Daily crypto news alerts for 25th December, 2020
🗞The Block: investments in cryptocurrency companies in 2020 exceeded $3 billion
According to analysts from The Block, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been a very successful year in terms of investment in cryptocurrency companies.
This year, about $3.1 billion was invested in firms working with blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The total number of transactions was 774. At the same time, there was a significant decrease in activity (by 61%) in Q1 and Q2, although the situation improved towards the end of the year.
The researchers also report that there were 83 mergers and acquisitions in 2020. The volume of such transactions amounted to $691 million, which is 28% more than last year. At the same time, the purchase of CoinMarketCap, Blockfolio and Tagomi services accounted for 96% of the total volume of transactions.
Earlier it was reported that 129 mergers and acquisitions have been conducted in the blockchain industry since 2013. The total value of such transactions was $2.9 billion.In 2019, investments in the blockchain amounted to $3.7 billion, with a total of 741 transactions.
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🗞Mayor of Miami: bitcoin proved to be a stable investment in an unstable year
The mayor of the American city of Miami, Francis Suarez, said that Bitcoin became one of the most stable investments in an unstable 2020.
Before taking office as mayor of the city in 2017, Suarez was a lawyer and also the founder of a real estate firm. In a post on Twitter, Suarez writes that he learned about the first cryptocurrency from people like Tyler Winklevoss and Anthony Pompliano. He also revealed that he is currently reading the book "Billionaires of Bitcoin", written by Tyler Winklevoss.
In response to this announcement, Tyler Winklevoss promised to give Suarez a signed copy of his work. Pompliano also responded to the message, calling Miami "the future city of bitcoin." Suarez noted that he is indeed considering making Miami the first crypto-friendly American city.
Recall that back in early 2019, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel expressed confidence that the adoption of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is inevitable due to the increasing instability of the financial and political systems of the world.
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🗞Decentralized Exchange Aggregator 1inch Launches Protocol Management Token
The 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator and the Mooniswap marketplace are launching a token on the Ethereum network to control the protocol. Part of the 1INCH tokens will be distributed to users of the aggregator.
This 1inch step is similar to the September distribution of UNI tokens by the Uniswap platform. Part of 1INCH tokens will be received by wallets registered on the aggregator and having completed a certain volume of trades. The site's management plans to distribute 6% of the total supply of 1.5 billion tokens among 50,000 addresses.
As a reminder, 1inch launched its automated market maker Mooniswap, now renamed 1inch Liquidity Protocol, in August this year. A profitable farming program was launched on the site, within which users receive tokens for blocking their funds in the protocol.
“With the right rewards for the community, we see a chance to surpass Uniswap in terms of liquidity,” said 1icnh CEO Sergei Kuntz.
It is also planned to launch a special pool "Spread Surplus", which will accumulate "balances" during user transactions - if during a transaction the asset rate has changed, then these "surpluses" will be transferred to a new pool. The funds will then be distributed among the 1INCH holders.
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🗞4 more companies have stopped supporting the Ripple token
The Simplex service started blocking transactions with the startup's cryptocurrency. Bitwise removed it from its index and sold all XRP. The trend to remove the asset from the sites began after the SEC's accusations against the company.
Companies continue to refuse to work with the XRP cryptocurrency after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple. The blockchain startup was accused of selling unregistered securities under the guise of tokens worth $1.3 billion. After that, the OSL, Beaxy and CrossTower exchanges delisted the coin or suspended trading with it.
On December 24, the list was been expanded. First, the Bitwise Asset Management cryptocurrency fund stopped supporting XRP. In his press release, he revealed that he sold his position in the coin and excluded it from the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund. Prior to that, the share of XRP in the fund's assets was 3.8%
Then two other firms followed Bitwise's example. Jump Trading platform and investment company Galaxy Digital, owned by Mike Novogratz, have also ended XRP support.
Next, transactions with XRP began to be blocked by the Simplex processing service, which allows customers to buy and sell cryptocurrency using bank cards. The services of this service are used by leading exchanges such as Binance, Huobi, KuCoin and BitPay. But now their users will not be able to purchase the Ripple token in this way, Simplex representatives confirmed in a letter to The Block.
Financial analyst Francis Coppola, in a comment for Forbes, called this "the beginning of the end" of Ripple. According to him, exchanges will continue to end support for XRP in order to avoid violations of the law in the event that the token is recognized as a security. However, Ripple is unlikely to disappear right away, as justice is slow, the expert suggested.
“Any exchange that allows XRP trading is potentially breaking the law. Therefore, exchanges will definitely stop supporting the token, ”Coppola is sure.
On December 22, the head of the company, Brad Garlinghouse, spoke about the upcoming SEC lawsuit against Ripple. Immediately after that, the token rate began to decline and by now has fallen by almost 50%, to $0.26, according to coinmarketcap.com. Yesterday, on the BitMEX exchange, the XRP futures rate for a short-term fell by 99.92%, to $0.00023.
Happy Merry Christmas to everyone here on read.cash
