Despite the rising value of blockchain skills in the global job market, some countries like China reduced salaries offered to blockchain employees in 2019, a new report says. According to the “2020 China Blockchain Professional Development Report,” the average salary offered to blockchain industry professionals in China dropped 37% year-over-year since 2018. Imbalance between supply and demand in blockchain talent is increasing Published on March 19, the report was compiled under the guidance of the Internet Industry Research Institute of Tsinghua University. As reported by local publication Sina Finance, the joint report was provided by blockchain professional information service platform …

The first round of negotiations between the United Kingdom and the European Union to determine their future, post-Brexit relationship took place between March 2 and March 5 in Brussels, Belgium. The outcome of these negotiations will shape the way the two work together following the end of the transition period, currently scheduled to extend through Dec. 31. For the financial technology sector, the discussions surrounding the future U.K.–EU regulatory relationship as it relates to financial services will be particularly important to watch, as the outcome will determine how fintech services are bought and sold between the two. The negotiations also …

The Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator announced the selection of 17 startups for its third cohort, scheduled to take place in the spring of 2020. The accelerator is a joint venture between organizations on the California-based UC Berkeley campus. The venture, made up of the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology, Berkeley Engineering, the Berkeley Haas School of Business, and Blockchain at Berkeley, announced the selections in an official statement on March 11. Projects were chosen from a list of 140 startups that applied for a coveted spot in the cohort. A wide range of industries represented in Berkeley’s Spring 2020 cohort …

Zabo has announced it has raised $ 2.5 million in seed funding, allowing it to extend its portfolio of services to continue connecting its customers’ cryptocurrency wallets to banks, brokerage firms, FinTech apps, and tax software. As detailed in a March 5 blog post, the seed round was led by Moonshots Capital and included funding from Blockchange Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, Digital Currency Group, CoinShares, Tezos Foundation, Capital Factory, among others. Bolstering connections with mainstream financial services Zabo’s technology is used in a wide variety of financial services applications, both centralized and decentralized, and with this announcement, they expect to …

Chicago-based fintech startup FinTank aims to launch a national self-regulatory organization, or SRO, in the United States. Headed up by former Chicago Board Options Exchange, or CBOE, trader David Carman and partner George Vukotich, FinTank’s SRO “will help regulate the global crypto industry,” Carman told Cointelegraph. As much of the crypto world looks toward the U.S. regulatory scene, such an SRO could impact the crypto industry worldwide. Regulation is unclear in the crypto space, even after 10 years Although regulations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, have tightened over …

Revolut is coming to the smartphone near you with an array of cryptocurrencies. Having just raised $500 million on a $5.5 billion valuation, Revolut is one of the biggest fintechs in Europe. Revolut is a neobank: simply, a bank without the expense and convenience of physical branches or the headache of licensing. Revolut is already well-established in Europe. On its home soil, it allows users to buy and sell Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and (XRP) for one of 29 fiat currencies. Revolut expects to start offering the same service to its clients in the United …

Investment holding company 8i Enterprises Acquisition Corp. and blockchain financial services and technology firm Diginex have scheduled a shareholders meeting to consider the proposed business merge, as the SEC approved the go-ahead of the deal. The special meeting will take place on March 20 in New York, according to a Feb. 24 press release. Initially, the companies announced the merger plans last July. Once the deal is closed, Diginex will ostensibly become the first fully diversified blockchain company listed on Nasdaq. The reverse merger deal with 8i was set to amount to $276 million including debt. Diginex shareholders would reportedly …

As the United States continues to actively embrace blockchain, more new blockchain-powered products supported by national organizations continue to mature. CULedger, a major fintech firm coordinated by an American national trade association, has commercially launched its blockchain identity platform. Formerly known as MyCUID, CULedger’s blockchain-based identity verification solution MemberPass is now commercially available after a successful pilot in late 2019, CULedger announced on Feb. 21. Credit union members can use safe blockchain-based ecosystem to protect their privacy As a major credit union service organization (CUSO), CULedger aims to provide a trusted peer-to-peer services network of verifiable exchange for financial cooperatives. …

Earlier this week, the decentralized lending protocol bZx was exploited in back-to-back “flash loan” attacks. While the two exploits were distinct, the end results remained the same. In total, $954,000 was gleaned from the platform. But what exactly happened? Was it an exploit, a simple case of arbitrage or a malicious attack? And where does decentralized finance go from here? It hasn’t been a good PR week for the DeFi sector. For some, the movement promising an alternative to the legacy financial system is starting to look like a failed experiment. For others, the attacks amounted to little more than …

E-commerce giant Shopify has joined the Libra Association, a network of founding members supporting Facebook's stablecoin project Libra. Shopify, a major Canada-based digital commerce platform hosting more than one million merchants, will be collaborating on the establishment of a global payment network within the Libra Association, the firm officially announced on Feb. 21. The Libra Foundation has confirmed the news in a Facebook post, outlining that Shopify would be an “incredible partner in making widespread economic participation a reality.” Shopify believes that traditional financial system wasn’t built for Internet commerce In the announcement, Shopify claimed that its action to join …

The European Union’s securities regulator has put out a report warning of risks of Big Tech’s entrance into finance. “The high level of market concentration typically observed in BigTech may get carried into financial services, with potentially adverse impacts on consumer prices and financial stability,” the European Securities and Markets Authority, or ESMA, said of Big Tech companies entering finance, as part of its 2020 Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities report released on Feb. 19. The report did, however, also mention a few positives of Big Tech in finance. “Prospective benefits include greater household participation in capital markets, greater transparency and …

It’s been nearly eight months since the Financial Action Task Force issued its divisive crypto directives, establishing traditional banking regulations within the crypto sector. With the year-long adoption deadline fast approaching, how have the world’s regulatory authorities responded to the guidelines so far? The FATF — an intergovernmental organization tasked with combating money laundering — found itself at the center of controversy last June after issuing its latest crypto guidance. The directive merged the cryptocurrency industry into existing banking policy, requiring firms to comply with the same requirements as traditional financial institutions. Among the more notable directives is the travel …