Expobank, a commercial bank in Russia, has reportedly issued the country’s first ever loan backed by cryptocurrency. According to an Aug. 19 report by local news agency Kommersant, Expobank provided the credit through issuing an individual bank loan powered by Waves (WAVES) tokens. Waves CEO and founder Alexander Ivanov confirmed the news in a tweet, noting that the loan used Waves tokens as collateral. He told Cointelegraph that the firm is not currently working with any other banks in developing tools for securing bank loans with Waves open protocol. Ivanov added that Waves did not promote the protocol for this …

Huobi DeFi Labs has launched a global DeFi alliance, which is set to establish universal protocol standards for the DeFi space and improve communications within the DeFi ecosystem. The alliance will also conduct research on emerging DeFi protocols to help avoid future crises in the community. The alliance’s inaugural members are MakerDAO (MKR), Compound (COM), Nest (NEST), and dYdX (dYdX). In an interview with Cointelegraph, Huobi’s chief investment officer Sharlyn Wu said, “We have to partner with the entire ecosystem. But we want to work with the best of projects out there and make sure our users have access to …

Jason Williams, co-founder and partner at hedge fund Morgan Creek Digital, predicted that famous investor and business tycoon Warren Buffett will buy Bitcoin (BTC). In a tweet shared on Aug. 15, Williams pointed out some of the most recent investment decisions of the American billionaire and predicted that he will end up buying Bitcoin. Buffett sold banks and bought gold. He will buy #Bitcoin soon. — Jason A. Williams🚀 (@GoingParabolic) August 15, 2020 Williams was referring to the most recent changes to the portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway, where Buffett is chairman and CEO. Fortune reported on Aug. 14 that the …

Standard Chartered PLC, a British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, England, has successfully leveraged blockchain technology to conduct Bangladesh’s first blockchain trade transaction, according to Newage on August 16. The Standard Chartered bank issued a Letter of Credit (LC) for the trade between garment exporter Viyellatex Ltd and Viyellatex Spinning on the Contour blockchain network. LC is a letter from a bank guaranteeing that a buyer's payment to a seller will be received on time and for the correct amount. The entire transaction was reportedly paperless and completed digitally through Contour’s network. Contour’s blockchain network builds …

Former Prudential Securities chief executive and current chairman of Sanders Morris Harris George Ball sees Bitcoin as a safe haven for those looking for different investments. In an interview with Reuters on August 14, Ball admitted he was previously a “Bitcoin opponent” but, with the government participating in the financial markets, he’s seen the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. “I’ve never said it before, but I’ve always been a blockchain and Bitcoin opponent but if you look now, the government can’t stimulate the markets forever. The liquidity flood will end and sooner or later the government’s got to start …

Thailand’s central bank is looking at smart contracts and decentralized finance (DeFi) implementations for its national digital currency, the digital baht. Vijak Sethaput, senior developer for the Bank of Thailand’s (BoT) central bank digital currency project Inthanon, discussed the country’s CBDC progress in an interview hosted by a global think tank for central banking, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, on Aug. 13. Sethaput was joined by Sky Guo, CEO of New York-based enterprise blockchain firm Cypherium, which is focused on global CBDC implementations and interoperability. In the interview, Guo said that global jurisdictions can borrow from the DeFi …

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston has entered into a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to better understand the concept of digital currencies. The bank will work with MIT researchers on a multiyear project to develop and test the use cases of a “hypothetical” central bank digital currency (CBDC), said Fed Governor Lael Brainard during her speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. She said that digital currencies bring both opportunities and threats related to privacy, illicit activity and financial stability, and the Reserve must clearly understand both aspects of it as they proceed towards the …

South Korea’s Woori and Shinhan banks have just announced their intention to introduce “crypto-asset services”. That means that four of the country’s top five banks, holding a combined value of more than $1.2 trillion in assets, are now poised to introduce crypto services. Each of the banks aims to hold and manage cryptocurrencies for clients. Both Shinhan and Woori announced their plans in direct response to the amended Special Financial Transactions Information Act which will change legislation around crypto assets, coming into force next year. Shinhan bank previously announced plans for crypto storage in 2017, but these plans were thwarted …

Santander, the large scale Spanish bank and one of Ripple’s major partners, is still hesitant to adopt XRP as part of its international payment network, One Pay FX. The company reasoned that the token “was not actively traded in enough markets” to support the company’s banking needs. During an interview with the Financial Times, Cedric Menager, chief executive officer of One Pay FX, explained that Santander wants to provide the “best [user experience] as quickly as possible.” He also said that the bank hopes to “operate in as many currencies and corridors as possible from the beginning.” Ripple clarified that …

Blockchain firm HashCash Consultants claims that banks are "chief arbiters" of people's identities, and need blockchain technology to do it better. According to an Aug. 11 announcement, “accurate identification of an individual is central to banking activities which makes them the chief arbiter of people's identities.” Still, the current system is not without its issues: “The existing manual processes make identification time-consuming and susceptible to errors. HashCash aims to streamline the process by helping the partner bank create digital identities for the customers over a decentralized network, where the customer data will be recorded on an immutable ledger, eliminating any …

In a Cointelegraph interview, director of IBM financial services and digital assets, Nitin Gaur, shared how the technology company is helping financial institutions to capitalize on the DeFi movement. Gaur — the author of Blockchain for Business — says it is essential that banks understand and embrace DeFi space. Otherwise, he says it could eventually disrupt their entire business model: “I think that the financial institutions should understand it because it has the potential to eventually sort of take over and subside the business elements of existing business models. And that's one reason why a bank should do it.” DeFi …

Liechtenstein’s Financial Market Authority (FMA) has reportedly pulled the plug on an alleged application to bring Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao on as a major shareholder in a distressed domestic bank. As reported by Swiss financial news outlet Inside Paradeplatz on Aug. 10, the FMA rejected the purported application and also declined to approve an extension for further expert opinion that could intercede to save the rumored deal. In November 2019, Zurich-based commercial lawyer Wolfram Kuoni had reportedly addressed Union Bank AG’s shareholders, claiming: “The FMA is likely to accept Binance as shareholder. However, given that [Union Bank] as of now …