Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s pro-Bitcoin stance appears to be rubbing off on his other company Square and its users. Cryptoasset investment firm Grayscale amped up the marketing drive to help investors better understand Bitcoin. Over in the regulatory space, the chairman of the CFTC had a lot to say, particularly in relation to cryptocurrency derivatives.
Bitcoin (BTC) continued its recovery after last week’s sharp sell-off prompted by the Bitfinex and Tether news. It is currently trading at $5,449.44 (+1.42%). As for ether (ETH), it fared slightly worse, finishing in the red at $162.03 (-0.22%). The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index , enjoyed a 2.6% rise for the day and is at 2,778.11 at the time of writing.
Bitcoin Sales Soar on Square’s Cash App
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square posted a record $65.5 million in bitcoin sales for the first quarter of 2019, a near-doubling compared to the equivalent quarter of 2018. Square’s reported bitcoin sales for all of 2018 totalled more than $166 million. The buying and selling of bitcoin is facilitated through Square’s peer-to-peer mobile payment app, Cash App.
Grayscale Launches Pro-Bitcoin #DropGold Campaign
Cryptoasset management firm Grayscale launched an anti-gold, pro-bitcoin mass marketing campaign, #DropGold. Accompanied by a 42-second commercial, the campaign is aimed at accentuating the store-of-value properties of Bitcoin’s by highlighting the absurdity of gold.
CFTC Chair: ‘Explosion of Interest’ in Crypto May Spawn New Clearinghouses
Testifying before the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, Christopher Giancarlo, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), revealed “the Commission anticipates new applications for clearinghouse registration” due to the “explosion of interest in cryptocurrencies.” Clearinghouses (i.e., financial institutions that facilitate transactions between parties) have “become critical single points of risk in the global financial system,” Giancarlo added. Currently, LedgerX is the only crypto derivatives exchange registered by the CTFC as a derivatives clearing organization (DCO).
