The Crypto Roundup: 09 August 2019

Latest price and news from the crypto space

Latest price from our hand picked list of digital assets

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

Grayscale report highlights role of bitcoin in US-China trade war
Blockstream launches Bitcoin mining and pool
Robinhood International gets regulatory nod to operate in the U.K.

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,803.34 (-1.01%) with a daily volume of $2.42 bn while ether (ETH) is trading at $215.61 (-.4.40%) with a daily volume of $1.39 bn. As for the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index, it is currently tracking at 3,807.83 (-.0.62%).

Grayscale Report Highlights Role of Bitcoin in US-China Trade War

Cryptocurrency asset management firm and Digital Currency Group subsidiary Grayscale Investments has published an updated version of its Hedging U.S.-China Trade Risk with Bitcoin report—initially released in December 2016.

In the 14-page report, Grayscale—which as of August 8 maintain $3 billion in assets under management (AUM)—places the trade tensions between the U.S. and China in a broader context, before exploring the role bitcoin could potentially play in a portfolio exposed to a would-be global liquidity crisis.

Blockstream Launches Bitcoin Mining and Pool

Blockstream—a Canada-headquartered company that describes itself as “the global leader in Bitcoin and blockchain technology”—announced on Thursday a new turnkey colocation service called Blockstream Mining.

“Blockstream Mining provides mining equipment colocation in our purpose-built data centers designed to meet the needs of institutional and enterprise customers,” Blockstream stated in a blog post detailing its new service.

As part of its business, Blockstream operates bitcoin mining centers in both Quebec and the U.S. city of Adel. It started mining bitcoin in 2017 and has since been gradually expanding its mining hosting services. Forming part of Thursday’s blog post, also, was the announcement of Blockstream Pool, “the world’s first production mining pool utilizing the BetterHash protocol.”

Robinhood International Gets Regulatory Nod to Operate in the U.K.

U.K. financial services regulator - the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) - has allowed Robinhood International, Ltd. to operate domestically as a broker. Robinhood International is a subsidiary of fast-growing brokerage firm Robinhood, which offers a commission-free investment and stock-trading app that allows users to invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrencies.

In a blog post announcing its subsidiary’s receiving of the FCA’s authority to operate as a broker, Robinhood also shared its appointment of Wander Rutgers as President of Robinhood International. Joining from fellow fintech startup Plum, Rutgers will “lead the U.K. business and oversee [Robinhood International’s] new London office.”

CoinSwitch - Crypto Trading Simplified

CoinSwitch.co is a two-year-old cryptocurrency exchange aggregator backed by Sequoia Capital. It enables users to anonymously buy over 300+ coins by comparing prices across leading global exchanges like Binance, Huobi, HitBTC and many more.

CoinSwitch.co also has a product for website owners to monetize their crypto audience by setting up an instant exchange on their website in less than 5 minutes and with ZERO CODE. Over 100+ bloggers, YouTubers and influencers are already using the instant exchange on their website.

Additionally, it offers a FREE crypto payment gateway that supports payments in multiple coins for merchants. The merchants do not have to worry about the volatility risks or the risk arising out of accepting and holding multiple cryptocurrencies. Major gaming companies like Primedice, OneHash, and Stake are already using this product.

The company has partnered with major crypto wallet companies such as Metamask, Exodus, Trezor hardware wallet by integrating its APIs within the wallet for users to swap their cryptocurrencies.