Crypto news: a selection of the latest news (01/18/2020)

Swiss crypto bank SEBA will attract $ 103 million of new capital

Switzerland-based regulated cryptocurrency bank SEBA is planning a second stage of fundraising in the amount of 100 million Swiss francs ($ 103.37 million), according to Financial News London.

SEBA expects to attract funds from new investors, including “financial institutions, family offices and individuals,” the publication said.

SEBA Crypto AG startup founded by ex-UBS employees in 2018 attracted 100 million Swiss francs to launch the crypto bank. Last August, the company received a banking license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).

In November, a regulated cryptocurrency bank called SEBA Bank AG began operations in Switzerland.

Earlier, the bank announced the start of customer service in nine more countries. These included Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Austria, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Gemini Exchange opens Nakamoto insurance company with $ 200 million collateral

The Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, founded by the Winklevoss brothers, opened the insurance company Nakamoto Ltd with $ 200 million for its own custodial service Gemini Custody.

This means that customers who store assets in this service will be able to additionally insure them in the new company. Gemini Risk Director Yusuf Hussain said that Nakamoto was launched with the participation of major traditional insurance brokers Aon and Marsh. According to Hussein, today $ 200 million is the largest provision for custodial services in the cryptocurrency industry.

Gemini executives believe that digital asset insurance will protect the rights of institutional investors, increase their credibility in cryptocurrencies and ensure regulatory compliance. Gemini President Cameron Winklevoss said cryptocurrency insurance is still a challenging task in the industry, but captive insurance company Nakamoto will expand Gemini’s capabilities and further the development of the crypto industry.

The custodial service Gemini Custody, supporting 18 cryptocurrencies and a number of tokens of the ERC-20 standard, was launched in September last year. In addition, in November, the Gemini Exchange announced the purchase of the Nifty Gateway platform, where users can purchase non-replaceable tokens (NFT). The Winklevoss brothers have high hopes for them, calling them “unique assets.”

Binance Exchange May Stop Serving Users in Japan

According to the new policy of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Japanese users may face a gradual restriction of trading services.

In an official notification published this week, the exchange said its main platform, Binance.com, will introduce a “gradual restriction of trading functions” for Japanese residents “in the near future”.

At the moment, all services are available to Japanese users, however, according to Binance, details related to future restrictions will be published soon. This step is reminiscent of the initiative implemented by Binance in the United States.

In June last year, the exchange announced the termination of customer service in the United States, and then opened a branch of the Binance.US site in the country. However, it is not yet clear whether the company plans to open an exchange in Japan.

Recall that this month the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine reported that the cryptocurrency exchange Binance filed a package of documents to open an account with the Ukrainian bank IBOX BANK.

In addition, in December Binance added new trading pairs with the Turkish lira and the Russian ruble, and in November last year, the exchange added the possibility of trading with the Russian ruble.

Anchorage cryptocurrency custody services provider launched a brokerage service

Institutional-oriented, Anchorage announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency brokerage department. As part of this initiative, Anchorage acquired a software developer for risk management and data analysis Merkle Data.

The new service was called Anchorage Trading, and as noted in the company’s statement, its creation was caused by the need to ensure the safety of investors at all stages of transactions.

As a result, customers get the opportunity to purchase cryptocurrencies by sending them directly to the store, or in the same way to sell assets without resorting to third-party services.

“This is part of a growing trend. From the very beginning, our customers asked us to start a brokerage service, because it is part of one process. Customers buy assets and deposit them in the store, or take them out of the store for sale. If one service provider can offer both options, this makes life easier for investors, ”Anchorage said.

Anchorage custodial solution for large investors was launched in early 2019. The project is the brainchild of Anchor Labs, which was founded by Nathan McCauley and Diogo Monica, former security experts from Docker and Square.

Even before the launch of the service, Anchor Labs raised $ 7 million from a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) and other well-known investors. The Series B financing round, led by payment giant Visa and the venture capital firm Blockchain Capital, was closed in July 2019, and as a result, the company raised about $ 40 million.

A new level of privacy: TRON network is preparing to introduce zk-SNARKs

The TRON Foundation and the TRONZ development team are planning to soon introduce zero-agreement proof technology (zk-SNARKs) into the TRX cryptocurrency and thus achieve an unprecedented level of privacy.

Evidence zk-SNARKs are a key element of the privacy-oriented cryptocurrency Zcash. However, representatives of TRONZ claim that their implementation is “the most efficient and least resource-intensive in the world.” At the same time, the technical features of their approach have not yet been published anywhere.

The TRONZ team said that their solution is ready and tested. Consequently, its launch in the main network will take place soon.

In addition, developers intend to implement the Confidential Computing Protocol (MPC) in Tron so that signatories can safely set transaction parameters.

On the Tron page on GitHub, you can see various repositories directly copied from Zcash source code. Most privacy-related repositories, such as tron-zksnark and zksnark-java-sdk, have not been updated for several months. Thus, it is possible that a significant part of the code is borrowed from Zcash.