Blockchain and ICO News

The Facebook Libra wallet was renamed to Novi and placed under the management of Facebook's subsidiary, Novi Financial. In a statement, Novi Financial reported that the name Novi was coined as a merger of the Latin words "Novus" ("new") and "VIA" ("path"), and the visual design of the logo should show the natural movement of digital currencies. Like the previous developer of the Calibra wallet, Novi Financial declares its independence from the parent company.

According to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, stablecoins do not use one of the important features that allows transferring assets between blockchains. In a long discussion on Twitter, Buterin said that using this feature would increase compatibility and data exchange between different networks.

E-Commerce platform Shopify from Canada has started working with CoinPayments. Now it will surely allow businesses accept payments using the platform (in cryptocurrencies). According to Shopify, which serves more than a million businesses in 175 countries, the partnership with CoinPayments will allow merchants of the platform to receive payment in cryptocurrencies. Last year, Shopify tested the CoinPayments solution before deploying it on the platform. Under the terms of the partnership, companies will be able to receive payments in any of the 1800 cryptocurrencies supported by CoinPayments. 

Pavel Durov informed subscribers of his Telegram channel about the completion of work on the TON project. The team's engineers have been developing the revolutionary platform for two and a half years. The developers created a decentralized system in the spirit of Bitcoin and Ethereum with greater speed and scalability.

Ripple has joined the ISO 20022 standardization body. Ripple is about to develop standards for data exchange and payments between global financial institutions. ISO 20022 mainly includes major international commercial banks, Central banks, and major payment companies such as SWIFT and Visa. The Ripple company became the first representative of the blockchain industry in ISO 20022.

Swiss Association of markets and technologies (CMTA) established standards for companies that provide services for storing and disposing of the client's property based on his written order for digital assets.

CMTA's General Secretary Fedor Poskriakov, said that the document was the first step of the Swiss financial industry towards defining common standards for storing and managing digital assets.

"This will greatly contribute to the emergence of fully digital capital market infrastructures, including integrated custody and secondary trading venues. The benefits of the digitalization of the financial industry are such that the evolution towards decentralized infrastructures​ seems i​nevitable."our quote here...

Fedor Poskriakov

Paolo Arduino, technical Director of the Bitfinex exchange, believes that bridges between different blockchains will make transactions with usdt stablecoins cheaper. Arduino facilitated the pTokens development team that launched the bridge between the EOS and Omni blockchains. In the future, such bridges for interaction between different blockchains will reduce the load on the network and help reduce transaction fees.

LG's IT division is testing face recognition technology based on artificial intelligence and blockchain for making payments in crypto assets. LG CNS has launched testing of a new facial recognition service for its employees. The platform includes AI, blockchain, and cloud technologies. After identifying an employee, the system allows you to automatically pay for services and products in a corporate restaurant with a digital currency based on the blockchain.

Weiss Crypto Ratings Agency in the new rating of cryptocurrency projects has put the highest rating on the technology of four blockchains: Cardano, Tezos, Cosmos and Fantom. Interestingly, of the four named coins, three have risen in price by more than 10% over the past day. And only the Fantom coin added only 5%. The growth of alternative cryptocurrencies was also helped by the growth of bitcoin, which added more than 6% yesterday.

Researchers at the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange believe that part of the inheritance received by the millennials and generation X will be invested in Bitcoin and this will bring its rate to $ 350,000 by 2044.

In the report "Inheriting USDs & Acquiring BTCs: How 'The Great Wealth Transfer' Will Fuel 'The Great Bitcoin Adoption,'" analysts note that at the moment, young representatives of wealthy families in America alone can inherit about $ 70 trillion. If they allocate at least 5% of the inheritance received, then more than $ 971 billion will be invested in Bitcoin.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin called for the development of a "right" decentralized exchange for exchanging Ethereum for Bitcoin and gateways for other cryptocurrencies.

In his opinion, the fact that the two largest cryptocurrency ecosystems do not have a direct way to exchange their coins is quite "discouraging".

Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz believes that the emergence of Bitcoin is caused by the financial crisis, and due to new financial turmoil, 2020 will be the year of Bitcoin.

The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting collapse of financial markets suggest that this year the world will experience an even more serious financial crisis than in 2008. Since the emergence of Bitcoin was associated with the collapse of the global economy in 2008, Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz believes this year could be a watershed year for Bitcoin.

Tim Draper, a venture investor and cryptocurrency enthusiast, believes that startups working with digital currencies in India are waiting for a "renaissance" and now is a great time to invest in them.

"A renaissance for India. Now crypto is legal," he wrote on the social network Twitter.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao commented on the messages of his subscribers who make fun of him because of inaccurate forecasts of the Bitcoin exchange rate.

Even well-known representatives of the cryptocurrency industry may be unimportant analysts, and their forecasts should not be trusted. This can be said about the founder of Binance. The fact is that after his bullish forecast, the price of the first cryptocurrency most often decreased.

Founder of Gold Bullion International Dan Tapiero believes that the negative rates on US bonds could be a "Mega bullish" signal for Bitcoin.

"Negative interest rates have arrived in the US! 6mo t-bill at -2bps. Means you need to PAY US govt for 6mo cash deposit. Rates to go much more negative to weaken dollar. This is confiscation and it is bad but it needed for now to stabilize system. Mega bullish for #Bitcoin," Tapiero wrote on Twitter.

Analysts predict the Bitcoin exchange rate in the range of $ 4,800 - $ 6,000, but the CEO of Three Arrows Capital Su Zhu allows rapid growth to $ 50,000.

In a message on Twitter, Su Zhu stressed that in the current global economic situation, the influx of money into Bitcoin could increase significantly, which means that the rate of the first cryptocurrency will increase significantly.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed increasing the limits on attracting investments without registration, including those related to token-share placements (STOs).

SEC proposes to increase the limit on the amount attracted from investors as part of the offer of tokens under Rule A + from $ 50 million to $ 75 million, and crowdfunding income - $ 1 million to $ 5 million in 12 months. These rules, based on the 2012 Act called the Jumpstart Our Business Startup (or JOBS) Act, will allow young companies to raise funds without having to register as an open joint stock company.

The founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group and Grayscale Investments, Barry Silbert, took advantage of yesterday's 30% depreciation of Bitcoin to replenish his reserves of the first cryptocurrency.

"I'm buying. This is why Bitcoin was invented," wrote Barry Silbert on the social network Twitter.