Top stories in the Crypto Roundup:

• SEC claims Veritaseum—and its founder—defrauded VERI token investors in “unlawful” securities offering
• Despite the growing narrative “weak” correlation between bitcoin and gold.
• Coinbase and Barclays bank part ways.

At time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $10,584.0 (-6.9%) with a daily volume of $619.0 bn while ether (ETH) is trading at $207.6 (-1.0%) with a daily volume of $48.4 mn. As for the MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index, it is currently tracking at 3,615.5 (-0.4%). The four-hour BTC/USD chart has recorded eight consecutive red candles, at time of writing.

SEC Claims Veritaseum Defrauded VERI Token Investors in ‘Unlawful’ Securities Offering

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had its application for a “Temporary Restraining Order Freezing Assets, Requiring Defendants (i.e., Reginald (‘Reggie’) Middleton and Veritaseum) to Show Cause, and Granting Other Relief” approved on Monday evening (22:10 UTC) by the Honorable LaShann DeArcy Hall, the U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

As stated in the court filing, the SEC is alleging that Middleton breached a number of U.S. regulations “by defrauding investors of millions of dollars in the unlawful unregistered offer and sale of digital asset securities known as “VERI Tokens” based on material misrepresentations, among other things, about [Veritaseum’s] business prospects, amount of VERI Tokens sold, [Veritaseum’s] use of VERI Tokens investors’ assets and use of proceeds, and by engaging in manipulative trades in VERI Tokens.”

The emergency freeze entered by Judge Hall will have the effect of preserving “at least $8 million of the $14.8 million [Middleton and Veritasium] raised in 2017 and 2018 in an offering of digital securities,” an SEC press release read.

The VERI/USD pair has lost over 60 percent of its value over the past 24 hours, according to data from CryptoCompare.

Barclays and Coinbase Part Ways

London-headquartered Barclays is no longer working with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, according to CoinDesk, which cited “industry sources.”

Coinbase has since found a replacement in U.K. challenger bank, ClearBank, the cryptocurrency news site went on to report. A consequence of Barclays and Coinbase no longer working together is that Coinbase users will indefinitely be unable to instantly withdraw and deposit British pounds at the exchange. ClearBank is expected to solve this for Coinbase “by the end of the third quarter.”

Over the weekend, it came to light that Coinbase UK was removing support for privacy-oriented cryptocurrency, Zcash (ZEC). Coinbase UK users have until Monday, August 26 to either send their ZEC holdings elsewhere or convert them into another Coinbase UK-listed cryptocurrency.

Despite the Fast-Growing Narrative, Correlation Between Bitcoin and Gold is ‘Weak'

 

In its latest ‘State of the Network’ newsletter Coin Metrics have shown that the 90-day rolling correlation coefficient of bitcoin and gold remains “weak” despite being “high relative to its historical range.” The current correlation of +0.20 “has been steadily increasing since the beginning of this year,” the cryptocurrency data startup wrote.

“Such a result should cause market participants to critically examine the safe haven narrative and be open-minded to the possibility that the relationship between Bitcoin and gold is spurious,” Coin Metrics wrote. “Although backed by strong theory and the presence of compelling evidence that Bitcoin and gold both respond similarly to specific geopolitical events, a proper correlation analysis suggests that the relationship between the two is weak.”

The bitcoin-is-correlated-to-gold narrative appeared somewhat more credible on a shorter timeframe: the current 30-day rolling correlation, which yielded a correlation coefficient of +0.49. This, the Massachusetts-based firm noted, is high relative to both the historical range and on an absolute basis.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

Build your project with the CryptoCompare API

Terms | Privacy

162 Main Road, Danbury, Chelmsford

England, CM3 4DT

This email may include advertisements by third parties. None of the advertised or promoted products and services have been verified or approved by us and this email is not any endorsement by us of the third party or of their products or services.