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What Moved Global Markets
Coronavirus update:
– Global cases: More than 2.6 million
– Global deaths: At least 187,000
- Dubai on Thursday allowed cafes and restaurants to resume business, and shopping malls to be opened partially from 12 p.m until 10 p.m, but with a maximum capacity of 30%.
- Divided European Union leaders are seeking for a joint financial fund of up to 2 trillion euros to help recover from the coronavirus pandemic and avoid an economic collapse in the bloc’s poorer south.
- Wall Street was in positive territory on Tuesday but surrendered strong earlier gains after a report that an experimental antiviral drug for the coronavirus flopped in its first randomized clinical trial. All three main U.S. stock indexes trimmed increases of over 1%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq briefly turning negative after the Financial Times reported that a Chinese trial showed that Gilead Science’s (GILD.O) remdesivir did not improve patients’ condition or reduce the pathogen’s presence in the bloodstream. The company’s stocks also fell today. Gilead said the results from the study were inconclusive as it was terminated early. A draft document was provided by the authors to WHO and inadvertently posted on the website and taken down as soon as the mistake was noticed.
Crypto Prices (from CoinMarketCap)
Bitcoin: Up 5.22% to $7,531.86
Total trading volume (24h): $43.78+ billion USD
Ethereum: Up 2.52% to $189.43
Total trading volume (24h): $21.18+ billion USD
3 biggest movers 24 hours
Biggest Mover 1: Ormeus Ecosystem (ECO) is up 2,775.77% to $0.004708
Biggest Mover 2: The Hustle App (HUSL) is up 315.15% to $0.001029
Biggest Loser: MalwareChain (MALW) is down 51.37% to $0.164012
What Moved Crypto Markets (i.e. digital assets)
- Tokenized security issuance and trading platform Securitize has launched a new service that it says will make it possible for users to trade tokenized securities peer-to-peer. The service, called Instant Access lets users “privately create an indication of interest to sell their digital securities with a simple web link,” according to a press statement. The link can be shared via email, text message, or any other way you might share such a link. As long as a potential buyer has KYC/AML approval and is registered with the entity that originally issued the security, they can purchase the token directly via the link.
- Binance has rolled out a new social payments app called “Bundle.” Targeted at the African market, the app allows users to send and receive cash, as well as buy, sell and store cryptocurrencies. At launch, the supported fiat currency is Nigeria Naira (NGN), and the supported cryptocurrencies are bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH) and Binance coin (BNB). Binance said “many more” fiat currencies would be supported “in the coming weeks.” Bundle can process transactions via cards and bank transfers, as well as mobile money.
Other Specialties
Fintech: Business payments processing firm AvidXchange Inc, whose investors include Mastercard Inc and PayPal Holdings Inc co-founder Peter Thiel, said on Thursday it had added an additional $128 million to a $260 million fundraising round it closed in January. AvidXchange provides software that automates payments, invoicing and accounting for small and mid-sized businesses. Many of them have been hurt by the coronavirus outbreak, which has shut down large swaths of the economy. The CEO says that an event like COVID-19 is becoming the catalyst to change an industry.
Healthtech: Paul Drayson, the former UK science minister, released an app earlier this week with his health tech company Sensyne Health to help users report and monitor coronavirus symptoms and to share the data with family members and healthcare professionals. However, he is now being sued by ex-employee and even undergoing a tribunal for creating a “culture of fear” within his company.
Smart cities: The autonomous aerial technology platform company EHang will build the e-port in the city of Hezhou in China’s Guangxi Province to accelerate the commercialisation of AAVs in the tourism industry. This will be the world’s first e-port for an autonomous aerial vehicle.
AI: Google claims its AI can design computer chips in just under 6 hours. which is significantly faster than the weeks it takes human experts in the loop. Scientists at Google Research and the Google chip implementation and infrastructure team described that, with a learning-based approach to chip design, the AI can learn from past experience and improve over time, becoming better at generating architectures for unseen components.
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