Day: August 25, 2018

Introducing our Institutional Core Principles – The Coinbase Blog

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Our mission at Coinbase is to create an open financial system for the world. We take this mission seriously: it’s the guiding light for every decision we make, and one of the reasons we recently launched a suite of products and services designed specifically for the needs of institutional investors. These offerings are bringing new capital into the space, facilitating more efficient price discovery and driving methods for safer storage — all of which helps move us closer to an open financial system. Today, we’re sharing a set of core principles that…

Is Coinbase a finance or a tech company? – The Coinbase Blog

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Team, At our last all hands meeting, an employee raised a great question: are we a tech company or a finance company? This question deserves a thoughtful answer, so I decided to lay it out here. Many of you have noticed that we share aspects of both. On the tech side, we have an engineering and product-led culture, tech company perks (free meals, kombucha on tap, etc), and we hire from many of the best tech companies. At the same time, we share aspects of financial services. We have robust…

UK Government Pilots Blockchain in Bid to Secure Digital Evidence

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The U.K. Ministry of Justice is investigating blockchain as a possible tool for securing digital forms of evidence, its deputy director said Thursday. The idea is that the technology can be used to simplify court processes for handling digital evidence, according to Balaji Anbil, who is also the head of digital architecture and cybersecurity at the Justice Ministry. The agency involved in the test is Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), and according to Anbil, a working group focused on the tech recently held its first meeting on the matter.…

Swedish Bank Inks Deal to Offer Crypto Fund Trading

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Stockholm IT Ventures AB (SITV), a blockchain startup based in Sweden, has signed a software license agreement with a local bank to deliver a crypto fund trading service. SITV announced Wednesday that its automation subsidiary, Blocktrade Technology, had signed the agreement with Valens Bank, according to a news release. The agreement, which is also the second between the two companies, stipulates that Valens Bank use “the BTT Crypto Trading Toolbox exclusively for Crypto Fund Trading.” The BTT Crypto Trading Toolbox allows professional traders to “actively manager their clients digital assets”…

SEC Says It Will ‘Review’ Bitcoin ETF Rejections

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said it will review the disapproval orders for nine bitcoin ETFs issued on Wednesday. As CoinDesk previously reported, SEC staffers rejected proposals from three companies – Proshares, GraniteShares and Direxion – in a triple-set of orders published late yesterday. Now, according to the letters, senior SEC officials will review those orders, though it’s unclear at this time when the review will be completed. As SEC secretary Brent Fields wrote in a letter addressed to NYSE Group senior counsel David De Gregorio: “This letter…

A Fight Is Breaking Out Over Bitcoin Cash – And It Just Might Split the Code

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With bitcoin cash developers at each other throats, the year-old cryptocurrency might just split into two. Created from a hard fork off the original bitcoin network after the scaling debate boiled over last year, bitcoin cash stakeholders seemed unified in their goal of boosting the cryptocurrency’s block size parameter in the hopes of attracting more users and enabling more transactions. But a few cracks started to pop up in this united front over the past year, as bitcoin cash developers had one technical disagreement after another. And a new software release…

UK Government-Backed Accelerator Will Sponsor Blockchain Startups

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Blockchain startups seeking to expand to the U.K. might find that now is a good time to do so. In its most recent update for entrepreneurs wishing to set up businesses in the U.K., the Department for International Trade announced that Entrepreneur First (EF), a pre-seed investment company, is now also funding blockchain startups. EF is one of the government-recognized organizations that can endorse firms for entrepreneur visas. According to the post, startups with “high growth potential” can apply for an entrepreneur visa to launch its business in the U.K.…

Alibaba Payments App to Step Up Scrutiny Over Crypto OTC Trading

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Ant Financial, the payments affiliate of Alibaba, is cooperating with Chinese regulators to scrutinize peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading on its Alipay mobile app. Beijing News, a media outlet administrated by the Communist Party, reported Friday that Ant Financial is beefing up efforts to monitor both merchant and customer accounts, as well as notable sites that integrate the Alipay gateway to facilitate over-the-counter (OTC) crypto trading. A spokesperson from Ant Financial told CoinDesk that “Alipay adheres to the principle of not providing services for virtual currency transactions,” adding: “We have been and will continue to closely monitor over-the-counter trading activities. If we find any transactions…

A Phone Call Could Change Ethereum’s Future – And It’s Happening Today

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Full details of the now concluded developer meeting can be found here. Miners, investors, developers and more. That’s a summary of the diverse set of ethereum stakeholders that will be in attendance at an upcoming developer call, according to Ethereum Foundation communication officer Hudson Jameson. Set to take place at 14:00 UTC Friday, the live-streamed meeting aims to address some of the platform’s most challenging questions ahead of its system-wide upgrade planned for October. As part of that upgrade, there are several non-contentious ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) already ready for testing, but also…

Chinese Regulators Blast Crypto Fundraising in New Joint Warning

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Regulatory agencies in China have jointly issued a warning against illegal fundraising and trading activities involving cryptocurrencies. The warning was issued on Friday by five high-level watchdogs: the People’s Bank of China, the Banking Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, and the State Administration for Market Regulation. It notably takes aim at cryptocurrency projects that set up operations using overseas IP addresses but solicit investment from Chinese residents and use mobile and internet payments tools to facilitate cryptocurrency trading. “Some of these projects tap…