Daily Cryptocurrency Bulletin For Tuesday, July 30, 2019

General News

BitStamp, Europe’s largest crypto exchange,will soon offer funding denominated in British pounds after partnering with crypto brokerage BCB Group. 

Facebook’s quarterly report to states there are many barriers and risks that “may delay or impede the launch of the Libra currency as well as the development of our products and services, increase our operating costs, require significant management time and attention, or otherwise harm our business.” They also state “there can be no assurance that Libra or our associated products and services will be made available in a timely manner, or at all.”

Prime Trust, the Nevada-based financial institution, has launched a real-time and free settlement network for asset transfers among its clients, competing with similar services offered by crypto-friendly U.S. banks Silvergate and Signature. PrimeX, gives Prime Trust’s clients immediate access to funds when they trade cryptocurrency or fiat with each other. 

Smart Valor has become the first integrated exchange provider to launch in Switzerland, providing trading of four fiat currencies with Bitcoin and Ether. They exchange combines custody and brokerage features and will continue to add new currencies on a monthly basis. 

UnionBank has launched a payments-focused stablecoin pegged to the Philippine peso. The bank-backed cryptocurrency, PHX, is being implemented on UnionBank’s i2i platform.

US Capital Global, affiliate of private investment bank US Capital Global, announced a new tokenized venture fund with holdings in Coinbase, Bakkt, Nomics and Tagomi. The fund is overseen and developed by former SoftBank, Goldman, Wells Fargo and Google workers.

Cryptocurrencies 

Bitcoin

$9,514.22 USD (0.07 percent) is gaining huge support from Square Crypto. Square’s head of crypto, Steve Lee, claims they are completely focused on open-source Bitcoin development and not the publicly traded company’s specific products. Their work on Bitcoin Core is to boost crypto adoption. Meanwhile, the European arm of Japan-based crypto exchange bitFlyer has launched a Bitcoin buying and selling service aimed to be easier to use than spot trading exchanges. The service is not an order book and allows users to exchange BTC for euros, with a maximum of 20 BTC per transaction. Lastly, Fortaleza, Brazil’s fifth-biggest city, will let residents pay for transport with BTC by the end of 2019. 

Ethereum Classic $5.86 USD (-0.61 percent) Labs incubator officially announced its accelerator program to promote the development of products based on the Ethereum Classic network. Ethereum Classic Labs Accelerate is a program for funding and educating blockchain firms and communities creating products and services on its blockchain.

Tether $0.999562 USD (0.09 percent) is being bought by Chinese importers in Russia, with up to $30 million USDT purchased daily from Moscow’s OTC trading desks, according to a new Coindesk report. They use USDT to send large sums back to China, which has strict capital controls, as Bitcoin’s volatility has made its overseas transactions less appealing. The news comes as Justice Joel M. Cohen of the New York Supreme Court (NYSC) has ruled to extend the preliminary injunction in the ongoing case of Bitfinex and Tether’s parent company, iFinex, against the New York Attorney General (NYAG). Meanwhile, Tether is now running on a sidechain of Bitcoin’s blockchain after being offered on blockchain company BlockStream’s Liquid Network sidechain. 

– WN.com, Jamie Saarloos