IOHK and the United Nations have offered a $10,000 bounty for developers to use Cardano’s blockchain.

While major altcoins look to bounce off last week’s sell-off, Cardano’s strong performance over the past three days continues this Monday.

The ADA token has jumped 10.64% in the past 24 hours to see the crypto asset’s price hit $0.105. The 9th ranked cryptocurrency is the top-performing coin among the top 10, ahead of Bitcoin SV, ChainLink, and Bitcoin Cash.

Meanwhile, the rest of the market is looking to consolidate fresh gains after a largely green weekend extended during the Asian trading session.

Bitcoin has gained 2% to hit highs of $10,920 before retreating to around $10,850 as of writing. Ethereum, which has struggled below $400 for over three weeks, has gained around 1.46% to trade at $358. XRP/USD remains mostly unchanged on the 24-hour log as bulls try to keep bears at bay around $0.24.

Cardano flips bullish

ADA/USD sank to lows of $0.075 on September 23 to see bears threaten to push prices lower and drop Cardano out of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The past five days have however included 4 green daily candles, with higher highs and higher lows seeing bulls break above $0.10 for the first time in a week.

Yesterday, ADA/USD gained by more than 5% to register a daily close at $0.102 before rallying in the Asian trading session to reach an intraday high of $0.106.

Cardano may thus have plenty of upside room if bulls sustain pressure above prevailing levels amid a confluence of bullish technical and fundamental indicators.

For the latter, the network’s move to a new epoch in the next five days will see decentralization introduced via the Shelley upgrade move to 38%.

Recently, IOHK also announced a partnership with the United Nations that aims to promote the use of blockchain to help achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG) on poverty, inequality, and the environment among others.

The partnership includes a $10,000 bounty set aside for developers who will use Cardano blockchain infrastructure to create open-source and scalable projects geared towards the above goals.

ADA/USD technical

Cardano is looking to break above an ascending channel on the 4-hour chart, with a nice head and shoulder trend formation on the cards. The cryptocurrency is also looking strong on the daily chart where the 50 SMA and 100 SMA provide the next target at $0.109 and $0.113 respectively.

If the expected breakout happens, action will likely push ADA/USD to $0.12, with an extended bullish scenario bringing $0.15 into play. On the flip side, the 20SMA and 50 SMA provide support at $0.09 and $0.08 on the 4-hour chart.

Source: https://coinjournal.net/news/cardanos-bullish-case-strengthens-as-iohk-and-un-team-up/

Ebang, one of Chinese Bitcoin mining machine manufacturers, has posted a sharp drop in revenue generated in the first half of the year compared to the previous year. Giving reasons for the slump in Ebang revenue, the chairman blamed the recent outbreak of coronavirus as the major cause. Meanwhile, the company has launched a subsidiary in Canada today.

Ebang revenue shades 50 percent from the previous record

Following the company’s latest filing with the United States Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Ebang revenue in the first six months of the year totaled $11.04 million. When compared to the revenue generated in H1 2019 (at $22.35 million), the recent amount represents a 50.6 percent decrease year-over-year (YoY).

The company also posted a poor sale of computing power within the same period. Precisely, only 0.25 million Thash/s was sold in the first six months of the year. However, the company sold as high as 1.82 million Thash/s last year, representing an 86.02 percent drop YoY, according to the SEC filing.

Ebang chairman blames COVID-19

While commenting on the sharp drop of Ebang revenue, the chairman and CEO of the company, Dong Hu, related the development to the coronavirus outbreak. Hu mentioned that the business operations were affected due to COVID-19 measures. Also, the company’s chip suppliers reduced their production capacity, which consequently led to a shortage of raw materials.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has significantly affected business and manufacturing activities worldwide,” Hu commented. “Measures to contain COVID-19, such as travel restrictions, mandatory quarantines, and suspension of business activities, have caused severe disruptions and uncertainties to our business operations and adversely affected our results of operations and financial condition. 

At the same, the company had seen its net loss reduced to $7.3 million in H1 2020, compared to the $17.6 million recorded last year. In a separate report, the company revealed the launching of its wholly-owned subsidiary in Canada to improve its industrial chain layout.

U.S Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has charged Laino Group Limited’s PaxForex, a company based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for engaging in illegal retail commodity transactions in crypto, gold and silver and for failing to register with the CFTC as a futures commission merchant (FCM) according to a release published today. 

CFTC claimed that for over two years, PaxForex had offered unlawful retail commodity transactions in not only leading cryptocurrencies like ether, litecoin, bitcoin, but gold, and silver as well.

The release further stated law enforcements have charged PaxForex for extending credit or accepting money, securities, and property in the form of bitcoin and other assets in exchange for margin trades or contracts- all of which require the company to register with the CFTC as an FCM. However, the CFTC alleged that PaxForex did not acquire this license and has violated the Commodity Exchange Act. 

CFTC planned to return the alleged company’s ill-gotten gains to those affected and also applied other penalties such as a permanent registration and trading bans, among others. Division of Enforcement Director, James McDonald said in a statement: 

This action shows the CFTC’s continued commitment to ensuring that entities offering leveraged, retail transactions within our jurisdiction—including those involving digital assets—register with the CFTC. 

Source: https://eng.ambcrypto.com/cftc-charges-company-over-offering-illegal-leveraged-transactions-in-eth-ltc-btc