“The card giant works with wallets and exchanges to enable crypto purchases, and could eventually use digital currencies over blockchain in the same way it processes traditional money.
To the extent a specific digital currency becomes a recognized means of exchange, there’s no reason why we cannot add it to our network, which already supports over 160 currencies today.
The payments executive also said stablecoins could be used for “global commerce” and that ‘digital currencies running on public blockchains as additional networks just like RTP or ACH networks.'”
“Switzerland now lets tokenized securities trade on a blockchain with the same legal standing as traditional assets. The new law went into effect Monday. The DLT amendments recognize tokenized securities as a new class of asset, whose legal ownership rights are automatically transferred via the blockchain to each new investor.
With these new registered rights, it’s clear that you have legal certainty.
Switzerland’s two regulated crypto banks, Sygnum and SEBA, chose to mark the occasion by issuing tokenized securities. SEBA is issuing its Series B equity shares as Ethereum ERC-20 tokens.”
See Also: Fine Wines Become First Tokenized Securities Under New Swiss Blockchain Law
“MGM has acquired the movie rights to a book proposal known as “The Antisocial Network” by New York Times best-selling author Ben Mezrich. Publishers are expected to go to auction with the book this month.
Winklevoss Pictures, founded by entrepreneurs and bitcoin billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, will executive produce the film. Aaron Ryder – who produced “Arrival” and “Donnie Darko” among others – has been selected to produce the new movie.”
See Also: Mark Cuban Hails ‘Store of Value Generation’ Taking on Wall Street
See Also: Robinhood Raises Another $2.4B to Support GameStop Trading Surge: WSJ
“On the price front, investors saw the highest monthly close in history with the coin ending the month at $1,313. Ethereum has outpaced Bitcoin in terms of the daily transferred value, reaching $19.1 billion per day—versus the latter’s $9.78 billion.
According to DeFi Pulse, there’s over $27 billion of total value locked in DeFi smart contracts, while the amount of ETH coins sent to the ETH 2.0 deposit address is approaching 2.9 million (or, roughly $3.8 billion at current prices).
Ethereum miners brought in $800 million in January revenue, surpassing the previous record highs seen exactly three years ago. The cryptocurrency’s mining difficulty has reached an all-time high.
On February 8, the CME Group is launching its Ethereum futures contracts, making the assets more widely available to institutional investors.”
See Also: Axie Infinity escapes Ethereum gas fees as Ronin sidechain goes live
“IBM has cut its blockchain team down to almost nothing, according to four people familiar with the situation. Big Blue’s major blockchain networks are FoodTrust, a farm-to-supermarket tracking system backed by Walmart; and TradeLens, a shipping container logistics blockchain backed by Maersk.
While cryptocurrencies and public blockchain networks appear to have flourished in 2020, the economic shock of COVID-19 has impacted innovation departments inside large firms, to the extent that areas not immediately generating revenue – such as blockchain – have been trimmed.
IBM is doing a major reorganization. There is not really going to be a blockchain team any longer. Most of the blockchain people at IBM have left.
A spokesperson for IBM denied the claims. ‘Our blockchain business is doing well, thank you.'”
“Coinbase will become one of the few cryptocurrency exchange companies on tech-heavy Nasdaq when it lists, though the timeline is still unclear.
Existing Coinbase investors have already been trading shares through Nasdaq’s Private Market platform, where the company has notched an implied valuation of $50 billion.”
“Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has clarified that he is a bitcoin supporter, if a bit “late to the party.” The Tesla CEO further said bitcoin, the top cryptocurrency by market cap, is ‘on the verge of getting broad acceptance by conventional finance people.’
I should have bought [bitcoin] eight years ago … I do at this point think bitcoin is a good thing. I am a supporter.”
“The blockchain-based search engine is designed to protect user IP addresses, device info, browsers, and location data. Presearch says it has grown to over 1.7 million registered users with around 300,000 active.
The Ethereum-based project uses searches powered by independent nodes to help protect the identity of the people who make queries for data. Users are rewarded with PRE tokens.
Search is one of the most centralized and important utilities on the web.”
The Disrupt 