Three of the “big four” Australian banks are forming a new company called Lygon to digitize bank guarantees using blockchain technology. Bank guarantees are an official contract between a debtor and a financial institution. It ensures the debtor and the debt provider that the debt will be paid on time under all circumstances. The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corporation along with two other shareholders — the Australian shopping center company Scentre Group and technology behemoth IBM — are forming the company after a successful pilot last year. The last of …

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of market capitalization, is listing another token to support the growth of decentralized finance, or DeFi. Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), a new ERC-20 token pegged to the price of Bitcoin (BTC), is now tradeable on Binance, according to an Aug. 31 blog post by the exchange. As officially announced, Binance users can now start deposit WBTC as well as trade the token against Bitcoin and Ether (ETH). Introduced in 2019, Wrapped Bitcoin is an Ethereum-based token that represents Bitcoin, with one WBTC being equal to one BTC. WBTC is a joint initiative by …

Aave has emerged as a top DeFi protocol with $1.5B locked in its smart contracts. It has also become the first DeFi project to reach a $1B market cap and receive an Electronic Money Institution license from the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority. Aave recently launched its Aavenomics proposal to reward both liquidity providers and AAVE holders who are taking part in the risk position and keeping the protocol safe. Stani Kulechov, the CEO of Aave, told Cointelegraph in a phone call that the function that allows Aave token holders to stake into the Safety Model is reportedly to attract …

If Bitcoin (BTC) was born in response to the systemic failures laid bare by one global financial crisis, then the subsequent rise of various decentralized networks can be seen as differences in opinion on the best way forward. All are in agreement that the existing financial system is broken, but are slightly at odds in terms of how to fix it. In a sense, each of these networks represents a new, if partial, vision of what could make for a better system. For instance, we’ve seen Celo leverage cryptographic tools and mobile phones to put financial instruments into the hands …

Fidelity has filed for a Regulation D exemption with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, for a Bitcoin-based financial product. Known as the Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund, the product falls under the "pooled investment fund" category, according to the firm's Form D filing, dated Aug. 26, 2020. Entities can offer a financial security without the SEC's stamp of registration approval, as long as they file a Form D with the commission, according to information from the SEC's website. Peter Jubber, Fidelity's president, filed the Form D for the Bitcoin (BTC) index product, which touts a $100,000 minimum …

Messari believes that Yearn.Finance's YFI token is one of the least expensive in the DeFi space, according to its price-to-sales multiple. The metric is calculated by dividing a token's market capitalization by its annualized yield. In YFI's case, its capitalization at the time of calculation was $390 million. According to Messari, its annualized sales stood at $21 million. Dividing the two numbers, we get approximately 20x. For reference, the same ratio for CRV, another popular DeFi token, is 1568x, making it 78 times more expensive according to this ratio. DeFi Price-to-sales multiples. Source: Messsari. Messari noted that unlike many of …

As Russia is about to officially ban crypto payments within its borders starting on Jan. 1, 2021, Cointelegraph tracked down some senior executives in the crypto industry to talk about the implications of such a ban. Russia’s primary crypto opponent is Anatoly Aksakov, a member of the State Duma and a key architect of Russia’s crypto ban. In mid-August, Aksakov argued that legalizing crypto payments basically “means the destruction of a financial system.” Speaking to Cointelegraph, major global crypto figures like BitGo CEO Mike Belshe and Binance’s head of operations in Russia and CIS, Gleb Kostarev, concurred that payments in …

The latest upgrade to the Algorand network shows that the project is eyeing the burgeoning DeFi space. In a Cointelegraph interview, Algorand’s head of product Paul Riegle emphasized the three key features of this upgrade: the addition of stateful smart contract functionality to the base layer, “fast catchup” and “rekeying”. The Algorand team believes the new features make it a viable competitor in the DeFi space. He pointed out what makes Algorand’s stateful smart contracts different from its brethren on other platforms is their integration into the base layer, which allows them to run extremely fast: “They do it at …

Expobank, a commercial bank in Russia, has reportedly issued the country’s first ever loan backed by cryptocurrency. According to an Aug. 19 report by local news agency Kommersant, Expobank provided the credit through issuing an individual bank loan powered by Waves (WAVES) tokens. Waves CEO and founder Alexander Ivanov confirmed the news in a tweet, noting that the loan used Waves tokens as collateral. He told Cointelegraph that the firm is not currently working with any other banks in developing tools for securing bank loans with Waves open protocol. Ivanov added that Waves did not promote the protocol for this …

Huobi DeFi Labs has launched a global DeFi alliance, which is set to establish universal protocol standards for the DeFi space and improve communications within the DeFi ecosystem. The alliance will also conduct research on emerging DeFi protocols to help avoid future crises in the community. The alliance’s inaugural members are MakerDAO (MKR), Compound (COM), Nest (NEST), and dYdX (dYdX). In an interview with Cointelegraph, Huobi’s chief investment officer Sharlyn Wu said, “We have to partner with the entire ecosystem. But we want to work with the best of projects out there and make sure our users have access to …

Thailand’s central bank is looking at smart contracts and decentralized finance (DeFi) implementations for its national digital currency, the digital baht. Vijak Sethaput, senior developer for the Bank of Thailand’s (BoT) central bank digital currency project Inthanon, discussed the country’s CBDC progress in an interview hosted by a global think tank for central banking, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, on Aug. 13. Sethaput was joined by Sky Guo, CEO of New York-based enterprise blockchain firm Cypherium, which is focused on global CBDC implementations and interoperability. In the interview, Guo said that global jurisdictions can borrow from the DeFi …

South Korea’s Woori and Shinhan banks have just announced their intention to introduce “crypto-asset services”. That means that four of the country’s top five banks, holding a combined value of more than $1.2 trillion in assets, are now poised to introduce crypto services. Each of the banks aims to hold and manage cryptocurrencies for clients. Both Shinhan and Woori announced their plans in direct response to the amended Special Financial Transactions Information Act which will change legislation around crypto assets, coming into force next year. Shinhan bank previously announced plans for crypto storage in 2017, but these plans were thwarted …