[Community Post] European Crypto Weekly Updates - Issue #18

Hi Everyone, This is issue #18 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? - XBTO

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: XBTO is one of the most renowned crypto investor / trading company. Their HQ is in NYC but they have their COO, Julien, based in London. Hence, I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn more about them and about Julien. By the way, they are also pretty good investor… Have you heard of Deribit?

Note, This communication and any investment or service to which this material may relate does not constitute an offer or solicitation to invest in the Fund.

Hi Julien, XBTO launched in 2015 and has quickly become a leader in the cryptocurrency trading environment; can you share a bit about your background?

My background is in multi-asset trading and structuring in banking — my career having ranged between Asia and London — but I took the plunge into fintech in 2013 and focused on corporate development as well as structured finance before getting involved with blockchain. I joined XBTO in 2017 and the greatest part of the firm’s successful foundations precede me! The best way I could summarise it is by crediting the founders, Philippe Bekhazi and Walton Comer, who started it by experimenting with systematic strategies out of NYC. Their background is in algorithmic trading and risk management so very early on they realized that the crypto market represented an investment and eventually a trading opportunity. That sense of foresight and their subsequent commitment led them to formalise their early success by setting up XTBO in the US in 2015. In 2017, the point at which I joined the team with my counterpart, Nico Genechesi, is the year when the Group crystallised the delineation between our US and offshore exposure. We’ve been growing in both environments at arm’s length since.

The full interview is available on Medium

European Startups

• Blockchain announced that it now allows its users to copy or scan invoices, allowing them to make a Bitcoin (BTC) payment entirely through its wallet app. The new functionality allows users to purchase products and services available via BitPay’s online network while retaining ownership of their private keys through Blockchain Wallet [Source]
• Guesser launched a weekly prediction market on the amount of ETH locked in DeFi according to Defipulse, and will later add longer term markets such as monthly or quarterly options [Source]
• Coinone Global Exchange (CGEX), a Malta-based crypto exchange launched by major South Korean exchange Coinone, will terminate its service in mid-September [Source]
• Deribit via a partnership with institutional messaging service Paradigmhas become the first Bitcoin futures and options exchange to provide large-volume trades of Bitcoin derivatives. Deribit’s CEO, John Jansen, said the new service will offer block trades with a minimum of 40 Bitcoin for options contracts linked to BTC. Traders can negotiate with counterparties on the Paradigm platform and their orders will be automatically placed and cleared on Deribit. [Source]. Note, I am an advisor to Paradigm.
• Blockchain interoperability protocol, Polkadot, launched its experimental “canary network” dubbed Kusama, this morning, Aug. 23. In a blog post, the team announced the first deployment in the wild of its protocol, combining “bleeding-edge technical improvements in governance, consensus and scalability.” [Source]
• Black Manta Capital Partners’ Berlin operating entity, BMCP GmbH,received the licence within the MiFID II regime by the German financial regulator BaFin to run a Multi-STO-Platform and act as a One-Stop-Agency for Security Token Offerings, out of Germany, within the European Union. In 2020, they will launch a fund to tokenise share in startups [Source]
• Finally, the good people at B2C2 shared an interesting story dated from the Roman Empire and quite relevant to today Monetary policy challenges (oups I meant opportunities ;) ) [Source]

Corporates

• Swiss private bank Maerki Baumann, with $8.2bn of AuM, has had 400 new clients wanting to tap its future blockchain offerings since it revealed its interest in the sector. The first focus will be to offer business accounts and advice for startups launching security token offerings [Source]
• Major Austrian telecom operatorA1 has started accepting cryptocurrencies as payment in seven selected shops in Austria. This is done in collaboration with Austrian digital currency specialist Salamantex, German cashless payment provider Concardis and French smart payment solutions supplier Ingenico [Source]

Regulations / Universities

• A British judge has ordered the confiscation of $1.1m worth of cryptocurrency from a hacker who used phishing attacks to steal personal data and sell it on the dark web. The hacker targeted companies including Sainsbury’s, Argos and Uber. The police seized an SD card containing 78m individual usernames and passwords, and the information of 63,000 credit and debit cards. [Source]
• The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has arrested power plant operators for mining cryptocurrency in the Yuzhnoukrainsk nuclear power plant facility[Source]
• Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, has suggested a transformation of the global financial system by replacing the United States dollar with a digital currency similar Facebook’s Libra [Source]

Fundings

• VC Blockrock Ventures has launched to invest in blockchain projects with reportedly EUR5m and aim for a first close at EUR30m. Note, it is also looking for a BaFin license that will allow them to manage funds of over EUR100m. The fund will start deploying in Q1 2020.
• Bitpanda raised EUR43.6m through an IEO and investors received BEST tokens. The latter offer access to Bitpanda launchpad, trading fee discount, rewards and perks for holding the token. Yes, I forgot Bitpanda will constantly burn tokens to decrease the supply until 50% of the supply is burnt. It seems that BNB has created the template for exchange utility token [Source]

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