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In the enterprise platforms space where the development and the results outcomes usually happen slowly and over a few years, the blockchain ecosystem is moving at a blazing speed. Alongside the other popular segments of the crypto and blockchain space like exchanges, wallets and custodian services, the enterprise blockchain platforms are seeing a lot of investments which will help deliver products and go-to-market rollouts faster. Overall, it's net positive for the blockchain space as the technology matures and proves itself indispensable in solving real business problems.

The aim of Blockchain 4 alliance is to facilitate innovation and bring long term benefits to society by applying disruptive blockchain technologies to the space industry, from smart contracts and data tokenization through to secure data storage and communications protocols.

DeFi (decentralized finance) encompasses anything that provides loans, borrowing, staking or some reward to the user for putting in capital to the system. It removes all the layers of intermediaries and middlemen that would normally be involved through the use of smart contracts. The DeFi space remains heavily reliant on the Ethereum blockchain (which has famously struggled to scale to onboard mass users). However, once Ethereum transitions to ETH 2.0 using the Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, the number of users it can onboard will be potentially without limitation. Moreover, other serious contenders are further building out the space, such as Compound, and Maker DAO, propelling DeFi to more and more users.

The New York State Department of Financial Services announced a techsprint initiative to convene regulators and industry stakeholders to work towards a common goal of Digital Regulatory Reporting, which aims to give regulators instant access to data provided by firms under their supervision. The techsprint's first area of focus is virtual currency companies due to their advanced digital capabilities operating in this space. This techsprint will be the first of its kind in the virtual currency space.

Etonec and Mina Foundation will roll out a new zero-knowledge (ZK) proof-powered regulatory compliance tool for the decentralized finance (DeFi) and Web3 space. It will address gaps within the privacy and compliance space by providing know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money-laundering (AML) services on the Lumina DEX when it goes live later this year. The prototype is powered by zkApps, which enables private and compliant transactions. https://www.etonec.com/post/etonec-partners-with-mina-to-address-trade-offs-between-privacy-compliance-and-decentralization

According to Crunchbase, last year, financial services was the leading sector for venture investment, with at least $131 billion globally going into startups in the space. This year, the industry still ranks among the largest recipients of venture capital funding. However, investment to startups in the space has been dropping every quarter this year, with Q4 likely to be the lowest yet. Even with the steep year-over-year decline, financial services funding is still high by historical standards, and 2022 is on track to deliver the second-highest funding total of the past five years.

Japanese card payments network JCB, identity firm IDEMIA and Malaysia's Soft Space are exploring offline digital currency functionality. A first phase of the project demonstrated connectivity between existing card and payment infrastructures, and a potential [central bank?] digital currency, showing that current point of sale solutions don't need adaptation. The new phase will test using mobile wallets to transfer digital currency between them without an internet connection using near field communications (NFC). Another scenario will test the offline use of stored value payment cards that transfer digital currency via mobile phones using NFC to transfer funds. https://www.idemia.com/press-release/jcb-idemia-and-soft-space-launch-jcbdc-phase-2-pilot-trial-cbdc-offline-p2p-payments-2023-12-13

"We provide practical insights for investors seeking exposure to the growing cryptocurrency space. Today, crypto is much more than just bitcoin, which historically dominated the space but accounted for just a 21% share of total crypto trading volume in 2021. We discuss a wide variety of tokens, highlighting both their functionality and their investment properties. We critically compare popular valuation methods. We contrast buy-and-hold investing with more active styles. We only deem return data from 2017 representative, but the use of intraday data boosts statistical power. Underlying crypto performance has been notoriously volatile, but volatility-targeting methods are effective at controlling risk, and trend-following strategies have performed well. Crypto assets display a low correlation with traditional risky assets in normal times, but the correlation also rises in the left tail of these risky assets. Finally, we detail important custody and regulatory considerations for institutional investors."

Grayscale GBTC fund investors who had been buying in at a significant discount to NAV to position for its eventual exchange-traded fund (ETF) conversion, have been taking full profit post ETF conversion by exiting the bitcoin space entirely. Up to $3 billion had been invested into GBTC in the secondary market during 2023 in order to take advantage of the discount to NAV. If the previous $3 billion estimate proves correct and given $1.5 billion has exited already since the ETF conversion then there could be an additional $1.5 billion still to exit the bitcoin space via profit taking on GBTC thus putting further pressure on bitcoin prices over the coming weeks.

The European Central Bank (ECB) published its latest study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area (SPACE), which looks at the payment habits of consumers in euro area countries. It finds that cash remains the payment method used most frequently in shops, although its use is declining. The share of digital payments continues to increase, but at a slower pace, with cards still being the most popular method. The share of mobile apps is on the rise. Over half of euro area consumers prefer to use cards and other digital payment methods. However, a majority of consumers consider it important to have the option to pay with cash.

The 1859 "Carrington Event" produced so much geomagnetic activity that sparks flew from telegraph equipment. If it happened today, it could debilitate power in urban centers, cut off GPS, and put satellite communications at risk.

According to InWara's quarterly crypto space report the number of ICOs declined by nearly 60% dramatically during Q1 2019, but the number of STOs increased by 130%.

SIX chose Corda Enterprise because the technology was designed for a highly regulated space, and the flourishing open-source Corda ecosystem.

Cboe Futures Exchange is putting its bitcoin futures market on hold, citing a need to review how it approaches the space.

Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said hackers withdrew 7,000 Bitcoins worth about $40 million via a single transaction in a "large scale security breach," the latest in a long line of thefts in the digital currency space.

IBM and Microsoft have released new technologies focus on tackling the challenge of identity on permissioned and public blockchains respectively. The approaches are different but they give us a glimpse of how innovation is evolving in this space.

Facebook is working on a blockchain-based payment solution code-named Project Libra. What are the implications for FacebookCoin, the Facebook ecosystem, and the wider blockchain space?

Malaysia's securities commission has begun registering cryptocurrency exchanges after it started regulating the crypto space earlier this year. The first three crypto trading platform operators have been conditionally approved and given nine months to comply with registration requirements.

Neutral's stablecoin basket instrument has added a new layer or reliability and security to the space. By combining stablecoins together, represented by one overarching coin, Neutral reduces the overall risk exposure to one individual coin's volatility and can produce a more stable token that fluctuates more closely to the intended value.

"Crypto is alive and well these days, even if you reject the utopian predictions that it will somehow displace money as we know it. If we have had a hard time seeing the resiliency of the crypto space, it is because we are not used to thinking of futures that are radically different from the present. But those futures - for monetary institutions at least - now seem to be closer than ever before."