In brief: The team at Binance has made 3 major announcements in less than 24 hours. Firstly, Binance launched a new Fiat on-ramp for the South African Rand (ZAR). Secondly, the team launched a new OTC trading portal. Thirdly, flexible deposits are now available for Litecoin (LTC) and Tron (TRX). The last 24 hours have...Read More
Over the past few hours, Bitcoin has mounted a comeback; after falling as low as $7,590 in step with a similar drop in the price of equities, the cryptocurrency surged towards $7,900. While some say this is just volatility, there is purportedly evidence that an uptrend is forming, one that could take BTC above $8,000,...Read More
Last week, Bitcoin bulls celebrated when it was revealed that India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday reversed anti-crypto restrictions placed on the industry by the nation’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India. This move allowed banks to once again facilitate transactions with and offer services to industry entities once again, “removing a major hurdle for...Read More
For years, crypto financial services firms across the U.S. have been trying their hand at launching publicly-traded Bitcoin funds (ETFs). Unfortunately for these hopefuls, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has long not agreed with these firms’ assertions that the cryptocurrency market is ready for its own regulated, tradable fund. This was confirmed to...Read More
While XRP has already performed fairly poorly over the past seven days, some have begun to fear the cryptocurrency’s prospects are worsening with news that $230 million worth of XRP was unlocked from Ripple’s escrow wallet. For instance, BlockTV crypto analyst Joe Saz wrote: “Either way it’s bad. They send back to escrow to maintain...Read More
If you’ve read the most popular “Bitcoin” and “crypto” headlines, you likely know that for the first time in what must be a year, legendary investor Warren Buffett decided to weigh in on this nascent market. the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate with major stakes (and some ownership stakes) in some of America’s most...Read More
Earlier this year Tron founder Justin Sun held a widely watched dinner meeting with investing legend Warren Buffet. This dinner came about as the result of the crypto company winning a multi-million-dollar charity auction. During the dinner, Sun and multiple other prominent figures within the blockchain industry discussed the promise of DLT technology, and supposedly...Read More
Bitcoin has once again started to show signs of recovery. In the past hour, the price of the leading cryptocurrency has exploded higher, from the daily low around $9,650 to as high as $9,040, a jump of 3%. While this move has not yet been sustained on a weekly basis, analysts say that this recovery...Read More
While Bitcoin and crypto is largely a movement to disempower institutions and to put power back in the hands of regular people, there has been a space-wide focus on getting institutions involved in this industry. The thesis with this antithetical move is that institutional involvement in cryptocurrency: the world’s biggest firms and investors dabbling in...Read More
XRP hasn’t done too well ever since finding a local top last week. Since peaking at $0.34, the price of the leading cryptocurrency has fallen off dramatically, tanking over 20% to as low as $0.265 or so on Wednesday. Despite this strong pullback, there remain many analysts that expect for XRP to surge even higher...Read More
California-based Armanino, an accounting and business consulting company, has introduced a new blockchain-powered software tool. Launched on Wednesday, the company’s distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based tool can reportedly perform firm-originated financial audits within seconds. Dubbed the TrustExplorer 2.0, Armanino’s new product is among several others that have been designed to streamline routine accounting processes. Armanino’s TrustExplorer...Read More
Berlin-based Fundament Group, a blockchain firm that aims to democratize access to financial investments by offering regulated real estate crypto tokens, announced on October 31 that it has teamed up with the Tezos Foundation in order to launch a “groundbreaking” legal-tech platform for tokenizing compliant financial products on the Tezos blockchain network. Fundament has reportedly...Read More
Utah-based Overstock, a large online retailer for brand names at clearance prices, revealed that its security token platform tZERO has teamed up with the Tezos Foundation in order to launch an initiative that aims to tokenize £500 million (appr. $643 million) in various real estate projects. tZERO CEO Saum Noursalehi remarked: “We believe that asset...Read More
China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), has said that it will certify 11 different types of financial technology (Fintech) hardware and software that are regularly being used for online payment and blockchain-related services with its new verification system, the Certification of Fintech Products. The PBoC introduced the initial list of Fintech products...Read More
Beijing-based Canaan Creative, a leading manufacturer of blockchain servers and solutions for repetition ASIC chips, has again filed to go public (this time in the US markets). The company, which is one of the world’s largest crypto mining equipment producers, filed its initial public offering (IPO) prospectus with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)...Read More
China is reportedly looking into the various use cases for blockchain tech and artificial intelligence (AI) in international financing, with a special focus on risk management procedures. The country intends to further liberalize its financial markets, a veteran foreign exchange regulatory official confirmed on October 26. The recent comments made by Lu Lei, deputy head...Read More
South Korea-based Coinplug, a leading Bitcoin (BTC) exchange, wallet and payment company, has raised 7.5 billion won (appr. $6.4 million) from the venture capital divisions of several major local financial institutions. Coinplug’s management noted in a press release on October 24 that the investments came from KB Investment, the VC arm of the KB Financial...Read More
Tokyo-based SoftBank is partnering with New York-headquartered tech giant IBM to launch a cross-carrier blockchain platform, with special focus on technologies that will enable smartphone users to conduct local payments while traveling abroad and roaming. In an October 22 release, SoftBank’s management stated that it will work with IBM and blockchain firm TBCASoft that creates...Read More
Xago, a Cape Town-headquartered fintech firm, revealed on October 9 that it’s launching a Ripple gateway and custom-designed exchange. As noted in the release, Xago’s exchange connects to and utilizes RippleNet, a decentralized network of banks and other financial services providers that facilitates quick and cheap cross-border transfers. Notably, the Xago exchange exclusively uses XRP,...Read More
ConsenSys, a Brooklyn, New York-based Ethereum development studio studio, is awarding $175,000 to seven different open-source projects being developed on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Revealed on October 10, the software development projects include Lighthouse, an innovative Ethereum software client, Tellor, an oracle network for handling off-chain data, Alice, a mobile-based platform for developing decentralized applications...Read More
Encryption startup NuCypher raised $10.7 million in an agreement for future tokens (SAFT). The firm’s investment round was led by San Francisco-based Polychain Capital. NuCypher also announced that it has launched its public testnet. The company’s main product is based on proxy re-encryption, which encrypts files being sent to individual and administrator accounts. It controls...Read More
Japan’s oldest brokerage firm has established a blockchain-related partnership with the operator of the nation’s most widely-used messenger service. According to the October 4 announcement, Nomura Holdings, the parent company of Nomura Securities, revealed it has invested in LVC, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Line, following an agreement finalized on September 24. The terms of...Read More
United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) capital city of Abu Dhabi is preparing to place its land registry on a blockchain-based platform, according to a press release. The Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities, a government-run agency tasked with managing Abu Dhabi’s development strategy, has teamed up with Indian IT company Tech Mahindra for the project. The...Read More
South Korea’s regulatory authorities have strongly favored backing blockchain-related projects over decentralized cryptocurrencies. Some recent events confirm that the nation’s government is more supportive of distributed ledger technology (DLT) itself rather than speculative tokens. Around 97% of local cryptocurrency exchanges are in danger of being shut down, according to local reports. Most Smaller Korean Exchanges...Read More
Ripple Bags Business Deal Just announced minutes ago, crypto-centric fintech startup Ripple has just made an expansion into Iceland. In a blog post, the San Francisco-headquartered company revealed that it has acqui-hired (acquired and hired) Algrim, a cryptocurrency trading firm based in the Nordic country. This move marks the company’s latest expansion into Europe. According...Read More
Cardano Sees Massive Adoption Event While Cardano (ADA) has been slipping over recent months, losing its spot as a top ten crypto asset, the blockchain underlying the token recently saw a massive adoption event. As reported by trade publication CryptoBriefing, Input Output (IOHK), a blockchain development studio that is one of the main maintainers of...Read More
