The ECB will decide whether to proceed with digital euro pilots by mid-2021, Lagarde said.
It could be a while before European Union gets a central bank digital currency, if it gets one at all.
In a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg Television, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde laid out the complex decision-making process with which the bank will determine the future of a digital euro.
The ECB will soon release its analysis of eight thousand responses received from its digital euro consultation process. “That will be communicated to the European Parliament which is one of the key players as well as the Commission and the Council with which we operate,” she stated.
Based on that consultation, alongside the parliamentary work, the ECB’s Governing Council will decide whether the institution will begin experimenting with a CBDC by mid-2021.
Following an initial experimentation phase, the council would then hold a six-month or a one-year assessment on whether to roll out the digital euro, Lagarde stated.
“The whole process — let’s be realistic about it — will in my view take another four years, maybe a little more. But I would hope we can keep it within four years,” she said, adding:
“Because it’s a technical endeavor as well as a fundamental change because we need to make sure that we do it right. We owe it to Europeans, they need to feel safe and secure. They need to know that they are holding a central bank-backed [...] equivalent of a digital banknote. [...] We need to make sure that we’re not going to break any system, but enhance the system.”
Lagarde also mentioned that some financial intermediaries have expressed concerns about the ECB launching a CBDC. She said that these intermediaries will continue to co-exist with the new ecosystem as well as cash, which “will also continue to be available.”
Chinese banks will soon have access to a permissioned version of the Corda Enterprise infrastructure via the country's Blockchain Service Network.
Red Date Technology, one of the builders of China’s Blockchain-based Service Network, has obtained licensing rights from R3 to resell both the free and enterprise Corda implementations in China.
According to a press release by R3, the news marks the first occasion of the BSN developer being able to resell enterprise blockchain technology from an overseas company.
Since the R3 deal is with BSN China, developers will create a permissioned version of Corda to comply with Chinese blockchain regulations. Also, with banks reportedly being one of the likely users of the network, the country’s UnionPay cloud infrastructure will play host to BSN Corda notaries.
The partnership also offers an entry point for R3 into the Chinese market following the company’s significant expansion across Asia.
Commenting on the importance of integrating an enterprise blockchain project like Corda on the BSN, Red Date Technology CEO Yifan He remarked:
“Corda will go live in China via BSN’s Open Permissioned Blockchain Initiative to offer Chinese developers low-cost access to Corda technology. Red Date will also help to drive Corda and CorDapps’ adoption among all Chinese banks—enabling Chinese financial companies to streamline their business processes and receive the profound benefits of enterprise blockchain.”
According to the announcement, Chinese firms will have access to Corda Enterprise via BSN public city nodes from Q3 2021. Red Date Tech reportedly plans to include some Corda-based decentralized applications as part of the integration to bootstrap adoption for businesses that will utilize BSN Corda.
Since launching in 2020, BSN has continued to integrate several public blockchains to both the China-only and BSN international ecosystems. Back in February, Cosmos (ATOM) became the first public blockchain to be added to BSN China.
As previously reported by Cointelegraph, TON Labs inked a partnership deal with BSN developers to adapt the Telegram-built TON protocol for China’s blockchain project.
from Cointelegraph.com News https://ift.tt/3cB7Zjy
Apple removed the fake Trezor app several times, but it kept appearing on the App Store days later.
A scam cryptocurrency app on Apple’s app distribution service App Store has reportedly stolen $600,000 Bitcoin (BTC) from one iOS user.
Cryptocurrency holder Phillipe Christodoulou fell victim to a scam app on the App Store, losing nearly all his life savings to a fake crypto wallet application, The Washington Post reports Tuesday.
Christodoulou went on the App Store last month to search for a mobile Trezor app to check his Bitcoin balance via phone. Unaware that Trezor does not currently provide an iOS app, Christodoulou downloaded a doppelgänger Trezor application that boasted close to five stars, giving the impression that it was indeed an official app. After entering his seed phrase, Christodoulou said that his savings of 17.1 BTC were stolen.
Christodoulou said that Apple, which collects 15% to 30% commissions on sales, should be held responsible for this situation. “They betrayed the trust that I had in them. Apple doesn’t deserve to get away with this,” he stated. According to the Washington Post, Christodoulou filed a report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Following notification from Trezor, Apple removed the fake Trezor app several times, but it kept appearing on the App Store days later.
The crypto community issomewhat divided on whether Apple should be blamed for the accident. “This is a f*cking nightmare. Scammed by a fake Trezor app in the ‘curated and safe’ Apple App Store,” crypto investor Scott Melkersaid on Twitter. Jameson Lopp, co-founder of crypto custody platform Casa said, “Stop entering seed phrases into software. Only enter seeds into dedicated Bitcoin hardware devices.”
Fake cryptocurrency wallet and trading apps have appeared on the App Store before. United Kingdom-based crypto intelligence company Coinfirm said that five people have reported having their crypto stolen by a fake Trezor app on iOS, with total losses estimated at $1.6 million.
Tokenization of real-world commodities could drastically reduce trading costs, says one Swiss startup as it pilots a new non-fungible token system.
A Swiss agricultural startup has piloted the use of a non-fungible token for cutting down the costs of trading grain. The system implemented by Swiss firm Cerealia SA sees the tokens reportedly backed by 30,000 metric tons of Mexican white corn.
Although the Cerealia platform only facilitates two-way deals at the time being, an upcoming addition will allow for third-parties to trade and speculate on grain deals using the token. A digital system naturally reduces the costs incurred by grain traders in executing deals, such as storage fees, while reducing the onus on paperwork.
The tokens were reportedly used by Mexican firm Mercanta, representing grain it had stored at a local warehouse. Other grain holders and trade houses can issue their own version of the token, which can then trade on Cerealia’s platform while acting as a marker for actual grain held.
Cerealia chief operating officer Filipe Pohlmann Gonzaga said the tokenized system could open up digital grain trading to the likes of banks, hedge funds and other investors, without them having to take physical delivery of the grain.
Cerealia has reportedly attracted buying interest for around 6 million tons of grain since it launched in November 2020, according to BNN Bloomberg. The firm has a presence in close to 30 different countries, including Brazil, Egypt and Ukraine, and is expected to expand into Singapore and sub-Saharan Africa next.
from Cointelegraph.com News https://ift.tt/3sDpqWv
Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Tradingview showed a nightmare for long traders unfold on Wednesday, with BTC/USD suddenly dropping from $59,350 to $57,000.
At the time of writing, the losses were still mounting after the pair hit lows of $56,713 on Bitstamp.
"Exactly Bitcoin," trader Michaël van de Poppe reacted to what has become a familiar event on short timeframes for Bitcoin.
Previously, upside had been the focus for day traders as news from PayPal spawned a run-up to just below $60,000.
Those betting on a continuation of the bull run lost big on Wednesday, however, as the downturn liquidated long positions worth $600 million amid a 24-hour total wipeout of $1 billion.
For quant analyst PlanB, their demise was nonetheless beneficial, helping to rid the market of unwanted leverage and ensure more organic future rises. As Cointelegraph reported, similar events have occurred with both long and short positions in recent months.
"Beautiful stop loss hunting .. again," he commented on Twitter.
"Now that all leveraged longs are liquidated, we finally have room for breaking $60K in April."
Funding rates creep up
Meanwhile, indicators showed reason to believe that further price increases for Bitcoin would need some work.
Funding rates across derivatives platforms were higher on the day, reaching as high as 0.375% on Huobi, a classic sign that downward pressure is incoming.
Bitcoin funding rates vs. BTC/USD chart. Source: Bybt
The longer-term picture remains more than positive, with analysts pointing to $68,000 and $73,000 as the next hurdles to watch.
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Blockstream has announced the launch of a new security token backed by the company's mining facilities.
Canadian-based Blockchain tech company Blockstream announced the launch of a security token backed by the company's mining production on March 29.
It offers an alternative to investing in Bitcoin mining stocks, with the company providing non-US qualified investors exposure to Bitcoin mining through the Blockstream Mining Note security token. BMN represents 2,000 terahash per second of hashrate from Blockstream's mining facilities.
The Bitcoin mined for BMN will be held in cold storage for three years, and will be distributed to the final token holders at the end of that time frame.
Blockstream plans to begin BMN mining operations by July 9, with the following tranches expected to be released in the third quarter of this year.
See https://t.co/W6zlfDQRpq some more details (BMN is available to non-US qualified investors)
The BMN security token offering, or STO, will be held on STOKR, a European investment marketplace for alternative digital assets. The first tranche of security tokens will be on offer from April 7, and are priced at roughly $240,000 each, which is also the minimum investment.
"BMN will entitle its holders to hash rate produced by #Bitcoin miners at #BlockstreamMining colocation facilities around the globe. As a security token, $BMN is subject to certain regulatory requirements and provides investors with legal recourse and high-level transparency." ⛏️ https://t.co/n9HyuWFTpF
In the announcement published on Blockstream’s website, CEO Adam Back and CIO Chris Cook emphasized the benefits of gaining exposure to the security token in comparison to investing in mining infrastructure:
“By packaging mining in a tradable token, the BMN allows investors more flexibility than a traditional investment in physical mining infrastructure—investors can more easily adjust their exposure to Bitcoin mining by trading the BMN on secondary markets.”
“By expanding investor participation in Bitcoin’s proof-of-work, the BMN also strengthens Bitcoin’s security and censorship resistance. It’s a win-win for investors and the broader network,” the post said.
Exposure to Bitcoin mining has been a lucrative option for many investors. Cointelegraph reported on March 22, that shares in the top four publicly traded mining firms were up 5000% in the last 12 months, compared to the 900% growth of Bitcoin in that same period.
from Cointelegraph.com News https://ift.tt/39wNzpU
NYT likens the NFT bubble to the plague induced “tulip mania” of the 1600s, Polkamon NFTs generate more than $1 million in gas fees, and a man fails to sell 50% of a house as an NFT
Having just flogged an NFT column for half a million dollars, the New York Times is now wondering if perhaps the whole scene is in a bit of a bubble?
In a March 30 article, Art’s NFT Question: Next Frontier in Trading, or a New Form of Tulip? author Scott Reyburn questioned the sustainability of the current NFT bubble in prices and drew comparisons with the Dutch “tulip mania” of the 1630s.
Tulip mania for anyone who doesn’t hodl flowers, was a bubble in the Netherlands that saw prices for a single tulip bulb rocket up to a high of 6,700 guilders in February 1637 — enough to purchase a house at the time.
The NYT suggested that perhaps history was rhyming, given the similarity between the COVID-19 adjacent NFT bubble and the bubonic plague-driven Tulip bubble:
“It should also be pointed out that febrile speculation in assets that have no physical existence has flourished during epidemics, when people spend a lot of time indoors. Tulip mania coincided with an outbreak of bubonic plague in the Netherlands that killed a fifth of Amsterdam’s population between 1635 and 1636.”
The response from financial authorities to the pandemic has, of course, also inflated asset prices across the board, so perhaps NFTs have also been a beneficiary of people having too much money and time on their hands.
The article concluded with an apt quote from 1637 Tulip mania satire, The Rise and Decline of Flora:
“It has been a madness.”
SuperRare raises $9 million
NFT marketplace SuperRare has has raised $9 million from its series A financing round.
The platform announced on March 31 that the round had been led by Velvet Sea Ventures and saw investment from popular figures such as Mark Cuban, Chamath Palihapitiya, and Ashton Kutcher. SuperRare noted:
“In just three years, the crypto art market has already grown to be a global phenomenon over $400M in size. This investment will allow SuperRare to accelerate growth, serving significantly more artists and collectors as digital collecting nears more mainstream adoption”
The platform intends to use the funding to expand “the core features of SuperRare into more scalable, social elements like chat and personalized feeds”. It also intends to improve market mechanics and auction functionality, extend “supported artwork formats further into VR and programmable media” and hopes to implement layer-two scaling.
Polkamon Eggs, the latest NFT craze
Decentralized exchange Polkastarter has joined the NFT mania with the launch of "Polkamon” animated digital monster collectibles.
Early adopters of the project were offered the chance to participate in the “claim your eggs contest”, which saw 125,000 users claim a tokenized egg that had a chance of being “hatched” or minted into a Polkamon NFT.
⏰ Time's up! The #ClaimYourEgg contest has officially ended. No more eggs can be claimed.
Thank you to the more than 125,000 people who took part in this historic event. Together we're making #NFT history!
“In gas fees alone, we estimate Polkamon fans have spent more than $1 million claiming eggs for their chance to participate in our upcoming IDO on Polkastarter,” a blog post noted.
The project is now verified on OpenSea, and the highest sale at the time of writing is for a silver “Moonrock x Morningstar Babydragon” at 22 ETH, worth around $39,000.
Another OpenSea user appears confident in the project. After buying a “Polkastarter Babydragon” for 14.94 ETH, they currently have it listed for 54.99 ETH (worth roughly $100,000).
Second crack at NFT house sale
Property investor Ivan Malpica has sold a 50% share in a St Louis house that he put up for sale as an NFT on Mintable in early March.
You can buy half this home in St Louis via Mintable for less than 30 ETH
Unfortunately, he tells Cointelegraph he sold it offline to a "new partner who did not have crypto or ETH" and instead sold it for cash.
"I received a lot of interest in the first real estate NFT, but the new buyers wanted to partner traditionally," he says. "Since there was a lot of interest I decided to create a second NFT to try again on a new property." He has just listed a 50% share in another St Louis property as an NFT on Mintable for 29.7 ETH.
From NFL to NFT
Former NFL-star turned actor Veron Davis, has followed Rob Gronkowski and Partick Mahomes into tokenized collectibles with a drop on Rarible today.
Davis played in the NFL for 14 seasons and won the Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos in 2016. The drop consists of five open editions and a one of one which depict career highlights from Davis’ career including trophies, Super Bowl action shots, and even a tokenized “rookie season” action figure of the star.
The auction is due to close on April 4.
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