TL;DR: Welcome to In Case You Missed It (ICYMI), a daily crypto news update. New York proposes “public Venmo.” World’s biggest mining facility attracts new players to Rockdale, TX. HEX flush address almost emptied out. Kraken will list USD Coin. China’s Blockchain Service Network to launch in three months, and COSS exchange retains user funds for 4 weeks due to a platform upgrade.



New York Proposes Digital Payment System

New reports indicate New York is proposing its own payment system, referred to as a “public Venmo” by Vice. The bill proposing this, introduced by Ron Kim, Senator Julia Salazar, and Cornell law professor Robert Hockett, would create the first public electronic banking network in the US, including all citizens of New York to distribute part of the $55 billion in uncollected tax credits. According to a 2015 survey, 8% of households in New York hold no bank account.

Texas Mega Mining Facility Attracts New Customers

The world’s largest Bitcoin mining facility in Texas is attracting new customers to Rockdale, Texas, to lease part of its massive capacity. The mine will begin operating with a load of 300 Megawatts, and will add more miners to finish the year with more than 1,000 Megawatts, and partnered with SBI Holdings, a Japanese financial company, and GMO, a Japanese ISP.

Hex Flush Address Almost Emptied

The flush address of HEX, the cryptocurrency promoted by Richard Heart, a former BTC supporter, has been emptied out of almost all funds. The flush address, containing ETH of the users who invested and transformed it into HEX, was emptied in 36 transactions, each one for of 1,337 ETH. Heart has claimed he has no control over this address, but the withdrawal of millions worth of investors’ ETH raised eyebrows in the crypto community.

Kraken to List USD Coin

Excellent to see @krakenfx launching comprehensive USDC markets! Nice to see new USDC/EUR pairs too. Great to have Kraken working with @centre_io and @circlepay https://t.co/5uyO8q2mPN — Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) January 7, 2020

Kraken announced they will be listing USD Coin, the second largest stablecoin by market share, on their trading platform. USD Coin is pegged to the value of the dollar with support from the CENTRE consortium, and has a market cap of almost $500 million. This will be the second stablecoin listed on Kraken after Tether (USDT), the largest stablecoin by market cap. USDC will be introduced with several trading pairs including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Chinese Blockchain System to Launch in Three Months

The Blockchain Service Network, a massive interconnected system of blockchains, will launch in just three months with the support of industry giants like China Mobile, UnionPay and others. The blockchain system will include permissioned and permission-less systems for interested companies, who would have to pay up to $400 for server costs, lowering the requirements and money involved to develop a blockchain by small companies. More than 400 businesses are already onboarded.

COSS Exchange Retains User Funds Before Platform Upgrade

A Singapore based exchange called COSS surprised its 200,000 customers with an announcement for a total upgrade of its platform. It intends to freeze user funds for 4 weeks during the process. While some analysts associate this policy behavior with traditional exit scams, COSS repeatedly assured they are not exit scamming people, and that the $2 million of users’ funds are safe. Despite the assurance, members of the community have been calling out the policy as an abuse by the exchange, who did not announce the freeze with time enough to withdraw funds.

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