Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 11/17/2019

  • Sivergate Bank is planning a big push into the USD-backed stablecoin space, focusing on those backed on a one-to-one basis offered by regulated institutions who agree to third-party audits.
  • Silvergate Bank specializes in reaching debanked bitcoiners, joining several other financial institutions including Metropolitan Bank, Signature Bank, and Cross River Bank in catering to the financial needs of the growing cryptocurrency space. Silvergate’s crypto clients include Gemini, Kraken, Bit Flyer, Paxos, trueUSD, Coinbase, Polychain Capital, and Bitstamp.
  • Last week California-based Silvergate Bank’s parent went public on the New York Stock Exchange. It was a small IPO, raising about $40M and it’s a small bank (about $250M market capitalization and $2.2M of assets).
  • “The real challenge for the United States isn’t Facebook’s proposed Libra; it’s government-backed digital currencies like the one planned by China.”
  • Ever since Microsoft bought Github for 7.5 billion dollars in June 2018 there have been multiple cases of censorship. For example, developers from Iran, Syria and Crimea have been blocked from the platform.
  • A new data protection law in Kenya is setting a high standard for the rest of the continent. As the country looks to engender more safeguards in the collection, handling and sharing of data, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta has approved legislation which complies with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
  • Forty wallets, tools and block explorers plus 1,700 GitHub commits have how now been built on its blockchain testnet that’s seen 51,000 mock transactions in the past two months. Libra nodes that process transactions are now being run by Coinbase, Uber, BisonTrails, Iliad, Xapo, Anchorage and Facebook’s Calibra. Six more nodes are being established, plus there are 8 more getting set up from members who lack technical teams, meaning all 21 members have nodes running or in the works.
  • Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) have recently gained more attention for being one of blockchain’s most exciting use cases, and the hype is well founded. In concept, DIDs aim to use cutting-edge cryptography and unique identifiers to enable users to validate themselves online, while still dictating when and how that identity data is used. Put simply, Decentralized IDs have the potential to help internet users around the world wrest back control of their data from the corporations that presently control it.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.