Speaking at EthCC, an Ethereum conference in Paris, JPMorgan’s Amber Baldet talked about the concerns of private and public blockchain builders; “These problems really aren't so far apart, it's just that people are trying to solve the problems in different ways,” says Baldet as reported by CoinDesk; she doesn’t think public and private blockchain need to be so different, what everyone wants is the ability to interoperate; CoinDesk went on to interview Amber about building connectivity, feedback loops and more. Source.
Swift says that blockchain technology is not yet ready to handle the billions in daily cross border bank payments; they recently completed a proof of concept test to reconcile international payments between 34 banks; they said the test went well but that progress was still needed before they can trust the technology to handle the scale; the other aspect to consider is that the 11,000 thousand banks on the Swift system would still need to make upgrades to switch to blockchain based payments. Source.
Caitlin Long recently stepped down as President and Chairman of blockchain startup Symbiont to help turn Wyoming into an ideal environment for digital asset businesses; she helped with the Delaware Blockchain Initiative and, along with her partners, recently introduced 5 bills in Wyoming; 3 of the 5 have passed and the Governor has indicated he will sign them into law later this month; American Banker interviewed Caitlin on institutional interest cryptocurrencies, bitcoin becoming financialized, the different between security and utility tokens and more. Source.
In the transaction on the blockchain platform, Credit Suisse and ING swapped securities totaling €25 million using the HQLAx Corda collateral lending application; doing transactions in this way increases regulatory transparency, reduces systemic and operational risk and helps companies manage capital efficiently. Source
One of China’s largest e-commerce companies has launched a blockchain and AI focused accelerator named AI Catapult; the company said they were looking to test real world applications of their technologies at scale; the initial batch of companies include companies from all over the globe focused on dat, e-commerce, trading, wealth management and more. Source.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is considering creating standards to boost blockchain development; the China Electronics Standardization Institute wants to help form a committee surrounding the issue and try to keep the country ahead of the curve; China has also participated in international efforts on blockchain technology focused on authentication and smart contracts. Source.
In a recent speech on the future of money Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said a ban on crypto would stifle the useful innovation with blockchain; Mr Carney tells the FT about payment systems needing to change, “These must now evolve to meet the demands of fully reliable, real-time, distributed transactions.”; he also talked about the community driven approach to the tech and the many use cases for it that increases efficiency and transparency around systems that are in need of an upgrade. Source.
Jason Gottlieb, a partner at Morrison Cohen, told Crowdfund Insider that, in his opinion, “Despite its firm view that most (and maybe all) ICOs were unregistered securities offerings, the courts have not yet decided whether the “coins” or “utility tokens” are truly securities.”; the reports point to the SEC investigating at least 12 ICOs and their gatekeepers; regulators have been increasing their understanding of the space in the last year as the ICO market has taken off. Source.
The company is calling their strategy the digital everything model, which includes new mobile features and back office operations powered by the blockchain; “We’re not going to lose our financial discipline because we have to make an investment that we have to do or want to do,” CEO Jamie Dimon said when asked about their approach to the tech investment; branch expansions, investments in big data solutions and more were also discussed during the investor call as reported by American Banker. Source.
New York State Senators held a roundtable last week for NY based blockchain companies to give their opinions on the BitLicense; the BitLicense is seen as being too restrictive, especially for startups, and the listening session was meant to get industry points of view before making reforms; one of the biggest complaints is the current regulations are too one size fits all; it is a good sign to see legislators engage the community but NY’s Department of Financial Services was not invited and so there is skepticism that any change will actually occur. Source.