The Switzerland based company is also aiming at the international Russian wheat market, so it aims at making the trading platform a fast, easy to use type of program. The platform has had a series of test transactions since the beginning of 2018. Firms from different countries such as Japan, Ukraine, Algeria, Brazil, and Dubai were involved in the pre-launch and pilot testing before the official release of the platform to the general public. A statement from the company shows that the volume ranges as large as 20,000 metric tons of grain.

“Traders can now be 100% certain they really did the trade, versus traditional over-the-phone brokerage,” Andrei Grigorov, Cerealia’s chief executive officer, said in the statement. “Instantly, they have digitally signed contracts and blockchain-registered records ‘forever.’”

Russian is the world’s top wheat exporter.  Transactions span wheat as well as Corn, barley and other grains and vegetables oils markets, a statement from Bloomberg noted. Blockchain technology has been deployed and used in different sections of the world sectors including Agriculture.

Agricultural commodity blockchain trading platforms have been projects among start ups and heavy weights in recent times. Back in 2018, covantis SA was announced after the world’s largest agricultural commodity traders-Archer Daniels -Midland Co. Bunge Ltd, cargill, Cofco Group, Louis Dreyfus Co. and the agricultural arm of Glencore Plc-teamed up to stream trade. Prime shipping foundation piloted bulk commodities payments through blockchain, shipping wheat from Russia to Turkey.

Cerealia

Being industry experts, Cerealia targets roughly 400 bln USD/year global trade in grains, oilseeds, vegetable oils and feedstuffs with initial focus on very dynamic Emerging Markets’ part. The opportunities for improvements by new tech in this market are endless, as it largely remained in the same mode the last 100+ years. And most pain points & eagerness for solutions are situated in Emerging Markets.

https://www.facebook.com/cerealia.ch/

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.

This was as a result of an Audit conducted by internationally recognized audit services firm SGS. They certified the crypto exchange for ISO27001, ISO27701, PCI:DSS (Level 1), first crypto company to gain this certifications and these are the highest maturity levels for the NIST Frameworks.

This exchange was audited in areas such as the core functions of identity, protect, Detect, Respond and Recover for the NIST cybersecurity framework and identify, Govern, Control, communicate and protect for the NIST pricing Framework.

“The NIST Cybersecurity and Privacy Framework audits add to our existing ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and PCI:DSS certifications and demonstrate our commitment to our company-wide cybersecurity and privacy strategy. With the NIST ‘Adaptive’ achievement – which examines our maturity and ability to adapt to the ever-changing cybersecurity and privacy landscape – and ISO’s assessment of our policies, procedures and controls in place, we are once again the first crypto company to achieve some of the industry’s highest security standards. Jason Lau, Chief Information Security Officer of Crypto.com said.

The NIST cyber security framework used to evaluate crypto.com was originally released in 2014, and provides a framework on how private sector organizations can develop, access and improve their ability to identify, protect, defect, respond and recover from cyber attacks. The privacy framework was released in January of this Year 2020, it is used to strengthen privacy protection through enterprise risk management. The exchange proofed proposed hence, the certification.

Crypto.com has been building its user base for some time now and they even recently announced a milestone hit for them, this was when they hit 5 million users on the exchange platform. It has also released a Spanish and Portuguese language for both web and applications of the exchange. They recently hired a former visa executive in a bid to enter into the Latin American Market (LATAM).

Lantah Was accused of common law trademark infringement, unfair competition and false designation of origin for trying to launch it’s own GRAM token. Lantah LLC has since then been defending the lawsuit even after telegram raised $1.7 billion through an initial coin offering for GRAM. The Crypto firm then launched a counter suit in June 2018, insisting that it had priority over the trade mark through having filled an application with the U.S patent and trademark office in late 2017. Later this May,  telegram abandoned the TON project and the lawsuit was dropped voluntarily in August. Telegram settled their lawsuit that was filled by the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in June.

Lantah was also awarded $6,737.35 in cost that telegram reportedly did not object to according to coin telegraph.

Telegram however has the right to file future claims against Lantah over the GRAM trademark since the ruling mandated that telegram’s motion to voluntarily dismiss the case was contingent on the firm paying all attorney fees incurred by Lantah in it’s defense.

Telegram has agreed to notify SEC before issuing any digital currency or assets in line with their settlement.

Among the Top 10 projects listed are StakerDAO, a platform for governing financial assets in a decentralized and secured manner.

Mugglepay, a payment SDK specifically designed for merchants to help them eliminate chargebacks and allow them conduct transactions in a more easy, secure and low cost manner.

DEXTF, an on-chain non-custodial asset management protocol that empowers professionals and financial institutions to effortlessly create and manage digital native funds.

Neutron Finance, a one-stop portal with a full suite of DeFi products and services including a non-custodial protocol and a decentralized exchange.

xbullion, a global, trusted settlement layer for physical gold enabling users access the largest physical marketplaces in the world, without ongoing custody fees.

Obsidian Labs, a blockchain technology company focused on developer tools and services, having launched a multi-chain wallet and EOS dapp store, and several graphic IDEs to support leading blockchains

Other projects listed were LawCoin, Eastern Blu Music Ecosystem, VeriTX, and Yieldy Finance.

The blockchain platform has also included Tether, Securitize and Fenbushi Capital as mentors in  the Accelerator program. Algorand aims at empowering this projects if they can build on the promise of Finance 3.0

‘’The vim and ambition of our projects encapsulate the maturing trajectory of the technology, and there is an urgency for the industry to recognize and meet these needs in tandem. Algorand is well-positioned to empower these startups as they take the next step to realize the promise of Finance 3.0, whether it be the strength of our technology, community or network.”

The exchange has launched an NFT marketplace dubbed Dazzle in a bid to explore broader crypto market opportunities. The exchange also plans on expanding and promoting the use of blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies among Indians 5 million crypto investors. The platform’s launch of dazzle is in accordance with its benefit from digital arts in such areas as protecting their digital copyrights and the monetization of their work.

Dazzle is launching with Zebpay native NFT called dazzle, tokens will be distributed to members via various programs.

“We’ll start with reward tokens offering zero membership or trading fees: some to our most loyal and active members, some as random airdrops, and some through fun contests. We probably will never sell them. We want to seed the ecosystem and let our members grow it organically. If they want to trade their NFTs, they can.”

Non-fungible tokens are digital Tokenized versions of an asset similar to stable coins but are used to represent non-fungible assets such as real estate, artwork or collectibles in place of flat money. NFTs are blockchain assets that are designed to not be equal, an example is the most popular NFT in the blockchain industry, crypto Kitties. There exist thousands of Crypto Kitties, but each has a different unique nature, different name, eye colour, facial expression etc.

The NFT market now over $100 million in total value and still has space for more growth, making it one of the sectors that isn’t yet exploited yet.

Vitalik Buterin, the inventor of Ethereum blockchain technology had long identified the different aspects of the blockchain technology and noted that these would help to advance the technology usage into other varied markets and not just limited to retail and professional digital-assets trading.

Top soccer clubs are also increasingly identifying these branded digital collectibles and are used sometimes in auctions and other blockchain-based ecosystems in order to monetize fan engagement.

Merchants had to initially move their cryptocurrency payments from the commerce platform to the exchange section and then convert them to whatever they desired including fiat.

Now, merchants can easily convert their cryptocurrency to fiat or stablecoins by simply connecting their coinbase.com accounts with the Coinbase Commerce and easily convert USD, EUR, GBP, and USDC with a 1% fee charged from the user.

The ability for merchants with accounts on Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Prime for Conversions and withdrawals are currently being implemented and will come soon. Coinbase has stated that they always work with their customers or users in mind and will continue building and developing in the service they render.

At Coinbase, our mission is to create an open financial system for the world. One of the ways we will achieve this is by helping connect as many participants in the cryptoeconomy as possible. We’re always listening to our merchants and building the best products to meet their needs.

Earlier on this year, Coinbase had released custom branding for all merchants, easier refund support, DAI support and a Spanish-language support.

Square’s investment in Bitcoin represents one percent of Square’s total assets and it also indicates their belief that “Crypto currency is an instrument of economic empowerment and provides a way for the world to participate in a global monetary system”.

“We believe that bitcoin has the potential to be a more ubiquitous currency in the future,” said Square’s Chief Financial Officer, Amrita Ahuja. “As it grows in adoption, we intend to learn and participate in a disciplined way. For a company that is building products based on a more inclusive future, this investment is a step on that journey.”

Who’s Next

Since the release of this news, the crypto community has been wondering what company would be next to invest a percentage of its total assets into Bitcoin.

Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG), a parent company to Grayscale tweeted that it seems they might be in a Bitcoin buying race between the 3 investors : Grayscale, MicroStrategy and of course Square Inc.

https://twitter.com/BarrySilbert/status/1314225215250067457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1314225215250067457%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fjrnycrypto.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost.php%3Fpost%3D6420action%3Dedit

Grayscale Bitcoin Trust has been investing in Bitcoin and other top cryptocurrencies for a long time now, they even doubled their purchasing powers since the periodic halving of Bitcoin. In one analyst report, Grayscale is said to have invested an average of $29.9 million in Q1 of 2020.

With more institutional money flowing into Bitcoin and by extension Cryptocurrency, a bullish market is surely coming.

Companies or entities that wish to apply for the license must be ready to tell the government what their mining activities would be like,they are to record and store their mining activities for 10years.

The Venezuela authorities will oversee the importing and manufacturing of mining equipment. They intend on developing an official central mining pool named National Digital Mining pool and all the miners within the country are expected to carry out all activities through and they could get sanctioned if they operate outside this rule.

Since the mining is centralized, the government will have access to funds generated through mining and could be the ones to distribute the income to different income earners. This would also give them the power of possibly freezing funds or payments as at when they wish to do so.

According to Globes, the bill was passed by MK Oded Forer, Yevgery Soba, Yulia Malinovsky and Alex Kushnir, all four legislators from the Yisrael Beiteinu political party.

The regulatory reality in Israel is not adapted to the existing reality in the field. [Digital currencies] will continue to be a growth engine that allow the Israeli high-tech industry to flourish and develop.- The Bill Stated.

TAXATIONS IN ISRAEL 

 Currently Israelis are charged a capital gains tax of 25% anytime a conversion to cash is made or a sale of crypto is conducted.

Bitcoin lenders and those involved in bonds-related activities are charged less, they pay capital gains of 15%.

One of the legislators, Forer believes that the global pandemic has fostered the need for the ever developing country to adopt crypto-based payments.

“It is precisely in this period, when the economic future is not clear, [that] it is possible to promote digital payment options due to the social distance that has been forced on us,” Forer opined.

Israel continues to grow in it’s crypto adoption irrespective of the regulatory hindrance. Between 2018 and 2019, a report from Bitcoin Association shows that the number of crypto companies in the Middle-East grew over 32% with about 150 active blockchain companies.