Major New Ripple Partnerships, Google Turns on FX: Best of the Week

Mt Gox Prepares to Return Money

Money held in a trust for Mt Gox, the Bitcoin exchange that went bankrupt in 2014, is soon to be returned to its rightful owners.

Ex-users have until October 22 to file a claim, and if approved, will receive their money as early as February 14, 2019. In total, bankruptcy trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi is in charge of approximately $1 billion worth of BTC and must devise a distribution plan that will not disrupt the market too much.

New Crypto Asset Management Service "Guarantees" 1-1.5% Returns per Day

Stockholm IT Ventures announced that it will be launching a cryptocurrency asset management service.

The firm was publicly listed in Frankfurt in 2014 at a value of approximately €3 per share, but its value since then has all but disappeared. A private token sale earlier this year revived its fortunes, with €5 million raised for a token called Bytemine.

As a result of this, the firm canceled its planned crowd sale, deciding to go in the aforementioned direction. CEO Anthony Norman says that cryptocurrency volatility "...allows us to guarantee a 1-1.5% return per trading day.” This claim is likely to draw the attention of the authorities.

Saxo Bank's UK Arm Reports Falling Profit

Saxo Capital Markets UK, the British subsidiary of Danish broker Saxo Bank, reported an increase in net revenue but a decrease in profit in 2017. The report also said that the firm acquired 7,300 clients and their cash/assets from Barclays Stockbrokers in August of that year.

Because the company doubled its client base, it is surprising that profit is lower than in the previous year. However, this can be explained by the increased operating costs.

Interview with CEO of TigerWit

Foreign exchange broker TigerWit has been expanding over the last year, particularly in the European Union. Based in London, it also holds a license in the Bahamas.

Finance Magnates interviewed CEO Tim Hughes, who talked about the company's new Blockchain Blockchain Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Blockchain comprises a digital network of blocks with a comprehensive ledger of transactions made in a cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin or other altcoins.One of the signature features of blockchain is that it is maintained across more than one computer. The ledger can be public or private (permissioned.) In this sense, blockchain is immune to the manipulation of data making it not only open but verifiable. Because a blockchain is stored across a network of computers, it is very difficult to tamper with. The Evolution of BlockchainBlockchain was originally invented by an individual or group of people under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. The purpose of blockchain was originally to serve as the public transaction ledger of Bitcoin, the world’s first cryptocurrency.In particular, bundles of transaction data, called “blocks”, are added to the ledger in a chronological fashion, forming a “chain.” These blocks include things like date, time, dollar amount, and (in some cases) the public addresses of the sender and the receiver.The computers responsible for upholding a blockchain network are called “nodes.” These nodes carry out the duties necessary to confirm the transactions and add them to the ledger. In exchange for their work, the nodes receive rewards in the form of crypto tokens.By storing data via a peer-to-peer network (P2P), blockchain controls for a wide range of risks that are traditionally inherent with data being held centrally.Of note, P2P blockchain networks lack centralized points of vulnerability. Consequently, hackers cannot exploit these networks via normalized means nor does the network possess a central failure point.In order to hack or alter a blockchain’s ledger, more than half of the nodes must be compromised. Looking ahead, blockchain technology is an area of extensive research across multiple industries, including financial services and payments, among others. Read this Term-based settlement engine, how its partnership with Liverpool Football Club will help it expand in Asia, future product launches, and how the new EU regulations are affecting business.

Google to Examine All FX Advertising

Google has begun to examine the advertising campaigns of foreign exchange brokers with more prejudice. Coming against a backdrop of heavily-increased regulation in Europe, Google's new certification process is a blow.

Google's now requires that all advertisement materials be specifically approved. This includes all landing pages for Google AdWords, blog posts, and website pages, and all marketing messages must be thoroughly reviewed.

In short, this means that financial companies must be more proactive in their communications with the internet giant.

Interview with CEO of Smart Valor

Finance Magnates spoke with Olga Feldmeier, CEO of Smart Valor, which is building “a decentralized, community-based marketplace for tokenized alternative investments.” The aim of the company is to use blockchain technology to financially empower everyone, regardless of wealth.

Feldmeier told us about the personal experiences with currency that caused her to enter this line of work, how technology can bring wealth to more than just a privileged few, and why it’s not in the interests of mining pools to manipulate the Bitcoin network.

Two New Ripple Partnerships

PNCBank

PNCBank, one of the biggest lenders in the US, has joined RippleNet, the blockchain-based cross-border payment network.

The bank handles approximately $6 billion in deposits from around eight million customers and has branches in 19 states, so this is a positive development for the team behind the world's third most valuable cryptocurrency.

Ripple has developed services which can transfer money faster and cheaper than the legacy system SWIFT. These services have been tested by some of the biggest companies in the world, and Ripple claims that approximately 100 financial institutions in tens of countries have signed up to RippleNet already.

The National Commercial Bank

The biggest bank in Saudi Arabia, the National Commercial Bank, has committed to using RippleNet to connect to other financial institutions, beginning in Singapore and then moving on to North America. The NCB has 400 branches in Saudi Arabia and more than 5.4 million customers worldwide.

This deal is particularly significant because Saudi Arabia, with its substantial population of foreign workers, is one of the world's biggest sources of overseas Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonly the basis of exchange involves fiat currency or legal tender, be it in the form of cash, credit or bank transfers, debit, or checks. While typically associated with cash transfers, payments can also be made in anything of perceived value, be it stock or bartering – though this is far more limited today than it has been in the past.The Largest Players in the Payments IndustryFor most individuals, the payments industry is dominated currently by card companies such as Visa or Mastercard, which facilitate the use of credit or debit expenditures. More recently, this industry has seen the rise of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments services, which have gained tremendous traction in Europe, the United States, and Asia, among other continents.One of the biggest parameters for payments is timing, which looms as a crucial element for execution. By this metric, consumer demand incentivizes technology that prioritizes the fastest payment execution.This can help explain the preference for debit and credit payments overtaking check or money orders, which in previous decades were much more commonly utilized. A multi-billion-dollar industry, the payments space has seen some of the most innovation and advances in recent years as companies look to push contactless technology with faster execution times. Read this Term; once source cites $8.5 billion sent abroad from the kingdom in the first quarter of 2018.

Analysis: Gender Imbalance in the Cryptocurrency World

Revolutionary as some claim it to be, the cryptocurrency industry is just as overwhelmingly populated by males as traditional finance. A report in the New York Times found that women make up only 4-6 percent of blockchain investors, and as the field has hit the mainstream, the gender imbalance has become a serious topic for discussion.

Apart from being a vast untapped market, market research has found that female traders tend to hold assets for longer, which could be stabilizing influence on the market. Not only this, they are on average 0.4 percent more profitable in their trading activities.

In this analysis, Finance Magnates examines the roots of the differences in financial behavior between the sexes, what is keeping women from engaging more in this field, and what can be done to get them more involved.