Slashdot Mirror
NY Approves New Digital Currency For Winklevoss Bitcoin Exchange (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes (edited and condensed): The New York State Department of Financial Services has approved the application of Gemini Trust Company, founded by investors Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, to trade digital currency ether on its bitcoin exchange, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday. Cuomo said Gemini would be the first U.S.-based ether exchange, created, and operated in New York. Ether is a token or digital asset of the Ethereum platform, a public blockchain, or distributed ledger, that can execute peer-to-peer contracts automatically without the need for intermediaries. The blockchain is the underlying technology behind bitcoin. The Winklevoss twins have dubbed the exchange the 'Nasdaq of Bitcoin.' They have also developed a bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would go by the name COIN, which regulators have yet to approve.CoinDesk has more information.
If you are looking to sell financial services more or less everything on that list is a virtue. Volatility keeps boring 'buy and hold' investors away and transaction volumes high; ease of loss encourages the users to leave actually handling the stuff to you, in exchange for some IOUs on their accounts; and utililty for...regulatory arbitrage...is of self-evident value.
I'm seeing a lot of authority structures suddenly opening themselves up to bitcoin exchanges or trade, this coming at a time when the currency itself is nearing its built-in, fundamental limitations.
I think there's insiders, some very rich insiders, pressuring institutions to open up to bitcoin trading so they can get a big mass of suckers in and sell on the high to them all, just before the currency becomes effectively worthless due to problems in its design.