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The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) has issued new guidelines for stablecoins, including Facebook’s planned cryptocurrency Libra.
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Swiss financial regulator FINMA confirmed in a guidance note on stablecoins Wednesday that it had received a request for an assessment of how it would classify the Libra project as currently planned. The agency added that range of services projected by the Libra Association would need extra oversight.
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Nice summary of everything that’s known about China’s central bank digital currency plans.
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Seven independent mobile payment systems in Europe have teamed up to form the European Mobile Payment Systems Association. Its mid-term goal is to make it possible for the companies’ combined 25 million users to use all of the individual systems in each of the member countries.
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Mastercard is partnering with R3 to develop a blockchain-based cross-border payment solution.
Month: September 2019
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/10/2019
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Facebook and it’s Libra Association partners are planning to initially back Libra with fiats including US dollars, euro, yen, British pound, and Singapore dollar, on concerns raised by Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) for China’s attempts to push the Libra Association to include yuan in the basket of the currencies backing Libra.
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Customers will have a $3,900 deposit requirement for both Bakkt’s daily and monthly futures contracts as an initial hedge. The speculative initial requirements will be somewhat higher, at $4,290 each.
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CiperTrace’s Travel Rule Information Sharing Architecture would allow exchanges and wallet providers to share payment details and confidentially exchange customer know-your-customer information.
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Gemini Trust Co., the custodial arm of the twins’ crypto exchange, said it will allow users to instantly access funds equal to the amount of coins kept off-line, or cold storage.
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100% e-money and the corresponding regulation are compared to two models where the CBDC providing third-party is either an intermediary or a custodian.
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This paper gathers various stablecoin price stabilization mechanisms, dividing the methods into four collateral types (fiat, crypto, commodity, and non-collateralized) and two layers (protocol and application) to show that non-collateralized stablecoin on the application layer is the simplest approach for implementation.
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Gemini Trust Company, a regulated custodian overseen by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), now offers “Gemini Custody,” a platform which would enable clients to trade assets instantly by offering them credits.
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Several established players in the fund industry are using DLT in their business.tags: Fintech Blockchain
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Seychelles national stock exchange (MERJ) has issued off its digital initial public offering (IPO), that is poised to be the inaugural blockchain-based IPO in the world.
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The Thailand Bond Market Association plans to issue cryptocurrency to facilitate bond trading, and connect its system with the central bank’s cryptocurrency project. The Bank of Thailand and commercial banks are currently experimenting using digital currency for interbank settlement. The coverage includes inter-bank bond trading, repurchase transactions and regulatory compliance and data reconciliation.
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IBM has doubled the number of its employees on the technical steering committee (TSC) of Hyperledger, stoking concerns about the tech giant’s influence on the enterprise blockchain consortium.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/09/2019
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Tether Now Supports Offshore Chinese Yuan (CNH), Launches CNH₮ Stablecoin
Tether has launched its Chinese yuan-backed stablecoin, which will run on top of the ethereum blockchain. The new CNH₮ token, is collateralized with yuan stored offshore.
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Brazilian Central Bank Will Deploy a Fast Payments System
The Central Bank of Brazil is developing a new instant payment system that will change how funds are sent within the country. Brazilian citizens will purportedly be able to send and receive money in seconds, instead of several hours and even days.
tags: Fintech FastPayments
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Catalonia Government to Build DLT-Based Identity Platform for Citizens
The government of Catalonia has announced it will develop a DLT-based identity platform aimed to give citizens control of their own data when interacting with online services. The Catalan government will act as the validator for the network, but it will not collect users’ personal data.
tags: Identity Fintech Blockchain
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Philippines To Launch Standardised QR Code For Payments Soon
The Philippines is anticipated to launch a standardised QR code for payments by September, according to a report by Philstar. The plan to standardise QR payments in Philippines was first announced by the late BSP Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr in July last year.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/08/2019
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Lloyd’s Of London, Aon And Others Poised To Profit From Cryptocurrency Hacker Insurance
There’s a huge imbalance between crypto hacker insurance supply and demand, but the $45B Lloyd’s of London insurance marketplace is emerging as a major player, as is Aon, the second-largest insurance broker in the world.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets Liquidity Insurance CyberRisk CyberCrime
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/07/2019
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Central Bank Digital Currency – Financial System Implications and Control
This paper compares the financial account implications of CBDC with stable coins and narrow bank digital money, noting the similarity and differences in terms of implications on the financial system.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets AltCoins CBDC Stablecoins eMoney NarrowBanking
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Telegram Finally Releases Code for Its $1.7 Billion TON Blockchain
Telegram’s TON blockchain is designed as a proof-of-stake protocol with the support of multiple “shardchains.” Validators, chosen from among those users who stake considerable amounts of tokens, will confirm the blocks.
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Binance US To Be Launched Soon, Will Require KYC Process in Order to Start Trading
Binance, is finally ready for the launch of Binance US, the US-based version of its services. According to a recent blog post, the new platform will be live in a couple of weeks.
tags: Fintech CryptoAssets Liquidity Binance
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RippleNet Adds Another Bank Partnership in Pakistan’s Faysal Bank Limited
Pakistan’s Faysal Bank has joined RippleNet’s xCurrent cross-border transfer network.
tags: Fintech Blockchain CrossBorder Ripple
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As lending services migrate from financial institutions to the blockchain, new contenders are challenging legacy players with easy credit, versatile forms of collateral, and attractive interest rates.
tags: CryptoAssets Custody Fintech Liquidity
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/06/2019
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JP Morgan: Libra and other stablecoins “do not take into account the microstructure of operating such a payment system. The risk of payment system gridlock, particularly during periods of stress, could have serious macroeconomic consequences.”
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SNB’s governing board chair Thomas Jordan: “if stablecoins pegged to foreign currencies were to establish themselves in Switzerland, the effectiveness of our monetary policy could be impaired.”
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Changchun Mu, new head of the PBOC’s Digital Currency Research Institute. He has said that China’s CBDC will be supported across major e-payments platforms such as WeChat and Alipay.
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Intercontinental Exchange Inc. is closer to offering Bitcoin futures trading as its Bakkt unit opened its digital-asset custody warehouse to customers. Here are the nuts and bolts of how it will work.
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Gemini launched Gemini Clearing that will allow OTC trading for its users. The new service will be accessible by everyone both retail traders as well as institutional investors.
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tags: Fintech Blockchain
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/05/2019
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Binance, in partnership with the Paxos Trust Company, is launching a dollar-backed stablecoin in the U.S. with the blessing of the New York Department of Financial Services.
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Paxos Trust Company launched PAX Gold a crypto-asset redeemable for physical gold approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Each token is backed by one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery Gold.
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Fewer people have been sending Bitcoin to major exchanges in recent months, according to crypto data tracker TokenAnalyst. After peaking in 2017, the number of unique addresses sending the world’s most-popular cryptocurrency to exchanges such as Binance and Bitfinex has been declining, it found.
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DTCC has issued a white paper “Governing DLT Networks, Distributed Ledger Technology Governance for Private Permissioned Networks.”tags: Fintech Blockchain
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WhatsApp posted a job opening for a public policy manager who would “work closely with Facebook’s Africa Public Policy team to ensure blockchain technologies and digital payments can play their part in improving Africa’s socio-economic development.” The job listing does not mention Libra, “
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/04/2019
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“FedNow will promote financial system resiliency. As we discovered in 2008, big banks can fail. The Fed cannot. Unlike Facebook’s proposal, which would have used a distributed ledger to move funds, risk in the TCH network is heavily centralized. Any failure to fund the joint account or compromise of the ledger could impact the entire system. Instead of criticizing the Fed, the big banks should be applauding FedNow as parallel system that could serve as a backup to their own.”
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Mastercard has joined Marco Polo. Founded by startups R3 and TradeIX, the blockchain-based network promises real-time connectivity, greater visibility for trading relationships and lower barriers to accessing capital.
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The issuance of the Marshallese sovereign (SOV) was announced in an essay by The Honorable David Paul — Minister In-Assistance to the President and Environment of the Marshall Islands — published by Coindesk on Sept. 4.
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We reached out to experts in the crypto and blockchain industries, central bank officials and researchers to answer whether or not we need a blockchain-based national digital currency if decentralized cryptocurrencies already exist.
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Oxfam International, a U.K.-based non-profit with a global reach, just spent a month testing MakerDAO’s stablecoin DAI as a vehicle for helping disaster victims.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/03/2019
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Van Eck and SolidX plan to start selling shares in a limited version of a crypto exchange-traded fund. The shares are reportedly planned to be sold under the SEC’s Rule 144A, which allows privately placed securities to be traded among “qualified institutional buyers” with shorter holding periods and without the requirement to register with the SEC.
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The Tether Treasury moved 7m USDT from its vaults recently and minted 10m USDT just an hour after the money was moved out. Could this be a sign that the next bull run is on the corner? People often use USDT in order to trade BTC, so there is a correlation between USDT volumes and Bitcoin prices.
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Binance launched two futures testnet platforms to allow potential users to explore each product and its offerings ahead of the official launch.
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The BTC- and ETH-based perpetual swaps, are extremely similar to those innovated by BitMEX. The BFX products also offer 100x leverage and use the same interest rate mechanism. However, while BitMEX settles exclusively in BTC, BFX products settle in Tether.”
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Dutch Firms offering services for the exchange between virtual money (cryptos) and regular money, and crypto wallet providers are expected to become subject to DNB integrity supervision as of 10 January 2020.
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The Kiva Protocol, launched on Wednesday by the Sierra Leonean government and Kiva, the Silicon Valley microloan company, is a biometric system that links a person’s thumbprint with their identity. It will allow the west African country to create a universal credit bureau for the first time, with its backers hoping it will spur lending by banks reluctant to loan to people without credit histories.
Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 09/02/2019
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“Central bankers should work to develop digital currency interoperability, and a system of decentralized exchange through which businesses in different countries can use smart contracts to create automated escrow agreements and protect themselves against exchange rate volatility.”
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“Libra does not appear to qualify as e-money, as it does not embody a claim of its holders against the Libra Association.”
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Qualified Bitfinex account holders will be able to trade a new hedging product through a derivatives wallet. The product will have USDt-based collateral (unavailable in the rest of the market), up to 100x leverage and isolated margin for individualized risk level.
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Philippine boxing champion Manny Pacquiao launched his very own cryptocurrency on Sunday at a free concert in Manila, where he serenaded more than 2,000 fans to drum up interest in the product.