Kiffmeister’s Fintech Daily Digest 03/10/2020

  • With regard to their volatile prices, limited number, small total amount, and concentrated market, stablecoins have so far met with a mixed success. They rather represent a complement to the crypto-assets market. However, the arrival of very large issuers, securing a higher degree of confidence to users, and apt to reach a wide public, could give their projects a potentially systemic impact. These global stablecoins would create risks, in particular for financial stability and monetary policy, and in lesser-developed economies. This paper reviews these risks and the way the private sector, regulators and central banks can address them.
  • Circle’s business clients can now sign up for the Circle Business Account, a toolbox of APIs that allow developers to build on top of its USDC stablecoin.
  • The UK’s biggest fintech startup Revolut is reportedly preparing to apply for a UK banking licence, enabling the firm to offer FSCS-protected deposits and lending services for customers. The cash transfer app was granted a European banking licence by the Bank of Lithuania in 2018, but has continued to operate outside of the bounds of the regulatory regime in the UK.
  • On Sunday, BitMex had the most Bitcoin-related liquidations in three months, according to crypto derivatives tracker Skew. More than $190 million has been liquidated on the exchange in the last 24 hours, according to TokenAnalyst.io. BitMex offers as much as 100 times leverage on futures contracts, and when trades go bad, users are at risk of facing margin calls on what’s borrowed that can end up leading to the liquidation of their position.
  • The miner’s rolling inventory (MRI) figure, created by crypto markets data company ByteTree to measure the changes in inventory levels held by these key market participants, remained below 100 percent in January, suggesting a lack of confidence in the 30 percent price rally that month.

Some catching up on some recent regulatory news thanks to the always excellent bi-weekly Milken Institute Fintech in Focus:

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.