British Blockchain & Frontier Technologies Association - News

5 Years Ago

Governments & World Bank actively exploring ways to utilise Blockchain technology

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

The World Bank has backed a pilot venture in Haiti to help empower farmers, to tag fresh produce ensuring transparency and traceability - making it possible to track food from farm to table.

There are numerous examples of governments exploring Blockchain technology use. Examples include India looking to offer Blockchain-based payment services for overseas workers, allowing them to send money home faster and more cheaply.

In Singapore BMW, Intel and Neilson are helping the government by offering Blockchain training, technical and mentoring. It is thought that once more people understand the benefits of Blockchain technology it will encourage more mainstream use.

In New Zealand, the innovation agency has demonstrated that it is supportive of Blockchain technology as it recognise the potential benefits for companies looking to stay one step ahead.
As with all new technology there are going to be challenges, and no government has all the answers, but it is encouraging that many governments are at least being supportive and exploring how Blockchain technology can be used.

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Government Relations

https://www.coindesk.com/bmw-intel-join-singapo...ccelerator

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) discussing Digital Assets regulation

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

America’s CFTC has been looking at regulation and the adoption of Digital Assets.

Significant as the International Settlement Derivatives Association (ISDA) has just published its Common Directive in an attempt to try and initiate an industry standard conventions on how derivatives are traded and processed.

The current system is manual intensive and the industry faces increasing regulatory costs. ISDA is looking for ways to introduce greater automation in the industry.

The derivatives market is said to be worth as much as ten times the world GDP, being valued at over $1.2 Quadrillion and was considered to be responsible for the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. If ISDA is successful with its Common Directive, it could make Smart Contracts much easier implement leading to much greater use of Blockchain technology in the derivatives market.

Regulators should welcome the greater transparency and traceability that this could bring. Paradoxically there are concerns that public Blockchains could enable “bad actors” to manipulate or falsify transactions when this is feasible only in DLP / permissioned chains.

CFTC in the USA, like a number of other regulators elsewhere , is trading a fine line as it offers guidance as to how to embrace Blockchain technology and Digital assets. If they are too draconian countries more receptive to the use of Blockchain technology will have a competitive advantage resulting in a loss of financial services revenue to laggards.

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https://cointelegraph.com/news/cftc-technology-...t-adoption

Debit cards offering ability to spend in fiat or Crypto offer mass adoption for Crypto BUT…

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

There are currently eight debit cards that allow soending of Digital Assets using a “flexible friend”: Bitpay, Shift, Wirex, Cryptopay, Fuzex, Crypto.com, Aximetria and Revolut.

However, there are some issues facing debit cards that offer cypto payment option, due to differences in legal requirements in jurisdictions around the world.

Wirex CEO, Pavel Matveev, highlighted one of the challenges being the need for a “BIN sponsor”. Bank Identification Number (BIN) sponsorship which refers to the company that possesses membership of a card payment network, such as Visa or Mastercard.

He revealed: “Several BIN sponsors were hesitant to work with Wirex at first when they learned that part of our model encompasses cryptocurrencies.” Since then, however, Matveev says that “BIN sponsors have become more receptive to crypto”.

Some countries have banned the use of Digital Assets to pay for goods such as China, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Vietnam, while others like USA, Canada and Australia are more supportive. There have been reports that Russia has banned the use of Digital Assets, but recently Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev was quoted as saying, ‘Using cryptocurrency debit cards to pay for goods and services does not contradict Russian law’.

Despite the challenges and confusion it appears not to have stopped Baanx from looking to launch a new Fiat and Crypto enabled debit card with Near Field Communication (NFC).

NFC technology enables point of sale payment with any supported cryptocurrency, instantly converting into fiat currency to pay for goods and services.

The ability to use Digital Assets with a Debit card could significantly increase the number of people involved in Digital Assets, as more and more people turn away from using cash and rely on debit and credit cards.

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https://coinnewstelegraph.com/crypto-debit-card...d-species/

Western Union Using Blockchain for payments

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

Western Union, with 500,000 branches globally and revenues of over $5.5 Billion, is a significant player in the international remittance market - charging 5% to 9.5% to process transactions.

The Global remittance market was valued by the World bank at over $613 Billion in 2018, an increase of 7% since 2017.

This means the very poorest workers i.e. cleaners, nurses, security guards, etc. in more developed countries who are sending money back to loved ones are paying up to $60 Billion in banking and foreign exchange costs p.a.
It is hoped that Blockchain technology will enable the same money transfers at a much lower cost.

Western Union has just announced a venture with TransferTo, which itself saw tremendous growth of over 900% in 2018, processing over $2 Billion of transactions. TransferTo has been using the Stellar Blockchain (as used by IBM). This venture allows Western Union to start digitising its remittance business, which ought to allow it to compete with many of the FinTech firms we are seeing being established, using Blockchain technology, offering similar services.

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Financial Services

https://bitnewstoday.com/news/western-union-par...lockchain/

LSE researcher claims central Banks could initiate a Bitcoin rally

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

London School of Economics (LSE) research associate Dr Garrick Hilemanbelieves that central banks stockpiling Bitcoin could result in the coin rising in value.

Given the low of volatility in Bitcoin prices currently, as seen below, and the fact that Bitcoin finally seems to be consolidating above $4,000, are we about to see the much-heralded next leg up in Bitcoin prices?

Source :https://bitvol.info

There has been much talk of the next global recession being imminent. Which may explain why the Russians, amongst others, are stockpiling gold thus resulting inJanuary 2019 seeing the net biggest monthly accumulation of gold for central banks since January 2002.

Further evidence of a potential recession has been the yield curve in theUS inverting i.e. short term interest rates are now higher than long term rates - historically a predictor of recessions. Another indicator followed by many is the Shiller ratio, which seems to be showing that S&P 500 stocks are not cheap:

So where do central banks invest? Could Crypto Currencies like Bitcoin be seen as a hedge - an alternative asset for them to hold ahead of the next economic downturn?

Interestingly over the last four years, Bitcoin continues to have a better Sharpe ratio (adjusted return) than many other assets. A fact that will not have been lost on many!

As a sign that Bitcoin’s fortunes are beginning to improve, OKeX, a Maltese Digital Asset exchange, recently reported that it had turned over$2.4 Billion in a day and over 56% of its traders are now long of Bitcoin!

If Central banks start accumulating Bitcoin and we see a rise in its price this will significantly help many of the 5,200+ Digital Assets which have been issued, as many of them were funded by investors using Bitcoin.

Therefore, a rise in the value of Bitcoin ought to inflate the price of many other Digital Assets and help improve their balance sheets...

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/201...03ad57380b

UPS to use Blockchain technology for its new B2B e-commerce platform

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

United parcel Services (UPS), a global courier company established in 1907, which had revenues of over $64 Billion in 2017, has been looking at Blockchain technology for a while.

In Q3 2018 it joined The Blockchain in Trucking Alliance as it looked to improve transparency and efficiency among consumers, merchants and other parties that use its services.

UPS had filed for a patent in August 2018, which involved storing information dispatch to destination, creating a shipment plan, including payments, using Blockchain technology.

UPS’s Airline subsidiary, said at the end of December 2018, they were still looking for a “Killer App”, so not looking to implement Blockchain technology in the near future. However, UPS has now announced that it has entered a partnership with Inxeption to create Inxeption Zippy. A Blockchain-based e-commerce platform which helps merchants set up, sell, and ship products online.

The B2B e-commerce market is set to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023, according to Forrester research. This new platform will offer manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers the ability to create their own branded e-commerce website .

The platform enables the listing, marketing, and selling of products. According to an official press release the Blockchain component of this platform is designed to safeguard sensitive information such as individual pricing and negotiated rates.

A good example where Blockchain will be implemented without consumers realising the technology is being harnessed, yet they will be able to enjoy the benefits of greater efficiency and data security.

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https://www.coindesk.com/ups-targets-business-s...blockchain

Ratuken to roll out a Digital Asset Exchange in April 2019 - Amazon next?

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

Ratuken, the Japanese online trading giant with over 14,000 employees valued at over $15 Billion, has announced that it will be launching a new crypto exchange platform.

Rakuten is also launching its mobile application platform, Rakuten Pay. This will have an integrated cryptocurrency payment option, along with fiat, meaning its customers can pay in fiat or use Digital Assets.

Meanwhile, Amazon has registered domain names AmazonEthereum.com, AmazonCryptocurrency.com and AmazonCryptocurrencies.com. How long will it be before they start accepting Digital Assets, or indeed launch “AmzCoin”?

Amazon has just entered a new partnership with World Pay, which in turn were recently acquired by a US Fintech firm who have a close relationship with Ripple.

Like Facebook has the critical scale and global reach to successfully create its own Digital currency, and bypass much of the banking system.

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https://www.coindesk.com/e-commerce-giant-rakut...o-exchange

Borse-Stuttgart exchange with Axel Springer launches a Digital Asset Exchange

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

Germany’s second-largest stock exchange, Borse-Stuttgart, will the biggest shareholder in an exchange it has launched with Axel Springer and its subsidiary Finanzen.net.

Axel Springer, based in Germany, is Europe’s largest digital publisher with a turnover of over of 3 Billion Euros will bring its digital marketing expertise to the venture and potentially gaining access to Finanzen’s 3.45 Million client base.

The new crypto platform will focus on combining investment information and a blockchain-based trading platform and help Borse-Stuttgart to fulfill its stated objective to build an end-to-end infrastructure for Digital assets.

As well as comprehensive information and the ability to trade Digital Assets it is expected that this new platform will also offer custody services, also available for retail and institutional clients.

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Digital Marketing

Digital Exchange

https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/borse-stuttgar...-platform/

Smart Cities: Ikea tests solar power & blockchain on a miniature wooden village

BBFTA News Editor | April 01, 2019 | PERMALINK

In an effort to help homes become both greener and energy producers Ikea are testing solar panels on the roofs of a miniature wooden village, built to 1:50 scale and incorporating Blockchain technology.

The concept is designed to track and improve the traceability of electrical power that a building is able to produce, for ‘microgrid” tokens.

The mock up energy self-sustaining model village is powered by solar panels enabling, households to sell any excess electricity or indeed able to buy some from their neighbours, if required, through a Blockchain. All of the buildings are hardwired together to create a microgrid for energy sharing and trading in what Ikea claims is a fully scalable model.

According to a report by Mckinsey, “By 2020 the number of smart cities will reach 600 worldwide, and 5 years later almost 60 percent of the world’s GDP will be produced in them. Digital technologies could become the engine of economic progress, and blockchain, without a doubt, could be one of them”.
A number of countries are already exploring similar ideas. China has already set plans in motion to create hundreds of smart cities by 2025, to support its growing population.

Estonia has started integrating Blockchain technology into many of its government services, including its legislative processes, healthcare and ID and energy data management.
Meanwhile, Dubai has created it’s ‘Smart City Initiative’ which aims to transform the city into the world’s first Blockchain powered city by 2020.

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Digital Technology

https://businessblockchainhq.com/energy-blockch...olarville/

How Long Before Twitter Starts Offering TwitCoin?

BBFTA News Editor | March 29, 2019 | PERMALINK

Sometimes when you look beyond a headline you discover some interesting relationships that may not be obvious initially.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, also co-founded Square who offer payment services for small businesses and mobile payments solutions. Square Payments in 2017 invested $25m into Eventbrite, which itself did an IPO last year. Square are now hiring crypto engineers. Jack Dorsey’s co-founder at Square is Jim McKelevy, who is, incidentally, an independent director of the St Louis Federal reserve.

Meanwhile,Jack Dorsey is increasingly vocal about his support and interest in Digital Assets, admitting to buying $10,000 of Bitcoin a week, and believes that we are not far from seeing mass adoption of Cryptocurrencies by the public.
So it is not too big a leap to see Twitter and possibly Eventbrite in the not too distant future both licensing, using, being involved in Square’s Crypto payment offering - and follow Facebooks foray into Digital Assets?

More evidence of West Coast US firms looking to target the lucrative banking and financial services world that east coast American companies have dominated for decades?

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Financial Services

Smart Contracts Target the $2.3Trillion Letter of Credit (LC) International Market

BBFTA News Editor | March 29, 2019 | PERMALINK

Singapore based Incomland, set up in 2016, have created a company called LC LITE using Blockchain technology to tackle the inefficiencies prevalent in the LC market.

It is claimed that up to 80% of LC documents have discrepancies and the administration of documentation can cost up to twenty percent of the actual cost of shipping goods. LC LITE are looking to use Smart Contracts so that importers and exporters will be able to agree on terms up front and so replace the current LC agreements manual processes. It is hoped that this will simplify and quicken the inefficient processing of documentation while reducing the number of intermediaries, this improves cash flow for importers and exporters while improving security and reducing fraud.

One of the challenges of using Smart Contracts is that many lawyers believe that they are neither Smart nor are they Contracts, all they are in effect a software program and therefore not backed by law.

However, different jurisdictions are reviewing Smart Contracts, this so this stance may change. Luxemburg has recently passed a law to enable the use of Blockchain technology in financial services which is claimed to mean that transactions created digitally using a Blockchain will have the same legal status and protection as those done through traditional means.

This new law in Luxemburg could encourage Blockchain savvy businesses to move to Luxemburg and help it strengthen its position as one of Europe’s largest administrator for the European asset management sector.

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International Market

https://zycrypto.com/blockchain-companies-will-...uxembourg/

UK’s Sixth Largest Energy Company Acquires Stake in Blockchain Powered Electron

BBFTA News Editor | March 28, 2019 | PERMALINK

Ovo energy Ltd has just invested in Electron, a company that uses Blockchain technology in its distributed gas and electricity platform as the UK moves to a more intelligent power grid.

There is no centralised register of all the electricity and gas meters in the UK. Because of this, it can take two to three weeks for a customer to switch their utility services from one utility to another. Electron aims to reduce this time from days to “mere minutes”.

There is increasing demand from households to use electricity from renewable energy sources and corporates too, as they try to reduce their carbon footprint. Therefore, there is a need to be able to track the provenance of the power supply and generation, which is an ideal use for Blockchain technology, offering transparency and traceability.
According to recent research from Infoholic Research LLP, the use of Blockchain globally in the energy market is expected to expand significantly. The market was calculated to be $210million in 2018, and is expected to grow to be worth $3.4billion by 2024.

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https://www.rttnews.com/2986080/uk-s-ovo-energy...?refresh=1

Russia Clamps Down on Cryptos While Other Governments Embrace Them

BBFTA News Editor | March 28, 2019 | PERMALINK

The Russian government has said , without notice, they intend to restrict Crypto exchanges and websites that focus on giving information on these assets.

This reversal of Russia's stance on Cryptos is surprising. It was less than a month ago that Russia announced they were looking at launching their own OIL back Digital Currency.

Meanwhile, the Republic of San Marino, have drawn up formal guidance on how they wish to regulate Digital Assets and have categorised tokens as either utility or investment tokens. Companies that want to issue tokens will need to publish a white paper as well as an executive summary in a non-technical language ensuring any advertising and information about the token is accurate and not misleading.

San Marino recognises that Initial Coin Offerings can help SMEs raise capital, and have proposed certain restrictions. For Non-Public offers they may only have a maximum of 150 investors, raise up to €8 million (same as existing European Crowdfunding regs) and the minimum investment per person is €100,000. Such a high minimum investment will restrict such offerings to only the very wealthy.

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https://blockchainflashnews.com/blockchain-decr...an-marino/

The Challenges of Opening a Bank Account if You Deal in Crypto

BBFTA News Editor | March 27, 2019 | PERMALINK

A judge in Israel has ruled that Union bank, the sixth largest in Israel, that closed the bank account of a crypto mining company was unreasonable.

“I believe that the sweeping policy, which does not distinguish between different types of activity, scope of activity and different types of customers — in the field of digital currencies — is unreasonable.” – Judge Bibi said.

This highlights the challenge for business that are involved with Cryptocurrencies obtaining a bank account, yet governments, including Israel’s, are talking and in some cases actually offering Digital Currencies, so will using these state-backed Digital currencies also trigger banks to close customers’ accounts?

There is still a perception that while dealing in Cryptos is not illegal as it is largely unregulated it attracts the criminal fraternity. However, is there a deeper reason for this reluctance to be involved with Cryptos in that Banks are genuinely worried about the potential threat posed by Cryptos. Does this explain why Bitpay which processed over $3Billion of transactions in 2018, and Kraken, one of the largest exchanges in the world, both had their bank accounts closed last year?
It is not all gloom and doom Signature Bank in the U.S., Bank Frick in Europe and Clearbank in the UK all offer Crypto banking facilities. There are also FCA regulated companies in the UK, like Baanx and Global Block who will accept Crypto exchange them into Fiat and then transfer the Fiat proceeds to firms.

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Financial Services

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03...ccounts

ICOs and STOs are Illegal in China, if You Promote Them You Will Be Punished

BBFTA News Editor | March 27, 2019 | PERMALINK

This was the message reported from China this week as they confirmed that they are cracking down on organisations raising capital via Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and Security Token Offerings (STOs).

It was only in December 2018 that Beijing’s Municipal Bureau of Finance said “The ICO (initial coin offering) model is getting left behind for a new concept called STO. I want to issue a warning to anyone considering running an STO in Beijing,” Xuewen said. “Don’t do it in Beijing – it is illegal. You can only engage in such activities with the approval from the government.” Government approval, what does this mean?

This is at odds with recent promotion of a book on Crypto assets on a Chinese state-run TV last month that reportedly has an audience of one billion. The presenters telling viewers that Crypto assets could be one of the best investments they could ever make.

It was only in December 2018 that there were rumours that the People’s Bank of China was looking at ways to create its own cryptocurrency. It apparently thought this type of digital asset could replace Bitcoin and perhaps even the U.S. Dollar.
Given these conflicting messages, we spoke to GlenBit in Edinburgh that owns a Digital Asset platform powered by Japanese technology, as they have close contacts in China. GlenBit looked at various Chinese government websites and national publications and could find no mention of this ICO/STO ban. They did find an article on a well known Chinese website that follows Crypto news, called ‘Bi Hu’, which using Google translated this article https://bihu.com/article/1601678341 which said “After the ICO foam was broken, many countries began to ban ICO… Thus, a new form of new currency, STO, was born that will become the main mode to raise money for Chinese blockchain project”

Time will tell the actual stance the Chinese are taking…

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https://www.investinblockchain.com/china-says-i...ctivities/

Banks Feeling the Heat from Cryptos, Meanwhile More Retailers Accept them as a Form of Payment

BBFTA News Editor | March 26, 2019 | PERMALINK

The Basel Committee, who act as a global watchdog for banks, has issued a statement about the potential disruptive effect that Crypto currencies could have on banks.

Interestingly, JP Morgan said that "cryptos could be more of a partner than a threat to banks". It is difficult to see how Stablecoins, like the JPM Coin will make money for JP Morgan, although potentially the bank’s new Quorum platform could be licensed to third parties as an alternative to other blockchains. This is because Quorum does not have transaction fees, and third parties i.e. miners do not have access to trades prior to them being publicly available which is a major problem for public Blockchains like Ethereum, Wave, Stellar etc.

Meanwhile, we are seeing more retailers in different countries accepting Cryptos as a way to purchase goods and services. In Switzerland, the online retailers Digitec and Galaxu are now allowing customers to use Bitcoin for purchases and Birks Group, Canada’s largest and oldest jewellery stores, announced that it had begun accepting Bitcoin at eight of its 30 stores. In Japan Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce website has intimated it will begin accepting Cryptos soon.

Starbucks however could prove to be an inflection point once they start to accept Cryptos which is rumoured to be in Q3 in 2019. In Australia, Binanace has established a venture with 1,300 newsagents to enable one to buy Bitcoin and closer to home in France you have for a while been able buy Bitcoin via a chain of tobacco shops.

A recent report from Finer, see below, found that 8% of Americans own Cryptocurrencies but discovered there multiple reasons why the other 92% do not own a Crypto.

The whole user experience on engaging and using Digital Assets needs to be made much easier and simpler to ensure more people start using them on a day today basis.

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Financial Services

https://www.watson.ch/digital/schweiz/801431165...rev=search

BlockFi - 6.25% p.a. if You Deposit Ether or Bitcoin, Gathers $35M in Two Weeks

BBFTA News Editor | March 26, 2019 | PERMALINK

It was only at the beginning of March we bought your attention to a New York-based company called BlockFi who are offering 6.25% a year if you deposit your Bitcoins or Ether with them.

Before you ask who actually has control of the Cryptos, well it is Gemini Trust, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss who act as custodians, thus BlockFi does not have access.

While 6.25% looks attractive, you may want to read these thoughts on Twitter who point out the potential concerns and risks you could be exposing yourself to...

There is an old expression - all that glitters is not gold. Innovation in the sector is welcomed, but Caveat Emptor – Buyer beware.

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https://www.cryptonewsz.com/blockfi-booms-as-in...eks/12075/

Millennials are More Digitally Engaged, Want to Use Blockchain to Make a Difference Not Just Make Money

BBFTA News Editor | March 25, 2019 | PERMALINK

The Blockchain Education Network (BEN) now has over three thousand students, in sixty countries - established to slake the thirst for more information about Blockchain.

Students, and for that matter governments, are increasingly looking beyond the hype of ICOs of using Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies to make money, and are looking at how the technology can impact society in a positive manner.

BEN is a non-profit organisation for students, whose aim is to help build a world that is more open by encouraging better technical skills and understanding around Blockchain technology. Students who’ve been involved in BEN have already gone on to help build successful Digital business likeAugur, one of the first decentralised apps using the Ethereum Blockchain, currently worth $1Billion.

Global firms are also using Blockchain for education reasons. PWC has developed Smart Credentials using Blockchain to record educational qualifications that can be stored and verified, so reducing the time it takes for them to check and screen candidates. Recording such personal data needs to be done with care, especially in the light of GDPR regulations. Which is why it is public Blockchains are unlikely to be used rather than permissioned ones.

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Information Services

Information Technology

Nonprofit Organization Management

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonmccauley/201...7c4bb76f04

Insurance Giant AXA to Provide Insurance for Crowdfunding and STO Investments

BBFTA News Editor | March 25, 2019 | PERMALINK

AXA XL, Europe’s second-largest insurance company, who made $2.6 billion profit in 2018, has announced that it is partnering with New York-based Assurely, an Insurtech startup, to offer insurance cover for firms that are involved with Crowdfunding and or Security Token Offerings (STOs).

The new product is called CrowdProtector and provides issuers protection against investor complaints and lawsuits so investors may get their principal investment returned should the issuer misuse the funds, purposefully misrepresent information in their offering documents, or steal the money.

This is significant as institutions, as part of their due diligence process, look for issuers to have insurance arrangements in place prior to investing. Historically investing in small businesses and start-ups had largely been the preserve for wealthy investors and specialist funds. However, with the advent of Crowdfunding and now STOs smaller investors are able to get access to what are often start up companies, so this insurance cover is welcome to potentially offer protection to these often less sophisticated investors.

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https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2019/03/145396...wdfunding/

Tokenisation of Real Estate

BBFTA News Editor | March 22, 2019 | PERMALINK

There are a number of companies that are working on projects to tokenise Real Estate as it is believed that using a Digital Asset, they can offer fractional ownership (a share/a unit) of a property or a property fund.

The ability to trade tokenised property 24/7 on an exchange is touted as a way to improve liquidity for the property sector. Investing in property tends to be for the very wealthy or for institutional investors, given property values and the illiquid nature of buying and selling buildings and the fact that investors tend to buy and hold real estate for a number of years.
Asset managers have for years offered ‘funds’ to encourage investors to gain exposure to the property sector, but often these funds have restrictions when you come to sell and this can result in some of them trading at a discount to their actual value of the properties they hold.
Swiss firm Blockimmo now claim to be the first in Europe to launch tokenised real estate. If Real Estate tokenisation does create greater liquidity and allow 24/7 trading so attracting new investors, we will likely soon see tokenisation of existing real estate portfolios, raising new funds to invest in this asset class.

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https://150sec.com/swiss-startups-pioneer-euro...ale/10687/

Paxos Having Launched a US$ Stablecoin Now Focus on a GOLD-backed Coin

BBFTA News Editor | March 22, 2019 | PERMALINK

They say ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’... We’ve had gold-backed currencies for thousands of years.

The UK’s Royal Mint itself, a thousand years old, was by far first out of the blocks in the modern, digital, era, until RMG (Royal Mint Gold), until it was ‘paused’ at the last minute. This was followed in May 2017 by a firm in Dubai aiming to sell 12 million coins worth over $550million. However, Paxos, who claim to be the first new trust company in America created since the 2008 financial crisis, raised $65million in May 2017 and now run the fourth largest Stablecoin by market capitalization worth $113m.

Paxos is now using their experience to launch a Stablecoin, later this year, which will be backed by gold deposits held in a vault - allowing traders the ability to trade gold 24/7, currently not possible. Paxos also plans to expand the use of its service to tokenise and asset type, including stocks and bonds “to move assets and settle transactions more quickly and securely and with lower fees”.

In the same way, we have recently seen BitBond in German tokenise bonds and Nivaura and GlobalCap in London.

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http://fortune.com/2019/03/11/gold-cryptocurren...lockchain/

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