Through its platform, the German bank will offer custody, as well as trading and loans. Deutsche Bank’s comprehensive platform’s appearance was in the World Economic Forum report.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) report, published in December 2020, Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, has now shown its plans to offer cryptocurrency custody and trading service.

The report claims that the German bank provides all the data about the plan. It has to launch a comprehensive platform, where one of the functions will be to safeguard institutional clients’ cryptocurrencies. The document shows every proposed objective for this project and every stage the platform will go through before its launch.

Offering Loans, Tax Quotations, and Many other Features

Deutsche Bank will offer loans, voting, valuation, and tax quotation services by the custody service. Also, there is a possibility of buying and selling cryptocurrencies safely.

The platform aims to serve as a bridge between the traditional and digital worlds and be a provider granting easier accessibility and high-security KYC, AML (Anti-money laundering), and compliance liquidation.

Regarding the launch of the platform, it will consist of four diverse stages four. The first one is providing custody of secured and approved digital assets on behalf of investors such as asset managers, wealth managers, family offices, corporations, and digital funds.

The second stage is the accessibility of buying and selling digital assets through a partnership with significant brokers, issuers, and exchange houses to build seamless cross-platform integration.

The third one aims to provide value-added services like taxes and valuation, administration funds, loans, participation, voting, and offer an open banking platform to allow external providers’ integration. And the last one provides emission and trading capabilities.

The project of the bank has already completed the proof of concept (POC) stage, so the launch of the platform is about to happen this year. Thus, the German bank intends to bring together its user’s assistance with their investments while integrating into the digital economic system.

Big Banks are Opening their Doors to Bitcoin

Other banks have joined the initiative to create a custody service; one of them is New York Mellon, one of the biggest banks in The United States. The bank made the following statement:

“Growing client demand for digital assets, the maturity of advanced solutions, and improving regulatory clarity present an important opportunity for us to expand our current service offerings to this emerging field.”

The announcement appeared after Elon Musk’s Tesla claimed he had bought $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency and would soon accept it as a means of payment for its cars. This statement created a big push for digital assets and fed the interest of many traditional investors.

Another important Bank that entered the cryptocurrency world was Citibank, which had already been exploring this possibility for two years.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Thin client support is also among the improvement proposals. This hard fork is a test to see how the network works when making changes.

Few months after the Beacon Chain network’s activation, the first step of the new Ethereum 2.0 is the first hard fork. Vitalik Buterin himself, the co-founder of the smart contract network, announced the modification.

The proposal to change the code appeared in public this Monday, February 15, which temporary identification was as HF1. Some features include series of adjustments to penalties for breaching nodes and support for thin clients.

According to Buterin, the fork’s purpose is to correct every single weak point that would be discovered too late before the activation of the Beacon Chain and set a test to the hard fork mechanism regarding changes that seem to be relatively small.

Ethereum 2.0 Penalties and Inactivity

Regarding adjustments of the inactivity flight penalties, Buterin explained in the report that there was a proposal for a change of operation. According to the developer, the leak becomes quadratic for each validator node.

“If there is an idle leak during which a validator that does not appear online lost 10% of its balance, then a validator that is online 90% of the time during that period will only lose ~ 0.1% of its balance. Balance (instead of ~ 1%)”, highlighted the programmer.

For Buterin, the modification would focus on sanctioning nodes that show lousy behavior and not the nodes that show connectivity or even power problems. The proposal would set differences between continuous inactivity and intermittences due to extra-factors.

These are penalties that punish those malicious nodes that operate and spread their malice. The Ethereum 2.0’s intention is to bring more efficiency and obtain better network requirements.

Synchronization for Thin Clients as well as for Mobile Devices

Another powerful and significant change is the so-called random “timing committees.” It is a support for clients such as nodes with less capacity.

Buterin explained that this synchronization allows thin clients to control and determine the chain’s head with a low amount of overhead (20 kB per day minimum to keep up, and 500 bytes to verify a single block).

The mechanism would work this way: every 27 hours, there is a selection of 1,024 validators to participate in the synchronization committee. This group would gain access to publish signatures that would witness the current head.

According to Buterin, this signature issuing would be part of the LightClientUpdate that will help thin clients find the head and gain inclusion in the Beacon Chain. The document does not specify this hard fork’s release date, but the implementation is on its way.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Sports lottery service provider is expanding its dominance in the cryptocurrency industry.

On February 16, the Chinese online sports lottery company, 500.com Limited (WBAI), confirmed the acquisition of the cryptocurrency mining pool BTC.com, operated by Jihan Wu’s BitDeer Technologies. This transaction also includes the domain name and the digital wallet. The company has recently intended to direct its business towards the world of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain, considering this decision as to the most critical goal among others.

As reported by 500.com itself in a statement through its website, the purchase happened as part of a share exchange deal with Blockchain Alliance Technologies Holding Company of the Cayman Islands. Such agreement intends to execute the transfer of the entire mining operation from BTC.com to 500.com on April 15, 2021.

Bitdeer Technologies Holding Company is the company that operates BTC.com, one of the largest mining pools. The company came to light in 2016 and had a mining service for various cryptocurrencies such as BTC, BCH, ETH, and LTC with a hash rate of around 15.07 EH / s, an amount that represents 10% of the total of the BItcoin network.

The company offers a complete service for its users. They have exclusive access to essential data and information with statistics on blockchain in real-time through its website and deal with their mining business right there. Also, there are possibilities of saving earnings in the BTC.com wallet.

500.com is a company that uses to offer online sports lottery services. A week ago, the price of its shares skyrocketed exponentially right after the publication of its financial results for 2020.

However, this case does not seem to play a relevant role in such increases in said shares’ price. But some details in the information state that the purchase of 5,900 Bitcoin mining machines reflects the company’s total commitment to look for better opportunities regarding the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry. With this new acquisition, the shares of the company rise again.

With more companies such as 500.com in the Bitcoin mining industry, China could consolidate its global leadership. However, other countries, especially the United States and Canada, are more than willing to challenge said position. Companies like Riot Blockchain, Compute North, and Bitfarms inject large amounts of money to scale their infrastructure with many mining machines and thus increase their hash rate significantly.

BitDeer’s most prominent beneficiary owner is Jihan Wu, the company’s chairman and former leader of Bitmain. BTC.com was under Bitdeer’s control.

Meanwhile, the crypto mining pool space has begun to experience a series of mergers and acquisitions. This month, the Chinese bitcoin mining pool Poolin acquired a North America-based competitor (NovaBlock). The main intention is to set an expansion over the American continent.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Users are playing an essential role in this activation. There are zero tensions in the community, but there is uncertainty in the air until activation begins.

Bitcoin users and developers decided to delegate the initial activation of Taproot to the miners of the network in a meeting held yesterday, February 16, in an online chat room.

The collaborative portal (wiki) Bitcoin explains that the route towards the definitive activation of Taproot will start between March 17 and 31 of this year with the release of the Bitcoin Core software version, which will include the deployment of Taproot commands that the nodes should progressively follow.

On July 23, 2021, once the economic majority of Bitcoin exchanges, investment funds, and others update their nodes, miners will begin to signal the approval of Taproot, which will warn those users who have not yet updated so they can avoid being behind.

When 90% of the network’s processing power (hash rate) supports Taproot, and after two weeks from that moment, Taproot will set its activation on the Bitcoin network.

Miners will still bring back up to users who haven’t updated their nodes until they do. This event is about to happen on August 1, 2021. These activations will lead the entire economy that works on Bitcoin to use Taproot.

Developer Luke Dash Jr. talked about its dissatisfaction with the meeting results, which he said did not receive the needed attendance. In the previous meeting, the attendance surpassed 200 people.

At the meeting, developers and users voted. Twenty-six voters approved to use LOT = false, while LOT = faithful received 19 votes. However, participants were able to vote for both options at the same time. Eleven of the voters chose both options.

The Miners will Accomplish their Goals

During the last major Bitcoin update, a rollout of the Segregated Witness implementation happened (2018), and many miners and users disagreed. Now, this update had to complete itself through a soft fork. On that occasion, an essential part of the miners and users sought to increase the blockchain’s size or weight to include more transactions in each mined block.

Expanding the blocks’ size was considered a scalability solution since it could process more transactions per minute. Still, its critics argued against the potential security risks for Bitcoin (empty blocks, 51% attacks, among others).

In the case of Taproot, the question arises as to whether miners will support this implementation, as the activation command LockinOnTime = false implies that miners would be able to create preventive measures due to the activation of Taproot at any time.

In contrast, the command LockinOnTime = true (LOT = true) allows activating Taproot without the need for miners to adopt it. Still, at the same time, it serves as a protective barrier for the economic minority of Bitcoin (small users of the protocol) until its activation occurs.

By: Jenson Nuñez

Between 2019 and 2020, the volume of money moved in illegal activities fell by 80%. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, ransomware attacks moved 300% more money than in 2019.

During 2020, there was a considerable decrease in movements of funds in cryptocurrencies linked to illegal activities, compared to the previous year. The latest report from Chainalysis, a research firm that monitors these events, reflects this situation.

Only 0.34% of the volume of transactions with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies was connected with crime. This figure represented more than 80% decrease, compared to 2.1% in 2019, according to the report.

The firm estimates that more than USD 21 billion worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies were involved in illegal activities in 2019. That figure dropped to about USD 10 billion in 2020, considering the total funds that addresses identified with a crime received and sent.

According to the researchers’ initial estimates for 2019, the volume of transactions linked to crime comprised only 1.1% of the total. However, when they found new addresses involved in crime, the final figure grew. For that reason, they predict that there may be an increase regarding the 2020 data in the future.

Despite those estimates, the authors of the report take an encouraging position on crime and cryptocurrencies. They consider the decrease in funds related to crime that moved during the year to be positive.  However, they say that “one of the reasons why the percentage of illegal activities decreased is that general economic activity almost tripled.”

Scams Lead the Movement of Illegal Funds in Bitcoin

In 2019, most of the funds associated with crime were part of scams with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Chainalysis only considers the funds that addresses linked to criminal activities received, which amount to about USD 5 billion.

Even though scams ranked first among crimes that the use of cryptocurrencies benefited, they fell considerably compared to the previous year. The total volume of money coming from scams had a reduction of more than 70%, according to the report.

The value in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies connected with crime decreased largely because the scams were relatively small. In the case of PlusToken, the Chinese authorities confiscated nearly 200,000 stolen bitcoins from this scheme in 2019.

Curiously, that that scams recorded a big increase on darknet markets during 2020, according to the researchers. In the last year, there have been about USD 1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies associated with dark markets. This represents a slight rebound compared to USD 1.3 billion in 2019.

A Ransomware Boom amid Coronavirus ‘New Normality’

Ransomware attacks in which cybercriminals demand payments in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies had the most significant increase. The volume of money that moved grew by more than 300%, compared to 2019.

“No other category of cryptocurrency-based crime increased so dramatically in 2020. Work-from-home measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic opened up new vulnerabilities for many organizations,” according to the research.

The pandemic forced many people to migrate their daily lives, as well as their jobs, companies, and business to the digital sphere. This situation led to the considerable spread of crime linked to digital life, so kidnapping and extortion for digital data gained prominence.

Cyber criminals launder most of the funds associated with this type of activity on large exchanges. The same Chainalysis report states that the trend of money laundering on large platforms continued during 2020. They even believe that money laundering with cryptocurrencies was more centralized.

By Alexander Salazar

The Bahamian sand dollar is the first digital currency a central bank issues. Mastercard will work side by side with a local business to bring the digital currency to its network.

The global payments giant Mastercard, the local payments company Island Pay and the Central Bank of the Bahamas joined forces to launch the first prepaid card specialized for using the digital currency of that nation. The ‘sand dollar,’ which was the world’s first central bank digital currency, will now offer a more accessible system for users.

The card will permit users to convert the digital currency to traditional Bahamian dollars only and immediately to pay for goods and services anywhere in the world with active MasterCard spots.

The Sand Dollar: The same value as a traditional Bahamian Dollar

The sand dollar came to light in pilot mode in late 2019 and became available across the archipelago in October 2020. It has the same value and consumer protection as a traditional Bahamian dollar.

“There are 700 small islands and more than 13,000 square km of water in the Bahamas. The cash movement is expensive, making the central bank digital currency a preferred means of payment in the region,” explained the company Island Pay.

In the future, tourists will use the sand dollar, and this card intends to reduce operating costs of cash distribution and modernize the payment system in the region.

Sand Pay is a digital payments startup founded in 2016 that operates mainly in the Caribbean region. You can offer this solution by being the first to obtain a license from the Central Bank of the Bahamas to serve as a payment service provider and electronic money institution.

An Island Pay spokesperson said the card is now in beta and that the launch will happen in March 2021. Once launched, the card will link to mobile payment services such as Google Pay and Samsung Pay.

Mastercard Will Accept Cryptocurrency Payments on its Network

The Mastercard Company also considered it essential to mention 89 “blockchain patents” globally and 285 additional applications pending worldwide. These blockchain patents and applications make the company one of the largest “blockchain patent portfolios” in the payments industry.

With this technology and the wide acceptance of Mastercard by merchants and its reputation worldwide, digital currencies can expand their use on a grander scale.

Especially now that the company, through its policies, will allow all affiliated merchants to receive payments through cryptocurrencies by the end of the year.

On the other hand, it is also essential to consider that other central bank digital currencies such as China’s digital Yuan are already on the market. Thanks to its alliance with SWIFT, the leading finance and banking communications organization, this digital currency ( Digital Yuan) has also grown and now possesses the potential to expand its dominance globally.

By: Jenson Nuñez