Cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturers have notified their customers orders are going to be delayed because of the controls the Chinese government has created to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Cryptocurrency scammers tripled the amount they made in 2018, duping victims out of a total of $4.3 billion last year. The majority of the funds went to a few major Ponzi schemes, with the rest going to fake token sales, blackmail, and phishing schemes.

The CME has, according to its Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Products Tim McCourt, traded $100 billion worth of Bitcoin Futures since the product was launched in December 2017.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Cryptocurrency Miner Deliveries Are Being Delayed by Coronavirus Controls
• Cryptocurrency Scammers Duped Victims out of $4.3 Billion Last Year: Chainalysis
• CME Traded $100 Billion Worth of Bitcoin Futures Since 2017

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $9,369.50 (0.12%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $2.40 billion. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $182.72 (4.03%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $587.36 million. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index

Cryptocurrency Miner Deliveries Are Being Delayed by Coronavirus Controls

Leading cryptocurrency mining hardware manufacturers MicroBT, Bitmain, and Canaan have notified their customers that shipments are going to be delayed for at least a week because of the coronavirus controls in place.

According to a WeChat notice published by MicroBT, referencing a decision made by the Guangdong provincial government to extend the Chinese New Year holiday, the “production, delivery, after-sales service, and send and receive documents and other arrangements" would be delayed.

Artem Eremin, product manager of ASIC retailer 3Logic, spoke to CoinDesk saying both Bitmain and Canaan sent similar notices to customers. The coronavirus has reportedly killed 213 people and infected over 9,700 throughout the world. It has been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization.

Cryptocurrency Scammers Duped Victims out of $4.3 Billion Last Year: Chainalysis

Data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis revealed that cryptocurrency scammers managed to dupe their victims out of $4.3 billion worth of cryptocurrency last year, tripling the amount from 2018.

According to the security firm’s report, the majority of the funds were linked to alleged Ponzi schemes, including OneCoin and Plustoken. The report read:

“The vast majority of that $4.3 billion went to just two large-scale Ponzi schemes, without which crime overall would account for just 0.46% of all cryptocurrency activity.”

Apart from the Ponzi schemes, cryptocurrency scammers used blackmail, fake cryptocurrency mixers, phishing schemes, and fake token sales to get to the $4.3 billion. To cash out their gains, scammers mostly used cryptocurrency exchanges, as 57.6% of the funds associated with scams were liquidated on trading platforms.

Chainalysis’ report notes scammers are taking advantage of the cryptocurrency space’s unique position with the wider public: while most have heard about cryptocurrencies, many still believe it has “get rich quick” potential and are prone to pull out their wallets because of it.

CME Traded $100 Billion Worth of Bitcoin Futures Since 2017

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has reportedly traded over $100 billion worth of Bitcoin futures, according to its Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Index Alternative Investment Products Tim McCourt.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, McCourt said:

“CME Bitcoin futures have surpassed $100 billion in total notional value traded since their launch in December 2017.”

The CME launched its cash-settled Bitcoin futures product in December 2017, at the time of Bitcoin’s near $20,000 all-time high. Since then the product has evolved and is now “one of the most liquid, listed bitcoin derivatives available globally,” McCourt was quoted as saying.

Since then other platforms have launched cash and physically-settled Bitcoin futures. Although the competition has been increasing, McCourt revealed the CME has been continuing to see “strong participation from institutional investors, physical bitcoin traders, and other clients.”

Flipside Friday

The Flipside Crypto Disparity Ratio is a tool helping you see under and overvalued cryptoassets, is once again here. The crypto disparity ratio scores cryptoassets based on market capitalization and FCAS ratings, with a score over 1 showing it’s undervalued, and under 1 showing it’s overvalued. XYO, an ERC20 token used for a decentralized network of devices that anonymously collects geospatial data, is at the top of the undervalued assets with a ratio of 1.86.

It’s followed by the Raiden Network’s token. The Raiden Network is an off-chain transfer network for ERC20 tokens in the Ethereum network, providing users a scalable, cheap alternative to on-chain token transfers. Behind it is Polymath, a blockchain-based system incentivizing participants to launch financial products, and IoTeX, a decentralized platform of a privacy-centric blockchain for vendors to build decentralized applications on.

On the overvalued we have Insight Chain’s INB token. Insight Chain is a commercial public blockchain that’s looking to establish the world’s first data ecosystem public blockchain with infinite scalability. Behind it is Monacoin, the once-popular cat meme cryptocurrency MonaCoin, which has even been used to buy land in 2014, and Qubitica, a community of over 1,000 developers, IT companies and investors working together to advance blockchain technology.

Qubitica’s community has developed infrastructure and has been working on new blockchain and AI projects. Within the community it’s possible to use the QBIT token, the participation shares in Qubitica and related projects.

State of the Crypto by Top Tier Exchange Volume

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