2 Japanese Business Giants to Offer Crypto Margin Trading + More News
Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Exchanges news
- SBI VC Trade, the crypto exchange run by the Japanese financial giant SBI, will follow suit as e-commerce giant Rakuten launches crypto margin trading operations later this year, per Nikkei. As previously reported, Rakuten – Japan’s answer to Amazon – has already made its leveraged trading intentions clear. But SBI’s decision will likely galvanize the domestic crypto industry further, with two major businesses now set to offer margin trading. SBI and Rakuten are also reportedly in talks with other securities offerings providers about launching a securities token offering (STO) trading platform.
- Kraken said it will launch nine new FX pairs on March 12, letting their clients (except those residing in the U.S.) to directly trade between CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY and USD on the Kraken platform. Additional pairs may be added in the future, they added.
- South Korean crypto exchanges have started referring cryptocurrencies as “cryptoassets” on their websites, in line with terminology outlined in an amendment to a finance law passed earlier this month. The new law does not come into force until 2021, but it appears that platforms want to get ahead of themselves, with market leaders Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit all editing their websites in recent days, referring to themselves as “cryptoasset”-trading exchanges, per Fn News.
- And the aforementioned South Korean exchange Coinone has also been working on developing its overseas business operations – and will expand its remittance services in North America and Oceania. The company says, per Sen TV, that its Cross services, which make use of Ripple technology, will be rolled out in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Previously the service had only been available in a number of Asian nations, but the exchange now has its sights on further expansion.
- bitFlyer, the only cryptocurrency exchange to be regulated across Europe, the US and Japan at the same time, has reached a combined total of 2.5 million users globally, they say in an emailed press release. This was accomplished in six years since the establishment of bitFlyer.
Adoption news
- South Korean telecoms giant SK is set to launch a major digital medical care business platform, reports Industry News. SK, which already operates a number of local stablecoin projects, as well as its own blockchain mainnet, says that the medical platform will make use of blockchain technology. SK says it wants medical providers to use its new cloud solution, which “will combine quantum cryptography and blockchain technology to help purchase and manage medical supplies.”
- Blockchain lending firm Figure Technologies has announced that loan applications with the firm had soared by 300% since the Federal Reserve stimulus rate cut, pushing the amount of loans it has funded to over USD 1 billion. The average size of loans applied for during this lending surge is about USD 50,000 per household, says Figure Technologies.
- The central Bank of Brazil has announced that it will begin testing its new PIX platform – which has been mooted as an alternative to bitcoin (BTC), Visa and Mastercard as a method of payment. Per Criptonoticias, Brazilian industry insiders say that the new innovation will likely feature interoperability solutions that will allow it to be used with cryptocurrencies.
- Paradigm Labs, decentralized finance project backed by crypto investors Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Chapter One Ventures, is shutting down. Per the announcement posted by CEO and co-founder Liam Kovatch, the project is closing due to the lack of significant product-market fit, limited resources to pursue emergent opportunities, and other reasons that have resulted in a failure to carve a viable niche in the decentralized exchange (DEX) marketplace.
Security news
- Researchers have disclosed a new flaw that steals information from Intel’s SGX (Software Guard eXtensions), which acts as a digital vault for securing users’ most sensitive secrets. This means that sensitive information, such as crypto keys, may be stolen via a Load Value Injection (LVI), as researchers have named their proof-of-concept attacks, reports Arstechnica. Intel has a list of affected processors.
Tax news
- Up to 350,000 crypto investors will receive a warning from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) in the coming weeks, which will serve as a reminder to pay taxes. Crypto investors should make sure they keep good records when they buy, sell or trade cryptocurrencies to make it easier come tax time, an ATO spokesman is quoted as saying by news.com.au.
Investment news
- Remittance platform TerraPay has announced that a consortium of investors, including venture capital and growth equity firm Prime Ventures, global investment firm Partech Africa and management acquired the company for an undisclosed sum. According to the press release, the same investors, joined by IFC, which is a sister organization of the World Bank and member of the World Bank Group, invested USD 9.6 million in TerraPay to fund the company’s expansion.
