Highlighting what went right, and what went wrong, in this week’s crypto news analysis.

]The US government may have shut down, but speculation about what the SEC will do with crypto in 2019 certainly hasn’t. Especially since they released a report calling digital assets one of their top six priorities.

While probably unrelated to the report, but definitely related to the government shutdown, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the Bakkt exchange will hit their January 24th launch date, unless federal employees decide to work this week in some kind of Christmas miracle.

Finally, if you believe crypto price charts, it looks like the bulls are back in town, just in time for the holidays. But don’t hold your breath that this year will end anything like 2017.

Below we have our weekly roundup of industry and coin specific news. If you’d like to get in touch with us about any of our products or services, we look forward to hearing from you. Just send us a note.

Latest Industry News

HMRC answers your crypto-tax questions

• Copper sat down with HRMC to clarify the key points from their massive 2018 tax guidance document

• The good news is they are ahead of the curve, the bad news is you probably owe them some (fiat) money

Read More

Margin trading with USDT launched on Bitfinex

• In a blog post, Bitfinex claims it will lead to more efficient price discovery and enable hedging of stable coins

• The US Dept. of Justice is still investigating the exchange for possible misconduct relating to Tether in 2017

Read More

Upbit executives face charges

• Three senior executives at the Korean exchange, including the founder, have been indicted for fraud

• Charges relate to questionable trading practices between Sept-Dec 2017, involving hundreds of millions of dollars

Read More

Latest Coin News

BTC

• Price analysis

• Only 20% of

  are actively used

• The number of

  has fallen 20% since 2017

ETH

• Price analysis

• Co-founder says

  marks bottom of crypto market

• Are Dapps and smart contracts dead?

  discusses

XRP

• Price analysis

• Brad Garlinghouse outlines why

  during AMA

• Philippine pawn broker will use

  for remittances

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