The crypto market has been struggling since topping out in June but this does not mean institutional interest in crypto has diminished. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group tweeted that customer interest in CME Bitcoin (BTC) futures remained strong in Q3 2019 compared to Q3 2018. The total increase in open interest during this period was about 61%, which shows that the involvement of institutional traders is on the rise. Similarly, digital asset manager Grayscale Investments reported that its products received a total investment of $254 million in Q3 2019. That was a sharp increase over Q2 2019 when the …

Digital asset financial services firm BitGo has announced that it will provide institutional-grade custody and wallets for Tron (TRX) starting on Nov. 8. According to the official announcement published on Oct. 14, BitGo has been working closely with Tron “to develop the first TRX institutional-grade wallet and custody offerings that provide on-chain, multi-sig security.” The post reads: “TRON came to us because of our reputation for delivering secure and compliant solutions designed for institutional investors. [...] Multi-sig has been openly reviewed and tested by the security community. It works with a multitude of open source tools and we are very …

A draft report by the G7 group of nations outlined the risks associated with “global stablecoins.” The report said: “No stablecoin project should begin operation until the legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks are adequately addressed.” This report is likely to increase the troubles for Facebook’s Libra project. Former Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo believes that Libra and the prospects of central bank digital currencies will increase regulator's intrusions into the crypto space. This can work as a double-edged sword. If regulators provide clarity, it is likely to attract large institutional players into the game, but if …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been in the thick of the action over the past week. First, the SEC rejected the Bitcoin ETF application from Bitwise Asset Management and NYSE Arca. Next, the governing body obtained a temporary restraining order against Telegram and its wholly-owned subsidiary Telegram Open Network (TON) for hosting a securities sale which would culminate with the distribution of Gram (GRM) tokens within the U.S. The SEC claims that the ICO was illegal as Telegram did not register the offering. While both news events are overwhelmingly negative, the crypto markets have held their …

The wait for a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund got a bit longer as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shot down the proposal by Bitwise Asset Management and NYSE Arca. The regulators felt that the application did not satisfy the requirement that it will “prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices.” However, there was no noticeable reaction to this news, which shows that the market participants did not have high expectations of an approval. Meanwhile, as Bakkt’s volumes continue to unimpress, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group is upbeat on its forthcoming Bitcoin options product. Tim McCourt, CME …

Tron and the Stellar Development Foundation are part of a new alliance that will provide university students with a working knowledge about blockchain technology. Teach students about blockchain In a news release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 10, it was announced that top crypto projects Tron and Stellar will work together to form a new educational alliance that will provide university students with the connections and knowledge needed to successfully enter the blockchain industry workforce. Tron and Stellar, together with 11 other members of the Blockchain Education Alliance, will jointly develop and fund a number of educational initiatives to bring …

Grayscale director of sales and business development Rayhaneh Sharif-Askary said that institutional interest in the crypto space has been strong throughout this year. The second quarter inflow was $85 million with 80% coming from institutions. Though this is positive, it shows that the inflow is only a trickle and a fraction of the firepower the institutions hold. A Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) can also boost interest in the asset class. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will announce their decision on Bitwise Asset Management’s ETF proposal before the Oct. 13 deadline. Bitwise managing director and global head …

Decentralized applications’ (DApps) transaction volume and user activity have slumped in the third quarter of 2019, a new study shows. DApp.com — an analytics platform for DApps built on Ethereum, EOS, Steem, Tron, TomoChain, IOST and Blockstack — revealed its recent findings in a news release shared with Cointelegraph on Oct. 7. An overall market assessment showed that DApps built on the six aforementioned blockchains reported a total transaction volume of $2.03 billion in Q3, down 40% compared with Q2. Only 36% of the DApp users from Q2 used DApps at least once in Q3, which also indicates a notable …

Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Tom Lee believes that Bitcoin does well when the S&P 500 market index moves up. Though Bitcoin might act as a macro hedge against global turmoil in some instances, it has largely performed negatively when the S&P 500 has dropped. It will be interesting to see how Bitcoin moves in the next few weeks. Bakkt’s launch did not generate the interest it was expected to do, which led some to blame it as the reason for the recent drop in Bitcoin. However, institutional traders do not jump in without testing waters. In a press release, Intercontinental …

Crypto companies often find out the hard way that hackers know their security systems better than they do. As hacks in the crypto world can and often do result in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of tokens being stolen, the fate of a company’s future can often ride on its security measures. In an effort to batten down the hatches, companies offer bug bounties. These bounties are essentially competitions in which hackers are encouraged to try to compromise software. The hackers then submit a vulnerability report to the respective companies so that they are able to patch the bugs …

BitTorrent’s decentralized file sharing protocol BitTorrent File System (BTFS) has launched its mainnet. The project seeks to become what developers describe as “the world’s largest and first scalable decentralized storage system.” According to a blog post published on Oct. 1, BTFS boasts various new features and 3,000 new nodes have been rolled out. The post added: “As October approaches, with BTFS integrated into the world’s largest P2P network, BitTorrent, BTFS has completed its official launch of the mainnet, representing a new starting point for BTFS and a big step towards the integration of BitTorrent ecosystem.” BTFS promises to benefit 100 …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has become the highest-ranked “Super Representative” (SR) in the Tron (TRX) ecosystem. According to Tronscan’s data on Sept. 30, Binance acquired over 12 billion votes for the top-spot ranking. Blockchain community Sesameseed.org is now the second-largest SR, with Tron-based BeatzCoin in third place. Binance announces TRX staking support On Sept. 30, Binance revealed that it would add support for TRX staking starting Oct. 1, with initial estimation of rewards to be calculated through Nov. 1 and subsequently distributed before Nov. 5. The system will then continue on the same basis monthly, per Binance’s website. The development …