The $340 billion banking giant, JP Morgan launched a stablecoin called JPM Coin. Industry experts have foreseen the stablecoin to thrash Ripple in the long run.

Co-host of Bloomberg’s What’d You Miss? Joe Weisenthal said, “If it turns out that the blockchain framework turns out to be a good one for banks transferring money around, then the JPM Coin should entirely obliterate Ripple.”

Weisenthal started his argument with the premise of blockchain becoming a more effective way of moving money for banks. With that, he states it would be more reasonable for banks to use the JPM stablecoin than to use Ripple’s XRP. The suggestion that the XRP cryptocurrency might be obliterated is hinged on the fact that Ripple counts on regulated institutional customers.

The argument was further reinforced with the exchange rate volatility risk associated with using XRP as a bridge currency. He suggests that the fiat-backed JPM coin sounds to be far more appropriate for the customer-base Ripple is targeting.

The Ripple blockchain network is an advanced payment infrastructure for cross-border transactions used by banks and financial institutions to send and receive payments with low costs and faster clearing time. For more details visit https://www.ripplenews.world

The JPM coin can be considered as a form of short-term credit that is moved instantly. However, the underlying transaction goes through the settlement process. Also, when the actual money goes through, the coins are destroyed, as the funds replace them. Hence, the JPM coin may not be in direct competition with other cryptocurrencies but might steal the entire target market of Ripple.

RippleNet and XRP serve as the primary tools on the Ripple blockchain network. Any valuable settlement requires liquidity. However, on a banking network, the cash comes directly from many banks, which exists on the network.

Ripple had its vision clear in establishing partnerships with both banks and fintech service providers throughout the past several years, mainly to improve the liquidity of the network.

The CEO of JP Morgan has made notable remarks in the past about the blockchain trend, saying Bitcoin is a fraud at one point. However, JP Morgan seems to be leading the charge of the banks into blockchain.

The primary concerns of the industry’s executives and experts for the growth of XRP are that if JPMorgan uses JPM Coin to settle payments between its clients, then as the bank said, it will eventually put XRP in competition with JPM Coin directly.

Speaking to CNBC, JPMorgan’s blockchain projects head, Umar Farooq said that JPM Coin would have three core use cases and the primary use case is international payments for corporations.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the technologies banks use today was developed by Swift decades ago and hasn’t evolved since then or kept up with the market. Swift quoted that not so long ago that he didn’t see blockchain as a solution to correspondent banking.

Technically, JPM Coin and Ripple have the same use, targeting the same market, and are both battling to take hold of the SWIFT network.

JPMorgan would “wipe the floor with Ripple,” emphasizing that banks would instead use a technology developed by banks rather than a company outside of the traditional financial sector, said Tushar Jain, a general partner at Multicoin Capital.

Some stakeholders in the crypto space have weighed in their opinion on the matter, questioning the purpose of the XRP coin going forward. Tushar Jain, a managing partner at Multicoin Capital, stated that banks would not allow Ripple Inc. to become enriched by using XRP for settlements. He went further to hint that other banks will produce their form of coin like JP Morgan just did.

While this development brings institutional legitimacy to the blockchain industry, it remains to be seen how cryptocurrencies like Ripple’s XRP will navigate this new trend and stay relevant.

Consumer price rates were constant throughout January 2019 as lessened gasoline prices counteracted the effect of rising costs of housing, clothing and medical care.

The labor department said that the Consumer Price Index increased only 1.6 percent which is less than its increments in previous years. Last year, CPI increment was 1.9 percent.

The price hike has been tampered by 10.1 percent jump over the previous 12 months in prices at the gas pump. But the dominant part of the Index, which is housing expenses, have risen 3.2 percent.

When volatile energy and food categories are excluded, core prices get an increment of 0.2 percent for the fifth month in a row. It can be said that for the third consecutive month, core prices were 2.2 percent up as compared to the previous year.

Clothing costs got the largest gain in the previous 11 months. It jumped 1.1 percent every month. Moreover, medical care services increased 0.3 percent which was quite close to housing costs increment every month.

Inflation is still in its average form instead of a tightened labor market. Furthermore, this tightening of the labor market is the result of gradually slowing of economic growth in countries like China and Europe. Ultimately, this moderate form of inflation and slow economic growth of these countries are helping in lowering the oil price rates.

Gasoline prices dropped 5.5 percent in January 2019. Also, Gasoline price rates fell 5.8 percent in December. Moreover, food price rates got a hike of 0.2 percent in January month of this year. Though, food price rates got 0.3 percent increment in December month of last year. Food utilized at home showed a 0.1 percent hike in the last month.

Residential rent, which is the money that a homeowner pay to rent or receives when he rents his home, got a hike of 0.3 percent in the last month. Though, it was 0.2 percent in December month of last year.

The Federal Reserve is looking towards various strategies to increase interest rates. Since inflation is at a lower level, there is less pressure on the Federal Reserve as it is continuously increasing consumer price rates in order to accelerate economic growth.

The United States is facing another partial government shutdown at the end of this week after negotiations aimed at extending government funding broke down over the weekend.

Talks between Democratic and Republican lawmakers on border security funding have ended in a stalemate, raising the fears of another government shutdown.

Democrats have critically planned to cap the number of beds at detention centers at 16,500.

Negotiators have also been looking at between $1.3bn and $2bn in funding for President Trump’s proposed border wall, which is a long way off the $5.7bn the president has been demanding.

“The talks have stalled right now. I am hoping we can get off the dime later today or in the morning because time is ticking away, but we have some serious problem to cope,” Richard Shelby, a Republican chairman of the Senate appropriations committee said.

Sen Richard Shelby, a Lead Republican negotiator, said, “The specter of a shutdown is always out there. I’ll say 50-50 we get a deal.”

Jon Tester, one of the Democratic negotiators, said there could be a little hope left for the deal. Also, speaking to Fox News, he claimed: “Negotiations seldom go smooth all the way through.”

California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said he would recall hundreds of the state national guard from the border, pushing back against the Trump administration’s call for Border States to help with security.

The departments of Homeland Security, State, Agriculture, and Commerce, including Federal Agencies, could drastically lose access to the money and begin to close down again, affecting about 800,000 federal employees, who would go unpaid.

The report says, during a shutdown, essential services continue to operate, with workers being required to show up. Last time, some employees continued to work unpaid as many others called in sick for the cause.

Negotiators have time until Feb. 15 to reach out on an agreement to stave off another shutdown. But the lawmakers are firm to insist on the practical deadline for any agreement, which is much earlier in the week.

The current negotiations have narrowed to the most difficult issues, with Democrats seeking to limit the number of detention beds, which was justified for undocumented immigrants while Republicans firmly believe in pushing the highest funding level for barriers they can get.

The impasse continued over the dollar amount for border fencing and other barriers, this Friday afternoon. Conservative lawmakers were constantly insisting they and President Donald Trump would accept something around $2 billion, which is far below their insistence on $5.7 billion, which triggered the shutdown in December. But Democrats quickly rejected that amount.

Former Goldman Sachs Chairman Jim O’Neill has told in a recent interview that the single most important thing in today’s world economy is reviving the Chinese consumer.

As per Chinese official statistics, the country’s growth has been slowed down to 6.6 percent in 2018, which is slowest in the last many years. The country’s on-going trade war with its biggest trading partner is also affecting China’s economy. The trade war coupled with slower growth is impacting China’s plan to have a transition from a manufacturing and export-led economy to a consumer-driven model.

O’Neill who now acts as chair of Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank, told that he was not at all surprised that the growth figures of China have dipped.

He said, “People shouldn’t be freaking out, the demographics have turned.” He also added that Beijing had planned some of the reduction in Chinese growth.

The former Goldman Sachs supremo said though the Chinese growth of 6.6 percent is slowest in almost last three decades, its year-on-year growth is still equivalent to the GDP of Australia.

However, O’Neill also noted one area where Chinese officials are struggling as far as the economy is concerned.

O’Neill said, “The one thing that does bother me is the Chinese consumer is slowing, that’s not supposed to happen, and the single most important thing in the world economy is the Chinese consumer slowing down.”

Brexit-

As per O’Neill Brexit also have similar if not equal impact on the world economy as it will impact both the United Kingdom and the European Union. As Britain has only 50 days to leave the European Union, the relations between the two parties have dipped after EU Council President Donald Tusk suggested on Wednesday there would be a “special place in Hell” for Brexiteers who had still offered a no-exit plan.

O’Neill told in an interview to CNBC that the rhetoric was perhaps “a bit surprising by Brussels leadership standards,” who were “normally extremely diplomatic,” but did not come entirely out of the blue.

He said, “It doesn’t look like the Brexiteers have thought about Irish border question at all, so kind of not surprising so for Brexiteers to feel a bit of their own general aggressiveness, you know they are not the only guys that can be mean and tough.”

As per him, Brexit with a no deal from the European Union has a meager chance.

He also added there had been signs that U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who visits Brussels Thursday, looked to be trying to weaken the resolve of the hard-core Brexit elements in her own party to get a withdrawal deal struck.

He said, “I wonder if the PM is trying to play a sort of Machiavellian game, she is sort of trying to split the hardcore Brexiteers, and she has sort of dragged them to a slightly different position.”

Kraken is a giant cryptocurrency exchange based out of US and is operating in Canada, the EU, Japan, and the US, and it is the largest Bitcoin exchange in Euro volume and liquidity. Recently, the company made a huge announcement about the acquisition of cryptocurrency facilities. This will restructure the entire company to rank between 1 and 10 in the global bitcoin exchange. Currently, they are the 46thexchange by adjusted volume.

Kraken released details about the acquisition to the press, but they had not mentioned the exact amount spent on crypto facilities. They hinted the cost to be a “nine-digit figure” which amounts to $100 million at the least. This move of acquisition took the market by surprise as there was news about the company downsizing last year. CEO of Kraken, Jesse Powell, cleared the air confirming the dismissal of 57 employees in Halifax. However, he stated that the company was still hiring in various sectors.

Furthermore, Kraken has stepped into Bitcoin Derivatives space. This could be given the success of its #10 competitor Huobi Global, a cryptocurrency exchange based out of Singapore, which proliferated after launching the derivatives market in November last year. Instead of creating its platform, Kraken has used Google’s approach and procured the best derivative platform and have put them to use for their clients.

Crypto facilities are based in London, and as seen by the UK’S financial conduct authority, the firm will be functional from its base country and benefit from the oversight of the authority. Even though the company operates from London, the future of the product will be Kraken branded.

Crypto facilities have taken a step forward and introduced a Revenue Sharing Program (RSP) for the clients who provide liquidity. This program calculates the contribution from clients on a weekly basis, starting at 12 p.m. UTC ( Universal Time Coordinated) every Friday. RDP is scheduled to run for ten weeks initially, and at the end of each week, the revenue will be calculated according to the contribution and paid out. $50,000 a week is allotted to the clients who create markets in the exchange.

Unlike stock market and share prices, the price of crypto asset originates from spot trading. Hence, the derivative market is effective only in a limited period. Even so, the sentiment value on a derivative market has the power to affect the price of an asset, which means, if the derivative values an asset more or less than your value, you will have to change your value and the price to trade it.

Virtually, the value of derivative exchanges is unlimited. For-profit, the Bitcoin derivatives, and its competitors are offered higher prices, depending on the volume, the offered price could be extreme. Binance’s founder, ChangpengZhao mentioned that the crypto market grows rapidly (could increase by 1000 folds)and hence makes the derivatives market bigger. BitMEX proved Changpeng right by trading for $1 billion on an everyday basis, making it the largest exchange in the derivatives market. Kraken is now following the steps of both BitMEX and Huobi, therefore, would emerge as a giant exchange with more innovations and profit in the future.

Two doctors from Louisiana requested for a stay for the abortion law from the U.S. Supreme Court. They say that the law could cripple the access to abortion in the state. The law requires doctors who are about to perform the abortion to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic, which means that it would potentially leave only one doctor in a single clinic to provide abortions in a state where about 10,000 women seek the procedure each year.

The application was submitted to Justice Samuel Alito and is expected to be reviewed by the full court. The unnamed physicians, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights requested the court to prevent the law from going into effect since it is planned to go for trial next week. Alito gave the state of Louisiana two days to respond to the application. This case could prove to be a test for the President Donald Trump’s Nominee to the high court

In a similar law that was enacted in the state of Texas in 2016, it was ruled 5-3. This case was decided before Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch and was confirmed to the bench.

The law states that for an emergency stay to be sanctioned, five justices are required. If the full court joins and acts on the matter, so then at least one of the court’s five conservatives must join the liberal wing for the order to prevent the Louisiana law from being established.

This application follows the decision from a divided panel of the United States 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that Whole Women’s Health does not preclude the Louisiana law “unlike in Texas, the Louisiana law does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women.”

In Texas, the panel concluded that almost all hospitals require a doctor to admit a minimum number of patients, to retain the admitting privileges. On the contrast in Louisiana, only a few numbers of hospitals have the same requirement. Judge Jerry Smith also wrote that the panel’s majority opinion reasoned that driving distances will not increase the number of women seeking abortions and that only 30 percent of women seeking abortions might be affected.

Smith wrote, “we are of course bound by WWH’s holdings, announced in a case with a substantially similar statute but greatly dissimilar facts and geography.”

In a disagreement, Judge Patrick Higginbotham criticized the majority stating “conclusions for which there is no support in the record” and also for rejecting “the district court’s well-supported findings.” Higginbotham also challenged the motive of the majority, hinting that there could be an alternative motive.

Suggesting a possible political intention, Higginbotham wrote: “In the absence of fit between the means requiring admitting privileges and the ends ensuring women’s health, I am left to conclude that, viewed objectively, there is an invidious purpose at play.” Another statement made by Center for Reproductive Rights CEO Nancy Northup said the law “could be the last straw for the few remaining clinics.” She also said that “Less than three years ago, the Supreme Court struck down an identical law in Texas, holding that it served no purpose other than to restrict access to safe and legal abortion. The Fifth Circuit has brazenly ignored this precedent squarely on point.”

Planned Parenthood also weighed in. “When courts blatantly disregard established Supreme Court precedent, every person’s rights and freedoms are threatened,” Helene Krasnoff, Planned Parenthood’s vice president of public policy litigation and law, said in a statement. “We stand by our partners at the Center for Reproductive Rights in their fight to get emergency relief for Louisiana patients. The unconstitutional nature of this law has been and should continue to be a foregone conclusion.”

China which is the world’s second-largest economy grew by 6.6% which is slowest in 28 years. As per the latest official data released the economy lost its way further in the last quarter as the county tried to overcome the debt crises and the ongoing trade war with the United States. With that, there is tremendous pressure on the communist leaders to make an amicable settlement with the U.S and end the trade war. The report showed that the growth dipped to its lowest quarterly since the 2008 recession.

The Chinese government is meanwhile implementing measures to enable the country to get more sustained growth through customer spending. However, the customer reaction to this is jittery as they see impending job losses which have made them wary of spending. That has, in turn, prompted the government to increase spending and has even asked banks to reduce interest rates and increase lending so that they can reduce the job cuts. Despite these measures, the growth is expected to go further low as these take time to produce results. Analysts believe that there could be a slowdown again this year and reduce growth to 6.3%. However, if the quarterly growth is taken into account, there was an increase in 1.6 percent from the previous quarter while the analyst has predicted 1.5%.

Oxford Economist Louis Kuijs said in a report that the ‘Growth will remain under pressure’ and that it could get worse if the credit growth and the trade tussle with the US do not end quickly.

The trade war with the US to end soon?

The Chinese government which is already under great pressure after customer spending reduced due to fears of job losses and slowdown are keen on ending the tussle with the US. It can be considered as a sign of progress as Beijing announced that Liu He who is the vice premier and their top envoy of trade would be visiting Washington for bilateral talks that are going to be held at the end of January.  That has prompted economists and analysts to suggest that the talks held at a low-level have made progress and that has made China and American opposite number Robert Lightizer. Trump also indicated that it was ‘going very well’ and a deal could happen very soon.

The key risk to the Chinese economy is if the talks fail yet again and no deal is made then that is a huge downside to the growth.

China has officially declared that its economy has grown at 6.6 percent in 2018. It is the slowest growth of the Chinese economy since 1990.

The experts highly anticipated this official announcement all over the world amidst on-going talks with the United States on trade and tariffs.

Economists also have predicted that the Chinese economic growth would fall to this level from the 2017 level of 6.8 percent.

The fourth quarter has seen the lowest 6.4 percent growth, as expected. The fourth quarter growth in 2017 was 6.5 percent.

As per Chinese official data, there also few spots where the second largest economy has the edge. Industrial output grew 5.7 percent in December from a year earlier as the economists have expected growth of 5.3 percent. And the November’s industrial output was 5.4 percent.

Retail sales data rose 8.2 percent in December on-year, in line with a forecast and rose from November’s 8.1 percent gain.

Helen Zhu, head of China equities at BlackRock said the exporters are now trying to get the goods out of China to the United States before the new tariff regime starts. Though the economy is experiencing a deceleration, the vital hope for China is the exports.

She also told that she had expected support to the economy by increased Chinese Consumption and tax cuts. But, she reaffirmed that the growth for 2019 would be lower than the figures of 2018.

It is curious to know that some people have their reservations regarding accepting the Chinese official records of GDP growth. The veracity of the figures issued by the Chinese agency is yet to be proved.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, a research house said the official GDP figures from China are so stable that it won’t be a proper picture of Chinese economic preference.

He also added that the service sector had been strengthened in the last quarter.

Chinese statistics bureau chief Ning Jizhesaid that the trade war with the United States has affected the domestic economy, but the impact is manageable. As per one report, the uptrend in the Chinese economy is happening due to the rise in the domestic demand.

Even before the China- U.S trade war, China was trying to manage the slowdown in its economy.

China is now trying to balance a crackdown on high debt levels while also maintaining economic growth. It is also trying to reduce the reliance on the debt would benefit the economy in the long run, it likely means a far slower pace of growth than the country has seen in recent years.

While as per the official data released the Chinese economy fared well for most of the months in 2018, but now the economy appears to be slowing down.

The two largest economies after a series of conflicts between them on trade practices finally agreed to make a deal out of this. China has offered a six-year boost in imports during its ongoing talks with the U.S., as per the sources. China also has promised to buy more goods from the United States which will be working as a boost Trumps’ electoral promises.

As per recent news, Ed Tilly who is the CEO, president and chairman of Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), said that to attract Wall Street Investors, it is important that exchange-traded notes (ETNs) from Bitcoin (BTC) is made public. The visibility is important for the Wall Street institutional investors as far as joining the digital asset industry is concerned.

CBOE is the largest options exchange in the United States and offers options for over 2,200 companies, 22 stock indices, and 140 exchange-traded funds. It is a subsidiary of the Chicago Board of Trade and was established in 1973. CBOE Global owns CBOE. CBOE is the issuer of the CBOE Volatility Index and is a popular measure of the stock market’s expectations of volatility.

In a press meet, Billy said that there had not been a substantial growth for Bitcoin futures in recent times due to the absence of possible notes or trackers which are usually associated with BTC, with which retail customers could trade.

He even claimed that as far as the offering of access points to Wall Street Investors are concerned both exchange-traded notes and futures are important. Exchange-traded notes or ETNs are predominantly more accessible to the general investors when compared to traditional futures because of the fact of their low barrier for entry. Having a future comes along with having an ETN as well which is attractive to retail customers followed by institutional customers who can avoid the risk on the listed future market.

An exchange-traded note is a senior, unsecured, unsubordinated debt security issued by an underwriting bank. Similar to other debt securities, ETNs have a maturity date and are backed only by the credit of the issuer. ETNs are designed to provide investors access to the returns of various market benchmarks.

According to Billy, there is a particular reason for not approving the Bitcoin exchange-traded products such as the still-pending exchange-traded fund (ETF) application as the regulators are not competent to protect investors from trade manipulation which are inevitable in a market where regulators lack control.

An Exchange-Traded Fund or ETF is a fund that is traded on a stock market. They function as investment funds which allow everyone accesses to an index or commodity providing the same profit to investors as the major markets do. Thus, ETF stocks are one of the most popular among exchange users because of the easiness to invest in industries without being charged by the fund manager. Before buying an ETF, it is necessary to check what is included in the fund.

As per a leading news agency, Cointelegraph, Brian Kelly who is an entrepreneur and contributor to the news channel CNBC, stated in a press meet that there might not be any chance for a Bitcoin ETF approval this year.

It was in the news recently that Bitwise Asset Management which is a digital asset index fund provider is looking forward to registering with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to introduce a new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund platform.

Foreign Direct Investment from China into the United States shrunk for the second year in a row.

According to the new data by the Rhodium Group, in 2018 Chinese FDI in the United States fell to just $4.8 billion — a massive decline from $29 billion in 2017 and $46 billion in 2016.

The figure of 2018 released by the independent group is a 90 percent decline from 2016 and the lowest level in FDI by China into the United States since 2011.

The report of the decline comes in between the on-going trade war between the two countries. China has been allegedly asking its companies to reduce their global holding and stocks so that it can reduce its debt level.

According to the same data, almost $13 billion worth of assets were sold in 2018 by China in the United States. China bought much of these assets in the 2015⎯2016 investment booms. Chinese net direct investment into the United States saw a decline of $8 billion in 2018, including those divestitures.

The group also added that there is also a $20 billion worth of divestitures that is still pending.

In recent months since the tariff war started between the two economies, Chinese companies have started selling assets. Anbang has already put up a number of its U.S. luxury hotels for sale, HNA Group has also allotted billions of dollars’ worth of assets for sale, Fosun International is willing to sell a stake in its New York property, 28 Liberty, and Dalian Wanda Group is looking for buyers for a sale of its stake in Legendary Entertainment.

Though Foreign Direct Investment from China into the United States fell, venture capital funding from Chinese resources into the United States has gained a record high of $3.1 billion, the Rhodium group said.

The National Association of Realtors data shows that amidst the contracting Foreign Direct Investment, Chinese investors are still on the top in buying residential housing in the United States both in terms of units and value. This shows the growing interest among the Chinese middle class in the American market.