DTCC Test Blockchain-Powered Credit Derivatives Platform With 15 Global Banks

The post-trade market infrastructure giant, DTCC has recently initiated the testing phase of its credit derivatives platform which has been re-platform on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and cloud.

The testing phase includes several of the world’s largest banks which will conduct structured user acceptance test to validate the interaction between systems, firms and other market infrastructure providers.

The company plans to launch the platform early next year.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is an American Post-trade financial services company that provides clearing and settlement services to the financial markets.

It has recently completed development phase of the blockchain platform for its Trade information Warehouse (TIW) and have started testing it with 15 large banks.

The test will simulate use cases, test data and validating the interaction with other systems.

Former Western Union And Pay Pal Executive Joins BitPay

The largest global blockchain payments provider, BitPay has recently announced its latest hire to the position of Head of Busines Solutions, Rolf Haag.

With this new position, he is tasked to manage BitPay’s Business-to-Business (B2B) and Mass Payments Businesses.

He is a seasoned professional with over 20 years experience in financial technology as well as spearheading the growth of payments products at Western Union and Paypal.

He was the former Director of Global Mass Payments at Western Union in which help build and develop a global mass payments business and its underlying products.

His responsibilities in his previous work include defining global B2B and Business-to-Consumer mass payment visions, products and strategies.

He also held several product management positions with PayPal where he help the company grow 20-40% per year into a multi-billion dollar payment platform.

US Dollar Is The Most Used Fiat In Trading Bitcoin

In a report released by online crypto-centric website CryptoCompare, it has identified the US dollar as the dominant fiat currency used in trading BTC for the last 30 days.

This is followed by the Japanese Yen (JPY) and Korean Won (KRW) which comes in second and third respectively.

The report states that 50% of most BTC-Fiat trading occurred in USD while 21% for JPY and 16% for KRW.

Notable in the report is the sudden surge of BTC-KRW trading between October 7th and 15th.

BTC to KRW trading represented only a tenth of Bitcoin trading among the top 5 fiat currencies on average.

The period has seen an increase of 230%.

Other top fiat currencies that traded with BTC are Euro, GBP and PLN.

It is also interesting to know that despite the apparent hype surrounding decentralized exchanges (DEX) which found its height when Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that he wishes centralized exchanges to “burn in hell” and at the same time praising DEX, its presences is essentially non-existent as there where less than 0.4% of the total exchange volume indicating that most traders still prefer centralized exchanges as their go-to trading venue.

Binance Launches Institution Grade Research Wing

The largest crypto exchange by market trading volume, Binance has recently launched an analysis division to conduct institutional-grade research reports.

The new division dubbed Binance Research will churn out institutional-grade reports with the aim of increasing transparency and improve the quality of information within the cryptocurrency sphere.

The research arm as already produced two in-depth reports devoted to a decentralized blockchain that support smart contracts and distributed applications, and scaling solution for Ethereum (ETH).

It is not the first time Binance has veered away from its original mandate.

In early October, the exchange has revealed its plans of donating all of its listing fees into charity and have created a blockchain-powered donation platform called the Blockchain Charity Foundation (BCF).

It has also invested through its Binance’s venture wing Binance Lab in decentralized digital content ecosystem Contentos which will develop decentralized ecosystem that will purportedly offer transparency and monetization of content, without third-party censorship.

DMG Launches 85 Megawatt Crypto Mining Operations

A Canadian blockchain and cryptocurrency company, DMG Blockchain Solutions Inc. has started the operations of their new cryptocurrency mining facility in Canada.

According to reports the company will start with 60 megawatts and gradually increase to 85 megawatts.

The operation of this new facility will increase the capacity of the company by more than 20 times.

The initiative is supported by the local government and electricity providers.

The 27,000 square foot crypto mining-as-a-service (MaaS) operation occupies an area of 34 acres and is said to be the largest of such operations in North America.

The new facility will use hydroelectricity as its main power source which is said to be abundant in the area and should not affect the power needs of local residents.

Canada has become an attractive location for cryptocurrency mining due to its abundance in hydroelectricity and lower power cost.

It is seen as a viable alternative location for mining companies that is pivoting away from China as the Chinese government has been increasingly been hostile about cryptocurrency related activities in their country.

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