Fintech Daily Digest

In a little over two weeks, Hedera Hashgraph's HBAR cryptocurrency has dipped from a high of $0.36 cents to around $0.03 as of press time. The blockchain-like network's CEO now says he will re-evaluate the token's economic model and potentially change HBAR's distribution schedule to give the company time to reassess.

Coinbase customers can now earn interest on their USDC stablecoin holdings at a 1.25% annual rate, paid out on a monthly basis.

Like the European Union, Facebook's Libra Association has 28 members, and both organisations face defections in the coming weeks. Brexit could be accompanied by Vexit and Mexit, according to reports.

Policy executives from the Libra Association have been summoned to an October 3 meeting in Washington DC, and on the 14th representatives from the companies are slated to meet in Geneva to review a charter for the Libra Association and appoint a board of directors.

Mexican central bank's real-time payment system CoDi (Cobro Digital, Digital Charge) went live on September 30. Use of the payment system, which uses QR codes or NFC, requires a smartphone and an account at a financial institution.

Ripple's Xpring is launching a platform it says makes it possible for developers to integrate fiat and cryptocurrency payments into any application.

One of the key selling points of Facebook's Libra project was that it would prove a boon the world's 1.7 billion-strong unbanked community. Over in Africa, however, the humble mobile phone has been fulfilling such a role for the past 20 years.

Visa Inc., Mastercard Inc., PayPal Holdings Inc. and Stripe Inc. are undecided about formally signing onto Libra's organizing charter because they're concerned about maintaining positive relationships with regulators who have reservations about the project, the people said.

US banks are future-proofing by actively investing in fintech startups. In 2019 YTD, US banks have participated in 24 equity deals to fintech companies. This follows a record 2018, where US banks backed 45 equity deals to fintech startups - a 180% increase from 2017.

For anyone working in the digital assets space - be it cryptocurrencies or asset tokenization - the question of how the custody industry can evolve to support digital assets is still unresolved. The starting point perhaps should be: What do we actually mean by digital custody?

The paper presents data on regulatory sandboxes and innovation hubs and argues that the data so far available does not justify the statement that regulatory sandboxes are the most effective approach to building FinTech ecosystems.

Switzerland is more worried about cryptocurrency projects developing outside official scrutiny than about the Facebook-conceived Libra project, which is being handled with openness, the head of Swiss financial supervisor FINMA said on Tuesday.

UK-based digital banking app Revolut announced a major partnership with Visa to expand its services globally across 24 new markets, including North America.

"There is a need to update antitrust laws for the Digital Age, introducing better analytical tools to take into account the impact of potential and nascent competitors, and to deliver enforcement that protects competition on the merits, and prevents exclusionary conduct."

The Venezuelan government is activating cryptocurrency payments methods to circumvent the international restrictions imposed on it.

LedgerX executives claim the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is treating them unfairly - because of a blog post.

Ethereum briefly passed Bitcoin in one key area last week: total daily USD-denominated transaction fees. In fact, Ethereum miners collected more in fees than Bitcoin miners on this past Saturday and Sunday too, according to Coin Metrics.

The bitcoin market bloodbath has continued, with BTC testing the $7750 support on Thursday (September 26). It all began on the 25th, with the spread widening on BitMEX and futures contracts getting continuously liquidated....

There is a rift emerging in the crypto sector.  California's AB 1489 (the "CA Act") which is modeled on the Uniform Law Commission's (ULC's) Uniform Regulation of Virtual Currency Businesses Act (the "Model Act") seeks to regulate companies engaged in virtual currency business activity.  Not everyone is on board.

TABB Group director of fintech research Monica Summerville looks at the developing regulatory framework for cryptoassets and the future of tokenization.