-
Russia’s Central Bank sees no obvious need to issue a national cryptocurrency, said head of the regulator Elvira Nabiullina speaking at the Finopolis forum of innovative financial technologies.
-
Alipay has declared that it will be banning any transactions related to any cryptocurrencies. This follow’s Binance’s announcement that it is accepting fiat currencies through Alipay and WeChat (see below), although the exchange is not working directly with WeChat or Alipay.
-
Binance is set to add two more channels to its fiat gateway – WeChat and Alipay, allowing users in China to buy bitcoin with the two payment options.
-
CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert believes ether is a commodity and falls under the CFTC’s jurisdiction. He also anticipates ether futures trading on U.S. markets in the near future. Tarbert agrees with the SEC’s previous guidance that bitcoin and ether are not securities.
-
One of the key issues addressed by the new IRS guidance is how to determine the cost basis of each unit of cryptocurrency that is disposed of in a taxable transaction (such as a sale). This is an issue because someone might buy bitcoin in multiple transactions over a span of years; when they sold some of it, it was unclear which purchase price to use for calculating taxable gains.
-
Binance has launched P2P trading functionality with BTC, ETH and USDT available for trading against Chinese Yuan. Access to P2P trading will be initially provided to Android users. We will slowly roll out this service to iOS and web interface users going forward.
-
The US SEC has rejected a proposal to list the Bitwise Asset Management and NYSE Arcaa Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, because they did not meet the necessary requirements regarding possible market manipulation and illicit activities.
-
Institutional investors still face a conundrum when deciding how to hold their crypto assets in custody, according to the results of an informal poll done by crypto-exchange operator Gemini.
-
The humble DEX has come a long way since the days of Etherdelta, and the scope and quality of decentralized trading platforms has evolved greatly. As an examination of several new and emerging platforms shows, DEXs can finally hold a flame to CEXs.
-
Using Ripple’s blockchain-based platform, Finastra users can now connect with the 200 partners on RippleNet, a global payments network utilizing XRP. RippleNet users also have access to Finastra’s banking partnerships, which settle millions in transactions per year.
-
Launched in mid-2018, we.trade is ahead of rivals like Marco Polo, a trade finance blockchain backed by TradeIX and R3 that’s still in the pilot stage. The we.trade platform is now all about commercial adoption and it’s taking a two-pronged approach: attract more banks and onboard more SMEs.
-
The Next Capital markets Union High-Level Group brings together European personalities recognized for their expertise in capital markets, digitalization and/or financial innovation and reflects the viewpoint of the real economy including SMEs, investors, financial intermediaries and market infrastructures. The members have been appointed by the Ministers of Finance.
-
This report explores the government role in supporting, growing and sustaining the Mobile financial services sector and conducts a comparative research into Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand to understand the steps taken by these governments to develop their own FinTech, specifically MFS, industry.
-
In 2016, Ghana’s AgroCenta launched AgroTrade, an online platform that connects smallholder farmers in the staple food value chain to a wider online market. The start-up provides access to truck delivery services and real-time market information via SMS and IVR. Building on this platform, AgroCenta now enables farmers to receive mobile money, build their credit score and access financial services (like crop insurance) through its latest mobile product, AgroPay. AgroCenta has also set up a mobile money API integration partnership with MTN and Vodafone to pay smallholder farmers directly and seamlessly via mobile money through its AgroPay platform.
