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What Moved Global Markets
- Coronavirus update: NYSE to temporarily close the trading floor, move to electronic trading because of coronavirus.
- JPMorgan Chase will temporarily close about 20% of its branches and reduce staffing in the ones remaining open. JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, is the first of the U.S. megabanks to announce widespread closures of branches because of the coronavirus.
- The United States is suspending all routine immigrant and non-immigrant visa services as of Wednesday in most countries worldwide due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Detroit Three automakers will shut down their U.S. plants to stop the spread of coronavirus, bowing to pressure from the union representing about 150,000 hourly workers at those facilities.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average recovered some of its losses, ending the trading session 1,300 points down. The index had dropped as much as 2,051 points, or 9.6%, earlier in the day.
- U.S. crude prices plunged to their lowest levels in 18 years on Wednesday, as governments tightened travel restrictions across the world and the continuing Saudi-Russian price war showed no signs of abating. International benchmark Brent crude traded at $26.01 Wednesday, down around 9%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood at $22.73, more than 15% lower. An oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia will most likely accumulate over the course of the year.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
Bitcoin: Up 0.44% to $5,304.71
Total trading volume (24h): $39.54+ billion USD
Ethereum: Up 0.91% to $116.21
Total trading volume (24h): $12.19+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours
Biggest Mover 1: Bitball Treasure (BTRS) is up 209.70% to $101.55
Biggest Mover 2: Streamr DATAcoin (DATA) is up 146.74% to $0.015083
Biggest Loser: Electrum Dark (ELD) is down 58.72% to $0.008060
What Moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
- China Everbright Bank (CEB), a major commercial bank in China and one of the world’s largest public companies, is debuting a blockchain-based supply chain finance solution by Ant Financial. Ant Financial, the financial arm of Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba, has partnered with CEB to collaboratively implement Duo Chain — a network services platform designed to handle supply chain-related financial transactions. By implementing Ant Financial’s Duo Chain technology, China Everbright Bank intends to improve the security of SCF, and eliminate fraudulent transactions. As reported by Sina, the Duo Chain platform allows users to complete identity verification and electronic signatures with CEB, while recording all relevant transactions to a distributed ledger for tracking purpose.
- Bitcoin trading at $2,800 isn’t scary as long as it happens before May’s block reward halving, Tone Vays believes. In the latest edition of his Trading Bitcoin YouTube series on March 18, the celebrated trader said that as of now, he is eyeing a floor for BTC/USD of $2,000.
- A FinCEN-registered crypto exchange has launched with its own debit card that allows holders to pay for goods and services with digital assets. Utah-based CoinZoom announced Wednesday it would begin onboarding new institutional and retail clients, and will offer a Visa payment card that instantly converts cryptocurrencies into U.S. dollars.
Other Specialties
Fintech: Revolut, the digital bank and fintech mobile app, has reported that Chief Financial Officer David MacLean has stood down from his position at the company after just five months in the role. He is leaving the position for ‘personal reasons’. Bill Rattray, Former CFO of Standard Life Aberdeen is reported to have joined the mobile banking startup as interim CFO. Rattray has more than 30 years’ experience of working with Revolut Chairman, Martin Gilbert.
Healthtech: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company will roll out a coronavirus information center that will show up at the top of every users’ news feed. The center has been built in collaboration with health partners, Zuckerberg said. It will roll out to users in the U.S. and Europe over the next 24 hours and globally over the following days.
AI: ICT.Moscow, a digital platform dedicated to tech-based solutions, has announced free access to an artificial intelligence (AI) knowledge base of practices aimed at a variety of industry verticals and business practices. The goal of the project is to help businesses properly assess the possibilities of AI. To that end, more than 300 Russian and international AI-related case studies have been published on the platform. International examples were selected in coordination with smart city lab analysts at Moscow’s Department of Information Technologies.
Smart cities: Government entities in Dubai that have fully implemented the Dubai Paperless Strategy will be awarded with a 100% Paperless Stamp. The initiative classifies government entities by order of their paper consumption into three categories: large, medium and small. Results will be announced every six months. The Stamp is awarded to entities that have transferred 100 percent of their services and internal operations to digital mediums, as per the Dubai Paperless Strategy.
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