Biggest Cryptocurrency News Today (1/5/17)

Market Update

The Bitcoin price is currently sitting at $16340 representing a gain of 9% in the last 24 hours. More than $1.6B worth of BTC were exchanged in the BTC/USD market representing a 37% share of daily volume, followed by the BTC/JPY pair that represents a 30% share.

See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/

The Ethereum price has dropped by 2% over the past 24 hours and is currently sitting at $1,011, with over $900M worth of Ether exchanged in the past 24 hours on the ETH/USD pair which has a 29% market share of the daily trading volume.

See live charts here: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/

Texas Officials Strike BitConnect with Cease and Desist Order

The Securities Commissioner of the state of Texas filed an emergency cease and desist order for BitConnect yesterday. In the official report, the Texas State Securities board accuses the London-based investment platform of fraud and the selling of unlicensed securities. Throughout the write-up, the state of Texas lists a number of details surrounding the BitConnect investment model, including its rate of return, lending program, and staking program. These findings, the Commissioner holds, meet all the criteria for a traditional security, and as such, BitConnect is currently selling its assets illegally:

“Respondent BitConnect is violating Section 7 of the Texas Securities Act by offering securities for sale in Texas at a time when the securities are not registered with the Securities Commissioner.”
In response to these findings, the Commissioner concludes the report by ordering BitConnect to suspend its operations within the state:

“It is therefore ORDERED that Respondent BitConnect immediately CEASE and DESIST from offering for sale any security in Texas until the security is registered with the Securities Commissioner or is offered for sale pursuant to an exemption from registration under the Texas Securities Act.”

Binance Exchange Disables New User Registrations

Today, Binance, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, has announced the immediate suspension of client registration. The company informed all prospective clients about an hour ago.

“Due to the overwhelming surge in popularity, Binance will have to temporarily disable new user registrations to allow for an infrastructure upgrade.”

Coinbase Squashes Exchange Listing Rumors

Yesterday, Coinbase announced that for now, it will not be adding any new cryptocurrencies to either its flagship platform or its other digital asset exchange, GDAX. In a blog post, the company, which currently allows customers to buy, sell, deposit or withdraw Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and most recently, Bitcoin Cash, said it wanted to explain its decision. The update follows the rumour that the exchange would add Ripple’s XRP token. The blog post reads:

“As of the date of this statement, we have made no decision to add additional assets to either GDAX or Coinbase. Any statement to the contrary is untrue and not authorized by the company.”