GrayFox

To be fair you are right. This year saw a huge drop in remittances recorded in the Philippines, India and Pakistan as less money is being sent back home. The year also marked a huge drop in the sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf countries. Much like everywhere else, the Middle Eastern economies are also contracting as the oil economy is unsustainable hence the recent desire to diversify into technology, construction and renewable energy. What doesn't help as well is more and more migrant workers are leaving the region or being encouraged to leave the region due to working conditions and lack of rights. My dad just recently left Kuwait and went back home as wages are awful for foreign workers. Kuwait is also beginning to encourage its own citizens to enter the workforce and take on jobs that would normally be left for foreign workers such as manual labour, sanitation, construction etc. Oil money is drying up and they can no longer subsidise their own citizens hence the need for the government to stop acting like sugar daddies and have people earn their crumbs. The End......

Ah thanks! I'll give it a go

May I ask, am I the only one with screwed up audio and they all sound like Transformers in that clip or is everyone getting the same thing?

And its taking shape slowly: Two US congressmen introduced bipartisan legislation designed to prevent cryptocurrency price manipulation and position the United States as a leader in the crypto industry. Democrat Rep. Darren Soto of Florida and Republican Rep. Ted Budd of North Carolina unveiled the following bills: Virtual Currency Consumer Protection Act. This bill directs the CFTC to explain how price manipulation occurs and to recommend regulatory changes to prevent it. Virtual Currency Market and Regulatory Competitiveness Act. This law directs the CFTC to conduct a comparative study of crypto regulations in other countries and to recommend ways to make the United States more competitive by providing regulatory clarity and finding alternatives to burdensome laws that impede innovation. https://www.ccn.com/us-bills-seeks-to-protect-cryptocurrency-investors-from-market-manipulation/ I'm guessing that will take a while to pass through the legislative branches in the US. 2019 however might be the year of regulations where we'll get some modicum of clarity around the world. I'm looking towards 2020 and beyond for actual floodgates to open.

I believe etoro does offer CFD trading but I'm not so sure if that's the only thing they offer.

Well this is getting interesting in the UK. Will this encourage investors to get their skin in the game directly instead of betting on CFDs? About two years after the initial proposal to restrict CFDs trading on a temporary basis, the UK regulator is proposing to make the measure permanent. The UK regulator is outlining that it will be reviewing CFDs on cryptocurrencies in Q1 of 2019. Earlier this year, the FCA made clear that it intends to restrict the offering of digital currencies to cash trading. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/brokers/breaking-fca-proposes-temporary-cfds-restrictions-to-become-permanent/

Oh boy I do hope that this falls in line with today's email update from the Bank of England on the state of the RTGS:

You read the speech by the governor of SAMA? He was also present at this year's Swell conference.They are investing deeply into blockchain and dlt. http://www.sama.gov.sa/ar-sa/News/Pages/news05122018.aspx

Not only that but the world has been in desperate need for an international Real Time Gross Settlement system since post World War 2. The need to monitor the world economy and keeping balances in check has been a pipe dream for the IMF. DLT and Blockchain provided an opportunity where the international monetary system is on a single ledger. The XRP ledger is a wet dream for international bodies but that dream is about to become a reality. I'm seriously not into tin foil hat stuff to manage my expectations but if the world populace needs to accept a single source of truth then it needs to remain private because no one will accept what the governments provide in current climate so a private company creating a ledger that anybody and anything can tap into has a huge potential. At this point only time will tell what the world organisations are going to do and its either make or break but as far as I can see, Ripple is winning the populace slowly but surely.

You read the recent IMF speech by Christine Lagarde? Some interesting stuff. The world is looking towards tech to offer better solution in combating corruption and money laundering. When money goes digital, everything can be monitored. - https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/12/04/sp120418-md-kissinger-speech

I was just reading this from the IMF. Christine Lagarde sharing her views. Talk about some new world order ****.....wow! https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2018/12/04/sp120418-md-kissinger-speech

Yes! I would love to hear more. I think my excitement levels are 2 levels away from a heartache right now.

Yes, which is also something they brought up with the Proof of concept with the bank of England. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/payments/rtgs-renewal-programme-proof-of-concept-supporting-dlt-settlement-models.pdf?la=en&hash=894DFF2C6DE88434EA3A96612E9FD6F454BF68DA

It does sound like ILP to me especially on this segment: The Corda Settler is an open source CorDapp that allows payment obligations arising on the Corda Network to be settled via any parallel rail supporting cryptocurrencies or other crypto assets, and any traditional rail capable of providing cryptographic proof of settlement. Uniquely, the Corda Settler will verify that the beneficiary’s account was credited with the expected payment, automatically updating the Corda ledger. In the next phase of development, the Settler will support domestic deferred net settlement and real-time gross settlement payments