Official Newsletter Week of 12/10
Salutations. Dispensing with the pleasantries, we have a full month of news to cram into one newsletter. As uncertainty surrounding the future pricing of Bitcoin continues, global factors like the G20 summit and Big Business carry on shaping the future of the Cryptocurrency Marketplace. Let’s get to it!
(taken on 12/4/2019 at 22:32:40 PM US East Coast Time from CoinTelegraph)
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Banking
Brazil’s Largest Private Bank Itau Creates Blockchain Platform for Loans
Itau Unibanco, a major Latin American and Brazilian banking group introduced a PoC for their small loans blockchain platform. Their tech will run based on the Corda network framework, an open source distributed ledger (“enterprise blockchain”) created by the R3 consortium. This New York-based business is one of the largest VC-backed blockchain startups with over $107 Million in funding in 2017 alone.
Itau Unibanco has signaled that their testing of the blockchain tech could provide a method for issuing loans in the future, something that banks such as HSBC and BNY Mellon have already began conducting major tests over. Suffice to say, the competition is heating up.
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Government
Singapore Government Releases New ICO Guide
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has released a new general framework and guidance on applications of securities law and Digital Token Offerings. This new guide provides clarity for the rapidly evolving crypto market in Singapore.
For further reading, here is the New Digital Token Offerings Guide Link
G20 Decided To Regulate Crypto. Good or Bad?
“We will regulate crypto-assets for anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism in line with FATF standards and we will consider other responses as needed.”
Cryptocurrency has already seen regulation and eager adoption from large markets like the US, Japan, and South Korea. This new agreement could mean other countries like Russia and India to begin establishing regulatory frameworks. Thus, encouraging wider international adoption. Good news right? But over-regulation can hurt business growth, especially in their early phases.
On the other hand, the more widespread blockchain and cryptocurrency becomes, the more momentum that major financial institutions like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have to invest in crypto ventures.
For more reading, here is the full G20 Summit Report
Sequoia Capital and Baidu Back a Turing Award Winner’s Blockchain Project: Conflux
A co-founder of the project said in an interview at CoinDesk that they believe Conflux could help scale public blockchains. They aim to solve the tradeoff of scalability and decentralization. Conflux would allow blocks to be simultaneously produced thus boosting transaction volume.
In the future, large institutions want to use the network for future development of new applications. Scaling challenges have long plagued public blockchain networks like Ethereum such as when CryptoKitties exposed their scalability issues. These are the types of problems that Conflux hopes to solve.
Further reading on Conflux
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Crypto Regulation
SEC Charges Floyd Mayweather Jr. and DJ Khaled for ICO Fraud
On Tuesday, the SEC filed charges against an ICO called Centra. Backed by the two celebrities, Mayweather and DJ Khaled, the SEC alleged that they mislead investors on new digital technologies and business plan. One such specific allegation said that the co-founders sold investors on the idea that they had partnered with Visa and Mastercard to forge a new debit card allowing customers to convert Centra tokens to legal tender at the Point-of-Sale.
In other news, US Congressman Warren Davidson announced plans to introduce legislation to provide more clarity to cryptocurrency and ICO regulation. Currently, analysts say that the recent SEC crackdowns on ICO’s are spooking the market, so would this new legislation provide stability to grow or strike more fear into adopters and enthusiasts? The bill would specifically prevent digital assets from “being classified as securities, but would also allow the federal government to regulate initial coin offerings more effectively.”
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Business
NASDAQ Sticks To Plans To Launch 2019 Bitcoin Futures
A Tuesday report from Bloomberg indicated that Nasdaq is still on track to list its own bitcoin futures contracts by Q1 2019. It’s still working with the CFTC on regulation, but considering the CFTC’s stance on cryptocurrencies is more lenient than the SEC’s view, analysts say it’s likely to go through.
Fidelity and Bitmain Top Investment List for $27 Million Crypto Trading Platform ErisX
Eris X has closed Series B funding totalling more than $27.5 million. Some of its investors include “Bitmain, ConsenSys, Fidelity Investments, Nasdaq Ventures.” The platform wants to be a “Commodity Futures Trading Commision-regulated futures market and clearinghouse.” This could be because the CFTC has a much more tolerant view of cryptocurrencies than the SEC.
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Daily Debunk
Bitcoin Isn’t Anonymous
On the contrary, Bitcoin is a fantastic tool to track criminal activity. Because every transaction is recorded on a public ledger, anyone can see the transfer of money in actual-time. While it is possible to make Bitcoin transactions more anonymous, it’s still possible to identify the exact sender and recipient. Some companies even specialize in tracking down so-called Anonymous Senders!
