Fintech Daily Digest

The humble DEX has come a long way since the days of Etherdelta, and the scope and quality of decentralized trading platforms has evolved greatly. As an examination of several new and emerging platforms shows, DEXs can finally hold a flame to CEXs.

Using Ripple's blockchain-based platform, Finastra users can now connect with the 200 partners on RippleNet, a global payments network utilizing XRP. RippleNet users also have access to Finastra's banking partnerships, which settle millions in transactions per year.

Binance has launched P2P trading functionality with BTC, ETH and USDT available for trading against Chinese Yuan. Access to P2P trading will be initially provided to Android users. We will slowly roll out this service to iOS and web interface users going forward.

Binance is set to add two more channels to its fiat gateway - WeChat and Alipay, allowing users in China to buy bitcoin with the two payment options.

Launched in mid-2018, we.trade is ahead of rivals like Marco Polo, a trade finance blockchain backed by TradeIX and R3 that's still in the pilot stage. The we.trade platform is now all about commercial adoption and it's taking a two-pronged approach: attract more banks and onboard more SMEs.

The US SEC has rejected a proposal to list the Bitwise Asset Management and NYSE Arcaa Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, because they did not meet the necessary requirements regarding possible market manipulation and illicit activities.

The US federal tax service's Revenue Ruling 2019-24 addresses common questions of taxpayers and practitioners regarding reporting crypto hard forks and airdrops.

FAT Brands, the parent company of franchises such as Fatburger, Bonanza Steakhouse and Ponderosa Steakhouse, in cooperation with digital securitization platform Cadence, is tokenizing a bond offering on the ethereum blockchain

Expanding on its guidance from 2014, the IRS is issuing additional detailed guidance to help taxpayers better understand their reporting obligations for specific transactions involving virtual currency. The new guidance includes Revenue Ruling 2019-24 and some frequently asked questions.

CFTC data shows a sharp increase in NDF clearing since July this year. September 2019 was a record month for the notional of NDFs cleared. BIS data shows that NDF markets doubled in size between April 2016 and April 2019. Is Phase 4 of the Uncleared Margin Rules accelerating the uptake of NDF clearing?

The Libra Association is thinking of radical approaches to reach the unbanked in certain locations, including a "step-ladder" approach to KYC regulations. The FATF said it is open to working with Libra about potentially building new forms of digital identity. Libra believes blockchain forensics firms like Chainalysis, Elliptic and Coinfirm will help strengthen the case for "tiered KYC" by monitoring wallet profiles and transaction histories. Non-profits in the Libra Association like the Kiva Foundation may play a key role.

Thirty different blockchain companies and nonprofit organizations plan to fork the Libra crypto project to build their own permissionless version, dubbed OpenLibra. OpenLibra will function as a stablecoin pegged to the actual Libra cryptocurrency.

Two U.S. lawmakers - Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii - have asked three payments giants Visa, Mastercard and Stripe to reconsider their partnerships with Facebook-led proposed stablecoin project, Libra.

UNICEF has launched a crypto fund to receive, hold and distribute donations of bitcoin and ether in its aim to back open source technology for children around the world.

Hong Kong's Insurance Authority announced on Tuesday that it has granted the first authorization for virtual general insurance under Fast Track. The license was granted to Avo, a local insurtech company providing products like health and travel insurance"

The Swiss Centre will examine the integration of digital central bank money into a DLT infrastructure. This new form of digital central bank money would be aimed at facilitating the settlement of tokenised assets between financial institutions. The project will be carried out as part of a collaboration between the SNB and the SIX Group in the form of a proof of concept.

In a letter filed to the New York State Supreme Court Tuesday, attorneys for Bitfinex, Tether and other affiliated entities wrote that a request made by the NYAG's office relating to a $900 billion loan between sister companies Bitfinex and Tether should be denied.

The cryptocurrency industry isn't replacing Wall Street just yet. But inventors and entrepreneurs are working on it, with some initial success, albeit modest. In this case, an option premium of 0.0202 bitcoin paid via a smart contract may have just become the proof of concept.

While nowadays there are multiple ways of bypassing MFA protections, the FBI alert specifically warned about SIM swapping, vulnerabilities in online pages handling MFA operations, and the use of transparent proxies like Muraen and NecroBrowser.

With BitSwing binary options users can take long or short positions on bitcoin's price within a one-minute time horizon.