For ERC-20 wallet I normally use MetaMask wallet (Chrome addon) and sometimes MyEtherWallet (online web wallet) for ethereum.
You might also try TrustWallet app for Android and iOS (I heard it's good).

United States-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service provider Coinbase has added support for Stellar Lumens, according to an announcement published on March 18.

The update states that users can now store, buy, and send Stellar’s cryptocurrency, the Stellar Lumen (XLM), on the Coinbase website, as well as on the Coinbase iOS and Android apps.

The publication underlines that the newly added cryptocurrency will be available for the majority of the customers, with the exception of Coinbase users in the United Kingdom or in the U.S. state of New York.

Last week, the company’s professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro, announced the start of accepting XLM deposits.

As Cointelegraph reported on March 17 in a market analysis, the price of the Stellar’s cryptocurrency XLM has risen sharply, making XLM the best performing major cryptocurrency of the past week.

Yesterday, IBM and Stellar jointly announced that six international banks have signed letter of intent to issue their own fiat-backed stablecoins on IBM’s cross-border payment network, which is based on Stellar.

At press time, XLM has gained around 5.66 percent on the day and is trading around $0.115, according to data from CoinMarketCap.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/major-crypto-exchange-and-wallet-coinbase-adds-support-for-stellar-lumens

Cryptocurrency mining giant Bitmain has launched a new miner for the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency zcash, which it claims, has three times more hashing power than its predecessor.

Announcing the news on Tuesday, Bitmain says the new ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit), called the Antminer Z11, is designed to mine cryptocurrencies that are based on the Equihash algorithm, such as zcash.

The company adds the new product offers a hashing power of 135K sol/s (solutions per second), which is “three times more powerful” than its previous Equihash miner, the Antminer Z9, which was released in last May. Sol/s is generally equivalent to h/s (hashes per second), which is the number of hash computations created per second in cryptocurrency mining.

Bitmain further claims that the Antminer Z11, adopting a 12-nanometer chip, is more energy-efficient due to the new internal circuit structure, which can save 60 percent of electricity cost compared to that of the Z9.




Bitmain first launched the Antminer Z9 at a time when the zcash community was having an ongoing debate on whether the network should be altered to become ASIC-resistant, meaning the network would prevent the participation of miners using ASICs, which are in general more powerful than ordinary Graphic Processing Units.

However, in June last year,  members of the zcash community at the Zcon0 conference voted not to prioritize research efforts on changing the zcash network’s rules in order to make it ASIC-resistant.

Just last month, Bitmain also launched a new 7-nanometer mining processor, called the BM1397, which is designed for proof-of-work cryptocurrencies based on the SHA256 algorithm, such as bitcoin and bitcoin cash.



Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/bitmain-launches-new-zcash-miner-touting-3-times-more-hashing-power

In light of the splash JPMorgan made recently with its plan for a bank-backed cryptocurrency, it’s worth remembering another big institution first tested a token to connect global payments – back in 2015.

Codenamed “Citicoin,” the project out of Citigroup’s innovation lab in Dublin was never formally announced by the bank, even as a proof of concept. The idea was to streamline global payment processes. As such, there are obvious parallels with the much-vaunted JPM Coin.

However, having taken stock of the experiment (not to mention the scorn of the bitcoin community at that time) Citi concluded that, while the technology has the potential to live up to its promises, there were other more effective and efficient ways of making improvements in payments.

That’s according to Citi’s current innovation lab chief, Gulru Atak, global head of innovation for treasury and trade solutions (TTS). Regarding the crypto experiments of her predecessors, she told CoinDesk:

    “Based on our learnings from that experiment we actually decided to make meaningful improvements in the existing rails by leveraging the payments ecosystem and within that ecosystem, we are considering the fintechs as well or the regulators around the world as well, including SWIFT.”

Taking a measured step back, Atak said when it comes to improving cross-border payments, the bank is looking at effective methods but with a shorter-term impact. “We are trying to make those changes today, rather than just putting all our efforts into future technology,” she said.

After all, to completely change a cross-border payment network with blockchain-enabled technology, one would have to on-board all the world’s banks, Atak said, adding:

    “If we are talking about cross border payments, how many banks do we have across the world – and how many of them are already on-boarded on SWIFT? And how long has it taken SWIFT to onboard all those banks?”

As such, Citi’s blockchain strategy in recent years has been about finding ways to integrate legacy systems, said Atak, citing the bank’s 2017 partnership with Nasdaq, CitiConnect, designed to streamline payments around private securities. That project, she said, also has parallels with JPM Coin.

“[CitiConnect] didn’t issue stablecoins but the infrastructure that was used was similar to issuing coins on a blockchain platform,” Atak said. “But it was purely to integrate into a blockchain-enabled system on our client’s end and make it connect to our legacy payment processes real-time.”


From trade finance to FX

While Atak was happy to reflect on previous blockchain initiatives, she also pointed out that Citi certainly continues to explore blockchain, especially in areas like trade finance.

This niche is a more realistic use case, she said, because building an ecosystem for trade finance doesn’t require as many banks as a full-blown cross-border payments system. “Our focus is currently more in the trade space and trade finance and trade letters of credit. We are experimenting with this technology but probably we are a little bit, like, reserved when it comes to making bold public announcements.”

Rival global bank HSBC is not so shy about beating its chest. In January, HSBC announced it had settled $250 billion of foreign exchange (FX) trades using a blockchain over the past year. 

Regarding FX, Opeyemi Olomo, blockchain lead from Citi’s Innovation Lab, said there are clear pain points in that market, which has issues around credit transparency. As with global payments, the question of whether to apply blockchain comes down to building an ecosystem and how onerous that process would be in relation to the benefit.

Olomo agreed there is an opportunity. 

“There is a niche ecosystem and if you look at liquidity providers in the FX space, the major liquidity providers are not that many. So that’s an ecosystem where you could maybe think of it and have like five or six together and you can start actually creating a difference,” he said.

Broadly speaking, Atak said many industries are pushing hard to move existing instruments to a blockchain-enabled platform without necessarily thinking why that instrument exists from the very beginning.

Instead, a close examination of the very nature of financial instruments might be required, she said. “For example, how did a human being come up with a banking instrument called a letter of credit? What were the issues that led to its creation?”

This philosophical approach will guide Citi’s thinking, Atak added, concluding:

    “I am challenging ourselves as well: are we looking to this technology to its best potential or are we just trying to get rid of the current friction and operational inefficiency in the system?


Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/citi-scraps-its-plan-for-a-jpm-coin-like-bank-backed-cryptocurrency

Leading Swiss online retailer Digitec Galaxus has announced that it will now accept cryptocurrencies, according to a press release published on March 19.

Per the announcement, the shop is now accepting Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Binance Coin (BNB), Litecoin (LTC), Tron (TRX), NEO (NEO) and OmiseGO (OMG) for purchases worth over CHF 200 (about $200). The release further claims that the shop hosts around 2.7 million products, ranging from wheat beer to gaming PCs.

The new payment method was reportedly jointly developed as part of a pilot project with Swiss payment processor Datatrans and in collaboration with Danish crypto payments startup Coinify. The system opens 15-minute-time windows for customers, during which the crypto exchange rate doesn’t change in order to make the payment with a fee of 1.5 percent.

As part of its move towards crypto, the company also added a crypto wallet category to ecommerce platform, accompanied by a dedicated guide, and released a blog post under the title “Diamonds or Gold Are Better Suited to Get Rid of Illicit Money.” In the latter post, the company’s chief innovation officer Oliver Herren admitted that he is not fully convinced of the advantages of blockchain over traditional database systems. Still, he concludes:

    “But maybe I just haven’t invested enough time in fully understanding how the blockchain ecosystem works.”

Lastly, the company also released a blog post dedicated to its internal engineering team behind crypto integration. In the post, which is mostly an interview, the company explains on a high-level what blockchain is.

According to e-commerce data platform ecommerceDB, Digitec Galaxus’ net sales amounted to over $261 million in 2018 and the store, first launched in 2010, is the world’s 341st biggest online retailer.

Other large retailers internationally have also looked into the idea of adding crypto payments options on their platforms, with Overstock.com’s acceptance of Bitcoin payments as early as 2014 as a major example.

As Cointelegraph reported in April last year, Canadian online trading and barter platform Bunz Trading Zone is launching its own cryptocurrency.

Also, in February last year, Japan’s largest e-commerce company Rakuten, with a market capitalization of over $12.5 bln, announced its own plans to launch a cryptocurrency called Rakuten Coin.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/largest-swiss-online-retailer-digitec-galaxus-now-accepts-cryptocurrencies

New Report Warns 87 Percent of Cryptocurrency Exchange Volume Is Potentially Suspicious



Almost 90 percent of cryptocurrency exchanges’ reported trade volumes may be incorrect, new research from trading analytics platform The Tie warned in a digest released on March 18.

Reporting on figures gathered from 97 exchanges, researchers found that the vast majority of the volume claimed to come from users may not in fact exist.

The revelations came as a result of calculations of lesser-known exchanges versus well-known businesses such as Binance and Kraken.

“In total, we estimated that 87% of exchanges reported trading volume was potentially suspicious and that 75% of exchanges had some form of suspicious activity occurring on them,” The Tie wrote in social media comments on the findings. The organization added:

    “If each exchange averaged the volume per visit of CoinbasePro, Gemini, Poloniex, Binance, and Kraken, we would expect the real trading volume among the largest 100 exchanges to equal $2.1 (billion) per day. Currently, that number is being reported as $15.9 (billion).”

Exchanges have often fielded accusations of volume misreporting: a similar reported issued in March 2018 warned of similar problems with data from exchanges.

Then, as now, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) took industry participants to task, arguing listing resources such as CoinMarketCap added to the confusion.

“Why do exchanges fake volumes?” he queried on Twitter following The Tie’s report. CZ also wrote:

    “(CoinMarketCap) is [the] highest traffic website in our space, and [the] biggest referrer for all exchanges. Ranked high on CMC has benefits for getting new users. BUT at the expense of DESTROYING CREDIBILITY with pro users.”

Zhang repeated similar claims about CoinMarketCap which appeared in December, focusing on the the top 25 Bitcoin (BTC) trading pairs.

Last month, meanwhile, Cointelegraph reported on how overall exchange volumes had dropped to their lowest levels since May 2017.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/new-report-warns-87-percent-of-cryptocurrency-exchange-volume-is-potentially-suspicious

Fundstrat Global Advisors co-founder Thomas Lee broke with tradition about Bitcoin (BTC) price forecasts on March 14, telling CNBC he thinks a bull market could return within six months.

In an interview with the publication, Lee, who is well known as a Bitcoin bull — but said he would stop giving out timeframes for a price rebound in December — now claimed August could see a market U-turn.

“I think the key number to watch is the 200-day moving average,” he told the network, continuing:

    “If Bitcoin holds above $4,000, it’ll cross its 200-day [moving average] by August, so I think the outside window is five to six months before Bitcoin starts to look technically like it’s back in a bull market.”

Referencing Bitcoin Cash’s (BCH) contentious hard fork in mid-November, Lee stated, “I think the damage that really needs to be repaired is that drop from $6,000 to $3,100,” adding:

    “I think it really undermined investor confidence and the dynamics around the market[.]”

As recently reported, Bitcoin had begun to deliver returns to investors through February, with average daily increases of around 0.5 percent. The number this month has shrunk, with daily numbers closer to 0.2 percent, leading some to think a fresh bear market downturn could be imminent.

Since peaking at all-time highs around $20,000 in December 2017, Bitcoin has seen the longest bear market in its history, with subsequent lows averaging just above $3,100.

In December, fellow market analyst Tone Vays sounded a more intense warning, forecasting BTC/USD to fall to near $1,000 before bearish sentiment definitively ends.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-price-breakout-scheduled-for-august-says-fundstrats-tom-lee

Key price movement indicators show that Bitcoin (BTC) could be heading for another move downward, according to a recent report from Bloomberg on March 12.

The report states, “Technical gauges signaling long-term buying demand for Bitcoin are deteriorating” and as such, buying pressure could increase. Bloomberg notes that the seminal crypto’s Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator has been moving downward since mid-February.

The MACD is a trend-following indicator of momentum that shows the relationship between two moving averages of the price of a security.

Bitcoin has tested the $4,000 mark several times in previous weeks, but has as of yet been unable to break above it for a meaningful period of time. Bloomberg states that, until Bitcoin can break through that level, it is likely to face selling pressure. Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone said:

    “The entire industry is ripe to resume a path to lower prices. Conditions are akin to November [2018], just prior to the collapse. Prices are consolidating within narrowing ranges, with a few sharp bear-market rallies that appear fleeting.”

Other industry experts have suggested that investors are forgoing Bitcoin to move their money into altcoins. EToro senior market analyst Mati Greenspan said:

    “It’s just that investors are seeing more potential in some of the smaller tokens at the moment. As we approach the culmination of the crypto winter, we’re actually seeing some of the altcoins delivering spectacular gains in the last few weeks. We are now in what industry insiders like to call alt-season.”

At press time, data from TradingView shows that the Bitcoin MACD is at 44.3, pointing to a “sell” recommendation. The coin is currently trading at $3,910.57, up a modest 0.48 percent on the day according to CoinMarketCap.



Bitcoin 3-month price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bloomberg-key-indicators-show-bitcoin-price-could-be-losing-steam

Bitcoin’s dominance rate, or its share of the total cryptocurrency market, is on the verge of falling below 50 percent for the first time in over seven months.

At press time, the world’s largest cryptocurrency accounts for 50.9 percent of the total capitalization of the entire market and fell as low as 50.54 on March 17, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Before 2017, bitcoin’s dominance rate was perpetually in excess of 70 percent, but it began to deflate as new cryptocurrencies were created and sold to investors in initial coin offerings (ICOs), causing bitcoin’s dominance rate to drop to a low of 32.48 percent on Jan. 13, 2018.

Since, Aug. 11 of last year, however, bitcoin’s share of the cryptocurrency market has not fallen below 50 percent.


Bitcoin dominance rate




Having traded between $3,200 and $4,300 since Dec. 2018, bitcoin’s recent drop in market dominance can be attributed to a strong performance from the broader altcoin market, comprised of all cryptocurrencies excluding bitcoin, rather than any significant depreciation to its own market.

In the past 90 days alone, names like enjin (ENJ), binance coin (BNB) and litecoin (LTC) have witnessed significant price increases of 406, 181 and 97 percent respectively, according to data from Messari.

As a result, the market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies excluding bitcoin has grown 33 percent since hitting a 2019 low of $51 billion on Feb. 6 to its current value of roughly $69 billion.





In the same time span, bitcoin’s market capitalization has also seen notable growth, but to a lesser extent than the altcoin market. Since Feb. 6, bitcoin’s market cap has increased from $59 billion to its current value of $71 billion – a jump of 20 percent.

Bitcoin’s shrinking dominance could be seen as a sign the crypto markets are shifting to a “risk-on” environment where investors prefer riskier assets, as altcoins are perceived to be. The rate falling below 50 percent would be a greater indication of this type of sentiment coming to fruition.

As it stands, the total capitalization of the broader cryptocurrency market records $140.6 billion, down 83 percent from its all-time high of $835 billion set on Jan. 7, 2018.


Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-share-of-total-crypto-market-slips-back-toward-50

Bitcoin (BTC) is showing signs of buyer exhaustion and could see a minor pullback unless resistance at $4,000 is scaled in the next few hours.

The crypto market leader witnessed two-way business yesterday before closing (UTC) on a flat note at $3,969 on Bitstamp. Essentially, BTC created a doji candle, which is widely considered a sign of indecision in the marketplace.

Notably, the fact that the doji candle has appeared close to the historically strong resistance of the 21-week simple moving average (SMA), currently at $4,073, suggests the indecision is predominantly among the bulls and could be considered a sign of buyer exhaustion.

So, a price pullback could be on the way, especially if support at $3,930 is breached in the next few hours. That said, the rally from the March 14 low of $3,775 could resume if prices rise above the resistance at $4,000, invalidating the doji candle.

As of writing, BTC is changing hands at $3,975, representing a 0.4 percent gain on a 24-hour basis.


Daily and weekly charts



On the daily chart, BTC looks to be creating the right shoulder of an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern, having bounced up from the rising trendline last week. The 5- and 10-day MAs are also trending north, indicating a bullish setup.

Even so, the rally has stalled near $4,000 and a doji candle has appeared, validating the bearish view put forward by the descending 21-week SMA, currently at $4,073.

BTC, therefore, risks falling back to the rising trendline support at $3,890. A break lower would expose the March 14 low of $3,775.

It’s worth noting that bitcoin may have a tough time scaling or holding onto gains above the 21-week SMA as long as that average is trending south.


Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-faces-minor-price-retreat-amid-increasing-bull-exhaustion

Bithumb, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, plans to cut its staffing levels by up to 50 percent, according to a CoinDesk Korea report issued Monday, a move that would reduce its number of employees from 310 at the start of March to around 150.

When reached, an official at the company confirmed the 50 percent figure, adding that it expects those departing will mostly be employees who already want to leave the company.

“Voluntary retirement is part of our support program for former employees and is intended to provide assistance and training for job placement,” said the Bithumb official. “Apart from that, [Bithumb’s] trading volume has decreased compared to the previous year, [so] we are trying to provide internal measures. We will continue to add necessary personnel for various new businesses.”

The move comes on the heels of similar decisions by other cryptocurrency companies that have been forced to respond to the ongoing decline in the value of the market in recent months.

The company behind cryptocurrency project Dash said earlier this month that it’s also reducing its staffing levels in a cost-cutting effort brought on by the “crypto winter.” Similarly, since the start of the year, smart contract auditing firm Hosho has said it’s laying off 80 percent of staff, and blockchain project Nebulas has cut numbers by 60 percent.

Ethereum studio Consensys announced that projects under its umbrella would have to find financing or also face cut-backs late last year.


Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchange-bithumb-slashing-staff-numbers-by-up-to-50

You should take your time and do the research to find the best altcoins to invest as the time changes.

Here are my all-time favorites...

BAT
Pundi X
RavenCoin

Developers behind stablecoin Tether (USDT) have drawn scrutiny today, March 14, after social media users noticed they had removed previous claims that the altcoin was fully backed by United States dollars.

Tether, which has faced various publicity hurdles over the transparency of its holdings, had de facto guaranteed that each of its USDT tokens had an equivalent 1 USD in the bank.

Intended as the opposite to fractional reserve banking, as Cointelegraph reported in December last year, documents had further confirmed the validity of Tether’s backing claims.

Now, however, a new update, date unknown, to its website suggests USD holdings no longer cover the full supply of USDT.

“Every tether is always 100% backed by our reserves, which include traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities,” it now reads (emphasis added by Cointelegraph).

One such affiliated entity is cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex, which shares leadership with the stablecoin.

On Reddit, commentators immediately took issue with backing by anything other than USD, which they suggested compromises the entire coin’s legitimacy.

“I guess we're back to trusting 3rd parties, running fractional reserves, to run the market,” user u/Toyake, who uploaded the topic, summarized.

A popular response even drew parallels between Tether and defunct alleged ponzi scheme BitConnect.

Tether had not issued official comment on the allegations at press time.

Earlier this month, officials reached an agreement with blockchain network TRON to use USDT as a native token on the platform by the end of Q2 2019.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/cryptocurrency-community-eyes-tether-after-website-dilutes-usd-backing-claims

Oh my, exit scams everywhere. we should always stick with the top exchanges to avoid getting scammed by these perpetrators. 

Criticism of Bitcoin (BTC) by big business is misplaced, blockchain developer network TRON’s CEO Justin Sun told CNBC in an interview on March 13.

Speaking to the network about the general state of the cryptocurrency markets, Sun, who is also CEO of BitTorrent after the company bought the file sharing network in June 2018, said their appeal to the younger generation remained unchanged by the current bear market.

“Even if Warren Buffett, he dislikes Bitcoin, but still I think this is a very good opportunity for the younger generation,” he said. Sun added:

    “I think Bitcoin is a technology rather than business opportunities.”

Sun offered examples of Bitcoin scaling solutions, principally the Lightning Network, as proof of the largest cryptocurrency’s ability to reshape internet evolution.

“I think we are facing the next wave of the internet,” he summarized.

As Cointelegraph reported, previously vocal opponents of Bitcoin, notably JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in addition to Buffett, have appeared to grow weary of lambasting the crypto in recent times.

Last month, JPMorgan caused a stir when it unveiled a form of an in-house digital token it dubbed JPM Coin for various interbank procedures.

Sun meanwhile only briefly strayed from Bitcoin commentary to TRON, saying he was little involved in the market cap and price of the platform’s TRX token. At press time, TRX was the tenth-largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of around $1.52 billion.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-is-a-technology-not-a-business-opportunity-tron-ceo-tells-mainstream-media

Coinbase Pro, the professional offering of United States-based crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase, has announced support for Stellar Lumens (XLM) in a blog post on March 13.

Per the post, Coinbase Pro will now accept deposits of XLM for around 12 hours before enabling full trading. Coinbase notes that after establishing sufficient supply of XLM, it will open trading pairs in U.S. dollars, euro and Bitcoin (BTC) in phases.

XLM trading will go through three stages before enabling full trading, including limit, market and stop orders. The stages involve “transfer-only,” “post-only,” and “limit-only.” The first two stages will allow users to transfer XLM to Coinbase Pro accounts and post limit orders, while the subsequent one will enable customers to match limit orders.

XLM trading will be initially available for customers in Coinbase’s supported jurisdictions, expect the state of New York. Coinbase may add additional jurisdictions at a later time.

Last month, Coinbase Pro added support for Ripple (XRP), that joined already listed Ethereum Classic (ETC), Basic Attention Token (BAT) and privacy oriented altcoin Zcash (ZEC). In the past, these tokens were added to Coinbase Pro, before support for them was eventually extended to Coinbase.com and its apps for Android and iOS.

The recent addition of XRP to Coinbase was long-awaited by the crypto community. The coin reacted promptly to the news about its listing on Coinbase Pro, turning out to be one of the biggest winners on that day.

However, a report by blockchain research firm Diar stated that XRP breaks one of Coinbase’s requirements to be listed on the platform. In its “Digital Asset Framework,” Coinbase stipulates that "the ownership stake [in a token] retained by the team is a minority stake," while, according to Diar, Ripple holds around 60 percent of the supply in escrow with a release schedule.

At press time, XLM has gained around 3.94 percent on the day and is trading around $0.108, according to data from CoinMarketCap.


Reference: https://cointelegraph.com/news/coinbase-pro-adds-support-for-stellar-lumens

Yeah, many of us here want to start crypto mining but the major problem we have is the power
And we all know about the Tesla Powerwall 2 which is one of the best lithium-ion batteries out there.
My mining farm is going to be fully solar powered using Tesla batteries. any advice is welcome.

I want to build something like this...

The death of an exchange’s founder exposes cryptocurrencies’ biggest flaw



Supposedly, you can’t take anything with you when you die. Unfortunately though, for customers of QuadrigaCX, a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, that’s not quite true. Sometimes, you can die with a priceless secret in tow.

When Gerald Cotten, Quadriga’s 30-year-old CEO, unexpectedly died from complications of Crohn’s disease this December, he took with him the passwords to unlock more than $140 million of cryptocurrency. Now, the exchange’s users are left in a bind.

The only person who knew the passwords to unlock their funds is dead. And because of the nature of cryptocurrencies, there’s virtually no way to recover the funds. Unless Cotten left an undiscovered trove of logins, his very-much-alive customers are permanently a lot poorer. (Unless, of course you’re among those speculating that Cotten’s death was an elaborate ruse, and he disappeared with the money.)


Reference: https://qz.com/1572000/quadrigas-founders-death-exposes-a-huge-flaw-in-cryptocurrency/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=qz-organic

Bitcoin is not the fastest nor cheapest cryptocurrency after all!





Reference: https://twitter.com/APompliano/status/1105864295928291328

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a group of international banking authorities, has warned that the growth of cryptocurrencies poses a number of risks to banks and global financial stability.

The committee – part of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), widely considered the central bank of central banks – published a statement on Wednesday, saying that potential risks for banks include liquidity, credit and market risks, operational risk (including fraud and cyber risks), money laundering and terrorist financing risk, and legal and reputational risks.

Although banks currently have “very limited” direct exposure to cryptocurrencies, institutions should still “at a minimum” carry out extensive due diligence and disclose any exposure to crypto assets to minimize the risks, the committee said.

Banks should further have a “clear and robust” risk management framework to deal with the “high degree” of risk posed by cryptocurrencies.

The risk management framework should be “fully integrated” into banks’ overall risks management processes, including those relating to anti-money laundering (AML), combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) and evasion of sanctions, the committee said.

A “comprehensive” assessment of the risks should be incorporated into their internal capital and liquidity adequacy assessment processes, it added.

Additionally, supervisory bodies should be informed of actual or planned cryptocurrency exposure, along with an assurance that the institution has fully assessed and mitigated the risks.

Finally, the committee said that it is working with other global standard-setting bodies and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) to arrive at guidance on “prudential treatment” of banks’ exposure to cryptocurrencies in order to “appropriately” reflect the risks.

Last June, BIS said in its Annual Economic Report that it’s hard to see if cryptocurrencies solve any specific economic problem yet. “Transactions are slow and costly, prone to congestion, and cannot scale with demand,” it said at the time.


Reference: https://www.coindesk.com/https-www-coindesk-com-cryptocurrencies-pose-risks-to-banks-and-financial-stability-warns-basel-committee