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What Moved Global Markets
– The whole world is now watching how relations are tensing between the US, Iran and Iraq, after the Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was killed during the airstrike by the US forces. Over the weekend: Iraqi Prime Minister has been pushing for parliament to end foreign troop presence as soon as possible. The parliament is about to hold an extraordinary session where lawmakers said they would push for a vote on a resolution to end the foreign troop presence. The U.S.-led coalition announced Sunday it was suspending most operations against “Islamic State.”
Soleimani’s body was returned to Iran Sunday. But Iran condemned Donald Trump on Sunday as a “terrorist in a suit.” The response came after the U.S. president threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites hard if Tehran attacks Americans or U.S. assets.
Also, Iran said on Sunday it would further roll back its commitments to a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers but continue to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, according to state television. The station cited a government spokesman as saying Iran would not respect any limits set down in the pact on the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges it could use, which meant there would be no limits on its enrichment capacity, the level to which uranium could be enriched, or Iran’s nuclear research and development. These would from now on be based on Iran’s technical needs.
– As for the markets, analysts say that the killing of Iran’s top military leader could be a longer-term catalyst for oil prices.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
Bitcoin: Up 0.77% to $7,557.93
Total trading volume (24h): $19.82+ billion USD
Ethereum: Up 2.10% to $139.22
Total trading volume (24h): $7.81+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours
Biggest Mover 1: STEM CELL COIN (SCC) is up 120.12% to $0.023854
Biggest Mover 2: Curio (CUR) is up 101.05% to $0.599568
Biggest Loser: Omnitude (ECOM) is down 82.89% to $0.003428
What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
– As noted by digital asset manager Charles Edwards, Blockchain.com, a cryptocurrency information and wallet service, found that Bitcoin’s hash rate — the measure of computational power processing BTC transactions — hit a new all-time high on the 1st day of 2020. The all-time high, 119 exahashes per second, or 119 with 18 zeroes after it. This surge in the hash rate breaks the previous all-time high set more than two months ago in October, meaning that Bitcoin’s network is now stronger than ever before, marking an amazing start to 2020.
– Venezuela is going to sell oil and gold for Petro cryptocurrency, according to President Maduro. “We will sell Venezuelan oil in exchange for petros. We have already signed contracts for the sale of oil, steel, iron and aluminium, and we will sell part of the gold for petros,” Maduro told Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, as reported by Russian news agency TASS. According to Maduro, the Venezuelan government is successfully introducing its cryptocurrency into citizens’ daily lives. He said that at least 6 million families in Venezuela have used petro as a payment method to purchase goods and services during the New Year holidays.
– ECB goes against Libra again. ECB official Jens Weidmann has called on banks to develop a cheaper and faster payment solution to counter Libra. Weidmann is not in favour of developing a digital euro yet. He said: “In a market economy, it is first up to companies to develop a corresponding offer for customer requests.”
– The Ethereum network has just completed its Muir Glacier hard fork. It comes less than a month after the previous Istanbul upgrade on Dec. 7. In fact, the latest hard fork only became necessary following the Istanbul upgrade, due to a realization that estimates predicting the timing of Ethereum’s difficulty bomb for mid-2020 were wrong. The difficulty bomb is a mechanism to gradually increase the difficulty of new block creation and is a step on the roadmap to Ethereum switching to a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.
Other Specialties
Fintech: The Hong Kong Institute of Bankers (HKIB) has onboarded six virtual banks as corporate members. Commenting on the news, Carrie Leung, CEO of the HKIB, said that the launching of virtual banks marked a new era in the development of the banking sector in the region, adding: “The HKIB now boasts a member base with 103 Corporate Members and Corporate Affiliates, and over 6,000 Individual Members. With the exponential growth in the local Fintech sector, we believe that more virtual banks and Fintech companies will see the importance of joining our community in the years ahead.” One of the objectives of the HKIB is the promotion of fintech development in Hong Kong by providing training in the fields of cybersecurity, digital banking and related areas. In 2020, the HKIB is planning to continue to promote talent exchange and launch industry initiatives to encourage professionals to participate in fintech training programs, among other goals.
Healthtech: AI-based reading of mammograms is more accurate than the one made by radiologists and can improve breast cancer diagnosis, according to the study run collaboratively between Google and a group of physicians in the UK.
Al: US announces AI software export restrictions. The US will impose new restrictions on the export of certain AI programs overseas, including to rival China. The ban, which comes into force on Monday, is the first to be applied under a 2018 law known as the Export Control Reform Act or ECRA. This requires the government to examine how it can restrict the export of “emerging” technologies “essential to the national security of the United States” — including AI. The new export ban is extremely narrow. It applies only to software that uses neural networks (a key component in machine learning) to discover “points of interest” in geospatial imagery; things like houses or vehicles. The ruling, posted by the Bureau of Industry and Security, notes that the restriction only applies to software with a graphical user interface — a feature that makes programs easier for non-technical users to operate.
Smart cities: Barcelona, one of the busiest cities in Europe, runs a car-free blocks experiment. Superblocks is a radical plan to reclaim the streets from the noise and pollution of traffic, one that could save hundreds of lives that might otherwise be lost because of heavily polluted air. It also hopes to act as a blueprint for other cities.
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