STASIS Stablecoin Digest 29.11.2019

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The European Union and its related financial institutions have already produced regulatory regimes that guide equities, fixed income and derivatives trading across large portions of the continent. Digital currencies are next.

Lawmakers in Thailand plan to reform cryptocurrency laws after voicing concerns that they have made the country uncompetitive. As local English-language news outlet Bangkok Post reported on Nov. 25, Thailand s regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to reconsider its crypto policy in 2020.

A new bill in Germany could enable banks to support the sale and custody of Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies by 2020. German news agency Handelsblatt reported on Nov. 27 that the bill now requires consensus from the country s 16 states, having successfully passed through the Bundestag, the German federal parliament.

France's central bank is urging Europe to explore the development of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC).

According to an official announcement released on Nov. 27, the Federal Council adopted a dispatch explaining its priorities for improving blockchain and DLT legislation. The proposal targets legal certainty in the sector, as well as eliminating barriers for blockchain-based applications and reducing the risk of abuse.

Fidelity has been granted a trust license to offer crypto services (trading and custody of bitcoin) to institutional investors based in New York. The license was granted by the New York State Department of Financial Services, as the asset management group continues to woo cautious institutional investors into the "Wild West" of digital assets.

Saga Monetary Technologies, better known as Saga, has thrown its hat into the stablecoin ring, unveiling a new ERC20 token that is backed by a basket of national currencies. Saga s offering comes with a twist, however: it incorporates an elastic issuance model, thanks to a monetary mechanism that emulates the IMF s SDR. Backed by a number of high profile VCs, and with $30m in private funding, Saga hopes that its eponymous token can succeed where other digital assets have floundered.

sUSD is now listed on KyberSwap, as the company is running an sUSD Automated Price Reserve on Kyber Network.

Gemini has purchased Nifty Gateway™, a popular platform where anyone can buy and manage non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

European Central Bank (ECB) board member Benoit Coeure has warned that global stablecoins remain untested and raise potential risks across multiple policy domains.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, or the BRICS economic bloc, are engaging in discussions to issue cross-national digital money in order to reduce the dependence of their economies on the United States.

Stablecoins have the potential to temper the systemic threats posed by the United States dollar s domination of global foreign currency reserves, according to an opinion piece published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The United States Federal Reserve is now taking the concept of an official dollar stablecoin seriously. Markets have heard more frequent guidance from the Fed on cryptocurrencies in recent years, and thanks to two curious U.S. representatives — French Hill and Bill Foster — this guidance now includes an enlightening response from Fed Chairman Jay Powell to their letter on a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.

The central bank of the Russian Federation expects that stablecoins to become a highly-potential asset that will eventually compete with the traditional stock market.

Benoit Coeure, an outgoing executive board member gave a remarkable statement at a joint sitting held by the European Central Bank and the National Bank of Belgium arguing the superiority of the digital currency with respect to cash. He said that the bank is already on the quest to reveal all the concealed factors which makes the digital currency a great potential asset in the current financial system.

China is aiming to be the first country in the world to launch a digital currency, after five years of research by a team in its central bank. The project is still shrouded in secrecy. There have been few details about what form a new sovereign digital currency might take, how it will affect banks and businesses and when it might be launched.

British multinational investment bank and financial services holding company HSBC Holdings plc is about to transfer $20 billion worth of assets to blockchain-based custody. It's expected the platform will digitize paper-based records of private placements with the help of the blockchain technology to reduce the time it takes investors to make checks or queries on holdings.

Neutrino is a cryptocurrency with a stable price, regulated by the Neutrino Protocol algorithm and backed by an underlying token and smart contract. In other words, it is a hybrid of a cryptocurrency-backed and an algorithmic stablecoin.

The number of Ether (ETH) locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications reached an all-time high of 2.7 million, according to DeFi monitoring resource DeFiPulse, and has been steadily growing since the end of June.

After the investment, Ripple now owns 9.95% of MoneyGram's common stocks. During the last stage of the investment, Ripple acquired shares at a price of $4.10 each, 30% higher than the current price.