The collaboration would allow individuals in the African regions to directly access the lending platform through the mobile money system. Such partnerships would allow users to deposit local currencies from their accounts straight into the lending DeFi protocol such as Compound, Dydx,Curve, YFI and other non-lending protocols existing on the DeFi platform. Partnerships that would allow this to happen would include MTN Nigeria and other top 10 MTN mobile money providers in Africa, they also partnered with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC.

ADD.xyz is built with the aim of creating bridges between centralized and decentralized finance, to do this they aim at partnering with centralized platforms with users who are very well interested in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space. They partnered with major banking providers in Kenya back in August ,2020 thereby exposing their product to over 5 million population in Kenya. The partnership with MTN Nigeria and Nigeria’s Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC also helps them expose their DeFi protocol to over 201 million Nigerians. The lending platform will be able to accept the Nigerian Naira and Kenyan shilling for the first phase of the launch.

“Financial inclusion in East Africa has been significantly impacted by the wide adoption of mobile money services — led by Kenya — but the uptake has been slow in Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa. While South Africa’s more advanced economy often treats mobile money as a “nice to have”, the situation in Nigeria is quite different. There, just 40% of people have bank accounts, so the economy would likely get a boost from the expansion of mobile money services.”

How To Do It

Users will be able to deposit local currencies into ADD.XYZ local MTN approved accounts through the main platform. They then get assigned to the protocol and the amount of currency they wish to deposit into the DeFi lending protocol. Interest will also be paid back to the users mobile money account in a fully decentralized and instant solution.

Nexo’s internal exchange would allow its users to switch and exchange between different asset classes from their Nexo wallet, and also to change the collateral. The crypto lending platform plans on having a Mastercard which would allow users to take loans against their crypto holdings in real-time. The Nexo Mastercard is currently only available in Europe but they plan on expanding it to the United States and Asia as well.

Antoni Trenchev, Cofounder and managing partner of Nexo stated that the amount of registered users had crossed 1 million and that about half of that number are earning on fiat currencies while the other half are earning on their cryptocurrencies. He added that the company has processed more than $3 billion for their users in over 200 jurisdictions.

The company is also looking at ways to work with the Decentralized products and decentralized finance or protocol so as to build some products in the future on.

“But right now, we are focused on generating the highest possible yield for our clients and investors in a manner that we are fairly certain is very safe for them,” Trenchev said, adding that decentralization of their services is coming, “as soon as there are sustainable solutions” that will enable safety.

The crypto lending platform has had a long-standing relationship with the Litecoin community and founder, Charlee Lee. Trenchev noted that an announcement of their partnership had caused a 40% spike in the amount of deposit on the platform.

“And what we saw is a spike in deposits of litecoin. I think it went up to something like 40% the week after announcing it, so these were tangible results out of this partnership,” he said.

The company is looking to expand its business geographically and to enter into the United States with an office in San Francisco irrespective of the fact that their digital asset Nexo would most likely be regarded as a Security under the US SEC jurisdiction. Plans for expansion of offices have been put on hold because o f the global pandemic, CoronaVirus.

Today, a partnership between Crypto banking platform cashaa and the United Multi-state Credit Co-operative Society has made it possible for 22 banks branches in India who are interested in Crypto banking services. The citizens of India who are interested in Cryptocurrency will soon be able to go to their local bank branches to get Cryptocurrency and to also learn about investing in them.

Cashaa stated that “initially account holders will be able to buy and sell bitcoin (BTC), Cashaa(CAS), Ethereum (ETH) , Binance coin(BNB), Bitcoin Cash(BCH), EOS, Litecoin(LTC) and Ripple (XRP) with cash or the amount balance in rupees”. The 22 branches will be ready to start operations by December, Cashaa’s spokesperson reportedly said.

Lounges For Crypto Customers At The Bank

Cashaa plans on making available Crypto Lounges in all 22 branches where customers can walk into and get educated about cryptocurrencies along with other banking services.

“The United’s existing branches will be transformed and modernized as Crypto Lounges,” Cashaa described, noting that “Members can walk into any of these branches and get educated about cryptocurrencies along with other banking services.”

Cashaa plans on educating members who visit the lounges about investment opportunities, utilities of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency , how to use and to store crypto etc.

The immediate plan is to open these Crypto Lounges in Delhi, Gujarat, and Rajasthan covering a population of 150 million Indians living in these states.

Account holders with the bank will also be able to use their Cryptocurrencies as collateral to take loans in the bank Just like any other traditional loan given by banks.

The crypto exchange plans on conducting security token offerings(STO’s) “in due course” ,this is to help small and medium sized businesses to raise funds. The official report stated.

“Digital assets are poised to be the future of tomorrow’s digital economy. With DBS Digital Exchange, a bank-backed digital exchange, companies, and investors can now leverage an integrated ecosystem of solutions to tap the vast potential of private markets and digital currencies,” the DBS exchange announcement stated.

The exchange will be monitored and regulated by the monetary authority and will leverage the banks expensive experience over the years in capital markets and providing secure custodial services.

DBS digital exchange does not plan on allowing deposits and storage on the exchange platform itself, they plan on allowing  customers to store all digital assets with the DBS bank. To ensure that users funds are safe, the bank has deployed an institutional

Grade custody solution specifically tailored  to the safe keeping of digital asses.

Deploying the stock exchange Exchange method of trades

Unlike other crypto currency exchange which allows for the trading of Cryptocurrencies anytime including weekends, DBS digital Exchange will not allow trading on weekends and also has time limits to trading on weekdays which are from 9am to 4pm similar stocks  exchange .

The FAQ section of the website also indicated that the exchange platform would be available to institutional investors who would need to access  the platform through a DBS member such as DBS buckets securities (Singapore) and DBS private bank.

Sygnum’s offering of Tezos staking services serves as validation of the network’s security and longevity, and is yet another step on the path towards major institutional and enterprise adoption. We look forward to partnering with Sygnum on more Tezos-based offerings in the future.” Tezos Foundation Head of Enterprise Adoption EMEA David Fuchs said.

Sygnum is the first regulated bank to launch staking for Tezos (XTZ), secure custody, trading, credit and staking service for the coin is now available on the bank platform. Staking can be withdrawn or discontinued at any point in time decided by the user.

The launch of this service has enabled Sygnum to further strengthen it’s multi-custody platform which includes Taurus protect and a strategic partnership with Custodigit , which leverage Metaco. The Sygnum API allows the bank to offer an ever-expanding range of services to banks and other financial institutions. The bank also has dealings with Swiss HSM provider Securosys to custodise it’s DCHF, as well as asset tokens.

“We are strong supporters of Tezos and its unique Liquid Proof-of-Stake governance mechanism, which aligns with our Sygnum values,” says Martin Burgherr, Sygnum Bank’s Chief Clients Officer. “With XTZ staking, our clients can access a unique asset which offers staking rewards and enables them to structure their digital asset portfolios in more creative ways. Tezos is the first Proof-of-Stake (PoS) token on Sygnum Bank’s platform, where we are continually expanding our offering to provide more choice for our clients,” he adds.

About Sygnum

Sygnum is the world’s first digital asset bank, and a digital asset specialist with global reach. With Sygnum Bank AG’s Swiss banking licence, as well as Sygnum Pte Ltd’s capital markets services (CMS) licence in Singapore, Sygnum empowers institutional and private qualified investors, corporates, banks and other financial institutions to invest in the digital asset economy with complete trust. Sygnum operates an independently controlled, scalable and future-proof regulated banking platform. Our interdisciplinary team of banking, investment and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) experts is shaping the development of a trusted digital asset ecosystem. The company is founded on Swiss and Singapore heritage, and operates globally. To onboard digitally with Sygnum, please visit www.sygnum.com.

“We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business,” Georgakopoulos said.

Georgakopoulos also stated that the bank is ready to work with any technology that will enable them to reach out more to areas where challenges are experienced in the payment system, areas where deploying this technological developments could potentially save them hundreds of millions of dollars. JP Morgan processes lots of cross-border payments amounting to over $6 trillion a day across over 100 countries,  cross-border payments sometimes get rejected as a result of errors from account information or other general issue since it relies on a network of other banks.

Cryptocurrency solves this cross-border issue with little to no cost in fees compared to the charges banks place on theirs. Another challenge is the processing paper checks, this relies on the bunch of people to handle mail at physical locations called lock boxes.

“we’re talking about hundreds of millions of checks sent “Georgakopoulos said.

The bank can easily overcome this challenge by using the blockchain technology where information regarding a check is posted digitally thereby also skipping the mail.

“Using a version of blockchain with the participants being the main issuers of checks and the main operators of lockboxes, it’s possible we can save 75% of the total cost for the industry today, and make checks available in a matter of minutes as opposed to days.”

“With the run-up in the price of bitcoin, consumers are looking for a way to sell bitcoin without dealing with wire or bank transfer delays. Consumers can now sell bitcoin for cash from the convenience of their local ATM. From Madame Tussauds in Times Square New York to Moab Tourism Center in Arches National Park, U.S. consumers can use LibertyX to buy and sell bitcoin nationwide.” said Chris Yim, Co-Founder & CEO of LibertyX.

Yim adds, “While it’s never been easier to buy bitcoin, selling is another story. There are almost 15,000 bitcoin ATMs across the U.S., but fewer than 2,000 allow consumers to sell bitcoin for cash. Our ‘cash-out’ product deployed across 5,000 ATMs triples the number of bitcoin ATMs where consumers can sell bitcoin furthering our mission of putting bitcoin on every block. Consumers feel more comfortable buying bitcoin when they know they can easily and quickly sell it back for cash.”

Partnerships have helped LibertyX strive in the market, they partner with independent ATM operators who own and manage over 100,000 ATM’s in the United States. One of such partnerships is Merchant Groups, one of the leading ATM operators in the US which allows LibertyX to leverage on their already built product and hence saves them from spending thousands of dollars to set it up themselves.

Step by Step On using The New Feature

• Select “Sell Bitcoin” from the LibertyX app
• Input the withdrawal amount, then proceed to selecting a pick up location
• Send Bitcoin to the generated address
• Copy out your Order number generated for you
• Visit the ATM at the pickup location, check and input the order number
• Take cash from the ATM

Here is a video that can also help out on how to use the latest feature.

The billion dollar Bitcoin was moved by an affordable fee of $3.54. Data from Whale Alert reveals that the transaction was a two time transaction where the first amounted to 45,671 Bitcoin (8570 Million) which in total gives the 88,855 BTC(1.155 Billion).

Xapo has been known for movement  of large funds in the past, but compared to the past transaction amounts this one was way higher.

Traditional Banking and Bitcoin

It’s no brainer that if such a transaction was to be conducted with our local traditional banks, we would have a lot to worry about like the fees and the limitations our banks place on the amount of transactions we can operate in a particular period of time. First off, an individual won’t be able to pull that off. Even if they decided to use an Automated Cleaning House(ACH) transfer that would take days to complete plus these transactions would have to be done within the jurisdictions of their daily/monthly limits.

Chase Bank, one of the most popular banks in the U.S has a limit on the users. They can send no more than $25,000 daily and that would take 128years (weekends included) to fully complete a $1.15Billion transaction. The bank however could offer the customer the option of using a wire transfer which would then allow them conduct a transaction no more than $250,000 daily thereby making a $1.15 billion possible in 13 years, all this too with the consideration of fees.

Cryptocurrency as a whole led by Bitcoin has made spending and sending of money way simpler and cheap. The location of the recipient does not matter as the funds will still reach within a few minutes.

Reactions To this transaction

Some believed that the transaction was an indication of a possible dump in the price of Bitcoin, there were some too who said its funds were laundered. Ironically, today Bitcoin has been performing well since that transaction occurred, it has even shown more potential power to the upside.

You can see more reactions here 

Mercy Corps is a Non-profit Organization (NGO) that has a global team of over 6,000 humanitarians working efficiently in over 40 countries around the globe. The Organization has its roots traced back to 1979, where funds were put together to save the refugees who were being killed in the fields of Cambodia. Their subsidiary Mercy Corps Ventures invests in and partners with innovative social entrepreneurs in order to scale solutions to the world’s most persistent challenges which includes Financial exclusion. Last year alone, they reportedly aided over 28 million individuals.

The collaboration between both entities will allow Mercy Corps to also partner with Rippleworks, a subsidiary of Ripple that invests in start-up ventures. This will allow Mercy Corps Ventures to support technological solutions emerging from the digital world, then get access to  digital financial technology, digital assets and crypto currencies.

The existing financial system is antiquated, broken and poorly designed to serve the needs of those in emerging markets, which are too often overlooked by financial service providers. As the pandemic spurs an increasing shift toward digital payments, the number of those without access to affordable financial services is only growing. There is much at stake. The official announcement stated. Today’s partnership is an important step in Ripple’s long-term commitment to achieving global financial inclusion. Ripple is proud to collaborate with innovators like Mercy Corps and merge our expertise building financial products with the market insights and expertise of an effective global development organization and its network of mission-driven entrepreneurs. The announcement added.

The investment will also support the launch of FinX, a joint initiative by Mercy Corps Ventures and Mercy Corps to build a unified committee which will oversee that the new system would reach out to the unbanked and under banked population.

The CBDC [central bank digital currency] test system can be seen as the process of actually circulating cash,” a Bank of Korea official told Yonhap. The central bank would reportedly use blockchain technology to manage CBDC test transaction details.

The bank would be in charge of issuing and redemption of the digital currency while the private Financial institutions would be in charge of the  distribution as reported by Yonhap.

“The CBDC will be issued and circulated in the virtual world and we are going to test a number of transaction scenarios under a variety of circumstances,” an official said.

The bank of Korea stated that the test phase is the final part of the three- step pilot program.

Phase one saw the designing and checking of technology which ended in July. Phase two focused on analyzing related processes and seeking outside consulting.

The Central Bank has also stated that the testing of the Pilot program is not a confirmation that it will definitely launch an actual digital currency and that they are merely testing the waters.

The Journey to creating its own pilot program for their Central Bank Digital Currency started in April and Plans to run until December 2021.