March 24, 2019

Bitcoin [BTC] Futures in good stead against its Spot equivalent: Bitwise Report |

Bitcoin [BTC] Futures were thought to be a snippet of the overarching cryptocurrency market, though meager in comparison to the larger spot market. A recent report from Bitwise Asset Management, the crypto-centric investment firm has stated otherwise.

In a March 20 report presented to the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC], Bitwise analyzed the Chicago Mercantile Exchange [CME], and the Chicago Board Options Exchange, with ten prominent cryptocurrency exchanges’ in terms of their trade volume.

Prior to shedding light on their Futures versus Spot findings, it must be noted that the report revealed that 95 percent of the trading volume of unregulated exchanges were seemingly “fake and/or non-economic wash trading”.

Taking into account this disparity, the percentage of futures volume to their spot equivalent increases from 1.51 percent to 33.33 percent. Reported Spot volume totaled $6 billion, but after removing the “suspicious exchanges”, the actual volume recorded dropped to $273 million, in comparison to the futures market volume of $91 million.

Furthermore, the increase in futures’ volume as a percentage of the spot market has been steadily increasing. From November 2018 to January 2019, the futures market was just over 15 percent, and almost doubled in February 2019 to 33 percent. Since the Futures contracts were approved in December 2017, only on two occasions did the Futures volume, in comparison to the Spot market, shoot above 20 percent; this was in May and August 2018.

Futures Volume expressed as a percentage of their Spot Equivalent

In terms of their stand-alone trade volume, the CME and the CBOE are in good stead against the world’s top cryptocurrency exchanges. The daily volume the CME, which brings in $84.82 million, ranks second behind Binance’s $110.5 million and ahead of Bitfinex, which records $38.06 million in daily trade volume.

The CBOE also fairs well, taking the ninth spot on the ladder, ringing in $6.12 million in daily trade volume. Gemini takes the eight spot with $8.11 million and itBit caps off the top-10 with $5.58 million in daily volume. Notable, among the top-12, eight exchanges are registered within the United States.

Despite the CBOE’s comparative success against the spot exchanges’, it has not been performing well against its cross-town rival, the CME. This slump forced the CBOE to delist their Bitcoin Futures [XBT] for March 2019. However, the XBT futures that are yet to expire later in the year will not be off-loaded prematurely.

Bitwise also points out that the CME Futures Price tracks the Global Spot Price based on an arbitrage model. Given below is a chart attesting the same:

Arbitrage between the CME Futures price and the global Spot price

The post Bitcoin [BTC] Futures in good stead against its Spot equivalent: Bitwise Report appeared first on AMBCrypto.

Published at Sun, 24 Mar 2019 21:06:04 +0000

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Russia to Issue First State-Backed Cryptocurrency ‘CryptoRuble’

Russia has announced plans to launch a nationalized cryptocurrency called CryptoRuble, citing competitive advantage by being the first of its kind in Europe, and as state-controlled digital money in the light of an increasingly digital economy.

Russia has announced, via communications Minister Nikolay Nikiforov, that the country will begin experimenting with a nationalized cryptocurrency. Exact facts are scarce, and most of the information comes directly from quotes from Nikiforov, although it is believed that once the CryptoRuble is introduced, all other cryptocurrency mining for coins such as bitcoin will be banned. That Russia is taking these steps indicate a pressing need for governments to somehow financially oversea and realize returns from the digital economy.

After a recent closed-door meeting, Nikiforov stated:

I am so confident to declare that we will run CryptoRuble just for one simple reason: if we don’t, our neighbors in the Eurasian Economic Community will do it in a couple of months.

A Taxable Currency

The Russian government has made it clear that if a CryptoRuble owner cannot account for where they got it, they will be subject to a 13% tax. The online economy has made it difficult and a concern for governments to collect taxes on an increasing digital sales industry.

“When buying and selling a CryptoRuble, the rate will be 13 percent from the earned difference. If the owner cannot explain the reason for the appearance of his CryptoRubles, when converting them into Russian rubles, the tax for him will be 13 percent of the total,” Nikiforov said.

Online Reception

Online reception to the news has been mixed, with some claiming that it is simply “digital fiat” as opposed to a true cryptocurrency. Others see it as a shrewd move, capitalizing on what could become a trend for the rest of Europe.

cryptoruble is to #Bitcoin as AOL was to the Internet

restrictive, centralized and already obsolete in terms of tech

— Allen [#NO2X] Scott (@allenscottoshi) October 17, 2017

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Reddit user JeremyBF commented:

Wow, is there a legit source for this? I expect all governments to eventually do this, but this fast, awesome. This is actually great for bitcoin. Let the governments educate the people on the advantages of cryptocurrencies, the learning curve into bitcoin is then nearly complete!

The Russian move seems as much a response to engaging with the digital economy as it does to countering any competitive threat bitcoin might pose.

In the words of Nikiforov:

This mustn’t be a private currency, but the one, which is issued by the state, controlled by the state and enable to provide circulation of digital money in light of the digital economy.

Could a nationalized, centralized, government-controlled cryptocurrency work? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images Courtesy of Pexels, Wikimedia Commons

The post Russia to Issue First State-Backed Cryptocurrency ‘CryptoRuble’ appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

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