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What Moved Global Markets
– The leaders of Russia and Ukraine are to meet in Paris on Monday. It is in an attempt to find a peaceful resolution to the long-running conflict in eastern Ukraine. The meeting – known as the Normandy Four summit – will also be attended by France’s President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
– Russia was banned from the world’s top sporting events for four years on Monday, including the next summer and winter Olympics and the 2022 soccer World Cup, for tampering with doping tests.
– Morgan Stanley is cutting about 2% of its workforce due to an uncertain global economic outlook, CNBC reported on Monday citing people familiar with the matter. The job cuts will hit technology and operations roles hardest at the Wall Street bank, the report said.
– China’s Communist Party has ordered all state offices to remove foreign hardware and software within three years, the Financial Times reports. The move could hit major U.S. firms including Microsoft, Dell and HP. China’s latest policy may be seen as one of the most direct moves against U.S. technology firms during the trade war.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
Bitcoin: Down 1.60% to $7,407.16
Total trading volume (24h): $18.07+ billion USD
Ethereum: Down 2.16% to $147.48
Total trading volume (24h): $6.67+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours
Biggest Mover 1: DUO Network Token is up 87.48% to $0.021852
Biggest Mover 2: Uquid Coin is up 63.53% to $0.117543
Biggest Loser: CIChain is down 71.61% to $0.000165
What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
– The People’s Bank of China is said to be preparing to launch pilots for its digital currency in at least two major cities. As reported by Chinese financial news source Caijing on Monday, the central bank is “expected” to launch the tests of the fully digital yuan in Shenzhen and Suzhou. The tests are likely to include the participation of state-owned partners. These comprise the “Big Four” commercial banks – the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and the Agricultural Bank of China – and three telcos, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom.
– Bakkt goes live with its bitcoin options and cash-settled futures contracts. The New York Stock Exchange’s sister firm announced in a blog post Monday that it’s using its physically settled bitcoin contracts as a benchmark to support the new products, which were both announced in recent weeks.
– Huobi US, the U.S. affiliate of the Huobi Group exchange, announced Monday it would cease operations in the coming weeks. The company said in a notice that it would shut down trading services on Dec. 15, 2019. Customers have until Jan. 31, 2020 to withdraw all of their assets. Any customers who have insufficient balances to meet the minimum withdrawal requirements “are encouraged” to convert their assets into another crypto or fiat. Deposits will also no longer be accepted.
Other Specialties
Fintech: AIxWallSt: Artificial intelligence is becoming more important for the financial-services industry and employees who aren’t trained to work alongside algorithms run the risk of losing their jobs, experts told lawmakers. At a recent hearing of the House Financial Services Committee’s AI task force, academics and financial-services professionals described how emerging technologies including AI are being used in trading, robo-advisory, market surveillance and other areas.
Healthtech: Google R&D arm proposes a hybrid approach to AI transfer learning for medical imaging (medical imaging is among the most popular application of AI and machine learning.)
Al: Artificial intelligence’s ability to sift through large amounts of data is helping scientists tackle one of the most difficult unsolved problems in mathematics. Yang-Hui He at City, University of London, and his colleagues are using the help of machine learning to better understand the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. This is one of the seven fiendishly difficult Millennium Prize Problems, each of which has a $1 million reward on offer for the first correct solution.
Smart cities:Airbnb announced it will introduce a dedicated hotline next year for mayors and city officials to connect with company representatives if hosts or guests are not complying with rules. Airbnb said the new hotline is “part of our ongoing commitment to work with cities around the world,” and is designed to “deepen that trust by making sure that city officials have a dedicated way to communicate with Airbnb in the rare event that hosts’ or guests’ conduct are not meeting our standards.”
NexChangeNOW Pick of the Day
Korean Government to Tax Cryptocurrencies