Fidelity To Launch Cryptocurrency Custody Services Soon
The mutual-fund giant, Fidelity Investment is planning to release its cryptocurrency service as soon as March.
This is according to several people who has knowledge about the offering.
The firm’s latest move is widely seen a stamp of approval for the new asset class and may quell fear from trading cryptocurrencies.
It has also been revealed by an unknown source that the cold storage function of Fidelity’s new Bitcoin Custody services is already live, with assets already under the management of Fidelity.
This has not yet been confirmed by the company although the company has earlier stated that over several months they have been serving a select set of eligible clients as the company continues to build initial solutions for the initiative.
Fidelity is a Boston-based financial services company with $7.2 Trillion worth of assets under management for 27 Million clients.
They have announced entering the cryptocurrency market back in October of 2018 at which they have launched a separate company to mange crypto assets called Fidelity Digital Assets headed by a 17-year finance veteran from Goldman Sachs.
New U.S. Bill Seeks To Find Impact Of Crypto To Illicit Activities
A new bipartisan bill called the Fight lllicit Networks and Detect (FIND) Trafficking Act of 2019 seeks to study how cryptocurrencies and online marketplaces are used in the promotion of facilitation of sex and drug trafficking.
The bill was first introduced in June 2018 and spearheaded by California Democratic Representative Juan Vargas.
If passed this would require the Comptroller General of the United States to investigate the impact of cryptocurrencies on the illicit market of drugs and sex trafficking.
The bill seeks to find out if the technology enables such illegal activities and ultimately recommend regulatory and legislative action to stop their promotion.
This is yet another effort to malign the nature of cryptocurrencies and the industry of digital assets.
The measure will find more reason to vilify the security and anonymity measure inherent to popular cryptocurrencies and at the same time ignoring the role banks like HSBC in money laundering with no one questioning the latter for being complicit.
JPMorgan Sees Marginal Improvements To Payment System With Blockchain Technology
According to a recent report by one of the experts at the financial services giant JPMorgan, blockchain chain technology will benefit Banks and payments systems albeit marginally and perhaps not in a couple of years at least.
This was according to Joyce Chang, JPMorgan’s chair of global research.
In addition to this revelation the executive stated that blockchain application in trade-finance will be more common because of the high potential gains from the efficiency through digitization.
She goes on to say that blockchain is becoming more widely adopted for certain financial services it faces four major challenges: Scability, integration, cost-efficiency and regulation.
Finally, Chang noted that while cryptocurrencies have attracted the most attention, the underlying technology of distributed ledger technology is more important.
In fact JPMorgan has developed a blockchain-powered interbank information network on its Quorum platform that is based on the Ethereum blockchain.
Iran To Use Cryptocurrencies To Conduct International Settlement
Online news agencies around the web have revealed that Iran is exploring various options to sidestep U.S. economic sanctions.
This includes negotiating with various countries to introduce cryptocurrency in global trade which is primarily aimed to dismantle U.S. dollar hegemony.
According to Mohammed-Reza Modoudi, the acting head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) they are already talking with 8 countries for this initiative.
He reveals that representatives from Switzerland, South Africa, France, England, Russia, Germany and Bosnia have visited Iran to hold related talks about the issue.
Sanctions was imposed by the U.S. last year in November with cuts the rest of the world off, except for the aforementioned countries above, from country’s oil, shipping and gas market as well as its financial system.
The U.S. led sanction is already hurting the international settlements of the country.
Swift has already severed ties with Iran’s central bank leaving the country and its citizens in limbo. Now the country is exploring the possibility of creating an alternative financial system that is independent of Swift and thus cannot be influence by the U.S.
Everex Expanding Into The U.S. Market
A Blog-post released by the blockchain company Everex has recently revealed that they are expanding their operations to the United States of America.
According to the company, the local mainstream payment industry has long been asking for a much-needed revolution in the industry that will address the high transaction cost, remittance fees, time consuming processes and fraudulent activities.
The company believes that their blockchain–powered platform will be the revolutionary payment solution that will be able to address this issues.
To help them with their expansion into the U.S. they have hired Anna Vladi as Chief Operating Officer.
Prior to being hired she served as one of the company advisor for the past year and has started the MSB licensing initiative for the company in the States.
She was also supervising a project in Accenture for a blockchain project in the energy sector.
She was the Vice President of Operations and Systems at AUD and has served as a founding partner in a boutique management consulting firm.
With her new position she is tasked to secure the MSB licensing for Everex as well as lead partnership efforts with local banks.
The company hopes through local bank partnerships they will be able to on-board new customers in the U.S.
Aside from working with the business side of things, Anna is working closely with Ethereum core developers over the years and is very aware of all the upcoming technical upgrades, like the Constantinople fork.
The new hire by Everex believes that the company have what it takes to pave the way for blockchain payments the same way PayPal did for online payments.
Headlines for the world of Cryptocurrencies - January 30, 2019Chicago Becoming A Hot Spot For Crypto ATM / CME Releases New Futures Contracts Amidst Bitcoin Price Fall / UAE-Saudi Arabian Crypto “Aber” To be Used By Banks Only / BitTorrent Token Sale Sold Out Within Minutes Despite The Absence Of US Investors / Hong Kong Dollar-Pegged Stable Coin Launched By Bitspark |
|---|
Headlines for the world of Cryptocurrencies - January 29, 2019Crypto Friendly Food Delivery Sites / The Real Reason For VanEck’s Bitcoin ETF Withdrawal / Binance Will Support Hardware Wallets / Crypto Investors Says No One Needs Bitcoin ETF And Bakkt / Software Suite Aiming For Double Digit Increase Of Hash Power |
Headlines for the world of Cryptocurrencies - January 28, 2019Bitcoin Increases Ranking In Recent China Crypto Ranking / Bitcoin May Become The Global Reserve Asset / Two U.S. States To Accept Bitcoin For Taxes / <h1New AML Solution For Stablecoin Launches / Harvard, ConsenSys and Levi Strauss To Co-Develop Blockchain-Based Factory Safety Solutions |
