Colin's back in the studio with Simon and they're sat with Ville Sointu, Head of Emerging Technologies at Nordea Bank.
First up, the panel takes a look at Coinbase exploring a crypto ETF, and it has sought help from $6 trillion Wall Street giant BlackRock. Coinbase is looking to create an exchange-traded product tied to crypto, as a way to allow retail investors to gain access to the volatile market. The firm in recent weeks has held conversations with members of BlackRock's blockchain working group to tap into the firm's expertise at launching exchange-traded products.
SEC suspends exchange-traded Bitcoin and Ether investment vehicles. A highly touted investment instrument that sought to appeal to U.S. public markets investors looking for cryptocurrency exposure has just seen a setback. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued an order seeking to suspend the trading of the Bitcoin Tracker One and Ether Tracker One exchange-traded notes, issued by XBT Provider AB, a Swedish-based subsidiary of the U.K. firm CoinShares Holdings.
Crypto exchange ShapeShift to gradually introduce membership program. Cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift has introduced a new rewards program, which will eventually become a mandatory membership model for the exchange’s users. Erik Voorhees, founder and CEO of ShapeShift, stated that today the exchange released a loyalty program entitled ShapeShift Membership.
Ripple Labs reaches an agreement with R3 Consortium in token litigation. Ripple Labs Inc. has announced it has reached a settlement “of all outstanding litigation” between R3 Hold Co LLC, R3 LLC, and XRP II, LLC. The genesis of the legal skirmishes between these two parties goes back to the summer of 2016 when Ripple’s former CEO Chris Larsen made a fateful decision and signed a deal with a bank consortium R3. The agreement included an option enabling R3 consortium to buy up to 5 billion XRP tokens, in part or in whole, at a price of $0.0085 before the end of 2019.
Goldman Sachs CFO says bank is working on bitcoin derivative for clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer Martin Chavez called a report that the bank was ditching plans to launch a cryptocurrency trading desk "fake news."
The Winklevoss twins received approval to launch new regulated crypto coin. Two financial technology companies won New York state approval to issue cryptocurrencies pegged to the U.S. dollar, creating more regulated and transparent competitors to Tether and other so-called stable coins. Gemini Trust Co., the digital-asset exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services to launch the Gemini dollar, according to a statement Monday.
Major French football club plans to launch its own cryptocurrency. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), a major French Football team in the country's top league, is planning to issue its own cryptocurrency as a way to incentivize participation from its fans around the world. PSG is now eyeing a deadline of spring 2019 to start issuing its proprietary tokens, making it potentially one of the first soccer clubs anywhere to do so.
Colin has a great interview with Garrick Hileman, Head of Research at Blockchain.