Digital Currency and Blockchain Weekly Round-Up – July 12th, 2019

Trump lashes out Bitcoin, Facebook's Libra, argues they should face banking regulations
U.S. President Donald Trump said he is “not a fan” of cryptocurrencies as they are “not money” and suggested that Facebook may need a “new banking charter” if it plans to launch its cryptocurrency Libra.

SEC, FINRA issue joint statement on custody issues of digital assets
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) have released a joint statement clarifying the broker-dealer custody of digital asset securities. The joint statement was released in response to the questions raised by market participants.

110 cryptocurrency exchanges seek to enter Japanese market
With Japan being one of the biggest economies in the world and having a substantial gadget-centric population along with crypto-friendly regulations, it’s the perfect ecosystem for cryptocurrency. This is why over 110 exchanges have applied for acceptance into the market, with several of them being in various stages of the process.

Canada’s updated AML rules to require crypto exchanges to register as MSBs
The government of Canada has updated its Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Financing of Terrorism (CFT) rules, CoinDesk reported. The amendments, which were finalized last month, target cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, among other things. The objective of these amendments is to address and close the gaps that exist in Canada’s AML/ATF Regime.

Turkey considers developing central bank digital currency
Following China’s lead, Turkey is now considering the idea of putting cryptocurrency under the direct supervision of its central bank. This news comes in conjunction with the Eleventh Development Plan that was submitted to parliament on July 8. The plan is meant to cover the period between 2019 and 2023. There are several items on that plan covering blockchain and one of them has to do with the establishment of crypto governance under the umbrella of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (TCMB).

Research Studies

Fitch Ratings hails Facebook’s crypto as “significant effort” to set up alternative retail payment mechanism
Only 1 in 10 people understand cryptocurrency: Kaspersky Lab report

Company News

Props launches first SEC-qualified consumer-facing crypto token
SEC gives green signal to Blockstack's Regulation A+ token offering
$3.5M raised by Sia Network for better blockchain storage, streaming, and hosting
NEAR protocol developers secure $12.1M in seed round led by Metastable Capital, Accomplice
Crypto custodian startup Anchorage raises $40M in Series B led by Visa, Blockchain Capital
Hybrid ethereum-based energy startup LO3 Energy secures investment deals with Shell, Sumitomo
Torus pockets $2M seed funding from Multicoin, Binance, Coinbase to entice people into dApps
Crypto exchange CEX.IO receives Gibraltar DLT license
Crypto payments startups Uphold doubles presence in Portugal with Scytale's acquisition
Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitpoint loses $32M to hackers
Polish cryptocurrency exchange Bitmarket ceases operations citing liquidity problems

Partnerships/Consortiums

IBM Food Trust welcomes ORGANO for blockchain-based product traceability
Winklevoss-backed Virtual Commodity Association wants to help protect cryptocurrency consumers

Digital Currency Initiatives

Litecoin becomes official cryptocurrency of American football team Miami Dolphins
Opera’s crypto wallet adds support for Bitcoin and Tron
BitTorrent incentivizes users for seeding and bandwidth with cryptocurrency
Crypto exchange Binance launches Platform 2.0 with margin trading
KuCoin launches crypto derivatives trading platform ‘KuMEX’
ShapeShift launches new non-custodial crypto management platform
First movie tokenization announced for Atari founder biopic
Taringa! announces stablecoin-powered rewards system with MakerDAO and Airtm
Blockchain media platform PUBLISH launches crypto wallet app ‘PUBLISHwallet’ for Android
LG files trademark application for ThinQ Wallet for cryptocurrency
Indian police officers to get trained on cryptocurrencies

Blockchain Initiatives

HSBC reduces transaction time by 12 Days using Voltron blockchain platform
Amazon, Deloitte, Fidelity support IDEO CoLab's free blockchain accelerator program
Former R3 executive aims to disrupt funds industry with new blockchain venture ‘FundAdminChain’
Cadence's blockchain-powered debt marketplace goes live
India-based YES Bank issues CPs for Vedanta using R3's Corda blockchain platform
Samsung launches blockchain software development kit in beta
Samsung releases 6 new dApps to its blockchain wallet
Blockchain healthcare startup teams up with Uber Health for patient transport
Arizona State University initiates blockchain project with SalesForce to improve college completion rate
LG CNS to bring blockchain technology to South Korean school cafeterias
Hyundai-backed Hdac Technology teams up with blockchain startup CasperLabs