Bitcoin (BTC), and XRP, the third biggest coin by market cap, are not competitors, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse claimed in a Fortune interview on June 20. In the interview, Garlinghouse outlined the key difference of two major cryptocurrencies, arguing that bitcoin is a store of value or “digital gold,” while XRP is a “bridge currency” that enables an efficient solution for fiat-to-fiat transfers. As such, Garlinghouse cited the difference between bitcoin and XRP in terms of transactions costs, claiming that Ripple can do a transaction for a tiny fraction of a cent while a bitcoin transactions costs roughly $2.30 on …

Italian banks will deploy blockchain technology to run reconciliations starting in March 2020, as the Italian Banking Association reported on June 15. The Italian Banking Association (ABI) has announced that Italy’s banks will integrate distributed ledger technology (DLT) into internal processes to boost settlements. The deployment of blockchain is also set to improve transparency in transactions between banks and efficiency of communication between counterparties. The initiative comes as part of a program managed by ABI Lab dubbed Spunta Project, a blockchain interbank solution based on blockchain consortium R3’s open-source distributed ledger platform. The ABI began testing Spunta in February. At …

A “next-generation” mobile payment protocol has unveiled new features — including “incentives” for users who own and run the nodes that perform vital roles on its network, including the verification of transactions. Crypto.com says the new program is a result of a partnership with Allnodes, which is offering its hosting services for the platform. Users who want to participate can either get involved through the Crypto.com Wallet app, or via Allnodes. The Hong Kong-headquartered company, which was founded in 2016, says the native blockchain powering its Crypto.com Pay service delivers “instant, seamless, secure and cost-efficient” transactions for merchants and crypto …

Peer-to-peer payments technology firm Circle is closing its payment app Circle Pay in order to develop new crypto financial services, according to an announcement published on June 13. Per the blog post, Circle will start terminating the operation of Circle Pay, a fiat money sending service with a social messaging component, from July 8, 2019, and will fully close support for the app on Sep. 30. Specifically, on July 8 the app’s users will no longer be able to add or send money to anyone through their Circle Pay account. Circle further hinted that it is delving into new blockchain-based …

Former United States Senator Rick Santorum has joined the board of a Catholic community-oriented cryptocurrency project, according to a press release published on June 4. The former senator and Republican presidential candidate is now a board member of the Catholic community-oriented cryptocurrency project dubbed Cathio. The platform is designed to address the needs of the Catholic economy by ensuring lower costs, greater transaction visibility, and improved security for the community. Santorum was a noted cultural conservative in U.S. politics, who strongly opposed abortion and same-sex marriage on his failed presidential campaigns in 2012 and 2016. Santorum argued that Cathio will …

A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says that blockchains are not as secure as they are purported to be in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on June 6. Stuart Madnick — the John Norris Maguire Professor of Information Technologies at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Founding Director of the Cybersecurity at MIT Sloan research consortium — highlighted a forthcoming study on blockchain, stating that the technology is not as secure as many purport it to be. The MIT study analyzed 72 cases of publicly reported security breaches in blockchain systems between …

How are these issues solved? As the OTC market evolves, companies are working on building trusted custodial solutions and risk management systems. The OTC market is expected to continue steadily growing, and the financial insiders are exploring new ways to make these deals more secure so that institutional investors might be more involved in crypto. For instance, Fidelity, the world’s fifth-largest asset manager, is developing a cold storage to hold the assets from large over-the-counter crypto trading firms. Meanwhile, Coinbase has integrated its custody service with its own OTC desk, which enables customers to use the OTC desk to price …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has temporarily shut down its services, according to a tweet published on May 31. The tweet specifically says that the change has temporarily paused deposits and withdrawals “due to the outrage of one of [their] network providers.” “Funds are safe in cold storage. Situation should be restored ASAP (ETA 3/4h). Apologies for the inconvenience,” the company further states. Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino has posted links to the exchange’s hot wallets, so as to insure the community that there are no outgoing tokens and that user funds were secure. As previously reported, Bitfinex and its affiliated stablecoin issuer …

United States insurance giant State Farm and military-affiliated bank United Services Automobile Association (USAA) are testing a blockchain-based subrogation solution with real claims data. State Farm announced the development in an official press release on May 30. The two insurance titans are using blockchain technology to automate and streamline the subrogation process in insurance claims. The platform purportedly allows them to automatically compile total payments, net the balance, and conduct a regularly scheduled payment between insurers. State Farm states that the blockchain solution is being tested with real claims data. State Farm explains that subrogation occurs when two insurance companies …

Block.one’s EOSIO Labs has released Reference Authenticator Apps for iOS and Chrome. The development was announced in a blog post published on May 29. Per the post, the newly implemented developments address improvements to the security, interoperability and usability of authenticators by contributing working code and examples. Authenticators are software-based tools that implement two-step verification services by generating a secret key for each user. The EOSIO Reference iOS Authenticator App is purportedly designed to enable users to sign in and approve transactions from web applications running in Mobile Safari and other native iOS apps on the same device. The EOSIO …

A group of four banks have successfully issued a promissory note — a type of legally binding loan agreement — through a new blockchain platform, a news release on May 21 announced. The financial institutions used finledger to complete the transaction. According to Helaba, one of the banks involved, the platform reduces the steps involved with issuing such a note by more than 50%. As well as eliminating the need for lenders to hold documents or for borrowers to send valuables, the banks claimed the technology helps cut the risks and costs associated with the process. DekaBank, dwpbank, DZ Bank …

The team behind a private digital currency for secure payments says its goal is to make every consumer their own bank — enabling them to send and receive crypto with the gadget of their choice. Xeonbit says its peer-to-peer technology ensures that every user’s accounts and transactions are “out of reach to any prying eyes.” A feature known as “ring signatures” means public keys are shuffled in order to ensure that particular users cannot be identified once a transaction has taken place. The startup says this is not at the expense of speed, scalability or security. In a blog post …