Libra (LBA) & Facebook

Adyen, an outstanding payment company that allows businesses to accept e-commerce, mobile, and point-of-sale payments, has partnered with the global fast-food chain McDonald’s. Within Adyen’s deal with McDonald’s, the latter will use the Adyen platform to receive and process payments made in McDonald’s mobile app.As Bloomberg has reported, in the future, this option will be available globally. The UK will be the first country with this initiative implemented in the first quarter of...

While it may sound like a marketing gimmick or a play on words, two founders behind blockchain startup Alchemy believe that their two-year-old startup might become the “Microsoft” of blockchain technology. In a series of serendipitous events, the founders Nikil Viswanathan and Joe Lau (who are both Stanford graduates) have been able to raise about $15 million from several investors that include billionaire Charles Schwab, Reid Hoffman who is LinkedIn’s co-founder, Stanford University and...

En attendant la vidéo de la conférence sur les enjeux de Libra qui s’est déroulée lundi à l’Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (et lors de laquelle on aura beaucoup parlé de Bitcoin), voilà un petit extrait d’un échange entre Jean-Pierre Landau, ancien sous-gouverneur de la Banque de France et auteur du rapport au ministre de l’Économie sur les cryptomonnaies, et William O’Rorke, associé chez ORWL Avocats et représentant du pôle juridique...

Traditional payment companies seem to be taking vastly different approaches to cryptocurrencies. Earlier this year, it seemed like PayPal was about to blaze a trail in the space by working with Facebook on Libra, although it later pulled out. Elsewhere, more forward-thinking firms like Revolut and Skrill have embraced crypto, while Monzo has issued a firm “no,” and Stripe has backed away.So, what exactly is going on in this tumultuous relationship between payment firms and cryptocurrencies,...

Blockchain technology by most standards is still quite nascent. Regardless, there are already quite a few impressive applications of the technology, with constant efforts at development. The first and probably the most popular use of blockchain is the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, which went live over a decade ago. However, since then, applications have been seen in several different sectors including finance and healthcare. Because it is still somewhat new, there is still a lot of room for...

Cybersecurity firm Chainalysis is unveiling its new compliance platform for Bitfinex, one of the world’s leading and most popular cryptocurrency exchanges.Chainalysis and Bitfinex Working TogetherThe platform is designed to detect money laundering before it can occur and monitor any illicit activity that some customers may be looking to perform with cryptocurrency’s help. White-collar crimes like these have long been serious concerns of politicians like those in the United States...

European Central Bank’s head (and former International Monetary Fund’s head) Christine Lagarde said that the stablecoins market is gaining momentum and the officials need to keep up with changes:“My personal conviction is that giving the developments we are seeing, not so much in the bitcoin segment, but in the stablecoins projects. And we only know of one at the moment but there are others, being explored and underway at the moment. We’d better be ahead of the curve if that happens. Because...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said on Thursday it is considering the possibility to seek a preliminary injunction against social network Facebook Inc., claiming it is acting anticompetitive by integrating other social apps in its network.Besides its social network, the tech giant owns Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp and this injunction wants to ban Facebook from further integrating new applications.According to a Wall Street Journal, in a situation where this would become an...

The Dow Jones started jumping on Friday after the United States President Donald Trump signed off on the phase one trade deal with China presented to him by trade negotiators during a Thursday meeting at the White House.The agreement includes the delay of extra tariffs that would have been imposed on December 15 and reducing tariffs on $360 billion worth of Chinese imports by half. However, even though it is said that one of the main terms is for China to pledge to purchase large amounts of...

Shenzhen Foto CC 3.0 by jo.sau, JHH755, Kyman Cheng, Wikipedia Während in Europa die Regulierenden Angst vor Geldwäscherei haben, geht es in China fleissig voran: Die chinesische Zentralbank kündigt bereits seit einiger Zeit eine digitale Staatswährung an. Nun soll diese noch 2019 in den beiden Städten Shenzhen und Suzhou getestet werden. Ein Bericht des chinesischen Finanzportals Caijing bestätigte dieses Vorhaben. Damit die...