Author: CVJ.CH Content Partner BeInCrypto

Global payments giant PayPal has enabled customers based in the United Kingdom to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrencies. Starting this week, United Kingdom-based users of PayPal will be able to access crypto trading services within the platform. It’s the first expansion of the payment giant’s crypto services since the services were first launched in the United States in October 2020. Speaking to CNBC, Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s general manager for blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies said “It has been doing really well in the U.S.,” before adding “We expect it’s going to do well in the U.K.” The service…

The leading mortgage lender in the U.S., United Whole Mortgages, has announced a plan to accept bitcoin (BTC) payments. The company is excited to offer crypto options for mortgage payments before anyone else in the country. This past week, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) revealed its plan to accept BTC for payments. CEO Mat Ishbia said these plans should come to fruition by the end of the year. If so, this would make UWM the first major nationwide mortgage lender to offer such a service. According to the CEO, the rollout for crypto payments should begin later this quarter or sometime in the…

Through a new partnership with Vogel company Anycoin Direct, Dutch professional football club Philips Sport Vereniging (PSV) will become the first club in Europe to have its entire sponsorship paid out in bitcoin. According to a press release from the club, “With sights set on the future, PSV decided to use the service of Anycoin Direct in a unique way. The entire sponsorship amount will be paid in bitcoin.” Anycoin Direct is a European cryptocurrency broker and will be the official partner of the team over the next two seasons. The goal for the pair is to “grow awareness of crypto and Anycoin…

Circle, the issuer of the popular stablecoin USDC, has announced that they want to become a licensed bank in the United States. Accordingly, the company has filed an application with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to a post on Circle’s website by Founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, the company has begun the process of becoming a full-reserve national commercial bank. The bank would operate under the watchful eye of the Federal Reserve, U.S. Treasury, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Allaire believes that digital banking could change the…

Bitcoin is famous for being a disinflationary currency. Its total circulating supply is capped at 21 million and can never be altered. Although many have discussed the reasons for instituting a maximum cap, few know about why Satoshi chose the number 21M as the benchmark. Luckily, we have many documents from the early days of Bitcoin to better understand this question. For starters, the total number of satoshis/sats in circulation (21M BTC x 100,000,000) is an IEEE floating-point number. This makes computation far easier which is why these numbers are commonly used in computer operating systems. Easier computation with 21 million…

The United States Congress has been having trouble deciding on a new infrastructure bill over debates on cryptocurrency regulation. It originally aimed to offset additional costs caused by the bill through stronger enforcement of tax laws in the crypto industry. Update 10.08.21: The amendment to the bill did not pass unanimously in the Senate and thus will be discarded. This means that the Senate and House will vote on the original version of the infrastructure bill. The actual implementation is estimated to be in 2023. The U.S. Congress’ decision on the highly anticipated infrastructure bill is undergoing some delays because…

France’s stock market regulator, the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), has put forward new proposals that could result in more oversight authority for the crypto market. The organization published a notice on July 13, saying that it had published main proposals as part of the European Commission’s consultation on supervisory convergence. The proposals offer a broad take on what the AMF would like to do in terms of supervision and regulation, but crypto could form a significant part of the change. It described the aim of the proposal as allowing the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) “a greater role…

German regulators have given institutional funds the permission allocate part of their portfolios toward crypto investments, according to new policies. This is another step forward in the already crypto-friendly DACH region. Up to one-fifth of funds targeted at institutional investors can now be allocated toward cryptocurrencies. German regulators still advise caution to asset managers when dealing with crypto and such volatile digital assets. The new rules came into effect at the beginning of the month. They align with Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority’s (BaFin) attempt to neutralize its stance on crypto investments. In the past, the financial watchdog stressed its concern…

The decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Compound has announced a treasury product for businesses and institutions. It will allow large clients to earn a fixed yield of 4% per year – far more attractive than yields in the traditional financial world. The DeFi lending pioneer made the announcement in a blog post on June 29, adding that the new Compound Treasury has been designed for non-crypto native businesses and financial institutions to access the benefits of the protocol. Compound stated that the protocol has performed flawlessly throughout the market volatility and has secured itself as a pillar of the DeFi…

Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary spoke emphatically of the need for digital transformation and confirmed that the region will conduct technical tests using the digital yuan central bank digital currency (CBDC) in 2022. Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po, in a director’s essay published on the department’s website on June 27, said that the organization would begin technical tests for the digital yuan. Led by the idea of “keeping abreast of the times”, Mo-po began his essay by saying that he was aware of how the Chinese public were enthusiastically using consumer vouchers and discounts from e-wallets. This motivated him…

The two South African brothers behind the crypto investment platform “Africrypt” have disappeared along with 3.6 billion USD in bitcoin bought with investors’ funds. Regulators in South Africa are now looking to take action following what might be one of the world’s biggest crypto frauds. Two South African brothers, Ameer and Raees Cajee, have reportedly disappeared, taking 3.6 billion USD worth of bitcoin (BTC) with them. The incident would make it one of the world’s biggest incidents related to cryptocurrencies. The total amount that’s been recorded as stolen is 69’000 BTC. Alleged “hack” of the platform The two brothers were…

Andrew Abir, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of Israel, has started to issue digital shekels as the first step of an internal CBDC pilot program. Internationally this is nothing new, the majority of central banks have started experimenting with digital currencies. The idea of the digital shekel has been kicked around since 2017 but Israel decided to put the development of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) into high gear. As reported by The Jerusalem Post, the pilot test was announced by Andrew Abir at a conference of the Fair Value Forum of IDC Herzliya. According to Bloomberg, the…

Within the next five years, hedge funds plan to significantly increase their exposure to cryptocurrencies, according to a recent survey. Quite a few of them have already invested into crypto, even though the more traditional funds still remain rather sceptical. Fund administrator Intertrust conducted a survey of 100 chief financial officers of hedge funds managing $7.2 billion globally. According to the results, executives expect to hold an average of 7.2% of their assets in cryptocurrencies by 2026. If found to be representative, this could amount to a total of about $312 billion of assets in crypto. Meanwhile, an additional 17%…

After a boom in decentralized financial applications (DeFi) regulators are increasingly looking into the young subsector of the crypto industry. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chief has talked about DeFi in a critical manner and mentioned that some apps might be illegal. Commissioner Dan M. Berkovitz of the US CFTC made comments on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) during a keynote titled “Climate Change and Decentralized Finance: New Challenges for the CFTC”. Putting DeFi in the same category as climate change emphasizes how serious policymakers are taking what they might perceive as a threat to their own financial system. DeFi…

Applications for US Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are piling up as new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler weighs his options. Applicants include established financial services providers, so far the SEC hasn’t approved anything though. So far, about a dozen Bitcoin ETF applications are awaiting approval from the SEC. Firms that have submitted them include Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Grayscale, WisdomTree and others. Behind them are a small but growing amount of Ethereum ETF applications, including those submitted by VanEck and WisdomTree in May. The SEC has already rejected several Bitcoin ETF applications and recently delayed deciding on another.…

US President Biden’s administration has been briefed by Treasury Department officials about the risks brought about by crypto currencies. Regulators in the United States have generally been working towards increased certainty in terms of a crypto framework. As the world of crypto currencies continues to grow and evolve, so do the challenges in mitigating the risks involved in digital assets. According to the Washington Post, the White House has been working with officials from the US Treasury Department to highlight and study the bigger issues surrounding crypto currencies and how best to tackle them. Federal regulators from the Office of…