The People's Bank of China (PBOC) is testing digital currency in efforts to become one of the first central banks to issue digital money; China's population has been increasingly using digital forms of payment with approximately 450 billion mobile users reported in 2016; a cryptocurrency would likely be popular among consumers and is also expected to lower transaction costs for sellers; a digital currency could also help the PBOC to more efficiently manage risks in the financial system and economy with a better way for tracking transactions; the PBOC has outlined how a digital currency would work but it has not announced a specific timeline for implementation. Source
Coinbase has raised $100 million in a Series D funding round led by IVP; firm has exchanged over $25 billion of digital currency and plans to use the funding for expanding its business operations; the company currently has three main products: Coinbase for retail digital currency trading, GDAX for institutional and professional digital currency trading, and Toshi a browser for the Ethereum network. Source
Canadian securities regulators released what they call a staff notice on "cryptocurrency offerings"; Coindesk reports on the notice, "With the offerings that we have reviewed to date, we have in many instances found that the coins/tokens in question constitute securities for the purposes of securities laws, including because they are investment contracts."; this has now become a trend in the market as the US SEC released a report and Chinese regulators released a statement about how they view this emerging capital raising method; the statement also covers companies looking to set up funds and encourages a regulatory sandbox to be created. Source
The trading suspension was announced for American Security Resources Corp. (ARSC) on August 24, 2017; the suspension will be effective until September 8, 2017; according to the SEC, "The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of ARSC because of questions that have arisen regarding publicly available information about the company in press releases on OTCMarkets.com, dated August 1, and August 8, 2017, concerning, among other things, the company's business transition to the cryptocurrency markets and early adoption of blockchain technology."; the SEC has suspended trading on at least two other companies involved in bitcoin that are listed on the OTC markets. Source
Chinese bitcoin exchange ViaBTC plans to open an overseas platform after Beijing ordered the closure of all cryptocurrency exchanges on the mainland; ViaBTC announced a week ago that it would follow Beijing’s orders and shut down its Chinese exchange business by the end of September. Source
Omise is planning a funding round through digital cryptocurrency; the blockchain digital payments startup will sell digital ether tokens with a fundraising target of up to $16 million; the fundraising will begin in May and the service plans to launch in the fourth quarter; the digital cryptocurrency fundraising represents a new funding alternative to venture capitalist investing and allows the firm to gain public participation from a broad set of stakeholders without selling equity in the company. Source
The SEC's report on ICOs as securities has prompted ShapeShift to review the listings on its cryptocurrency exchange; ShapeShift will likely delist some of its traded listings and says it does not want to be characterized as a securities exchange; ShapeShift and its legal counsel will apply the Howey Test to the cryptocurrency listings which is the current market standard also used by the SEC for determining whether an offering is considered a security. Source
Cryptocurrencies have received a lot of attention in the last few months; currently there are about 15 dedicated hedge funds to the space, by end of 2017 there will be about 100 crypto hedge funds; General Crypto's Managing Partner Logan Kugler talks about the hedge fund growth and the strategy behind his fund buying and holding coins with game changing value; with a significant jump in institutional capital coming he helped put together a list of top cryptocurrency investors who all share their thoughts on their top three crypto choices. Source
BTCC, one of China’s biggest bitcoin exchanges, on September 14 announces that it will stop new user registration immediately, and will shut down cryptocurrency exchange business from September 30 onwards; its mining pool business will stay intact though; for now, BTCC only trades four “mainstream” cryptocurrencies, being Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and BCC. Source
Fidelity’s chief executive Abigail Johnson spoke about the company’s current projects involving cryptocurrency at the Consensus conference; they have made venture investments and are also looking at applications of blockchain technology; Fidelity has set up a mining operation which is making money for the company. Source