Weekly News Roundup (09/23/19)
Welcome to our Snowball cryptocurrency media digest. Here we will provide you with regular updates on trending news from the blockchain and crypto space.
Wells Fargo is creating a digital currency
Wall Street appears to be waking up to the benefits of digital currencies. The latest is Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest US bank, who is building a blockchain-based digital currency called Wells Fargo Digital Cash.
This new currency is initially intended for internal use only. It is also run on a private blockchain and linked to the US dollar. The hope is that the bank can bypass the expensive and slow intermediaries as Wells Fargo moves money around the world.
The news of this announcement is interesting for a number of reasons:
- Wells Fargo has previously been a fairly large detractor when it comes to digital currencies. They banned purchases of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies with credit cards, along with one of their largest owners (Warren Buffett owns ~9%) vocally railing against the largest digital currencies.
- This appears to be a digital currency, but it is not decentralized and it is still reliant on US monetary policy. You can think of this as a technological upgrade for the existing currency.
- Wells Fargo is not the first bank to try this. HSBC already ran a fairly robust pilot that involved millions of transactions over a year and resulted in significant savings of time and money according to that organization. Also, JP Morgan previously announced intentions to create JPM Coin, which was described as a dollar-backed digital currency intended to save time and money during internal use.
This week in crypto
Verizon Just Won a Patent to Create Virtual SIMs on a Blockchain: Telecommunications conglomerate Verizon is eyeing the use of blockchain technology to underpin the dynamic creation of virtual SIM cards. The company was granted a patent with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the concept on Sept. 10, in which it sets out how it the invention could do away with pre-inserted, branded physical SIM cards. The patent describes how a physical SIM card can be replaced by a software equivalent — a virtual SIM (vSIM) — that is secured with blockchain-based encryption. Read more.
PayPal: ‘A Lot of Work’ Still Needs to Happen for Libra to Become Real: PayPal representatives have said they remain cautious about the future of Facebook’s planned stablecoin Libra, according to a Sept. 14 report from Agence France Press. PayPal investor relations vice president Gabrielle Rabinovitch reportedly emphasized that the firm’s membership of the Libra Association represents a “non-binding commitment,” noting that: “Obviously, I think there’s a lot of work to happen before we get to that point where it [Libra] becomes something more than just a very exciting idea.” Read more.
Germany’s Largest Bank Joins JPMorgan’s Blockchain Network: Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, has joined JPMorgan’s blockchain-based network, the Interbank Information Network. Two years in operation Launched as a pilot in 2017, the JPMorgan-led blockchain initiative now has a network of 320 banks that have entered the platform to swap global payments data using the Ethereum network. Read more.
Santander Settles Both Sides of a $20 Million Bond Trade on Ethereum: Spanish banking giant Santander says it has become the first institution to use a public blockchain to manage all aspects of a bond issue. Revealed Thursday, the company not only used a token on ethereum to represent the $20 million debt issuance but settled it with another set of ERC-20 tokens representing cash held in a custody account. Read more.
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