New all-time highs for Bitcoin, an 87% flash crash hits Binance.US, and would you let your eyeballs be scanned for a new crypto project? These stories and more this week in crypto.
Bitcoin briefly hit a new all-time high of $66,000 after the first bitcoin ETF began trading on NYSE Arca. The ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, ticked BITO, became one of the most successful ETF products launched on the traditional market ever, seeing over $1 billion in traded volume on its first day.
Binance’s US exchange experienced a momentary flash crash when Bitcoin briefly plummeted to around $8,000 dollars on the platform. Binance explained that there was a bug in their trading algorithm that caused the massive sell-off. Although the crash lasted less than a minute it is thought some traders managed to buy in at the discounted price.
Retail chain Walmart has begun quietly installing bitcoin ATMs at 200 of its stores in the United States as a pilot to allow its customers to use cash to purchase bitcoin. Coinstar is operating the machines in a partnership with crypto exchange Coinme. The machines will require ID verification in order to purchase BTC.
Social media giant Facebook has chosen Coinbase to provide custody of assets it will offer testers of its new Novi wallet. Initially announced 2 years ago under the name “Libra,” Novi was designed to help traders send money anywhere in the world with no fees but the project has encountered several regulatory hurdles over the years.
Grayscale Investments confirmed that it will convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The NYSE Arca Exchange has already filed a document to the SEC to convert GBTC into an ETF. The trust is currently the largest bitcoin investment vehicle in the world and holds more than 3% of all Bitcoin in circulation.
The U.S. Treasury Department has issued guidance to crypto companies explaining how to comply with present sanctions. These packets are designed for cryptocurrency exchanges, miners, and wallet providers detailing topics like using tools to block IP addresses from sanctioned countries, monitoring transactions to identify fraudulent individuals, and regularly auditing past trades to unveil illicit crypto addresses.
The 175-year-old US news agency, Associated Press will provide economic, sports and election data to Chainlink to ensure any data from its U.S. newspaper and broadcaster members would be cryptographically verified. Chainlink is blockchain’s most popular data oracle; it takes real world data and brings it on-chain to be used by smart contracts.
A new cryptocurrency project is using people’s retinas to create a unique personal identifier called IrisHash as part of securing personal data. In return for some coins, people are asked to look into a silver orb that captures their information. Worldcoin announced new funding this week and said it has already scanned 130,000 eyes across the world.
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That’s what’s happened this week in crypto, see you next week.
