New SEC Appointment May Boost Bitcoin ETF Possibility

A new SEC appointment by the incumbent president of the United States of America as widely seen to boost the chances of a Bitcoin ETF in the near future.

Elad Roisman is the new appointed member of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the third Trump appointee to the said agency succeeding his predecessor Michael Piwowar who stepped down a few months ago.

With his appointment, the financial regulator now has two commissioners who are pro-bitcoin ETF.

He has demonstrated his strong stance on fair regulation of cryptocurrency at a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this year, challenging them to be fair and transparent with regards to the regulations of the nascent industry.

He also joins Commissioner Hester Pierce on the roster of commissioners who support ETFs and has a long standing belief that SEC as gatekeepers of innovation in the financial sectors, therefore should be open to emergence of new investments and technologies while ensuring the protection of investors.

Most Investors Wants to Buy More Digital Currencies In 2018 According To Survey

According to a survey published by Investment platform SharePost, more accredited and retail investors prefers to increase their cryptocurrency holdings over the next 12 months.

The survey was conducted last July with a total sample size of 2,490 retail investors and 528 individual accredited and institutional investors.

The survey shows a bullish outlook among cryptocurrency investors despite prevalent bullish sentiment in the market with 60% decline in cryptocurrency valuations.

It reveals that 59% of investors and 72% of consumers confirms that they are buying more coins in the next 12 months.

In addition to this 57% of investors and about 66% of consumers expect crypto valuations to grow by next year.

The survey also shows that there is an increasing interest in blockchain technology.

Both consumers and investors believes that the prevalence of commercial blockchain application and proper education on the technology is key for it to succeed with 32% of investors and 49% of consumers reveals that their employers are interested in using blockchain.

Chief concerns are similar to other survey studies as market volatility and Cyber Security takes the top spot with 50% and 37% respectively.

Former COO Of Paypal Joins 0x As Advisor

David Sacks, former COO of Paypal has joined startup blockchain 0x as an advisor.

0x is an open protocol for trading ERC-20 tokens.

It also allows off-chain order books which allows it to bypass fees associated with the Ethereum blockchain when orders are altered or cancelled.

Sacks is also the co-founder of Harbor and a partner of Craft Ventures, a compliance service for token sales.

The said partnership will bring a new industry standard for security tokens, leading to faster adoption with investors and software developers.

Unlike cryptocurrencies which are not categorized as securities, security tokens are blockchain-based representation of physical asset such as stocks, bonds, real estate and others that are subject to security laws.

Furthermore Security tokens go through a longer process due to KYC/AML accreditations which often differs depending on geographical jurisdictions.

IPO Expert Hired By Binance, IPO Rumors Abound

Binance, considered as the number 1 cryptocurrency exchange in the world has hired an executive with a wide experience in initial public offering (IPOs) as its chief financial officer.

Wei Zhou is currently the vice chairman of gay dating platform Grindr and an alumnus of one of the world’s most prestigious university in the world, Harvard University.

He has a long history of executive experience spanning more than 15 years and began his career in Hong Kong subsidiary of Goldman Sach, where he focused on investment banking.

This has fueled speculation that the Crypto exchange giant is planning on going public prompting its CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), to deny on twitter any IPO initiative.

CZ said that there are no plans on an IPO and the selection process of hires in Binance taps talent from traditional finance, internet and other industries anywhere in the world.

Crypto and Blockchain Companies Shine In Linkedin's Top 50

The latest Linkedin Top 50 U.S. Startups is replete with blockchain and crypto-related companies.

The rankings weighs on each company’s worth with in-house data that looks at employee growth, job seeker interest, member engagement with the company and its employees.

To be included in the list the company should not be older than 7 years old with more than 50 employees.

Coinbase ranked third on the list with LinkedIn saying that it has over 20 million accounts and twice as many clients than Charles Schwab.

The company also has 500 employees which it plans to double before the end of the year.

No. 6 goes to Robinhood which is a financial services platform.

While its focus is not cryptocurrencies it offers cryptocurrency trading in its platform. No. 7 goes to Ripple which is a blockchain-based banking platform that delivers services to institutions like Santander, RBC and American Express.

The company has 250 employees and plans to expand by 75 at the end of the year.

There are several Companies that are included in the top 50 that are crypto and blockchain related, these includes Gemini 25, Consensus 26 and Axoni at 47.

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