Coin Center — a nonprofit research and advocacy center focused on crypto-related public policy issues — has urged Her Majesty’s Treasury not to over-broaden the scope of the United Kingdom’s anti-money laundering/counter terrorism financing (AML/CFT) regulations. The development was revealed in an official Coin Center news release published on June 10. Coin Center’s central concern regards HM Treasury’s plans to ostensibly “impose data collection and reporting requirements on not only cryptocurrency developers, but all open-source software developers and others who facilitate the peer-to-peer exchange of cryptoassets,” as the news release states. The advocacy center outlined its position in detail in …

Major Portuguese sports club SL Benfica now accepts cryptocurrency for merchandise and tickets, Verdict reports on June 6. According to the report, SL Benfica partnered with cryptocurrency service Utrust to provide the new payments option. Fans and customers can now buy tickets any products on the club’s website with Utrust’s native token (UTK), or with top cryptocurrencies bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH). Utrust purportedly supports instant crypto-to-fiat conversions, allowing SL Benfica to essentially pocket its revenue directly in cash. The press release explains that this allows the club to avoid issues around the volatility of cryptocurrencies, while still making use …

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance is apparently testing a British pound stablecoin on its native blockchain, Binance Chain, according to a Twitter post on June 3. Twitter user CryptosBatman noticed that the listing “$BGBP” appeared on the Binance platform. Screenshot of stablecoin on Binance Chain. Source: Twitter Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has commented on the tweet, confirming that a pound stablecoin is in the testing phase, with only £200 minted. Zhao came under fire last month for posting about potentially rolling back transactions (re-org) on the exchange after a $40 million hack. Zhao apologized after the incident, saying: “Given how much …

London-based cryptocurrency mining firm Argo Blockchain has significantly upgraded its 2019 second quarter forecast in light of the crypto market upturn. The news was reported by Alliance finance and stock market news agency for London South East on June 3. Following news of Argo’s revised forecast, shares in the firm reportedly spiked 20% to 6.29 pence (around $0.08) during morning trading hours today. The firm has a market capitalization of £18 million (around $22.8 million), Alliance notes. By the end of Q2 2019, Argo revealed it expects to generate 420 bitcoin (BTC) worth of crypto assets on its balance sheet. …

Major United States-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service Coinbase has added support for EOS, according to a press release on May 30. The new addition is reportedly available for trading and storage in most areas covered by Coinbase, with the exception of the United Kingdom and New York at press time. The announcement also notes that there are no transaction fees associated with EOS; the cost is instead paid in computing resources, such as a tax on RAM, CPUs, or network bandwidth. Users that run the network also earn EOS by contributing to the computational power needed to run transactions. …

A blockchain project developed to safeguard the integrity and accessibility of digital government records of national archives worldwide will soon present the results of a successful trial deployment in the United Kingdom, Estonia and Norway. The news was revealed in an official press release published on May 29. The project, named ARCHANGEL, involves the U.K. National Archives, the University of Surrey and the U.K. Open Data Institute, with funding from the The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). Its trial deployment in the U.K., Estonia and Norway focused on leveraging blockchain and other technologies to tackle the long-term future …

United Kingdom-based international bank Barclays and technology investment firm Bold Capital Partners have led a $5.5 million funding round for fintech firm Crowdz's blockchain-based global invoice exchange, according to a press release on May 28. According to the report, the blockchain-based technology will purportedly make invoice processing more efficient by digitizing and automatizing what are traditionally manual processes. The technology also automates the process of finding financiers and sending them invoices. CEO of Crowdz, Payson E. Johnston, emphasizes the importance that this speedier invoice processing has for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs): "Today, small and midsize businesses often have to …

A unit of German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom will work with Binance-listed project Fetch.AI (FET) to develop decentralized IoT network innovations, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 22. Fetch.AI, a Cambridge-based tech startup, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Labs to build and implement autonomous agents (AEAs) on the Fetch.AI test network in order to integrate them into Internet of Things (IoT) device communications. The new partnership intends to find out how AEAs can be incorporated into IoT devices in order to provide them with the authority and autonomy to operate with …

Coming every Sunday, the Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions, and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link. Top Stories This Week Copyright Registrations Do Not Recognize Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto Although self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, filed United States copyright registrations for the bitcoin white paper and the bitcoin (BTC) source code, that does not mean that the U.S. Copyright Office recognized Wright as Nakamoto. A spokesperson for Wright had …

The primary financial regulator of the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), warned that ICAP Crypto is a clone firm in a public announcement on May 24. According to the report, ICAP Crypto is a clone firm of ICAP Europe Limited. Clone firms are a type of scam in which the scammers use information from legitimate firms in an attempt to convince targets that they are genuine. In this case, ICAP Europe Limited is a legitimate firm that is authorized by the FCA, and its details are being propagated in scams using the similarly-named ICAP Crypto “firm” which is …

The primary financial regulator of the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), reports that crypto investors in the country lost over $34 million due to cryptocurrency and forex scams from 2018–2019 the Financial Times reports on May 20. According to the data, which the FCA gathered from the U.K. national fraud and cybercrime reporting center, Action Fraud, individual loss due to scams decreased from $76,000 to $18,500 while total losses fell by $14 million. However, the number of reports more than tripled to reach 1,834, with 81 percent of such reports being crypto scam claims. Per the report, the …

London-based global funds network Calastone announced that it switched its entire system for fund trade clearing services to its blockchain Distributed Market Infrastructure (DMI) in a press release published on May 20. Per the release, the migration of the company’s over 1,800 customers over 41 markets “represents the largest community of global financial services organisations connecting and transacting via distributed ledger technology.” In the announcement, the institution also forecasts that the resulting savings for the mutual funds market will amount to over £3.4 billion per year ($4.33 billion). The release reads: “Financial services organisations around the world — whichever size …