Fintech Daily Digest

Telegram has told its token investors that they are "surprised and disappointed that the SEC chose to file the lawsuit." Telegram says it has tried to communicate with the regulator and solicit feedback over the past 18 months regarding its TON blockchain project. In its suit, the SEC said it asked Telegram to respond to an administrative subpoena and it refused to do so. In part because of this refusal, the SEC said that it had no choice but to file suit.

"Stablecoin projects of potentially global reach and magnitude must meet the highest regulatory standards and be subject to prudential supervision and oversight. Possible regulatory gaps should be assessed and addressed as a matter of priority. "

GRM is a native currency of Telegram Open Network, a blockchain platform aimed at facilitating payments and hosting decentralized applications beyond Visa's scalability levels. The project is developed by Telegram, an open-source encrypted messenger, which boasts over 200 million users worldwide, into which TON will ostensibly be integrated into.

Bitcoin's status as an uncorrelated asset is about to be revoked, as a scarily close relationship to the price of avocados implies that the digital currency may be about to fall off a cliff.

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.

Boston Securities and Token Exchange, part-owned by Overstock's tZERO, is seeking U.S. SEC approval to launch an automated trading platform for publicly traded registered security tokens, with ownership records stored on the ethereum blockchain.

The US Internal Revenue Service has updated the main form individual US taxpayers use to report their income to include a question about cryptocurrencies.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission secured an emergency restraining order against the Telegram Group and its subsidiary TON Issuer for their $1.7 billion token sale.

Mastercard, Visa, eBay and payments company Stripe are dropping out of the coalition of companies Facebook enlisted to launch its Libra global cryptocurrency-based payments network.

EBay, Stripe and Mastercard are abandoning Facebook's cryptocurrency project Libra, the latest blow to the troubled effort that has drawn criticism from lawmakers and lost other early partners such as PayPal

U.S. CFTC, FinCEN, and SEC leaders issued a joint statement to remind persons engaged in activities involving digital assets of their anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT)obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA).

Aggarwal, Chainlink, Web3 Foundation and Hashed say their names were used without their permission on the OpenLibra slide deck presented at Devcon. The OpenLibra project aims to ensure that access to the Libra stablecoin and its technology remains free from corporate control.

UK-based Block Matrix is developing Bottle Pay - a new application that allows users to send and receive BTC using social networks. Users can send BTC to any of their connections regardless of whether they have a Bottle Pay account or not.

The Next Capital markets Union High-Level Group brings together European personalities recognized for their expertise in capital markets, digitalization and/or financial innovation and reflects the viewpoint of the real economy including SMEs, investors, financial intermediaries and market infrastructures. The members have been appointed by the Ministers of Finance.

Alipay has declared that it will be banning any transactions related to any cryptocurrencies. This follow's Binance's announcement that it is accepting fiat currencies through Alipay and WeChat, although the exchange is not working directly with WeChat or Alipay.

CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert believes ether is a commodity and falls under the CFTC's jurisdiction. He also anticipates ether futures trading on U.S. markets in the near future. Tarbert agrees with the SEC's previous guidance that bitcoin and ether are not securities.

One of the key issues addressed by the new IRS guidance is how to determine the cost basis of each unit of cryptocurrency that is disposed of in a taxable transaction (such as a sale). This is an issue because someone might buy bitcoin in multiple transactions over a span of years; when they sold some of it, it was unclear which purchase price to use for calculating taxable gains.

In 2016, Ghana's AgroCenta launched AgroTrade, an online platform that connects smallholder farmers in the staple food value chain to a wider online market. The start-up provides access to truck delivery services and real-time market information via SMS and IVR. Building on this platform, AgroCenta now enables farmers to receive mobile money, build their credit score and access financial services (like crop insurance) through its latest mobile product, AgroPay. AgroCenta has also set up a mobile money API integration partnership with MTN and Vodafone to pay smallholder farmers directly and seamlessly via mobile money through its AgroPay platform.

Russia's Central Bank sees no obvious need to issue a national cryptocurrency, said head of the regulator Elvira Nabiullina speaking at the Finopolis forum of innovative financial technologies.

Institutional investors still face a conundrum when deciding how to hold their crypto assets in custody, according to the results of an informal poll done by crypto-exchange operator Gemini.