Fintech Daily Digest

North Korea is in the early stages of developing its own cryptocurrency. The goal is to avoid international sanctions and circumvent the U.S.-dominated global financial system.

SpaceChain isn't the first blockchain project seeking to go extra-terrestrial -- far from it. There have been a whole host of projects competing to advance blockchain in space, like Nexus, BitSpace, Spacebit, to name but a few.

"The sophistication that blockchain technology and smart contracts bring will lead to huge operational cost savings and the opening of new untapped markets."

Crypto payments service Alchemy launched its Hybrid Payment Solution, allowing merchants in Asian and Middle Eastern markets to easily accept bitcoin and crypto payments.

Binance is now explicitly positioning its Venus localized fiat-backed stablecoin project as a government-friendly alternative to Libra.

Consumer watchdog Which? reported that one in 10 free cashpoints across the UK have closed or switched to charging a fee for withdrawals. Poorer communities, which tend to rely more heavily on cash for payments, had been hit the hardest.

More than one in every 10 new accounts opened in the UK is now with a fintech firm, the report by payments firm Vocalink finds.

Modern money is crawling with nasty bacteria. It's not a public hazard, but scientists find that some currencies are particularly gross.

Clearing/margining make markets more tightly coupled: the need to meet margin calls within hours increases the potential stress on the funding markets. Unlike in the pre-Frankendodd days, there is no "fuck you" option when your counterparty calls for margin. You don't pay, you are in default. This tight coupling makes the market more vulnerable to operational failings.

"Libra has undoubtedly been a wake-up call for central banks to strengthen their efforts to improve existing payment systems. This by itself is undoubtedly a win-win situation for the global community. Progress made by those central banks already operating at the technological frontier can be expected to increase the speed of technological diffusion across borders."

The BIS and the HKMA have today signed an Operational Agreement on the BIS Innovation Hub Centre in Hong Kong. The Hub will identify and develop in-depth insights into critical trends in technology affecting central banking... Hub Centres will be set up in Hong Kong, Singapore and Basel, Switzerland, in the initial phase.

The second edition of the Global Enterprise Blockchain Benchmarking Study provides new insights into the current state of the enterprise blockchain ecosystem. The study gathers survey data from 160 start-ups, established companies, central banks, and other public-sector institutions from 49 different countries worldwide. The empirical analysis specifically focuses on enterprise blockchain networks that have entered in production.

People with less knowledge about cryptocurrency are the most likely to be positive on its future, according to ING, based on a survey of about 1,000 mostly Europeans.

This Circle Research report identifies innovative work by the technical community on developing and experimenting with sustainable governance and funding models and the analytical community on creating innovative ways to evaluate crypto networks.

Cboe BZX Exchange withdrew its VanEck/SolidX bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) proposal on September 17.

If the United States is smart, it will wake up and start competing for dominance in digital payments. The shortest cut to a system to rival Alibaba and Tencent is called Libra, the digital currency proposed by Facebook, which, with its 2.4 billion active users, is uniquely positioned to create something on a Chinese scale, and fas

Wells Fargo is developing a USD-linked stablecoin that will run on the firm's first blockchain platform. "Wells Fargo Digital Cash" will be used in a pilot initially for internal cross-border settlement across the company's global network.

Switzerland's FINMA has made it clear that a) all applicable AML/KYC regulations would have to be observed, and b) a payment system license from may not be enough.

Hedera Hashgraph, a new public blockchain network that claims to be faster than Ethereum and Bitcoin networks, has launched its mainnet beta for the general public. Hedera also offers smart contract and file services, and both are currently throttled to 10 transactions per second.