Category: Blockchain

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Banking Blockchain Crypto News Payments Stablecoins Stellar

Payment Juggernaut Partners with Stellar and USDC for Blockchain-Based Payments

MoneyGram, one of the major global remittance services, has partnered with the Stellar Foundation (XLM) to provide a bridge between digital assets and local currencies for consumers, with United Texas Bank serving as the settlement bank between USDC issuer Circle and MoneyGram.

A Bridge From Traditional Finance to Digital Assets

On October 6, MoneyGram announced it would be using the Stellar blockchain to facilitate instant and cheap transactions. The bridge will allow “money transfers and enables near-instant settlement in USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar developed by Circle”.

The pilot project started in the fourth quarter of this year and will be rolled out slowly during early 2022. The blockchain-enabled bridge for USDC stablecoins and local currencies will connect MoneyGram’s 150 million or so consumers to the blockchain.

Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, stated that “we’re trying to go as big as we can”.

Working with MoneyGram allows end consumers to have on- and off-ramps everywhere that MoneyGram’s vast agent network supports it. So this is just transformational in terms of being able to exchange crypto for fiat and fiat for crypto,

Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director, Stellar Development Foundation

This means that any digital wallet connected to the Stellar network can leverage any of MoneyGram’s 400,000 locations across the globe to send and receive remittances in various fiat currencies.

MoneyGram has joined Visa, which is also in the process of creating a blockchain-based bridge for international Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) to increase the ease, cost and speed with which people can make payments.

Ripple’s Relationship with MoneyGram Winding Down

Ripple (XRP) has had a longstanding relationship with MoneyGram that started in 2019, but it has been winding down since the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against Ripple in December 2020, saying the firm had violated federal securities laws.

However, MoneyGram’s chairman and CEO Alex Holmes has stated that the partnership with Stellar is an entirely different animal from the relationship MoneyGram had with Ripple, which leveraged the crypto firm’s on-demand liquidity (ODL) to facilitate foreign exchange (FX) trading.

The relationship MoneyGram and Stellar have is based around the direct link between consumer payments. According to Holmes, the challenge is to create a foreign exchange market in a completely new and different environment.

United Texas Bank to Facilitate Crypto Settlements

Banks are quite skittish to start dealing with crypto due to the murky regulatory space in which the industry now finds itself. Holmes stated that “United Texas bank is an established bank here and very focused on the opportunities in the crypto space. Not every bank is willing to step into the crypto world, and I think it says a lot about how progressive that bank is trying to be.”

Unfortunately, a lot of regulation ends up being a look back. I think the blockchain and digital asset worlds [have] really accelerated, and now I see a lot of regulators looking to catch up.

Alex Holmes, chairman and CEO, MoneyGram
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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Stablecoins Tokens

LUNA Token Up 34% in a Week, Prints New All-Time High Following Terra Network Upgrade

Terra’s native token LUNA has been climbing in an aggressive ascent towards the US$50 mark, from around just US$10 at the end of July. The new ATH was recorded on October 4 with LUNA peaking at US$49.45 following Terra’s network upgrade.

$1 Billion Worth of LUNA Tokens Burned

The highly anticipated Columbus-5 upgrade went live on September 30, introducing changes to the Terra network that will add a deflationary mechanism to LUNA’s token economics by implementing token burns. LUNA is Terra’s utility token, used for maintaining equal value to the US dollar for Terra’s Stablecoin UST.

Since the upgrade, instead of LUNA tokens being transferred to a community pool, they are now burned whenever UST is minted. About 23.4 million LUNA tokens worth approximately US$1 billion were burned on the day of the upgrade, which resulted in LUNA’s price jump. The new deflationary model is very bullish for LUNA’s future price prediction; the more LUNA tokens that are burned and taken out of circulation, the more the asset increases in value as it becomes more scarce.

The supply burn places deflationary pressure on LUNA making it increasingly scarce … This was a key driver for recent price action.

Delphi Digital

What is the Upgrade About? 

The Columbus-5 upgrade is significant for Terra investors because it increases compatibility between Terra and other blockchain networks by enabling the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) standard. IBC will let users easily transfer LUNA, the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin, and other assets from Terra to alternate networks and vice versa. It will position Terra to become the de facto stablecoin of the Cosmos ecosystem (a project aiming to build a network of independent blockchains communicating through IBC).

Last week, Crypto News Australia placed LUNA among the top 3 coins to watch.

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Blockchain CBDCs Crypto News Payments Stablecoins Worldwide

Visa Aims to be the Bridge Connecting International CBDC Blockchains

Visa has unveiled a paper outlining the development of a protocol to make cross-border payments with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins from any blockchain connected to the network.

According to a post by the payment colossus, the company is in the midst of developing a protocol to send digital currencies between blockchains in order to operate as a “universal payment channel” (UPC). This dedicated payment channel will connect CBDC networks between countries, as well as linking CBDCs with private stablecoin networks.

The Visa research team originally began working on the UPC concept in 2018, developing an interoperability framework that would run independently of the underlying blockchain mechanisms.

Catherine Gu, global CBDC product lead at Visa, stated that the key problem it was looking to solve is that of interoperability, to “get different digital currencies, relying on different tech stacks and protocols, with different compliance standards and market requirements to ‘talk’ to each other in a wider network of value”.

VISA’s Universal Payment Channel (UPC).

This is a much longer-term future thinking concept around a way that Visa could potentially help become a bridge between one digital currency on one blockchain and another digital currency on another blockchain.

Cuy Sheffield, Visa’s head of crypto

The Future of Blockchain is Interoperable

The paper developed by Visa’s R&D team posits the UPC as a hub interconnecting multiple blockchain networks and allowing for secure transfer of digital currencies. The point of the hub is to allow central banks, businesses and consumers to seamlessly exchange value, no matter the form factor of the currency. 

We believe that for CBDCs to be successful, they must have two essential ingredients: a great consumer experience and widespread merchant acceptance. It means the ability to make and receive payments, regardless of currency, channel, or form factor. That’s where Visa’s UPC concept comes in.

Catherine Gu, global CBDC product lead, Visa

Visa highlights the need for a UPC due to the large number of digital currencies and the necessity for a common network. The UPC’s specialised payment channels would be established off the blockchain and leverage smart contracts to communicate with the various blockchain networks. This is done to deliver high transaction throughput securely and reliably while improving overall speeds. 

Due to this gap, Visa has openly shared how the mechanics of the UPC will work, along with policy guidelines for central banks and regulators on the implication of this research.

In December 2020, Visa partnered with Circle to connect its merchants with Ethereum-based US Dollar Coins. Various other blockchain projects are also working to solve the interoperability issue.

Why CBDCs Need Cross-Chain Interoperability

Over the past two years many central banks around the world have been exploring CBDCs, a digital form of central bank money that can be used directly by consumers, merchants and financial institutions.

Imagine a world where everyone at the table is using a different type of money – some using a central bank digital currency (or CBDC) like Sweden’s eKrona, others preferring a private stablecoin like USDC […] now imagine all this happening in real-time, across multiple networks, and compatible with multiple digital wallets. 

VISA

In order to process a payment with various currencies, there needs to be a layer where all wallets and protocols can communicate with each other before processing the payment for the merchant. As part of developing the UPC concept, Visa has deployed its first-ever sample smart contract on Ethereum’s Ropsten testnet. The smart contract shows a payment channel that accepts both ether (ETH) and the USDC stablecoin.

What concerns many blockchain supporters is the idea of having a centralised node authorising transactions. However, the Visa paper states that “clients register with a UPC hub to route their transactions to other clients. Note that this routing requires zero trust to be placed on the UPC hub (the UPC hub does not need to be trusted like a central intermediary).” 

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Education RMIT University Online

RMIT Ranks Second for Blockchain in Global Uni Rankings

Out of a total of 230 tertiary institutions worldwide, Australia’s RMIT comes in second on the list of top universities for blockchain, according to CoinDesk.

The number one-ranked university for blockchain was the National University of Singapore, which offers multiple blockchain research centres, blockchain-themed conferences, blockchain clubs, and company partnerships, also offering a master’s program in digital financial technology. Coming in third was the University of California, Berkeley in the US.

Three Aussie Unis in the Top 20

Impressively, two other Australian institutions made the top 20 list: the University of New South Wales (UNSW) ranked 13th, and the University of Sydney came in at number 20.

Support for blockchain in Australia has been heavily championed by cryptocurrency enthusiast and NSW politician Senator Andrew Bragg, who has called for the government to attract fintech investors to Australia.

In February this year, Crypto News reported on how Blockchain Australia and RMIT had been calling for government support for blockchain. Accordingly, government grants have been a vital part in helping RMIT secure the No. 2 spot for Australia’s RMIT University as one of the best universities to study blockchain in the world.

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Australia Blockchain Crypto News Investing

Senator Bragg Tells Blockchain Body: ‘Australia’s Digital Asset Plan is Coming’

Speaking at this year’s NFT Fest, NSW Senator Andrew Bragg said that Australia’s digital asset plan could be enacted in 2022, bringing crypto-related legislation to benefit the local industry and put Australia at “the front end of the digital asset society”.

The NFT Fest gathered dozens of speakers from the crypto and blockchain space last week to speak about some of the industry’s trending topics. Senator Bragg was among the participants, and he talked about the current national regulatory climate for crypto companies.

According to Bragg, the Senate Select Committee will publish its report to include regulatory recommendations, mainly about consumer protection and driving investment into Australia, by the end of this month.

Bragg is one of the few crypto-friendly politicians in Australia, and a firm believer that proper crypto regulation could boost investment and jobs in the country. As the market and technology develop in parallel at a faster rate, he says it’s time for Australia to do proper research and implement a robust regulatory framework for market participants.

It is clear from our investigations that we need a robust policy framework for digital assets, guided by three objectives: consumer protection, investor promotion, and market competition.

Senator Andrew Bragg

Net Zero Emissions and TradFi

Bragg pointed out the fact that digital assets have a bad reputation in Canberra partly because traditional financial institutions are undermining crypto.

He also backed his plans to run the crypto space on renewable energy as part of the government’s repositioned goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions.

Senator Bragg closed his speech by pointing out the dangers posed by the tech giants, prompting the implementation of a regulatory framework to counter their power over society in what he calls “a battle for the ages”.

Big tech has way too much power over our society. They’re not Australian companies. We don’t want them to run the world … Let’s implement a new regulatory framework over the next 12-18 months… Our battle against big tech is a battle of the ages.

Senator Andrew Bragg
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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies

Could Blockchain Be Used to Achieve 120-Year Human Lifespan?

The Swiss-based Longevity Science Foundation has announced its plans to commit more than US$1 billion in funding to blockchain and tech-based projects over the next 10 years to support research into extending the human lifespan to at least 120 years.

The projects funded will focus on advancing human longevity through the development of healthy medicines and tech. The foundation will zero in on four specific areas:

  • Therapeutics
  • Personalised medicine
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Predictive diagnostics

Five-Year Target From Concept to Reality

The Longevity Science Foundation enables the rapid acceleration of basic science of human longevity and its translation towards human trials and clinical practice. In five years, healthy longevity will not only exist as a lab-proven concept, but will become part of everyone’s life.

Andrea B. Maier, member of the Visionary Board and co-director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity, National University of Singapore

The foundation will seek donations in cryptocurrencies and investors will earn decision-making power as to which projects receive funding.

Dr Alex Zhavoronkov, a Russian AI and ageing expert well-known for his work on longevity, will sit on the Visionary Board of the Foundation. He is also an adviser to Longenesis (a blockchain medical data marketplace, which partnered with the Bitfury Group to launch a blockchain-based content management system for the healthcare industry).

Other researchers on the board are Swiss-based internal medicine specialist Evelyne Bischof, German gerontologist Andrea B. Maier, Eric Verdin, a Belgian expert on ageing, metabolism, nutrition and epigenetics, and American biologist Matt Kaeberlein.

AI and the Blockchain Will Be Principal Research Tools

Through the foundation, world leaders in healthcare research will use AI and the blockchain to access a global database of hospital information for analysis.

Applying theoretical longevity concepts to real-world use is a primary goal for the foundation, which aims to transform technological advances into clinical treatments and solutions.

By identifying and funding the most promising and cutting-edge advances, the foundation seeks to address one of the most pressing issues in science … understanding longevity-focused treatment.

Longevity Science Foundation announcement
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Blockchain Crypto Art NFTs Scams Solana

Alleged 17-Year-Old Artist Sells Fake NFTs in $500,000 RugPull

Iconic Sol, an NFT project on the Solana blockchain, has apparently rugged its investors after failing to deliver several artwork pieces and disappearing with US$500,000.

A 17-year-old 3D artist is presumed to be behind the project. The teenager promised to deliver 8,000 NFT artworks on the project’s Discord channel and some of the tokens were supposed to be available in an October 1 presale. A total of 2,000 NFTs were up for grabs at a price of 0.5 SOL, many of them selling out quickly. 

The presale generated the anonymous artist 1,000 SOL, or US$138,000, but the estimated amount of stolen funds is over half a million dollars. The event was reported by SOL Big Brain, a popular member of the Solana NFT community:

Data from Solana Explorer shows the person(s) behind the project has already sent the money to different addresses. And just as concerning for investors, instead of receiving the NFTs the artist sent them a bunch of random emojis.

Beware of Fake and Non-Existent NFTs

This is probably the first rugpull on the Solana network. But it’s hard to say as controversy still surrounds a previous Solana project backed by American rapper Lil Uzi called Eternal Beings, whose floor price plunged after the rapper deleted his Twitter posts regarding the project.

Fake and non-existing NFTs are becoming an increasing concern in the DeFi space. As Crypto News Australia reported, last month an NFT collector paid almost US$500,000 worth of ETH for an NFT that never existed.

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Blockchain Crypto Art Crypto News NFTs Social media Tokens

‘TikTok Top Moments’ NFTs Launch Featuring Lil Nas X and Grimes

TikTok is set to release a series of NFT collectibles with celebrity partners including American rapper Lil Nas X, Canadian musician/producer Grimes and NFT entrepreneur Gary ‘Vee’ Vaynerchuk.

TikTok Passes One Billion Active Users

The hugely popular Chinese video-sharing and social media app, which now boasts more than one billion monthly active users worldwide, will issue six different NFT drops based on what it terms “culturally significant” videos shared on the service.

Rapper Lil Nas X leads the TikTok NFT rollout. Source: Billboard magazine

The TikTok Top Moments collection kicks off on October 6 with Lil Nas X as the subject of the first drop, with an NFT based on a TikTok video by Seattle-based artist Rudy Willingham. The video, a stop-motion tribute to the rapper’s Montero (Call Me By Your Name) music video, has already garnered millions of interactions via the service.

Subsequent ‘Moments’ in the collection will feature Gary Vee, social media personality Bella Poarch, and musician Grimes, who in March this year sold her crypto art NFT collection for US$6 million.

NFT ‘pioneer’ artist Grimes features in the Moments collection. Source: foxnews.com

TikTok will offer both one-off and larger “limited edition” runs of its NFT collectibles. Other artists in the pipeline include Brittany Broski (aka Kombucha Girl), rappers Curtis Roach and FNMeka, and TikTok video regular Jess Marciante.

TikTok plans to showcase all six of its one-off videos at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, this month.

NFTs Minted on Immutable X

The NFTs will be minted on Immutable X, a layer-2 scaling solution that runs on top of Ethereum. Immutable X attracts lower transaction fees and faster completion times than Ethereum’s mainnet, plus it uses significantly less energy than Ethereum’s proof-of-work consensus model.

The first six months of 2021 have seen some US$2.5 billion worth of trading volume across the top NFT marketplaces. Since then, however, leading marketplace OpenSea has recorded more than US$3.4 billion in volume in August alone.

That same month, Audius, a music streaming platform on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, partnered with TikTok to create TikTok Sounds. As a result, the $AUDIO token surged 200 percent.

All very ironic when you consider that just a month earlier, TikTok banned its users from promoting crypto-related financial products and services and also prohibited ads relating to crypto.

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Blockchain NFTs Solana

Solana NFT Project Accused of Rug Pull After Lil Uzi Deletes Tweets

Another day, another rug pull in the crypto world – or at least that’s what it seems with the recent price plunge of Eternal Beings, computer-generated NFT avatars that were promoted by American rapper Lil Uzi Vert.

US rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Source: vogue.com

What Happened?

Eternal Beings is an NFT project built atop Solana (SOL), consisting of 11,111 alien avatars with a similar appearance to Uzi – as in his clothes, hair and tattoos.

The rapper promoted the project to his Twitter followers with guaranteed price moonings and hype. The avatars were launched on the Solanart marketplace on September 28, but after the NFTs sold out at a mint price of 2.5 SOL, Lil Uzi deleted all of his posts related to the project, causing the floor price to dip and hover below 1.60 SOL.

Was Uzi Behind the Project?

It’s unknown if Uzi was behind Eternal Beings or if he was just being paid to promote the project to his followers. Moderators in the project’s Discord tried to calm their users by reassuring them Uzi was still part of the project. Yet that didn’t go so well as moderators started blocking several users who contradicted them.

What the crypto community and Eternal Beings’ more than 45,000 members believe is that this was another hyped-up rug pull. But another question arises: will the US Securities and Exchange Commission intervene if the regulatory body determines Uzi’s tweets to be the promotion of an investment product? The deleted tweets can be found on internet archive WayBack Machine:

If this was a rug, it would make it Solana’s second rug pull by far. In August, Crypto News Australia reported how Luna Yield, a cross-chain yield aggregator built on the Solana blockchain, stole nearly US$10 million from liquidity pools.

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Blockchain Crypto News NFTs Social media

Twitter NFT Profile Pictures to be Verified Using New Blockchain Tool

Twitter has become the most popular tool for crypto enthusiasts to share information and build communities. The latest in-development feature will be the implementation of a profile verification tool for users who want to display their NFTs as their profile picture.

To display your NFT for your Twitter profile picture, choose “Select NFT” and connect your digital wallet from Metamask, or some other wallet. After selecting the NFT you want as your profile picture, a checkmark verifying the blockchain of the NFT will appear. Also coming is a “Collectible” menu option, which will allow users to display a collection of their NFTs on their Twitter profile.

These new NFT integrations were announced after the launch of Twitter’s Bitcoin Tipping feature on September 23, although no specific details have been released as to when they will be rolled out.