Bitcoin hasn’t done much recently. Well, except remaining stable. It’s pretty much held its value since the middle of September – an eon in the cryptocurrency world.
With no rockets to the moon, the Bitcoin community is a little bored. Luckily for us, boredom is the great instigator of creativity.
For one Redditor , I can only imagine the boredom that lead them to reimagine Bitcoin’s marketcap as a sound.
Behold, the Bitcoin marketcap sound generator
When my friends ask me to describe Bitcoin’s history, I often struggle to truly convey its tumultuous past.
Next time anyone asks me that, I’m just going to send them this .
Take a listen and you’ll hear how it wonderfully captures the smooth and mellow early years. Where Bitcoin was new and exciting, and when we actually bought stuff with it, albeit off the dark net.
As the sound wave progresses to the mid-section, you can hear the joy and jubilation as Bitcoin’s price soared.
Then comes the cryptocurrency’s frantic peaks and troughs, the chaotic price fluctuations turned into avant-garde audio art.
As the sound wave draws to a close, all that remains is disappointment, confusion, and sadness.
It’s the audio anthropomorphism of Bitcoin we didn’t ask for, but clearly need.
Citigroup is making cryptocurrency investments less risky for Wall Street
The US-based investment banking titan Citigroup has figured out a way to make cryptocurrency investments less risky.
The company has created what it’s calling “ Digital Asset Receipts (DARs),” which will allow its customers to invest in cryptocurrencies without having to own them, according to Business Insider.
Citigroup’s DAR services will work much like its American Depositary Receipt (ADR) services. ADR allows for US investors to trade foreign stocks that don’t otherwise trade on the country’s exchanges.
The cryptocurrency will be held by a custodian and invested through the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation , a finance company that provides clearing and settlement services to Wall Street.
With DAR, Citigroup is providing assets managers and hedge funds a way to invest in cryptocurrencies that they are already familiar with. The company expects to overcome their aversion towards digital assets by making it less risky and trustable.
It is worth noting that Citigroup hasn’t yet made any official announcement for this project. It’s not yet known when the project will actually launch. However, according to the report, the company is already reaching out to potential partners.
It also remains to be seen how well the idea of DARs will go with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC has persistently maintained that the cryptocurrency market suffers from market manipulation and isn’t ready for mainstream financial instruments. Indeed, the agency has rejected all exchange traded fund ( ETF) proposals for cryptocurrencies it has ever received.
Another investment banking giant Goldman Sachs recently bailed on its proposed cryptocurrency trading desk citing regulatory hurdles. However, the company is still working on its custodial service.
Sirin Labs cuts 25% of its workforce as CEO faces $50M lawsuit
Bitcoin‘s price might have risen lately , but blockchain startups are still reeling from the bite of the bear market . Sirin Labs, the firm behind the “ world’s first blockchain phone ” has confirmed 25 percent of its workforce has been let go.
Sirin Labs, which released the $1,000 FINNEY smartphone last November, revealed 15 of its 60 employees have been laid off after sales failed to meet expectations, Globes reports .
The firm also denied earlier rumors indicating Sirin Labs had trouble paying its employees, noting staff had now been reimbursed for March, and would be paid by “tomorrow” for April.
The layoffs come despite the attempted FINNEY hype. At its launch in Barcelona , the “world’s greatest footballer” Lionel Messi (a company spokesperson) chatted about sport and cryptocurrency with founder Moshe Hogeg; the pair later posed for cameras. Renowned boxer Triple G was also in attendance.
Hogeg loves to raise those millions, with or without ICO
FINNEY is pitched to cryptocurrency fans, as it features a dedicated “ cold wallet ” and comes pre-configured for interacting with decentralized apps and their native tokens.
In total, Sirin Labs collected $255 million to build and fund FINNEY’s development , with more than half of the funds coming via an initial coin offering (ICO) for its native SRN token (still down more than 99 percent since its all-time high).
Before cryptocurrency, Hogeg had raised $86 million over six years to develop picture sharing app, Mobli. After that failed, Hogeg released a $16,000 “luxury” smartphone that was supposedly super-secure. It featured much the same aesthetic design as the FINNEY, sans the cryptocurrency shtick.
He’s also battling several lawsuits in multiple countries. A freshly-filed $50 million lawsuit in California reportedly accuses Hogeg and two of his Singulariteam partners of defrauding worldwide investors of hundreds of millions of dollars , after they allegedly violated a venture agreement related to the Invesom domain.
Another is headed to settlement , which would see Hogeg and Stox (another of his cryptocurrency companies) pay $2 million to claimants who alleged they misappropriated funds from a previous ICO . (Stox, by the way, closed down operations in Israel and laid off all employees late last year.)
Sirin Labs officially joins the now long list of blockchain-related companies forced to downsize “ because of the bear market ,” which includes ConsenSys, Spankchain , STEEM, Civil, and ShapeShift .
Still, can’t help but wonder what Hogeg’s got in store for us (and his investors) next.
[H/T CoinDesk ]
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