As other stocks rebounded at the news of a breakthrough in Pfizer and BioNTech’s joint COVID-19 vaccine, bitcoin fell sharply to nearly $14,815, according to CoinDesk.
By the end of the day, the stock had risen slightly, hitting $15,369.783 at 5:16 p.m. ET, but still down from the day’s starting point of $15,800.
Pfizer announced this morning that clinical trials were showing an efficacy rate of more than 90 percent for preventing patients from contracting the coronavirus. Good news for restaurants, physical retail — and consumers — but bad news for delivery apps, quick-service restaurants (QSRs), streaming services, and apparently bitcoin, although many expect this dip to be temporary, reported CoinDesk.
Meanwhile, New Jersey Sen. Nellie Pou introduced new cryptocurrency regulations in a bill titled “Digital Asset and Blockchain Technology act,” on Thursday, Nov. 5.
The bill would require digital asset service providers that wish to operate in New Jersey to be licensed by the state’s Department of Banking Insurance or by another state’s equivalent license.
Violators are subject to a $500 fine per day, and the department will have the authority to audit any digital asset business license. The license must be renewed annually and requires the business to record and save all client transactions for a year after the data of transaction.
In other news, blockchain-based fantasy sports stock trading platform TradeStars launched a new token, TSX, that can be used to monetize users’ sports knowledge, according to a report on EsportsBets.
In a Nasdaq-esque exchange, users can create a portfolio of stocks and stake their performance estimates of athletes, the value of which is then determined by the athletes’ real-time performances.
“TradeStars is the first decentralized trading platform for ‘Fractional NFTs,’ where economic DeFi incentives are connected to real-life statistical data,” said TradeStars Founder and CTO Christian Hentschel.
The exchange, which launched in January and now supports over 30,000 users, will sell 10 percent of the new token to private investors, and will give away another 10 percent to users on the platform, and another 10 percent will be sold to private investors.
