US Congress H.R.5036 - Financial Technology Protection Act, after passing the house has been referred to Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs by Senate. This Act will setup an Independent Financial Technology Task Force, which will tackle investigation of terrorist and illicit use of new financial technology, including digital currencies as well as propose necessary measures for counter-terrorist and counter-illicit financing efforts.
The act also proposes to develop tools to handle such measures by FinTech Leadership in Innovation Program, as well as reward too.
This act specifically doesn't mention cryptocurrency but it is just in the ambit of digital currency which is defined as any digital medium of exchange or value which is not a legal tender. So let's say its for all digital currencies and not for crypto individually.

In another major news OeKB which carries out Bond auctions on behalf of the Federal Government Finance Agency (OeBFA) responsible for the debt management of the Austrian republic, is going to use Ethereum Blockchain for the same. Bond auction is planned for next Tuesday worth of 1.15 billion euros. as informed to local media-
"Following successful tests, a Blockchain notarization service will be used for the first time at the next week's Federal Bond Auction," says OeKB. Data from the auction system ADAS (Auction Procedure for Federal Bonds of the Republic of Austria) are notarised as HASH value in Blockchain.
while some other members commented as

"Blockchain technology offers great potential for increasing efficiency and ensuring the quality of bank processes," says OeKB board member Angelika Sommer-Hemetsberger.
"This added security contributes to a high level of confidence in the auction process of Austrian government bonds and strengthens Austria's good standing in the market, which can also indirectly contribute to favorable financing costs," said OeBFA CEO Markus Stix.

Federal bond auction of a country is something that we would call as progressive and good for cryptoworld.

Poloniex is going to introduce  USD Coin(USDC) markets,

According to Poloniex USDC is a fully collateralized US dollar stablecoin, serving as the bridge between dollars in a bank account and trading on crypto asset exchanges. USDC is a fully collateralized US dollar stablecoin using the ERC-20 standard that provides detailed financial and operational transparency, operates within the regulated framework of US money transmission laws, and is reinforced by established banking partners and auditors. It is the first fiat stablecoin developed by CENTRE, the open source project and membership consortium, with Circle being the first of several forthcoming members to launch USDC issuance.

Circle is the front to offer USDC to clients and  after that allows transfer to Poloniex to trade and reverse follows for withdrawals. Poloniex is going to launch USDC trading against BTC, ETH,and USDT Pairs.

After launch of USDG(Gemini dollar) this is another Stable coin being introduced within a span of days.

Another news is that kraken is going to list two new digital assets – Cardano (ADA) and Quantum (QTUM). in which trading starts Today.

0x has come up with a good news for Dapps developer that they have successfully completed their main net testing of 0x Protocol v2.0, which they had been working up over the year. 0x Protocol v2.0 addresses the needs of both developers and end users to access and exchange all types of new digital assets as they emerge. It is expected that this will bring a new wave of high-quality projects onto 0x, and set up the system for future upgrades and improvements through governance.

Huobi wallet, a wallet from Huobi exchange has been upgraded to a new level with Changelly coming on board. Now users of Huobi wallet can instantly exchange cryptocurrencies stored in Huobi wallet without transferring them to an cryptoexchange to  exchange. This way of exchange is generally considered safe and allows user to be in control of their funds all the time.

 

With integration of Changelly with Huobi Wallet , gives Huobi wallet same level as that of Jaxx and other wallets.

E-dinar coin one of many unknown alt-coin is making up the news, It has surged 1289% in last 24 hour alone mainly because of investing on the day of festival of Moharram. It is now currently trading at $0.13 with market cap of $118,158,442, way up ahead than many known crypto currencies like Monacoin, Powerledger, Electroneum,  Dao, Wan, Qash.

 

Main reason for its price surge is less liquidity in markets which it trades on , since volume rose only 5.5 times to $440,000 than daily trading average of $80,000 while price shot up to more than 12 times.

 

No development has been announced of such magnitude that can support buying except investment on eve on Festival. only Development that was announced was that it had started trading again on Livecoin where volume did not passed $3,000 mark.

 

E-dinar coin is a coin that plans to provide every human being with a sufficient amount of funds for a comfortable living.

 

In their words Unique cryptocurrency E-DINAR COIN aims to change the world for the better, move from the monopoly of the financial institutions to a decentralized system of resource-based relations which will use the cryptocurrency and have no boundaries and limitations and will be available at any point of the world.

 

Lets see now forward where does price go of E-Dinar Coin.

ViaBTC has come up with a bad news due to low cryptocurrency prices, its cloud mining contracts had been non-profitable since days and seeing no way out of it, ViaBTC has officially closed its cloud mining business. This certainly is a sad development in Crypto market since ViaBTC is quite a big name in the mining business and its closure is certainly an unexpected development.
E-mail sent by ViaBTC is pasted below for more information.

Dear ViaBTC users:

With the slump of cryptocurrency price, mining profits experienced drastic drop. To guarantee user privileges, ViaBTC has redeemed all S9 & Ethereum Cloud Mining Contract and officially closed cloud mining business on September 21st, 2018(UTC).

Details of S9 Cloud Mining Contract redemption

There’s zero actual yields of S9 cloud mining for 10 consecutive days. According to Termination of contract in “S9 Contract Details”, ViaBTC redeemed ALL S9 cloud mining contracts at price of $6.45 per share, calculated against real-time rate into BCH at time of payment (457.50 USD/BCH) on September 21st, 2018 (UTC). According to your S9 shares, we have paid BCH to your ViaBTC accounts that were used for cloud mining contract purchase.

Details of Ethereum Cloud Mining Contract redemption

It’s not been such a long time since Ethereum Cloud Mining Contract was online. ViaBTC redeemed ALL Ethereum cloud mining contracts at pre-sale price of $9.9 per share, calculated against real-time rate into BCH at time of payment (457.50 USD/BCH) on September 21st, 2018 (UTC). According to your Ethereum shares, we have paid BCH to your ViaBTC accounts that were used for cloud mining contract purchase.

You can check payment record of redemption in “My Bills”.

Japanese exchange Zaif has been HACKED, 6 billion yen worth of BTC stands stolen alongwith unidentified amount of Mona,BCH(however approximate total stands 6.7 billion including BTC). Hack happened on July 14th. Tech bureau inc which runs Zaif has released a press release regarding it. Its second hack of a japanese exchange following coincheck where XEM was stolen.
Tech bureau press release is as follows.(translated in English from originl japanese text)

Report on suspension of deposit / withdrawal of virtual currency, and our company's response
Tech Bureau Inc.
September 20, 2018 02: 15 minutes

We will report on the circumstances of the past and future correspondence concerning the suspension of deposit / withdrawal of the virtual currency that is currently occurring at our virtual currency exchange Zaif operated by our company as follows.
To the press, please

We will report on the circumstances of the past and future correspondence concerning the suspension of deposit / withdrawal of the virtual currency that is currently occurring at our virtual currency exchange Zaif operated by our company as follows.

1. Introduction Since around September 14th, Heisei 3, some services such as deposit / withdrawal of virtual currency are not in operation in our service, we are inconvenienced by our customers.

As a result of our survey, it turned out that some of the deposits / withdrawal hot wallets were hacked by unauthorized access from the outside and part of the virtual currency managed by us was illegally discharged to the outside .
This situation will result in betraying the trust of all our customers who trust our company and keeping valuable assets, and we apologize for lying down.
Naturally, it is a top priority that we do not suffer damage to customer assets. We will promptly notify the Financial Services Agency and the investigation authority after the abovementioned damage and also investigate the cause with the efforts of a third party including Kaichi Corporation also within the company, finance equivalent to customer assets We strive to secure.
Below, we will explain the explanation about this issue, our company's response, the situation of securing financial resources equivalent to customer assets, and future management policy of our management team.

2. Facts currently known about hacking damage
① History of damage caused by hacking
We are keeping it in hot wallet (partially cold wallet) of customer's stored virtual currency to respond to customer's deposit / withdrawal. Unauthorized access from the outside was conducted from around 17 o'clock on July 14, 1900 to around 19 o'clock on the server managing the hot wallet for the deposit and withdrawal, and the virtual wallet managed by the hot wallet Currency (BTC, MONA, BCH) was illegally remitted. Regarding specific concrete methods of unauthorized access, etc., this case is a criminal case, it has already been requested to investigate by filing a damage report to the investigation authorities, and also in order to prevent the same kind of crime in the future I would like you to withhold me. We understand that detailed explanation is as much as possible, but I am pleased if you acknowledge it in any way.

② Loss caused by hacking damage to our company
The type and quantity of the virtual currency that we lost due to hacking damage are as follows.
• BTC 5966
• MONA Currently under investigation • BCH It is thought that the total loss of damage more than the current investigation is equivalent to about 6.7 billion yen (including MONA and BCH) in Japanese yen. The reason for not being able to determine the damaged quantity at the moment is that the server is not restarted until the reliable safety can be confirmed in order to prevent secondary damage. As soon as the quantity of the lost virtual currency is fixed, we will report it promptly.

③ Influence on hacking damage by customer's assets
Among the virtual currencies equivalent to about 6.7 billion yen lost, our company's unique assets are equivalent to approximately 2.2 billion yen, and virtual currency equivalent to customers' Will be approximately 4.5 billion yen.
After discovering this case, we are striving to secure financial resources not to damage the customer's assets, and we will explain the situation in the following "3. Response of our company".

3. Our company's response
① Cause analysis and system re-operation
Since our company detected server malfunction on September 17, 1920 and hacked damage was confirmed on the following 18th, we reported to the Treasury Department, We have done damages declaration etc. to the investigation authorities.
Currently, we are checking and strengthening security, rebuilding the server, etc., in order to restart the system of depositing / withdrawing virtual currency. We are committed to restoration as soon as possible, so please wait for a while. Moreover, I sincerely apologize for any inconveniences that may arise.

② Request for support on customer's assets, etc. and concluding a contract We immediately requested the following support after the discovery of this case , and concluded a contract concerning support already. Contents of support include (1) provision of property equivalent to customer's assets held by lost customers, (2) provision of technologies / personnel for improving security, (3) capital tie-up to improve management foundation, management team Dispatch, etc., Etc.
Today (September 20, 1808), we provide financial assistance providing 5 billion yen to our company through a subsidiary of Fisco Digital Asset Group Co., Ltd., a group company of Fiscal Co, a JASDAQ listed company , We have concluded a basic agreement to consider the capital alliance to acquire majority of our stocks, the dispatch of more than half of the directors and corporate auditors.
In addition, we have concluded a basic agreement with Kaica Corporation (listed on JASDAQ, Securities Code 2315) today, with the contents of providing technology for improving security to our company.
For installation of the above support, press release will be issued from Fisco Co., Ltd. and Kaica Co., Ltd. which are group companies on the supporter side, please refer to the following.

• Release by Fisco Corporation
http://www.fisco.co.jp/uploads/20180920_fisco_pr.pdf

• Release by Kaica Corporation
https://www.caica.jp/wp-content/uploads/pdf/2018/20180920_1_oshirase.pdf

4. Restarting deposits and withdrawals, future policy on customer's assets
① In and out of virtual currency
We will work to reconstruct the system while receiving support from engineers of Kajika Co., Ltd. for resumption of deposit / withdrawal as soon as possible.
The restart of deposit / withdrawal of virtual currency is based on the premise that the safety of the system is confirmed. At the present moment, I sincerely apologize that I can not specifically mention the date of resumption.
Regarding your valued assets, as we will discuss below, we are planned to be secured by procurement of property, so please understand kindly.

② Customer assets (procurement of Japanese yen and provision of deposit virtual currency)
We have concluded a basic agreement with Fisco Digital Asset Group Co., Ltd. that discusses offering 5 billion yen to our company. We are preparing and negotiating with the company on the premise that the offer will be executed at the end of this month.
In addition, we plan to procure the lost virtual currency using the funds provided and prepare it so that the damage on the customer's assets will not be affected.
In the future, if the contents of the basic agreement are executed, etc., we will report as soon as necessary.

5. Opinion of our current management team regarding this matter

All of our management team take seriously that our valuable deposit assets have disappeared due to this hacking damage. As a result, even if the virtual currency equivalent to customer's assets can be prepared by the above-mentioned fund raising etc, the concerns and inconveniences given to customers are tremendous.
As a result, our current management team responded with full power to this matter, we fully committed to preserving the customer's assets and fulfilled our obligation to hand over to the management team of the Fisko Group, which acquires a majority of control In case, we will retire our officers as management responsibility. Regarding the matter on this occasion, the management team apologize to all of our customers for fear.

6. Policy of COMSA business by our affiliated company
Tek Bureau Holdings Co., Ltd., our affiliated company, operates the COMSA business succeeded by our company split from our company. Regarding the future policy of the project, it is currently under consideration at the company, and we will report it as soon as it is discovered.

7. Inquiries on this matter
Please contact the following regarding inquiries regarding this matter.
Tech Bureau Co., Ltd. Public Relations E-mail address pr@techbureau.jp
Phone number 03-6705-8653 (private telephone)
Reception hours Weekdays from 10 o'clock to half past seven

Source

Poloniex has again come up with a chilling news, its gonna delist many more assets 8 to be exact, certainly a bad news for investors who were thinking to run this bearish phase out. Here is what they updated on their website, and pay attention its a very short 7-day notice. Some Currencies have seen up to 90% price dips.

As part of the Poloniex team’s continuous effort to improve the performance of the exchange and to better serve our customers, we are announcing that on September 25th at 12:00 ET we will be delisting eight assets: BTCD, BTM (Bitmark), EMC2, GRC, NEOS, POT, VRC, XBC.
Customers have until October 25th at 12:00 ET to close out any trades and withdraw any balances in these assets. Our goal for all delistings is to make this process as painless as possible for customers, which is why we always endeavour to:
Provide you with seven days advance notice before removing a market Give holders of the impacted assets 30 days to withdraw funds from delisted assets Use as many means of communications as possible
In the rare event that wallet availability is interrupted, we may extend the deadline and contact holders of impacted assets via email. There may also be times when customers are unable to withdraw delisted assets for reasons outside of Poloniex’s control, such as when a network is no longer live. In these situations, we will secure the delisted funds in cold storage with the potential to online the funds and allow customers to withdraw should the network become operational again. We will handle these scenarios, which we recognize can be frustrating for customers, case by case.
Once the withdrawal deadline has been reached (October 25th at 12:00 ET), withdrawals will be disabled and the asset will be fully decommissioned. From this point forward, we will be unable to process withdrawals of impacted assets. It is imperative that customers withdraw delisted tokens by the withdrawal deadline.
Please visit our Help Center article for more information about our delisting process, in addition to an update about previous delistings and our statement about the BitcoinDark network.
We greatly appreciate your support as we work to continuously improve the experience on Poloniex.
The Poloniex Team

Source

Binance, Leading cryptocurrency exchange has signed an MOU(memorandum of understanding) with the Malta Stock Exchange to launch a new digital exchange for security token trading on 11/09/2018. The agreement was signed by Malta Stock Exchange chairman Joe Portelli and Binance chief financial officer Wei Zhou. This partnership is certainly a good thing for the crypto world. Source

A Code researcher blog has finished reviewing Gemini USDG code and has come up with the idea . More text is as follows

Gemini USDG is a new centralized stablecoin (similar to Tether) implemented as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain. The current implementation gives Gemini the ability to freeze any account or make all tokens non-transferrable. The custodian is able to completely change the implementation of the token every 48 hours. In this article, we review the code of the smart contract and show how to reproduce the results.
Full Article Source

Gemini Exchange led by Winklevoss twins has introduced a new Stablecoin pegged to USD termed as USDG or Gemini Dollar, In a Medium post they relayed information about it.

         When we founded Gemini over four years ago, our mission was simple: build a bridge to the future of money. As a first step, this meant making it safe and easy to buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ether, and Zcash. However, when fiat currency and cryptocurrency interact, the differences between the traditional banking system and cryptocurrencies become increasingly clear. While cryptocurrencies operate 24/7/365 (similar to email), fiat currencies only operate during specific “business hours” (like snail mail) — a fundamental mismatch. As a next step in our mission, we must improve the linkage between these worlds by giving fiat currency the same desirable technological qualities of cryptocurrencies.

To date, there has been no trusted and regulated digital representation of the U.S. dollar that moves in an open, decentralized manner like cryptocurrencies. Enter the Gemini dollar — a stable value coin (often called a “stablecoin”) that is (i) issued by Gemini, a New York trust company, (ii) strictly pegged 1:1 to the U.S. dollar, and (iii) built on the Ethereum network according to the ERC20 standard for tokens. The Gemini dollar (ticker symbol: GUSD) combines the creditworthiness and price stability of the U.S. dollar with blockchain technology and the oversight of U.S. regulators, namely, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). You can read more about the Gemini dollar — the world’s first regulated stablecoin — in our white paper here.

Starting today, September 10, 2018 at 10am ET, you will be able to convert U.S. dollars in your Gemini account into Gemini dollars and withdraw them to an Ethereum address you specify. You will also be able to automatically convert Gemini dollars into U.S. dollars by depositing them into your Gemini account.

The U.S dollars that correspond to the Gemini dollars issued and in circulation will be held at a bank located in the United States and eligible for FDIC “pass-through” deposit insurance, subject to applicable limitations. In addition, the U.S dollar deposit balance will be examined monthly by an independent registered public accounting firm to verify the 1:1 peg. All Independent Accountants’ Reports will be publicly available here. Further, the smart contracts underlying the Gemini dollar token have been fully audited and formally verified by an independent security firm, whose report is publicly available here.

We are excited to bring the Gemini dollar to market and provide a crucial link between the traditional banking system and the new, rapidly growing crypto economy. With the Gemini dollar, we continue to deliver on our mission — to build the future of money — and help transform the global financial system to enable possibilities previously unimaginable. For questions or other inquiries, please contact us at dollar@gemini.com.

Onward and upward,

Cameron and Tyler

Source

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a hedge fund adviser and his investment advisory firm with illegally profiting from a scheme to drive down the price of San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., reaping more than $1.3 million of gains for the adviser and the hedge fund.

The SEC’s complaint charges that Gregory Lemelson and Massachusetts-based Lemelson Capital Management LLC issued false information about Ligand after Lemelson took a short position in Ligand in May 2014 on behalf of The Amvona Fund, a hedge fund he advised and partly owned. Short-sellers profit when the price of stock declines. According to the SEC’s complaint, Ligand’s stock lost more than one-third of its value during the course of Lemelson’s alleged scheme. After establishing his short position, the complaint charges that Lemelson made a series of false statements to shake investor confidence in Ligand, lower its stock price, and increase the value of his position.

The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, alleges that Lemelson used written reports, interviews, and social media to spread untrue claims, including that Ligand was “teetering on the brink of bankruptcy” and that Ligand’s investor relations firm agreed with his view that its flagship Hepatitis C drug, Promacta, was going to become obsolete. Lemelson also allegedly misled investors by citing a European doctor’s negative views on the same Ligand drug without revealing the doctor was Amvona’s largest investor and had a significant financial interest in seeing Ligand’s stock price decline.

“While short-sellers are free to express their opinions about particular companies, they may not bolster those opinions with false statements, which is what we allege Lemelson did here,” said David Becker, an Assistant Director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.

The SEC’s complaint charges Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Management with fraud and seeks to have them return allegedly ill-gotten gains with interest and pay monetary penalties. The complaint names the Amvona Fund as a relief defendant and seeks to have it return gains it obtained as a result of Lemelson and his firm’s alleged misconduct.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Virginia Rosado Desilets, Sonia Torrico, and Jennifer Clark, and supervised by David A. Becker. The SEC’s litigation will be led by Marc Jones and Al Day.

SEC Release Press

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that TokenLot LLC, a self-described “ICO Superstore,” and its owners will settle charges that they acted as unregistered broker-dealers. This is the SEC’s first case charging unregistered broker-dealers for selling digital tokens after the SEC issued The DAO Report in 2017 cautioning that those who offer and sell digital securities must comply with the federal securities laws.

According to the SEC’s order, TokenLot, Lenny Kugel, and Eli L. Lewitt promoted TokenLot’s website as a way to purchase digital tokens during initial coin offerings (ICOs) and also to engage in secondary trading. Michigan-based TokenLot received orders from more than 6,100 retail investors and handled more than 200 different digital tokens, which the SEC found included securities. The business’s profits included trading profits and a percentage of the money that TokenLot raised for ICOs. Their activities required TokenLot, Kugel, and Lewitt to be registered with the SEC as broker-dealers, but they were not. TokenLot operated from July 2017 through late February, with most of its business occurring after The DAO Report on the applicability of securities laws to digital assets. According to the order, in response to the SEC’s investigation, TokenLot voluntarily began winding down and refunding investors’ payments for unfilled orders. TokenLot, Kugel, and Lewitt also were charged with violating the registration provisions in connection with their conduct. SEC Release Press

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced its first-ever enforcement action finding an investment company registration violation by a hedge fund manager based on its investments in digital assets.

The SEC entered an order finding that Crypto Asset Management LP (CAM) offered a fund that operated as an unregistered investment company while falsely marketing it as the “first regulated crypto asset fund in the United States.” According to the SEC’s order, CAM, a California-based hedge fund manager, and its sole principal Timothy Enneking raised more than $3.6 million over a four-month period in late 2017 while falsely claiming that the fund was regulated by the SEC and had filed a registration statement with the agency. By engaging in an unregistered non-exempt public offering and investing more than 40 percent of the fund’s assets in digital asset securities, CAM caused the fund to operate as an unregistered investment company. After being contacted by the SEC staff, CAM ceased its public offering and offered buy backs to affected investors.

“Hedge funds seeking to ride the digital asset wave continue to proliferate,” said C. Dabney O’Riordan, Co-Chief of the Asset Management Unit. “Investment advisers must be sure that the funds they offer adhere to the applicable registration obligations and must accurately represent their funds’ regulatory status to investors.”

CAM and Enneking agreed to the SEC’s cease-and-desist order and censure without admitting or denying the findings against them, and agreed to pay a penalty of $200,000. SEC Release Press

Posted by them on BTT thread We regret to inform that there was a breach discovered by hackers in our withdrawal procedures. They were able to repeat same withdrawals several times. Our DOGE and LTC completely depleted. As DOGE and LTC withdrawals of current user balances are no more possible - we transferred them to "Hold" balances. So now you can see your past DOGE and LTC balance as "DOGE on hold" and "LTC on hold".

Important! Do not send DOGE or LTC to old addresses! You need to get new address for new deposits!

The breach is already fixed. All other balances including BTC are fine.

Bitcointalk thread