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Bitcoin briefly dropped below $19,000 on a low-volume day while the ether options market seems to be in decline for now.

Psychology and selling pressures have kept bitcoin’s price below $20,000.

Since 1969, 34 out of 45 years have seen a late December rally. Here are 5 reasons why that might not happen this year.

Friday is Bill Hinman’s final day as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Corporation Finance director.

Hinman’s departure was announced in late October, but the SEC did not disclose the exact date of his exit.

Hinman has led the division since May 2017, focusing on modernizing disclosure and securities offering frameworks. In his role as director, he created the Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub), which is now in the process of becoming a standalone office.

Hinman was one of the first of the SEC to take a closer look at cryptocurrencies, when his 2018 speech “When Howey Met Gary” argued that digital assets with “sufficiently decentralized” networks don’t fit under the umbrella of securities. The speech pointed to Ethereum as having a sufficiently decentralized structure.

In Friday’s statement, fellow commissioners including Hester Peirce and Chairman Jay Clayton thanked Hinman for his work with the agency. 

“On his last day with the Commission, we would like to thank Bill Hinman for the thoughtful, measured, and sure-handed leadership he has provided to Corp Fin over the nearly four years he has been at its helm,” the commissioners said in a statement. “During his time here, he has overseen an astounding number and variety of updates to our corporate disclosure regime.”

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Solana, a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain spearhead by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, is “stuck” due to an unknown issue.

Quick Take

• Crypto exchange FTX, launched last year, is already a unicorn.
• The Hong Kong-based exchange is now valued at $3.5 billion, according to CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
• Here’s how it happened, according to Bankman-Fried.

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The success of a store-of-value asset, like bitcoin or gold, isn’t just a matter of durability, fungibility or scarcity. It’s about whether people believe in it.

That’s up from about $570 million in 2019.

Congress is inching closer to approving a multi-billion dollar defense spending authorization bill which, according to lawmaker statements, will include several elements related to cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia’s office put out a statement on December 3 which noted that the final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) text includes parts of the ILLICIT CASH Act, such as language “[e]nsuring the inclusion of current and future payment systems in the AML-CFT regime by updating the definition of “coins and currency” to include digital currency.”

The office of Rep. Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, highlighted the inclusion of language from Rep. Juan Vargas (D-CA) “to advance efforts to counter the illicit uses of virtual currencies and marketplaces in drug trafficking and sex trafficking.”

Language included in the House version of the NDAA would have mandated that the Defense Department produce a report on the potential application of distributed ledger tech for defense purposes. However, the language was not included in the Senate version and was ultimately removed from the final NDAA bill. 

Yet the conference report published this week indicates that Congress still wants such information from the Defense Department, as well as an “analysis of activities that other countries, including the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, are carrying out with respect to the research and development of distributed ledger technologies for military applications.”

The report also calls for the Department to provide “[r]ecommendations identifying additional research and development activities relating to distributed ledger technologies that should be carried out by the Department of Defense and cost estimates for such activities” and “[a]ny other information that the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering determines to be appropriate.”

As the bill moves toward the House and Senate for final approval, a bit of drama currently hangs over the measure: a threatened veto by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has voiced opposition to the bill primarily because of his failed call for a repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Trump has blamed Section 230 — which serves as a legal liability shield for Web platforms — for fueling biased behavior toward conservatives on social media as well as alleged election interference by social media companies. 

© 2020 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Traders have begun unwrapping tokenized bitcoins. The U.S. Treasury Department will keep a vigilant eye on digital innovations. And trading volumes on OKEx have plummeted.