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Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase is Permitting Traders and Investors to Purchase Stocks

April 6, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

According to the latest announcement, Coinbase, an American cryptocurrency exchange platform, is all set to go live within two weeks, allowing investors and traders to purchase stocks in the trading platform. 

An official announcement states that Coinbase’s stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol COIN on April 14, 2021.

Founded in 2012, Coinbase is a leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange that operates remote-first without an official physical headquarters. It has a strong presence in the cryptocurrency market. The company aims to build the crypto economy to establish a transparent financial system enabled by cryptocurrency assets.

Initially, last year in December 2020, a leading crypto exchange platform announced that it is going public. Brian Armstrong expressed concerns about Bitcoin trading at that time, and despite that, Armstrong appears confident that whatever bitcoin is incurring, it is likely the start of something big.

After deciding to go live, the crypto exchange filed Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As things are now going in the right direction, one can only conclude that the exchange passed the financial agency’s approval procedure, which is applied to all firms requesting public trade options.

As a part of this announcement, Armstrong commented that we are committed to bringing the potential of crypto to everyone. He further stated that we would continue to strive to provide customers with the highest levels of security, trust, and transparency during times of intense demand. 

The Period of Extreme Demand Has Truly Arrived, Says Armstrong

In December 2020, when Armstrong announced that Coinbase plans to go public, he noted that all have to believe that we are still in the initial stages and that there’s a lot more to come. Now, as Bitcoin is trading for more than $59,000 per unit, it seems like Armstrong’s statement has truly arrived. 

Many major companies, including Tesla, Mastercard, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Visa, and others, are showing interest in crypto space and allowing crypto payments for goods and services. Tesla announced that people can now buy a Tesla with bitcoin in the U.S. Similarly, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., according to the announcements, is also investing in a cryptocurrency startup named Fireblocks to embrace digital assets. Visa, a major credit card provider, also announced that it is collaborating with cryptocurrency exchange platform and card issuer Crypto.com to facilitate a crypto settlement system for fiat transactions. 

To get instant updates about Blockchain Technology and to learn more about online Blockchain Certifications, check out Blockchain Council. 

Cryptocurrency Exchange Coinbase is Permitting Traders and Investors to Purchase Stocks

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Filed Under: blockchain, blockchain technology, cryptocurrency Tagged With: All about crypto, Bank, BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON CORP, Bitcoin, bitcoin trading, blockchain, Blockchain techhnology, brian armstrong, coinbase, Companies, crypto, crypto exchange, cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency exchange, Digital, economy, exchange, fiat, Go, Investing, Market, mastercard, NASDAQ, New York, payments, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, security, Space, Stocks, tesla, Trading, u.s., visa

Payment Network Visa Now Uses USDC as Settlement Currency

March 29, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

US credit card-issuing company Visa announced on Monday its intention of facilitating crypto payments through its network.

Visa Completes First Crypto Pilot Test

Visa strategic partner Crypto.com did a pilot transaction with the crypto firm settling a portion of its debts in US Dollar Coin (USDC), a “stablecoin” pegged to the US Dollar 1 to 1. 

The transaction was completed over the Ethereum network- a decentralized blockchain offering that has nurtured decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

Visa is fast-tracking its plans to enable more of its strategic partners to enjoy this feature later on in the year.

The move, which is described as an industry-first merge of digital and fiat-focused institutions, is riding on the back of an upsurge in cryptocurrencies worldwide. 

Wider adoption has seen legacy banks like the Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon, investment company BlackRock Inc. and the fellow US credit card company MasterCard embracing digital currencies in the past month.

This rise in institutional demand for crypto-assets has been fostered mainly by the foremost cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which has made significant rallies in the past year. In a show of faith and growing acceptance, Tesla placed $1.5 billion worth of investments into Bitcoin in early February.

In a subsequent announcement, Tesla boss Elon Musk said BTC will now be accepted in exchange for Tesla’s all-electric autonomous sedans. This move has seen BTC make new ATHs climaxing at $61,000 last week.

Visa’s latest move sees it address a significant problem plaguing crypto’s adoption. Usually, if a crypto owner pays for purchases from his crypto wallet, the digital asset needs to be converted to fiat at the end of the day.

This would lead to additional costs at the point of conversion. With this latest offering, Visa would enable its partners to settle their financial obligations using USDC, making it far easier for funds to be moved between entities.

The US payments giant has been making digital headway into the crypto-economy for some months now. In a new partnership with the first federally chartered digital bank Anchorage, Visa received its USDC funds in the company’s Ethereum address with the crypto company serving as the custodian.

Visa Eyes CBDCs Use On Its Platform

This pilot test is significant for the US payments firm as it leads to the adoption of digital assets for daily transactions. The company is also looking to benefit from the frenzy surrounding central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The digital assets sanctioned by the host country’s apex bank draw much interest from financial bodies globally.

In a recently published report, the Bank of International Settlements noted that over 80% of global central banks actively explored a digital version of their national currency. With this growing interest, Visa published a whitepaper in which it proposed a CBDC facility where transactions can be executed without the need for an internet connection.

According to the San Francisco firm, the growing adoption of cryptocurrencies is forcing them to ask many questions, and CBDCs could be a way they can provide the needed answers.

Payment Network Visa Now Uses USDC as Settlement Currency

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Filed Under: blockchain, cryptocurrency Tagged With: Adoption, Anchorage, Bank, Banks, Bitcoin, blockchain, btc, CBDC, Central Bank, crypto, crypto wallet, Cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency, Currencies, Currency, decentralized, Decentralized Finance, DeFi, Digital, digital currencies, elon-musk, ethereum, exchange, fiat, finance, Internet, investment, Investments, mastercard, New York, NFTs, payments, San Francisco, tesla, Tokens, us, USDC, visa, wallet

The Token Taxonomy Act of 2021: Preemption of inconsistent state laws

March 14, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

In these hyper-partisan times, any bill that includes sponsors from both sides of the aisle is noteworthy. There is one pending now that is particularly important in the crypto space. On March 8, 2021, H.R. 1628, the Token Taxonomy Act of 2021, was introduced by representative Warren Davidson. It was co-sponsored by representatives Ted Budd, Darren Soto, Scott Perry and Josh Gottheimer.

Terms of the Token Taxonomy Act of 2021

Among other provisions, the bill would exempt “digital tokens” from the definition of security, and it would also preempt inconsistent state regulation. Crypto assets would need to meet certain specified requirements in order to count as “digital tokens” under this act:

  • First, the interest must be created either in response to the verification of proposed transactions, or pursuant to rules for creation that cannot be altered by any single person or persons under common control, or “as an initial allocation of digital units that will otherwise be created in accordance” with either of the first two options.
  • Second, the assets must have a transaction history recorded in a distributed digital ledger or data structure on which consensus is reached via a mathematically verifiable process.
  • Third, after consensus is reached, the transaction record must resist modification by any single person or persons under common control.
  • Fourth, the interest must be transferable in peer-to-peer transactions, and fifth, it cannot be a representation of a conventional financial interest in a company or partnership.

Davidson has explained that the purpose of the bill is to improve regulatory clarity. In addition, in an interview, he suggested that if the bill had been passed in prior years, “it could have forestalled enforcement actions such as the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) suit against Ripple Labs.” This comment examines in more detail how the bill might actually play out with regard to certain forms of crypto.

How would Bitcoin fare?

As virtually everyone in the crypto space is likely to know, Bitcoin (BTC) is issued exclusively in mining transactions. In other words, it is created “in response to the verification of proposed transactions,” meeting the first of the requirements to be a digital token. In addition, its transaction history is maintained on the blockchain, satisfying the second of the above requirements.

The entire process is set up to resist modification or change absent consensus among a large and decentralized community. The entire Bitcoin network was set up to be peer-to-peer although numerous exchanges now also exist to facilitate transfers. Finally, Bitcoin is not associated with any company or partnership, and it represents neither an ownership interest nor the right to share in revenues.

Given these facts, Bitcoin would clearly be a digital token. As such, under the new definition proposed in the act, Bitcoin would be excluded from the definition of security. Moreover, under section 2(d) of the act, state securities law regulations regarding registration or imposing limitations on the use of the asset would be precluded from applying to Bitcoin, with the sole proviso that states would retain authority to regulate and enforce actions based on fraud or deceit.

Because the United States Securities and Exchange Commission already excludes Bitcoin from the reach of the federal securities laws, this would not be a change in federal requirements. It would, however, create a uniform state system pursuant to which Bitcoin is excluded from regulation as securities except as to fraud claims.

Would Ripple’s XRP be a “digital token?”

It is not, however, accurate to assume that all crypto assets will count as digital tokens under the act. Consider Ripple’s XRP (and the pending action by the SEC against the company and its executive officers). For those not totally familiar with Ripple and XRP, the XRP ledger was completed by Ripple in December 2012, and the computer code set a fixed supply of 100 billion XRP. When launched, 80 billion of those tokens were transferred to Ripple, and the remaining 20 billion XRP went to a group of founders.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from 2013 through 2014, Ripple made efforts to create a market for XRP by having the company distribute approximately 12.5 billion XRP through bounty programs that paid programmers compensation for reporting problems in the XRP ledger’s code. From 2014 through the third quarter of 2020, the company sold around 8.8 billion XRP in the market and through institutional sales, raising approximately $1.38 billion to fund its operations. Resales, including resales from XRP previously distributed to the company’s founders, were also occurring at this time. So, would XRP be a digital token and thus exempt from regulation as a security under the act?

Related: SEC vs. Ripple: A predictable but undesirable development

The first requirement is actually the biggest problem for XRP. The bill contains three options for the first part of the test, but it is unclear that XRP meets any of them. Because all of the tokens were issued at the launch, there is no argument that XRP is created “in response to the verification or collection of proposed transactions.”

In addition, because all of the tokens were issued at launch, it is clear that Ripple or those in control of the company could have altered the terms under which XRP was to be issued. This leaves the argument that there was “an initial allocation of digital units that will otherwise be created in accordance with” one of the first two alternatives, and it is doubtful that this happened. XRP was never set up to be mined, and Ripple certainly had the ability to maintain control over the asset since it owned the vast majority of it. This makes it appear that XRP would not actually be a digital token, although the facts might be arguable.

It should be noted that the act also provides a very limited exemption for any “digital unit,” which is a much broader term that covers any “representation of economic, proprietary, or access rights that is stored in a machine-readable format.” The exemption covers any person who has acted with a reasonable and good faith belief that the digital unit is a digital token, but it only applies if all reasonable efforts are used to stop sales and return any unused proceeds to purchasers within 90 days of notice from the SEC that it has concluded the interest is a security. Ripple has obviously declined to follow this course, as it is fighting the current SEC enforcement action in court.

While this analysis and result may not disappoint everyone in the crypto community since some have long argued that XRP is not a “true” crypto asset anyway, it is a clear indication that the act does not create a free pass for all crypto offerings. It also would not be the end of the road for Ripple, which could still argue that XRP is not an investment contract under the Howey Test.

Would Facebook’s stablecoins have been “digital tokens?”

One more illustrative example might also be important to understand how the act would work if adopted. Consider Facebook’s original proposal for Libra. On June 18, 2019, Facebook announced in a white paper that it was actively planning to launch a cryptocurrency to be called Libra in 2020. The entire proposal has been renamed and updated, but the terms of the original white paper are the ones that are considered here.

Libra was conceived by Facebook and designed to be a “stablecoin,” with its value pegged to a basket of bank deposits and short-term government securities for a group of historically stable fiat currencies. It was to be governed by the Libra Association, a Swiss nonprofit organization.

The Libra Association was conceived as a group of diverse organizations from around the world, including not only Facebook but also major investors such as Mastercard, Visa, eBay and PayPal. The original plan was to have approximately 100 members for the association by the target launch date, each of which was to contribute $10 million. In exchange, the association members would have the right to oversee Libra’s development, its real-world reserves and even the Libra blockchain’s governance rules. The group of 100 members would also be able to act as validator nodes for the asset.

Libra was not set to be mineable, but rather to be issued as and when the Libra Association determined. The white paper also described a system that would have allowed the association to change how the system operated and, in particular, set rules for the issuance of the assets. While the association would have a relatively large number of diverse members with their own objectives and interests, they would be acting through the association, which is itself a single legal entity. This means that the Libra coin (as originally conceived) would not have fit within the definition of a digital token as set out in the act.

Would that mean Libra would have been a security? As was the case for XRP, the answer is “not necessarily.” The next step would be to ask whether it would have qualified as an investment contract. Depending on how the association determined to issue the coin, and whether there was any possibility of appreciation (which seems unlikely, as it was supposed to be pegged to fiat currencies as a “stablecoin”), the Libra coin might or might not have been an investment contract. The determination would have been based on the same Howey Test that the act was reportedly designed to clarify.

Conclusion

Defining security to exclude digital tokens means that the SEC will retain no authority to regulate fraud in connection with transactions involving these interests, leaving the bulk of enforcement to agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. While the CFTC has sought enforcement against those who engage in fraudulent or deceitful conduct in the crypto spot markets (where transactions in crypto rather than those involving futures or other derivatives are involved), it lacks the resources available to the SEC.

For example, the CFTC just announced its first enforcement action involving a pump-and-dump scheme, while the SEC’s list of prior crypto enforcement actions includes a number of market manipulation claims in addition to claims against John McAfee, the target of the CFTC’s recent action.

This difference is explainable, in part, by the relative size of the two agencies. The SEC’s 2021 budget justification plan called for support in the amount of $1.895 billion. On the other hand, the CFTC’s 2021 budget request was a relatively modest $304 million. Moving fraud enforcement to the CFTC is, therefore, not necessarily prudent or wise.

In addition, while it is quite clear that the proposed definition of digital token is likely to be far simpler than the Howey test, it is not necessarily going to replace that analysis in all cases.

Does the Token Taxonomy Act offer increased clarity? Absolutely. Preemption of inconsistent state laws could be particularly helpful in this regard. Does it provide certainty in all cases? No, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Is the act a good idea? Sadly, probably not. Providing a ready exemption from registration for digital tokens might be supportable. Removing them from the definition of security in the current climate where fraud continues to be a major concern is probably not.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Carol Goforth is a university professor and the Clayton N. Little professor of law at the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) School of Law.

The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University or its affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

The Token Taxonomy Act of 2021: Preemption of inconsistent state laws

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Filed Under: blockchain technology Tagged With: analysis, arkansas, article, Bank, Bitcoin, blockchain, CFTC, commodity, Commodity Futures, crypto, cryptocurrency, Currencies, data, decentralized, derivatives, Digital, eBay, exchange, Exchanges, executive, facebook, fiat, format, fraud, Futures, government, information, investment, Law, Ledger, Libra, Libra Association, Market, Markets, mastercard, mining, opinions, other, PayPal, Regulation, ripple, ripple labs, SEC, Securities and Exchange Commission, security, Space, Stablecoins, Tokens, Trading, United States, visa, world, xrp

Searching deep: The quest for Bitcoin scalability through layer two protocols

March 7, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

As the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin’s (BTC) effectiveness as a medium of exchange is still a matter for debate. Unlike fiat money that is inherently infinite in supply and must be managed by a central bank, Bitcoin is akin to gold in that it is commodity money with a finite supply of 21 million.

However, the supply cap is not the major stumbling block for BTC as a medium of exchange, but rather, the transaction throughput. While Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system capable of facilitating online payments without a central counterparty, seven transactions per second on average is hardly the standard for scalability.

Indeed, scalability is only one of three major metrics required for any currency system to succeed as a medium of exchange along with adoption and liquidity. There is an argument to be made of Bitcoin’s growing adoption around the world across several strata of the global economy.

Price volatility that has seen Bitcoin peak at $58,000 and then briefly fall below the $30,000 mark within the first two months of 2021 likely indicates lingering issues with liquidity. However, it’s important to note that the current period is being characterized by a bullish advance that began in October 2020. Ultimately, some analysts expect Bitcoin’s volatility to level out as more institutions take up positions in the market.

What do the critics say?

Bitcoin’s scalability problem is even older than the network itself. Indeed, upon first proposing the system back in 2008, James A. Donald replied to Satoshi Nakamoto with: “The way I understand your proposal, it does not seem to scale to the required size.”

This astute observation has been at the heart of some of the more contentious and controversial debates within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Disagreements over how to solve the problem have even resulted in multiple hard forks.

These days, when Bitcoin critics cannot definitively dismiss BTC’s store of value proposition, scalability seems to be a low-hanging fruit with which to craft some anti-Bitcoin soundbite. Speaking during the 2021 Daily Journal annual shareholders meeting, Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charlie Munger remarked that Bitcoin will never become a global medium of exchange due to its price volatility.

The 97-year-old billionaire investor is no stranger to espousing anti-Bitcoin sentiments. Indeed, together with Warren Buffett, the two Berkshire Hathaway chiefs have been responsible for some of the more colorful negative remarks among Bitcoin. From being “rat poison squared” to “trading turds,” Munger once slammed BTC investors for celebrating the life and work of Judas Iscariot.

Munger, like Buffett, is among a class of Wall Street Bitcoin critics who have often claimed that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. However, with the price of BTC continuing its relentless upward advance over the past decade while attracting significant institutional interest, detractors now seem to be left with only the scalability argument.

Even among mainstream crypto adopters, Bitcoin’s inability to scale at the base protocol level also seems to be a significant issue. In an address during the Future of Money conference back in February, Mastercard executive vice chair Ann Cairns declared that BTC was not suited to its crypto payment plans.

According to Cairns: “Bitcoin does not behave like a payment instrument […] It’s too volatile and it takes too long to transact.” As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Mastercard recently announced plans to offer support for cryptocurrency payment on its network.

Lightning Network node count rises, but slowly

Together with the 10-minute block creation time, the one-megabyte block size acts as the actual transaction throughput constraint for the Bitcoin network. The block size debate of 2017 that ultimately led to the Bitcoin Cash hard fork proved the adamance of Bitcoin purists to the 1MB block size ethos.

With the “big blockers” now firmly on their own Bitcoin forks like BCH and Bitcoin SV, the question of how to get BTC to scale without changing a thing on the protocol level still lingers. From Bitcoin banks to sidechain protocols, and even deferred settlement infrastructure layers like the Lightning Network, several developmental projects are currently ongoing to make Bitcoin more suitable for microtransactions like paying for coffee.

At a high level, these scaling solutions involve the creation of trustless, centralized (pardon the oxymoron) entities or layer-two networks that maintain lightweight versions of the BTC ledger to handle the actual “coin” transfers without having to maintain the full Bitcoin ledger. These sidechain implementations then transmit the transaction data for final settlement on the actual Bitcoin network.

LN is one of the major Bitcoin scaling solutions under active development by several organizations including Blockstream and Elizabeth Stark’s Lightning Labs. The Lightning Network is perhaps the most popular of the “defer-reconcile” scaling implementations that allow users to create payment channels that offer instant coin transfers at minimal fees.

According to data from LN data aggregator 1ML, there are over 17,300 public Lightning Network nodes and more than 38,400 channels. LN capacity is currently north of 1,100 BTC.

While LN adoption is yet to attain significant heights, layer-two implementation might be about to get a boost with Zap — a Visa-backed Lightning Network payments startup. In February, the company launched Strike — a payments and remittance app that utilizes the Lightning Network for payments.

Strike has also partnered with crypto exchange platform Bittrex to deliver LN-powered payments to over 200 countries around the world. The company plans to issue Strike Visa cards to users in the United States as well as in Europe and the United Kingdom before the end of the year.

What about Statechains?

There is a school of thought that argues Bitcoin scalability is only possible via layer-two solutions. Ruben Somsen, Bitcoin developer, crypto podcaster and founder of the Seoul Bitcoin meetup, is one of the proponents of this argument.

Somsen is an advocate of Statechains, another layer-two implementation but with a twist — transaction participants send private keys instead of actual unspent transaction output, or UTXO. The process involves loading a Statechain-compatible wallet with the exact BTC sum required for the trade followed by the transfer of the private keys from the sender to the recipient.

Since transferring private keys across the blockchain is fee-less and instant, the Statechain idea seems to have gained some traction within the Bitcoin scalability discussion. However, revealing private keys comes with significant security implications.

Thus, in recent times, the Statechain concept has been modified to include a third entity that acts as an intermediary between the transacting parties. Detailing the workings of this counterparty federation within the Statechain matrix, Somsen told Cointelegraph:

“Statechains allow you to take your coins off-chain (meaning cheap transactions) in a way that puts a minimum amount of trust in others. You have to trust a federation, but the federation won’t know that they are getting partial control of your coins, and they can’t refuse peg-outs (moving back to the Bitcoin blockchain).”

Blockchain infrastructure firm CommerceBlock is one of the companies actively developing Statechains as a viable scalability solution for Bitcoin. The firm is credited with introducing the counterparty federation or “Statechain entity” to improve the security of the system. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, CommerceBlock CEO Nicholas Gregory outlined how Statechains operate:

“At a high level, Statechains are simply a way to transfer your private key to another user. To facilitate this, you have to cooperate with a Statechain entity. However, at all times, the user has full control of their funds; at any anytime, they can withdraw their Bitcoin to their own custody. Therefore, the transfer is instant and private.”

While Statechains is a scalability solution on its own, some proponents agree that the system could integrate with the Lightning Network. With Statechains operating on the UTXO level, it is theoretically possible for another layer-two protocol such as the Lightning Network to be implemented on top of Statechains.

Such a hybrid integration could solve the limited node capacity issue of Lightning Network while ensuring the ability to facilitate multiple microtransactions via Statechains. Since the exact transaction amount is loaded into Statechain wallets, it’s impossible to split UTXOs making Statechain in its present iteration unsuitable for microtransactions.

According to Somsen, the Statechains can operate independently as well as function together with the Lightning Network: “Statechains complement the Lightning Network perfectly because opening and closing channels can happen off-chain. This removes a lot of the friction that exists in the current Lightning Network design.”

For Gregory, integrating Statechains with the Lightning Network is among the future developmental plans for CommerceBlock: “Statechains are instant and do not require liquidity lock up; however, you are sending the private key, so you can’t do small or specific denominations. This is where LN excels.”

With these developments and more, the quest for a workable Bitcoin scalability solution is still ongoing. While critics, like Munger, who have been consistently wrong about BTC, continue to drop soundbites, developers are hard at work to solve one of the longest-running operability issues concerning Bitcoin.

Searching deep: The quest for Bitcoin scalability through layer two protocols

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Google Finance Adds Dedicated Data Tab on Bitcoin and Ether

March 1, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

Google has finally hopped on the crypto bandwagon. With the crypto industry now worth a mouth-watering $1 trillion, it can no longer be disregarded.

Google Adds ‘Crypto’ Tab To Feed

With many institutions coming into the crypto space in the last year, and many more projected to make a move soon, Google is making the crypto transition, as many had expected.

Through its Google Finance domain, the American tech company will enable its Google Finance users to get up-to-date price movements for their favorite cryptocurrencies. The domain platform, which originally catered for stock and currency markets, will see ‘crypto’ debut in its “compare markets” finance segment.

The new addition will let users know the latest price changes for popular virtual assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

Google had taken a stand-offish approach to the emerging blockchain technology previously. During the early years of cryptocurrencies gaining steam, the Alphabet subsidiary had banned crypto adverts on its platform. It went as far as bringing down videos on its Youtube platform that discussed cryptocurrencies.

But in a 2018 Blockchain Summit in Morocco, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Alphabet Inc., noted that the company had clearly missed it when it came to the nascent technology. Rumors are now making the rounds that the company is quietly acquiring crypto startups and investing in established crypto businesses. Ripple Labs’ is also mentioned as one of its crypto partners.

Crypto Now Gaining Global Attention

Bitcoin has played a vital role in cryptocurrencies reaching the enviable heights it is now on. With the premier digital asset owning a large share of the $1.6 trillion crypto market, global institutions and tech companies have found it hard to ignore it. 

MicroStrategy, a business intelligence firm based in Virginia, United States, has been beating the crypto drums for some time now. With its remarkable investments in BTC, it now holds a sizable share of BTC available in the ecosystem.

Electric car company Tesla Inc. also moved into the crypto space with an initial $1.5 billion investment in BTC. It is also looking to use the virtual asset as a payment solution, just like Mastercard and Visa plan to do.

The increased demand is making global financial regulators jittery as the sector is largely decentralized. TUS Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commissioner Hester Peirce have called for a dynamic regulatory framework. Peirce says this will better aid the development of the nascent technology and reduce its potential for misuse.

Google Finance Adds Dedicated Data Tab on Bitcoin and Ether

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SEC Commissioner Calls for More Serious Work on Crypto Regulations

February 15, 2021 by Blockchain Consultants

There has been significant hope that the Biden administration will make the most progressive step forward in crypto regulations. On the back of heightened Bitcoin demand and adoption, a Commissioner at the country’s top securities regulator is calling for serious regulatory consideration.

The Stars Are Aligning

Last week, Hester M. Pierce, a longtime Commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), spoke with Reuters about the need for cryptocurrency regulations. In her interview, Pierce, a long-running crypto fan, explained that institutional demand for digital assets had made regulations more of a necessity, and the SEC will need to act quickly.

Pierce’s affinity for cryptocurrencies has long been noted – even earning her the moniker “Crypto Mom.” As she explained to Reuters, the stars seem to have aligned for the SEC to finally take crypto regulations seriously, with a new administration and the increasing institutional demand.

“It’s not only that there have been calls for clarity for some time and that a new administration brings the chance to take a fresh look, but it also is a moment where it seems others in the marketplace are also taking a fresh look,” Pierce told Reuters.

The policymaker isn’t exactly wrong. 2020 saw significant institutional crypto adoption, with several large companies committing millions into Bitcoin to hedge against inflation and protect themselves from the coronavirus’s devastating economic impact. The increased investment led to a price surge for Bitcoin, which, as expected, spilled over to most other cryptocurrencies.

2021 hasn’t proven to be so different. In the past week alone, car manufacturer Tesla has announced a $1.5 billion commitment to Bitcoin and its integration of the leading cryptocurrency as a payment method for future products – most likely starting with the upcoming Cybertruck.

Mastercard, the top payment processor, and credit card manufacturer, has also announced that it would integrate Bitcoin into its services. The move will see the firm provide Bitcoin access to its almost billion-strong user base and 30 million merchants. Days later, Bank of New York Mellon, the country’s oldest banking institution, confirmed that it would now provide Bitcoin custody services. 

There’s Hope After All

These announcements – particularly that of Tesla – have driven Bitcoin’s recent rally, bringing the asset agonizingly close to the $50,000 price peg. Analysts believe that $50,000 will be in play this week – a phenomenon that will take Bitcoin over the 100 percent gain mark in less than three months.

Now that more companies are expected to make similar announcements, Pierce is correct in calling for crypto regulations. Fortunately, the Biden administration appears poised to fly where the Trump administration failed.

Last month, Cynthia Lummis, a pro-crypto Senator from Wyoming, told crypto hedge fund founder Anthony Pompliano that incoming Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is keeping an open mind towards crypto regulations. The Senator, who is now a member of the Senate Committee, explained that she had also launched a Financial Innovation Caucus to educate her Congressional colleagues and other policymakers on digital assets going forward.

SEC Commissioner Calls for More Serious Work on Crypto Regulations

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