The cryptocurrency market remains range bound with Bitcoin (BTC) struggling to stay near $20,000. While preparing this report, Bitcoin was trading at $19,053, a decline of 1.30% in the last 24 hours. Ethereum (ETH) had lost 2% to trade at $1,281. XRP was trading at $0.4580, down 0.90% in the past 24 hours.
Major cryptos, which have lost ground in the past 24 hours, are Dogecoin (DOGE – $0.059018, -1.20%), Polygon (MATIC – $0.8307, -3.20%), Solana (SOL, $28.90, -3.60%), Avalanche (Avax- $15.10, -3.90%), Binance Coin (BNB – $270.81, -0.40%), Bitcoin Cash (BCH, $106.09, -2%), VeChain (VET, $0.02228, -2.30%), Cardano (ADA, $0.3514, -1.90%), Polkadot (DOT, $6.07, -0.80%), Internet Computer (ICP, $4.85, -0.40%), EOS (EOS – $1.01, -3.10%), Tezos (XTZ, $1.33, -3%), IOTA (IOTA – $0.2425, -2.90%), Shiba Inu (SHIB, $0.00000992, -1.70%), Stellar (XLM, $0.1111, -0.70%) and ChainLink (LINK – $6.75, -3.90%).
Private sector initiatives
DZ Bank begins work on a digital custodial solution
DZ Bank, Germany’s second-largest firm in terms of assets, has revealed that it has begun working on a digital custodial solution. The move is motivated by customer demand; however, the system will support both cryptocurrencies and digital financial products. On the securities settlement side, the bank is happy to witness the European Central Bank go ahead with the creation of a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), which will pave way for the settlement of distributed ledger (DLT) transactions.
The bank has been doing the background work on the strategy and framework of the custodial solution for a while now and is in the process of hiring a consultant to aid them to deploy the platform and advise for getting approval from regulator BaFin. Currently, the firm is not looking to collaborate with one of the cryptocurrency tech firms but intends to create its own solution.
Holger Meffert, chief of the bank’s securities management unit, explained that the main driver is customer demand. The bank’s largest customer is Union Investment, which has €427 billion in assets under management.
Mastercard releases Crypto Secure
Mastercard has unveiled Crypto Secure, the first-ever tech platform developed for offering additional safety and trust to the digital environment. The latest service for card issuers intends to highlight risky crypto exchanges.
The platform uses technology provided by Mastercard subsidiaries Ekata, Finicity, RiskRecon, and CipherTrace, the cryptocurrency intelligence company it took over in September 2022.
Crypto Secure platform makes use of in-depth data feed from aforesaid intelligence solutions in addition to proprietary analytics to aid card issuers to remain compliant in the digital assets sector. The platform facilitates them to evaluate the risk profile of crypto exchange or related service providers, together referred to as Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) in a better manner and decide the crypto purchases that need to be approved.
Instead of evaluating or adopting a uniform strategy, which might possibly limit legal activity, issuers can quickly identify and reject transactions with fraud-prone crypto businesses.
A color-based dashboard provided to card issuers will enable them to understand whether a transaction is approved or declined, study their entire crypto risk exposure, and match themselves with the rest of the card issuers. Based on those evaluations, the card issuer can select to flag or block trades with multiple questionable cryptocurrency exchanges.
EDXM appoints Paxos as its custodian
Cryptocurrency exchange EDX Markets (EDXM) stated that it has appointed Paxos as its custodian.
Paxos, a firm regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services, will hold all assets of EDXM customers in a bankruptcy-remote trust, in totally segregated US accounts.
As per Jamil Nazarali, CEO of EDX Markets, which is backed by Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, and Fidelity investments, the company intends to debut by the end of this year. Compliance and security make EDXM’s offering unique.
MEMX, which offers the tech framework for EDXM, is a market operator established in 2019. MEMX was set up by Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, and Merrill Lynch, among others.
Paxos’s solution facilitates the transfer of assets at any time in a trustworthy manner. Walter Hessert, Sequoia Capital, paradigm, and Virtu Financial are also members of the consortium backing EDXM.
Trial of multi DLT Repo transactions underway by JP Morgan and others
The primary function of blockchain technology is to establish decentralization. With numerous blockchains being in operation, the challenge is to facilitate the interaction of various networks without any hassle. HQLAx, JP Morgan, Ownera, and Wematch conducted a trial of cross-chain delivery versus payment repo trade. Notably, JP Morgan has acquired a stake in all three platforms.
The HQLAx ledger employs the enterprise blockchain R3 Corda and the cash utilized for settlement is JP Morgan’s, which is hosted on the Quorum permissioned DLT.
With the transaction getting recorded on WeMatch, Ownera’s FINP2P routing platform links the two distributed ledgers for transferring payment and securities.
HQLAx tokenizes securities at a specific custodian by establishing digital collateral records. The Deutsche Börse functions as a trusted third party, affirming that underlying securities remain locked at a custodian. This paves way for banks to swiftly transfer traditional securities, facilitating intraday settlement by avoiding postponements in moving assets between custodians. JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, and Goldman Sachs are backing the project. The third-party intermediates and custodians include Clearstream, JP Morgan, Euroclear, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, and Citi.
Disclaimer: Any financial trading analysis offered here is our opinion and is not intended as advice or direction for investors. We cannot guarantee the success of any trades made as a consequence of this article, and we encourage traders to incorporate a strong money management strategy to limit losses when they enter the markets. Please use this article as part of your own research before formulating strategies prior to trading.
