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FCA Publishes Cryptoasset Consumer Research, Reveals Increase In Crypto Awareness Among UK Holders
The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has recently published its Cryptoasset Consumer Research Note for 2021, with findings that reveal an increase of crypto owners who now regularly monitor the value of their holdings on a daily basis.
According to the study, the increase in crypto owners monitoring the value of their holdings has more than doubled between 2020 and 2021, with the previous year increasing from 13% to 29%. The study also provides that the proportion of people who admit to have never checked their crypto stash remained at 12%.
“Generally the findings of the FCA’s Cryptoasset Consumer Research Note for 2021 show that awareness and ownership of cryptocurrencies is on the rise, despite previous strong warnings from the FCA about their risks and speculative nature. It seems that public confidence in cryptocurrencies is growing, as the report suggests that investors are less likely to see them as a gamble, and more of a complimentary investment alongside mainstream assets.” shared Neil Williams, white-collar crime lawyer at Gherson Solicitors.
“The fact that most of those surveyed use an exchange for dealing with their investments highlight the pressing need for the regulatory approval process for companies who deal with cryptoassets to be resolved, and quickly.” Williams stated.
The FCA’s publication of the research follows from the context of the recent surge in demand for cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based digital assets. According to the FCA, the rise in interest for Bitcoin is “reflected in other cryptoassets,” to the extent that the FCA thinks that “this recent momentum influenced consumer responses to the FCA’s research questions.”
Prior to the publication, the FCA has also recently announced an extension to the Temporary Registration Regime, enabling a significant number of businesses to continue trading with more time as they await regulatory approval from the agency. At the moment, only 5 firms have been approved, while 150 more are waiting, highlighting a regulatory challenge for the agency.
“There have been arguments put forward on both sides as to the reasons for the delay, either firms aren’t reaching the stringent standards required for approval, or the bar has been unfairly set too high,” Williams opines.
“Whatever the reasons, the survey confirms that the public are embracing cryptocurrencies in ever greater numbers, which increases the need for regulatory protection. All involved will need to up their game to provide a degree of certainty in what is a volatile, yet vibrant market” added the lawyer.

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2021-06-20 20:00:33

Russia’s Foreign Minister: Crypto Will Inevitably Play Role in Int’l Trade
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has underlined Moscow’s intention to do away with the USD – and has suggested that crypto could play a part in ousting the greenback in trade deals.
Lavrov’s comments could give real hope to those hoping crypto will find use-cases in international settlement deals.
According to the news agency Tass, Lavrov stated:
“I think the time will inevitably come when cryptocurrencies will play a very significant role in trade and finance, and occupy a very significant segment of the international settlements sector.”
Lavrov did not specify whether he was referring to cryptoassets like bitcoin (BTC), big business-backed stablecoins or central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). On occasion, government officials have called CBDCs “cryptocurrencies.”
Speaking at a meeting of think tanks in Moscow, Lavrov claimed that Moscow was not seeking to completely eliminate the use of the USD in trade deals, but spoke repeatedly about a de-dollarization policy that appears to have already been put into action.
He said:
“We really want to engage in the de-dollarization of the Russian economy and financial system. The other day, we decided that our gold and foreign exchange reserves will no longer be stored in dollars. The corresponding actions have already been taken. But I would like to stress, once again, that this does not mean that we are ruling out the use of the dollar in general.”
The Foreign Minister added that Russia was now seeking to use national currencies other than the USD in bilateral settlements with other countries, concluding:
“We are striving to rely more and more on other currencies besides the USD. On national currencies when it comes to bilateral trade with our partners – with China, other Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states and a number of other countries,” he said.
Lavrov and high-ranking government finance chiefs have spoken about Moscow-Beijing de-dollarization plans before this year – while the CEO of the weapon-maker Kalashnikov and an influential business leader have this week both called for the government to embrace crypto-powered trade and settlements.

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2021-06-12 20:00:47

Three Blockchain Companies Awarded $300,000 From UNICEF's Innovation Fund
The Innovation Fund will be investing in three blockchain companies, Leaf Global Fintech, Rumsan and Xcapit and has provided funding to these companies based on their positive humanitarian impact in terms of financial inclusion.
Leaf Global Fintech is one of the recipients of UNICEF’s innovation fund, and offers the safe storage of money across borders. The blockchain company provides access to financial services to the unbanked sector in East Africa, enabling users to store a number of currencies, make cross-border payments, and pay for goods and services. UNICEF listed the funding amount that Leaf Global Fintech received in both fiat currency and cryptocurrency, which came to a total of $48,900 and ETH 20.6936.
“The importance of reliable financial services, especially for those most excluded, cannot be understated”
Rahat, meaning relief in nepalese, is a platform developed by Nepalese blockchain company Rumsan, and another beneficiary of the Innovation Fund. Their aim is to advance social and economic growth through a digital aid distribution management system that makes the humanitarian aid distribution process simple, efficient and transparent. Nepal is home to a large unbanked population that lives in poverty, exacerbated by frequent natural disasters and an aid system that has been plagued by corruption. Blockchain technology provides an answer to the ongoing issues with aid distribution by maintaining a transparent, timely, and low-cost solution.
Argentinian cryptocurrency startup Xcapit received the third portion of the Innovation Fund, in the form of $110,000 and ETH 43.78. The startup promotes social mobility through education in financial planning and saving for young people:
“We are targeting children and young people, who can invest by themselves or with the help of a tutor. Even though some cannot invest, they can still learn about finance, financially planify their activities and learn how to save and invest, while being eligible for donations”
UNICEF launched the CryptoFund in 2019, a pooled fund of bitcoin and ether that allowed them to utilise the benefits of blockchain technology and make investments in blockchain companies as part of UNICEF's Innovation Fund. Apart from funding, beneficiaries of the Innovation Fund receive business growth, mentorship, and access to the UNICEF network. Up until now, a total of six blockchain companies have received funding from UNICEF’s fund.

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2021-06-09 21:00:27

Reef Finance Launches $20 Million Grant For Developers
Developers on the Reef Chain are about to have a great time as the team behind the blockchain recently announced a $20 million grant to improve the network. For those unfamiliar with Reef Chain, it is a DeFi blockchain developed with the Substrate framework. It offers high scalability and supports EVM and Solidity, which means developers can port their dApps from Ethereum without modifying the codebase.
By setting up this grant, Reef Finance aims to incentivize developers to build on Reef Chain and further develop the network. According to a statement from the organization, it aims to create a fast-growing DeFi ecosystem. By creating this grant, Reef hopes to provide developers with all the tools they need to build cutting-edge DeFi applications.
Developers occupy a prominent role in providing solutions within the blockchain ecosystem. This grant will encourage them to develop more solutions that will benefit the developers' community and aid the development of the Reef Chain.
The grant is tailored towards projects that are building and deploying applications that will solve real-world problems, i.e., applications that have clear use-cases and have significant potential to drive mainstream adoption within the Reef Chain ecosystem. The grant is available for projects in the following categories:
DeFi Lending protocols and Bridges: This niche is one of the fastest-growing in Decentralized Finance. By supporting Applications in this area, Reef Finance seeks to aid the development of financial solutions on the network. Although there's already a lending protocol, Lendefi on Reef Chain, more lending protocols can take advantage of this grant to build on the network, thereby improving and increasing the availability of smart financial services and solutions on the network.
NFT Development: Anyone familiar with developments in the blockchain space knows that Non-fungible tokens are some of the hottest digital assets at the moment. Reef Finance seeks to drive NFT growth on the platform with the grant by encouraging NFT projects to build on Reef Chain and encouraging NFT developers on the platform. At the moment, Realm and DEIP Network are the NFT projects on the Reef Chain.
Realm allows creators to use a combination of music, game, and art to develop the ideal realm which they can mint as ERC-1555. DEIP Network, on the other hand, enables users to discover, evaluate, license, and exchange intangible assets. With this grant, we can expect to see more NFT projects on the Reef Chain soon.
Runtime Modules/Chains: A percentage of the grant will be spent on projects developing Runtime Modules and Chains within the ecosystem. This will improve infrastructure on the platform, thereby enabling developers to create frameworks for custom blockchains.
Wallets/Interfaces: No DeFi ecosystem will be complete without wallets, and as more projects continue to onboard on the platform, wallets are more important than ever. That is why a part of the fund is going into supporting the development of wallets with the ideal interfaces for users to interact with the dApps on the platform.
DEXs: Decentralized exchanges are a fundamental part of any DeFi blockchain, and Reef Chain already has one in Kwikswap. Kwikswap is a cross-chain swap protocol platform for market creation, staking, swapping, and providing liquidity. With this funding, more DEXs can be developed on the platform, which will give users access to more liquidity across all DEXs with Reef's liquidity bridge.
Development and Deployment Tools: Companies that deal in development and deployment tools can also benefit from the grant. This will include all varieties of blockchain companies offering secure, reliable, and scalable infrastructures for projects seeking to deploy on Reef Chain. In addition, these projects will play a fundamental role in maintaining the platform as they will be responsible for nodes and provide other services within the ecosystem.

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2021-06-06 20:00:29

Gold is Having Its Month While Bitcoin is Stuck in a 'Digital Copper' Phase
At the same time, BTC is changing hands at USD 37,109, after it dropped 35% over the last month. While it too started strong in April, hitting its new all-time high fourteen days in, of USD 64,804 (per Coingecko), bitcoin then saw a sharp drop that began with the second week of May, lasting for some two weeks, before consolidating in the USD 32,000 - USD 40,000 range.
Based on this, gold has vastly outperformed bitcoin in May alone. Meanwhile, to keep things in perspective, when we zoom out, we see a notably different picture.
In the past year, gold is up almost 12% and 53% in the past 5 years. In these same time periods, BTC went up 264% and 6,787%, respectively.
But Jeff Currie, Head of Commodities at investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, claims that BTC is much more similar to copper than to gold.
"Digital currencies, they're not substitutes to gold. If anything, they'd be a substitute to copper, and the reason I argue that is they're pro-risk, they're risk-on assets. ... If anything, you would argue that bitcoin substitutes against risk-on inflation hedges, not risk-off inflation hedges," he told CNBC.
Currie went on to say that gold hedges "bad" inflation, while bitcoin and copper hedge "good" inflation.
However, Tom Jessop, President of Fidelity Digital Assets, reminded that the boom and bust cycles are a part of bitcoin's maturation as an asset class.
Per Jessop, the predominant narrative among the company's clients when it comes to BTC is still the digital gold narrative. It started driving the market higher following the COVID-19 pandemic onset, with a number of clients becoming concerned about the fiscal and monetary stimulus and monetary inflation.
A smaller number of investors are starting to look at BTC from the asset allocation standpoint, he said, while some see it as a network effect opportunity.
In either case, per digital asset investment firm CoinShares June 1 report on digital asset fund flows, outflows remain focused on bitcoin investment products, with minor outflows of USD 4m seen last week, bringing the total outflow over the last 3 week period to USD 246m, or 0.8% of assets under management. Inflows into these products remain positive for this year though, totaling USD 4.4bn. Meanwhile, ethereum (ETH) resumed inflows totaling USD 46m last week and ETH achieved its highest market share, peaking at nearly 27% of all investment products last year. ETH inflows reached USD 973m this year.

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2021-06-02 20:00:34

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