Month: August 2020

Kiffmeister’s FinTech Daily Digest (08/02/2020)

~ kiffmeister
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum’s Ether (ETH) plunged by 13% and 21%, respectively, within minutes on August 2, 2010. The move liquidated more than $1 billion worth of futures contracts as BTC/USD dropped from around $12,000 to as low as $10,550, before bouncing back to trade around $11,300. More than $1 billion of crypto positions were liquidated across various exchanges during the spike down.  
The story of stablecoins is the story of Ethereum. Driven by a global flight to safety amidst the coronavirus pandemic, stablecoin issuance ballooned over $8 billion in the first quarter of 2020. While inter-exchange settlement remains the most dominant use case for stablecoins by far, more generally, stablecoins are simply a better means of storing and moving dollars around the world. 24/7 uptime and relatively quick settlement allows users to react to market conditions much faster than when dealing with traditional payment rails.
If the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has its way, stablecoin payments networks will no longer be able to take a hands-off approach to knowing who their users are. In a July report to the G20, FATF suggested that “central developers and governance bodies of so-called stablecoins” should be treated either as financial institutions or as virtual asset service providers (VASPs). Hence, stablecoin platforms would probably have to abide by the FATF’s Recommendation 10, which prohibits financial institutions from “keeping anonymous accounts or accounts in obviously fictitious names.” Stablecoin platforms only currently apply customer due diligence to the small minority of users who purchase, sell and redeem stablecoins for fiat currency. 
BiLira will launch TRYB, a stablecoin backed by the Turkish Lira on Avalanche during the mainnet release. Previously, TRYB was limited to the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token.  

Kiffmeister’s FinTech Daily Digest (08/01/2020)

~ kiffmeister
The U.S. Department of Justice arrested three individuals associated with the July 15 Twitter hack. The hack hijacked the accounts of some of Twitter’s most prominent users and sent tweets promising followers who sent Bitcoin to a specific address that their contribution would be paid back double. Authorities said Friday that the attackers used three different Bitcoin wallets to collect their proceeds, receiving more than 400 deposits worth $117,457.58. Blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis played a key role in the investigation, bringing into question exactly how anonymous are bitcoin transactions. “If [the accused] had carried out these transactions in fiat currency, the investigation may have been more difficult, as the transactions wouldn’t have left the same public footprint that Bitcoin transactions do.” 
The outbreak of Covid-19 has caused a global increase in the amount of cash in the economies of Canada, Europe, US, and the UK. But the big increase in cash-in-circulation is not due to an increase in withdrawals of cash. There is much less cash being returned to banks and ATMs – businesses and individuals simply aren’t redepositing their banknotes. This article argues that is probably being driven by an unwanted accumulation of cash by crooks, because the network of restaurants and other businesses that they rely on to launder their funds have all shut down thanks to virus fears and lockdowns. So throughout the pandemic they have been accumulating ever more cash from the drug using customers, with no place to offload it. 
A case currently being heard in Europe’s top court could have a major bearing on the future of banknotes in the region. The case asks the court to define the term ‘legal tender’. The judgement will be delivered in the Autumn. The hearings relate to a legal challenge against the Hessischer Rundfunk, the German public broadcaster, which is accused of not accepting payments for an obligatory fee in euro cash. The plaintiffs argue that this refusal is in violation of the status of euro banknotes and coins as legal tender. A final ruling on the case is expected in the autumn. 
This study analyzes the impact of digital programmable Euro initiatives on banks, based on interviews with 50 senior experts. We find that both Libra and a Euro CBDC might heavily affect European banks. Experts fear that large-scale financial disintermediation of the financial sector could take place, and digital bank runs could be triggered. Besides these risks, our findings suggest that banks also have the opportunity to develop new business models stemming from these initiatives. Therefore, Libra and a CBDC Euro should not only be seen as threats but also as opportunities.