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| TETHER ON TRON: Tether announced it was partnering with the Tron foundation to launch a new version of its USDT stablecoin as a TRC-20 token sometime next quarter.
TRC-20 is a technical standard used by the Tron blockchain for implementing tokens, similar to and compatible with ethereum’s ERC-20 standard. Launching USDT, which already has versions built on bitcoin and ethereum, would allow users to more easily transact with dapps.
Specifically, they hope to improve decentralized exchange liquidity and make Tron more accessible to institutional investors by providing the stablecoin option to the network.
In a statement, Tether CEO Jean-Louis van der Velde said: “This integration underlines our commitment to furthering innovation within the cryptocurrency space as we continue to anticipate the needs and demands of the digital asset community.” Full Story
CLIENT CUSTODY: A new crypto exchange for institutional investors is launching this month with an unusual approach to custody.
New Jersey-based LGO Markets officially launched Monday with limited functionality, but spot trading in bitcoin will start on March 11.
Notably, the firm will not hold clients' funds in either bitcoin or fiat. Instead, clients will need to set up a multi-signature wallet that requires two out of three private keys to move funds. One key is controlled by the client, the second one is held by LGO Markets and the third by a Swiss company, Altcoinomy, which will serve as a clearinghouse.
Users will also need an account with Signature Bank, which will serve as LGO Markets' fiat on-ramp. To send fiat for the bitcoin they buy, they will use Signet, a blockchain-based settlement system the bank launched in December.
To sell their bitcoin, users will need to sign a trade with their own key, then wait for LGO Markets to pass the information to the clearing firm and for the clearing firm to sign the trade with its key and settle it. Altcoinomy, not LGO, will be responsible for moving bitcoin and fiat between the users’ accounts.
According to CEO Hugo Renaudin, if LGO moved funds itself, it would pose a "conflict of interest" and too much risk for big clients. "Even if, say, we get hacked or I die like the guy from QuadrigaCX, or the office gets burnt down, the clients still can retrieve their funds," he said. Full Story
MISSING MILLIONS: Ernst and Young (EY), the court-appointed monitor for troubled crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, has finally provided blockchain addresses for the ailing crypto exchange’s cold, or offline, bitcoin wallets.
The firm identified six bitcoin cold wallet addresses that it says Quadriga used. Five were previously identified by independent researchers after the exchange automatically transferred 103 BTC in what was termed a “platform setting error.” On Friday afternoon, the total balance of these five wallets was 104 bitcoin, or about $400,000.
The sixth address EY released contains no bitcoin holdings, though 31 BTC ($118,000) were transferred out from the wallet on Dec. 3, just days before the death of its CEO Gerald Cotten. That means 26,350 bitcoin (worth about $100 million) owed to customers were not in these cold wallets and are still missing.
EY did not indicate if there might be other bitcoin cold storage wallets aside from the six published Friday. Nor did it identify the cold wallets holding ether, litecoin, bitcoin gold or any of the other coins the exchange listed. Full Story
COINBASE REBELLION: The battle cry #DeleteCoinbase is resounding across crypto Twitter as bitcoin users close their accounts to protest a controversial acquisition by the exchange.
These users are upset with Coinbase for acquiring blockchain analytics outfit Neutrino because its executive suite – CEO Giancarlo Russo, CTO Alberto Ornaghi, and CRO Marco Valleri – previously spearheaded projects for controversial startup Hacking Team, which sold spyware to several governments known for human rights abuses.
To be sure, it’s unclear how widespread the backlash is. The #deletecoinbase hashtag produces more than 500 results on a Google search, but not all of those are unique, nor are all of them necessarily from before the acquisition was announced. Further, even 500 would amount to a sliver of Coinbase’s 13 million accounts.
Nevertheless, for some influential figures in the blockchain world, the transaction was a deal-breaker. Meltem Demirors, founder of Shiny Pony Ventures and chief strategy officer at the asset manager CoinShares, told CoinDesk she will no longer use Coinbase after this incident.
“There are so many other services out there that do [blockchain analysis] that don’t have these reputational issues, and frankly the ethical issues that some of these Neutrino founders have,” Demirors said. “This example, to me, clashes with all the messages [Coinbase] are trying to put out there about creating an open financial system, a more inclusive financial system.” Full Story
PERSIA PAYMENT: Bitcoin’s “lightning torch,” an ongoing experiment meant to test and showcase the next-generation payments technology now in beta, has officially made it to Iran.
The experiment finds bitcoin users testing out the network by passing around a small payment, each adding roughly 30 cents-worth of bitcoin before passing it on. As such, the payment to Ziya Sadr on Sunday marks the latest milestone in a six week-long effort that has seen participation from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, among other figures.
One of the goals of the effort is to demonstrate bitcoin’s power as a global payment system that can be sent anywhere, and the torch has smoothly passed through at least 40 counties so far. Yet, pseudonymous lightning torch creator “Hodlonaut” told CoinDesk that the question of whether the torch could be passed to Iran had proved an obstacle.
“The cooling effect of U.S. sanctions seemed to be a big factor,” he said.
Indeed, despite early efforts to participate, Sadr kept being passed over as a recipient. One user even decided to pass it to someone else over concerns it might violate U.S. sanctions.
That the torch couldn’t get to Iran seemed to betray the game’s principles. So, when it finally got to Iran Sunday morning, participants responded with excitement to the news.
“The #LNTrustChain Torch is LIT in Tehran!” Sadr tweeted. Full Story |
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| SUDDEN SELL-OFF: Sellers seem to be gaining the upper hand, with bitcoin dropping to six-day lows below $3,700 on Monday. Even so, all is not lost for the bulls and a UTC close below $3,658 is needed to confirm a bearish reversal. Further, a bearish breakdown is likely to remain elusive or be short-lived, as long-term indicators are increasingly calling a bullish reversal. Full Story |
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BEST OF THE BEST
BLOOMBERG: Cryptocurrency firms across the globe are still struggling to get basic banking services, according to a report from Bloomberg. "No bank is willing to help them out," Robby Houben, a lawyer and professor at the University of Antwerp, told the news source. While it’s not illegal for financial institutions to provide banking to the crypto industry, “it’s a massive compliance headache that they don’t want to put the resources in to solve,’’ Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of Alameda Research, added. Firms in the space are, therefore, looking to adopt different methods to overcome the issue. The piece quoted a tweet from Jesse Powell, CEO of the Kraken exchange, in which he said that the firm had to “employ the arts of a money launderer to survive,” after having accounts closed at short notice. Firms are also moving to smaller, crypto-friendly banks and even paying employees in cryptocurrency to get around the issue. THE REST INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES: This year will be an important year for stablecoins, which are “critical” for widespread crypto adoption, writes Rodrigo Marques, founder and CEO of Atlas Quantum, in an op-ed for International Business Times. The fact that stablecoins have “real value” based on the assets they represent, means they will reach general use more quickly, he wrote – potentially becoming “crucial” in use cases like cross-border payments, legal money transfers and in-store purchases. The piece cited Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire as previously saying: “If people can exchange value over the internet without a toll extracted for payments it's pretty dramatic… it'll make the web look like a cute experiment comparatively speaking in 10-15 years." While Tether’s USDT stablecoin is currently the most widely used, Marques believes that the regulated TrueUSD (TUSD) and Gemini dollar (GUSD) projects have more transparency and are currently the “most promising.” CNBC: Blockchain technology is set to disrupt the electronic gaming industry as players are increasingly buying digital tokens to customize their in-game experience, according to a report from CNBC. “We see blockchain adding a whole new dimension to the gaming industry on many different levels – to extend the life of a game, to make it more interesting to gamers and to provide experiences that couldn’t have been provided before,” Steve Grossman, CEO of Planet Digital Partners, told the news source. Experts believe blockchain can also bring more “accountability and transparency” in gaming. The technology is “really is the best way to track transactions,” Rahul Sood, CEO of esports betting company Unikrn told CNBC, adding that blockchain has a host of potential applications in the industry. |
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