Ripple Will Usurp Swift As The Preferred Banking Network

Blockchain-powered startup Ripple is emerging as a formidable competition for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Technology or SWIFT.

By focusing on payment services and cross-border money transfer as well as partnering itself with many of the traditional financial institutional who are not afraid of new and innovative financial product, it has manage to position itself to disrupt the relatively stagnant banking ecosystem.

Despite many banks still looking into SWIFT for cross-border settlements, its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse believes that his company offers a substantial advantage that will become more apparent over time as cryptocurrency and blockchain grow mainstream.

In a recent interview, the business executive believes his company was able to gain market share rapidly due to financial firms looking for a faster and more modern alternative to SWIFT.

In contrast to SWIFT, Ripple uses blockchain technology to ensure the security of money transfers which cuts out intermediaries.

In doing so, Ripple was able to provide cost-savings and improve efficiency while giving the same amount of security without passing through layers of bank protections which is seen as inefficient and too slow.

U.K. Based Exchange Gets Offer From Canadian Holding Firm

A Canadian holding firm has recently revealed its plan to acquire a U.K.-based crypto exchange.

GoverMedia Plus Canada plans to acquire EXMO crypto exchange as indicated in a signed letter of intent (LOI).

This enables GoverMedia to exclusively negotiate the transaction within the next 180 days.

Once the transaction is consummated, the merged business will conduct the business of EXMO exchange and will be listed on a stock exchange.

The deal will comply with all necessary legal and regulatory requirements and the final structure of the agreement will be finalized by both parties.

Roland J. Bopp, CEO of GoverMedia, reveals that after the completion of the acquisition the combined business of the two organization will lead to over 2 million active users.

Currently EXMO is the 47th largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world with a daily trade volume of about $26 million according to CoinMarketCap.

There has been a trend of many existing traditional businesses acquiring crypto related firms.

One notable instance is the acquisition of a Belgium based Investment firm NXMH of Bitstamp which is widely considered as one of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Europe.

On the other side of the world, Bithumb one of the largest exchange in Korea has recently been bought by a Singaporean consortium for around 400 billion won or US$352.5 million.

Congressman Wants to Remove ICOs Oversight From U.S. SEC

According to news reports a congressman has recently filed a bill that will effectively remove the regulatory powers of U.S. SEC from ICOs.

The bill proposes that ICOs be treated as products rather than as securities at the federal and state level.

The initiative aspires to seal bipartisan support for the bill but would likely encounter opposition to Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives due to the deregulatory impulse of the project.

There has been a growing call coming from Washington and the wider cryptocurrency community for regulatory clarity from SEC.

Some experts suggest that SEC should take a light handed approach to the emerging industry so as not stifle innovation.

In response, the US SEC has created Fintech Hub, a strategic hub for innovation and financial technology.

However conditions widely remains the same as there are now clear set of regulations that deals with the nascent sector.

The main proponent of the intiative Ohia Congressman Warren Davidson has hosted a crypto roundtable devoted to regulation with 45 representatives from major Wallstreet firms, crypto projects as well as other law makers.

The roundtable calls for more clarity in cryptocurrencies regulations coming from US SEC.

New Crypto Fund Sees A Bright Future For Crypto

Circuit Capital, is a cryptocurrency fund that is scheduled for launch early next year.

Its CEO, Eugene Ng believes that too many people are focusing in the current market slump that they have not notice the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies by consumers and investors.

The company created an index to measure mainstream adoption of blockchain projects.

This has enabled the company to see that adoption is growing and people are looking to scale crypto businesses.

According to its CEO talent and institutional infrastructure in moving into the space

There have been many signs that support the claims of Mr. Ng. Coinbase, Circle and Blockchain as expanded their platform to cater to institutional class investors.

Wallstreet heavy weights like the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) via its subsidiary Bakkt and Fidelity investments have shown interest in the space by providing crypto-related infrastructure that can serve their customers who wants to exposure for the emerging asset class.

On the other hand a lot of talent coming from traditional financial sector has turned to crypto and blockchain-related firms for their careers.

The heightened interest for blockchain and cryptocurrencies by institutional investments has yet to reflect on the price movements of the cryptomarket who has suffered a massive correction after reaching astronomical heights in late 2017 and 2018.

It was believed that the massive bull ran was catalyzed by retail investor’s FOMO.

In this same token a lot of retail investor lost money due to the said corrections that could last to several months to years.

However, when the bulls return everyone is sure that the necessary infrastructure will be in place.

No More CryptoKitties Gen 0 Soon

One of the first cryptocurrency collectible digital asset, Cryptokitties has indicated that they will stop the process of Gen 0 kitty minting at the end of November exactly 1 year after minting the first ever crypto kitty.

Many believe the Dapp has helped bring mass adoption in some point to Ethereum but has also unintentionally revealed one of the networks weaknesses: Scalability and Cost of transaction during networks congested periods.

With the news it will definitely make Ethereum Gen 0 collectibles a whole lot rarer.

This means this is the last change to buy Gen 0 kitties that possesses special traits not seen in other gens. Gen 0 kitties have the fastest breeding cool downs and the only way to breed Gen 1 kitties.

The last of these Gen 0 kitties will be given away in contest alongside a rare kitty collectible.

Dapper labs the company that spun off from Axiom Zen and the company launched cryptokitties and the current owner of their image, lineage and DNA rules has recently manage to attract additional venture funding to the amount of $15 million.

According to its CEO Roham Gharegozlou the evolution of true digital ownership and the interoperability of smart contracts creates new ways to consumers, creators and platform providers to interact completely peer-to-peer without intermediaries.

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