NexChangeNOW Daily Briefing – Wednesday Jan 15, 2020

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    What Moved Global Markets
    – Wall Street opened largely flat on Tuesday, as investors took a breather following a record rally on optimism over the U.S.-China trade deal, while big U.S. banks reported mixed quarterly results.
    – Markets ahead of the deal: Yuan gains, oil also gains, gold dips.
    – The British government has announced a ban on credit cards being used for gambling. From April 14, businesses in the U.K. will be barred from accepting credit cards from consumers placing bets, Britain’s government-run Gambling Commission said Tuesday. The ban will be applied to all forms of gambling, with the exception of National Lottery tickets, which the commission noted were sold in grocery stores and newsagents and would be too difficult for retailers to separate.

    Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
    Bitcoin: Up 4.54% to $8,807.00
    Total trading volume (24h): $45.01+ billion USD

    Ethereum: Up 12.07% to $165.41
    Total trading volume (24h): $17.32+ billion USD

    3 biggest movers 24 hours
    Biggest Mover 1: BitKAM (KAM) is up 148.07% to $0.002268
    Biggest Mover 2: Game Stars (GST) is up 111.74% to $0.000431
    Biggest Loser: Blockburn (BURN) is down 51.42% to $0.067390

    What moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
    – Digital asset issuer Securitize has facilitated what it says is the first direct IRA investment in security token offerings (STOs). A customer of alternative investments gateway AltoIRA purchased an initial investment in security tokens representing CityBlock Capital’s $20 million venture fund, with tokens issued by Securitize. The arrangement is set to open up new opportunities for retirement investors seeking exposure to digital securities, an alternative investment, said Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo.
    – Options on bitcoin futures from Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) got off to a good start on Monday, seeing trading volume reach 55 contracts in the opening session. That amounts to a notional volume of about $2.3 million or 275 bitcoin, with each contract worth 5 BTC. Several hours later, Bitcoin price rallied 3.7% to hit 2-month high.

    Other Specialties
    Fintech: Ripple-backed remittance services provider MoneyGram has brought its services to India. MoneyGram has partnered with Indian money transfer firm EbixCash, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Ebix, for expansion into the country, according to an announcement Monday. EbixCash will be MoneyGram’s “exclusive” partner in India.
    Healthtech: NASDAQ.com takes a look at the most promising healthtech, medtech and biotech stocks in 2020.
    Al: Weather forecasting is notoriously difficult, but in recent years experts have suggested that AI and machine learning could better help sort the sunshine from the sleet. Google is the latest firm to get involved, and in a blog post this week shared new research that it says enables “nearly instantaneous” weather forecasts. The work is in the early stages and has yet to be integrated into any commercial systems, but early results look promising. In the non-peer-reviewed paper, Google’s researchers describe how they were able to generate accurate rainfall predictions up to six hours ahead of time at a 1km resolution from just “minutes” of calculation.
    Smart cities: Uber on Monday launched a city mobility campaign focused on infrastructure and improving safety for vulnerable roadway users such as bicyclists, scooter riders and pedestrians.  Uber also is publicly releasing a free data tool in its Uber Movement platform that shows Jump bike volume within a city, starting with San Francisco, Washington, DC and Paris. The tool will show where bikes and scooters are used most to inform cities’ decisions about where infrastructure opportunities exist.

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