Financial regulators in the U.K. have approved Digivault, the security token custody arm of digital assets group Diginex, to register as a custodian wallet provider. In an announcement from Diginex today, the firm said the Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA, had given the green light to Digivault to register as a stand-alone digital asset custodian in the United Kingdom. The move implies Digivault i in compliance with the financial watchdog’s rules on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism. According to the custodian, Digivault aims to “provide compliant and secure custody services to corporate and institutional investors in crypto …

Digital asset security infrastructure outfit Metaco has partnered with tech conglomerate IBM to utilize the latter’s cloud platform for enterprise-grade digital asset custody solutions. According to a press statement issued on Thursday, Metaco will leverage IBM Cloud and IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services for its digital asset orchestration system. The goal of the partnership is to provide adequate digital asset custodial services for banks and other highly regulated financial services firms looking to participate in the digital asset ecosystem across use cases like tokenization, custody, and transaction management among others. As part of the announcement, Metaco will reportedly utilize IBM’s …

One of the biggest trends in recent months has seen Bitcoin flow out of exchanges into wallets. Generally, this is interpreted as a bullish sign — indicating that investors are optimistic about further growth in cryptocurrency prices. But delve deeper, and there’s more to this than meets the eye. The crypto industry has grown immeasurably over recent years — making stars out of a number of exchanges. Platforms such as Binance and Coinbase now handle billions of dollars in trading volumes every day. With this come concerns that centralization is creeping in — and fears that major exchanges are becoming …

Decentralized finance platform Gnosis is now the third-largest holder of the Ether (ETH) coin supply. Gnosis’ multisignature storage solution, Gnosis Safe, received a deposit of 1,500,000 ETH on Thursday — worth over $1.7 billion at the time of the transaction. While a little over a month old, the vast majority of the ETH in the Gnosis safe appeared in the past 24 hours. Up until a few days prior, the address contained just 250,001 ETH. But a 600,000 ETH ($677 million) transaction on Wednesday, followed by Thursday’s, sent Gnosis from 32nd to third among Ethereum’s largest custodians. These two deposits …

A student has claimed to have found private keys accidentally HODLed starting as early as 2011 which will unlock more than $4 million in Bitcoin. According to a throwaway account from BitcoinHolderThankU, the Reddit user was able to cash out roughly $4.2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) after finding the lost keys to 127 BTC on Dec. 22, when the price of the crypto asset was in the $23,000s. They later liquidated the coins in the middle of the bull run. “I spent the next week figuring out how to safely and securely liquidate such a large amount of Bitcoin for …

EY, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee for the defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, has been asked to submit all of the exchange’s user information to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Court documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on March 24 detail the demand, which spans 750,000 documents on the exchange’s 115,000 customers. Canadian tax authority requests trove of QuadrigaCX user data “The Trustee has advised CRA that its intention is to simply produce a copy of the full EDiscovery Database, redacted only for the privilege, in response to the CRA Production Demand,” the document states. The requested data …

Where next for crypto custody? Financial institutions, regulators and investors are continuing to grapple with the issue of crypto custody. Hearing stories from those who are plugged into these discussions can offer valuable clarity to what lies ahead. The Crypto Finance Conference in the Swiss ski resort of St. Moritz, which is being held Jan. 15–17, is the perfect forum for lively debate and intelligence about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the industry in the 2020s. Speakers at the event will include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — the twins who serve as president and CEO of Gemini …

French hardware wallets manufacturer Ledger announced that its cryptocurrency management software Ledger Live now supports Ethereum (ETH) ERC-20 tokens. In a blog post published on Sept. 5, Ledger announced the version 1.14.0 of its Ledger Live software that now supports over 1,250 Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens. The update has already been released for both mobile and desktop versions of the software. More assets to be supported in the future The Ledger Live application allows users of the company’s hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano S or Ledger X to manage their devices and cryptocurrencies. The firm also promises to add support …

In a world where the global crypto community continues to face a growing number of regulatory hurdles with each passing day, the term “virgin Bitcoin” is starting to become more common among digital currency enthusiasts. However, it is of utmost importance to clarify what this term actually means and the significance it carries. According to Dave Jevans, the CEO of CipherTrace, virgin Bitcoins are essentially BTC tokens that do not have a transaction (TX) record associated with them. As a result of this, coins lack a defined attribution history, making them extremely useful for money launderers as well as other …

Global payment giant Visa has recorded its second investment in a crypto project by leading a $40 million funding round of Anchorage startup, according to a Fortune report on July 10. Visa has reportedly led the round along with major cryptocurrency venture capital (VC) firm Blockchain Capital to support institutional-grade crypto custody service Anchorage, which previously raised $17 million in an investment led by Andreessen Horowitz. In the new round, both the amount of Visa’s contribution and Anchorage’s private valuation were not disclosed, the report notes. Both Visa and Anchorage are founding members of Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, which was …

On June 26, about $1.2 billion in binance coin (BNB) has been transferred in 1.1 seconds with a $0.015 fee on the binance chain, reveals data published on WhaleAlert, a platform tracking significant transactions. Earlier today, CEO of major cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, warned that big transactions should be expected. He explained that the exchange intended to split its BNB cold wallet in multiple addresses. After the transaction took place, Zhao cited some data about its cost and speed: “This transaction: cost $0.015 USD in fees, took 1.1 seconds, and $1.2 BILLION in value transferred. The future is here.” …

Tim Plakas has left the major United States crypto exchange Coinbase to join the cryptocurrency bank founded by Michael Novogratz, Galaxy Digital, an anonymous source purportedly told The Block on May 28. Plakas’ departure follows four senior executive departures from Coinbase in approximately the last seven months. Plakas reportedly held the position of over-the-counter (OTC) trading head at Coinbase from July 2018 to January 2019, and will be joining the OTC team at Galaxy Digital. Novogratz’s crypto bank is a member of Crypto OTC Roundtable Asia (CORA) Network, a non-profit collective of companies that want to improve the Crypto OTC …