Crypto Bytes
DIGESTIBLE CRYPTO NEWS

“No one has ever hacked Bitcoin. It is the most secure computing network in the world.“
– Anthony Pompliano, Morgan Creek Digital Assets co-founder

Hey All,

Just as Equifax settles a $700 million dollar fine for a data breach that affected 174 million user account, Capital One was hacked. Capital One announced that personal information including names and addresses of about 100 million individuals in the United States and 6 million people in Canada were obtained.

Data breaches are becoming all too common. The problem is companies store users’ data in a centralized server which makes it prone to systemic risk, everyones information being exposed with a single breach.

Blockchain technology solves this because information is stored in a decentralized network rather than under a single entity. If a user gets hacked it effects only a single user rather than the whole network.

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MOON
Who’s up…

Buying Bitcoin to brace for Brexit.

What is Brexit… Brexit is an abbreviation for “British exit,” referring to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, vowed to leave the European Union, “do or die,” by October 31st.

Losing pounds…The fear is that Britain is heading towards a no-deal Brexit, which would cast most of the UK into trade and travel turmoil. Member countries of the EU would likely suffer an economic setback in the fallout, leading to a lack of confidence in both the pound and euro.

Bitcoin search… Bitcoin s earches surge as Britain prepares for Brexit. According to data compiled through Google Trends, ‘bitcoin’ search volume has risen to its highest level in a year in England and other parts of the UK.

THE TAKEAWAYS

The pound slumped to its weakest level in more than two years Tuesday. That’s bad news for Britain.
When your local currency depreciates in value the cost to import goods and services are more expensive. Britain imports more than it exports.
British citizens will likely buy alternative currencies to hedge against the Pound losing value. Based on Google’s search results, we see there is an interest in Bitcoin as a hedge.

Number Of The Week: 85%
This week, 17,850,000 bitcoin have been mined meaning 85% are in circulation.

Even if we wanted, we couldn’t ban Bitcoin.

Roll Call…U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) admitted that it would be difficult or impossible to ban bitcoin in the United States. ‘I’m pretty confident we couldn’t succeed in doing that [ban bitcoin] because this is a global tech, a global innovation.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry was also open to the digital asset ecosystem and admitted bitcoin was an “unstoppable force.”

THE TAKEAWAYS

Bitcoin > Libra. The decentralization feature to Bitcoin makes it immune to government intervention.
If your going to send a subpoena to Bitcoin, where do you send it?
Read below to find out how the US government is putting the brakes on Facebook’s Libra.

REKT
…Who’s down

Libra might not see the light of day.

Facebook warns investors… Facebook says in the risk factors section of its latest quarterly report that it can’t guarantee Libra “will be made available in a timely manner, or at all.”

“Libra has drawn significant scrutiny from governments and regulators in multiple jurisdictions and we expect that scrutiny to continue,” Facebook said in its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

THE TAKEAWAYS

We can’t stifle innovation because lack of understanding. The failure to act and adopt blockchain and cryptocurrencies will put the US at a severe disadvantage to the countries that do accept the technology.
Compare the success of the countries (and companies) that failed to adopt the internet and the one’s that embraced the technology and saw the opportunity.
David Marcus, head of Libra project, understood that Libra would get push back which is why they shared their White paper well before they develop Libra.
Marcus stated in the Senate hearing that Libra will not move forward without addressing all concerns.

Stocks plummeted because US & China failure to agree on a trade deal just started a currency war.

iPhones 10% more expensive… The US pledged a 10% tariff on the remaining $300B in Chinese goods. Since tariffs are like taxes, that would make the Chinese-produced iPhone X 10% more expensive to Americans.

US just labeled China a currency manipulator… China’s government weakened its currency so now your $1 buys 7 Chinese Yuan — the weakest level the currency has hit in over a decade.

Why tariffs & currency manipulation… Tariffs make it more expensive to manufacture in China which encouraging US companies (like Apple) to make stuff elsewhere.
By weakening the value of its currency compared to the US dollar, China offsets part of the tariff’s impact.

THE TAKEAWAYS

Trade wars are not good for anyone. Tariff’s ‘tax’ will ultimately fall on US consumers to pay more.
Investors are looking for a safe haven. Bitcoin’s price was up 20% this week and gold reached record highs.
Government’s can be very unpredictable to adjust currency supply using method such as quantitative easing and interest rates. What is great about Bitcoin is that code is open source and you can know at any time the amount of circulating Bitcoin.

CORRECTION
What is Libra?
I just wanted to correct something from last weeks newsletter where we broke down Libra. I wrote Libra was pegged to the US dollar when in fact, it is pegged to a basket of different currencies.

Stable Coin… Libra is pegged to a basket of currencies that will anchor its value. Merchants will be more likely to accept a cryptocurrency who’s price does not fluctuate.

In case you missed last weeks newsletter you can read up on Libra here.