Flagstar Bank Acquires Signature Bank’s Assets and Branches, Excluding Cryptocurrency Operations

March 20, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Crypto firm Juno urges users to withdraw after ‘uncertainty’ with custody partner

January 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Juno recommended users pull their funds from the platform amid "uncertainty" over the fate of its crypto custody provider Wyre.

Fiat-to-crypto on-ramp solution provider Juno has urged its users to sell or self-custody the crypto on its platform citing “uncertainty” with its crypto custodian partner Wyre.

In a Jan. 4 tweet, the platform explained it that it doesn't hold any of its customer's crypto, and relies on its “crypto partner” for those services.

“Due to uncertainty with our crypto partner, we have taken preemptive action in the interest of our customers,” it wrote, adding it’s also actively reaching out to customers to ask them to self-custody.

2/ Juno as a platform doesn’t custody crypto assets & relies on our crypto partner for these services.

Due to uncertainty with our crypto partner, we have taken preemptive action in the interest of our customers.
— Juno (@JunoFinanceHQ) January 4, 2023

The "crypto partner" in question is understood to be Wyre, a regulated Money Service Business in the United States.

Earlier this week, Wyre CEO Ioannis Giannaros reportedly told employees that the firm “will need to unwind [...] over the next couple of weeks.”

In the email seen by Axios, Giannaros said the firm was “still operating” but would be “scaling back to plan our next steps."

Juno in its latest Twitter thread said there was still $1.25 million worth of crypto assets held on the platform and it has been reaching out to customers to encourage them to self-custody their holdings

Other safeguards employed by Juno for users include temporarily disabling crypto buying on its platform and converting stablecoins to U.S. dollars into users’ government-insured accounts “which are FDIC Insured up to $250,000 via our partner bank.”

It also increased daily withdrawal limits five-fold for all “metal” account holders, its highest tier account.

Cointelegraph contacted Juno for comment but did not receive an immediate response. Wyre did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At the time of writing, Juno users were seemingly able to withdraw funds without issue and the platform claimed its services unrelated to crypto were similarly unaffected.

Juno said it plans to “transition to a new crypto partner” but is yet to release information on what partner and when the transition will be finalized. It added it was working to restart crypto buying and deposits “as soon as possible.”

Over 12,000 Brazil companies declare crypto holdings in record high

October 10, 2022 Coin Telegraph

august

August figures released by Brazil's tax authority revealed over 12,000 companies have cryptocurrency holdings, the largest amount ever recorded.

The number of companies holding cryptocurrency in Brazil has reached new record highs as of August, amid an increased trust in cryptocurrencies and high inflation rates.

According to local media reports, the country’s taxation authority, Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB), also known as the Federal Revenue of Brazil, recorded 12,053 unique organizations declaring crypto on their balance sheets in August 2022.

The number is a 6.1% increase from the 11,360 companies in July and is the month with the highest recorded number of companies with crypto holdings to date.

The RFB noted that Bitcoin (BTC) is the most popular cryptocurrency held by institutions, followed by stablecoin Tether (USDT).

However, the number of individual Brazilian investors holding crypto fell from the prior month, down to 1.3 million in August.

The value of the total declarations also experienced a slight decline, likely due to the condition of the crypto markets, with August seeing a total of $2.1 billion (11 billion Brazilian Reais), down from $3.4 billion in July.

The U.S. dollar pegged stablecoin USDT had the most value transacted, with over $1.42 billion moved across nearly 80,000 transactions in August, averaging roughly $17,500 per transaction.

BTC was second with almost $270 million transacted, but took first place for number of transactions, clocking in over 2.1 million in the same month at a much lower average transaction amount of $130.

It was noted the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC) dropped from third to fifth place from July to August in regard to value transacted, losing out to Ether (ETH) and Brazilian Digital Token (BRZ), a Brazilian Real pegged ERC-20 token.

Brazilians trust in cryptocurrency remains high according to a September Bitstamp “Crypto Pulse” report, with 77% stating they trusted digital assets.

Multiple financial companies in the country have started offering cryptocurrency services, such as brokerage giant XP Inc and payment application PicPay both integrating crypto exchange services in August. Crypto exchange Binance has also increased its efforts in the country, doubling its team since March and opening two new offices on Oct. 4.

Brazil’s inflation rate hit a 26-year high of 12.1% in April, but has since cooled slightly to 8.7% in the latest August figures as per data from the country’s statistics agency.

Swinburne Uni brings Web3 firms to class

May 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Australia

The industry will be able to “tap into future talent” as the partnership sees Judo Bank and Web3 firm Banxa and co-creating content, hosting lectures, providing case studies and even giving students access to their networks.

Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology has partnered with two financial technology firms which will provide its students exposure to the financial technology and cryptocurrency business world.

The partnership is between Swinburne and small business loan provider Judo Bank along with Banxa, a payment service provider with a fiat to crypto platform whose clients include Binance, KuCoin, and Trezor amongst others.

Students of the university’s Master of Financial Technology (FinTech) course will be “exposed to real life examples and cases across the spectrum of financial services,” Dr. Dimitrios Salampasis Swinburne’s Director of the Master of FinTech told Cointelegraph.

Dr. Salampasis said Judo Bank is “one of the most innovative FinTech unicorns, one of the very few unicorns in Australia” while Banxa is a “massively interesting organization” who are “very serious in the job that they do in the blockchain and the crypto space”.

“This space is very new. I mean, when I put together the course a couple of years ago, we didn't really know what that meant. Other universities around the globe have different FinTech offerings, but I believe, particularly for the FinTech space, you need some proper working experience.”

“Maybe they want to show our students some simulations of their processes, do some sort of presentation on their products and services or have a debate,” he said, “maybe even give our students a real project to work on.”

The partnership sees Banxa and Judo Bank co-creating content, hosting lectures and providing case studies. Students will have access to each of the companies networks as part of the partnership, which Dr. Salampasis says will allow the industry to “tap into future talent”.

“The whole vision behind this degree is to bring industry in to ensure relevance on the things we teach, to be able to bring these real life insights for leadership in the classroom. We can ensure the students get exposed to whatever the latest developments are in the space, because the general FinTech space is moving so quickly.”

Dr. Salampasis was 2021’s Blockchain Educator of the Year Awardee from the country’s main industry body Blockchain Australia.

Cointelegraph reported last week that Dr. Salampasis had been one of the few people Finder spoke to for its regular predictions survey who warned about the inherent risks in the Terra ecosystem which subsequently collapsed.

He said the event had caused terrible publicity for the space, but he was hopeful with more education such situations could be avoided in future.

“In general, blockchain and crypto have received a lot of negative attention and publicity. Part of our role as a university is to ‘de-risk’ the space, to provide real information, real awareness, and educate our students to become the next leaders in the space, to work with people who actually know what they're doing.”

BitLicensed Crypto Firms Ordered to Pay Annual Assessment Fees in New York

April 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

assessment fees

The fees will bring virtual currency companies on par with those paid by banking and insurance institutions as a way for the state to recoup operating expense costs and “best support” the industry.

The cost of running a crypto business in New York is about to rise with the state government gearing up to require companies holding a BitLicense to pay assessment fees to ensure they’re complying with regulations.

The rule was included in New York State’s FY2023 budget signed into law on April 9th by Governor Kathy Hochul giving the state's Department Of Financial Services (DFS) a “new authority to collect supervisory costs from licensed virtual currency businesses,” according to a statement by the DFS.

DFS Superintendent Adrienne Harris said the fees would bring virtual currency businesses in line with those already paid by institutions such as banking and insurance companies and added:

“New York was the first to start licensing and supervising virtual currency companies, and we continue to attract more licensees and the most crypto startup funding of any state in the nation.”

The state of New York was the first in the U.S. to require crypto companies to be licensed with the introduction of the now known “BitLicense”, the application fees for such a permit are currently $5,000 and are subject to vague capital requirements determined by the New York DFS.

The annual assessment fee amount that the DFS will charge crypto firms is currently unknown, but the same fees for other regulated financial institutions can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year.

The DFS states the fees are to assist with paying the operating expenses of regulating crypto firms and “will empower the Department to build staff with the capacity and expertise to best regulate and support this rapidly growing industry.”

Businesses that accept crypto as payment, create software for the crypto space such as self-custody wallets, or give advice on crypto trading aren’t subject to the BitLicense and corresponding new fees.

Recently, the regulation and licensing of crypto in the state have come under fire with billionaire investor Bill Ackman sharing his thoughts in February about New York’s failing policies and how it could make him leave the state.

Ackman appealed to Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Hochul to address the increasing concerns around regulation, saying that easing restrictions and removing regulatory barriers could make New York a “crypto center of innovation.”

Mayor Adams ran with plans to make New York City the “center of the cryptocurrency industry” even taking his first three paychecks in Bitcoin (BTC). Analysis from Cointelegraph in November shows that it’s really up to the New York DFS and state government to enact changes that will attract the industry.

Singapore Strives to Become Global Crypto Hub, Monetary Authority Reveals

November 2, 2021 Bitcoin.com

crypto business

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