. Enjoy!

🗞 Will Ether Price Hit $400 if DeFi Keeps Eating Bitcoin’s Lunch?

The rise in DeFi staking services may be killing “interest” in Bitcoin and giving Ethereum’s Ether token the potential to outperform BTC for now.

Not a day goes by without someone shilling something related to Decentralized Finance (DeFi). It’s being touted as being bigger than the 2017 altcoin boom, and when you look at things like the monstrous Tether market cap, the recent surge in the price of Chainlink as well as DeFi platform Celsius recently exceeding $1 billion in crypto deposits, it's clear that these are well-founded claims.

However, the one problem that this potentially presents for Bitcoin is the value proposition to high-net-worth-individuals and institutions considering entering the space.

Earn as much as 8% interest on USDT in a year or risk losing 11% on Bitcoin in a day?

Bitcoin is trading at the top

But what about the same view on the world's number-two coin by market capitalization, namely Ether? Its Ethereum blockchain hosts many of these so-called DeFi projects that have been gaining a lot of attention lately.

The rise of the phoenix

🗞 Digital Yuan CBDC Momentum Grows as More Chinese Firms Get to Testing

As the development of the digital yuan project progresses, the number of China’s largest companies testing the national cryptocurrency is rapidly growing.

Despite the global economic crisis and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the development of the Chinese national cryptocurrency, the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, is steadily progressing. The increase in the number of large companies joining the digital yuan initiative as partners in testing and implementing the technology is clear evidence of the progress the project is making in its development.

Meituan Dianping, the country’s largest wholesale and delivery platform for products, has become the latest corporation to agree to assist the People’s Bank of China in testing and implementing the initiative. The platform currently has almost 450 million customers and about 6 million companies using it to sell their products.

🗞 Is There A World Beyond YouTube for Crypto?

The relationship between the communications giant Google and the cryptoasset industry can be characterized as somewhat antagonistic.

Now, its video-sharing platform, YouTube seems to be on the offensive, de-platforming some crypto-related content creators, leaving them looking for viable alternatives.

No tube for you

As early as 2019, reports began to emerge from content creators within the cryptosphere who claimed that they were receiving warnings from YouTube about the content in their videos. In many cases, videos were removed, forcing the content creators to appeal the decision. In more extreme cases, some content creators found their YouTube channels de-platformed.

🗞 Twitter Hacker Is Mixing Bitcoin Loot Using a Wasabi Wallet, Elliptic Says

Funds collected by the scam that breached Twitter this week appear to be on the move, cryptocurrency tracing firm Elliptic said.

According to transaction data associated with crypto wallets used in the security breach, a total of about $123,000 was collected by the attackers. Of that about 22%, 2.89 BTC, was transferred late last night to an address Elliptic said it “strongly believe[s]” is a Wasabi wallet.

Wasabi wallets allow users to circumvent the transparency guaranteed by bitcoin’s public blockchain by mixing up the transaction trail, thus making it harder for law enforcement to follow the money.

According to Elliptic, the firm is able to identify Wasabi wallets based on distinctive transaction patterns. While exchanges can usually identify their clients using KYC checks, which makes it possible to flag fraudsters for law enforcement, the use of a Wasabi wallet makes it harder to pin down where a client’s money came from.

🗞 Canadian Regulator Accuses Coinsquare of Market Manipulation With Wash Trades Worth 590K BTC

The Ontario Securities Commission has started a proceeding against cryptocurrency exchange Coinsquare and its executives. The Canadian regulator has accused the company of market manipulation, with 840,000 wash trades worth approximately 590,000 bitcoins, representing 90% of the exchange’s reported trading volume.

The OSC Takes Action Against Coinsquare

The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) published on Thursday the Statement of Allegations made by its Enforcement Branch staff in a proceeding against Coinsquare Ltd. and its executives. Three executives are named: CEO Cole Diamond, President and founder Virgile Rostand, and Chief Compliance Officer Felix Mazer.