Fintech Daily Digest

For now, PwC can audit eight tokens, including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Each cryptographic requires its own audit tool given the different blockchains they use, Weinberger said, one reason it took so long to design the technology.

Neutral's stablecoin basket instrument has added a new layer or reliability and security to the space. By combining stablecoins together, represented by one overarching coin, Neutral reduces the overall risk exposure to one individual coin's volatility and can produce a more stable token that fluctuates more closely to the intended value.

Martin Wolf: "At worst, the world might have a Facebook-dominated mono-bank. The risks of that are huge: potential monetary and financial instability, concentrated economic and political power, lack of privacy and many other issues."

The U.S. SEC is kicking off the public comment period for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by bitcoin and Treasury bills proposed by Wilshire Phoenix Funds to be listed on the NYSE Arca exchange.

The Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on Facebook's Project Libra on July 17. The Senate Banking Committee will hold its own hearing on the social media giant's crypto project the previous day.

The U.S. CFTC has cleared LedgerX to offer physically settled bitcoin futures contracts. Unlike the cash-settled futures listed by the CME, when the contract expires, the buyer will receive bitcoin rather than the fiat equivalent.

This book addresses core components of crypto-assets within the Maqasid al-Shari'ah to understand Shari'ah cryptocurrency and its practical mechanisms, and establishes a Halal alternative model of crypto-asset management within the Maqasid al-Shari'ah.

"A wider use of new types of crypto-assets for retail payment purposes would warrant close scrutiny by authorities to ensure that that they are subject to high standards of regulation. The FSB and standard-setting bodies will monitor risks very closely and in a coordinated fashion, and consider additional multilateral responses as needed."

Thomas Moser, alternate member of the Swiss National Bank governing board, suggested that Facebook's recently announced cryptocurrency project, Libra, is not ruffling any feathers with the regulator ("I think it's an interesting development and I'm pretty relaxed about it").

Economist Stephen Moore, who recently lost out on a bid to join the board of the Federal Reserve, is joining the "Decentral" algorithmic stablecoin team. Decentral bills itself as "the world's decentralized central bank."

JPMorgan Chase is to start trials of its "JPM Coin" cryptocurrency in conjunction with corporate clients.

While there have been incredibly successful crypto projects that have leveraged either a capped or uncapped sale, several prominent crypto projects such as the Algorand Foundation are turning to a Dutch Auction for their token distribution with the hopes of bringing more transparency to the process.

Fitch ratings believes that Libra represents a step toward a potentially viable cryptocurrency. It incorporates and improves upon elements of existing blockchain technology, while resolving certain inherent drawbacks, such as price instability and governance challenges. Libra also seems to be designed with regulatory acceptance and lawfulness in mind.

La Banque de la République d'Haiti is considering a pilot to create a digital version of the Haitian Gourde, aiming to improve the domestic payments system and promote financial inclusion in Haiti.

Libra's main stated mission is to service the world's poor and unbanked. Facebook's source for the 1.7 billion figure is the World Bank's Global Findex Database 2017. Findex also believes that 1 billion of these have mobile phones and 500 million have internet access. However, Findex also says that over half of the 1.7 billion come from just seven countries: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan. More than half of these are in places where cryptos are banned, Facebook can't freely operate, the country is under heavy FATF restrictions, or it faces other limitations.

It is easy to imagine a scenario in which rescuing Libra could require more liquidity than any one state could provide. Recall Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis. When the government announced that it would assume the private banking sector's liabilities, the country plunged into a sovereign debt crisis. Next to a behemoth like Facebook, many nation-states could end up looking a lot like Ireland.

Facebook's announcement speaks to progress about private measures used to facilitate exchange, along with acknowledgement that money is best and most circulated when its value is broadly agreed to thanks to stability of the value. The Libra has the potential to mark the start of something because if widely used, it will open the eyes of the global population to a truth about money: it works best when its value is stable, plus it needn't be a government creation.

The BIS report's key point is that the entrance of big tech into finance promises all sorts of efficiency and financial inclusion gains - which is a good thing - but those gains mustn't come at the cost of other things like privacy, financial stability and market competition.

The job description gives some specifics on Facebook's ambitions regarding the future developments of Calibra, including expanding to online and offline commerce and eventually lending and personal financial management.