In retrospect, it was inevitable: A team of blockchain developers has forked GitHub and come up with a system for collaborating on open source software. There’s even a decentralized finance (DeFi) twist. Announced Thursday, Radicle, a fully decentralized code repository, has raised $12 million in funding, integrated its peer-to-peer network with Ethereum and launched the RAD governance token. The funding round was led by NFX and […]
Ian Allison
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Mike Hearn, the lead platform engineer at enterprise blockchain builder R3, is stepping down from his role at the company, CoinDesk has learned. Hearn will stay on at R3, but only in the capacity of a technical adviser, according to a memo sent to company staff Friday. Hearn has long harbored ambitions to broaden his range and start new projects, the memo said. “Mike’s plans include […]
Deutsche Bank has joined the growing ranks of large financial institutions exploring cryptocurrency custody, with aspirations to offer high-touch services to hedge funds that invest in the asset class. The Deutsche Bank Digital Asset Custody prototype aims to develop “a fully integrated custody platform for institutional clients and their digital assets providing seamless connectivity to the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem,” according to a little-noticed report by the […]
Bitso, un exchange enfocado en América Latina, ha adquirido Quedex, una plataforma de trading de criptoderivados con sede en Gibraltar, donde también es regulada. A pesar de que los términos de la compra de Quedex no fueron dados a conocer, el CEO de Bitso, Daniel Vogel, dijo a CoinDesk que se trató de un buen acuerdo por varias razones. Quedex fue la primera plataforma de criptoderivados […]
Deutsche Telekom AG, Europe’s largest telecommunications company by revenue, is now one of the main data providers to Chainlink – the omnipresent oracle service on which decentralized finance (DeFi) relies. Not only that, Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Systems Multimedia Solutions (MMS), says it has begun staking on the Flow Network, the ultra-scalable proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain from CryptoKitties creator Dapper Labs, and has plans to begin staking on […]
Crypto exchange BitMEX has published a framework of principles for how best to store additional batches of transactional provenance data, a requirement exchanges face as part of new anti-money laundering (AML) rules. In order to fall in line with the rest of the financial system, virtual asset service providers (VASPs) have been asked to obtain, hold and exchange information about the originators and beneficiaries of transactions, […]
Digital assets, in one form or another, are making their way into big business. The headline-grabbing version of this is straight-up BTC on the balance sheet, a renegade charge being led by MicroStrategy (MSYTR) CEO Michael Saylor, who is known for warning corporates that capital in fiat is being debased. Saylor’s MicroStrategy event this week included a playbook, going into the nuts and bolts of things […]
Long in the making, Zurich’s Crypto Broker AG announced Monday it has been granted a securities house license by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). Crypto Broker AG is part of a digital assets conglomerate that includes asset management and custody services. The license means broadening the scope of its business and adding a rubber-stamp when it comes to compliance, risk monitoring, liquidity reporting and […]
London-based Wintermute, an algorithmic liquidity provider for digital assets, closed a $20 million Series B led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Pantera Capital. Other investors joining the round include Sino Global Capital, Kenetic Capital, Rockaway Blockchain Fund, Hack VC, DeFi Alliance and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments. Announced Wednesday, Wintermute plans to use […]
Regulated crypto payment services firm BCB Group has partnered with Huobi Global to help the Seychelles-based exchange giant connect its trading desks to the banking system in the U.K. and Europe. Announced Tuesday, customers of Huobi’s over-the-counter (OTC) platform will be able to instantly settle transactions in euros and pounds (GBP) via BCB’s BLINC network. Cryptocurrency exchanges have struggled in recent years to secure banking relationships […]
U.S. banking powerhouse Goldman Sachs has issued a request for information (RFI) to explore digital asset custody, according to a source inside the bank. When asked about timing, the Goldman source said the bank’s custody plans would be “evident soon.” Goldman’s digital asset custody RFI was circulated to at least one well-known crypto custody player toward the end 2020. “Like JPMorgan, we have issued an RFI […]
Nexus Mutual, a startup that provides a decentralized alternative to insurance, is extending its community-based offering to cover users of well-established cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance, Kraken and Gemini. Until now Nexus, which uses digital tokens to revamp the traditional idea of mutual cover, was only focused on the world of decentralized exchange (DEXs), specifically catering to the explosion of decentralized finance (DeFi), which is […]
European users of eToro are claiming they were given the bum’s rush regarding leveraged crypto positions, which have been abruptly closed in the face of what the trading platform called “extreme market volatility.” Retail investors in the U.K. and U.S. are barred from buying into crypto derivatives, including financial contracts that allow margin trading where investors need only put up a small amount of the contract’s […]
Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed BC Technology Group, the parent company of regulated crypto platform OSL, has raised HKD697 million (approximately $90 million) in the form of a top-up share placement. 2020 was a busy year for OSL, an institution-focused digital asset platform based in Hong Kong, providing prime brokerage, custody, exchange and software-as-a-service (SaaS). The company attained regulatory approval to offer crypto services from Hong Kong […]
Argentina’s Ripio has acquired BitcoinTrade, the second-largest crypto exchange in Brazil, in a bid to increase its footprint across the frothy Latin American crypto market. Ripio (formerly called BitPagos) ended 2020 on a high, crossing the 1 million user milestone. Earlier last year, the firm began looking in earnest for a good fit in Brazil and decided on BitcoinTrade, said Ripio CEO and co-founder Sebastian Serrano. […]
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for Switzerland’s digital asset exchange, SDX. In chronological order (and pardoning the unavoidable alphabet soup): Last week SDX’s parent company, SIX, announced test results around the “feasibility” of wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), involving the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and Bank of International Settlements (BIS). This week, SDX took a stake in crypto custody solution Custodigit with a […]
A euro stablecoin is being issued by one of the oldest banks in the world and it’s being done on the Stellar blockchain network. Announced Wednesday, Germany’s Bankhaus von der Heydt (BVDH), established in 1754, is working with tokenization and digital asset custody technology provider Bitbond for the first direct issuance of a stablecoin by a banking institution on Stellar, the companies said. Bitbond has already […]
Another big bank edging closer to a crypto custody offering, Netherlands-based ING, spoke publicly for the first time this week about about its preliminary trials with digital assets. Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Tuesday, ING blockchain lead Herve Francois discussed the work done so far with Pyctor, a custody and post-trade infrastructure for crypto assets that was included in this year’s cohort of the Financial […]
Vincent, a sort of search engine for alternative investing, is fielding a massive demand for crypto as the platform launches out of beta with $2 million in funding. “Between October and November alone, investors looking for digital assets have grown 80%,” said Slava Rubin, Vincent co-founder and executive chairman. “Considering digital assets today represent less than 10% of the total available deal volume on Vincent, there […]
BBVA, the second-largest bank in Spain, with about $840 billion in assets, is poised to enter the cryptocurrency trading and custody space, according to two people familiar with the plans. The Spanish bank will begin its crypto offering out of Switzerland, said a source. Switzerland has relatively comprehensive rules around digital assets, set out by the country’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). One source with knowledge […]
U.K.-based cryptocurrency app Ziglu has raised over $8 million in a crowdfunding campaign, the largest equity raise on the Seedrs platform this year. The support from some 1,250 investors brings Ziglu’s total fundraising to $14.8 million. As for why the offering seemed to command attention on Seedrs: It’s good timing for the crypto app, which former Starling Bank co-founder Mark Hipperson launched in June of this […]
Upstart crypto exchange LVL wants to take on U.S. giants Coinbase and Gemini by removing trading fees. Announced today, LVL (pronounced “level,” as in playing field) is making its entire service free to use. LVL, which is backed by Morgan Creek Digital’s Anthony Pompliano and Bitcoin advocates Jimmy Song and Willy Woo, previously had no trading fees but only for subscription users. LVL is also partnering […]
Recent rumors about U.S. regulation of private, self-hosted crypto wallets have some compelling context. For example, the proposal submitted last month by U.S. authorities to lower the anti-money laundering (AML) threshold for cross-border transactions (its consultation ends today, Friday), seems to support the hypothesis that outgoing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is rapidly making more rules around crypto. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Federal […]
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) needs an entirely new approach when it comes to policing crypto, according to Sian Jones, the driving force behind much of the sector’s anti-money laundering (AML) standards work to date. Speaking at the close of the second annual V20 Virtual Asset Service Providers Summit, Jones said FATF only needs to look at the fast-evolving world of decentralized finance (DeFi) to […]
U.S. regulators are discussing the “why” of a new proposal that has crypto fans concerned. Speaking Monday at the V20 Virtual Asset Service Providers Summit, Carole House, cyber and emerging tech policy specialist at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), said criminals are conducting cross-border payments using smaller amounts of cryptocurrency – hence FinCEN’s proposed lowering of the “Travel Rule” threshold. According to the rule change […]
The latest face-saving communique from Seychelles-domiciled crypto exchange KuCoin – hacked almost two months ago for over $280 million – is that 84% of the affected assets have been recovered. Some victims will be glad the situation seems to be moving towards resolution. Others, not so much. Leaving aside the conspiracy theories, death threats and alleged lack of communication on the part of the exchange, the KuCoin […]
Stealth-mode crypto custody specialist Shard X has claimed a breakthrough, being the first company to successfully run math-heavy, multi-party computation (MPC) on hardware security modules (HSMs). So why does this alphabet soup of security tech matter? In summary, HSMs are a battle-tested way to store private keys, particularly popular in consumer products like Ledger and Trezor. MPC, which breaks up cryptographic keys into shards and distributes […]
Binance.US, the American affiliate that shares a name with the world’s largest crypto exchange, has joined the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN), a 24/7 instant settlement network used by some of the largest trading entities in the space. SEN, which replaces clunky wire transactions by allowing corporates to instantly move U.S. dollars between crypto exchanges including on nights and weekends, saw its volume increase $7.8 billion to […]
Crypto market maker Amber Group will service its clientele of institutional traders with the help of BitGo Trust, the custodial arm of the Palo Alto-based security firm. BitGo’s status as a qualified custodian should draw more high-net-worth investors to Amber from places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and Seoul, the companies said. The Hong Kong-based market maker, which has an average daily trading volume between $100 million […]
Big payments players may be dipping their toes into crypto for the first time, but it’s been part of Visa’s Fast Track program since at least 2019. Announced Tuesday, Visa has invited digital asset wallet provider ZenGo into its Fast Track program. The startup hopes to use the program, which has famously championed Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and rewards app Fold, to help launch a crypto-integrated payment […]
“Think of it as the foundation of an enterprise mainnet.” That’s how Christine Moy, head of JPMorgan’s newly rebranded Liink banking network, described its aspirations towards decentralization in the realm of big business. The revamped Liink, which is based on a fork of Ethereum, is more of a “decentralized network,” said Moy, and less like a “central command product.” As such, Liink now invites its 400-plus […]
A third and all-encompassing version of Ocean Protocol has been released, fleshing out its vision for “datatokens” and decentralized data marketplaces. Announced Tuesday, Ocean v3 brings the Ocean data market proposal to life with Ethereum-based datatokens, as well as a range of other features like initial data offerings (IDOs), staking, automated market making (AMM) functionality and the potential to share and monetize data smarts. The goal […]
News this week that R3 and IBM are working together raised eyebrows, because each entity has been on different and competing sides since the early days of enterprise blockchain. From next month, the commercial version of Corda (the version big banks and the like are paying R3 for) will be made available via IBM’s LinuxOne servers, delivering a hybrid of on-premise and cloud offerings. R3 announced […]
Call it Crypto Lite – for now. Fintech giant PayPal confirmed its long-awaited move into digital assets Wednesday, offering its 346 million users the chance to buy, hold and sell bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin, with the blessing of New York state regulators. While the cryptosphere acknowledges the bullishness of a firm the size of PayPal making a move into the space, there was also […]
A group of former bankers building on R3’s public Corda Network are touting the first digital currency for that ecosystem, dubbed XDC. Announced Tuesday, the Cordite Society, a co-operative registered in the U.K., released the XDC crypto token on public Corda, the open-source version of R3’s network. The new regulation-friendly cryptocoin will open the door, say its creators at Cordite, to various decentralized finance (DeFi) applications […]
Block.one, the company behind the multibillion-dollar-backed EOS ecosystem, has its sights locked on the enterprise blockchain space. Announced Thursday, Block.one has released “EOSIO for Business,” an enterprise-focused version of its software featuring Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS), consulting, technical support and training and certification programs, the company said. Blockchain cloud services can offer businesses a quick and painless way to spin up digital ledgers on their preferred cloud computing […]
The director of Binance UK, Teana Baker-Taylor, is leaving the cryptocurrency exchange after a relatively brief, half-year stint in the role. A spokesperson for Binance confirmed to CoinDesk that Baker-Taylor will depart “in a few days,” adding: “We would like to thank Teana for her hard work and achievements leading Binance UK and wish her all the best for the future.” Josh Goodbody, Binance’s director of […]
As the limitations and costs of running decentralized finance (DeFi) apps on Ethereum continue to ride high, a growing list of projects are lining up on competing blockchains. Adding to this trend, Polkadot-based Reef Finance has closed a $3.9 million seed funding round for its cross-chain suite of DeFi services, the company announced Wednesday. Included in the round were NGC Ventures, AU21 Capital, QCP Capital, Kenetic […]
Some tricks of the trade employed by today’s booming decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms are being used for a completely new paradigm: decentralized data marketplaces. Announced Thursday, blockchain-based data monetization startup Ocean Protocol is teaming up with Balancer Labs to create the first automated market maker (AMM) for data. Ocean Protocol is about helping people and businesses unlock data and monetize it, spreading the benefits of data […]
As decentralized finance (DeFi) balloons to a roughly $10 billion market, infrastructure builders are coming up with ways to reduce the associated risks. Announced Wednesday, wallet and custodial technology provider Trustology has added a “DeFi Firewall” to its suite of institutional-investment tools. The “Firewall” is basically a set of rules or filters selected by a fund, specifying which DeFi protocols or decentralized exchanges they consider kosher. […]
Ethereum data firm Dune Analytics, which has stood out from the pack for its focus on decentralized finance (DeFi) projects, has raised $2 million from a mix of seasoned crypto investors and DeFi angels. Announced Wednesday, the seed round was led by Dragonfly Capital and included Multicoin Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Digital Currency Group (the owner of CoinDesk). The list of angel investors in the round […]
Netherlands-based Blockdata, which provides qualitative insights into the range of large enterprises using blockchain technology, has been acquired by data provider CB Insights. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. New York City’s CB Insights will be opening an office in Amsterdam, while Blockdata will remain a standalone product with its own team. Blockdata’s work will also be available to CB Insights clients, the […]
A leaked version of rules to be issued later this month by the European Commission proposes an all-encompassing set of regulations covering the trading or issuance of digital assets across the 27-nation bloc. Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) draft legislation provides legal certainty around crypto assets – cryptocurrencies, security tokens and stablecoins – along the same lines as Europe’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), a […]
The folks building the next generation of digital money in Switzerland understand the need to collaborate. Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged one-to-one to the Swiss franc (CHF) in this case, are a prime example. SEBA Bank and Sygnum Bank, the two B2B players that hold banking licenses from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority and that specialize in digital assets, are both involved in stablecoin explorations, as […]
“A pandemic-led acceleration of adoption.” That’s how Singapore-based DBS Bank describes the current state of digital assets in its quarterly report on cryptocurrencies published in August. It’s interesting to hear such an observation from a respected multinational bank and its chief economist, Taimur Baig. However, there have lately been murmurings about certain large financial institutions – particularly in places like Singapore, Switzerland and Germany – fielding […]
Blockchain investment firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has acquired Luno, a retail-focused cryptocurrency exchange with over five million customers spanning over 40 countries. Luno will continue to operate as an independent, wholly-owned subsidiary of DCG, the companies said. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed in an announcement Wednesday. The deal marks another shift in strategy for DCG (which also wholly owns CoinDesk) as […]
A group of VC heavyweights and crypto entrepreneurs, including Blockfolio founder Ed Moncada, are backing a new risk management tool for the exploding decentralized finance (DeFi) space. Announced Thursday, Cozy Finance has raised a $2 million seed round, led by Electric Capital and including Variant Fund, Dragonfly Capital, Robot Ventures, Slow Ventures, Volt Capital, Spencer Noon, Moncada and others. The team attempting to bring some order […]
People may like the idea of blockchains and web 3.0, but they tend to hit an immediate obstacle in the form of private cryptographic keys and mnemonic seed phrases that cannot be lost, forgotten or divulged at any cost. Private key management specialist Torus replaces that jarring user experience with what appears to be a familiar single login, but one that’s reinforced behind the scenes by […]
Concordium, an ambitious project whose founders have close links to companies including Volvo, IKEA, Saxo Bank and Nasdaq, is looking to shake up the seemingly glacial world of enterprise blockchain. The most striking thing about Concordium, which launches its third testnet next month, is the way it pushes what was once anathema to big corporates: public and permissionless blockchains. Businesses, wary of tipping their hands and […]
When Hong Kong regulators gave crypto firm OSL a nod of approval last week, it was the icing on the cake for the HKEX-listed digital asset trading platform. Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) granted BC Group crypto subsidiary OSL an “approval-in-principle” for its license application for Type 1 (dealing in securities) and Type 7 (automated trading service or ATS), as it pertains to crypto […]
The new bitcoin transaction automatically complies with the FATF Travel Rule and will save intermediaries from doing it all manually. Source link
There’s a joke in the world of digital advertising: How many companies does it take to put an ad on a website? In fact, there can be as many as 15 intermediaries participating in this opaque process, sponging up around 30% of the advertising spend. To fix this broken system, the next generation of adtech specialists are again pinning their hopes on blockchain technology. Announced Thursday, […]
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. Source link
Africa isn’t included on the virtual asset regulatory map just yet. But crypto businesses seeing strong growth across the 54-country continent are working hard on know-your-customer (KYC) rules to meet the exacting standards set out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). A broad range of entities operating in Africa, ranging from crypto exchanges to remittance providers to peer-to-peer marketplaces, are exploring KYC options, which could […]
Music is back on the blockchain. Audius, a streaming service that connects music fans directly with artists, has raised $3.1 million in a strategic round co-led by Multicoin Capital and Blockchange Ventures, with participation from Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures. Audius has now raised a total of $8.6 million as the platform prepares for prime time, having grown in less than a year to over 250,000 […]
Ethereum’s Devcon 1, held in London in November 2015, was like Woodstock, except perhaps with less nudity. Bankers and Big 4 consultants disguised in hoodies shared space with dreadlocked Ethereum coders, sitting cross-legged in the corners, their laptops open in front of them. Packed into a Victorian banking hall in the heart of the City of London, the audience listened as ConsenSys chief Joe Lubin predicted […]
Crypto companies enthusiastically building solutions to bring the industry in line with anti-money laundering (AML) benchmarks may be creating their own interoperability problem. There are a number of promising and popular solutions coming to the fore, but If a virtual asset service provider (VASP) using one solution is unable to talk to a counterparty using another, the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) requirement to leave an […]
PayPal, the fintech giant planning to bring crypto trading to its massive user base, has chosen Paxos to handle the new service’s supply of digital assets, according to two people familiar with the matter. It’s a plum assignment for New York-based Paxos, which last week launched Paxos Crypto Brokerage and announced its first customer in Revolut US, the American division of the U.K.-based fintech firm that […]
IBM is giving its blockchain track-and-trace capabilities the social-impact treatment with a provenance application that enables coffee drinkers to directly assist the smallholders who farmed the beans. Announced Wednesday, IBM has teamed up with J. M. Smucker Company – the $12.2 billion food giant behind coffee brands like Folgers, Café Bustelo and Dunkin’ – to trace the supply chain of Colombian coffee. The program is meant to […]
Evertas, an insurance provider focused on the cryptocurrency space, has raised $2.8 million in a seed round led by Morgan Creek. Disclosure The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. Source […]
There may be an enterprise blockchain arms race brewing in Latin America. LatamLink, an alliance of three organizations involved in the launch of the EOS public blockchain in 2018, is now busy integrating the EOSIO software for enterprise uses. The group seems to be competing for business in the region with ConsenSys, a globally distributed outfit focused on all things Ethereum. Up for grabs is LACChain, […]
Binance Labs, the incubation and seed funding arm of the world’s largest crypto exchange, has made its first investment this year, backing decentralized privacy startup HOPR. Announced Thursday, Binance Labs led a $1 million seed round in HOPR, which also saw investment from Focus Labs, Spark Digital Capital, Caballeros Capital and Synaitken. The seed round followed a fellowship award the startup received last year from BinanceX, […]
Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA), the business end of the second-largest blockchain, has appointed a new executive director, Daniel C. Burnett. Burnett, who previously worked as a standards architect within Ethereum-focused ConsenSys, wants to widen the EEA’s scope beyond banks and blue chips, to include exchanges. Burnett even aims to embrace the brave new world of decentralized finance (DeFi), which has proven to be one of Ethereum’s […]
Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange by trading volume, has donated 27,000 KN95 masks worth over $60,000 to the U.K. National Health Service’s Pru Trust to aid the fight against COVID-19. The Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH) is one of London’s largest and busiest teaching hospitals. It’s part of the King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which employs more than 11,000 healthcare workers and delivers services […]
Ocean Protocol, a blockchain-based data-sharing platform, has completed a proof-of-concept (PoC) with Daimler, showing how the Mercedes-Benz maker can begin monetizing data streams within the company and across its supply chains. Announced Tuesday, the Singapore-based Ocean collaborated with Daimler AG to explore the decentralized sharing of internal sales and financial data among the multinational’s production hubs, and externally between some of its supply chain procurement partners. […]
Curv, a company that provides increased secrecy when it comes to holding crypto assets, has closed a $23 million Series A funding round. Announced Wednesday, the crypto custody tech provider, which uses a technique called multi-party computation (MPC), received investment from CommerzVentures, Coinbase Ventures, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Team8 and Digital Garage Lab Fund. Curv closed a $6.5 million seed round in February of last year, […]
Blockchain analysis company Elliptic has added two privacy coins to its monitoring platform. Announced Tuesday, the addition of zcash (ZEC) and horizen (ZEN) will provide exchanges and institutional investors insight into when a transaction trail ends so they can take additional due-diligence measures. Privacy is a core tenet of crypto, and firms looking to shine a light on shielded transactions must walk a fine line. “We […]
The COVID-19 crisis may have been the last straw for a non-profit digital identity organization, breaking its efforts to raise funds to pay staff and carry out a regulated token issuance. The Sovrin Foundation, a U.S.-based umbrella organization that oversees the development of blockchain-based digital identity standards (also known as self-sovereign identity or SSI), laid off nine full-time and six part-time employees in March, officially becoming […]
Fintech giant PayPal plans to roll out direct sales of cryptocurrency to its 325 million users, according to three people familiar with the matter. Currently, PayPal can be used as an alternative means for withdrawing funds from exchanges such as Coinbase, but this would be a first in terms of offering direct sales of crypto. “My understanding is that they are going to allow buys and […]
The Austrian government is taking a considered approach to COVID-19 tech solutions after an initial rush to get some kind of contact tracing app out the door. The nation’s second wave of projects now includes blockchain. Announced Wednesday, the country’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs awarded a €60,000 ($67,600) grant to a project called QualiSig, which uses elements of Austria’s digital identity system to […]
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is working with the Colombian government to see if blockchain-based transparency can help prevent a hotspot for corruption, which happens in the process of bidding for high-value contracts to provide public goods and services. WEF partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Office of the Inspector General of Colombia to develop a proof-of-concept (PoC) using the Ethereum public blockchain. […]
Ethereum development house ConsenSys is being backed by heavy hitters like Binance and Huobi to test its new “staking-as-a-service” offering, designed to make it easy for institutions to earn income from the next iteration of the second-largest public blockchain. Announced Tuesday, the Eth 2.0 staking pilot from ConsenSys Codefi includes Binance, Huobi Wallet, Matrixport, Crypto.com, DARMA Capital and Trustology. This first batch of participants will provide […]
Nexus Mutual, an alternative insurance provider for a variety of Ethereum-based DeFi protocols, has seen its risk pool double over the past 90 days to more than $4 million. Indeed, Nexus can barely keep up with the demand for smart-contract cover in the exploding decentralized finance (DeFi) arena. “We are in this position where there are lots of people that want heaps of cover, but we […]
U.K.-based cryptocurrency platform Ziglu has launched, following a £5.25 million (US$6.6 million) seed round. As a starting point, the platform aims to painlessly put crypto in the hands of consumers. Announced Monday, Ziglu allows users to exchange GBP for bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC) and bitcoin cash (BCH), with more fiat currencies to be added and a debit card coming in July or August. Ziglu […]
Crypto custodians are in a race to build the next State Street or BNY Mellon. There are only a handful of these types of large custody banks and most of them have been around for hundreds of years. But crypto is such a striking example of old world meeting new that it offers firms a rare opportunity to break into a market that would simply be […]
The first Libra white paper published in June 2019 had the temerity to threaten the monetary authority of central banks and governments. The empire struck back. That’s why an updated white paper from April 2020 has taken a belt and braces approach to regulatory compliance, said Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications at the Libra Association. The new technical document comes replete with buttoned-up hires […]
Decentralized finance (DeFi) could soon boast a real-world use case. MakerDAO, the organization behind the dollar-pegged stablecoin known as DAI, is in the process of voting on whether to further diversify the collateral it accepts for loans beyond cryptocurrency and tokens to include real-world assets (RWAs). Specifically, Maker would also allow supply chain invoices and musicians’ future royalty streams as security when it lends out DAI. […]
It’s probably no coincidence that three major crypto firms – Coinbase, Genesis Trading and BitGo – have almost simultaneously announced plans to become prime brokers, a kind of fixer when it comes to financing and facilitating trades for institutional investors. This type of vertical integration happens in every business, whether that’s Amazon running the internet or Coinbase trying to own the crypto space. Given the long […]
IBM has become a shareholder in we.trade, the trade-finance platform jointly owned by 12 European banks, signaling further consolidation across the enterprise blockchain space. Ciaran McGowan, we.trade’s CEO, said the deepening relationship with Big Blue will help the platform in its next phase of global expansion. “Now we’ve got a very strong partnership with IBM for scaling globally and we are working closely together on Asia, […]
Crypto sleuthing firm Elliptic has expanded its scope to cover some 97% of digital assets by trading volume – the broadest range of any crime-fighting blockchain analytics service, the company said. Announced Wednesday, Elliptic Navigator adds 87 new crypto assets to the firm’s existing purview. That said, touting just the number of coins covered can be “fairly irrelevant,” said Elliptic co-founder Tom Robinson, because analytics shops […]
Enterprise blockchain isn’t dead, but survival has meant more collaboration and some smart pivots. That was the prevailing sentiment in the enterprise-focused corners of this week’s Consensus: Distributed conference. Back in 2015, a large amount of hype was generated as whole industries, starting with finance, began espousing the technology behind bitcoin, which would transform business processes and herald a global technological upgrade. A recalibration of expectation […]
R3, the company behind distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform Corda, is edging ever closer to Ethereum, with news of a partnership with blockchain-in-the-cloud startup Kaleido. The announcement comes following Kaleido’s emergence as a standalone company last month. The startup revealed Tuesday it was spun out of ConsenSys, the Ethereum-based venture studio founded by Joe Lubin. “We spun out April 1. It’s been exciting for us to […]
Tradeshift, the digital trade finance platform that uses blockchain to make payments instant and transparent, has proposed a scheme to the government of Denmark that will free billions of dollars from supply chains, the startup says. The COVID-19 crisis, like the 2008 financial crisis, has seen companies stretch payment terms and try to preserve cash, which causes a ripple effect down the supply chain and makes […]
A new messaging standard released today is designed to help cryptocurrency firms comply with anti-money laundering regulations from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The standard, called IVMS101, defines a uniform model for data that must be exchanged by virtual asset service providers (VASPs) alongside cryptocurrency transactions. The standard will identify the pseudonymous senders and receivers of crypto payments, with such information “traveling” with each transaction. […]