Crypto News of the Day (24.3.) | The US government is enacting a law to promote the economy, including digital wallets and the digital dollar and other news
4 min readTable of Contents
Here you can find an overview of the most important events that took place during the last day in the cryptoworld.
Markets
Bitcoin has added over 12% in the last 24 hours and is still growing. The current price is above $ 6,700. The Altcoins have also gained momentum and are growing, but overall market capitalization is still well below $ 200 billion.
You can monitor the current cryptocurrency prices – here.
Cryptocurrency exchages, Banks
On Tuesday (March 24), crypto exchange Bitfinex announced that it has “deployed a proprietary surveillance tool — Shimmer — to combat market abuse and help promote orderly trading on the exchange.” In a press release shared with CryptoGlobe, Bitfinex explained what Shimmer—which gets its name from a defensive mechanism used by giant honeybees—is designed to do.
Shimmer is a “market alert and reporting tool” that will “identify and investigate possible manipulative behaviours and suspicious trading practices on the exchange, improving market integrity and visibility.” It has be designed to “operate seamlessly with Hive, Bitfinex’s distributed, multi-threaded and multi-process matching engine built around speed, stability and scalability.” When Shimmer detects “incidences of potential improper trading activity on the platform”, it alerts the Bitfinex team “via email summaries of suspicious trading patterns across all trading pairs listed on the exchange, including futures and margin funding products.” More details.
Mt. Gox has been back in the headlines a lot over recent weeks. The infamous (then-largest) Bitcoin exchange that was hacked in 2014 has yet to compensate its victims for the 850,000 bitcoins that were stolen. But, things could be moving along. The defunct exchange’s creditors will hold another meeting this week.
According to an official document released today, Mt. Gox creditors are taking further steps to move the lengthy process forward. After all, the unfortunate victims of this exchange have been waiting for more than six years for compensation. Moreover, the Mt. Gox hack remains the largest bitcoin hack in the history of the space. However, it’s still not certain whether the victims will accept the latest offer made by creditors. Previous offers have been rejected many times. The initial offer was $755 per BTC. This was dropped to $600 and then rose to $1300 last month. The best offer yet. More details.
Regulations, State digital currencies
Amid contentious debate over the massive stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic, Democrats in the United States House of Representatives look to implement the digital dollar to streamline payments to U.S. citizens outside of the traditional financial system.
A draft of the legislation circulating as of March 23 proposes the creation of digital wallets for U.S. citizens to be maintained by the Federal Reserve within a section entitled “Direct Stimulus Payments for Families.” The section envisions $2,000 monthly payments to every adult earning less than $75,000 a year, at which points the payments taper off. These payments would last until the economy recovers. More details.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the country’s central bank, is said to have moved one step closer to issuing its national digital currency. A Global Times report on Tuesday, citing “industry insiders,” said the PBoC appears to have completed the development of digital currency’s basic function in collaboration with private companies.
The central bank is now reportedly drafting relevant laws to circulate the digital yuan. An anonymous industry insider told the Global Times that Alipay’s recent patents revolve around the basic function of digital currency, including circulation, payment and issuance. Alipay is the financial arm of Chinese tech giant Alibaba and is said to have publicized five patents related to China’s digital currency earlier this year.
“Judging from the patents, the first step of technological development has been basically completed,”
Blockchain, Technology, Attractions
Billionaire entrepreneur and Alibaba founder Jack Ma has a message for the world: get together to fight the coronavirus. As social media channels remain awash in conflicting data, finger pointing and skepticism over reports and statistics coming out of China, where the coronavirus originated, the Chinese tech titan is kicking mega-philanthropy into high gear by sending lifesaving equipment to countries around the world.
Ma, who stepped down as the chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2019 after 20 years of leading the company since its inception in 1999, transforming it into an entertainment and cloud computing behemoth, has started shipping Covid-19 supply kits. The Jack Ma Foundation has already delivered supplies to hard-hit Italy and Spain.
Arriving today from Shanghai to Zaragoza, Spain – the first donation shipment containing 500,000 face masks & other medical equipment to support the battle in Spain against the coronavirus. Thanks to all who made this happen. Together we can win! #estevirusloparamosentretodos pic.twitter.com/NUZGr07KWf
— Jack Ma Foundation (@foundation_ma) March 17, 2020
