Major United States investment management firm VanEck has listed four reasons why Bitcoin (BTC) improves an investment portfolio upside. On Oct. 8, VanEck released research titled “The Investment Case for Bitcoin,” aiming to determine what role the cryptocurrency can play in an investment portfolio. According to VanEck, a firm that attempted to list a Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) with U.S. regulators in 2018, Bitcoin’s combination of “durability, scarcity, privacy, and its nature as a bearer asset all contribute to it holding monetary value.” 1. Monetary value instead of intrinsic value As VanEck often refers to bitcoin as “digital gold,” the …

Ex-United States Federal Reserve official Simon Potter has said that proposals to end the U.S. dollar’s dominance by replacing it with a digital currency make no sense. Central banks unlikely to coordinate Last month, Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney suggested ending the U.S. dollar’s dominance by replacing it with a digital currency, such as Facebook’s planned stablecoin, Libra. Carney said that he considered this to be a better option than allowing it to be replaced by another national currency such as China’s renminbi. On Sept. 25, Potter, a former senior Federal Reserve official who ran the New …

Over the course of the past few weeks, the global cryptocurrency community bore witness to two major announcements related to stablecoins — with the first being the launch of Paxos’s gold-backed Ethereum token, PAX Gold (PAXG), and the other being the release of Binance’s cryptocoin backed by the United States dollar (BUSD). Paxos, a global digital asset trust firm, announced the launch of its PAXG token via a press release a few days back. In the document, the firm claims that its product is the world’s first crypto asset to be fully redeemable in exchange for physical gold. Not only …

Disclaimer Sept. 4, 2019 4:06 p.m. UTC: This article previously stated that the Marshall Islands had launched its cryptocurrency. It has been amended to more accurately reflect the news development. An official from the Marshall Islands has published an essay explaining the country’s national cryptocurrency project ahead of the Invest: Asia 2019 conference. The issuance of the Marshallese sovereign (SOV) was discussed in an essay by The Honorable David Paul — Minister In-Assistance to the President and Environment of the Marshall Islands — published by Coindesk on Sept. 4. “Connected to the global financial system on its own terms” The …

Crypto exchange Bitfinex shareholder Zhao Dong has claimed that sister firm Tether plans to release a version of the stablecoin backed by a basket of commodities such as gold, crude oil and rubber. In private correspondence with Cointelegraph on Sept. 3, Dong said that the idea of issuing Tether (USDT) pegged to a commodities basket was being mooted in order to mitigate the risks associated with keeping large amounts of funds deposited in banks. “Tether is backed at least 83.75% by USD” Aside from the commodity stablecoin news, Dong commented on the long-standing controversy regarding Tether’s flagship USD-pegged stablecoin and …

Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, is joining crypto-friendly bank Silvergate’s Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN) to speed fiat transfers. Real-time fiat money transfers Gemini announced the move in an official blog post on Aug. 27. According to the announcement, the main benefit of the exchange’s partnership with Silvergate is that Gemini’s institutional investor clients can withdraw and deposit United States dollars from their accounts at any time. This is already the industry standard for cryptocurrencies, but not for fiat money, per the report. Additionally, the announcement states that Gemini is integrated into SEN’s application programming interface (API). …

Money transfer service Xendpay has joined Ripple’s global network RippleNet to support international transactions. Going beyond the U.S. dollar Ripple announced the news on Aug. 20. Per the news release, RippleNet will allow Xendpay to provide money transfer services beyond the United States dollar. Xendpay will use Ripple’s pre-existing network of banks and other financial partners to facilitate money transfers via other forms of currency — especially Ripple’s XRP. New capabilities with RipplePay As stated in the announcement, Xendpay previously had trouble transferring anything other than dollars in foreign markets. Offering a smaller currency involved establishing direct partnerships with local …

Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Bitex has partnered with Uruguay-based financial software company Bantotal in order to expand it cross-border payments system on the Bitcoin blockchain to Latin America. CoinDesk announced the companies’ new partnership in a report on Aug. 13. According to the report, the upshot of this partnership is that Bantotal’s clients will have access to Bitex’s exchange services via a marketplace that hosts traditional financial services in its BDevelopers program. Per the report, Bitex will act as a middleman service for cross-border payments. The exchange’s role is to convert from fiat currency to BTC, and then back to fiat …

A soon-to-launch cryptocurrency derivatives exchange has raised $4.3 million from major investors such as the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase and the investment firm SV Angel. The exchange Blade is scheduled to launch in three weeks’ time. Blade’s funding and plans come by way of a TechCrunch report on Aug. 12. The report notes that in particular, Blade is aiming to provide trading for cryptocurrency-based perpetual swap contracts with three new improvements. First, the perpetuals contracts will be drawn up using standard, simple contracts. Second, the perpetuals will use Tether’s stablecoin USDT for settlement and margins. Third, trades can be leveraged up …

Retail giant Overstock’s blockchain subsidiary company, tZERO, has opened up its preferred equity security tokens — dubbed TZROP — for trading by accredited and non-accredited investors. TZERO announced the news in a press release on Aug. 12, the previously proclaimed day of the launch. According to the announcement, the TZROP token allows investors to directly participate in the company’s revenue growth via a quarterly dividend model. The announcement further states that the company could distribute a quarterly dividend of 10% of the company’s adjusted gross revenue for TZROP holders. However, it also specifies that this is subject to approval from …

A senior policy analyst at investment banking corporation Cowen, Jaret Seiberg, said that Walmart’s proposed digital coin should not face as much regulatory pushback as Libra, Facebook’s proposed virtual currency. As Bloomberg reports on Aug. 5, Seiberg also added that Walmart’s crypto may have a demographic appeal to Democratic legislators who are keen to find an alternative financial infrastructure for people who do not regularly use banks. According to Seiberg, Libra and Walmart’s crypto proposal differ in scale. Seiberg comments that Facebook has global intentions which do not appear to be shared by Walmart. Possible regulatory hangups However, Seiberg noted …

Every central bank will be buying Bitcoin (BTC) to hedge risks to the United States dollar, according to a forecast by major crypto bull Anthony Pompliano. In a tweet on Aug. 1, Pompliano, co-founder of asset manager firm Morgan Creek Digital Assets, noted the recent news that central banks made the largest historical acquisition of gold. As reported by The Financial Times, global central banks purchased a record of $15.7 billion in the first half of 2019 in order to diversify their reserves from the U.S. dollar amid global trade tensions. According to the report, central banks accounted for almost …