Top Cryptocurrency News This Week – BitMEX Founder in Legal Soup While More Investors HODL BTC

Key Highlights

• Investors HODL Bitcoin expecting 2021 to be a bullish year
• Trouble for BitMEX as Found and ex-CTO lands in legal trouble
• Bank of Japan to being POC for digital currencies in 2021
• Rocketfuel Blockchain sues co-founder over patent issues
• SBI Holdings to run its first security token

Well, the anticipation that the year 2021 will be a BTC bull market is seen rising among crypto investors as On-chain data shows a rise in HODLing among retail Bitcoin investors. The data suggests that many investors expect BTC to rally in Q1 2021. According to on-chain analyst Willy Woo, an indicator called “reflexivity” has been increasing in recent months. Woo explained that the indicator measures Bitcoin investors' tendency to hold onto their BTC as its price rises. It’s essentially an alternative way to gauge the HODLing activity of retail investors. If Bitcoin rallies in 2021, most investors would see it as a post-halving bull rally. Historically, BTC has rallied 12 to 15 months after each halving, recording a new all-time high each time.

It looks like October has been the month that is cursed for the top brass of BitMEX. According to the recent news, BitMEX's co-founder and former chief technical officer, Samuel Reed, has signed a $5 million unsecured appearance bond for his release from custody pending court proceedings. The news further reads that Reed had been arrested by the United States Department of Justice in Massachusetts on Oct. 1 for flouting money-laundering rules in violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as illegally offering derivatives trading to U.S. retail customers. It's not just Reed, these charges are also levied on co-founders and colleagues, Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and Gregory Dwyer

It looks like Japan has just taken another step towards making crypto a reality in the Island nation. According to the news that’s flowing from Japan, it looks like the Apex bank in Japan, the Bank of Japan may begin digital currency proof-of-concept in 2021. According to the BoJ report, it will begin the first of several testing phases for its own CBDC sometime in 2021. This will include the development of a test environment for the currency and experiments on its basement functions as a payment instrument. The BoJ report notes that a core feature of the digital currency must be resilience in the face of infrastructure disrupted by Force Majeure.  

Another founder seems to be in trouble with its own company. According to recent updates blockchain payments company, Rocketfuel Blockchain is suing its co-founder for allegedly misrepresenting patent applications and defrauding the firm. In a complaint filed with the Central District Court of California, Rocketfuel claimed its co-founder and former treasurer Joseph Page hid the fact that patents he transferred to the company had expired. The company is seeking damages of at least $5.1 million. According to Rocketfuel, Page transferred patent applications to the company in March 2018, thereby relinquishing his rights to the patents. These patents were for several payment processes for Rocketfuel’s blockchain platform, including cryptocurrency user interface systems.

Another positive news is coming from Japan where financial conglomerate SBI Holdings is getting more serious about its crypto endeavors. According to the recent updates, Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings I is planning to run its own STO allotting shares of SBI e-Sports, the company’s new e-sports gaming arm. Certain media reported SBI saying that the upcoming STO will be conducted using ibet, a blockchain platform developed by digital security startup Boostry. Scheduled for Oct. 30, the STO will be carried out by SBI’s online securities subsidiary, SBI Securities, while SBI holdings will act as an underwriter. The company also stated that the company considers STOs a “core technology of fintech” and plans to tokenize a number of other assets in the future. The firm stated that it looks to tokenize assets like real estate, fine art, and intellectual property rights including copyrights for games and movies.

Which crypto news had the most impact on you or your coin portfolio this week? Do let us know in the comments below.