Deals, Investments & M&As
via Florin Oprea
LedgerX Raises US$11.4m in Funding to Build out Regulated Bitcoin Exchange & Clearinghouse
livebitcoinnews
It will allow LedgerX to operate a regulated exchange for bitcoin and other currencies.
Miami International Holdings and Huiyin Blockchain Venture Investments are two emerging players in the world of blockchain.
Cryptocurrencies
Banks Offering Cryptocurrency Services? A New Reality Is Arriving
Noelle Acheson - Coindesk
Norway's largest online-only bank, Skandiabanken recently announced it plans to offer clients the ability to link bank accounts to cryptocurrency holdings.
Philipp Sandner, Frankfurt School Blockchain Center:
Banks are the best organizations to store value. They are trustworthy. Everybody who has some decent amount of money asks a bank to store it. Storing larger amounts of money is not a business for startups. The move of banks to offer cryptocurrency services thus makes very much sense. Now, first banks are moving in this direction. Probably a very interesting field for new business for banks.
IRS Probe of Bitcoin Goes Too Far, GOP Warns
Jeff John Roberts - Fortune
FAO: The investigation began last year and officials demanded Coinbase to turn over information for all accounts. The exchange and its clients are currently in court.
Exchanges & Trading Venues
Citigroup to Tap Nasdaq for Blockchain Payment Technology (sub)
Telis Demos - WSJ
Citigroup and Nasdaq are partnering to match up the blockchain with real money.
The two companies said they have been working together, along with technology startup Chain Inc., for months to link Citigroup’s business payments services to Nasdaq’s blockchain platform.
Jaxx to Include Ripple, Monero, Tether and Dozens of Other Cryptocurrencies
Avi Mizrahi - Finance Magnates
Decentral, developers of the blockchain wallet Jaxx, announced it has secured over seventy new partners and integrations
Vendors
JPMorgan Chase To Integrate Zcash Technology To Its Enterprise Blockchain Platform
Laura Shin - Forbes
The company behind Zcash, the Zerocoin Electric Coin Company (ZECC) announced a partnership with JPMorgan Chase to add Zcash’s privacy technology to Quorum, an enterprise blockchain platform JPMorgan built on Ethereum, a network similar to bitcoin's but focused on smart contracts.
RSK Raises $3.5 Million, Launches Bitcoin Smart Contract Testnet
Amy Castor - Coindesk
This latest round comes in the form of contributions from a long list of supporters, including, Anthony Di Iorio, CEO of Decentral and Jaxx, and bitcoin mining firms such as Bitfury and Bitmain.
BitPeople
Deloitte Exec Departs to Launch Tokenized Blockchain Research Lab
Michael del Castillo - Coindesk
FAO: A profile of Iliana Oris Valiente, one of the co-founders of Deloitte's influential Rubix blockchain initiative. Valiente is now launching two startups in the research and development space.
Latest Developments & Agreements
AlphaPoint Taps into ICO Popularity With Token Launch Toolkit
Stan Higgins - Coindesk
AlphaPoint is releasing an Asset Issuance and Custody toolkit that enables the creation of new tokens, utilizing protocols such as 'colored coins' (to build an ICO backed by bitcoin) or ERC-20 for ethereum-based launches
FAO: AlphaPoint provides its services to over 20 digital currency exchanges.
Ethereum Enterprise Alliance Adds 86 New Members Including DTCC, State Street And Infosys
Laura Shin - Forbes
The Ethereum Enterprise Alliance, an initiative to standardize a business version of Ethereum that launched in February, announced that it has added 86 new members, including heavyweights such as the DTCC, State Street, Infosys, Deloitte, MUFG, Toyota Research Institute and Broadridge.
They join original members Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon, Intel, UBS, Accenture and others, bringing the EEA’s total membership to 116.
Philipp Sandner, Frankfurt School Blockchain Center:
Ethereum - be it the public blockchain or a forked version for private usage - appears to be one of the key three implementation frameworks. The other two are Hyperledger and Corda.
Startups, Accelerators & Hubs
China's Best-Funded Blockchain Startup is Rebranding for Expansion
Stan Higgins - Coindesk
The startup, Juzhen Financials, which develops post-trade clearing and settlement solutions using blockchain tech, is now changing its name to Juzix.
Analysis
Commodity Traders, Banks Face Hard Realities With Game-Changing Blockchain
Eric Onstad - Reuters
Alistair Cross was flying high after showing in a pilot project how blockchain - the technology first developed for the crypto-currency bitcoin - could transform the old-fashioned and secretive world of commodity trading.
Opinion
Op Ed: How One Investor Is Riding the Cryptocurrency Token Wave
Jeremy Gardner - Bitcoin Magazine
Before I even knew what a "blockchain" was I had founded what is now known as the Blockchain Education Network (then called the College Cryptocurrency Network), and was voraciously trading "altcoins."
Read more by Soren K.Group
