Singapore and Thailand to Enable Cross Border Payments Using Only Mobile Numbers in 2021
The linking of Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay national fast payments systems will go live in mid-2021. Anyone registered with PayNow or PromptPay will be able to instantly and securely send money between the two countries using just their mobile numbers 24/7 at “competitive” rates. It will start off with a small group of banks on both sides, and scale up participation to include more banks and non-bank providers over time. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is keen to partner other central banks in the region to expand the linkage.
BDoS: Blockchain Denial of Service
This paper introduces an incentive-based blockchain denial of service (BDoS) attack that targets proof-of-work (PoW) crypto-assets. Unlike classical DoS, BDoS targets the system’s mechanism design: It exploits the reward mechanism to discourage miner participation. Previous DoS attacks against PoW blockchains require an adversary’s mining power to match that of all other miners, requiring that the attacker obtain at least 51% of the network’s mining capacity. In contrast, BDoS can cause a blockchain to grind to a halt with significantly fewer resources, e.g., 21% as of March 2020 in Bitcoin. We find that Bitcoin’s vulnerability to BDoS increases rapidly as the mining industry matures and profitability drops.
Fidelity Digital to Hold Bitcoin as Collateral for Cash Loans
Fidelity Digital Assets will allow its institutional customers to pledge Bitcoin as collateral against cash loans in a partnership with blockchain startup BlockFi. The unit of Fidelity Investments will hold the digital asset and not make loans itself. The target is Bitcoin investors who want to turn their digital stash into cash without selling, and potential customers include hedge funds, crypto miners and over-the-counter trading desks.
MicroStrategy Reveals Pricing Details for Its $400 Million Raise
Business intelligence firm MicroStrategy has provided further details of its $400 million raise that it plans to use to buy Bitcoin, according to a release today. Its plan is to sell $550 million in 0.750% five-year convertible senior notes to qualified institutional buyers. The conversion rate will initially be 2.5126 shares of MicroStrategy class A common stock per $1,000 principal amount of notes, which is equivalent to an initial conversion price of approximately $397.99 per share, roughly a 37.5% premium over the current market price.
Long-Term Bitcoin Holders Are Selling Off Their Coins
A metric that tracks how much dormant Bitcoin has been recently moved, indicates that long-term Bitcoin holders are realizing profit on their Bitcoin. The Bitcoin Coin Days Destroyed metric measures when dormant Bitcoin is sold. The older, and the greater amount of Bitcoin, the higher the metric goes. And recently, it has been shooting up. According to Glassnode’s The Week On-Chain newsletter, “while so many long-term holders remain in a state of significant profit, sideways or downwards price movement can be expected as they realize these profits.”
Dubai Economy launches Unified Payments Network to boost digital payments, cashless economy
Dubai Economy launched its Unified Payments Network, an inclusive platform that will bring together all payment service providers, and unbanked as well as underbanked merchants, to facilitate cashless transactions. The platform is a subsidiary of the flagship ‘EngageDXB’ initiative of Dubai Economy to promote engagement between the private and public sectors, and aims to empower the existing players in the payment ecosystem to accelerate the transition towards a cashless society.
