Bitso, one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in Latin America, has hit 1 million users prior to its upcoming launch in Brazil. Santiago Alvarado, director of cross-border payments at Bitso, discussed the latest developments in leveraging crypto for cross-border payments in Latin America during a Unitize panel on July 8. The discussion was joined by Ripple’s director of product Craig DeWitt and Prysm Group’s Reed Cataldo. Bitso tops Argentinian market after launching in February During the panel, Alvarado revealed that Bitso reached a major milestone by hitting a one million user market last week. After topping Mexican and Argentinian crypto …

Monex Securities, a major Japanese online securities company, launched a cryptocurrency contract-for-difference service today. This marks the first time that a major online Japanese securities company has offered a crypto CFD. A CFD is a type of derivative in which the "buyer" of the contract pays the "seller" the difference between the current price of an asset and the price of that asset at a future date stipulated in the contract. According to a Monex announcement on July 8, the CFD is available for Bitcoin (BTC)/yen, Ether (ETH)/yen, XRP/yen, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH)/yen trading pairs. The leverage rate limit is …

SBI Financial Services, a subsidiary of Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings, has bought a $30 million minority stake in British crypto liquidity startup, B2C2. The investment marks the beginning of a strategic partnership between the firms as B2C2 is set to become SBI’s main liquidity provider. As announced on July 1, the collaboration is aimed to expand SBI’s crypto offering to millions of customers. B2C2 is intended to benefit from SBI’s distribution network as the London-based startup launches an electronic prime brokerage. A spokesperson at B2C2 told Cointelegraph that the investment is “one of the largest in the digital asset …

Bitcoin's (BTC) sideward price action of late has been a hunting ground where whales can easily liquidate misinformed traders on leverage trading platforms. Without decent swings, any asset can become boring. But let’s not forget BTC isn’t the only cryptocurrency out there, as several altcoins are currently staging somewhat of a comeback. However, there’s one coin that doesn’t seem to be having a good time lately, namely XRP, the fourth-largest digital asset by market capitalization. So, in today's analysis, I’m going to look at whether holding XRP is likely to be more fruitful than BTC in the short term. Daily …

Simon Dedic has beef with crypto rankings. The co-founder of crypto research house Blockfyre specifically suggests that five of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap don’t deserve their high-profile spot. In an inflammatory June 21 tweet, Dedic called out XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision, Litecoin and EOS and said he “can’t wait” until other assets replace them. Rather than simply kicking the hornet’s nest on Twitter and running away, Dedic instead stuck around to answer comments. Cointelegraph asked him to expand on his reasoning. “A better Bitcoin” Although Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV) and Litecoin (LTC) all …

Most XRP investors are “deeply in the red” according to Messari crypto analyst Ryan Watkins, using realized capitalization as the metric Watkins made the claim in a June 16 tweet saying that “XRP’s aggregate estimated cost basis is $1.38”, based on the realized cap of the cryptocurrency. As the current value of XRP is $0.19, this would mean token holders paid on average more than seven times the price. The realized capitalization of a token is a metric created by crypto analytics site Coin Metrics. It is calculated by valuing each unit of supply at the price it last moved …

American fintech firm Ripple has proposed a policy framework for regulating crypto in India amid local crypto uncertainty. In an effort to persuade Indian authorities to support fintech regulation and the growing crypto industry, Ripple issued a policy paper addressed to local legislators. India as a dominant use-case for cross-border payments and remittances Released on June 18, Ripple’s policy paper provides a number of recommendations for Indian policymakers, offering an overview of the global digital assets landscape and measures to adopt a new digital currency policy in the country. Titled “The Path Forward for Digital Assets Adoption in India,” the …

Days into his term as acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks spoke with Cointelegraph on how he hopes to update legacy systems with crypto technology. Brooks came to the OCC from a role running Coinbase’s legal team only months ago, which informs a great deal of what he identifies as areas for improvement. He took charge of the OCC only seven weeks later upon the departure of Joseph Otting. Regarding the role of crypto in conversations in Washington D.C., Brooks noted a sea change. The government is curious, which may partially explain his …

Cryptocurrencies forensics experts from Xrplorer warned on June 15 of an elaborate phishing scam where hackers try to steal the secret keys of XRP users, under the false premise that Ripple is giving away tokens. According to the report, the scam campaign, whose origin dates back to approximately January 17, 2020, began sending memo messages with minimal XRP amounts that said: “Starting February 1, 2020, Ripple is releasing 3 Billion XRP to incentivize network users. Get 25% more XRP added to your account balance in just minutes.” The scammers linked to a website inside the memo impersonating the Ripple’s Insight …

Despite the fact Ether is currently the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Japanese crypto holders may prefer to hold XRP. According to the results of a survey posted to Twitter by Japanese cryptocurrency exchange BITMAX on June 12, Bitcoin (BTC) is nearly as popular as the XRP token among traders in Japan. 25% of the 1,498 people surveyed told BITMAX XRP was their favorite coin, compared to 26% who preferred BTC. Ethereum (ETH) came in third at 9%. “What is your favorite coin?” BITMAX survey. Gold=BTC; Red=ETH; Pink=XRP; Blue=others It’s worth noting that the small sample size like that …

A report published by blockchain and AI investment firm Outlier Ventures has found a decline in developer activity of roughly 20% on average across 12 leading blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. In Outlier Ventures’ Blockchain Developer Report for the second quarter of 2020, the firm notes that development fell by half for top markets Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Eos (EOS), and Tron Tron (TRX). Despite the retraction in building, the firm notes that some signs of strong developer activity surrounding various crypto projects, with Theta (THETA) and Cardano (ADA) seeing increases in core code updates of 931% and 580% respectively. Top crypto …

Despite yesterday’s 8% crash in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) driving many BTC bulls from the markets, altcoin longs have only seen slight declines, with Ether (ETH) longs defying the trend with a slight rally test of recent all-time highs on Bitfinex. However, altcoin bears are quickly emerging from the woods, with shorts against many top altcoins piling up quickly amid Bitcoin’s recent drop. With many altcoin bulls holding on despite the increase in shorts, numerous leading crypto assets could see a surge in liquidations regardless of what direction the markets ultimately take. Bitcoin longs retrace heavily The BTC shake-out …