BTC & Gold Leave The S&P500 Behind

Second Order Effects

The health impacts of COVID-19 are bigger than anything we write about here, but there’s still a lot of interesting things happening…

Without trying to further exhaust anyone, here’s a few resources worth checking out:

• Second Order Effects – A set of collaborators are aggregating all of the potential secondary effects of today’s crisis across business, our personal lives, government, and education.
• COVID Myths – A handy infographic that busts the biggest myths, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories about COVID-19, with sources.
• Global Lockdown Tracker – All of the global lockdowns, from the date they were instituted to the date they are currently scheduled to end.

Demand for Bitcoin Online Courses Explodes by 300%

Over the past month, Coursera has seen a 300% increase for online Bitcoin courses. Gotta love it.

If you want to learn for free (while having a bit of fun), we suggest you check out CryptoHack. The platform provides a series of interactive puzzles, games, and challenges for users to learn about modern cryptographic protocols.

Blockchain Association Asks Court to Reconsider Telegram Injunction

We covered Telegram’s spat with the SEC/NY Court in last week’s newsletter. You can catch up here.

Now, The Blockchain Association, a blockchain advocacy group that comprises many of crypto’s richest and most powerful companies has once again rushed to Telegram’s defense.

For the exchanges, crypto funds and blockchain companies that comprise the Blockchain Association, the case is of immense importance for the future of their businesses.

Major Crypto Firms Including Binance, Civic, Tron Targeted in Flood of Lawsuits

Well-known crypto market players and companies were hit by a barrage of new lawsuits filed Friday in New York federal court.

Eleven class actions were filed by the Roche Freedman law firm in the Southern District of New York. They separately name Binance, Civic, BProtocol, Status, Block.one, KayDex, Quantstamp, BiBox, TRON Foundation, KuCoin, BitMEX, and many other individuals such as Civic’s Vinny Lingham and Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.

The lawsuits allege violations of U.S. securities laws against the issuers of digital tokens and against the crypto exchanges that sold them to people in the US.

South Korea’s Central Bank Begins Pilot Program for Testing Digital Currency

The Bank of Korea, the country’s central bank, has launched a pilot program for testing a digital won.

This news comes as central banks across the world have accelerated their digital currency research efforts. Last week, the central bank of France also launched an experimental program to test the integration of digital euro in settlement procedures.

Playing devil’s advocate is Meltem Demirors explaining why a digital dollar is terrifying and essentially the complete opposite of what crypto is about.