Fintech Daily Digest

Singapore-based BondEvalue today announced that it has been approved to enter the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) Sandbox Express to launch a blockchain-based bond exchange. The platform will offer a unique proposition to reduce the minimum investment amount of bonds to US$1,000 via BondbloX.

FATF published its draft guidance on digital identity Thursday, for governments, regulated entities and other stakeholders to enforce anti-money laundering (AML) and counter financing terrorism (CFT) regulations.

One entity on the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex appears capable of sending the price of Bitcoin higher when it falls below certain thresholds, according to University of Texas Professor John Griffin and Ohio State University's Amin Shams. Griffin and Shams, who have updated a paper they first published in 2018, say the transactions rely on Tether, a widely used digital token that is meant to hold its value at $1.

"We analyze the new UFR proposal in more detail in this article. Whilst the introduction of the new method would currently lead to lower funding ratios, it should also make it easier for pension funds to stabilize their UFR funding and interest rate hedging ratios over time."

The Malta Financial Services Authority has received Letters of Intent from 34 prospective VFA Service Providers, 21 of which pertain to crypto-asset exchanges.

Tawanda Kembo, the founder and chief executive officer of the once flourishing Golix crypto-exchange is said to be claiming to have lost the password for a cold wallet back in May 2018 which had 33 Bitcoin. This translates to just over US$250 000.

"While it is clear that crypto-assets undergoing technical and economic trials bring about opportunities to improve our payment systems, they can also bring material risks to our payment systems which, if unaddressed, might introduce new sources of fragmentation, instability and fraud. In that context, beyond contributing to the adaptation of the regulatory framework to address those risks, central banks may contribute further in revisiting and possibly improving the conditions under which they make available central bank money for settlement purposes. "

CBDCs should be available offline and function wherever cash is currently used, with 73% of respondents requiring CBDCs to be available under all circumstances. More than 20% prefer decentralised systems to improve resilience.

MoneyGram is planning to expand its partnership with Ripple, for which it utilizes its product On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), formerly known as xRapid that leverages digital assets XRP for transactions.

Telegram, the messaging app company turned blockchain startup, has released an early desktop wallet for its "gram" token. Now users can download the test app for MacOS, Windows and Linux 64 bit on Telegram's official website and get their keys on the TON testnet.

Crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has accidentally leaked user emails by forgetting to use blind copy (bcc) on a mass email.

The rise and popularity of stablecoins is subjecting the crypto world to mass cognitive dissonance.

Legacy wires (Swift) still dominate the cross-border landscape because it has the greatest reach. 68% of organizations' cross-border payments are done via Swift wire transfers. 80% of survey respondents report that some percentage of their organizations' B2B transactions made by cross-border payments are done via Swift.

Crypto credit has expanded too quickly and is headed for a blow-up, says a group of former Wall Street traders who are now seeking riches in digital assets. A near $5 billion industry has emerged from nothing just two years ago and the number of loan platforms is rapidly proliferating.

The Association of German Private Banks has presented a position paper advocating the establishment of a European digital currency and a common identity standard across the Eurozone.

Although the U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency, the U.S.'s ability to apply strong and effective sanctions has very little to do with the U.S. dollar itself.

MBK, a Tokyo-based and Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed merchant bank, has signed a deal for the tokenization of property in Estonia.

CME Group has just published the specifications for its upcoming bitcoin options contracts. Each contract would be based on one of CME's bitcoin futures contracts (five bitcoin); the contracts would be quoted in U.S. dollars per bitcoin with a tick size of $25 (or $5 for reduced tick sizes).

Overstock's security token platform tZERO and the Tezos Foundation have partnered on a project that will tokenize £500 million in planned real estate development financed by U.K.-based Alliance Investments.

Bitfinex could very well be the victim and there could be many others, although not enough information is available yet to certainly say if they were indeed victims or not, but it would seem highly likely. At the same time, it's interesting that this is only coming to light now and did not make more noise when it actually occurred or rather noticed. You would think with such a large amount of money someone would raise the alarm much sooner.