Day: October 24, 2022

Israel’s Stock Exchange to Launch a New Platform for Digital Asset

by Blockchain News

The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) is set to launch a new platform that will be dedicated to digital currencies, expanding its influence in the emerging industry.

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According to a press release issued by the exchange, the program is set to kickstart in 2023 and is expected to run until 2024.

The creation of the Digital Assets platform is one of the creative avenues by which TASE wants to fully embrace blockchain-based innovations, including the associated technologies ranging from smart contracts, and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) amongst others. 

“We see in the next five years a critical window of opportunity for the integration of the Israeli Stock Exchange in the technological revolution that the world’s capital markets are going through,” Itai Ben-Zeev, CEO of the exchange, said in the statement. Development of the strategy will start in 2023.

Israel occupies a very pivotal position in the evolution of the digital currency ecosystem as many talents are bred in the country as well as some of the most prominent solutions providers, one of the most prominent being StarkWare. 

By implementing a basis for which crypto-related innovations can gain more recognition, TASE hopes to “strengthen the cooperation and the international profile of the stock exchange,” adding that it believes “these services and collaborations may include the purchase of holdings in foreign exchanges.”

Israel has been proactive in bringing the appropriate regulation into the digital currency ecosystem in the past few years. Trailing the issuance of the draft regulations regarding Anti-Money Laundering (AML) by the Bank of Israel in March, Bits of Gold, one of the crypto firms operating in the country was granted a license to operate last month.

The latest moves from Israel show how much its new pro-crypto stance is working favorably for all stakeholders in the country. 

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UK Could Be The Next Crypto-Friendly Nation As Rishi Sunak Becomes Next PM

by Blockchain News

The United Kingdom has appointed Rishi Sunak as its newest Prime Minister after much confusion in the ministerial office over the past months.

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As reported, Rishi Sunak made it the third prime minister in the UK for this year, following the resignation of Liz Truss from the office last week. The newly appointed prime minister has brought a lot of excitement to many crypto enthusiasts as they hope this would mean the UK crypto market could advance more under Sunak’s regime.

 

Rishi Sunak is a former Goldman Sachs analyst who has also served as a chancellor between February 2020 and July 2022. In April this year, Sunak released a proposal aiming to make the U.K a crypto-friendly tech hub. In the proposal, Sunak encouraged the UK’s Royal Mint, the official maker of UK coins, to launch an official NFT collection of the nation – an idea some have criticized as a “poorly judged gimmick.”

 

He also helped the U.K make plans on how the U.K government should regulate stablecoins so as to make them recognized as a legal means of payment in the country.

 

“We want to see the businesses of tomorrow – and the jobs they create – here in the UK, and by regulating effectively, we can give them the confidence they need to think and invest long-term,” said Rishi Sunak.

 

Prior to Sunak’s leadership victory, Liz Truss, who is now the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, announced her resignation, 44 days after assuming office on September 6. 

 

As reported by Blockchain.News, Truss’s resignation was fueled by the errors in her proclaimed mini-budget and tax cuts that were announced by the former Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng.

 

The policy, at the time, riled the markets, with the stock market recording unprecedented slumps, a trend that also affected the British Pound.

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Fireblocks Debut Crypto Payments Engine After Successful Trial With Checkout.com

by Blockchain News

Multi-billion dollar crypto infrastructure services provider, Fireblocks is officially launching its crypto payments engine as it seeks to expand its broad influence in the space.

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The new payment engine is specifically designed for merchants, and the launch was fueled after the successful trial of the engine with Checkout.com.

The pilot test with Checkout.com has seen as much as $1 billion settled by the duo, giving the confidence that the service is mass tested for the broader payment industry. As confirmed by Ran Goldi, Fireblocks’ vice president of payments, the service is “Token Agnostic” which means merchants will be able to choose any type of digital currencies they wish to support.

Fireblocks’ is commencing the payment service with FIS’s WorldPay, one of the biggest payment processing companies in the world. As an infrastructure service provider that was built to support massive scaling, the Fireblocks payment solution is well-suited for the global payment ecosystem.

Fireblocks’ primary business offering did not initially include payments, but this notably became the new focus for the company when it completed the acquisition of First Digital, a stablecoin processing firm. As reported by Blockchain.News at the time, the acquisition was valued at $100 million.

According to Goldi, the new service will prioritize stablecoins for now except merchants choose their preferred digital currencies to support. The reason for this conservative embrace is because of the regulatory difference across jurisdictions.

Many merchants are beginning to warm up to the prospect of accepting digital currencies as payments. Infact, several surveys have confirmed that the majority of supermarkets, retailers, and payment processors have either laid out strategies to accept crypto as payments or are in the process of doing so.

With Fireblocks’ new venture into the space, the company will now be competing with existing payment processors in the space including but not limited to BitPay and CoinPayments.

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African Crypto Exchange Yellow Card Taps VASP License in Botswana

by Blockchain News

Yellow Card, an indigenous crypto trading platform has announced that it has received the Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from Botswana, tapping from the country’s positive disposition to the growing cryptocurrency industry. 

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Yellow Card said the VASP License was granted by the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA) late last month, and that the features checked to grant it the license will be made the standard for other aspiring crypto service providers looking to enter the African market.

Speaking of the newly acquired license, Yellow Card’s Chief Executive Officer Chris Maurice said the move will positively impact all stakeholders including its customers, investors and staff as a whole. 

“This opens up greater channels of expansion with regards to payment partners, banking, and expanding our client base across Africa. This will further show regulators in other markets that we are not just any other cryptocurrency company – we are pioneering, pushing boundaries, and setting the standard. All the more reason for them to work together with us as well,” he added.

Yellow Card may be indigenous to Africa, but it is aggressively exploring avenues to gain licenses and approvals from all of the regions in which it operates. While it strictly adheres to all extant global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules as well as those from the Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

With the new license, Yellow Card hopes to be able to cater much more to the needs of Botswanans, many of whom the company described as high-risk investors. Crypto is already gaining ground in the country, and with the validity, Yellow Card has received from the NBFIRA, it can help investors fill their demands in a responsible and compliant way.

Yellow Card has been making the headlines lately and per a report from Blockchain.News last month, the trading platform secured $40 million in a Series B funding round that was led by Polychain Capital.

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Fidelity Institution’s President Advocates Room for Consumers to Acquire More Crypto

by Blockchain News

Michael Durbin, the Fidelity Institutional President is advocating for more digital currency allocations for consumers in a bid to match the current demand.

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Speaking at a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s annual meeting in New York City, Durbin said institutional investors will need to be conservative in allocating funds for consumers after conducting a proper risk assessment.

 

“As digital assets extend beyond cryptocurrencies and other sorts of wrapped tokens, or whatever the regulatory environment facilitates for us, we think there will be an increased funding for that portfolio construction,” Durbin said. “A basis to get more digital assets into the end consumer portfolios.”

The digital currency ecosystem is highly volatile and this will still make investments to be at risk. The cryptocurrency industry has trillions of Dollars since it attained its peak in November 2021 as lower prices and collapsing firms have generally made sentiments to be bearish in the space as a whole.

Durbin advocated that caution should be the watchword for crypto investors when choosing assets to allocate investors funds into.

“What we’ll be putting out to advisors is just be careful in your risk budget if you’re going to allocate any money to bitcoin for alpha creation,” Durbin said. “You better set aside a pretty meaningful amount of your risk budget, which can be defendable, but that’s sort of the evolution we need to get into.” 

 

Fidelity has played a frontline role in helping to break the barriers for institutional investors to get involved in the crypto ecosystem. Besides launching an avenue for 401(k) subscribers to invest in digital currencies, the firm has been operating its crypto custody business since 2019, paving the way for institutions to safeguard the coins they invest in.

Fidelity has tried launching a Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) product, but in the SEC’s characteristic manner, its application has been rejected alongside others.

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Binance “Investing Heavily in DeFi”, Tweets CEO CZ

by Blockchain News

CEO Changpeng Zhao, commonly known as “CZ”, announced via Twitter that Binance is investing heavily in DeFi or decentralised finance.

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“Binance is investing heavily in DeFi. (not financial advice),” his tweet said.

Earlier, CZ announced that the company will be spending more than $1 billion on potential investments and acquisitions this year. According to Binance, DeFi and NFT projects are among the good options.

According to Binance, as previously revealed by CZ, choosing DeFi and NFT is a safer approach.

While in an interview with Bloomberg on October 8, CZ confirmed that Binance has spent more than $1 billion to invest in the quarter in 2022.

In early October, Binance poured $325 million into 67 projects such as Aptos or Sui. Along with that, the company has also spent $200 million to invest in Forbes’ media company.

Furthermore, Binance has also contributed $500 million to the plan to buy Twitter of billionaire Elon Musk.

According to Binance, compared to 2021, the company has only spent $140 million on 73 projects, even though the crypto winter has lasted longer than expected. It shows that Binance’s investments have increased significantly, along with the size of the investments.

Other investments made by Binance include the NFT ecosystem and fan tokens, along with traditional payment service providers.

Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange on a global scale. It offers a platform with over 350 cryptocurrencies to trade, 120 million users and a 24-hour trading volume worth $76 billion. The exchange is one of the few that remains strong and continues to hire during extreme market conditions.

Binance also launched a $500 million fund on October 14 for private and publicly-listed bitcoin miners unable to cope with the ongoing downturn of the crypto-market conditions.

According to Blockchain.News, bitcoin miners applying for loans with Binance Pool – the company’s mining service – must pledge security to obtain loans for 18 to 24 months. Securities can be in the form of physical or digital assets.

Bitcoin’s fund for miners has followed in the footsteps of Chinese crypto billionaire Jihan Wu, the founder of Bitmain, who set up a $250 million fund to buy distressed assets from bitcoin miners in September.

In another major development for the crypto exchange company, the Binance (BNB) Chain has successfully eliminated approximately 2,065,152.42 BNB or $548 million worth of BNB following its quarterly on Oct 14, 2022.

The move has left the market relatively unaffected, according to Blockchain.News.

The exchange platform also stated that an added 4,833.25 BNB was part of the burn through its Pioneer Burn Program – a burning program that favours those who genuinely lost their digital assets.

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Are Bitcoin Miners Earning Minimum Reward as Hash Price Plunged to Historic Lows?

by Blockchain News

The revenue of Bitcoin (BTC) miners continues to dwindle, given that hash price has nosedived to historic lows of $66,500 per Exahash, according to Glassnode.

The market insight provider explained:

“The Bitcoin Hash Price has reached an all-time-low of $66,500 per Exahash. This means that BTC miners are earning the smallest reward relative to hashpower applied in history, and likely puts the industry under extreme income stress.”

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Source: Glassnode

Therefore, this indicates that miners are earning the lowest revenue in Bitcoin’s 13-year journey.

Furthermore, this is happening as the mining difficulty in the Bitcoin network hits an all-time high (ATH). Glassnode added:

“BTC mining difficulty just reached an ATH of 158,208,051,864,292,013,637,632. Previous ATH of 152,947,196,320,564,012,646,400 was observed on 23 October 2022.”

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Source: Glassnode

Mining difficulty is a metric of how hard or easy it is to generate new Bitcoin and is often impacted by the number of machines plugged into the network.

High mining difficulty implicates enhanced network security because more computing power is required to mine a similar number of blocks as before. 

78% of BTC Supply has been immobile for More Than 6 Months

With the immobile Bitcoin supply reaching ATH, it seems some hodlers have remained steadfast in their objective.

Market analyst Will Clemente pointed out:

“A new all-time high 78% of Bitcoin supply has not moved in at least 6 months. Pretty remarkable in the face of the worst macroeconomic backdrop in recent history, geopolitical uncertainty, and WW3 fears. There is a group of seriously convicted hodlers out there.”

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Source: Glassnode

Hodling is one of the favoured strategies in the Bitcoin market because coins are stored for future purposes other than speculation.

For instance, hodled BTC recently hit a 5-year high, Blockchain.News reported. 

Meanwhile, Bitcoin price was hovering around $19,315 during intraday trading, according to CoinMarketCap. 

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Crypto Leaders’ Stance on DCCPA Bill Polarised, Not Everyone Buying It

by Blockchain News

After much criticism following his support of the uploaded DCCPA bill, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has again taken to Twitter to explain further on the bill.

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Crypto attorney Gabriel Shapiro uploaded a copy of a draft bill from the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA. According to Shapiro, the main purpose of sharing the bill was in the interest of “transparency and open discussion of the future of cryptolaw.”

The bill appears to constitute an act that is said to be detrimental to DeFi, mainly a sector of blockchain-based solutions that aim to improve finance by replacing central intermediaries with software code.

Following the upload of the bill, Sam Bankman-Fried expressed support for the framework of the draft bill, taking to his Twitter last Wednesday, saying he was excited to see a bill that addresses customer protection in crypto. Adding that the bill would not jeopardize “the existence of software, blockchains, validators, DeFi, etc.”

Others disagree with the DCCPA bill

However, others, including Web3 startup accelerator Alliance DAO and Framework Ventures’ co-founder Vance Spencer didn’t seem to buy the idea of what the bill constitutes. 

Alliance DAO bashed the bill saying the DCCPA is only trying to “threaten the Defi innovation, give CFTC new powers to regulate spot markets, force human intermediation, force projects to sacrifice decentralization, favour centralized incumbents and kill startups.’’

Meanwhile, as Sam Bankman-Fried initially supported the bill, some did not take it easy on him and began criticizing him. Following those pushbacks and criticism, the FTX CEO has now once again taken to his Twitter to further explain the DCCPA bill, which affects the DeFi sector.

FTX CEO elaborates on the bill

Sam Bankman-Fried noted that the core goal of the DCCPA bill is precisely to answer the question: “How can a regulated, centralized entity interface with DeFi?”

He noted in particular that the bill was “*not* to make claims about what DeFi devs, smart contracts, and validators must do,” but to eventually “establish guidelines about how, e.g. FTX’s platform–or Fidelity’s–could interface with DeFi contracts.”

Sam Bankman-Fried also further mentioned that he’d only support a version clarifying that developers and validators are not (and shouldn’t be regulated as) platforms.

Notably, the fear concerning the DCCPA bill is that it portrays that developers won’t be allowed to build whatever interfaces they want — at least, not without centralized entities benefiting from it.

Reactions to FTX CEO elaboration on the bill

ApeWorX Ltd. builder with the pseudonymous “señor doggo,” quoted Sam Bankman-Fried’s elaborative Twitter thread noting that “it should *never* be the case that there is a mandate to access DeFi through a centralized intermediary’s interface.” Adding that, “Devs should be allowed to build whatever interfaces they want.”

Despite FTX CEO’s further explanations, reactions show people still don’t buy the idea of what the DCCPA bill constitutes. A tweep commented on the thread saying, “@SBF_FTX my damage control much? You’ve got so many points wrong, but the gist of it is that you are advocating for the complete opposite of what DeFi is. People do not want to be regulated by corrupt financial systems that have failed.”

Speaking of Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX CEO recently made it clear that his brand is “totally on board with regulation” and will welcome regulations pushed by lawmakers to guide innovations in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

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Block on Hiring Spree for Bitcoin Mining, Wallet Hardware Businesses

by Blockchain News

Payments company Block has announced multiple job openings for its bitcoin mining and wallet hardware businesses.

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According to the company’s job postings on LinkedIn, the available job openings are heads of Bitcoin mining policy, communications, and partnerships.

Formerly known as Square, the company was introduced into the market in 2009, focusing on in-person payments and its namesake card reader, which lets people accept credit card payments on a smartphone.

The company’s name was changed to Square last year by CEO Jack Dorsey as they wanted to broaden their services towards blockchain, music, and cash transfers.

According to a job advertisement posted by Block on Saturday for a “test hub lead,” the firm said its mining team develops “bitcoin mining ASIC, bitcoin mining rig, and associated systems, software and infrastructure.”

The posting added that the test hub will “host Block’s mining hardware and will be used to test the hardware and software and the overall operational issues (power, cooling, dust, restart, performance monitoring, connectivity to pool) of the mining system.”

Other job openings also include product and engineering departments. These employees will help “to develop the next generation of mining ASIC”, along with building its “first mining rig” and “future mining rig product lines.”

Furthermore, several other open positions are available related to wallet design. 

Block revealed its Bitcoin hardware wallet this past spring.

According to a January report from CNBC, Block’s general manager for hardware, Thomas Templeton, outlined the company’s Bitcoin mining goals.

He tweeted, “common issues we’ve heard with current systems are heat dissipation and dust. They also become non-functional almost every day, which requires a time-consuming reboot. We want to build something that just works.”

Block’s push into mining has come when the sector is going through a difficult phase. Companies have been struggling with profit margins for the past few months as bitcoin’s value has dropped and energy prices have risen along with the global hash rate.

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Robinhood Seeks Sanctions Investigators ahead of Self-Custody Crypto Wallet Launch

by Blockchain News

Robinhood is seeking to hire several Sanctions Investigators for its finance crimes compliance unit as it may be broadening its offerings, according to its official Linkedin page.

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The job description includes reviewing and analyzing alerts of potential matches of Robinhood customers to denied parties, managing the investigative process from initial detection to disposition and reporting, annotating findings providing proof of evidence and a final decision, escalating any matches that cannot be resolved to Sanctions Investigation management and in addition any accurate positive matches to the Sanctions Office.

Robinhood is a standalone wallet app that offers brokerage services and allows users to trade and swap crypto without network fees.

According to reports, the Brokerage app hiring sanctions investigators could be related to the firm’s upcoming self-custody wallets launch, which will be released officially in the coming months.

Per the job posting, the role requires two-plus years of experience working in financial crimes investigation and one-plus years investigating cryptocurrency transactions. While not required, “Chainalysis experience” is welcome.

In August, the Brokerage app firm was slammed with a fine of $30 million by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

As reported by Blockchain.News, the sanctions came as the regulator discovered that Robinhood Crypto violated several extant regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) violations, transaction monitoring inadequacies, and failure to make provisions for cybersecurity regulation.

The regulator noted that it discovered the flaws behind the sanction in Robinhood Crypto’s operating models following a supervisory examination and a subsequent investigation.

Superintendent of Financial Services Adrienne A. Harris stated that as the Brokerage firm grew, it failed to “invest the proper resources and attention to develop and maintain a culture of compliance—a failure that resulted in significant violations of the Department’s anti-money laundering and cybersecurity regulations.”

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Bitcoin (BTC) $ 44,085.81 1.52%
Ethereum (ETH) $ 2,353.15 0.46%
Litecoin (LTC) $ 78.09 5.88%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $ 253.68 2.29%