[Community Post] European Crypto Weekly Updates - Issue #14

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Etienne Brunet - July 28, 2019

Hi Everyone,

This is issue #14 of my European crypto newsletter aiming to give updates on corporates, startups and regulation in Europe.

Everyone is talking about San Francisco as the epicentre of everything in crypto. Well, I wanted to shed light on Europe and show how exciting the ecosystem is.

Who’s behind this? - Coinlist

This section aims to give the opportunity to introduce some of the best European founders. Most people loves their products but don’t know who are the founders behind them. Hello World.

Background: There are many Europeans working at US companies and building the digital assets ecosystem. My friend Matt, French, fmr Trader and now at Coinlist, is the perfect example.

Hi Matt, CoinList launched earlier this year its crypto lending desk and you are the one leading this effort. We know each other quite well having met when you were leading crypto at Barclays back in 2018 but it would be great if you could share a bit about your background.

I joined Lehman Brothers straight out of college in 2008. I worked there for 9 months before the bankruptcy hit. My boss back then landed a head of trading job at Barclays in Singapore, and he offered me a job on his desk. After a couple of years, I was sent to New York to trade options on commodities. I rose through the ranks over seven years, finally becoming head of oil options trading at Barclays. After a few years in that job, I realized the opportunities to grow were becoming slimmer as more and more traders were being replaced by computers.

The full interview is available on Medium

European Startups

• Some great European events happening in the next weeks, DeFi London (September 10-11), Baltic Honey Badger (September 14-15)
• Kraken has hired, Kevin Beardsley, the ex-MD of over-the-counter (OTC) trading platform B2C2 to head of development at its new Bitcoin futures operation. Congrats! [Source]
• Do you remember Bancor? They raised $153m via an ICO and today has a $29m market cap (arb?!) and provides quick liquidity for niche ERC-20 tokens by using BNT as a market-making reserve currency for all assets on the network. In terms of traction only 100-250 traders have been active users, mostly arbitrageurs. The platform is not anymore accessible to U.S. residents (hello VPN?). [Source]
• Tobiasz Niemiro, co-owner of now-defunct Polish cryptocurrency exchange BitMarket, has been found dead [Source]
• Database issues at the Swedish digital currency exchange QuickBit resulted in a breach of sensitive user data [Source]
• The good people at Guesser were interviewed in The Defiant newsletter [Source]

Corporates

• One of Europe’s leading budget airlines, Norwegian Air, will allow passengers to buy tickets using bitcoin. It’s also opening its own cryptocurrency exchange. [Source]
• The Croatian Post has partnered with Electrocoin to run a pilot program for a crypto-to-fiat exchange in the city of Zadar. The pilot service will reportedly enable crypto holders to convert Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Stellar (XLM), XRP and EOS to cash in one of the Croatian Post’s local offices [Source]
• Daimler, the German multinational corporation behind the Mercedes-Benz brand, partnered with European blockchain interface solutions startup Riddle & Code to provide an open car hardware wallet solution [Source]

Regulations / Universities

• Starting next year, new Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations will come into effect in Germany. The regulations will require cryptocurrency businesses to hold a Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin)-issued license [Source]
• The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) approved an Ethereum-based real estate bond for security issuance firm Fundament Group [Source]
• A group of Russian military and civilian vehicle makers, Soyuzmash, wants the country’s Central Bank to grant it permission to accept Bitcoin payments in international arms deals – as an attempt to circumvent sanctions [Source]

Regulations / Universities

• Bitbond is the first Security Token Offering regulated in Germany. The target return is 8%, This results from a fixed 4% p.a. interest coupon and a high 60% profit participation. [Source]
• A Greek Billionaire, A Hemp-backed token and A Swiss crypto exchange. The Bank operates SWX Coin, a cryptocurrency based on Bitcoin's blockchain with single unit pricing is pegged directly to the median global price of premium hemp flower and offers secondary market. The Swissx Bank of Cannabis launched with $750m worth of Swissx Cherry Wine, Donald Trump seeds, and $250m Swiss francs [Source]

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