The state of Arizona has accepted a blockchain-based, cannabis industry-oriented payments solution into its fintech sandbox. According to a recent press release from the Office of the Attorney General, the company — called Alta — is a cash management solution for licensed medical marijuana providers and vendors. The Arizona-based financial services startup intends to offer a stablecoin that is pegged 1:1 with the United States dollar. During its sandbox testing phase, Alta will trial its member onboarding and remittances platform. The end goal of the platform is to let users pay for goods and services using the stablecoin instead of …

Tether is now running on a sidechain of Bitcoin’s blockchain. While Tether has traditionally operated on the Omni Layer of Bitcoin, the United States dollar-backed stablecoin has begun spreading to other blockchain protocols this month. Most recently, Tether is now being offered on blockchain company BlockStream’s Liquid Network sidechain, according to an official announcement on July 29. According to the announcement, Liquid-based Tether — called Liquid USDT — is being offered immediately for deposits and withdrawals on Bitfinex. Additionally, the staff at Liquid are reportedly developing support for Liquid USDT on a number of other affiliated crypto exchanges, including OKEx, …

United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin shares President Donald Trump’s concerns on the use of cryptocurrency to finance illicit activity, and stresses the role of enforcing FinCEN regulations with respect to crypto-dealing organizations. Mnuchin made his remarks at a press conference on July 15. Mnuchin called the use of cryptocurrencies to fund illicit activity a national security issue, saying that billions of dollars have been used for this purpose: “Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have been exploited to support billions of dollars of illicit activity, like cybercrime, tax evasion, extortion, randomware, illicit drugs, human trafficking […] This is indeed a national …

The former governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) says “China should take precautions” against the trend represented by Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency. Twitter-based Chinese crypto news source CnLedger reported on Xiaochuan Zhou’s remarks on July 9. Zhou notably served as PBoC governor between 2003 and 2018, a period which saw Beijing pursue its notorious onslaught of anti-crypto regulations — including the historic blanket criminalization of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and exchange crackdown. CnLedger reports that Zhou characterized Libra as representative of the global trend in cryptocurrencies — singling out its stablecoin-like properties and ambitions to tackle the pain point …

Chicago-based crypto exchange ErisX has procured a derivatives clearing organization (DCO) license from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). According to an official blog post on July 1, ErisX is planning to make digital asset futures contracts available for trade on its regulated derivatives market later this year via its new DCO. ErisX also launched its spot market in April, with the promise of eventually rolling out a single digital asset platform for spot and futures trading. At press time, the ErisX spot market exchange includes U.S. dollar trading pairs with bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH) …

Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media, published on June 25 an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, advising to back Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra with gold. In the letter, Forbes strongly encouraged Facebook’s crypto initiative, emphasizing Libra’s potential to become one of the greatest inventions in the world, which eventually “could replace the U.S. dollar as the global currency.” At the same time, to become “one of history’s truly seminal creations,” Libra has to be backed by gold as a basic condition, Forbes argued in the letter, opposing it to the current Facebook’s plan to back the coin by a …

Goldman Sachs is performing “extensive research” on tokenization, the group’s chief executive told France’s Les Echos newspaper on June 27. David Solomon said he believes global payment systems are heading in the direction of stablecoins — cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat assets such as the U.S. dollar. Although he stopped short of confirming whether Goldman Sachs has had discussions with Facebook about its upcoming libra cryptocurrency and Calibra wallet, Solomon said his corporation finds the concept “interesting.” When asked whether Goldman Sachs will follow JPMorgan Chase in launching its own virtual currency, Solomon said: “Assume that all major financial institutions around …

Brazilian cryptocurrency exchanges are rolling out support for a stablecoin, according to a report by Cointelegraph Brasil on June 26. Brazilian platforms including PagCripto, Nox Trading, 3xBit, and Bitcambio, are reportedly slated to be the next adopters to issue this new stablecoin — pegged one-to-one with the Brazilian real — Real-T (REALT). As explained in its whitepaper, the “Real-T Token” is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 stablecoin that is “strictly pegged” to BRL. The paper claims that the company behind the token, Real-T Tecnologia S.A., will publicly share its bank statement to provide evidence for full backing of Real-T in fiat money. …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Pro has added support for Chainlink, according to a blog post on June 26. Coinbase has listed two trading pairs for the token of smart contract platform Chainlink (LINK) on its professional trading platform. LINK will be available to trade with the U.S. dollar (LINK/USD) and with ether (ETH) (LINK/ETH). The post says that the token will be available in all its covered jurisdictions except for the state of New York. According to the announcement, Coinbase Pro will roll out options for LINK in four steps. The four steps are (1) transfer-only, (2) post-only, (3) limit-only, …

CNBC’s Joe Kernen claims he is being treated “like a god” on Twitter following a June 19 interview on Squawk Box where he questioned whether Facebook’s libra is a cryptocurrency. In the clip, posted by a bitcoin (BTC) advocate, Kernen said libra “doesn’t excite me at all” and argued that blockchain networks used by major coins add inherent value. Describing the libra, he added: “This is just based on the dollar. I don’t understand it — is it called a cryptocurrency? Well it’s not.” Crypto enthusiasts praised Kernen for his remarks — and said it marked a turning point as …

Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has announced that it is now listing the cryptocurrency Binance Coin (BNB) issued by the exchange Binance, according to a press release on June 19. KuCoin will reportedly offer BNB trading pairs with Bitcoin (BTC) and Tether (USDT). The announcement also notes that KuCoin will support projects based on Binance’s native blockchain, Binance Chain, in addition to its native coin BNB. The recent development shows that major trading institutions are putting trust in Binance’s token-vetting process on its initial exchange offering platform. At press time, KuCoin is the 46th largest cryptocurrency exchange on CoinMarketCap, with an …

Major fiat-crypto trading platform OKCoin has partnered with fintech firm Simplex to enable global users to make USD deposits via debit or credit card. The news was announced in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on June 17. As an European Union-licensed financial institution and payments processing provider, Simplex — which has offices in Israel, the United Kingdom, United States and Lithuania — will offer card-enabled USD deposits for OKCoin users outside of Europe, China and the U.S., according to the press release. The partners reportedly plan to extend the service to further countries in the future. According to the …