The biggest news of the first week of March was that Fidelity Investments has launched its new cryptocurrency firm Fidelity Digital Asset Services. The new firm offers coin custody and trading operations and already has signed with a few institutional clients, after interviewing 450 institutions. Despite the prolonged bear market Fidelity has steadily added new clients like hedge funds, pension funds, and family offices. Tom Jessop, who heads Fidelity Digital Asset Services, said low crypto prices have not discouraged potential clients. He said part of Fidelity's mission is to teach institutional investors about crypto so they might take a more positive view.
Here is the rest of the week in review:
Journalism startup Civil launched its new platform for independent journalism on Wednesday. The project's CVL token can be bought for Civil membership, which will give journalists and news organizations voting power on the platform. 34 million CVL tokens were offered for sale at a rising price of 20 to 94 cents. Civil also debuted two tools, the Civil Registry and Civil Publisher. The registry lets any newsroom apply to be a Civil newsroom. The publisher lets newsrooms place verifiable data onto the blockchain. Civil has a partnership with the Associated Press so that new is delivered to the Civil platform.
US federal prosecutors arrested the leaders of OneCoin, an alleged pyramid scheme. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted Ruja Ignatova and Konstantin Ignatov for wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering. The US government claims OneCoin used crypto to defraud investors out of billions of dollars. Prosecutors say that OneCoin members make commissions when they recruit new people to join the scheme and that the price growth of its token is manipulated. International prosecutors in over 10 countries have also been cracking down on OneCoin since 2016, and OneCoin promoters face fines and legal orders to stop marketing.
Crypto prices rose slightly to end at above the $134 billion level, and Bitcoin (BTC) tried to break through $4,000 again. Litecoin (LTC), Stellar (XLM), and Cardano (ADA) led the majors, which all ended in the green. In the top 100, the biggest losers are Bitcoin Private (BTCP), down a whopping 45%, Bitcoiin (B2G), down 18%, and Grin (GRIN), down 16%. The biggest gainers are FLO (FLO), up 64%, ABBC Coin (ABBC), up 61%, and Einsteinium (EMC2), up 55%. In the upcoming week, investors will be watching Theta's (THETA) mainnet launch, the Blockchain International Scientific Conference, and Asia Crypto Week.
The author owns a small amount of BTC and LTC.