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ASIA’S BAKKT? AAX, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange that uses the London Stock Exchange’s matching engine technology, has officially launched. After 19 months of development and testing, the platform launched Thursday on web and mobile, targeting retail and institutional investors with spot, futures and over-the-counter peer-to-peer trading. Full story

NYSE DEBUT: The crypto-friendly Silvergate Bank officially began selling shares on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday. Roughly a year after it first filed for its initial public offering, Silvergate began its “IPO day” on the NYSE, according to the stock exchange’s Twitter account. Full story

SHARING STRUGGLE: Electric Coin Company, the firm led by zcash creator Zooko Wilcox, officially shared the zcash trademark with the Zcash Foundation on Wednesday. Sources with knowledge of the negotiations told CoinDesk talks were more complicated than either party had expected, especially with regards to the mutual ability to veto trademark usage. Full story

BITCOIN SQUARED: More users are turning to Square’s Cash App as a gateway to bitcoin investing. The payments company, founded by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, released its earnings results showing that it processed $148 million in bitcoin sales in the third quarter of 2019. “First-time bitcoin buyers have approximately doubled,” an investor letter read. Full story

STAKE TAKING: Coinbase is for the first time allowing general users to earn rewards by simply holding cryptocurrency, starting with the Tezos (XTZ) token. In a blog post, Coinbase said U.S. customers (bar residents of Hawaii and New York) can now stake the smart contract platform’s crypto with an estimated 5 percent annual return. Full story

SPONSOR SECTION

Building on the strong growth of CME Bitcoin futures (BTC) and demand for ways to manage bitcoin exposure, CME Group will launch options on BTC in Q1 2020 (pending regulatory approval). The contract will track the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate and settle into BTC, which averages nearly 7K contracts a day.

--> Explore BTC options

MISSING MOMENTUM: Bitcoin’s repeated failure to produce a strong bounce from key support indicates bullish sentiment is fizzling out. As a result, a drop to former resistance-turned-support at $8,800 could be in the offing. The outlook would only turn bullish if the current price squeeze between $9,000 and $9,600 ends with a breakout, but that looks unlikely. Full story

MARCUS ON BITCOIN: Libra's co-creator David Marcus said bitcoin is digital gold, not digital cash, reported CNBC. Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Conference in New York Wednesday, Marcus said, “People don’t use a unit like digital currency of Bitcoin to pay for things just because it’s so volatile,” adding if it behaved like useful medium of exchange, bitcoin would be regulated out of existence.

WHO WON #CRYPTOTWITTER

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