Mastercard could Support a Crypto Credit Card Network and Coinbase may Announce IPO Plans Today

The State of The Market — October 26, 2018BTC: $6,466.32 (-0.14%)ETH: $202.68 (-0.03%)XRP: $0.4585 (+0.40%)

Bitcoin dipped below $6,500 but still shows an uncharacteristic lack of volatility as it hovers around $6,400 to $6,500. Ethereum continues to hold slightly above $200 on the majority of cryptocurrency exchanges. Today the majority of the top 100 cryptocurrencies are posting mild 1 to 3 percent losses and the total market cap is currently at $208.7 billion.

In other news, Mastercard filed for a ‘fractional reserve management of blockchain assets’ patent. The patent essentially describes a cryptocurrency credit card network and system that simultaneously tracks crypto assets as well as fiat assets. Also, cryptocurrencies have shown little correlation to equities as the stock market rout continues. In recent days, the stock market lost all of its gains for 2018. Meanwhile, the broader cryptocurrency market is holding steady. As a result, there does not appear to be any correlation between stocks and cryptocurrencies.

1) CNBC Crypto Trader host, Ran NeuNer says that Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange will announce their IPO on Friday, October 26. NeuNer went as far as stating that the IPO announcement will take place live on his show. In his tweet, NeuNer also reviewed Coinbase’s user statistics which show that 80 percent of the exchange’s revenue came from consumers and 15 percent was sourced from institutional accounts. The remaining 5 percent was simply labeled as “other”. The data also shows that Coinbase expects to earn $450 million in Q4 of 2018. In 2017, Coinbase president Asiff Hirji suggested that an IPO could occur in late 2017. Hirji is on records as saying “It is certainly in the interest of our investors…and the most obvious path of Coinbase is to go public at some point.” (Read More)

2) Potential investors in Bitmain’s IPO were provided with fabricated information about the company’s financial backing. Investigative reporting conducted by CoinDesk found that investors received documents suggesting that Bitmain had secured financial backing from Digital Sky Technologies Global and GIC Private Limited. One of the pitch documents explicitly stated that Bitmain “recently completed a $400 million Series B round of financing from Sequoia Capital, DST and GIC, with a pre-investment valuation of $12 billion.” Another version made similar claims and both versions were forwarded to public social media discussions, private email lists, and crypto-media. An inside source told CoinDesk that “Bitmain created the pitch deck without offering proof.” Financial regulatory laws in Hong Kong criminalize the issuance of false statements “for the purpose of inducing another person into an agreement” and if these assertions are found to be true, Bitmain management could be penalized with up to 7 years in prison and hefty fines. (Read More)

3) According to a story published in BREAKER, not all of the coin journals in the crypto space have the same journalistic integrity as others. Corin Faife, a BREAKER contributor, recently set up a fake email account and contacted 28 different journals to inquire about advertising rates, and if he received a reply he followed up by asking how much it would cost for an article “to not be marked as ‘sponsored.’” 12 out of 28 outlets said they would publish the content without identifying it as sponsored, including NewsBTC, Bitcoinist, Cryptovest, AMB Crypto, and Blokt. (Read More)

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