Coca-Cola, Volvo & Walmart Adopt Blockchain, Bakkt Rolls Out Bitcoin Custody, Coinbase Launches in 10 More European Countries, SEBA Bank is Now Live

November has been very interesting and super intense month in the Blockchain & Crypto world. If we want to sum up it in one sentence - it would be increasing blockchain adoption. Here we must outline Coca-Cola, Volvo, Walmart and Lamborghini which are implementing blockchain in their operations. Further, during the same month PayPal has led a $4.2 million funding round for cryptocurrency risk management platform TRM Labs, Travala has partnered with Booking.com, to name just a few.

So without further ado, let us dive deeper into what was trending and hot in Blockchain and Cryptocurrency world past month.

China Introduces Blockchain-Based Identification System for Cities

The first week of November began with the news from China, which continues to up its blockchain game with an independently developed blockchain-based identification system for cities as part of its smart city infrastructure.

On November 4, Chinese daily tabloid newspaper Global Times reported that the newly developed identification system was jointly launched by three institutes in the city of Shijiazhuang.

The blockchain-based identification system will assign a unique, global digital ID to Chinese smart cities, aiming to improve the connectivity and data sharing between these cities. Smart cities across China have been able to apply for their own city identification code since Sunday.

Zhang Chao, director of the Zhongguancun Industry and Information Research Institute of Two-dimensional Code Technology, said that the system was developed by China, adding:

The system will be independently distributed and managed by China, with a unified distribution rule, a resolution of distributed storage and tamper-resistant code.

China has been focused on smart city development for several years, as new and more complicated challenges arise from an increasingly urbanized population. 

Coca Cola Using Blockchain for $21-Billion-Per-Year Network

During the same week, Coca Cola’s bottlers announced they are implementing blockchain technology to manage their cross-party transactions.

A Business Insider report on November 5 revealed that Coke One North America (CONA) — the tech firm that manages IT operations for the soda giant’s bottlers — is using a blockchain solution developed by German software firm SAP to manage its supply chain.

As the report notes, CONA manages a platform to oversee multiple franchises that manufacture, bottle and ship nearly 160,000 orders of Coca-Cola products daily. Andrei Semenov, senior manager at CONA, told Business Insider:

There are a number of transactions that are cross-companies and multiparty that are inefficient. They go through intermediaries; they are very slow. And we felt that we could improve this and save some money.

With blockchain, CONA expects to reduce the duration of order-reconciliation from 50 days to just a few days. An inter-organizational, transparent distributed ledger will give real-time insights into the transactions made by all the different bottlers on the network, which generates over $21 billion in revenue per year.

Semenov outlined how a decision was reached regarding the extent and nature of the data deemed necessary to share between franchises, explaining that:

There was a negotiation and discussion, getting to a consensus of what data we wanted to share. We started with a huge list of data attributes, and we narrowed it down to the list that everybody agreed on.

EToro Acquires Crypto Portfolio Management App

Further, trading and investment platform eToro has acquired the cryptocurrency portfolio app Delta— an app that tracks 6,000 different cryptocurrencies and tokens on 180 exchanges.

According to a press release on November 6, eToro acquired Delta for an undisclosed amount, however, Israeli tech publication CTech reports that the deal was worth approximately $5 million. 

Doron Rosenblum, the managing director of eToroX — eToro’s blockchain subsidiary — said that they would integrate Delta with the eToroX platform, which would enable users to trade from within the app. The blockchain subsidiary will also expand Delta’s supported assets beyond cryptocurrencies. 

EToro created eToroX in 2018, which provides a wallet for digital assets and will eventually open an exchange. 

Volvo Adopts Oracle’s Blockchain for Its Supply Chain

The second week of November began with the news from Volvo Cars that announced last week that it is using Oracle’s blockchain platform to trace cobalt, one of the main components in electric car batteries. Following the unveiling of the company’s first fully electric car, the XC40 Recharge, Volvo has come up with a new business strategy that includes introducing an electric vehicle every year through 2025.

“Cobalt is at the heart of electric vehicle batteries, yet supplies are limited. Companies like Volvo are ramping up their production significantly, as half of Volvo cars will be electric by 2025. Each car requires 10-20 kilograms of cobalt in their batteries,” said Mark Rakhmilevich, Senior Director of Blockchain Product Management at Oracle.

While cobalt is a key mineral for making lithium-ion batteries, the majority of cobalt production comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a region criticized for its unethical cobalt mining conditions.

According to findings from Amnesty International, children as young as seven are working in life-threatening conditions in the DRC to mine cobalt that ends up in smartphones, tablets and cars each year. Young children and adults are often paid only $1 a day to work under these perilous conditions.

Volvo will be applying blockchain technology to provide global traceability in all raw products used throughout its supply chain. Rakhmilevich explained:

Volvo is ensuring that their supplies of cobalt are clear and safe from unethical issues by tracing raw materials on the Oracle blockchain. We’ve been working with Volvo since this summer to implement a material tracking application that captures data relevant to different points in the manufacturing process.

Volvo has also partnered with traceability-as-a-service provider Circulor to trace raw materials through the supply chain to its battery manufacturer and then to Volvo cars. This end-to-end solution would ensure transparent and reliable data sharing, significantly boosting transparency of the entire raw material supply chain.

Following a successful pilot with Oracle and Circulor this summer, Volvo Cars has now reached an agreement with its two global battery suppliers, CATL of China and LG Chem of South Korea, to implement cobalt traceability starting this year.

Both Oracle and Circulor will operate the blockchain technology across CATL’s supply chain, while the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network, together with responsible sourcing specialists RCS Global and IBM, will roll out the technology in LG Chem’s supply chain.

Data captured on the Oracle blockchain platform will include the cobalt’s origin, attributes such as weight and size, the chain of custody and information establishing that participant behavior is consistent with globally recognized supply chain guidelines.

“We’ve been working with Volvo and Circulor, to implement a material tracking application on top of the Oracle blockchain,” Rakhmilevich said. “This will capture data relevant to different points across the manufacturing process, such as time, location, weight, size and more, to ensure that all materials being used are accurate.”

Blockchain is an ideal solution for tracking materials across a supply chain, as the technology creates records of transactions that can’t be changed while also enforcing a common set of rules about which data can be recorded. This lets participants across a network independently verify and audit transactions.

“After ensuring that all materials are accurate, we record each data point from those transactions on the blockchain, making that data immutable and transparent across the network,” Rakhmilevich noted.

According to Rakhmilevich, Volvo, CATL and seven other companies (participants in this supply chain) currently record about 28 million material scans and other production events monthly on the Oracle blockchain platform. While he is confident that this will scale over time (and eventually evolve into other aspects of the supply chain, like tracing lithium and nickel), the real challenge is properly managing materials.

“There are a number of complex stages that cobalt and other materials go through to ensure that data points are captured at origin. This data must then be scanned and secured, so it’s important to make sure that data from physical sources is captured appropriately,” Rakhmilevich explained.

According to Caspar Rawles, senior analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, it’s great that Volvo is using blockchain to track its cobalt, but much of the DRC’s cobalt comes from small, independent mines. Child labor and a number of fatal accidents have been reported in such small-scale, so-called "artisinal" mines.

Although Volvo is tracking its materials, the company also needs to carefully follow cobalt through the entire supply chain, from where it is mined all the way to where it is shipped in China. This ensures that materials are not then blended with other minerals coming from the DRC.

“Volvo needs to trace cobalt not only from the mine but also to where it is being shipped, up until batteries are placed in cars, to ensure that materials are not being blended with unethically sourced items,” Rawles said.

While there are obstacles, Rawles also noted that Volvo has taken the first steps to demonstrate that using technology can ensure sustainability and ethically sourced products:

As more carmakers produce electric vehicles, they need to realize that dealing with the supply chain will be a crucial aspect. It’s good to see that Volvo is taking this approach now with blockchain technology.

An upcoming planned hard fork in Bitcoin Cash will impose relatively simple technical changes to its consensus mechanism that will not split the chain, despite some turbulent undercurrents in the coin’s community regarding issues which have recently become difficult to ignore. Disloyalty and perhaps manipulation among miners, or just the possibility of such, has refocused the conversation ahead of the November 15 fork. 

These issues have gone unaddressed in the “planned hard fork” coming tomorrow, a term which has been politicized to mean community strife and a chain split — but in this case, is something rather bening. 

The minor upgrades are compatible with all miners and should enhance basic functionality for users across the chain — something that’s hard to disagree with. The only echo of dissent is heard by those who believe the recent anomalies indicate that BCH needs more serious repair. 

Problems in both the Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash communities are still intertwined, years after their separation. The similarity of BCH and BTC blockchains for mining and the ease with which miners switch between them are two of the biggest issues plaguing both chains in terms of providing the best conditions for payment. 

This issue is still present even as BCH itself is set for a new iteration termed Bitcoin ABC. The community is still arguably neglecting a potentially flawed Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA), updated in a widely-criticized proposal made by BCH influencers two years ago, which may be signaling to miners that the control they’ve enjoyed so far isn’t soon to be reined in.

Bakkt Rolls Out Bitcoin Custody

During the same week, institutional Bitcoin trading platform Bakkt has announced it has launched its custody feature for its entire client base following regulatory approval.

In a blog post on November 11, Bakkt said it had received the go-ahead from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) to offer custody services to any institution. Previously, the option was only available for those trading its Bitcoin futures.

Commenting on the release, Bakkt described the custody tool as “the critical link in the institutional adoption of Bitcoin.”

“Safely storing digital assets demands a comprehensive approach to custody. Institutions and sophisticated investors need more than cutting-edge technology. They require proven infrastructure, robust operational controls, and independent oversight,” the blog post added.

CoinMarketCap Now Provides Crypto Investors With Data on Liquidity

Further, leading crypto data site CoinMarketCap has announced the launch of its new metric to compare exchanges and token pairs based on liquidity.

The announcement comes from The Capital, CoinMarketCap’s inaugural conference in Singapore on November 12, and the tool is now live on the company’s site. The new metric will reportedly incorporate data from 3000 crypto assets.

Intending to filter out market manipulation, CoinMarketCap will reportedly base the new liquidity metric on adaptive data. Carylyne Chan, Chief Strategy Officer at CoinMarketCap, elaborated on the firm’s aims with their methodology:

We believe our adaptive methodology will make our metric very difficult to ‘game’ as orders would need to be placed close to the mid-price, or risk being counter-productive to the Liquidity metric scoring.

Elaborating on what this adaptive methodology consists of, Chan said:

With the new Liquidity metric, orders that are closer to mid-price or current market prices are given heavier weightage. Those orders further are discounted. The extent of the discount adapts according to the absolute liquidity of the market-pair, by studying the order book depth and distance from mid-price.

The firm said that it sees its new metric as a way of escaping dependence on volume reporting, which is often subject to wash trading and other means of manipulation on different exchanges. At The Capital, Chan said that “volume has lost its value as a metric.” She further explained CoinMarketCap’s desire to shift focus away from volume:

Today, we are introducing a new metric to highlight what matters most to investors and traders: liquidity. With our Liquidity metric, we hope to provide public good to the crypto markets by encouraging the provision of liquidity instead of the inflation of volumes.

Chan explained that CoinMarketCap is still working to expand the number of exchanges provided the company with data on liquidity:

While volume is a single number reported by exchanges, Liquidity requires us to apply our adaptive algorithm to the order book data received, which requires some time. At the moment, we have received order books from 70% of the listed exchanges. We highly encourage any exchange who hasn't submitted their order book data yet to do so, as our Liquidity metric will become the default ranking soon.

Swiss Crypto Bank SEBA Opens For Public

Moreover, Switzerland-based cryptocurrency bank SEBA has launched its services for professional investors and enterprise clients, according to an official news release published on November 12.

As reported, SEBA Bank AG (formerly SEBA Crypto AG) is a fully-regulated institution, having secured a banking and securities dealer license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) in August of this year.

According to the announcement, the bank’s services are now fully operational for a range of prospective clients, including corporates, asset managers and professional private investors. SEBA will seek to attract clients from selected foreign jurisdictions starting in December.

In a statement, SEBA CEO Guido Buhler emphasized that those opening an account with SEBA should be able to take full advantage of the digital asset sector’s potential without having to sacrifice security. He added:

We are proud to have founded a bank within 18 months, raised CHF 100 million [$100.5 million] in capital from investors and obtained a banking and securities dealer license.

As part of its account services, SEBA is offering a SEBA wallet app, e-banking services and SEBA card facilities, with support for five major cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ether, Stellar, Litecoin and Ether Classic. 

The bank provides investors with both crypto-crypto and crypto-fiat conversion services online and SEBA cards are supported at 42 million points of sale globally, paving the way for the “mass introduction of cryptocurrencies,” according to Buhler.

Notably, SEBA is also rolling out enterprise accounts for blockchain firms and their employees, closing what it identifies as an important gap in the domestic sphere.

As reported, fellow Swiss cryptocurrency bank Sygum â€” which was also issued a banking and securities dealer license from FINMA in August — has in parallel conducted negotiations with regulators to seal a banking license in Singapore.

As a regulated institution, Sygnum equally aspires to roll out digital asset custody, brokerage and tokenization services for accredited investors and institutions.

Coinbase Card Adds XRP and Launches in 10 More European Countries

Further, Coinbase’s Visa debit card has expanded support for five more cryptocurrencies in ten new jurisdictions, the firm announced in two separate tweets on November 14. Launched in April 2019, Coinbase Card now supports a total of nine cryptocurrencies in 29 countries in Europe.

The Coinbase Card’s new supported cryptos include XRP, Stellar, Basic Attention Token, 0x and Augur, enabling users to spend using the listed currencies. The five coins join other major supported cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.

According to the new announcement, Coinbase Card is now available in Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Poland, Romania and Sweden. 

Coinbase, a major United States-based crypto exchange and wallet service, debuted its Visa debit card in the United Kingdom on April 10. The card allows Coinbase users to make purchases with digital currencies from their Coinbase accounts. In order to complete the purchase, Coinbase converts customers’ crypto funds into fiat money for a fee.

Walmart Canada Rolls Out Blockchain-Based Freight and Payment System

Finally, the week was closed by Walmart Canada â€” the retail giant’s Canadian branch — has rolled out an automated blockchain-based network for freight tracking and payments management, according to a November 14 press release.

The new system, which was developed in collaboration with blockchain company DLT Labs, is designed to improve freight and payment processing, enabling users to automatically trace deliveries, verify transactions and handle payments and reconciliation.

The release further states that the network can be integrated with a business’s legacy system and “manages, integrates and synchronizes all the supply chain and logistics data in real time, aggregating the data between Walmart Canada and its fleet of third-party trucks on a shared ledger.”

John Bayliss, senior vice-president of logistics and supply chain at Walmart Canada, noted the efficiency of blockchain technology when handling massive loads of inventory:

This new dynamic and interactive blockchain technology platform is creating complete transparency between Walmart Canada and all of our carrier partners. Blockchain is enabling a material advance in our smart transportation network, with expedited payments, extensive cost savings and other benefits among our supply chain. Moreover, this degree of improved efficiency represents a powerful platform for us to continue to reduce our environmental footprint and continue our leadership in environmental sustainability.

Visa Works on Blockchain System for Joint Computation of Large-Scale Private Data

During the 3rd week of the month, international payment network Visa is working on a blockchain-based system for joint policy-compliant computation of large-scale private data.

Visa Research â€” the research and development arm of Visa that focuses on data analytics, security and payment innovation — released a paper describing a blockchain-powered system for policy-compliant computing. The system is dubbed LucidiTEE, where TEE stands for trusted execution environments.

The system is aimed at building applications that process large data sets and are intended for serving a large number of users, without knowing in advance what users would participate and expect them to be online. LucidiTEE allows participants to jointly compute private data, purportedly providing them with transparency and control and ensuring that other parties cannot observe the results of the computation.

To ensure the fairness of the computations and their compliance with policies, the system applies specific protocols between TEEs and a shared ledger, where the ledger is only used to enforce policies. 

Lamborghini Now Uses Salesforce Blockchain to Certify Heritage Cars

In the same week, Italian luxury sports car brand Lamborghini is using Salesforce Blockchain to authenticate heritage Lamborghini cars. Salesforce, a major global customer relationship management firm, announced on November 19 that Lamborghini can now trace, certify and authenticate heritage cars faster and more securely using its blockchain platform.

Launched in May 2019, Salesforce’s Hyperledger-based blockchain platform will now be implemented to create a trusted network between multiple participants for certification checks during a Lamborghini’s resale.

Typically, when a Lamborgini is resold, the vehicle goes through 800 or 1,000 certification inspections that take place at the Lamborghini headquarters in Italian Sant'Agata Bolognese, the press release notes.

The process requires Lamborghini to work with a huge network of resources such as photographers, auction houses, dealerships, repair shops and media sources — to register the full history and verify all of the parts and service history of each vehicle.

Specifically, the firms claim that each Lamborghini vehicle will now come with an immutable record of service, including major details such as prior ownership and restoration. The new system is also designed to protect Lamborghini cars against potential counterfeiting as all authentication checks are managed by Lamborghini and its partner network, the press release notes.

Lamborghini’s use of Salesforce Blockchain follows a recent pilot project involving its first vehicle certified using Salesforce’s blockchain. In August 2019, a one-of-a-kind Lamborghini Aventador S was certified on Salesforce Blockchain for a show at the 2019 Monterey Car Week in California to protect the car as a work of art.

PayPal Leads $4.2M Funding Round for Crypto Risk Management Platform

Moreover, payment processor PayPal has led a $4.2 million funding round for cryptocurrency risk management platform TRM Labs.

In a November 19 press release TRM Labs announced that it secured $4.2 million in an investment round led by PayPal, with participation from other top investors including Initialized Capital, Blockchain Capital and Y Combinator.

TRM, which was founded in 2018, aims to support financial institutions across the United States, Latin America, Asia and Europe by measuring, monitoring and mitigating their crypto risk exposure, meeting regulatory requirements and helping streamline their Anti-Money Laundering compliance.

TRM Labs CTO and co-founder Rahul Raina said that PayPal’s investment in the company shows “their continued commitment to ensuring safety and compliance as the digital payments landscape evolves and innovates." 

TRM’s new funding brings their total amount raised to $5.9 million and will enable TRM to grow its engineering and data science teams, expand into new markets and accelerate product development. Esteban Casta?o, co-founder and CEO of TRM Labs said:

At TRM, we are fueled by a fundamental belief that cryptocurrency and blockchain can democratize access to financial services and empower billions of people. By building solutions to prevent cryptocurrency fraud and financial crime, we enable this vision and build a safer financial system for billions of people.

TRM announced at the beginning of the year that it had closed a funding round totaling $1.7 million, led by U.S.-based investment firm Blockchain Capital. Tapas Capital, Green D Ventures and The MBA Fund. “Strategic angel investors” also reportedly participated in the round.

Bitcoin.com Launches $200M Bitcoin Cash Investment Fund

Moving further, Bitcoin.com, the Bitcoin-related firm backed by crypto evangelist Roger Ver, is planning to launch its $200 million Bitcoin Cash Investment fund.

Ver has announced the news speaking at a Bitcoin Cash meetup in London on November 19, as he tweeted on November 20. The event was hosted by major global crypto wallet Blockchain.com. The new Bitcoin Cash Ecosystem Fund will focus on payment solutions and non-custodial financial services for Bitcoin Cash, a cryptocurrency that emerged from a hard fork of Bitcoin in August 2017.

According to an official announcement, details of the BCH Ecosystem Investment Fund are not yet finalized but it will allow participation from institutional investors. The fund will be investing in payment gateways, processors remittances, wallet and merchant acquirers.

Bitcoin.com’s new CEO, Stefan Rust, has reportedly identified up to 20 potential institutional investors that share the company’s vision and are interested to invest alongside Bitcoin.com’s executive chairman Ver and the company itself.

Formerly known as a website focused on covering BTC and BCH, Bitcoin.com now provides a number of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash services including crypto trading and storage. The firm behind the website has been gradually embracing more services since its domain name was acquired by Ver back in 2014.

Bitcoin.com launched its own digital exchange in September 2019, allowing users to trade a number of cryptocurrencies including XRP, Litecoin and EOS, among others.

Trading App for Kraken Futures Is Now Available on iOS and Android

Finally, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced that it is introducing a mobile version of its Kraken Future trading app.

On November 21, Kraken announced on its blog that it is launching a mobile app version of Kraken Futures, which was created earlier this year after acquiring Cryptofacilities and was previously only available on a web browser. The app will be available on both the iOS and Android platforms.

According to its website, Kraken Futures is a professional trading platform for derivatives on digital assets, where traders can long and short digital assets with up to 50x leverage, while offering seamless transfers between spot and futures markets.

The newly introduced Kraken Futures app will also enable its users to sign-in with a QR code, see live order book and price charts, and manage open positions and open orders, among others. On top of the new app features, Kraken will pay out a 30% revenue share of net fees to its active traders every week.

Crypto Booking Firm Travala Partners with Travel Giant Booking.com

The last week of November was especially interested. It began with the news from Travala, a service that allows its users to pay for hotel stays with cryptocurrency, will now let its customers reserve any hotel that is bookable through Booking.com.

Travala announced in a press release on November 25 that it has already integrated Booking’s accommodations to its platform. The new feature will purportedly allow users to book 90,000 different destinations using cryptocurrencies. 

Travala’s customers can pay with its proprietary AVA token and 20 major crypto assets including Bitcoin, Ether, Dash, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, EOS, Stellar, Cardano, Binance Chaina, Monero, Tron, XRP and Dai. The firm’s CEO Matt Luczynski commented:

This partnership allows our users to access Booking.com’s accommodation listings, as well as the listings from several other leading travel suppliers, which is a fantastic use case for our own AVA token and another huge step towards mass cryptocurrency adoption.

Also, on November 25, Travala announced that its proprietary token was listed on the decentralized exchange Binance DEX and is currently trading against Binance Coin on the platform.

BNY Mellon Officially Joins Blockchain-Based Marco Polo Network

During the same week, The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) has joined blockchain software firm R3’s trade finance network, the Marco Polo Network.

The American banking and financial services firm — which has over $1.9 trillion in assets under management — will conduct an evaluation program using the technology, Marco Polo announced November 25.

By joining Marco Polo, BNY Mellon intends to expand its technical expertise and explore how blockchain technology could be applied to its trade finance activities. The move is purportedly in line with BNY Mellon’s efforts to eliminate paper-based processes and digitize its business. 

Marco Polo is a consortium of major global financial and banking institutions aiming to bolster international trade. Launched in 2017, the Marco Polo Network is a collaboration of R3 and Irish tech firm TradeIX, and features major financial firms including banks French BNP Paribas, Dutch ING Japanese MUFG, Bank of America and French Credit Agricole.

Oliver Belin, chief marketing officer at TradeIX, said in an email to Cointelegraph that the Marco Polo Network now has 31 members to date, with 28 of them represented by banks, while the three remaining firms are TradeIX, R3 and Mastercard. Belin also noted that BNY Mellon’s logo will be added on the Marco Polo website later today.

Bitcoin ATM Firm Partners With Largest Shopping Mall Operator in US

Further, Miami-based Bitcoin automatic teller machines (ATM) firm Bitstop has partnered with the largest shopping mall operator in the United States, Simon Malls, to install Bitcoin ATMs at several locations. 

BitStop announced on November 26 that the firm has already installed Bitcoin ATMs at five Simon Malls locations in California, Florida and Georgia. Bitstop co-founder and CEO Andrew Barnard said that the machines were installed ahead of the holiday season:

With the strategic timing of this new installation of Bitcoin ATMs at Simon Mall locations, customers can conveniently buy Bitcoin while doing their Black Friday and Christmas holiday shopping.

Bitsop, which claims to be licensed and regulated, plans to grow its teller machine network by over 500 locations by the end of 2020, according to Barnard.

The new partnership builds on the firm’s previous installation of a Bitcoin ATM at the Miami International Airport, which it announced in mid-October. 

The number of Bitcoin ATMs installed worldwide surpassed a new milestone. Data at the time showed that there were over 6,000 such machines worldwide, over 65% of which are in the United States.

Still, authorities are increasingly wary of such services. The United States Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Chief John Fort, for instance, recently said that the regulator is looking into potential tax issues caused by Bitcoin ATMs and kiosks.

In addition to possible tax issues, Fort claimed that the operators of crypto kiosks should be obliged to follow the same Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering rules as other cryptocurrency-related businesses.

Crypto-Related Fraud and Theft Resulted in $4.4B Loss in 2019

In 2019, the total volume of cryptocurrency-related fraud and theft resulted in losses worth $4.4 billion, according to CipherTrace’s report for the third quarter of 2019.

In its “Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report, 2019 Q3,” security research firm CipherTrace delved into the 120 most popular cryptocurrency exchanges’ compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements and analyzed patterns in crypto-related crimes.

Per the report, Q3 2019 saw a notable reduction in total cryptocurrency crimes as compared with previous quarters, and thus the lowest quarterly thefts and scams in two years:

This quarter, cybercriminals stole $6.5 million from cryptocurrency exchanges, while insiders bilked cryptocurrency users out of $9 million in exit scams and Ponzi schemes. This total of $15.5 million represents the smallest number of cryptocurrency crimes of any quarter in the past several years.

However, total losses from crypto theft on the year have sky-rocketed since 2018, as crypto thieves go after larger sums. Crypto thefts accounted for $4.4 billion in losses, up from $1.7 billion the year previously.

Two particular scams, the PlusToken scheme ($2.9 billion) and the QuadrigaCX crypto exchange fiasco ($195 million) accounted for the vast majority of losses.

Out of the 120 analyzed crypto exchanges, 35% have strong KYC standards, 41% have “porous” standards and 24% have weak KYC standards. 32% of the top-120 exchanges trade privacy coins.

Cyber criminals are developing new and more sophisticated methods to obfuscate the flow of funds. On November 26, Slovakian software security firm Eset discovered that cybercriminals behind the Stantinko botnet have been distributing a Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency mining module via Youtube. This crypto-stealing malware has reportedly infected around 500,000 devices.

Earlier today, major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit — which is run by a subsidiary of Korean tech giant Kakao — notified users of the theft of 342,000 Ether (ETH) (over $50 million at press time) from its hot wallet. The exchange pledged to protect user assets, stating that the lost funds will be covered by corporate assets.

Earlier this month, Gregg Bennett, a SIM-swap hack victim and angel investor, sued cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex over allegedly allowing the theft of nearly $1 million in Bitcoin (BTC).

Binance to Launch Crypto Travel Rewards Card with Startup TravelByBit

Further, major cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced in a blog post on November 28 that it partnered with crypto travel startup TravelByBit to launch a rewards card that facilitates crypto payments on major travel websites.

Per the announcement, the card will function like a traditional prepaid card with access to additional discounts and rewards that users will be able to load with Bitcoin, Binance USD, Binance Coin and Ontology.

The card will be released early next year and will initially target travelers in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Australia and Europe, with plans to gradually expand.

The service will reportedly allow its customers to book flights and hotels through major booking sites including Booking.com, Expedia, Agoda, and Ctrip, as well as TravelByBit’s own platform. 

Kraken Joins Silvergate Exchange Network

Finally, the month was closed by Kraken, one of the largest and oldest Bitcoin exchanges in the world, that has joined the Silvergate Exchange Network (SEN). By joining SEN, the United States-based cryptocurrency exchange enables its clients to deposit and withdraw U.S. dollars from Silvergate accounts with no fees, the firm announced November 27.

According to the announcement, the depositing process will be different based on whether Kraken users have a Silvergate account. If they have an account at Silvergate, Kraken users will simply have to enable SEN funding on their Kraken account before using the option. Those who do not have a Silvergate account will have to apply separately at bank.

Silvergate Capital is a California-based commercial bank focused on digital currency businesses. The Silvergate’s SEN is a network of crypto exchanges and investors that enables transactions of U.S. dollars between SEN members.

As reported, Silvergate’s customers include crypto exchanges, miners and custodians, among others. The crypto-friendly bank saw its number of digital currency customers grow from 655 as of June 30, 2019 to 756 as of Sept. 30, 2019, as Silvergate stated in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In August 2019, the SEN added another important crypto partner, the Winklevoss brothers-founded exchange Gemini, enabling faster transfers in U.S. dollars.

Earlier this month, Silvergate Bank launched its shares for trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker NYSE:SI.

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About: I am a business developer, sales professional, FinTech strategist, as well as Cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. I'm highly passionate about Financial Technology and Digital Innovation, and strongly believe that it will change the world for the better. Apart from my daily job at a global payments startup where I'm leading company's expansion into Europe , I'm an active member of FinTech community and a TechFin evangelist.

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