A Fascinating Year Gains Momentum: Bitnewstoday Confirms!

Probably, those who believe that the beginning of the year is a stagnation season in the business life, are wrong after all. Bitnewstoday follows the news in the blockchain and FinTech industry and feels the activity is on. It seems that the winter forced businessmen and officials to move intensively — you need to warm up somehow.

Laws, regulation, Wyoming, SEC, ETF

Since the beginning of the year, BNT editors paid attention twice to the American state of Wyoming. The first time was when Marc Gordon, the new governor, gave a speech during the inauguration, praised the successes of blockchain startups, promising to help achieve more.

The second reason was to symbolically show the "thumb up" to the authorities — the adoption by the Senate of a legislative act that extends the ownership of the crypto assets of Wyoming citizens. There is every reason to believe that now many entrepreneurs and crypto enthusiasts are seriously thinking about moving to Wyoming or about opening an office in this state.

  The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2019 hit the radar several times:

• The first was in connection with lawsuits against several companies and individuals connected with the issue and promotion of crypto tokens. SEC has imposed serious fines for the sale and advertising of unregistered securities.
• The second was Kik Interactive which decided to oppose the SEC. The owners of the company are not satisfied with the Commission’s pressure on crypto projects — when the SEC considers all tokens to be securities, and therefore subject to appropriate registration and strict reporting.
• The third was a new attempt to register Bitcoin-ETF. At the end of January, the previous round was interrupted due to the shutdown of the American government. And here we are again. As analysts say, now everything should be well for sure.
• The fourth was the Commission’s search for partners who can provide full analytics on the use of cryptocurrency by users of accounts in the blockchain network.
• The fifth, “not all tokens are securities,” says Hester Peirce, SEC Commissioner. There it goes.

Blockchain in action

BPG Group launches digitized securities on the Ripple platform. It is reported that the issue has been resolved with regulators.
Large Indian companies have been testing blockchain technology to create internal accounting systems. There is already success and optimism about the future of these experiments.

Such companies as Chevron, Total and Reliance Industries are joining the Vakt commodity trading blockchain platform. A bit earlier, other giants of the market like BP, Equinor, Shell, Gunvor and Mercuria, became participants of the project.

SWIFT fears Ripple and is willing to cooperate with R3, a consortium developing its blockchain platform.

Spanish Aragon consistently and aggressively implements the blockchain. After the introduction of a distributed registry into the administrative processes of the region, the development of a new project including a blockchain system has begun.

“Blockchain in agriculture? Why not? ” says French President Emmanuel Macron. And he doesn’t only think but encourages the EU to introduce blockchain to improve the accounting and control of the transportation of agricultural products.

Goodbye, ZCash! Hello, Mongolia!

It’s always hot in the world of cryptocurrency. Rates skyrocket and fall down, new tokens become leaders, the new stable coins appear, the scandals follow one after the other — no single reason to get bored.

BNT has talked about ZCash twice since the beginning of the year. First, there was a message from ZCash developers about finding a serious vulnerability — the network update fixed it. No one was hurt, everything is under control. Later the media started talking about the statement of the developers — it was decided to rebrand it. The team will no longer be called ZCash. Now everyone will have to get used to the new name: Electric Coin Company.

THOR and NEM also had to face serious problems. The first project is clearly going through hard times: reorganization, restructuring and saving — this is the recipe prescribed by the company's management to the patient. NEM is doing better. We talked about the problems of the project, which does not cope with the long downtrend of the market, but it does not seem to give up.

Still, BitTorrent Token pleased us with its movement against the market, + 565% of the price of ICO. Another staunch fighter against the bear market entered the TOP-10 cryptocurrencies and deserved tumultuous applause — that’s Binance Coin. Meanwhile, Litecoin cannot be named "a cheeky newcomer." The coin is old, deserved and respected, but this does not diminish pride, when it finally returned to the TOP-5.

January and February are the right time for news about stable coins: Iran, Japan and Korea are eager to launch national digital money backed by local fiat currencies. The Iranian government did not have any opportunities after disconnecting the country's financial institutions from the SWIFT system. It was reported that its own stable coin, provided by the Iranian rial, is ready to go.

The Japanese financial regulator approved a stable crypto coin with a yen cover and gave the businessmen a year to test the stable coin in their own sandbox. The Korean Won provides the stable coin KRWb — here the experiments have already been completed, and the cryptocurrency, starting with three exchanges, is preparing to go to the auctions around the world.

Bitnewstoday keeps its finger on the pulse

2019 will be interesting for the blockchain and fintech industry: many analysts, observers and experts talked about this. It seems that they meet their expectations. Bitnewstoday keeps a close eye on everything that happens in the world of financial technology, in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries. Read our news and learn the most important and interesting — you will not be bored.

The results of January and February were summed up by Aleksandre B, the lead author of Bitnewstoday.

Image courtesy of Blokt