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UK Seeks to Recognize Bitcoin and Crypto as Regulated Financial Instruments

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

The United Kingdom has drawn a step closer to becoming one of the most recognized crypto hubs in the world as the House of Commons, the Parliament, passed the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill which seeks to regulate Bitcoin (BTC) and the cryptocurrency industry.

The Bill was initially proposed when Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it seeks to regulate stablecoins. During the Parliamentary meeting, Andrew Griffith, Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs made a proposal to expand the scope of the Bill by including other crypto assets in the scope of regulated financial services in the UK.

“The substance here is to treat them crypto like other forms of financial assets and not to prefer them, but also to bring them within the scope of regulation for the first time,” Griffith said, adding that the new clause 14 in the bill, “clarifies that crypto assets could be brought within the scope of the existing provisions” of the Financial Services Act 2000.

The MPs voted in favor of the amendments and it is now set to be presented at the House of Lords. Should the bill pass there, it will then be required to be signed by King Charles III so as to enshrine it into law.

The excitement that the UK is on track to regulate Bitcoin as a financial instrument has sent shivers down the digital currency ecosystem as evident in the price of some of the biggest cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin is up 5.97% at the time of writing to $20,561.77 per data from CoinMarketCap, while Ethereum is changing hands at $20,561.77, up 11.21%.

Many market observers are already seeing signs that the Rishi Sunak government will be bullish on crypto, riding on his positive stance on the industry while serving in Boris Johnson’s government. The timeline, however, is what remains unknown.

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Swiss’ SEBA Bank Launches Regulated Custody Services for Blue Chip NFTs

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

SEBA bank, a crypto-friendly bank in Zug, Switzerland, on Wednesday, announced the launch of an NFT custody solution that gives customers the ability to hold Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) without the hassle of managing private keys themselves.

The Swiss bank said the new service is set to enable customers to store any Ethereum-based NFTs, especially blue-chip NFTs – those that are best-known and have consistently maintained a high market value such as CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, and Clone X.

SEBA Bank said the custody solution provides its clients with absolute confidence in the security of their NFTs, managed like any other digital asset.

Although the NFT market remains down from its peak in late 2021 and early this year, the assets are still attracting buyers.

Blue chip NFTs, which are often considered a good long-term investment, marked their best performance in April while May and June were their worst-performing periods in blue chip NFT history.

Sales of NFTs declined sharply in the third quarter, as crypto investors’ purchasing actions have been cooled down by crypto winter while central bank rate hikes prompt investors to ditch risky assets.

According to blockchain tracker DappRadar, the third quarter of this year recorded $3.4 billion in NFT sales, down from $8.4 billion the previous quarter and $12.5 billion at the market’s peak in the first quarter of the year.

Despite many NFT investors making losses on sale trades currently, the number of investors that hold their NFT investments continues to rise. In June and July alone, nearly 500,000 users joined the growing pool of NFT investors who intend to hold for the long term, taking the number of holders above 3 million at that time.

SEBA’s NFT custody service is a response to the increase in institutional investors looking to invest in the NFT landscape. A spokesperson from SEBA Bank further disclosed that major market participants also need a regulated custodian to ensure the security and integrity of NFTs.

At first, SEBA said its custody offering is open for existing and new customers who must be institutional or professional investors.

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Tagged : BLUE CHIP NFTS / Custody Services / NFT / Seba Bank / Switzerland

Continuous Crackdown on Crypto by US SEC is a Bullish Factor for Investors – Report

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Investors in the digital currency ecosystem have varying reasons to inject their capital into the emerging industry and the current crackdown from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is one of the main pushes for investors per a recent Bloomberg survey.

The results from the latest MLIV Pulse survey showed that of the 564 respondents surveyed, as many as 60% affirmed that the crackdowns present a positive push for investing in the industry. The SEC has not tapered down its enforcement actions in recent times as it has launched lawsuits against crypto firms, employees, and even celebrities that have contravened the law.

In one of its highest-profile actions, the SEC charged reality TV superstar, Kim Kardashian for non-disclosure of her earnings for the promotion of EthereumMax tokens (EMAX) considered a security by the regulator. When the indictment was brought against her, Kim Kardashian agreed to pay all of the fines worth $1.26 million without admitting or denying any wrongdoing.

According to the survey, around 65% of retail investors say they are more likely to invest in the industry with more enforcement action, a number that compares to 56% for professional investors.

“I’m in the ‘yes’ camp. As a professional investor, you need a regulated investment opportunity and it opens the doors for more professional investors to get involved in crypto, if it’s more regulated,” said Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at TIAA Bank. “The more they can get crypto out of the Wild West and into traditional investing, the better off it’s going to be.”

The rate of fraud and cybercrime in the industry is growing at a frantic pace and the fact that developers in the crypto industry have a watchdog to make them accountable will help in driving additional due diligence that can guarantee peace of mind for investors across the board.

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Tagged : Crackdown / KIM KARDASHIAN / Regulation / Research / SEC

MAS Seeks to Ban All Forms of Crypto Credits in Singapore

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued a new set of guidelines in its characteristic manner to tame the risks inherent in the crypto industry to retail consumers.

The MAS said Digital Payment Token (DPT) service providers must not issue any form of credit facilities to consumers that can facilitate their trading of digital currencies in Singapore.

The guidelines were detailed as the MAS launched two consultation papers as it sought industry guidance on how best to protect consumers from risks, while also enabling the growth of innovations in the space.

The MAS acknowledged that banning digital currencies is no longer an option as they play a very vital role in the broader digital asset ecosystem. It thus noted that it will be in the best interest of all stakeholders that DPT service providers give as robust a risk disclosure to consumers in order to enable them to gauge their risk exposures.

“The two sets of proposed measures mark the next milestone in enhancing Singapore’s regulatory approach to foster an innovative and responsible digital asset ecosystem. Regulations go hand-in-hand with innovation in financial services,” said Ms. Ho Hern Shin, Deputy Managing Director (Financial Supervision), MAS,

“The enhanced regulatory regime for stablecoins aims to support the development of value-adding payment use cases for stablecoins in Singapore. As we continue to partner industry players to explore the potential benefits of tokenisation and distributed ledger technology, MAS will make appropriate adjustments to its regulatory regime to address the associated risks.”

Per its guideline for stablecoins, the MAS mandates that issuers will need to maintain adequate reserve which will be dominated by the Singaporean Dollar while disclosing redemption modalities and rights that holders have.

The MAS has played a frontline role in regulating the crypto industry, and despite its efforts, indigenous firms like the Vauld Group still collapsed. In the published guideline, the regulator said its role may not necessarily protect consumers, and as such, consumers need to approach the industry with utmost caution.

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Tagged : DPTS / Mas / Regulation / Stablecoin

Cash App Introduces Bitcoin Transactions via Lightning Network

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Payment processing app created by Block Inc, Cash App, has now added support for Bitcoin transactions enabling users to both send and receive Bitcoin via the lightning network.

After its integration with the lightning network in February to allow users to make payments using Bitcoin, Cash App has now added support for transactions via the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

The Lightning Network is a layer-2 solution network built on top of Bitcoin to improve its scalability and enable instant payments across a network of participants.

The Product Lead Michael Rihani initially revealed this announcement when he made a post about it on Twitter. He added, “Cash App now supports both send and receive over lightning. As long as the other wallet supports LN, you should be good.”

According to Michael Rihani, this new feature is only currently available to Cash App users in the United States. In addition, the feature is excluded for residents in New York State, as they won’t be allowed to employ this service.

When some users commented on Micheal’s announcement about the feature on Twitter, they indicated that it wasn’t working. Michael confirmed that the feature is available for both Android and iOS users, and they should either install or update to the latest version of the app.

CashApp started as one of the first mainstream payment apps to support Bitcoin since 2018. “We believe that bitcoin is the world’s best digital, sound money, period,” said Miles Suter, Crypto Product Lead at CashApp. “We believe that Bitcoin is for the people and that in America, Cash App is the financial app for the people.”

In addition to Cash App’s support of the Bitcoin lightning network, the layer 2 solution itself has been growing so well over the years. As reported by Blockchain.News earlier this month, the lightning rework now crossed the 5,000 BTC Benchmark, marking its increase of an additional 2000 BTC in just 1 year.

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Tagged : Bitcoin / Blockchain / Cash App / Cryptocurrency / Lightning Network

Compound Protocol Halts Supply of Four Tokens Due To Low Liquidity

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

After many votes in favour of it, the decentralized lending protocol Compound has decided to pause the supply of four tokens used as lending assets for collateral on the platform.

Due to their low liquidity in the market, Compound protocol recently set out a proposal to the community for halting four tokens, including cZRX, cBAT, cMKR, and cYFI.

According to the Proposal, if these tokens don’t get paused, an oracle manipulation-based attack similar to the one that cost Mango Markets millions of dollars is much less likely to occur on the Compound protocol due to these tokens’ much less liquidity.

Overall, this proposal has received overwhelming support from the community, with approximately 554,126 votes in favour of it, representing 99.99% of the votes. Only a single voter cancelled the proposal by voting against it.

The compound protocol has now fulfilled the proposal and paused these tokens. This means the said tokens will not be available to users to deposit and/or take loans in order to protect the protocol from market manipulation attacks.

Compound founder Robert Leshner, who voted in favour of the Proposal, said in an Unchained Podcast that the Mango exploits served as a wakeup call for lending protocols. Because of that, lending protocols should put it into consideration to review their risk parameters.

“Every protocol has to address the risk parameters assuming that some black hat hacker is going to try to exploit it. It’s a great wake-up call for every DeFi project on every single blockchain to take this as a wake-up call,” said Leshner.

The Mango Markets hack is indeed a caution for protocols in the DeFi ecosystem to take note of. The hacker stole over $100 million from the trading and lending platform after manipulating the price of the Mango Market’s native MANGO token via an oracle price manipulation attack.

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Tagged : Blockchain / Cryptocurrency / DeFi / Protocol / Tokens

Google Struggles with Ad Revenue as Crypto Firms Reduce Spending

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Alphabet said that reduced advertising spending by crypto companies has undermined Google’s revenue growth during the third quarter of 2022.

The ongoing crypto winter has brought a slowdown in ad spending, as the overall market sentiment has turned negative since the beginning of 2022. Many companies have gone bankrupt, such as Celsius Network, and other crypto companies have become hesitant to invest during this market downturn period.

According to Google’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler, other financial firms have also become hesitant in spending on ads.

“In the third quarter, we did see a pullback in spend by some advertisers in certain areas in search,” Schindler said. “For example, in financial services, we saw a pullback in the insurance, loan, mortgage, and crypto subcategories.”

According to Alphabet’s third-quarter earnings call, Google saw a 6% slowdown in revenue growth from 41% a year earlier. Besides the one quarter at the beginning of the pandemic, this result was the weakest for any period since 2013.

CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the “challenging macro climate” has affected Google’s ad business.

However, Schindler did not specify how ad pullback from crypto companies has affected Google’s revenue.

But the overall drawback of investors from the crypto industry is the plausible reason. As the crypto industry struggles, many investors are fleeing from risky assets and selling out digital coins and related stocks.

Popular digital currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum have both lost about 60% of their value in 2022. While popular crypto exchange Coinbase is down by 70%.

Google, however, believes that the ongoing crypto winter is a short-term crisis and opportunities for growth shall rise again in the future.

In early October, Google teamed up with Coinbase to allow some of its clients to pay for cloud services using cryptocurrencies.

The strategic partnership also seeks to cater for the needs of the growing Web3 ecosystem. For instance, developers will have the chance to reliably and instantly operate Web3 networks, eliminating the need for complex and expensive infrastructure.

The collaboration will also see Google Cloud serve as Coinbase’s strategic cloud provider to boost enhanced exchange and data services. Per the report: “Coinbase will use Google Cloud’s powerful compute platform to process blockchain data at scale and enhance the global reach of its crypto services by leveraging Google’s premium fibre-optic network.”

Furthermore, Coinbase’s clients will leverage Google Cloud’s data and analytics technologies for machine learning-driven crypto insights.

Google set the ball rolling in Web3 after it assembled a team to create services for developers earlier this year.

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Tagged : Ad / Advertising / Alphabet / Blockchain / Crypto / Google / Industry

Mastercard, BitOasis Roll Out Crypto-Linked Cards in the MENA Region

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Payment giant Mastercard has inked a deal with Middle East-based cryptocurrency exchange BitOasis to establish a series of crypto card programs aimed at boosting daily cryptocurrency usage in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region, according to local media outlet Khaleej Times.

Through the strategic partnership, BitOasis users will have the chance to easily pay and shop by converting their crypto holdings to fiat at more than 90 million worldwide merchant outlets.

As a result, the cumbersome tag pegged on cashouts and crypto payments will be eliminated because BitOasis users will undertake transactions in fiat. Per the report:

“BitOasis customer transactions will be enabled to take place in Fiat currency, thereby adding consumer protection – such as provisions for dispute resolution and refunds – which doesn’t exist today when paying with a digital asset.”

Therefore, the partnership intends to address crypto pain points and enhance awareness and adoption in the MENA region.

Amnah Ajmal, Mastercard’s Executive VP for Market Development, MEA, pointed out:

“Through our collaboration with BitOasis, one of the most innovative crypto platforms in MENA, we enable the consumer experience to be seamless by using their cryptocurrencies in a safe and secure environment.”

She added that changing consumer demand was necessitating the crypto payment route.

On her part, Ola Doudin deemed the collaboration as a new digital financial system era where transparency, inclusivity, relevance, and regulation would be incorporated on a daily basis.

The CEO and co-founder of BitOasis added:

“We continue to witness sustained demand amongst our customers for crypto to be integrated into, and relevant, for their daily lives. Research tells us that 47% of the Middle East population now believe crypto is the future of money.”

The first bunch of BitOasis cards will be released in early 2023 in line with regulatory approvals.

Meanwhile, a paradigm shift is happening in the Middle East, especially the United Arab Emirates (UAE), because the region’s interests are changing from oil to crypto and metaverse, among other blockchain innovations, Blockchain.News reported.

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Tagged : BITOASIS / Crypto / Cryptocurrency / DIGITALASSET / Mastercard / MENA / News

Minima Launches Crypto Payment App with Minipay As Pilot Partner

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Minima on Tuesday announced that it has completed a pilot blockchain-based retail payment system with Minipay, a financial company offering an online payment system for digital content, goods, and services that are sold on the internet.

Minipay is a UK-based blockchain network that enables anyone to run a complete node on a mobile or IoT device. It is also one of the recent winners of Minima’s Innovation Challenge. The Minima Innovation Challenge was a month-long competition conducted from July to August this year. Blockchain.News reported the matter. The competition was designed to support and encourage individuals and teams to create brilliant and unique applications for the Minima Protocol, outside of what has already been conceived.

The partnership between the two firms will see Minima introduce a payment app on its blockchain network that will use Minipay’s Near Field Communication (NFC) to make retail payments an easy and seamless experience for Minima app users to pay for shopping via their smartphones.

Minipay’s payment app uses NFC technology to make payment experiences more seamless and easier for customers looking to pay for retail shopping by tapping their smartphones.

According to the announcement, Minima will leverage Minipay’s NFC technology to introduce a contactless payment app which connects to Minima wallets and uses QR codes for everyday purchases. Minipay’s technology will make Minima’s payment experience as easy and seamless as possible.

Minima said this will be done by offering the standard on-chain transactions with payments requested, by presenting a QR code for customers to scan over NFC technology in order to create, transact, and settle off-chain payment channels. Minima said once a payment channel is made, users can make transactions and payments instantly, even in the absence of an internet connection.

The latest development by Minima shows the continuing growth of cryptocurrency, which already has been integrated into Apple Pay and Google Pay payments apps. This reflects how mobile is driving alternative payment solutions and challenging retailers and businesses to keep up with how payments are evolving.

As cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, retailers and businesses are considering the need to accept digital assets on mobile sites and apps or via crypto mobile wallets in stores.

The mobile implication of cryptocurrency plays out in two different ways. First, retailers and businesses are looking to accept digital assets directly from mobile sites and apps, which offer an easy payment method for customers who have Bitcoins.

The second outlet for crypto is mobile payments in-store. Retailers and businesses can accept crypto payments by integrating a QR code scanner or NFC terminal into their POS (point-of-sale) terminals. Consumers can then easily open their crypto mobile wallet to pay in-store.

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Tagged : CRYPTO PAYMENT APP / MINIMA / MINIPAY / News

Minima Launches Crypto Payment App with Minipay As Pilot Partner

by Blockchain NewsOctober 26, 2022

Minipay’s payment app uses NFC technology to make payment experiences more seamless and easier for customers looking to pay for retail shopping by tapping their smartphones.

As cryptocurrency becomes more mainstream, retailers and businesses are considering the need to accept digital assets on mobile sites and apps or via crypto mobile wallets in stores.

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Tagged : CRYPTO PAYMENT APP / MINIMA / MINIPAY / News