Week In Review

All Large Caps Become Stablecoins Except For Tether

This week was one of the least volatile in recent memory and certainly has had the market speculating as to where we’ll go from here.  

Despite a drop of 20 Billion mid-week, things have never been so quiet on the charts.

However, there’s been quite a lot of noise in other fronts.

As reported by the Block, NASDAQ is exploring the possibility of opening its own securities token exchange.

“U.S. exchange operator Nasdaq could gatecrash the crypto market with a new platform, according to people familiar with the situation.

Nasdaq is speaking with a number of firms as part of its efforts, including blockchain startup Symbiont. The people said the platform would issue tokenized securities as well as trade them. If such a platform were to successfully come to market it would join a number of firms offering such services including Polymath, tZero, and TrustToken.”

The big takeaway from this is that security tokens are quickly becoming the safest bet in crypto. After all, they’re essentially just an infrastructure upgrade to our current settlement and exchange system.

The key is betting on infrastructure plays. Bitcoin and Ethereum were both groundbreaking infrastructure players, and soon we’ll see who plays a similar role in the security token space.

What we’ll likely see in the coming year is the fight between established players, like ICE and NASDAQ, versus startups like Polymath, tZero, and Preflogic.

The traditional institutions will likely win the exchange-building race, but the start-ups have a head start on capturing market share in the issuance of security tokens.  

Whatever the case, there are likely big fish ahead for the well-prepared, so continue to watch the development of this new space.

The news about NASDAQ was timed nicely with comments made by CFTC Chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, who commented on the role of institutional investors in the crypto space, saying:

“We’ve still got a long way to go, there’s a lot of issues in some of these spot exchanges, a lack of transparency, a lot of conflict of interest, a lack of systems and systems safeguards, and that’s a concern. But you know, like all things, it takes time to mature, and with the movement of more institutional investors into the space, I think we’ll see that [maturation].”

He went on further to describe the role that the Bitcoin Futures had played, saying that they, “actually sapped the bitcoin bubble that emerged at the end of 2017 and we’ve seen bitcoin, perhaps, in some people’s view, achieve a more sustainable level than it was during the bubble period last year.”

I’m not sure I would agree that it was solely the futures that deflated the bubble and led to a 10-month bear market, especially given the lack of volume on them, but they could have certainly contributed.

If this is truly how the CFTC feels about futures contracts, then the rumored Ethereum Futures are likely not far away.

This could also influence how the SEC views the role of a potential Bitcoin ETF, but it should be noted that they are quite different.

Still, it is positive to see that government officials are taking this space seriously and working with a “do no harm” approach, even if that’s an unrealistic goal.

A few more news items I want to cover:

• Ethereum’s main test network, Ropsten, is currently at a standstill. Code for ethereum’s upcoming hard fork, dubbed Constantinople, was set to be activated on Ropsten at block number 4,230,000. However, according to blockchain explorer sites such as Etherscan and Blockscout, the current Ropsten network is stalled at block 4,299,999.
• Kim Byung-gun, a prominent plastic surgeon and blockchain investor, finalized the deal between BK Global Consortium and Bithumb, officially acquiring the leading cryptocurrency trading platform at a valuation of $350 million.
• There’s an unconfirmed report that TRON has actually partnered with a Chinese Internet giant Baidu. Tron has a history of overhyping rumors, so I’d remain skeptical on this one.
• Investors are now able to trade litecoin on the Winklevoss brothers-founded cryptocurrency exchange Gemini. The exchange announced Friday that it would soon enable deposits and trading for litecoin (LTC), adding the early Bitcoin spin-off to its existing offerings of bitcoin, ethereum and zcash.
• Tether is currently trading at $0.98 as people panic following the Bitfinex announcement that fiat deposits are temporarily disabled.

Overall the market is holding steady and we are still in the same mindset we began this month with: cautiously optimistic.

Watch Doc’s recent online classes here and here on “Four Rules to Chart Like a Pro.” 

We’ve started to produce episodes for The ReadySetCrypto Podcast; all of our episodes are posted on our blog (and on iTunes) and Episode Thirteen is now available. Episode Thirteen is our interview with the CEO of Internxt about his upcoming beta of distributed storage services using Xcloud. (like a Dropbox). Look for more episodes shortly as we comb the crypto space for valuable interviews, and create valuable content to keep you in the loop! See you tomorrow!

Doc Is On The Road This Weekend And Will Return Monday, October 15th!

Join us next Wednesday October 17 at 6pm ET (New York) for a special class with Mav. “What You Don’t Need to Know to Get Into Crypto; The No-BS Guide to Crypto Investing” Watch the space below for details. Doc has also been doing a regular “Trade School” video with links in the Premium Chat room of the Discord page.

New to Cryptocurrencies? Check out our archived classes “Intro to Cryptocurrency Trading”, “How to Find Your Next Big Cryptocurrency: Intro to Fundamental Analysis,” Mav’s  class on “Security and Wallets” and Doc’s classes, “Introduction to Technical Analysis” and “Short Term Trading Strategies” which are now all available for immediate purchase in our Store, and seconds away from viewing in the Premium Member’s Home. View more about them at our online store by CLICKING HERE.

Listen to Doc’s presentation “Four Powerful Rules for Crypto Trading” here!

Sign up for our NEW Telegram channel by clicking here!

Watching on Mobile? Click this link to watch in HD

Check out our BLOG for the latest videos, posts, and Podcasts! Click this link and bookmark the page!

If you go to buy any of our courses at our online “store” you can receive $10 off the street price with your member’s “coupon code” of member18crypto

Check out our new merch store! Simply go into the regular store and select “Merchandise” to pick up some RSC merch!

Defensive Actions for the next trading day: 

• None.