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As we approach the fourth industrial revolution, Blockchain has been identified to have the potential to disrupt existing economic and business models. Despite this, unexpected patterns among the cryptocurrency traders have been sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. Norbert Haguma, CEO AfricaGen spoke to CNBC Africa on how the pandemic is reshaping the crypto industry.

How COVID-19 is reshaping the crypto industry

Coronavirus updates: China reports 8 new cases, wife of Canadian PM tests positive

<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/arjun-kharpal/"> Arjun Kharpal</a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/ArjunKharpal" target="_blank"> @ARJUNKHARPAL</a> KEY POINTS



<ul><li>The value of the entire cryptocurrency market fell over $26 billion on Monday. </li><li>Bitcoin, the biggest cryptocurrency by value, fell 10% in 24 hours. </li><li>Other big digital coins ethereum, XRP and bitcoin cash, posted double-digit losses.  </li><li>The sell-off in digital coins followed a plummet in oil prices. </li></ul>



Cryptocurrency markets plunged following a plummet in oil prices and further sell-off in stocks.&nbsp;



The market capitalization or entire value of cryptocurrencies was down$26.43 billion from a day earlier at around 1:17 p.m. Singapore time, according to data from Coinmarketcap.com. The sell-off worsened as the day went on.&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC=">Bitcoin</a>, the biggest cryptocurrency by value, fell over 10% in 24 hours at around the same time.



READ: <a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/coronavirus/2020/03/09/african-european-markets-set-to-plunge-on-oil-price-crash-and-coronavirus-spread/">African, European markets set to plunge on oil price crash and coronavirus spread </a>



The violent sell-off in the cryptocurrency market comes after international oil benchmark&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=@LCO.1">Brent crude</a>&nbsp;futures&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/08/oil-plummets-30percent-as-opec-deal-failure-sparks-price-war-fears.html">plummeted 30% to $31.02 per barrel, its lowest level since Feb. 2016.</a>&nbsp;That was sparked by Saudi Arabia slashing its official selling prices for oil after OPEC failed to agree a deal on production cuts. This has led to fears of an oil price war. Brent has since pared some of its losses.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, stock markets in Japan and Hong Kong&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/asia-markets-oil-prices-coronavirus-currencies-in-focus.html">fell sharply</a>&nbsp;while U.S. stocks are&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/08/dow-futures-drop-700-points-as-all-out-oil-price-war-adds-to-coronavirus-stress.html">set for a steep drop</a>&nbsp;at start of trading on Monday.&nbsp;



The other big digital coins&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=ETH=">ethereum</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=XRP.BS=">XRP</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BCH.CB=">bitcoin cash</a>, posted double-digit percentage point losses.&nbsp;



Despite the losses posted Monday, bitcoin is up around 9% year-to-date.&nbsp;



Huge moves in cryptocurrency prices are not unusual and these digital coins are known for their volatility. Market players however said this could be an opportunity to buy some bitcoin.



“For those who have long term investment horizons, bitcoin is absolutely a buy during these dips,” Jehan Chu, co-founder of Kenetic Capital, an investor in blockchain start-ups told&nbsp;CNBC. “We can expect more of this volatility sparked by macro health and financial shocks, but ultimately long term investments in the digital future and it’s key asset Bitcoin will be a winning strategy”&nbsp;

Over $26 billion wiped off cryptocurrency market in 24 hours after massive oil price plunge

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/ryan-browne/">Ryan Browne</a> 



<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=FB" class="">Facebook</a>&nbsp;has made headlines of late with its plans to create a cryptocurrency.



The social media company has been&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/17/facebook-currency-chief-questioned-at-house-financial-services-hearing.html" class="">forced to defend the project</a>&nbsp;on Capitol Hill, amid regulatory concerns around data privacy and potential illegal usage, while the G-7 has warned it poses “serious” legal risks.



It’s an experiment in monetary systems for the digital age, and has inevitably been compared to popular cryptocurrencies like&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC=" class="">bitcoin</a>. However, many experts question whether Libra can even be called a cryptocurrency.



Other than the fact that they both come with a white paper and are referred to as cryptocurrencies, Libra and bitcoin are actually very different. Here’s a rundown of the key differences between the two.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Different technology</h2>



One of the biggest differences lies in the underlying technology behind both currencies.



With bitcoin, transactions are recorded anonymously on a public ledger known as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/blockchain-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work.html" class="">the blockchain</a>. It’s essentially a database maintained by a network of computers, on which transactions are secured in such a way that makes it virtually impossible to tamper with.



Libra also uses a form of blockchain, or distributed ledger technology. But unlike bitcoin, Libra’s blockchain is permissioned —&nbsp;<a href="https://libra.org/en-US/permissionless-blockchain/#overview" class="">at least for now</a>&nbsp;— meaning that transactions can only be added to it by a group of trusted parties.



That’s where the Libra Association, a Switzerland-based consortium of companies including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=V" class="">Visa</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=UBER" class="">Uber</a>, comes in. Each of the nonprofit organization’s members have invested a minimum of $10 million into the project.



“Libra will create a centralized structure governed by an unelected ‘association’ composed exclusively of large institutions who have purchased their voting rights,” said Ido Sadeh Man, founder and president of the Saga Foundation, a cryptocurrency firm that counts&nbsp;<a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=JPM">J.P. Morgan</a>&nbsp;Chairman Jacob Frenkel as an advisor.



It’s different to bitcoin’s network, which can be accessed and maintained by anyone with decent enough hardware and access to the internet.



“Cryptocurrencies are defined by their lack of reliance on trusted intermediaries,” Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at the cryptocurrency policy think-tank Coin Center, said in a&nbsp;<a href="https://coincenter.org/entry/the-differences-between-bitcoin-and-libra-should-matter-to-policymakers" class="">recent blog post</a>.



“We believe that Libra is not a cryptocurrency because of its use of a permissioned ledger and its reliance on a trusted issuer to hold and manage a fund of assets that back the currency.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Different use cases</h2>



Bitcoin’s white paper describes the virtual currency as a peer-to-peer payment system, allowing people to exchange money without going through a bank.



It’s commonly used today as a form of investment, with the term “HODL” being a common slang phrase in the industry to describe buying and staying invested in the cryptocurrency for the long term. It’s frequently been referred to as “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/bitcoins-digital-gold-but-facebooks-libra-is-the-digital-dollar.html" class="">digital gold</a>. ”



Libra’s primary purpose is to be used in cross-border payments and money transfers. The currency is tied to a basket of government-backed currencies and other assets, to avoid the volatile swings often seen in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=ETH=" class="">ether</a>.



Referred to by many in the industry as a “stablecoin,” Libra is aimed at maintaining a stable value. David Marcus, the Facebook executive leading the blockchain initiative, has previously said it will work “more like a traditional currency” than a cryptocurrency.



“Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra both represent stages in the evolution of currency but in starkly different ways,” Charles Hayter, co-founder and CEO of digital currency comparison platform CryptoCompare, told CNBC.



“Bitcoin is permissionless, fully decentralized, deflationary and volatile. Libra is permissioned, more centralized, governed by supply and demand and pegged to fiat currencies.”



What Hayter means by “governed by supply and demand” is that Facebook and its partner companies can adjust the supply to match a quantity of other assets held in reserve, effectively maintaining a stable price even when demand changes.



Bitcoin on the other hand has a fixed supply. The total number of bitcoins that will ever be minted is “hard-capped” at 21 million.



“Bitcoin supply is fixed and cannot react to the market’s demand,” the Saga Foundation’s Sadeh Man said. “Libras are created or burned when one of Libra’s authorized resellers deposit or withdraw money from its reserve.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Different regulatory questions</h2>



Facebook’s currency has taken the spotlight when it comes to talk of regulating cryptocurrencies. But some worry the company’s blockchain project could be lumped in with other digital assets by regulators.



That would be problematic given the difference between Libra and a digital currency like bitcoin. Whereas bitcoin rules out the need for financial intermediaries, Libra’s model is reliant on the entities which form the Libra Association, Coin Center’s Van Valkenburgh said.



“A system without intermediaries is a system without intermediary risk, and thus no need for regulation aimed at safeguarding against the types of risk presented by intermediaries,” he said.



The Libra Association currently consists of 28 founding members, according to the Libra white paper, and is hoping to reach 100 members by the time the currency launches. The token is slated for launch in the first half of 2020.



Though bitcoin’s network involves so-called “miners” who record transactions, it wouldn’t make sense to regulated them as they aren’t trusted custodians of user funds, Van Valkenburgh said. Cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets on the other hand do require regulatory oversight, he added.



Questions around how Libra would fit into existing financial regulations were raised at Wednesday’s hearing. Facebook’s Marcus was grilled on whether Libra could be considered a financial security, which he said could not be the case. But Marcus said it could possibly be considered a commodity.



Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/06/sec-chairman-clayton-says-agency-wont-change-definition-of-a-security.html" class="">last year told CNBC</a>&nbsp;that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could not be viewed as securities. Cryptocurrencies are “replacements for sovereign currencies” like the dollar and the euro, he said.



Regardless, if Facebook and its partners do manage to overcome the regulatory hurdles that have accompanied Libra, the currency “will undoubtedly have an enormous impact on the global economy — possibly eclipsing that of bitcoin,” CryptoCompare’s Hayter said.



For Andy Bryant, chief operating officer of cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer’s European business, Libra could start to convince people there are “other ways” of storing value than using fiat currencies like the U.S. dollar. “If that’s all that Libra achieves, I think it will be a great step forward,” he said.



This article first appeared on CNBC&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/bitcoin-vs-libra-how-facebooks-cryptocurrency-is-different.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/19/bitcoin-vs-libra-how-facebooks-cryptocurrency-is-different.html</a>&nbsp;and is republished with its permission.

Bitcoin vs Libra: Here are the key differences between the two cryptocurrencies

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jessica-bursztynsky/">Jessica Bursztynsky</a> 



Billionaire tech entrepreneur&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/mark-cuban/" class="">Mark Cuban</a>&nbsp;criticized&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=FB" class="">Facebook</a>’s venture into cryptocurrency in a new CNBC interview.



“I’m not a big fan of what they’re doing there,” Cuban said of Facebook’s Libra coin. “I think it’s a big mistake.”



Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a “Shark Tank” investor, said he’s not so much concerned with the impact on U.S. markets but at a global level.



“I think globally and in countries where there isn’t a lot of rule of law, or a lot of government stability, or currency stability, then it could be dangerous,” Cuban told CNBC’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/deirdre-bosa/" class="">Deirdre Bosa</a>&nbsp;in an interview that began airing on Friday.



“There’s going to be some despot in some African country that gets really upset that they can’t control their currency anymore and that’s where the real problems start occurring,” he explained.



Cuban has joined a series of government leaders and high-profile bankers in criticizing the social media giant.



In a series of tweets, President Donald Trump on Thursday said that he’s “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies and said Libra “will have little standing or dependability.”



He also said, “If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must seek a new Banking Charter and become subject to all Banking Regulations.”



Appearing on Capitol Hill over two days this week delivering testimony and taking questions on the economy, Federal Reserve Chairman&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/jerome-powell/" class="">Jerome Powell</a>said he has “serious concerns” about Libra.



French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney have also questioned Libra.



Last month,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/facebook-announces-libra-digital-currency-calibra-digital-wallet.html" class="">Facebook announced</a>&nbsp;its ambitious endeavor to create a digital coin, with launch plans in the first half of next year. Libra will not be run by Facebook but by a nonprofit association supported by a range of companies and organizations, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=V" class="">Visa</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=PYPL" class="">PayPal</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=EBAY" class="">eBay</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=LYFT" class="">Lyft</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=UBER" class="">Uber</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=SPOT" class="">Spotify</a>.



David Marcus, the Facebook executive behind the effort, told CNBC on the day of the announcement, June 18, that consumers should not be worried about the social media network gaining access to their financial data.



The Libra project comes as Facebook&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/18/facebook-david-marcus-on-building-trust-for-libra-cryptocurrency.html" class="">works to rebuild public trust</a>&nbsp;after a series of privacy scandals and admissions that Russia used the platform&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/30/facebook-russia-fake-accounts-126-million" class="">to try to influence</a>&nbsp;the 2016 presidential election.



Facebook did not immediately return a request for comment.



This article first appeared on CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/mark-cuban-calls-facebook-digital-coin-libra-a-big-mistake.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/mark-cuban-calls-facebook-digital-coin-libra-a-big-mistake.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Billionaire Mark Cuban calls Facebook’s digital coin Libra a ‘big mistake,’ saying it ‘could be dangerous’

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/julia-boorstin/">Julia Boorstin</a> 



Facebook is unveiling an ambitious plan to create a new digital currency and financial system to transform the way money moves around the world, and not just on its own apps.



It’s leading a consortium to create an open-source digital currency called Libra, set to launch in the first half of next year. The goal is for developers to create services for consumers to send money around the world easily and for free — with the same convenience as sending a photo or a message.



The Libra currency will not be run by Facebook, but rather by a nonprofit association supported by a range of companies and organizations. But&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=FB" class="">Facebook</a>&nbsp;does have a plan to profit from it with a new subsidiary, Calibra, which is building a digital wallet of the same name for storing and exchanging the currency.



The financial information from your digital wallet will not be used for ad targeting on Facebook’s platforms because the two divisions will be kept totally separate, the company said.



“We’ve seen internet change the game for everything that could be digitized, except for money,” said David Marcus, the leader of Facebook’s Calibra division.



“The numbers really speak for themselves. There’s 1.7 billion people around the world that are unbanked, the same number are underserved by financial services,” said Marcus, who before taking over Facebook’s blockchain initiatives ran its Messenger division and was previously president of PayPal. “Now, anyone with a cheap smartphone has access to all the info they want in the world for free with a basic data plan. Why doesn’t money work the same way?”



The announcement comes after Facebook has faced a slew of privacy issues, raising real questions about whether people will trust the social platform with their financial information. Marcus says that’s why it’s so important that Facebook not be in control of the currency.



“It may sound super controversial but there’s no better way to demonstrate the evolution of our thinking, what we know we should control and what we should not and can not control,” Marcus said. “A network that enables billions of people to move money around the world should not be something we can or should control.”What is Libra?



The new digital currency is set to launch in the first half of 2020. It will be run by a nonprofit, the Libra Association, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its goal is to be broadly accessible, stable and secure.



Unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which can be hugely volatile and speculative, Libra will be backed by relatively stable government-backed money.



“If you buy $50 of Libra, your $50 makes its way to the Libra Reserve,” said Marcus. “It’s designed to be stable and confer values on Libra that makes it more like a traditional currency than any of the digital currencies are now. This is the way paper money was created.”



The fact that the Libra blockchain is open-source means that anyone can build a service or app that uses the currency. The wallets that are developed to use the service will be interoperable, so you’ll be able to send money from Facebook’s Calibra wallet to any other system that accepts Libra.



Consumers will not interact with the Libra Association, but will only interact with Libra through a digital wallet or an operator. For people who don’t have the ability to digitally purchase Libra with a credit card or digitally linked account, Marcus says he expects companies in emerging markets to create locations where people can exchange Libra for cash.Who’s involved in this digital currency?



Facebook is joined by 27 other companies and organizations that are founding members. The goal is to have at least 100 companies and organizations on board for its launch next year. Each member of the association will manage one of the “nodes,” or locations where transactions involving Libra are validated.



Founding members include companies in the payments space:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=V" class="">Visa</a>, Stripe and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=PYPL" class="">PayPal</a>, which will be able to help merchants accept Libra. Some tech companies are also on board, including&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=EBAY" class="">eBay</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=LYFT" class="">Lyft</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=UBER" class="">Uber</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=SPOT" class="">Spotify</a>, and Latin American payments platform Mercado Pago, which could drive adoption of acceptance of the currency. Two European telecom companies are also involved, Iliad and Vodafone.



Venture capital investment companies involved have experience with digital payments: Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Initiatives, Ribbit Capital, Thrive Capital, and Union Square Ventures. Nonprofit and academic organizations on board are focused on helping people who don’t have access to banking: Creative Destruction Lab, Kiva, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking. And four blockchain companies are involved: Anchorage, Bison Trails, Coinbase and Xapo Holdings.



“The idea is that [Libra] has mass adoption — lots of trusted companies that want to join the journey, so there’s a chance of this becoming mainstream,” Marcus said.



This list of founding members invested a minimum of $10 million to fund the operating costs of the nonprofit association as well as to launch an incentive program to jumpstart the underlying Libra blockchain and to drive adoption of the currency.Facebook’s Calibra digital wallet



Facebook’s Calibra is a digital wallet that will be accessible as a stand-alone app and integrated into Messenger and WhatsApp. Facebook says it’s designed to enable anyone to securely store money for free on their phone and to allow people to securely send and receive Libra around the world, with no fees for consumers, although Facebook is considering “very low” fees for merchants.



Down the line, Marcus anticipates Facebook will offer other financial services, such as loans, from which it could profit: “If the network is successful, it will be a big opportunity for us to provide lending to all these consumers,” he said.



Facebook’s larger goal is to get people to spend more time on its platforms. This launch will enable the 2.7 billion people who use its various apps every month to more easily make purchases from the 90 million businesses on its platform. The easier it is for these businesses to drive sales on Facebook, the more likely they are to buy ads.



Although Calibra is fully owned by Facebook, it’s operating as a subsidiary kept separate from Facebook’s advertising businesses, so it can be regulated appropriately.



One key use case for Calibra is remittances. Facebook says that every year $25 billion is lost by migrants on fees from the likes of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=WU" class="">Western Union</a>. Marcus says the current process is antiquated: Immigrants send a photo of their receipt from Western Union to family members via WhatsApp so they can collect the money, minus a fee. Calibra would cut Western Union and other money-transfer services out of the equation.



A key for Calibra’s adoption is making it easy to understand exchange rate and transfer money in and out of the currency, says&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/15/instagram-kevin-weil-helped-facebook-beat-snapchat.html" class="">Kevin Weil,&nbsp;</a>Calibra’s VP of Product who formerly oversaw Instagram Stories, Facebook’s successful attempt to battle Snapchat.



“The easier it is to go back and forth [from the local currency to Libra] the more confidence people will have,” he said. “If you’re banked you can imagine connecting your bank account, if you’re not banked then you can imagine a map that shows nearby money transfer experiences.”





Will this whole thing take off?



Libra is the first new cryptocurrency that has a real opportunity to bring digital currency to the mainstream, according to one of Libra’s founding partners, Anchorage, which acts as an institutional custodian for crypto assets.



It solves some of the underpinning issues that other cryptocurrencies have not been able to, to reach this promise, ” says Anchorage President and co-founder Diogo Monica.



“It’s based on a very scalable, highly efficient blockchain, that can do many thousands of transactions per second. And it’s backed by bank deposits and government securities like the U.S. dollar, so it will have low volatility,” Monica said. “The association has so many big players that already have relationships, which solves the chicken-and-egg problem of adoption.”



Monica says that Anchorage will operate one of the many nodes to handle Libra transactions and could sell its services to other members of the association for safekeeping of their Libra assets.



Marcus says if people don’t want to trust Facebook’s Calibra, there will be other apps to access the currency.



To boost its security, Calibra will have the same verification and anti-fraud processes that banks and credit cards use. To gain access users will have to have a valid government ID and use two-factor authentication, leveraging the likes of FaceID. The service will have built-in fraud production and dedicated live support. And if someone accesses a user’s account, Calibra promises to refund any lost assets.



Launching a whole new system comes with its challenges. “Every direction you look there’s stuff you have to figure out from scratch,” said Weil. “Not everyone is familiar with exchange rates, and even the folks that are, aren’t necessarily familiar with digital currency. I’ll take a lot of time to educate people.”



There’s also the question of regulatory approval. Weil says they’re talking to regulators and are in the process of getting money-transfer licenses, which they expect to have secured for a launch next year.



“People will misunderstand and think this is a Facebook thing, ” said Weil. “We incubated it, but it’s designed to be run in a decentralized way.”



This article first appeared on CNBC  <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/facebook-announces-libra-digital-currency-calibra-digital-wallet.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/facebook-announces-libra-digital-currency-calibra-digital-wallet.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Facebook leads consortium creating Libra digital currency, launches Calibra digital wallet

By <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/ryan-browne/">Ryan Browne</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/eustance-huang/">Eustance Huang</a> 





KEY POINTS



<ul><li>The cryptocurrency market shed about $10 billion in value in the space of an hour late Thursday, CoinMarketCap data showed.</li><li>New York’s top lawyer alleges Bitfinex used at least $700 million from Tether’s cash reserves to cover up an $850 million loss.</li><li>Questions have arisen over whether Tether has enough dollar reserves to justify its token’s dollar peg and whether it was used to manipulate prices.</li></ul>



Cryptocurrencies fell amid reignited regulatory worries and questions around the legitimacy of so-called “stablecoin” tether.



The entire market shed about $10 billion in value in the space of an hour late Thursday, CoinMarketCap data showed. This after the New York attorney general&nbsp;<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/attorney-general-james-announces-court-order-against-crypto-currency-company-under" class="">accused</a>&nbsp;the operator of bitcoin exchange Bitfinex and tether issuer Tether Limited of hiding an $850 million loss.



The state’s top lawyer alleges Bitfinex used at least $700 million from Tether’s cash reserves to cover up the apparent loss of $850 million of client and corporate funds. Its findings were detailed in papers filed with the Manhattan Supreme Court.



Tether is a cryptocurrency that is meant to be pegged to the U.S. dollar — otherwise known as a stablecoin. Worries have been raised over whether Tether Limited holds enough dollars to back all the tokens in circulation.



The price of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=BTC=" class="">bitcoin</a>, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has fallen 4% over the last 24 hours, according to industry website CoinDesk. In the same time period, the prices of ethereum and XRP — the world’s second and third-largest virtual currencies by market value — also dropped 6% and 3%, respectively. Tether’s price fell over 1%, coming off its dollar peg.



The attorney general’s office said Thursday that Bitfinex handed $850 million to a Panama entity called Crypto Capital without disclosing it to investors. Executives at Bitfinex and Tether then allegedly “engaged in a series of conflicted corporate transactions” — where Bitfinex gave itself access to Tether’s cash reserves.



“Those transactions — which also have not been disclosed to investors — treat Tether’s cash reserves as Bitfinex’s corporate slush fund, and are being used to hide Bitfinex’s massive, undisclosed losses and inability to handle customer withdrawals,” the attorney general’s office said.



A court order issued by New York’s legal chief requires the operators of Bitfinex and Tether Limited to cease further losses of its U.S. dollar reserves. They are also barred from deleting or permitting others to delete potentially relevant documents and communications.Bitfinex’s response



Bitfinex said in response that the attorney general’s court filings were “written in bad faith” and “riddled with false assertions.” It flatly denied the alleged $850 million loss, stating the funds were “not lost but have been, in fact, seized and safeguarded.”



“Bitfinex and Tether have been fully cooperative with the New York attorney general’s office, as both companies are with all regulators,” the crypto exchange said in a <a class="" href="https://www.bitfinex.com/posts/356">statement</a> on its website. “The New York attorney general’s office should focus its efforts on trying to aid and support our recovery efforts.”



The company added that both Bitfinex and Tether are “financially strong,” and that it would challenge the order by New York.Why it matters



Tether is one of the most notable stablecoins on the market. It’s meant to be backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars to provide a stable value, and is often used as an alternative to government-backed money for crypto trading.



But it’s not been without controversy. Questions have arisen over whether it actually has enough dollar reserves to justify that dollar peg and whether it was used to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/13/much-of-bitcoins-2017-boom-was-market-manipulation-researcher-says.html" class="">manipulate bitcoin’s huge price spike</a>&nbsp;in 2017.



Charles Hayter, CEO of digital currency comparison firm CryptoCompare, said the New York fraud probe into tether was affecting the market. He said it creates a knock-on effect as tether is “so ubiquitous and so enigmatic.”



Cryptocurrencies have slumped massively from a monster rally in late 2017. Bitcoin, once worth almost $20,000, has fallen steeply to just under $5,300 as of Friday. It had a <a class="" href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/bitcoin-rallies-14percent-to-its-highest-level-since-november-last-year.html">recent pop</a> last month that experts attributed to algorithm-driven trading.



This article was first published by CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-price-falls-on-ny-ag-bitfinex-probe.html">https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/26/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-price-falls-on-ny-ag-bitfinex-probe.html</a> and is republished with its permission.

Cryptocurrencies shed $10 billion in an hour on worries over ‘stablecoin’ tether

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We have witnessed the rise and fall of cryptocurrency since 2017, but could there be gold at the end of the rainbow. According to the CEO and co-Founder of Luno, Marcus Swanepoel there is potential for this market to grow and it may be achieved through the introduction of smaller fintech and tech companies entering the space via partnerships with existing cryptocurrency companies. He joins CNBC Africa for more.

Why this crypto boss thinks bubble hasn’t burst

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Vendibit, a South African block chain company, is launching the first cryptocurrency ATM in Randburg today.

SA’s first cryptocurrency ATM

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Wala, a company issuing a solution to uptake of digital currency, recently put out a new cryptocurrency “Dala”. To help us understand and the responses on product and functionality, Co-Founder, COO Samer Saab joins CNBC Africa for more.

What you need to know so far about Wala cryptocurrency

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South Korea has got the hearts of crypto-fans fans skipping a beat. Over $100 billion has been wiped off the global cryptocurrency market after talks the country is planning to ban trading on its exchanges.

South Korea doesn’t plan to ban bitcoin, but regulate it – sources

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Following a rampant leap in the digital currency&#8217;s price this year, Cboe launched the bitcoin futures under the &#8220;XBT&#8221; ticker symbol yesterday. But Deutsche Bank warns that Bitcoin crash is among significant market risks in 2018.

Bitcoin futures launched will ETFs be next?

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Following a rampant leap in the digital currency&#8217;s price this year, Cboe launched the bitcoin futures under the &#8220;XBT&#8221; ticker symbol yesterday. But Deutsche Bank warns that Bitcoin crash is among significant market risks in 2018.

Bitcoin’s surge is being driven by excitement, how long will it last?

For most investors around the world, bitcoin is a volatile and highly speculative bet. For Zimbabweans, however, the cryptocurrency seems to offer rare protection from the onset of hyperinflation and financial implosion.
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Some are turning to bitcoin out of desperation as their bank deposits lose value almost by the day, while others are using the online currency for housekeeping such as funding family members studying abroad.
The result is startling. Bitcoin’s global surge to a record high of $7,888 last week &#8211; a sevenfold increase since the start of the year &#8211; has been spectacular enough. But on Harare’s bitcoin exchange, Golix (golix.io), the price hit $13,900, a 40-fold jump in the same period.
Warnings abound internationally that bitcoin may be a bubble waiting to burst. But the dire state of the Zimbabwean financial system under President Robert Mugabe is encouraging risk-taking.
“I have now changed all my reserves to bitcoin because that is the only way I can protect my investment,” said Arnold Manhizwa, who works for an IT and telecoms company in Harare.
The government adopted the U.S. dollar in 2009 after a bout of hyperinflation rendered the Zimbabwean dollar worthless, wiping out savings in the now defunct national currency.
After a period of relative stability, acute shortages of dollar cash have set in, leaving Zimbabweans with electronic units in their bank accounts which are officially called dollars but have a far lower &#8211; and rapidly decreasing &#8211; value.
In January if they wanted to buy $100 in cash they had to transfer $120 out of their account to a seller on the parallel market. Now the price is $180 in what are nicknamed “zollars”.
GRAPHIC: Devalued zollars <a href="http://tmsnrt.rs/2mwbtLU">tmsnrt.rs/2mwbtLU</a>
Nearly all domestic transactions are made via debit card or transfers using mobile phones. But some economists estimate inflation is more than 50 percent a month in zollar terms, far from the official, dollar-calculated rate of 0.38 percent.
Zimbabweans are therefore piling into anything they think might retain value. Prices of cars, real estate and stocks have all soared, with the Harare bourse’s main industrial index doubling in the last two months.
For people like Manhizwa, a 34-year-old father of two, bitcoin is almost a safe-haven asset. “If I have $500 in the bank I won’t get it back and I will be losing value, but when I have my bitcoin it is going up every day,” he told Reuters.
Manhizwa, who participates in online chatrooms discussing cryptocurrencies, says he deposited $20 in bitcoin for his newly-born daughter a few months ago. Now it’s worth over $200. “If I put that money in a bank right now in Zimbabwe I will be left with nothing,” he said.
<h3 data-reactid="55">CLEAR RISKS</h3>
Globally, the value of all cryptocurrencies is more than $170 billion and bitcoin, the biggest and best-known, has outperformed all traditional currencies every year since 2011, except for 2014. But many international investors still view it as an opaque instrument used by gun-runners and drug-dealers on the Dark Web that should be avoided.
The risks are clear. After reaching the record peak, the international price of bitcoin slid over $1,000 in less than 48 hours last week. In Zimbabwe, the Golix exchange’s website showed at one point on Sunday that the price had tumbled below $11,000, a drop of around eight percent in 24 hours.
But all this has to be compared with the zollar. “Many people view bitcoin, despite its volatile nature, as a better store of value,” said in-house Golix cryptocurrency analyst Taurai Chinyamakobvu.
The same is true in other financially troubled countries such as Venezuela, where the currency has also been eroded by rocketing inflation, pushing bitcoin prices sharply higher.
In Zimbabwe, bitcoin’s attraction looks set to endure after Mugabe fired vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa last week, paving the way for his wife, Grace, to get to the front of the queue to succeed the 93-year-old. Mnangagwa had been given a mandate by Mugabe in 2015 to steer the economy and had backed former finance minister Patrick Chinamasa, who was trying to re-engage with foreign lenders such as the International Monetary Fund.
FOREIGN PAYMENTS Besides acting as an inflation hedge, bitcoin’s attraction to Zimbabweans lies in the difficulty of making foreign payments due to banks capping or halting transactions by Mastercard and Visa cards. With bitcoin, Zimbabweans can bypass the need to seek foreign currency from the bank, and can even buy goods or services from the growing number of overseas merchants that accept the digital currency.
The central bank, which has to approve official overseas transactions and prioritises necessities such as fuel and medicines, has previously said Zimbabwe had a backlog of more than $500 million in pending foreign payments.
“A software developer that wants to buy a software download would never get that prioritised by their bank. They can use bitcoin to make payments,” Golix said in response to Reuters questions. “Others use it to send funds to their children in schools outside the country.”
Some better-off families send their sons and daughters for secondary and university education in countries such as South Africa or Britain but they are struggling to support them due to the currency shortage.
Golix data shows it handled bitcoin transactions worth $1 million in October.
But it is a market from which foreigners are largely absent. Technically, overseas-based investors could buy bitcoin on the international market and sell them for almost twice the price in Zimbabwe. The snag is that payment would be in zollars.
One analyst who is setting up a bitcoin trading desk at a Harare bank acknowledged that the local price appeared attractive, but added: “Once foreigners sell their bitcoin, they won’t have a way of getting their money out.”
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Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe; Editing by Ed Cropley and David Stamp
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Think bitcoin’s getting expensive? Try Zimbabwe

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Bianca Botes, Corporate Treasury Management, Peregrine Treasury Solutions joins CNBC Africa to give insight on hedging cryptocurrency risk.

How to hedge your cryptocurrency risk

If JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was trying to set off the bitcoin community with his criticism of cryptocurrency, he succeeded.
On Tuesday, Dimon called bitcoin a &#8220;fraud,&#8221; described it as &#8220;not a real thing&#8221; and said, &#8220;someone is going to get killed.&#8221;
Crypto enthusiasts took little time in firing back &#8212; on Twitter and on TV. We emailed Fred Wilson, a partner at Union Square Ventures and one of the first investors in bitcoin-related start-ups, to get his thoughts on Dimon&#8217;s comments.
&#8220;You have to have an open mind to be able to see the future,&#8221; Wilson said.
Venture capitalists and hedge fund managers that have joined in the crypto parade said that Dimon&#8217;s stance is a reflection of Wall Street&#8217;s defensive posture and attempts to downplay one of the biggest existential threats to the banking industry. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that relies on blockchain technology and isn&#8217;t controlled by banks or governments.
There&#8217;s no doubt that it&#8217;s a volatile trade. Bitcoin is up more than five-fold in the past year, but has dropped by 35 percent this month. So when Dimon says, it&#8217;s &#8220;worse than tulib bulbs,&#8221; which experienced a massive bubble and burst in the 17th century, Dimon is comparing bitcoin to other overhyped assets.
Balaji Srinivasan, the CEO of bitcoin startup 21.co, said Dimon is ignoring the functionality of bitcoin. While it doesn&#8217;t have day-to-day price stability, lacks regulation and isn&#8217;t accepted at the corner store, the currency works across borders, can be programmed to track transactions in a more secure way and doesn&#8217;t require a bank account.
Srinivasan refers to bitcoin&#8217;s &#8220;10X features,&#8221; or properties that make it 10 times better than what&#8217;s currently in place.
&#8220;With one 10X feature, you have a contender,&#8221; he said. &#8220;With half a dozen, you have something special.&#8221;
Dimon&#8217;s comments at the Delivering Alpha conference followed a crypto clampdown in China, which reportedly plans to ban fundraising through initial coin offerings and trading of cryptocurrency on domestic exchanges. The news caused BTC China, one of the biggest online exchanges, to shut down on Thursday and sparked a slump in the price of bitcoin.
Meanwhile, Mohamed El-Erian, Allianz&#8217;s chief economic advisor, echoed Dimon&#8217;s sentiment this week and said bitcoin&#8217;s price should be cut in half.
Dimon has long been skeptical of bitcoin and has repeatedly criticized the value of the cryptocurrency. On Tuesday, he said bitcoin will be in a &#8220;limited market&#8221; because governments typically like to take control of their currencies.
Dimon said the underlying blockchain technology has more value, and JPMorgan has been exploring various uses of it.
The more fundamental difference between Dimon and the tech community may be in the way they define the widespread adoption of the currency. Michael Moro, CEO of digital currency trading firm Genesis Trading, said bitcoin could rise in value even if it fails to gain mainstream traction in more advanced countries like the U.S.
That&#8217;s because in much of the world, political and economic instability is so great that citizens are at risk of seeing their savings diminished or wiped out.
&#8220;It&#8217;s entirely possible for bitcoin&#8217;s price to be high because of the tremendous interest from South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia,&#8221; he said.
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Erik Voorhees, CEO of Swiss-based digital asset exchange ShapeShift, said Dimon&#8217;s comment is a classic case of fearmongering because banks are concerned about bitcoin potentially taking away some of their core businesses.
&#8220;Jamie Dimon has every interest in the world in disparaging Bitcoin and working with his friends in government to regulate and suffocate it,&#8221; Voorhees said.
The threat is real, according to Ari Paul, co-founder of the newly formed BlockTower Capital. He sees bitcoin eventually displacing offshore Swiss and Cayman bank accounts that JPMorgan and other banks have opened for their wealthy clients. Trillions of dollars are held in such accounts.
&#8220;Cryptocurrency serves this function an order of magnitude better than the existing banking system,&#8221; Paul said. &#8220;I suspect that Dimon recognizes this, and is trying to delay the inevitable replacement of one his bank&#8217;s core services by a far more efficient upstart.&#8221;
The way most crypto enthusiasts see it, nothing Dimon says or does can stop bitcoin&#8217;s inevitable expansion across the globe and into more industries.
&#8220;Bitcoin is a bit like flood water,&#8221; said Union Square&#8217;s Wilson. &#8220;It&#8217;s hard to keep out of your society.&#8221;

Bitcoin fans fire back at Jamie Dimon after ‘fraud’ comment

&nbsp;
When I began to teach in 2012, I decided to start my course with an analysis of how money affects social order. What my students found particularly fascinating was the then-nascent world of cryptocurrencies, which I described at length as a crucial feature in the future of money.
Some colleagues criticised my approach. They accused me of indirectly encouraging students to invest in what they saw as a shady, crime-ridden financial underworld. But I was simply exposing young minds to a fast-evolving, complex phenomenon that in my view would have a major impact on power distribution in the global economy.
Behind most cryptocurrencies is a simple technology known as “<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/topic/Blockchain-technology">blockchain</a>”, a system residing in multiple computers that allows for peer-to-peer financial ledger recording of all transactions occurring in a network.
This results in a transparent open-access registry of monetary flows which makes the intermediation of banking authorities unnecessary. Thus it challenges the conventional belief that money can only work through central planning.
As I explain in my book, <a href="http://panmacmillan.co.za/catalogue/wellbeing-economy/">Wellbeing Economy: Success in a World Without Growth</a>, money systems are undergoing an unprecedented transition from centralised authority to decentralised networks.
Conventional money is managed by states and banks, with users on the receiving end of monetary policy decisions. By contrast, most alternative currencies are peer-to-peer. That means they are managed by users themselves and do not require intermediaries. Some of them have global outreach thanks to digital technology, while others are locally based.
Take BitCoin, the most popular peer-to-peer currency in the world, with a market capitalisation <a href="https://coinmarketcap.com/">above 40 billion US dollars</a>. A person buying the equivalent of $1 in BitCoin in 2009 would now possess roughly $25 million. One BitCoin is currently equivalent in value to two ounces of gold. Other rising stars include Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple.
<h2>Taking the world by storm</h2>
Many of these currencies remain quite volatile in the short term. Their upward and downward swings reach over 10% of the value on a weekly basis. But the long-term trend is impressive. States are warming up to them.
In April 2017, Japan <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-spikes-as-japan-recognizes-it-as-a-legal-payment-method-2017-4">accepted BitCoin</a> as a legal payment method for retail markets. After threatening digital currencies last year, the Russian government took a U-turn. President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-06/ethereum-could-change-russian-banking-and-government">met the developers of Ethereum</a> and committed to recognising cryptocurrencies in 2018.
Following an initial freeze, the People’s Bank of China <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-bitcoin-idUSKBN18S42X">readmitted withdrawals</a> in BitCoin in June 2017, catapulting the currency to new heights. In the US, cryptocurrencies are becoming increasingly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/27/coinbase-bitcoin-irs-government-summons-data-cryptocurrency">accepted</a>as both a method of payment and store of value.
The Australian government will soon make it easier for new innovative digital currency businesses <a href="http://www.budget.gov.au/2017-18/content/glossies/factsheets/html/FS_innovation.htm">to operate</a>, exempting traders and investors from goods and services tax.
It’s clear that cryptocurrencies will in the near future become much more common as methods of payment for a wide range of purchases, from online shopping to the local supermarket.
<h2>Developing countries are leapfrogging</h2>
Developing economies, too, are opening up to cryptocurrencies. In <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/02/03/why-venezuelas-currency-crisis-is-a-case-study-for-bitcoin/#7f41f14819b2">Venezuela</a>, BitCoin has become the leading parallel currency. It provides millions of citizens with an opportunity to perform transactions and generate livelihoods, including buying food and other basic necessities in a country where official money is worth almost zero. It also allows them to purchase goods from overseas, overcoming ever-stricter capital controls.
In East Africa, local innovators have introduced cryptocurrency systems to support cross-border transactions, as exemplified by initiatives like <a href="https://www.bitpesa.co/">BitPesa</a>.
In <a href="https://mybroadband.co.za/news/banking/206590-bitcoin-and-cryptocurrency-on-the-rise-in-south-africa.html">South Africa</a>, cryptocurrencies are becoming particularly popular. In <a href="https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/africa-ripped-bitcoin/">Nigeria</a>, local traders and activists believe this new money presents an opportunity to democratise the economy. This is propelled by the fact that people in Nigeria have been failed by conventional money.
According to my colleague Verengai Mabika, founder of <a href="http://techloy.com/2016/12/27/zimbabwean-bitcoin-startup-bitfinance-raises-funds-from-angel-investor/">BitFinance</a> in Zimbabwe, the collapse of his country’s formal financial system has made BitCoin an attractive alternative. This is especially the case for online payments, which are restricted by banks, and for remittances, which constitute the backbone of the economy.
A growing number of Zimbabweans are also using cryptocurrencies as a saving mechanism (37% of all Bitfinance customers use it for that purpose), Verengai tells me. This is after the massive loss of personal savings during the hyperinflation period of 2008, which led to the collapse of the country’s banks.
<h2>Decentralisation and local economic development</h2>
The decentralisation of money is indeed at the core of this new trend, with potential repercussions in other fields. For instance, <a href="https://www.ethereum.org/">Ethereum</a> is designed as a smart contract platform, that is a trading system completely based on peer-to-peer property rights. <a href="https://fair-coin.org/">FairCoin</a> was developed as the preferential currency for cooperatives, social economies and fair trade networks around the world.
Cryptocurrencies are just the tip of an iceberg. According to <a href="https://payment21.com/blog/complementary-currencies-entering-digital-era">recent estimates</a>, there are over 6,000 complementary currencies in the world, over 50 times the number of conventional money systems. Most of these are user-controllled and are interest-free. One cannot make money by simply trading in them.
Hoarding makes no sense in this new world. This is because value is not in the accumulation but in the exchange.
The scope is often limited to certain territories or types of transactions (for example, personal care, sustainable mobility and local trade). This creates an incentive to support local economic development and forms of exchange that are valued by communities of users.
<a href="http://regiogeld.com/">Regiogeld</a>, a network of local currencies which I studied when I was a researcher in Germany, has proliferated throughout the country. It has become the world’s largest system of local currencies, supporting small businesses and empowering communities.
In the near future, we will have a variety of money with different qualities and different purposes. This will make economies more resilient against shocks and will support more equitable and sustainable development, by putting users in the driver seat and reinforcing local economic development.
As <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/lorenzo-fioramonti/how-complementary-currencies-can-save-europe">my research</a> demonstrates, a combination of regional, national and local currencies could also be the best way forward for the European Union, engulfed by its monolithic and unsustainable euro, and for any other process of regional integration, from Africa to other continents.

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Bitcoin fans fire back at Jamie Dimon after ‘fraud’ comment

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