This week lets find out new launches and announcements with Taras Filatov – CEO comments.
Bitcoin
- $700 Million Worth of Synthetic Bitcoin is circulating on the Ethereum Blockchain. Out of the six synthetic bitcoin token projects, wrapped bitcoin commands the largest number of coins with over 63% and 44,622 WBTC.
- Just Eat France, a leading food ordering company, now accepts Bitcoin payments.
- Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s chief strategist has recommended bitcoin as an alternative investment to stocks amid central banks’ massive money printing policies. TF: wow this tells something!
Blockchain
- CyberVein, a Singapore based Blockchain firm, is partnering with the Chinese government to build a blockchain-powered governance system for its aerospace ‘smart city.’
- Russian blockchain voting system shows up on GitHub. As Russia is set to pilot a blockchain-based e-voting system in September, the country’s federal elections authority has provided public access to the platform’s source code. TF: I’ve just checked and it has under 5 stars and almost no forks. The developer community seems not very impressed so far, but we’ll see.
- Nexus Mutual, the insurance coverage provider for decentralized finance protocols, surpassed $74 million in active coverage. It now covers for 206,763 ETH, which is around 1% of the total DeFi market. TF: important indicator.
- Bitstamp, one of the oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, has implemented a new matching engine from Nasdaq’s technology vendor that it says greatly speeds up trading.
- Tether has recovered and returned $1 million worth of USDT to a group of Chinese traders who, in error, sent the funds to a wrong decentralized finance address.
Cryptos
- Crypto trading volumes for August saw the biggest month-over-month increase since early 2018.
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has spoken out about Apple’s strict policy against cryptocurrency and DeFi apps on its App Store. Apple is currently under hot criticism from the gaming industry following the delisting of its most popular gaming app Fortnite.
Launches / Announcements / Acquisition
- Mastercard launches platform for central banks to test digital currencies. The platform that allows for the simulation of issuance, distribution, and exchange of CBDCs between banks, financial service providers, and consumers.
- Binance launches Fiat-Crypto Exchange for Turkish Market. BinanceTR will offer lira trading pairs with BTC, ETH, USDT, XRP, BNB, and BUSD stablecoin.
- Digital Currency Group acquires cryptocurrency exchange Luno after providing initial seed funding to Luno in 2014.
- Paxful, leading peer-to-peer crypto exchange, has expanded beyond bitcoin. It has added support for Tether USDT stablecoin.
- LedgerX, a regulated futures exchange in the U.S., has introduced physically-settled Bitcoin futures contracts.
- Reinno, a US-based fintech startup, has just launched an investment platform for tokenized United States commercial real estate, covering $237 million worth of property at launch.
- DCG’s Foundry to finance Bitmain customers in North America. China’s crypto mining giant Bitmain has entered a new partnership to streamline its operations in North America.
- Ethereum 2.0 developers are to test the genesis block launch outside of the current testnet by the end of the month. They say they plan to do a dress-rehearsal network launch, with a 2-3-day short-lived testnet.
Laws
- South Korean court orders Bithumb to pay a portion of the claims filed by victims of the hack.
- Swiss senate passes blockchain act legal reform to clean up crypto. The “blockchain act” will provide a clear legal framework regarding cryptocurrency trading and how it relates to securities laws.
- The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority has announced new regulations that require licensing and permissions for the operation of crypto ATMs.
- President of the European Central Bank has said that Europe is currently pushing for the creation of a retail CBDC after confirming that they have been behind in the talks about digital payments creation.
- The Philippine’s central bank is preparing a new framework for digital banking, in a move that could lead to more digital banks being established in the country.
- EU wants to regulate and ban stablecoins. Five EU countries have asked for strict regulations around fiat-backed cryptocurrencies.
- U.S. SEC fines rapper T.I along with other individuals for their involvement in two fraudulent initial coin offerings.
Others
- Chinese demand for DeFi is surging, with local exchanges reportedly struggling under the weight of withdrawals destined for yield farming protocols.
- $5.4 Million Eterbase hacked funds sent to Binance and Huobi. Binance CEO CZ said his team is already on it.
- Eterbase, a Slovak cryptocurrency exchange, has become the latest victim of hackers as $5.4 million in digital currencies were stolen earlier this week. TF: that must be painful!
- Binance CEO asks the community what to do about someone’s $20,000 BNB mistake.
