October 2020 Industry Update - A Bullish October

It has been a boOoOOlish October as the total crypto market cap rose by 18.7%. October has been a great month for BTC if you are long on the asset with a 28% increase against the US dollar. BTC outperformed most other large market cap cryptocurrencies. ETH had a 7.5% gain, LTC had a 20.5% gain while XRP had a 1.02% loss. ChainLink saw a 13.7% gain, EOS with a 1.9% loss followed by ADA with an 8.1 % loss.

Bitcoin, which is celebrating its 12th Birthday, has seen some short-term momentum during this long term uptrend and reached the highest levels since January 2018 by breaching the 14,000 USD mark and closed above $13,000 USD for the first time since December 2017. However, after breaching the 14,000 USD resistance, we saw a major sell-off back down below the mark on most major exchanges. Market sentiment has been fueled by the recent announcements of several companies purchasing Bitcoin for their corporate treasuries and that PayPal will now allow its users to purchase Bitcoin along with Ethereum and Litecoin. It has not been all great news, as the fees to transfer Bitcoin has been rising leading to some transactions staying unconfirmed for several days.

We expect major volatility due to the U.S. Elections on November 3rd and for some time afterwards. Rest assured, you will be able to rely on NDAX's trading platform to perform during this time.

Industry Updates

JPMorgan’s ‘JPM Coin’ Is Ready for Commercial Use, Executive Says

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase announced that their native stable coin, JPM Coin is ready for commercial use.  JPM Coin was originally launched in February 2019 as a trial.

According to Takis Georgakopoulos, global head of wholesale payments at JPMorgan, a large international technology company is already using JPM Coin for cross-border payments. JPMorgan has also created a new blockchain unit called Onyx. Georgakopoulos said, "We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business."

The main function of the JPM Coin is to settle cross-border payments in a fast and affordable manner by utilizing blockchain technology.

On October 26, The Largest Bitcoin Transaction in History Was Sent.

A Bitcoin whale sent a transaction of 88,857 BTC, a value of 1.15 USD billion -- for a fee of  0.00027847 BTC which is roughly worth $3.76 USD (at the time of sending this newsletter.) -- this is the largest-ever Bitcoin transaction by value.

Fun Facts:

• • The previous record for the largest Bitcoin transaction was 161,500 BTC which was equal to $1.1 billion at the time.
• • The largest amount of Bitcoin to be moved was 550,000 BTC, the transaction was made on November 16, 2011. This transaction at the time had a value of $1.32 USD million. Today 550,000 BTC would be worth $7.43 USD Billion.

PayPal launches a new service that lets users buy, sell, and hold crypto

U.S. PayPal users will be able to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. Paypal has secured the first conditional cryptocurrency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services. In early 2021, PayPal users will be given the ability to use cryptocurrencies to shop at the 26 million merchants on their network.

PayPal is a household name, this announcement will bring public awareness/adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, Paypal, similar to Wealth Simple Crypto is a closed-loop platform, meaning users can not withdraw their cryptocurrency off of their platform.

Stone Ridge Reveals $115 Million Investment in Bitcoin

Stone Ridge, a $10 billion asset manager, has revealed that bitcoin is set to serve as its primary treasury reserve asset. The firm has purchased over 10,000 BTC a value of over $100 million as part of its “treasury research strategy.”

Google Cloud Joins EOS Blockchain Community

On October 6, Google Cloud, a global hyper-scale cloud and infrastructure provider has announced it has joined the EOS blockchain community with the goal of becoming an EOS network block producer. Google published an official statement online:

"Google Cloud will become a block producer candidate on the EOS network, which is built on the EOSIO blockchain protocol published by Block.one. Block producers are a core component of the EOS network.

Google Cloud's highly provisioned, low-latency global fiber optic network provides stability, reliability, security, and extensive global infrastructure coverage for Block.one’s public blockchain efforts and development. Through this partnership, Google Cloud will work with Block.one to enable new ways for its open-source community of developers to engage and build applications utilizing both the power of the EOSIO protocol and Google's unparalleled developer experience in the Cloud."

Brendan Blumer, CEO of Block.one has welcomed Google Cloud in a press release stating “With the majority of global public blockchain activity, EOS is a powerful solution for anyone looking to leverage the decentralized ecosystem with ease, the Google Cloud team understands the thriving EOS community and the highly performant EOSIO technology on which it builds to create the best entry point into the blockchain industry. We welcome Google Cloud to the EOS community and are excited for their contributions to the EOS network.”

NDAX is your trusted source in cryptocurrency, cybersecurity and blockchain. For more monthly updates please subscribe to our monthly newsletter and our blog.