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NO LOSERS: To understand how early investors in Facebook’s new Libra blockchain will make money over time, it helps to dig into a new lossless lottery going live on ethereum mainnet. After PoolTogether tickets are sold, the funds are put into the ethereum-based money market protocol, Compound. There, it collects interest over the life at the pool and, at the end, one ticket earns the total interest. But everyone else gets their money back, too – ergo, there are no losers. Libra is also designed so that a select few capture the interest earned on money tucked away by the vast many. Full story
SWIFT 4 DLT: Financial messaging giant SWIFT has revealed it will allow blockchain firms to make use of its Global Payments Innovation (gpi) platform for near real-time payments. In a report published late last week, SWIFT said that, following a successful proof-of-concept with R3’s Corda platform, it would “soon be enabling gpi payments on DLT [distributed ledger technology]-based trade platforms.” Claiming that gpi would resolve the “payment challenges” faced by DLT platforms, the firm explained that payments using the system would be initiated within trade workflows and be automatically sent on to the banking system. Full story
ANDROID MINER: A new cryptocurrency-mining botnet has been detected exploiting Android Debug Bridge ports, a system designed to resolve app defects installed on a majority of Android phones and tablets. The botnet malware, as reported by Trend Micro, has been detected in 21 countries and is most prevalent in South Korea. The attack takes advantage of the way open ADB ports don’t require authentication by default, and once installed is designed to spread to any system that has previously shared an SSH connection. SSH connections connect a wide range of devices – everything from mobile to Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets – meaning a lot of products are susceptible. Full story
BANKING THREAT? The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), often described as the bank for central banks, has issued its annual report for 2019, expressing concerns over the expected disruption as big tech firms like Facebook enter the financial space. The report looks at the risks and challenges posed by companies such as Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Tencent, rather than paying lip service to the potential benefits of this building fintech revolution. In a somewhat telling statement, BIS reveals its fears that banks could lose ground to the new big tech disruptors saying: “Regulators need to ensure a level playing field between big techs and banks, taking into account big techs’ wide customer base, access to information and broad-ranging business models.” Full story
CRYPTO LAND: Propy, a blockchain based real estate platform, has announced the sale of a $1.6 million San Francisco property owned by Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund. “The traditional real estate sale process is arduous and broken. Buyers, sellers, and their professional support struggle with overly complex interactions – it’s an opaque, dated, and unnecessarily lengthy process, full of risks such as wire fraud,” said Arrington, founder of TechCrunch. Full story |
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RECORD QUARTER?: Bitcoin's bull market looks entrenched with 165 percent gains so far this quarter. Signs of temporary bull exhaustion, however, have emerged over the last 48 hours with the price struggling to hold onto moves above $11,000. As a result, a minor pullback toward $10,000 could be seen in the short term. The outlook will remain bullish as long as the price is trading above $9,097 (May 30 high). Full story |
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| LIBRA REACTION: The introduction of Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency might force China to rethink its policies toward digital assets, reports the South China Morning Post. Citing analysts and one unnamed advisor to the People's Bank of China, the Post said that Facebook's apparent goal in challenging the global banking system with its new token, which will be pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and government securities, could "force China to rethink how it deals with the realities of the digital world." The fact that the libra could make it easier for individuals to send payments "could undermine Beijing's efforts to curb capital outflows" is one issue. |
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