Bitcoin News Roundup for Aug. 18, 2020

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ABOUT

With bitcoin's exchange reserves at a 20-month low and its hashrate getting soaked in Sichuan, CoinDesk's Markets Daily is back for your latest crypto news roundup!

This episode is sponsored by Crypto.com, Bitstamp and Nexo.io.

Today's stories:

Bitcoin Holding Sentiment Strongest in Nearly Two Years

The amount of bitcoin held on crypto exchanges is down to a 21-month low, a sign investors are feeling bullish.

Bitcoin Passes $12K, Dollar Worries Grow, OMG Jumps, Portnoy's Orchid #Pump

Bitcoin rises, Warren Buffett buys a gold miner, Wall Street dollars worry grow, OMG's price jumps, Orchid gets #pump tweet, Ethereum Classic's possible delisting.

Heavy Rainstorms in China Are Hurting Bitcoin's Hashrate

Major Chinese bitcoin mining pools are each seeing daily hashrate drops of between 10% and 20% following continuous rainstorms in Sichuan.

Binance Charity Pledges $20K to Beirut Explosion Relief Efforts

Binance's charity arm is donating $20,000 to the victims of an explosion that rocked Lebanon's capital earlier this month.

HOST

Adam B. Levine

Adam B. Levine joined CoinDesk in 2019 as the editor of its new audio and podcasts division. Previously, Adam founded the long-running Let's Talk Bitcoin! talk show with co-hosts Stephanie Murphy and Andreas M. Antonopoulos.

Finding early success with the show, Adam transformed the podcast's homepage into a full newsdesk and publishing platform, founding the LTB Network in January of 2014 to help broaden the conversation with new and different perspectives. In the Spring of that year, he would go on to launch the first and largest tokenized rewards program for creators and their audience. In what many have called an early influential version of "Steemit"; LTBCOIN, which was awarded to both content creators and members of the audience for participation was distributed until the LTBN was acquired by BTC, Inc. in January of 2017.

With the network launched and growing, in late 2014 Adam turned his attention to the practical challenges of administering the tokenized program and founded Tokenly, Inc. There, he led the development of early tokenized vending machines with Swapbot, tokenized identity solution Tokenpass, e-commerce with TokenMarkets.com and media with Token.fm. Adam owns some BTC, ETH and small positions in a number of other tokens.