 |
Nasdaq and VanEck Aim to Release Bitcoin Futures in Q1 2019November 27 – Nasdaq, the world’s second largest stock exchange, is planning to release bitcoin futures sometime in the first quarter of 2019 through a partnership with the major investment management firm VanEck. The announcement was made during Consensus: Invest 2018 by Gabor Gurbacs, who is VanEck’s director of digital asset strategy. The partnership will lead to a variety of bitcoin derivatives, which include a “regulated crypto 2.0 futures-type contract”. Gurbacs provided a follow-up tweet regarding the announcement, stating that Nasdaq and VanEck will unveil “transparent, regulated and surveilled digital asset products, such as bitcoin futures contracts.” Nasdaq has already been working with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to ensure it will comply with any regulatory concerns that the swaps regulator has. Gurbacs also noted that VanEck has “ran a few extra miles working with the CFTC to bring about new standards for custody and surveillance.” Back in January 2018, Nasdaq’s CEO Adena Friedman said the exchange was still gauging how they will distinguish their products from contracts already offered by competitors CME and the CBOE. The Nasdaq futures are expected to be based off the price of bitcoin from numerous exchanges that are compiled by VanEck and their subsidiary MVIS. Read the full article here. |
 |
3iQ Corp CIO Shaun Cumby and TMX Michael Rabkin at Deloitte Crypto CampNovember 29 – Crypto Camp wrapped up in Toronto on Nov. 29th at Deloitte, and packed over 400 attendees with hands-on learning, workshops, product demos, and veteran speakers. The event brought over 50 speakers from the financial, crypto, blockchain, and enterprise industries. 3iQ Corp. CIO Shaun Cumby helped lead a panel of five with Michael Rabkin of TMX discussing Canadian cryptoasset investing and custody. They elaborated on topics such as cryptocurrency price interoperability within investment products, institutional barriers to access and distribution, and other market moving factors behind bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Other lead panelists included Alexander Peh, Vice President, Head of Innovation, RBC; Chris Forrester, CTO, Shyft Network; Ameer Rosic, Co-Founder, Blockgeeks; Rene McIver, Chief Security Officer, SecureKey; Louisa Bai, Senior Manager, Deloitte; Usman Sheikh, Partner, National Head – Blockchain & Smart Contract Group, Gowlings. See the full list of panelists here. |
 |
Ohio Businesses Can Now Pay Taxes With BitcoinNovember 29 – Ohio, with help from the State Treasurer Josh Mandel, has now made it possible for businesses to pay for their taxes by using Bitcoin. Over the coming weeks, business owners in the state of Ohio will be allowed to register and settle tax liabilities online through the cryptocurrency payment processing provider BitPay. Business in Ohio will be able to pay 23 different taxes all using bitcoin through a state-run online portal that works with BitPay. For now, only businesses will be able to use the service, and individuals won’t be able to pay personal taxes quite yet. The State Treasurer has reiterated that they won’t be holding bitcoin, and instead, the cryptocurrency will automatically convert to US dollar after payments are made to the service provider BitPay. Mandel remains optimistic about the use of cryptocurrencies, and wants to set an example for the rest of the country. “We’re doing this to plant the flag in Ohio as a national and international leader in blockchain technology,” said Mandel. “We really want to roll out the red carpet and welcome all sorts of blockchain companies to Ohio — not just in the cryptocurrency space but in a variety of different use cases.” Read the full article here. |
 |
Amazon Launches a Service for Building BlockchainsNovember 28 – The major tech giant Amazon has announced that it is launching a new platform that will help clients develop their own blockchain networks without the need to incur costs of creating their own. Amazon unveiled the platform during their re:Invent conference on Wednesday. The new project is based on Amazon Web Services, which is Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary which already powers a wide variety of websites and services such as Netflix. The Amazon Managed Blockchain platform “is a fully managed service that makes it easy to create and manage scalable blockchain networks”. The Amazon Managed Blockchain platform will allow its users to build their own blockchain networks by using Hyperledger Fabric, while Ethereum is expected to be supported sometime in the future. In addition to saving costs for clients, the platform will allow a client to easily analyze their own blockchain network activity within an existing blockchain. “Managed Blockchain can replicate an immutable copy of your blockchain network activity into Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), a fully managed ledger database. This allows you to easily analyze the network activity outside the network and gain insights into trends.” Read the full article here. |
 |
Asus Allows Gamers to Passively Mine Crypto With Idle Graphics CardsNovember 30 – A leading computer company Asus is now letting their graphics card users mine cryptocurrencies while their computers idle. The company announced on Thursday that it has partnered with a mining application provider Quantumcloud that will allow gamers to earn a “passive income” while not playing games. Gamers who use Nvidia or AMD-powered Asus graphics cards can run the application and mine cryptocurrencies, and the earnings will get paid out through PayPal or WeChat. “As part of its pledge to protect user data, Quantumcloud launched with GDPR compliance in place and does not require customers to create a unique login. Instead, customers use their existing PayPal or WeChat account to log in and collect their earnings,” said Asus. Today, many crypto miners use graphics cards (GPUs) to mine cryptos either individually or collectively through pools. Some cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin; however, aren’t usually mined from GPUs and require dedicated processors called application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to mine. These ASIC computers are not effective for playing games, and are usually dedicated to mining a certain type of cryptocurrency. Read the full article here. |
 |
3iQ Global Cryptoasset Fund: Price as at November 30, 20183iQ is the first regulator approved multi-cryptoasset portfolio manager in Canada, providing accredited investors with exposure to bitcoin, ether, and litecoin through its 3iQ Global Cryptoasset Fund. |
