Yoshitaka Kitao, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, has proposed Ripple partner with multinational companies in addition to financial institutions. His recommendation was partially influenced by Japan’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Kitao, also a Ripple board member, talked to reporters gathered for an SBI conference call on April 28. The CEO said that his lawyers would attend Ripple’s next executive committee and asked them to promote new partnerships with multinational corporations like Big Shosha, a Japanese trading company. "By adding multinational companies to the Ripple network and not just financial institutions we can expect [the …

A newly unearthed report from South Korea’s financial watchdogs has revealed the rationale behind the country’s 2018 crypto crackdown that played a featured role in ‘Crypto Winter’. Digital Today dug up the “2017 Anti-Money Laundering Annual Report” which showed the Financial Intelligence Unit had identified more than half a million crypto transactions in South Korea in 2017 related to illegal activities. The 519,908 crypto transactions were flagged by authorities as “suspicious” and the upswing in money laundering fuelled the national government’s decision to carry out a partial crypto crackdown in 2018. The report took several years to be made public, …

Bitcoin trading and transaction volumes surged at the pro-crypto Silvergate Bank in the first quarter of 2020. According to an April 29 transcript filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on its Q1 2020 earnings, Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume on the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) grew 75% over the previous quarter. SEN’s BTC transaction volume also increased 118%, with more than 31,000 transactions. As of April 2020, the bank is serving 850 digital currency-related clients including cryptocurrency exchanges and miners, custodians, and global investors. Though many holders saw negative returns from the crypto bloodbath, Silvergate reported “a fairly …

The Stellar Development Foundation, or SDF, has allocated $5 million to crypto investment app Abra. The company now looks to incorporate the Stellar blockchain into its platform, as well as develop Stellar-based products. "We believe Stellar’s platform is one of the most scalable and versatile cryptocurrency platforms available today," Abra CEO and founder Bill Barhydt told Cointelegraph in an email, adding: "That combined with a similar shared mission of democratizing access to financial services means that our companies are strongly aligned in our services roadmap going forward." The Abra investment is only the foundation's second financing move using its enterprise …

As the Ethereum community anticipates the long-awaited launch of Ethereum 2.0, users are also bracing themselves for a major systematic shift from a proof-of-work model to a proof-of-stake. As a reminder, in PoW networks, miners have to compete with one another to solve complex mathematical problems to validate a block. The first miner to solve the problem is rewarded with the block reward. Whereas in PoS networks, token holders (validators) need to “stake” or risk their tokens to validate transactions. Validators who verify honest transactions are rewarded with newly “minted” tokens but are punished (“slashed”) for allowing false or incorrect …

As the decentralized finance, or DeFi, industry continues to grow, the need for liquidity in cryptocurrencies is steadily increasing. DeFi startup Equilibrium has today expanded the supply of its decentralized EOS stablecoin, EOSDT, as a result of integrating Bitcoin (BTC)-powered liquidity. Equilibrium, a major multi-chain DeFi framework, has raised the EOSDT circulation cap from $70 million to $170 million, the firm announced on May 1. EOSDT integration with pBTC drives the liquidity flow This push became possible through EOSDT’s integration with cross-chain DeFi liquidity network pTokens, which enabled Bitcoin collateralization through pTokens’s BTC-pegged token, pBTC. Bitcoin is the biggest cryptocurrency …

Ethereum 2.0 has dragged its feet. But when it does finally ship, it could provide the “largest economic shift in society” — or so it’s believed. The launch of ETH 2.0 is tentatively penned for July, transforming Ethereum from a no-frills proof-of-work protocol to a fully fledged staking platform. After that, instead of competing against each other to solve puzzles, users who accrue the most wealth, or stake, will be in charge of validating transactions. It’s this fundamental development that some experts believe could catalyze a bull run for Ether (ETH). Among them is partner at MetaCartel Ventures DAO, Adam …

Major U.S. accounting firm Grant Thornton has announced a new platform for its clients to handle their intercompany transactions using the EOSIO blockchain. By doing this, they capture a small slice of an area worth $40 trillion annually. Grant Thornton’s new inter.x platform uses blockchain technologies to provide transparency for intercompany transactions, including real-time data-analytics monitoring transfer-pricing compliance and treasury management. A company representative told Cointelegraph that Grant Thornton had chosen EOSIO for "its speed, user experience and scalability.” While a spokesperson said it was difficult to put a dollar value on the firm’s intercompany transactions, the company reported $1.9 …

During Virtual Blockchain Week, Cointelegraph spoke with Caitlin Long — the founder and CEO of the upcoming bank that will service the crypto industry Avanti Bank & Trust, as well as the driving force behind regulatory changes in the state of Wyoming for allowing financial institutions to handle both crypto assets and fiat currencies. A Wall Street veteran, Caitlin Long ran Morgan Stanley’s pension solutions for a decade after holding a number of senior roles at Credit Suisse prior to transitioning to focus on the blockchain and crypto sector. Caitlin shared her perspective on the impact that the lack of …

Crypto analyst Mati Greenspan won the title of “father of the year” from the two hosts of Virtual Blockchain Week as he tended to his child while delivering a presentation to the virtual conference’s attendees. Greenspan explained that Bitcoin and legacy assets were more closely correlated than you might think in the wake of COVID-19. Resplendent in a sharp bowtie, the founder of Quantum Economics displayed the following graph “that shows what’s happening in crypto.” The following chart represents Bitcoin’s correlation with the S&P 500 on a range of 1 (perfect correlation) to -1 (inverse correlation). For crypto enthusiasts hoping …

The second largest bank in Japan will sign a deal with SBI Holdings to offer digital banking services available on smartphones. According to an April 27 article in the Nikkei newspaper, the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMFG) and SBI have launched the first steps towards a multimillion dollar agreement expected to conclude later this week, before Japan enters its Golden Week banking holidays. In June, SMFG will acquire a 20% stake in SBI subsidiary NeoMobile Securities, holdings worth several billion yen. By the end of this year, SBI will accept an investment from SMFG to create a new $1 billion …

Uphold, a digital money platform providing access to investments and payments using blockchain technology, has announced the expansion of its stablecoin offerings alongside the launch of a “Stablecoin Center.” The Center, according to the announcement, will offer access to six stablecoins in the platform, including four of the most popular in terms of market volume: Tether (USDT), TrueUSD (TUSD), USD Coin (USDC) and DAI. Uphold has also added coins from the Universal Protocol Alliance, such as UPUSD and UPEUR. Writing to Cointelegraph, Uphold’s CEO, JP Thieriot, praised the recent addition of stablecoins: “Stablecoins are inherently less volatile than cryptos being …