EY Has Blockchain-based Solution to Governments + 11 More Crypto News

Sead Fadilpašić
Last updated: | 3 min read

Crypto Briefs is your daily bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – keeping you up-to-date with under the radar crypto news from around the world.

Source: iStock/ricochet64

Adoption news

  • Major professional services firm, EY, launched EY OpsChain Public Finance Manager (PFM), a blockchain-enabled solution that aims to help governments drive transparency, provide accountable outcomes for citizens and track budgets, expenditures and results. Toronto has already tested application to the way reconciliations and interdivisional fund transfers are managed, as part of its ongoing financial management transformation efforts, EY said, without elaborating on the results of this pilot.
  • Wyre, a major crypto-to-fiat onramp, released a new widget that allows people to use Apple Pay and Google Pay to buy crypto easily and in a few clicks. The announcements says that the new Wyre V2 will enable users to complete this purchase in 20 seconds. The company also plans to offer Wyre V2’s instant purchases at lower fees, similar to those of ACH [automated clearing house] transfers.
  • ‘Satoshi’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). OED published its October 2019 update, saying that “Among the earliest additions this quarter is an adverbial sense of ange […], while the most recent was first used less than seven years ago: a satoshi is the smallest monetary unit in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, and is named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the—probably pseudonymous—developer(s) of Bitcoin.”
  • Miami-based Bitcoin technology startup Bitstop said it has installed Miami International Airport’s (MIA’s) first Bitcoin ATM. The ATM is located in concourse G next to gate 16. The MIA location marks Bitstop’s 40th Bitcoin ATM installation over the last two months and brings Bitstop’s total Bitcoin ATM count to 130 machines nationwide.
  • MoreFrom, a UK based independent online IT retailer, has partnered with Utrust, the cryptocurrency payment solution provider. MoreFrom customers can now pay for more than 200,000 products from over 600 brands using cryptocurrencies.

Career news

  • Major crypto payments processor, BitPay, said it got its first Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Bill Zielke. Most recently, he was CMO at venture-backed startups Ingo Money and Forter, and previously he held multiple senior roles at eBay and PayPal. “As BitPay looks to maintain and expand its leadership position as the largest global blockchain payments provider, we realized we needed a seasoned marketer to advance the company to the next level,” said Stephen Pair, CEO, and co-founder of BitPay.

Cryptocurrency exchange news

  • Major European crypto exchange Bitstamp said it is integrating Ledger Vault’s technology to enable advanced custody options. It “will allow us to provide more options when it comes to the way assets are stored,” David Osojnik, Bitstamp Chief Technology Officer, said.

Dapp news

  • DappRadar, a Lithuania-based dapp (decentralized application) analysis platform, announced that it has started tracking full token transaction volumes for EOS dapps. While only the volume of the native EOS cryptocurrency was tracked earlier, now EOS dapps will be ranked on the total volume of all EOS-based tokens passing through their smart contracts, which they say will increase the transparency of value creation on the EOS blockchain, particularly for decentralized exchanges that support the trading of EOS-based tokens. Over the coming months, DappRadar will add similar tracking for more protocols, including Ethereum and Tron.

Mining news

  • Cryptocurrency investment and infrastructure platform Layer1 said it raised its Series A financing at a USD 200 million valuation with the backing of numerous investors, including billionaire Peter Thiel, Shasta Ventures, and cryptocurrency industry leaders. “With this funding, we are positioned to own the whole Bitcoin mining stack by designing, producing, and operating our entire mining infrastructure,” said Alexander Liegl, Co-founder and CEO.

Trading news

  • Cryptocurrency exchange Coinfield will issue stock and fiat backed stablecoins via its newly-launched Sologenic, which is a ecosystem that facilitates trading of on-demand tokenized assets, including stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from more than twenty-five global stock exchanges or fiat-backed stablecoins, and it’s built on top of the XRP ledger (XRPL). According to the announcement, Sologenic deploys SOLO coins for market-making and liquidity providing.
  • Social trading company eToro announced their partnership with The TIE, a cryptocurrency data analytics platform, to offer a Twitter-mentions based crypto portfolio, called TheTIE-LongOnly CopyPortfolio. With this tool, users will gain access to an AI-driven and sentiment-based investment strategy offered by The TIE.

Regulation news

  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is asking for comments on a proposed ETF based around bitcoin and Treasury bonds once again, after the investment management firm Wilshire Phoenix and NYSE Arca filed an amendment to their ETF proposal earlier in October in regards to the issuance and redemption for the securities and the listing/trading of the fund’s shares – according to a public filing.