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Cointelegraph Consulting: Research outlines how DeFi can merge with traditional finance

February 23, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

Whilst public adoption of crypto assets is increasing, the global regulations continue to progress and recognise decentralized technologies as a suitable infrastructure for the dematerialisation of securities. In Luxembourg, the country that is second in the world in terms of assets under management, the country’s regulator adopted a bill that explicitly recognised the possibility of using distributed ledger technology for the dematerialisation of securities. 

The regulation is moving quickly elsewhere across Europe: Tokenized securities now fall under the same rules and regulations as traditional financial instruments in many other European countries including France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the UK.

Read the ebook to discover how you can be part of this emerging digital asset industry. Download the full report here.

What next for the industry? Due to the increase in public adoption and the favourable regulatory environment, demand from the financial industry to access digital networks is on the rise. So far, banks have digitized the retail industry but not much has evolved in capital markets.

The digitization of this industry is now possible through the blockchain, an infrastructure now widely recognized by the largest governments globally for financial instruments. Funds and asset managers can now upgrade their distribution channels by launching Digital Asset Marketplace (DAM) and connecting to others via decentralized networks.

DAMs will help their customers discover new opportunities, manage their investments and even open secondary market possibilities. In this ebook, industry participants explain how capital market players can benefit from blockchain by launching a DAM and maximizing the monetization of their investor base.

Financial institutions are beginning to publicly embrace and adopt the technology. So far they have started, as expected, with crypto-assets. Once they begin to trust the technology and it becomes embedded within their portfolios, it will mean one thing: curiosity will peak and these institutions will realise the operational benefits of decentralized technology.

Driven by increased confidence in the technology, and pressured by DeFi replacing many traditional banking functions, institutions will begin to learn that the technology can solve long-standing and deeply entrenched industry problems, particularly in the opaque and highly illiquid private markets.

Digital Asset Marketplaces, i.e. primary and secondary venues where investors meet, will be the driver for this according to the study. However, open source standards like the Token for Regulated EXchanges (T-REX), are required to enforce compliance onchain in a heavily regulated world.

Cointelegraph Consulting: Research outlines how DeFi can merge with traditional finance

Source

Filed Under: blockchain technology Tagged With: Adoption, Banking, Banks, blockchain, Capital Markets, Cointelegraph Consulting, Compliance, crypto, decentralized, Decentralized Finance, DeFi, Digital, driver, Environment, Europe, Exchanges, finance, France, Germany, Infrastructure, Investments, Italy, Ledger, Market, Markets, Netherlands, open source, other, Regulation, spain, Study, switzerland, Technology, uk, world

Merchants accepting Bitcoin laud ‘zero chargeback risks’, says BitPay report

September 30, 2020 by Blockchain Consultants

BitPay recently released a study highlighting four merchants from different businesses that have implemented Bitcoin as a payment method. The parties selected to participate included a gold broker, an online gift card marketplace, a domain registrar that also serves as a hosting service, and an electronics retailer.

In the report, the unnamed merchants praised crypto’s lack of fraud-related chargebacks, noting the immensity of this issue when dealing with traditional institutions.

They also reported that while only 0.5% to 6.5% of their total eCommerce sales came from crypto transactions, these helped to boost the flow of new customers by 40% on average over the last three years.

During the pandemic, the study stated that merchants reported an increase in online shopping. This bolstered the number of crypto transactions on their respective platforms, with 11% of responding customers stating that they were using crypto and other digital payment methods for the first time.

The report also adds:

“The interviewed merchants identified an opportunity to grow sales by reaching a new customer segment that prefers to pay with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies when shopping online. While cryptocurrency buyers still represent a relatively small share of spending, cryptocurrency recognition is significant and growing.”

At the beginning of September, a British online food delivery platform called “Just Eat” added cryptocurrency payment support for its subsidiary in France.

Merchants accepting Bitcoin laud ‘zero chargeback risks’, says BitPay report

Source

Filed Under: blockchain technology Tagged With: Adoption, Bitcoin, Bitpay, Business, crypto, Cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, decentralization, eCommerce, Food, food delivery, France, gold, other, payments, Shopping, Study

Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC/USD Consolidates Above $10,700 as Bulls Face an Uphill Task

September 30, 2020 by Blockchain Consultants

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Prediction – September 30, 2020
BTC/USD has retraced and fallen to the previous price range. The coin is likely to be range-bound in the current price range for a few more days. BTC is trading between $10,660 and $10,880.

Resistance Levels: $10,000, $11, 000, $12,000
Support Levels: $7,000, $6,000, $5,000

BTC/USD – Daily Chart

Today, BTC is trading in a confined range as the market resumes consolidation above $10,700. . The current retracement has found support above $10,680. The crypto has fallen to the previous price range of between $10,660 and $10,880. The bulls have failed in the previous uptrend as price momentum dries up after hitting the $10,880 resistance. Nonetheless, it is noted that the $10,880 resistance is the major obstacle to the current uptrend. BTC has to overcome it before resuming upside momentum.

On the upside, to achieve a compelling breakout, the resistance must be broken while the bullish momentum. is sustained. Assuming, the bulls break the current resistance, and the momentum sustained, a rally above $11,000 is possible. Above the $11,000 support, BTC will have an accelerated price movement. It is assumed that the resistances from $11,100 to $11,300 will be cleared. A retest at the $12,000 and $12,400 becomes possible if the bulls are successful. Conversely, the bears may take advantage and break the current support at $10,660 if the current uptrend fails. This will cause a further decline to $10,500 support. However, if the bears are successful the bullish scenario will be invalidated.

French Police Detains Terror Financing Ring That Uses Bitcoin Coupons
The 29 members of a network allegedly financing a jihadist network in Syria have been arrested and detained. They were arrested while buying crypto currency coupons in licensed tobacco shops across France. The jihadist network was busted after being caught purchasing crypto currency coupons in tobacco outlets across France. These coupons are worth between 10 and 150 euros each ($12–$176). The jihadist network allegedly uses the coupon to credit their Syrian accomplices’ Bitcoin (BTC) accounts. The terrorists use these services, as they don’t require proof-of-identity.

BTC/USD – Daily Chart

Meanwhile, the BTC price is stuck in the current price range. The price is consolidating and characterized by small body candlesticks called Doji or spinning tops. These candlesticks describe the indecision between buyers and sellers about the direction of the market. However, if price breaks the $10,660 support, the BTC price will fall. And if it falls below $10,000 or $9,800, the Fibonacci tool analysis will hold. That is the market will fall to the 1.272 Fibonacci extension or $9,268.10 low.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC/USD Consolidates Above $10,700 as Bulls Face an Uphill Task

Source

Filed Under: blockchain Tagged With: analysis, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Price, btc, BTC/USD, crypto, crypto currency, Currency, France, Market, opinion, Police, Price Prediction, Syria, Trading

French and Italian Regulators Go After Unlicensed Crypto Services 

September 22, 2020 by Blockchain Consultants

Cryptocurrency scams have continued to grow, and their influence is reaching even the farthest parts of the world. However, regulators worldwide are also improving their ability to track and apprehend these criminal enterprises’ operators.

AMF Cleans Its Crypto Investment Space

Earlier this week, Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), France’s top financial regulator, sent out a list of investment companies operating within its borders without the proper authorization. While the companies provide investments in different asset classes, some are also linked with cryptocurrencies.

Most notable among the crypto-linked scam sites is BitcoinFrance. Per the report, the company promises users free access to its proprietary Bitcoin trading software once they deposit $250. The company allegedly has an app that trades crypto markets and purportedly generates $1,000 in earnings daily. It also adds that its investments are risk-free, and customers’ funds are guaranteed. As the AMF said, the list could change at any time as most of these fraudulent companies tend to switch their operations and identities.

So far, the AMF has been doing its bit to ensure effective oversight of its digital asset space. The agency has worked to close loopholes that could provide an avenue for criminals to thrive, and like many other regulators, it has introduced licensing requirements for most industry players.

In July, the agency partnered with another local regulator, les Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR), to remind crypto ATM operators of their licensing requirements under the country’s Monetary and Financial Code.

In a press release, the AMF explained that it had noticed a surge in crypto ATM installations and deployments across the country. However, any company that seeks to operate these devices will have to register before proceeding.

“Registration entails, in particular, the setting up of an organization, procedures and internal control system capable of ensuring compliance with the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing (AML-FT) and enabling the freezing of assets,” the release added.

CONSOB’s Blacklisting Spree

Elsewhere, in Italy, the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB), the country’s top securities regulator, has been on a rampant website blocking campaign recently.

The latest action took place on September 18, and it confirmed that the agency had blocked 284 websites since July 2019. These sites claim to specialize in offering forex and cryptocurrency trades, but none had gotten authorizations from the agency.

CONSOB added that most of these companies had shown significant signs of being fraudulent. The moves are coming as the European Union gears up to adopt a new set of cryptocurrency rules. According to a report from Reuters last week, the regional authority has published two documents outlining its mission to adopt digital finance as a means of enhancing its cross-border payments service.

“By 2024, the EU should put in place a comprehensive framework enabling the uptake of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and crypto-assets in the financial sector. It should also address the risks associated with these technologies,” one of the documents read.

As Reuters added, the E.U. is considering enforcing Anti-Money Laundering and identity verification to cryptocurrency transactions. Once done, it will be ready to adopt these assets into its financial regime.

French and Italian Regulators Go After Unlicensed Crypto Services 

Source

Filed Under: blockchain, cryptocurrency Tagged With: ACPR, Bitcoin, bitcoin trading, Companies, Compliance, crypto, Cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, DLT, Earnings, EU, european union, finance, Financial sector, France, Go, google, investment, Investments, Italy, Ledger, Markets, money, Money Laundering, other, payments, scam, scams, Software, Space, Technology, Trading, world

Germanys COVID-19 contacts tracing app to link to labs for test result notification

April 23, 2020 by Blockchain Consultants

A German research institute that’s involved in developing a COVID-19 contacts tracing app with the backing of the national government has released some new details about the work, which suggests the app is being designed as more of a “one-stop shop” to manage coronavirus impacts at an individual level, rather than having a sole function of alerting users to potential infection risk.

Work on the German app began at the start of March, per the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft institute, with initial funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Federal Ministry of Health funding a feasibility study.

In a PDF published today, the research organization reveals the government-backed app will include functionality for health authorities to directly notify users about a COVID-19 test result if they’ve opted in to get results this way.

It says the system must ensure only people who test positive for the virus make their measurement data available to avoid incorrect data being input. For the purposes of “this validation process,” it envisages “a digital connection to the existing diagnostic laboratories is implemented in the technical implementation.”

“App users can thus voluntarily activate this notification function and thus be informed more quickly and directly about their test results,” it writes in the press release (which we’ve translated from German with Google Translate) — arguing that such direct digital notification of tests results will mean that no “valuable time” is lost to curb the spread of the virus.

Governments across Europe are scrambling to get Bluetooth-powered contacts tracing apps off the ground, with apps also in the works from a number of other countries, including the U.K. and France, despite ongoing questions over the efficacy of digital contacts tracing versus such an infectious virus.

The great hope is that digital tools will offer a route out of economically crippling population lockdowns by providing a way to automate at least some contacts tracing — based on widespread smartphone penetration and the use of Bluetooth-powered device proximity as a proxy for coronavirus exposure.

Preventing a new wave of infections as lockdown restrictions are lifted is the near-term goal. Although — in line with Europe’s rights frameworks — use of contacts tracing apps looks set to be voluntary across most of the region, with governments wary about being seen to impose “health surveillance” on citizens, as has essentially happened in China.

However if contacts tracing apps end up larded with features that are deep linking into national health systems, that raises questions about how optional their use will really be.

An earlier proposal by a German consortium of medical device manufacturers, laboratories, clinics, clinical data management systems and blockchain solution providers — proposing a blockchain-based Digital Corona Health Certificate, which was touted as being able to generate “verifiable, certified test results that can be fed into any tracing app” to cut down on false positives — claimed to have backing from the City of Cologne’s public health department, as one example of potential function creep.

In March, Der Spiegel also reported on a large-scale study being coordinated by the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, to examine antibody levels to try to determine immunity across the population. Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) was reportedly involved in that study — and has been a key operator in the national contacts tracing push.

Both RKI and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft institute are also involved in parallel German-led pan-EU standardization efforts for COVID-19 contacts tracing apps (called PEPP-PT) that’s been the leading voice for apps to centralize proximity data with governments/health authorities, rather than storing it on users’ device and performing risk processing locally.

As we reported earlier, PEPP-PT and its government backers appear to be squaring up for a battle with Apple over iOS restrictions on Bluetooth.

PEPP-PT bases its claim of being a “privacy-preserving” standard on not backing protocols or apps that use location data or mobile phone numbers — with only arbitrary (but pseudonymized) proximity IDs shared for the purpose of tracking close encounters between devices and potential coronavirus infections.

It has claimed it’s agnostic between centralization of proximity data versus decentralization, though so far the only protocol it’s publicly committed to is a centralized one.

Yet, at the same time, regional privacy experts, the EU parliament and even the European Commission have urged national governments to practice data minimization and decentralized when it comes to COVID-19 contacts tracing in order to boost citizen trust by shrinking associated privacy risks.

If apps are voluntary, citizens’ trust must be earned not assumed, is the key argument. Without substantial uptake the utility of digital contacts tracing seems doubtful.

Apple and Google have also come down on the decentralized side of this debate — outting a joint effort last week for an API and later opt-in system-wide contacts tracing. The first version of their API is slated to be in developers’ hands next week.

Meanwhile, a coalition of nearly 300 academics signed an open letter at the start of this week warning that centralized systems risked surveillance creep — voicing support for decentralized protocols, such as DP-3T: Another contact tracing protocol that’s being developed by a separate European coalition which has been highly critical of PEPP-PT.

And while PEPP-PT claimed recently to have seven governments signed up to its approach, and 40 more in the pipeline, at least two of the claimed EU supporters (Switzerland and Spain) had actually said they will use a decentralized approach.

The coalition has also been losing support from a number of key research institutions which had initially backed its push for a “privacy-preserving” standard, as controversy around its intent and lack of transparency has grown.

Nonetheless, the two biggest EU economies, Germany and France, appear to be digging in behind a push to centralize proximity data — putting Apple in their sights.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the French government is pressurizing Apple to remove Bluetooth restrictions for its COVID-19 contacts tracing app which also relies on a “trusted authority” running a central server (we’ve covered the French ROBERT protocol in detail here).

It’s possible Germany and France are sticking to their centralized guns because of wider plans to pack more into these contacts tracing apps than simply Bluetooth-powered alerts — as suggested by the Fraunhofer document.

Access to data is another likely motivator.

“Only if research can access sufficiently valid data it is possible to create forecasts that are the basis for planning further steps against are the spread of the virus,” the institute goes on. (Though, as we’ve written before, the DP-3T decentralized protocol sets out a path for users to opt in to share proximity data for research purposes.)

Another strand that’s evident from the Fraunhofer PDF is sovereignty.

“Overall, the approach is based on the conviction that the state healthcare system must have sovereignty over which criteria, risk calculations, recommendations for action and feedback are in one such system,” it writes, adding: “In order to achieve the greatest possible usability on end devices on the market, technical cooperation with the targeted operating system providers, Google and Apple, is necessary.”

Apple and Google did not respond to requests for comment on whether they will be making any changes to their API as a result of French and German pressure.

Fraunhofer further notes that “full compatibility” between the German app and the centralized one being developed by French research institutes Inria and Inserm was achieved in the “past few weeks” — underlining that the two nations are leading this particular contacts tracing push.

In related news this week, Europe’s Data Protection Board (EDPB) put out guidance for developers of contacts tracing apps, which stressed an EU legal principle related to processing personal data that’s known as purpose limitation — warning that apps need to have purposes “specific enough to exclude further processing for purposes unrelated to the management of the COVID-19 health crisis (e.g., commercial or law enforcement purposes)”.

Which sounds a bit like the regulator drawing a line in the sand to warn states that might be tempted to turn contacts tracing apps into coronavirus immunity passports.

The EDPB also urged that “careful consideration” be given to data minimisation and data protection by design and by default — two other key legal principles baked into Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, albeit with some flex during a public health emergency.

However the regulatory body took a pragmatic view on the centralization vs decentralization debate — saying both approaches are “viable” in a contacts tracing context, with the key caveat that “adequate security measures” must be in place.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/23/germanys-covid-19-contacts-tracing-app-to-link-to-labs-for-test-result-notification/

Filed Under: blockchain Tagged With: api, Apple, apple inc, blockchain, Bluetooth, cologne, contacts tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, DP-3T, Europe, european commission, european union, France, General Data Protection Regulation, Germany, google, health systems, iOS, mobile app, spain, switzerland, United Kingdom

GDPR adtech complaints keep stacking up in Europe

May 25, 2019 by Blockchain Consultants

It’s a year since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force and leaky adtech is now facing privacy complaints in four more European Union markets. This ups the tally to seven markets where data protection authorities have been urged to investigate a core function of behavioral advertising.

The latest clutch of GDPR complaints aimed at the real-time bidding (RTB) system have been filed in Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain.

All the complaints argue that RTB entails “wide-scale and systemic” breaches of Europe’s data protection regime, as personal date harvested to profile Internet users for ad-targeting purposes is broadcast widely to bidders in the adtech chain. The complaints have implications for key adtech players, Google and the Internet Advertising Bureau, which set RTB standards used by other in the online adverting pipeline.

We’ve reached out to Google and IAB Europe for comment on the latest complaints. (The latter’s original response statement to the complaint can be found here, behind its cookie wall.)

The first RTB complaints were filed in the UK and Ireland, last fall, by Dr Johnny Ryan of private browser Brave; Jim Killock, director of the Open Rights Group; and Michael Veale, a data and policy researcher at University College London.

A third complaint went in to Poland’s DPA in January, filed by anti-surveillance NGO, the Panoptykon Foundation.

The latest four complaints have been lodged in Spain by Gemma Galdon Clavell (Eticas Foundation) and Diego Fanjul (Finch); David Korteweg (Bits of Freedom) in the Netherlands; Jef Ausloos (University of Amsterdam) and Pierre Dewitte (University of Leuven) in Belgium; and Jose Belo (Exigo Luxembourg).

Earlier this year a lawyer working with the complainants said they’re expecting “a cascade of complaints” across Europe — and “fully expect an EU-wide regulatory response” give that the adtech in question is applied region-wide.

Commenting in a statement, Galdon Cavell, the CEO of Eticas, said: “We hope that this complaint sends a strong message to Google and those using Ad Tech solutions in their websites and products. Data protection is a legal requirement must be translated into practices and technical specifications.”

A ‘bug’ disclosed last week by Twitter illustrates the potential privacy risks around adtech, with the social networking platform revealing it had inadvertently shared some iOS users’ location data with an ad partner during the RTB process. (Less clear is who else might Twitter’s “trusted advertising partner” have passed people’s information to?)

The core argument underpinning the complaints is that RTB’s data processing is not secure — given the design of the system entails the broadcasting of (what can be sensitive and intimate) personal data of Internet users to all sorts of third parties in order to generate bids for ad space.

Whereas GDPR bakes in a requirement for personal data to be processed “in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data”. So, uh, spot the disconnect.

The latest RTB complaints assert personal data is broadcast via bid requests “hundreds of billions of times” per day — which it describes as “the most massive leakage of personal data recorded so far”.

While the complaints focus on security risks attached by default to leaky adtech, such a long chain of third parties being passed people’s data also raises plenty of questions over the validity of any claimed ‘consents’ for passing Internet users’ data down the adtech chain. (Related: A decision by the French CNIL last fall against a small local adtech player which it decided was unlawfully processing personal data obtained via RTB.)

This week will mark a year since GDPR came into force across the EU. And it’s fair to say that privacy complaints have been piling up, while enforcement actions — such as a $57M fine for Google from the French CNIL related to Android consent — remain far rarer.

One complexity with the RTB complaints is that the technology systems in question are both applied across EU borders and involve multiple entities (Google and the IAB). This means multiple privacy watchdogs need to work together to determine which of them is legally competent to address linked complaints that touch EU citizens in multiple countries.

Who leads can depend on where an entity has its main establishment in the EU and/or who is the data controller. If this is not clearly established it’s possible that various national actions could flow from the complaints, given the cross-border nature of the adtech — as in the CNIL decision against Android, for example. (Though Google made a policy change as of January 22, shifting its legal base for EU law enforcement to Google Ireland which looks intended to funnel all GDPR risk via the Irish DPC.)

The IAB Europe, meanwhile, has an office in Belgium but it’s not clear whether that’s the data controller in this case. Ausloos tells us that the Belgian DPA has already declared itself competent regarding the complaint filed against the IAB by the Panoptykon Foundation, while noting another possibility — that the IAB claims the data controller is IAB Tech Lab, based in New York — “in which case any and all DPAs across the EU would be competent”.

Veale also says different DPAs could argue that different parts of the IAB are in their jurisdiction. “We don’t know how the IAB structure really works, it’s very opaque,” he tells us.

The Irish DPC, which Google has sought to designate the lead watchdog for its European business, has said it will prioritize scrutiny of the adtech sector in 2019, referencing the RTB complaints in its annual report earlier this year — where it warned the industry: “the protection of personal data is a prerequisite to the processing of any personal data within this ecosystem and ultimately the sector must comply with the standards set down by the GDPR”.

There’s no update on how the UK’s ICO is tackling the RTB complaint filed in the UK as yet — but Veale notes they have a call today. (And we’ve reached out to the ICO for comment.)

So far the same RTB complaints have not been filed in France and Germany — jurisdictions with privacy watchdogs that can have a reputation for some of the most muscular action enforcing data protection in Europe.

Although the Belgian DPA’s recently elected new president is making muscular noises about GDPR enforcement, according to Ausloos — who cites a speech he made, post-election, saying the ‘time of sit back and relax’ is over. They made sure to reference these comments in the RTB complaint, he adds.

Veale suggests the biggest blocker to resolving the RTB complaints is that all the various EU watchdogs “need a vision of what the world looks like after they take a given action”.

In the meanwhile, the adtech complaints keep stacking up.

Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/gdpr-adtech-complaints-keep-stacking-up-in-europe/

Filed Under: blockchain Tagged With: ad tech, Adtech, Android, behavioral advertising, belgium, data controller, data processing, data protection, data security, digital rights, Europe, european union, France, GDPR, General Data Protection Regulation, google, ireland, Johnny Ryan, Netherlands, online advertising, poland, Privacy, Real-time bidding, RTB complaints, spain, United Kingdom

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