Yahoo Finance Bitcoin Prices Little Changed; Australia Plans New Regulations on Crypto Exchanges
Investing.com - Bitcoin prices were little changed on Friday, while other major cryptocurrency prices traded slightly lower on reports that Australia is considering to impose new regulations on crypto exchanges.
Bitcoin traded 0.7% lower to $6,592.4 at 12:40AM ET (04:40 GMT) on the Bitifinex exchange.
Ethereum fell 2.0% to $221.91 in the previous 24 hours.
XRP slid 4.3% to $0.52335 on the Poloniex exchange, while Litecoin also lost 1.6% at $58.309.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the country’s market regulator, said in its corporate plan for 2018-2022 that it is looking into new tactic in regulating digital currency exchanges.
“Blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) is anticipated to bring significant change to the Australian financial services industry,” ASIC said. The regulator added that developments in the technology could raise efficiencies in data reconciliation, settlements and other middle- and back-office functions.
Separately, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has budgeted over 1 million euro for fintech and cryptocurrency assets supervision, Coin Telegraph reported citing a document published on Thursday.
The ESMA is aiming to provide guidance and facilitate the implementation of the Markets and Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) in order to make markets more transparent, according to the framework.
In other news, U.S.-based brokerage firm TD Ameritrade announced it is backing Erisx, a new virtual currency exchange.
The platform will be led by trading veteran Thomas Chippas, who left his job at Citigroup to head the project.
While it still needs regulatory approval, the company hopes to list bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin futures. It has been backed by DRW and Virtu Financial and has presented itself as a rival to Bakkt, a platform from the New York Stock Exchange’s parent company.
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