Crypto News: Bitcoin ETF, Thailand, Australia, Lisk, Ontology, Revolut (20th – 25th of Aug)

Bitcoin ETFs Rejected Again

On 22nd of August The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued three published decisions, covering nine different Bitcoin ETF. Applications put forward by Direxion, Pro Shares, and Granite Shares were rejected.

The SEC said that the main reason for rejection is the lack of protection for the investors to stop fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices. This seems to be the constant reason for the rejections so far. The market dipped but not significantly – it seems that investors no longer care that much about ETFs.

With the decision market recovered slightly

Thailand Central Bank Launching Cryptocurrency

On 21st of August The Thailand Central Bank has announcemed stating that it will launch its own cryptocurrency. The Thailand-backed Central Bank Digital Currency, which has been dubbed the CBDC . Built on Corda platform built by D3 it will be cryptocurrency that is issued by the central bank itself, but its legal tender status still depends on the laws and regulations of the government.

For this project bank will partner up with 8 other institutions including Bangkok Bank Public and HSBC. Interesting use case of blockchain and I personally see more banks going into blockchain.

Australians Can Now Pay Bills Using Bitcoin

On 20th of August Cointree Australia (platform for buying, selling, and trading digital currencies.) has annouced a partnership with Gobill (company dealing with automated bill payments) in order to allow the payment of bills using cryptocurrencies. Under the deal Gobbill will perform be taking users’ funds and paying bills on their behalf.

This means Australians can pay any bill (within the country) using cryptocurrencies, irrespective of whether or not the company accepts crypto payments.

Gobbill, takes care of this issue. They accept the payment from the customers in the form of crypto and pay it to the companies in the form of fiat currencies.

This is actually a very significant news and a big step towards a mass adoption thats needed for cryptocurrencies to succeed. Hopefully more companies will look into solutions like that in other countries.

Lisk Updates

On 23rd of August Lisk has released another development update in which they inform the investors about the progress with the project in the preparation for Lisk 1.0.0 migration on Mainnet on August 29

All of the components of the Lisk ecosystem — Lisk Core, Lisk Elements, Lisk Commander and Lisk Hub — are all being updated and aligned with one another for the big migration

They recently also announced partnership with BLOQspace with the main goal of supporting the adoption of blockchain and JavaScript development by providing free education channels complete with JavaScript learning modules.

Lisk has been in the shadows recently but the development is going very well and the team is moving forward with the roadmap. The price decreased a lot this year but it does appear to be recovering now.

Ontology Updates

On 18th of August Ontology had their mainNet launch event in Seoul, South Korea. Ontology is a high-performance public blockchain project & a distributed trust collaboration platform that provide new high-performance public blockchains that include a series of complete distributed ledgers and smart contract systems.

On 21st of August they annouced partnership with LLIVE. They will create a decentralized healthcare ecosystem and smart blockchain network by forming a joint technology team, and work on dApp design based on Ontology’s underlying blockchain technology.

On the same day they have also annouced that they engaged NCC Group (global expert in cyber security and risk mitigation) to review their codebase for vulnerabilities with a particular focus on cryptographic findings. The review focused on smart contract virtual machines, modular consensus mechanism, P2P network protocol, iOS and Android mobile applications, and other features to implement a programmable currency.

Revolut Metal Debit Card

On 22nd of August Revolut annouced a new metal debit card available to premium customers that allows them to withdraw up to 1% cashback in either fiat or cryptocurrency on transactions outside Europe, or 0.1% of any transaction within Europe.

Revolut is a digital banking alternative that includes a pre-paid debit card, currency exchange, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payment.

Customers can purchase cryptocurrency at a 1.5% markup on exchange prices through the card, although the service does not allow customer access to private keys and does not currently support the external transfer of cryptocurrencies to wallets outside the platform

Revolut has been trying to embrace cryptocurrency and they are an extremely popular alternative to bank so they can introduce cryptocurrency to the masses.

Not a financial advice.

Crypto News: Bitcoin ETF, Thailand, Australia, Lisk, Ontology, Revolut (20th – 25th of Aug)

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Kane Dane