Fintech Daily Digest

Cryptocurrency companies operating in Germany will need to apply for licenses if they intend to keep working legally in the country next year.

Key characteristics of Move and How it differentiates with Ethereum from a developer's perspective...

After surveying 1,799 U.S. adults, a Civic Science study found only 5% of expressed some level of interest in Libra.

The Swiss Confederation has much clearer crypto regulations than the United States, which has done little since the birth of Bitcoin to simplify the regulatory complexities lying in wait to bite any company looking to establish a crypto or crypto-related business within its confines.

Despite all of the advances in digital custody, the industry will need to wait for the appropriate legislation to define what digital custody is and what it entails.

Peru's race to evolve its legal system and adapt to the challenges of a "crypto society" has only just begun. The country's Superior Judge, Bonifacio Meneses Gonzales, has asked Congress to regulate crypto to combat money laundering.

The much-awaited Government of India report on blockchain and virtual currencies promises a massive boost to the blockchain sector in India, but delivers a fatal blow to bitcoin, Ripple XRP, ethereum, and other crypto-currencies through the proposed "Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019".

The US SEC and FINRA have left broker-dealers and the operators of digital asset trading platforms treading water with the joint guidance regarding the custody of digital assets the regulators released earlier this week.

In testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Facebook subsidiary Calibra CEO David Marcus stated that consumers would be provided with the necessary tools to report their taxes, but added that Calibra does not currently have processes in place to directly provide that information to the IRS. However, Mr. Marcus noted, Facebook "would be happy" to work with the IRS to ease the consumer burden.

While Libra project supposedly has 28 founding partners, according to Visa, who is one of them, only nonbinding letters of intent to join Libra have been signed, so no one has yet officially joined. I've read elsewhere that also, no one has anted up the $10m minimum stake.

Libra has not responded to an information request by the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, looking for more details to help define its oversight role over the proposed digital currency.

The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on digital currency and blockchain on July 30, though it is unclear if this would be a fact-finding mission or if any specific pieces of legislation would be discussed.

Genesis Global Capital, the lending arm of institutional OTC crypto trading firm Genesis Global Trading, added $746 million of crypto loans in the second quarter, bringing its total originations to $2.3 billion since launching the business in March 2018.

While Finance Watch is open to technological progress in this area, we have identified several specific concerns with the Libra proposal based on an initial analysis of the Libra White Paper.

Berlin-based Fundament has received BaFIN's approval to issue the first tokenized real-estate backed bond that can be widely offered to individual investors, a EUR 250m offering.

"Our results show that effective governance institutions are associated with a less restrictive regulatory stance on cryptocurrency, whereas financial openness is not found to be significant. The results imply that a certain level of institutional quality may be necessary before opening up to new forms of financial technology. As cryptocurrency is recognized as a risky speculative financial instrument, its current state of many unknowns can prevent policy makers from conducting a thorough surveillance to avoid system-wide vulnerabilities."

ESMA has concluded that, based on the evidence gathered, that at present most innovative business models can operate within the existing EU rules,

Binance will list Binance GBP Stable Coin (BGBP) and open trading for a BGBP/USDC trading pair at 2019/07/23 4:00 AM (UTC).

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) could solve the "competition issues" in the cryptocurrency sector, according to a study requested by the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh recently announced that his government will use cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions levied by Israel.