As bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies get increasing attention from investors, Wall Street and its traditional banks continue to adjust to the shift. Catch up on this week's top stories highlighting the intersection of these old guard and new school areas of finance with this recap compiled by The Fly.
FLEXA, GEMINI PARTNER FOR CRYPTO PAYMENTS: Flexa announced Monday a limited launch of its network and mobile app to enable instant cryptocurrency payments in stores and online for several retail merchants. Merchants can accept bitcoin, ether, Bitcoin Cash, and the Gemini dollar from consumers who have the new SPEDN mobile wallet app, which will be more widely available for download in the App Store starting next week. To spend cryptocurrency on Flexa, consumers send bitcoin or other supported digital assets to the secure SPEDN wallet and scan the app's barcode at the register. Flexa then converts a consumer's cryptocurrency to U.S. dollars in real time for payment to the merchant. Flexa also announced its partnership with Gemini Trust Company to exclusively leverage the Gemini dollar. "This technology shifts cryptocurrency from investment and speculation toward real usability. You can finally buy a cup of coffee with cryptocurrency and a tap of your phone. This moves the broader ecosystem closer to realizing the full promise and power of crypto," said Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss.
FACEBOOK HIRES COINBASE COMPLIANCE EXPERTS: Facebook (FB) has hired two veteran compliance experts from blockchain startup Coinbase, Business Insider’s Rob Price reported Tuesday. The two hires, Jeff Cartwright and Mikheil Moucharrafie, come as rumors swirl that Facebook is preparing to announce a product from its blockchain team. The social media company began to hire staff focused on blockchain last year and has put former PayPal (PYPL) president David Marcus in charge of the initiative.
BANKS TO INVEST $50M IN DIGITAL CASH SYSTEM: Several of the world’s biggest bank are investing roughly $50M to develop a digital cash system using blockchain technology to settle financial transactions, Reuters’ Anna Irrera reported Thursday. The project, known as the “utility settlement coin”, was proposed by UBS (UBS) and Clearmatics in 2015 and about a dozen banks are investing in a new entity called Fnality that would oversee the project. It is unclear what banks participated in the investment, but banks working on previous phases of the project include UBS, Banco Santander (SAN), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), State Street (STT), Credit Suisse (CS), Barclays (BCS), HSBC (HSBC) and Deutsche Bank (DB).
376 PEOPLE HOLD A THIRD OF ETHER: According to new research by Chainalysis, just 376 people hold a third of all Ether cryptocurrency, Bloomberg’s Matthew Leising reported Wednesday. By comparison. 448 people own 20% of all bitcoin. The analysis also found that large Ether holders don’t move their cryptocurrency often and when a large holder moves Ether from a wallet to an exchange, there is a small but statistically significant impact on market volatility.
SOCIAL REALITY TO LAUNCH BIGTOKEN ASIA: Social Reality (SRAX) announced Wednesday that it plans to launch BIGtoken across Asia. In order to launch this new initiative, an investor familiar with the Asia markets is investing $1M into SRAX at $5 per common share in a private placement. Users in Asia will be able to control how their data is used and be compensated for sharing. SRAX will begin development of BIGtoken Asia immediately, with plans to officially launch by 2020.
CRYPTO STOCK PLAYS: Cryptocurrency revenues have been pointed to as reasons to be bullish on Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Nvidia (NVDA) in select research. Overstock (OSTK), DPW Holdings (DPW), Kodak (KODK), Ideanomics (IDEX), Riot Blockchain (RIOT), Pareteum (TEUM) and Social Reality are other stocks that have been touted, or promoted themselves, as a way to play the crypto theme.
PRICE ACTION: As of time of writing, bitcoin rose roughly 14.8% this week to $7,256, in U.S. dollars, according to TradeBlock.
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Bitcoin
+ (+0.00%)
Ticker changed to META
-0.83 (-0.44%)
PayPal
-1.11 (-0.97%)
UBS
-0.04 (-0.33%)
Banco Santander
-0.005 (-0.11%)
BNY Mellon
-0.25 (-0.54%)
State Street
-0.53 (-0.86%)
Acquired by UBS
-0.15 (-1.26%)
Barclays
-0.17 (-2.07%)
HSBC
-0.6 (-1.42%)
Deutsche Bank
-0.06 (-0.78%)
AMD
+0.165 (+0.59%)
Nvidia
-0.05 (-0.03%)
OSTK
+
Ault Global Holdings
-0.005 (-2.94%)
Eastman Kodak
-0.01 (-0.41%)
Ideanomics
-0.05 (-3.03%)
Riot Platforms
-0.19 (-4.40%)
Pareteum
-0.09 (-1.94%)
Srax
+0.08 (+1.66%)