While speaking at a panel discussion in London, CEO of Allianz Andreas Utermann urged market watchdogs to ‘’outlaw’’ cryptocurrencies and in today's crypto news we read more about his opinions. Utermann believed that a direct ban was actually preferable and he said to the regulators that they should outlaw cryptocurrencies by saying:

 “I am personally surprised that regulators haven’t stepped in harder.”

He was especially addressing the head of Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority Andrew Bailey who was sitting right next to him at the panel discussion. Bailey noted that Utermann’s opinions were ‘’quite strong’’ but he did agree that cryptocurrencies don’t have intrinsic value. Bailey made sure that the FCA is watching closely and that they have the initial coin offering sector under surveillance. Utermann’s stance doesn’t leave any room for negotiation but some of his colleagues at Allianz are more optimistic about the use of blockchain technology. The chief economist at Allianz Mohamed El-Erian said that he also doesn’t believe that cryptocurrency will ever be able to replace fiat money but they will become more widespread. He said:

 “Cryptocurrencies will exist. They will become more and more widespread, but they will be part of an ecosystem. They will not be dominant, as some of the early adopters believed them to be.”

El-Erian explained that crypto is not dead and the technology isn’t dead also. He is sure that we are about to see more widespread adoption by the private sector but also from the public one. El-Erian concluded that the last year’s frenzy was ‘’unwarranted’’.

Even though the entire crypto news section is flooded by news about downward trends in the market, the negative sentiment is not seen in every altcoin out there. Despite the downside movement in the bitcoin price below the $3,440 support level, other major altcoins experience upward movements. Let’s take a look. Ethereum did struggle to recover above the $95 resistance levels and it declined even further below the $90 level. However, the buyers got interested in Ethereum when it reached a price at about $87 and the price is since consolidating. The price might rise towards the $95 level after the consolidation process since now it is standing at $92. Bitcoin Cash also failed to maintain its price above $100 and it declined by 3 percent. It is now trading at $99. BCHSV also declined below the $90 support level before buyers came in after the altcoin reached $85. It is now recovering and it is expected to face sellers near $100 support level. Ripple quickly recovered after dipping below $0.300 and the XRP/USD pair is currently up by 0.5% and it is expected to rise up to $0.320. Other smaller altcoins increased by 10 percent including XTZ, REP and DEX. Bitcoin didn’t go below the $3,400 support levels and it is now trading at $3,526. The BTC/USD pair broke the $3,400 support level and the price later corrected by a few points. There is a chance of a smaller recovery but if more losses occur, the price might start trading at another low of $3,225.

The founders of the cryptocurrency trading platform Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, have recently launched a mobile Bitcoin and crypto trading app together with a new investment vehicle, as their official blog post published on December 11th noted. This headline makes it in the latest cryptocurrency news in regards to new trading platforms. The post outlines that the new mobile trading app will allow users to buy and sell crypto while monitoring real-time and historical crypto market prices for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as well as ZCash (ZEC). The users can see the total value of their current portfolio and set price and percentage value change alerts for their chosen coins. The further functionalities will include a "recurring buy" feature as well as extended support for a newly-launched investment vehicle that is named "The Cryptoverse" and is described as a basket of cryptocurrencies, weighted by market capitalization in order to be bought as a single order. As the interview with Bloomberg published yesterday noted, the twins struck a bullish tone in regard to the recent market crash. Tyler stated that "we are totally at home in winter" and his twin Cameron added that "it gives us time to build internally, and refine and kind of catch our breath.” Cameron even described the app as a bid to reach out to retail investors, stating:

“A lot of our decisions have perhaps given off a perception that we’re more institutional-based. The reality of the situation is that we have a diverse customer base. And the retail story is just beginning.”

The twins and Gemini founders also revealed their plans to expand to the Asian crypto market where they will face stiff competition from the thriving exchange industry that includes companies such as Bitfinex, Binance and Huobi.  

The founder of TRON, Justin Sun, has recently spoken about Ethereum and EOS - more specifically the developers working on these dApps. As he hinted and what's featured in the crypto news today, Sun announced that he wishes to create a fund and "rescue" dApp developers working on both platforms on the condition that they move their dApps to the TRON network. https://twitter.com/justinsuntron/status/1070939347241889794 Driven by his need for successful self-promotion as well as the successful acquisition strategy of his company (which successfully acquired BitTorrent in July this year), TRON claims that it has made significant progress towards building an infrastructure for a completely decentralized Internet. Sun, however, has been seeing controversy over his aggressive self-promotion after he hinted at a partnership with the Chinese internet giant Baidu - only for it to emerge that it was nothing more than a cloud computing agreement for the services. On top of this, Sun also announced NBA legend Kobe Bryant as an official speaker at the upcoming crypto conference for TRON. On top of this, Justin Sun had engaged in a public Twitter spat with the co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, over allegations that TRON plagiarised parts of its whitepaper from previous whitepapers by IPFS and Filecoin.