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China’s Ministry ranks Ethereum first among 28 other protocols; Xiong’An City data to be put on Blockchain; Vechain works with 2nd largest food company; Canaan.io Rev Rmb $5million/employee; overall Crypto investor outlook improves.

Coin and Exchange News

– First time: China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has produced a ranking for blockchain projects. They judged 3 criteria: technology, application, and innovation. Ethereum ranks top of the 28 protocols evaluated, Bitcoin ranked13th.

– Exchange: Binance announced that they would postpone the listing of TrueUSD (TUSD)

– Media: Interview with Zhao Changpeng, CEO of Binance and one of the most sought after Crypto individuals in China right now

Business

Ant Financial and Xiong’An: Senior Expert of the Ant Financial Strategy Department claims that the core data of the entire city and the people of Xiong’an New District will be retained on the blockchain. Xiong’An is Premier Xi’s brain child as the next urban city. It is about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing.

IPO: No ICO but these guys definitely have did pretty well for themselves, the second largest bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Canaan.io had an average revenue per employee of Rmb 5mn in 2017. Aggregated, revenue was Rmb 1.7bn, with 243 employees.

Partnership: VeChain signs a Partnership with Bright Foods and its IT/Tech subsidiary Shanghai Xiandao Food to integrate Blockchain Technology into Bright Food (Group) Co.’s internal management systems (I just spoke to Vechain’s team at Consensus yesterday and they sound like there are a lot of business partnerships in the works and they are one of the few companies who are actually trying to solve real world problems, which I think should increase their value down the road.)

Stat: According to the China Institute of Information and Communications, the total digital economy in China in 2017 reached 27.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 20.3% year-on-year, accounting for 32.9% of GDP. (that is a crazy number). As a reference, US digital economy made up of 6.5% of the GDP in 2016.

Macro and Regulation Watch

Stat: The Huobi composite investor sentiment index in April increased by 17.0%
The composite investor sentiment index in April scored 83.9, with an MoM increase of 17.0%. The short-term investor sentiment index scored 75.9, with an MoM increase of 24.2%. The med-term sentiment index scored 88.4, with an MoM increase of 15.7%. The long-term sentiment index scored 94.0, with an MoM increase of 7.5%.

Regulation: Thailand waives 7% value-added tax on personal cryptocurrency investors
The Thai Inland Revenue Department announced that it would abandon the 7% VAT of personal cryptocurrency investors, but individuals still have to pay a 15% capital gains tax, also known as withholding tax, on revenue earned for transactions. .