TL;DR: Welcome to In Case You Missed It (ICYMI), a daily crypto news update. TravelByBit to drop BTC payments after double-spending video goes viral. Iran proposes Muslim cryptocurrency. Robinhood fined $1.25 million by FINRA. Blockchain of Things ICO charged for running and unregistered securities sale. LBRY to be listed on CoinEx, and Fortress makes an offer to Mt. Gox creditors.



TravelByBit Drops Bitcoin Payments After Double Spending Video Goes Viral

TravelByBit, a popular third-party cryptocurrency payment provider serving 400 merchants in Australia, announced it will consider dropping BTC payments after a video showing how to double spend BTC with regular wallets went viral. “We will be dropping both [(BTC)] and Bitcoin Cash from the POS (Point of Sale),” Caleb Yeoh, founder of TravelbyBit, told a regional crypto news site. Hayden Otto, CEO of BitcoinBCH and author of the video, declared BCH being dropped was not a big deal, because it was not widely supported in the first place.

Iran Proposes Muslim Coin to Fight Dollar Hegemony

Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, announced yesterday during a Kuala Lumpur summit the need to create a Muslim common cryptocurrency in order to sidestep economic sanctions and fight the dollar hegemony in the world. Rouhani stated, “The Muslim world should be designing measures to save themselves from the domination of the United States dollar and the American financial regime.” Iran has faced harsh economic sanctions from the US for its nuclear program since 2015, and this has impacted its economy and stability.

Robinhood Fined $1.25 Million by FINRA for Not Securing Best Execution of Orders

Robinhood fined $1.25MM for allowing four broker dealers to frontrun orderflow. The CEO of one of Robinhood's brokers just bought a quarter billion dollar penthouse in NYC — zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 19, 2019

Robinhood, the zero-fee cryptocurrency and stock trading app, has been fined $1.25 million by FINRA for not ensuring the best execution of orders for their customers. FINRA stated in a press release the orders of Robinhood customers were routed through four brokers who paid them for the traffic. However, Robinhood did not ensure the customers were getting the best resolution for their orders, violating Rule 5310 that states which methods must be followed to comply with “Best Execution” practices.

Blockchain of Things ICO Charged for Selling Unregistered Securities

The SEC settled charges with Blockchain of Things Inc., a company that conducted an ICO in 2017, raising over $13 million to develop its blockchain platform and the tech-related to it. Despite this, the investors were not warned they would be investing in a token that could be considered a security. Blockchain of Things was fined $250K as a penalty and agreed to cease and desist from violating any securities law. In addition, they will also have to register their token as a security and return the money to investors.

LBRY to be Listed On CoinEx

$LBC will be listed on #CoinEx on Dec 20! @LBRYio is a decentralized marketplace and media sharing platform for all types of content.

Plus, 700,000 LBC will be shared through the Deposit & Trade promo. Full announcement: https://t.co/Q4eXirMvtz #LBRYCredits #LBRY @LBRY_Community pic.twitter.com/38h96V7SHo — CoinEx (@coinexcom) December 19, 2019

LBRY, a cryptocurrency project aiming to build a protocol for media sharing and an associated tipping platform, has been approved to be listed in CoinEx, a crypto exchange based in China. For this event, they are running a staking contest, distributing more than 400K LBC to the users depositing the most USDT or LBC. Also, they will distribute 200K LBC to the users who trade the most LBC in their platform.

Fortress Issues New Offer to Purchase Mt Gox Creditors’ Claims

The Fortress Investment group launched a new and updated offer to creditors of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox to buy their claims. This time, Fortress has announced it will pay 70% of every creditor, as opposed to the first time when they offered 900 dollars per every Bitcoin claimed. The legal process around this incident is expected to last a long time, and Fortress seeks to capitalize on this fact to entice creditors to sell their claims with a 30% loss. The offer will be open until December 31.

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