Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Exchanges news
- Japanese crypto exchange GMO Coin is on the verge of releasing a stablecoin, reports Coin Post. The token, named GMO Japanese YEN (GYEN), needs to gain regulatory approval before release, per Japanese law. Regulations in the country stipulate that all stablecoin tokens must be approved by the nation’s financial regulator. However, GMO believes it has now all but convinced the regulator about the GYEN, and hopes to issue it in June.
- Bitfinex and digital asset custody provider Koine have launched an institutionally oriented post-trade service meant to enable investors to mitigate counterparty risk, as well as the use of private keys in the clearing and settlement of cryptocurrencies. Per the press release, Koine customers gain access to a post-trade solution from a business licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, while Koine customers who have an account on Bitfinex will be able to obtain a line of credit on the platform using crypto held with Koine.
- Binance has announced the launch of their new Binance Leveraged Tokens (BLVT) on May 14. The announcement says that they will simultaneously list the first pair of leveraged tokens, BTCUP and BTCDOWN, with BTCUP/USDT and BTCDOWN/USDT trading pairs.
- An amended investor lawsuit has been filed against BitMEX and its founder Arthur Hayes. Per this amended complaint, an additional plaintiff named Elfio Guido has been added as the second seed investor in BitMEX, so the total equity rights amount claimed has risen from USD 50 million to USD 90 million, and punitive damages have increased from USD 250 million to USD 450 million. A BitMEX spokesperson told Cryptonews.com: “We will address these claims through the proper legal channels and will not comment beyond that.”
- 16,959 people have filed claims for the remaining assets of failed crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, totaling USD 167 million-USD 300 million, depending on whether the assets are valued at February 2019 prices or at current prices. Quadriga’s bankruptcy monitor, Ernst & Young, say that they continue to receive and process claims, but that the volume of new claim submissions has slowed considerably.
Crypto adoption news
- Berlin-based crypto bank Bitwala said it partnered with major crypto lender Celsius and launched Bitcoin Interest Account that offers “rates up to 4% or even higher.”
- The Kakao Group’s chat app-linked crypto wallet Clip is set to launch next month, with competition “hotting up” for partner companies hoping to integrate their products and services with the new wallet. The app has over 50 million active users, the vast majority of whom live in South Korea. Per Fn News, leading social media platforms, food distribution and gaming partners are hopeful of making their dapps available on the platform when it launches in June.
- US-based Bitcoin ATM provider CoinFlip has announced that it is opening crypto trading services to new audiences with the launch of CoinFlip Preferred. According to the press release, CoinFlip Preferred offers buying and selling cryptocurrencies through a personalized cryptocurrency concierge service, with the minimum transaction size of just USD 5,000, compared to USD 100,000 minimum by many other over-the-counter (OTC) trading services.
Blockchain news
- Blockchain-powered cherry farming appears to be in full swing in China, per media outlet ChinaEmail. Farmers in Fumin County, in Yunnan Province, have begun making use of blockchain technology in an initial 3,000 acres of cherry farms, which will help farmers make more informed choices about planting schedules. Producers will also be able to sell their “blockchain cherry”-branded produce with scannable QR codes, which will provide customers with information on fruit types, farms, harvesting, batch data and place of origin.
- South Korea’s Gangwon Province says that it will launch a pilot program for a healthcare platform that will help monitor and provide aid to people suffering from cardiovascular diseases. The province’s health authorities, per ET News, say that the new platform makes use of blockchain-powered remote healthcare protocols, authentication systems and artificial intelligence-powered health data analysis and prediction. The province added that it has teamed up with a number of healthcare and blockchain partners for the new platform.
Stablecoin news
- Following a governance poll that decided the shutdown, the MakerDAO community has officially shut down the Single-Collateral DAI (Sai) system, worried over its liquidity issues, with the protocol transitioning to the Multi-collateral DAI (MCD or Dai) system. MCD was activated in November last year.
Crypto tax news
- The US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is allegedly looking for third-party contractors to help with calculations of transactions made by cryptocurrency users. Per the blog post by crypto tax software firm CryptoTrader.Tax, the IRS sent the firm a letter with a Statement of Work, saying that it’s engaging outside contractors to assist them in calculating taxpayers’ gains or losses as a result of virtual currency transactions, and that they’re placing a few single-case contracts as pilots, aiming to publish a solicitation and request for proposal for a larger multi-case contract. CryptoTrader.Tax says it won’t pursue the contract.