Monat: Juni 2023

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CACEIS Bank secures France’s first crypto custody licence

  • CACEIS Bank is the asset servicing unit of Crédit Agricole and Santander.
  • The company is registered as a Digital Assets Service Provider by France’s Financial Markets Authority.
  • The approval allows CACEIS Bank to offer crypto custody services in a regulated environment.

One of the biggest crypto news today is that CACEIS Bank, the French banking entity of European banking giants Crédit Agricole and Santander, has been granted the first digital assets custody licence in France.

The asset servicing provider, with €4.6 trillion ($5.1 trillion) in assets under custody, secured the Digital Assets Service Provider (DASP) registration from the Financial Markets Authority (AMF), France’s markets regulator. Details on the AMF website shows that CACEIS received the PSAN nod on June 20.

According to a press release published on Thursday, the licence now means it can offer its digital asset custody services to the growing number of investment management firms and institutional investors. PSAN is CACEIS’ first milestone in the quest to provide innovative crypto custody products.

“In practical terms, we will provide secure storage for our clients’ private digital keys leveraging state-of-the-art technology,” Arnaud Misset, CACEIS’ Chief Digital Officer said.

Major financial institutions embrace crypto

CACEIS Bank’s registration adds to the French regulators’ approval of crypto related services for finance giants, including Societe Generale’s Forge and AXA Investment Managers.

It comes as several global financial institutions embrace crypto, with US-based behemoth BlackRock sparking the influx with its spot Bitcoin ETF filing. The growing list now includes Fidelity Investments, Deutsche Bank, Vanguard, WisdomTree, Invesco, and Schwab.

The French giant’s regulatory milestone also comes amid a greater push for regulatory clarity, with the European Union’s MiCA currently the most comprehensive and expected to come into effect in 2024. The UK is in the final stages of passing its Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSMB), which was this week voted through by the UK parliament’s Upper chamber, the House of Lords.

In the US, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has recently intensified its crackdown with lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. However, with focus on the industry, experts are optimistic clarity will soon follow.

The post CACEIS Bank secures France’s first crypto custody licence appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Algorand boosts network speed with key protocol upgrade

  • Algorand’s latest protocol upgrade has cut block time from 3.8 seconds to 3.3 seconds.
  • It is the PoS network’s largest decrease in block time by percentage and comes as blockchains look to boost performance amid competition.
  • ALGO, the native Algorand token, rose to near $0.13 before trading slightly lower on Thursday afternoon.

Algorand has released a new upgrade that sees the protocol’s block time significantly reduced and thereby boosting the network’s performance.

The proof-of-stake network announced the new upgrade had gone live on mainnet on Thursday. It noted that network speed had improved by more than 10%, with a block time of 3.3 seconds unleashed to cut network speed from the previous 3.8 seconds. Its Algorand’s largest block time reduction percentage-wise.

Notably, Algorand maintains its instant transaction finality, the protocol upgrade announcement noted. Today’s upgrade makes application development on the PoS network faster and cost-efficient.

The native token ALGO rose nearly 5% following the news to trade near $0.13. However, it traded around $0.125 at the time of writing, about 1.5% higher in the past 24 hours.

Cardano and BNB Chain also introduced upgrades

Algorand’s block time reduction comes amid similar upgrades across the ecosystem as blockchains look to tap into the growing developer ecosystem.

Early this week, Cardano introduced upgrade 8.1.1 that aimed at speeding up network processes during epoch transitions for better performance. BNB Chain’s Luban hard fork, introduced last month, also sought to improve network speed and security.

For Algorand, the latest upgrade introduced other enhancements such as Simulate, a tool that allows developers to simulate smart contracts and test for bugs and other issues before deploying on the mainnet. Another tool is Conduit, which allows for flexible and affordable access to data.

“We are hyper focused on Algorand providing the best tech for developers to engage with and end users to experience,” Paul Riegle, Chief Product Officer at Algorand, said. 

According to him, the new capabilities means developers can quickly build and deploy higher quality dApps to the market, leveraging faster, efficient testing and customised data sets.

The post Algorand boosts network speed with key protocol upgrade appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Binance Brazil is being investigated for suspected pyramid schemes

  • Binance has been under fire from regulators in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and now Brazil.
  • Binance.US and its legal team have, however, alleged that the SEC issued misleading statements in the lawsuit.
  • Besides pyramid schemes, Binance is also being investigated for helping customers get around a restriction on crypto derivatives investments in Brazil.

On June 21, Brazilian Deputy Alfredo Gaspar called for Guilherme Haddad, the head of Binance Brazil, to appear before the legislative arm of the Brazilian government as part of an investigation into possible pyramid schemes in the country.

The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) is expected to decide whether to allow or deny Gaspar’s request of having Haddad appear before Parliament, on June 27. Depending on the results of the vote, Haddad might be required to appear before the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies.

Gaspar’s request to parliament read:

“We can deduce that Binance is entirely imbricated with the motivation of this CPI and it becomes fundamental to understand its performance in the country, its relationship with B Fintech (its official representative), as well as its connection with companies that are judicially liable for harming Brazilian consumers.”

International regulatory pressure mounts on Binance

Brazil is calling for investigations into Binance as the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world battles increasing international regulatory pressure. Regulators in the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, and now Brazil have all unleashed their wrath on Binance.

According to Gaspar, Binance assisted Brazilian pyramid schemes by transferring assets on March 11, 2023, when “the So Paulo Justice blocked R$ 500 thousand reais in Binance for a suspected pyramid.” He emphasized the significance of comprehending Binance’s activities, its connection to B Fintech, and any potential ties to businesses currently involved in legal disputes that harm consumers in Brazil.

Brazilian regulatory authorities claimed that Binance is under intense regulatory scrutiny worldwide as a result of “the company’s failure to respond to the regulation imposed by each country,” which is why they are proposing the summons.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office and Federal Police are also looking into Binance’s operations in Brazil for possibly helping customers get around a restriction on cryptocurrency derivatives investments.

The post Binance Brazil is being investigated for suspected pyramid schemes appeared first on CoinJournal.

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Atriv partners with Flare to bring AI-powered NFTs to the ecosystem

  • Atriv is an AI-powered digital art platform that allows for creation of NFTs from text.
  • Flare is a data-focused L1 blockchain that offers a highly scalable and interoperable network.
  • The partnership will see Atriv tap into Flare’s features to bring its no-code prompt generated NFTs to the Flare ecosystem.

Atriv, an artificial intelligence (AI) powered digital art platform and Flare, a data-focused Layer 1 blockchain network, have partnered in an initiative aimed at building out the Flare NFT ecosystem.

The partnership will see Atriv bring its AI-generated NFTs to Flare, and will tap into the Layer 1 blockchain’s native interoperability to simplify the creation and issuance of NFTs.

Artists and businesses to easily create and trade AI-powered NFTs

The AI revolution continues to disrupt all manner of industries across the world, and its adoption in the world of NFTs is behind the collaboration between Atriv and Flare. 

In their announcement today, the two platforms said their integration will make it easy for artists, businesses and collectors looking to create, issue, and trade AI-powered NFTs, the platforms said in a press release shared with CoinJournal on Thursday.

Specifically, the partnership will see Atriv bring its unique, no-code prompt-generating NFTs to the Flare network. Users will enter text into a generator and get unique AI-powered NFTs. 

“Our collaboration with Flare is a strategic decision driven by our shared vision of harnessing cutting-edge technology to reshape how digital art is created and shared,” Abel Sebhatu, CEO & co-founder of Atriv, noted in a statement.

He added that Atriv will benefit from Flare’s data-centric L1 blockchain, tapping into its scalability and security to bring the future of NFTs to the community. This will happen via simplified integration and creation, leveraging cross-chain capabilities to allow users mint NFTs on Flare and payment on another chain like Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin.

Atriv offers a dynamic marketplace where ecosystem players can trade AI-powered digital art.  The platform’s other features include a white-label collection, IPFS decentralised storage and customisable storefront pages.

The features are critical to the digital art creation ecosystem, making it easier for participants to tokenize and trade NFTs amid rising adoption.

The post Atriv partners with Flare to bring AI-powered NFTs to the ecosystem appeared first on CoinJournal.