January 16, 2018 @ 11:32 pm By JD Alois  |  

South Korea has veered off track in allowing digital currencies to grow and evolve. Frightened by the rapid rise in Bitcoin trading and speculation, public officials have been raiding exchanges, banning anonymous accounts, and threatening to ban cryptocurrencies altogether. As the South Korean government moved… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 4:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

The announcement by Kodak that it would be jumping into the cryptocurrency space with its own initial coin offering and KODAKCoin rattled all of corporate America. If a fallen star like Kodak could do it, then why not them? In a way, Kodak validates the… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 3:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

The price of Bitcoin is tanking today, depending on which exchange you are looking at Bitcoin, or BTC, is hovering over $11,000.  It was not that long ago that Bitcoin was barreling down on $20,000 per BTC. But oh, what a day or two makes… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 10:54 am By JD Alois  |  

Origin Protocol is a company that wants to create a set of protocols that allows developers and businesses to build decentralized marketplaces on the blockchain. Protocol says they have just released their live Blockchain based application and six different companies have reportedly committed to developing… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 9:00 am By JD Alois  |  

Joy Schoffler, a well known persona in the investment crowdfunding world, has joined private equity group Casoro Capital as Chief Strategy Officer. Schoffler founded and managed Leverage PR, a marketing firm that worked with many crowdfunding platforms, Fintechs and funding campaigns. In early 2017 after… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 8:22 am By JD Alois  |  

Deutsche Bank has announced a new strategic partnership with Insurtech firm Friendsurance. The arrangement will see the two companies working together to advise clients and help them take out and manage insurance policies. Deutsch Bank’s goal is to make it more simple, transparent and convenient… Read More

January 16, 2018 @ 8:04 am By JD Alois  |  

Peer to peer lender Robo.cash has shared a “financial portrait of a Robo.cash investor.” Their study reflects the behavior of investors on the European P2P platform, including the actual volume of investment, the quantity and size of deposits and withdrawals of funds from the platform, is… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 9:06 pm By JD Alois  |  

Lendix, one of the premier peer to peer lending platforms in continental Europe, published a letter last week sharing what to expect in 2018 and reflecting on the past year. Their third Open Letter first tackled promises from the year prior. According to their recollection, Lendix… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 12:05 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Luxembourg Finance Minister, Pierre Gramegna, was interviewed by Bloomberg while attending an event in Hong Kong. While the hed indicated the discussion was about Brexit, the more interesting discussion was about Fintech opportunities and cryptocurrencies. Gramegna was queried about possible new regulations on the… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 11:31 am By JD Alois  |  

Kraken, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in operation, scheduled a system upgrade last week for December 11th. The upgrade was to replace its trading engine with a new and improved version. Originally expected to take just 2 hours, Kraken remained down for several days… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 9:52 am By JD Alois  |  

The Dow Jones Venturesource Venture Capital Report is out for Q4 2017. The report covers the European VC market, including Brexit bound UK. The Dow Jones report for the final quarter of the year paints a positive perspective on VC funding as there was a… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 8:46 am By JD Alois  |  

Last week, a Singapore Member of Parliament, Foo Mee Har, posed some questions to the Singapore Prime Minister regarding enforcement of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing and Bitcoin utilization where “conventional oversight mechanisms of the real money market do not apply.” Singapore Deputy Prime… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 7:47 am By JD Alois  |  

Leading online lender Lendix is out with a note saying they have hired three new recruits to support its 2018 growth targets. The peer to peer lender currently operates in France, Spain and Italy, but will open up in two additional countries soon. To help… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 7:17 am By JD Alois  |  

The British Robotics Seed Fund (BRSF) has invested in Magpie Education, a creator of an AI driven resource tool  designed to inspire students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) subjects. The£300,000 investment will help Magpie capture market share of the UK Edtech market and then… Read More

January 15, 2018 @ 7:01 am By JD Alois  |  

Following a closed beta launch in December, Emma Technologies has announced the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has give regulatory approval to the company under the Payment Services Regulations 2017 for the provision of payment services. In the UK on January 13th requirements under PSD2, as… Read More

January 14, 2018 @ 10:00 am By JD Alois  |  

A few days ago we reported that South Korean government authorities had initiated a ban on all anonymous transactions in cryptocurrencies. Today, according to a report in Yonhap, officials will fine anyone who had not migrated a virtual account to a real name account. Account… Read More

January 14, 2018 @ 9:20 am By JD Alois  |  

This should come as no surprise but SelfKey’s public token sale closed in just 11 minutes.  According to the company, the public portion of the initial coin offering (ICO) hit its cap of $5.94 million in mere minutes. SelfKey’s pre-sale easily raised its cap of… Read More

January 14, 2018 @ 8:45 am By JD Alois  |  

Bank Indonesia has issued a statement affirming that using Bitcoin, and any other cryptocurrency, is not allowed in Indonesia. Bank Indonesia has previously issued proclamations sharing their stance on digital currencies – most recently in December when the bank said usage would be banned in… Read More

January 13, 2018 @ 11:49 am By JD Alois  |  

Following a successful pre-sale where organizers reportedly raised $15 million, the SelfKey public Initial Coin Offering will start tomorrow (January 14th @ 12 AM UTC). Founded by Edmund Lowell, SelfKey’s tech stack is already in use.  In fact SelfKey may find itself in use with some big… Read More

January 12, 2018 @ 5:52 pm By JD Alois  |  

Open Banking is kind of a nebulous term. Unless you are very engaged with the UK financial sector it probably means little to you. Yet the concept of Open Banking will have profound ramifications for consumers and businesses in both the UK and Europe. In… Read More