Cryptocurrency world news for the week of October 7 to 13, 2019

The past week was remembered for dramatic events in the cryptocurrency space - against Tether and Bitfinexsued $ 1.4 trillion for market manipulation,SEC accused Telegram of selling unregistered securities, five companies left the Libra project, U.S. regulators introduced a new guide for cryptocurrency investors, proposed a single indicator of bitcoin value in Russia, and Ukraine plans to legalize cryptocurrency and mining by the end of 2019.

Bitcoin out of danger zone

With the course of bitcoin, everything is not so sad. The first cryptocurrency started the week below the level of $ 8.000, but quickly grew to acceptable values. In two leaps, Bitcoin managed to rise above $ 8.600, but by the end of the week it began to turn in a bit.

The graph for the last seven days looks too muchequal and correct on a general scale: two equal leaps, followed by a short period of low volatility. Such a picture makes one wonder whether the behavior of quotes is another manipulation of whales. Given that we are in the cryptocurrency market, this version seems the closest to reality.

Market capitalization at the time of writing is $ 225 billion. The dominance index is 66.5%.

SEC has secured a temporary ban on TON and Telegram Gram tokens

Before the developers had time to publish the rules for using the wallet for Gram tokens, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) declared that the coins are securities.

In the Telegram Open Network (TON) Tokensale171 investors participated, including 39 US residents. The latter acquired Gram for $ 424.5 million. The organizers did not register an ICO in the SEC, which allegedly violated the US Securities Law, and refused to respond to the agenda from the agency.

The SEC urgently obtained a temporary ban in federal court on the distribution of Gram tokens to American investors and filed a lawsuit against Telegram Inc. and Ton Issuer Inc.

The first hearing of the case will be held on October 24. Some investors suggest that Telegram will postpone the launch and go on the Blockstack startup path, eventually obtaining SEC approval in accordance with the established “A +” regulation. Both companies are likely to expect fines.

Telegram emphasized that they were “surprised and upset,” but considered delaying the launch among possible solutions to the problem.

It is known that under contracts with investors the TON launch deadline is October 31, otherwise $ 1.7 billion will have to be returned.

Before the conflict with the SEC, support for Gram was announced by custodians Coinbase Custody and Anchorage.

In Ukraine, they proposed to legalize mining and create a “crypto valley”

At a meeting of Ukrainian legislators, regulatorsand representatives of the blockchain industry proposed to develop cryptocurrency terminology, legalize mining, attract international bitcoin exchanges to the country, implement FATF standards and introduce blockchain technology into state registers.

The Ministry of Digital Transformation will present a regulation bill before the end of this year.

On Monday, the Ukrainian blockchain association also published a bill to create a “crypto valley”.

Vitalik Buterin spoke about the transition of Ethereum to PoS

If you believe Vitalik Buterin, then the transition toEthereum 2.0 will take just six hours, but actual implementation will take up to two years. The first stage will be the implementation of the Proof-Of-Stake algorithm, with the ETH1 network technically operating until the ice age of complexity.

Witness data will be added to each transaction, which will allow them to be processed simultaneously on the ETH2 network.

Upon transition, the network is likely to stop completely for one hour.

CFTC recognizes Ethereum as a commodity

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), represented by Chairman Heath Tarbert, has recognized Ethereum as a commodity. The agency is awaiting the launch of regulated futures on Ethereum.

He supported the opinion of the Securities Commission andto US exchanges (SEC) that Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities. At the same time, the status of many other coins is not so clear, but ultimately “similar digital assets should be treated equally,” added the head of CFTC.

According to Tarbert, the coins that appeared as a result of the fork, such as Bitcoin Cash or Ethereum Classic, regulators should perceive similarly to the original cryptocurrencies.

New ASIC Miners S17 + and T17 + from Bitmain

Beijing Bitmain presented new ASIC devices S17+ and T17+. Sales started on October 11, and delivery of the first batch is scheduled for the first ten days of December.

The main product of the line is, of course,Bitmain Antminer S17 +, which with a maximum hash of 74 Tx / s, is at the top of the ranking among the most efficient mining devices, is even higher than the recently introduced Canaan Avalon Miner A1166, with a capacity of 70 TH / s.

Data provided by Bitmain showsminer high efficiency equal to 40 watts per TH. Operating at maximum power, the Antminer S17 + and Antminer S17 + boast an energy consumption of about 3,000 watts per hour, which is provided by an integrated power source.

The second device announced, the Antminer T17 +, is a continuation of the T Antminer series, which has always had a lower starting price compared to the S17 series.

New ASIC Bitmain Antminer T17 + for miningBitcoin has very good characteristics similar to the old Antminer S17e, due to the declared hash power close to 64 TH / s. True, the device’s efficiency is lower, 50 watts per VT, and power consumption is about 3200 watts per hour.

Russia introduced a single indicator of the value of bitcoin

The unified indicator for Bitcoin was presented by the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain (RACIB) and the Commission for Legal Support of the Digital Economy of the Moscow Branch of the Russian Lawyers Association.

The essence of the mechanism is to ensure that duringdays every 30 seconds to request a bitcoin exchange rate from several cryptocurrency exchanges. After that, all the data obtained is carefully analyzed and at 23:59:40 Moscow time, an average value is formed, from which the cross rate to the dollar and the ruble is already calculated. Such a procedure should be carried out every day.

First of all, this will beBitcoin value is determined, but not only: the cryptocurrency rate, which is traded in conjunction with it, will also be calculated. The creators of the system emphasize that their development will make it possible to clarify the situation in the market of electronic currencies, since today the cost of the same types of digital money can vary on different exchanges.

According to the developers of the new assessment systemvalue of cryptocurrencies, it will be in demand, and the peak of its popularity will come when the cryptocurrency in Russia begins to be used in commercial and institutional calculations.

U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) updates cryptocurrency investor guide

The SEC, CFTC, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) called on cryptocurrency service providers to comply with a number of legal requirements, including the US Bank Secrecy Act and AML / KYC / CFT.

US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) topicsOver time, it updated the guide for cryptocurrency owners, in which it clarified its position on forks, the value of cryptocurrencies received as income, and the calculation of taxable profit when selling digital assets.

The IRS believes that forks are ordinary income, taxes from which are calculated at the market price at the time of receipt. The same applies to assets received as part of airdrops.

The agency explained how to calculate the base value of the extracted cryptocurrency and each unit of the digital asset sold.

The cryptocurrency revenue column also appeared in the most common tax form 1040.

Binance Cryptocurrency Exchange Launches P2P Trading Service Supporting RMB

Bitcoin exchange Binance has launched p2p trading of BTC, ETH and USDT in pairs with the Chinese yuan in an application on Android.

The platform will add support for payment systemsWeChat and Alipay. This should restore the ability for Chinese residents to trade cryptocurrencies, which they lost after a series of crackdowns by the central government in 2017.

However, Alipay immediately announced that it would block transactions related to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

According to The Block analysts, before that, WeChat and Alipay deliberately turned a blind eye to the fact that large exchanges used them as a gateway for working with Chinese traders.

Visa, MasterCard and eBay quit Facebook's Libra crypto project

At the beginning of the week, US Senators SherrodBrown and Brian Schatz have called on Visa, Mastercard and Stripe to leave Facebook's Libra digital currency project. Already at the end of the week, companies are following this advice, followed by eBay and Mercado Pago. Before this, PayPal refused to participate.

pic.twitter.com/h72JHb9320

- Larry Cermak (@lawmaster) October 11, 2019

At the same time, Visa and Stripe emphasized that they still see the potential in the blockchain and Libra.

Calibra CEO David Marcus wrote that you should not put an end to the project, although in the short term it will significantly hit him.

Amid pressure from regulators around the world, Mark Zuckerberg will speak in the US Congress on October 23.

The lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex

IFinex Inc.Its subsidiaries, top management of the Bitfinex exchange, Crypto Capital processing, and Global Trade Solutions AG have become defendants in a $ 1.4 trillion class action lawsuit filed by lawyers Val Freidman and Kyle Rocher, who had previously sued Craig Wright.

Tether and Bitfinex accused of violating US lawCommodity Exchanges, RICO Act, Money Laundering, Pump & Dump, market manipulation through the issuance of USDT and deliberate deception of investors.

Judging by the set of charges, we are talking about all the alleged crimes that the tandem committed during its existence.

The companies knew about the preparation of the lawsuit in advance and called all claims “unfounded.”