Major American digital asset custody and security company BitGo has acquired a New York Trust license from the New York State Department of Financial Services. According to an announcement, the new charter enables BitGo to provide custodial services for institutional clients in New York seeking to make large investments in crypto in compliance with local regulations. With the new license, BitGo will provide Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering controls and offer offline cold storage of cryptographic keys in bank-grade vaults, BitGo said. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said that the new trust charter from NYDFS will help the company serve …

BitGo, a major digital asset custody and security company, has hired a former compliance executive of Coinbase. Jeff Horowitz, Coinbase’s former chief compliance officer, is joining BitGo as its new chief compliance officer, the firm announced Jan. 13. Horowitz joins BitGo after serving the same role at Coinbase since July 2018. The new exec will be replacing BitGo’s former CCO Matt Parrella and will oversee the company’s compliance and Anti-Money Laundering programs to ensure compliance and regulatory requirements. Horowitz told Cointelegraph that one of the biggest compliance challenges in serving institutional clients in crypto is to navigate the complex and …

The U.S. Treasury has settled with BitGo over charges that it facilitated users in sanctioned areas to transact using its crypto wallet services between 2015 and 2019. BitGo, an institutional crypto custodian service and wallet operator, did not do due diligence in blocking wallet users based in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, said the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Controls in a Dec. 30 announcement. OFAC said of BitGo: "BitGo failed to exercise due caution or care for its sanctions compliance obligations when it failed to prevent persons apparently located in sanctioned jurisdictions to open accounts and send digital …

BitGo, whose investors include Galaxy Digital Ventures, Goldman Sachs and Valor Equity Partners, reported Wednesday that digital assets under custody have surpassed $16 billion for the first time, offering further validation that institutional demand has arrived. In an official press release, BitGo said institutional investors are seeking exposure to digital assets “for custody, trading and lending.” CEO Mike Belshe commented: “We’re seeing unprecedented interest from institutional investors as a result of the pandemic’s economic impact, as well as Bitcoin’s extraordinary performance.” Founded in 2013 as a digital wallet service, BitGo has expanded to provide liquidity, custody, and security solutions for …

Global payments firm PayPal is looking to acquire a crypto asset custody firm, with a report published by Bloomberg on Oct. 23 claiming the company is currently in talks with BitGo Inc. Anonymous sources cited in the report claimed that the two companies may reach an agreement within a matter of weeks. BitGo is a multi-signature custodian that was founded in 2013. In 2018, the company raised $15 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs and Galaxy Digital. However, the deal is believed to be far from certain, with the report noting: “Talks could still fall apart and PayPal …

Digital asset financial services firm BitGo is applying to become a qualified cryptocurrency custodian in New York state. In its announcement on Aug. 25, BitGo said its decision was spurred by fresh regulatory developments in the United States —- specifically, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s recent granting of permission to federally chartered banks to custody cryptocurrencies. As a consequence, BitGo says it is “expecting a dramatic increase in market demand for its products and services from banks, pension funds, hedge funds and other fiduciaries.” BitGo has formally applied for a New York Trust Charter from the New …

As Russia is about to officially ban crypto payments within its borders starting on Jan. 1, 2021, Cointelegraph tracked down some senior executives in the crypto industry to talk about the implications of such a ban. Russia’s primary crypto opponent is Anatoly Aksakov, a member of the State Duma and a key architect of Russia’s crypto ban. In mid-August, Aksakov argued that legalizing crypto payments basically “means the destruction of a financial system.” Speaking to Cointelegraph, major global crypto figures like BitGo CEO Mike Belshe and Binance’s head of operations in Russia and CIS, Gleb Kostarev, concurred that payments in …

Swipe wallet and crypto debit card platform has integrated Chainlink (LINK) data oracles to improve the accuracy of reward issuance and token burns. Swipe CEO Joselito Lizarondo said Chainlink’s decentralized price feeds will provide more accurate and fair token conversion prices for users and was an important step towards greater decentralization: “This is important to us to bring transparency to our users, especially as we're kind of leaning towards starting to migrate from custodial products to noncustodial products in the future. So this is a starting point of decentralization in our system to ensure that our users are seeing a …

A crypto exchange that’s based and regulated in the United States claims that its goal is to bridge the gap between foreign exchanges, futures, stocks and banking — and ensure that digital assets are available to institutional and retail traders around the world. CoinZoom says it provides an on-ramp that enables users to easily convert their fiat into the cryptocurrency of their choosing, including Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), XRP and Ether (ETH). A diverse range of local currencies is supported. According to the platform, it also offers competitive maker and taker fees of 0.20% and 0.26%, respectively, with discounts …

Coronavirus lockdowns will force people out of fiat currency and into gold and Bitcoin (BTC), the CEO of cryptocurrency asset manager BitGo has warned. In a series of tweets on Aug. 12, Mike Belshe strongly urged investors to divert a minimum of 3% of their portfolio into Bitcoin. Belshe: investors will move from cash to gold, Bitcoin As multiple jurisdictions around the world reenter compulsory lockdown conditions, Belshe said that in the United States, the government had made a prison for itself using the policy. “The government is being forced to maintain lockdowns for political correctness, which will force them …

The hackers who conducted the massive Twitter hijacking on July 15 do not appear to be sophisticated Bitcoin (BTC) users, as they left trails leading to and from major exchanges that presumably hold the keys to their identities. Address bc1qxy summary. Source: Crystal Blockchain. The Bitcoin address that hackers used to solicit illicit donations is bc1qxy2kgdygjrsqtzq2n0yrf2493p83kkfjhx0wlh. A couple of hours into the hack, the perpetrators started moving Bitcoin into other addresses. The Bitcoin trail they are leaving behind suggests that they are not terribly sophisticated when it comes to blockchain technology. They are reusing the same addresses, they are not …

BitGo, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) transaction processors, is integrating a new API into its crypto wallet service to support the Financial Action Task Force’s travel rule. BitGo told Cointelegraph on July 14 that the company is the first wallet service to provide an in-house API solution for the FATF’s Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations, known as the "travel rule." Specifically, BitGo is now extending its API endpoints to enable its clients to transfer additional transaction-related data required under the new rule. Intended to provide more transparency, the new tool is expected to enable the exchange of data about …