?Islamic Financial Institution Partners With Startup to Develop Interbank Blockchain Tools

Saudi Arabian developmental institution the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB) has partnered with a Tunisian startup to develop interbank blockchain tools, a press release confirmed Nov. 29.
IsDB, which will conduct the project through its private sector subsidiary, the Islamic Corporation for the Development of Private Sector (ICD), wants to improve Islamic financial institutions’ liquidity management and increase overall efficiency.

The institution signed an agreement with Tunis-based iFinTech Solutions, a dedicated outfit which describes itself as an “Investment Advisory Firm focused on alternative financial solutions based on Islamic principles.”

The impetus behind using blockchain for the initiative lies in the relative disadvantage Islamic banks have on the worldwide stage, with institutions restricted from funding options provided by international central banks, Reuters noted Dec. 3.

Ayman Sejiny, CEO of ICD, added in the press release:
“IT will always play an important role for the financial system. We will consistently pursue our strategy of service orientation and help our partners with innovative Sharia compliant FinTech solutions.”

Saudi Arabia has traditionally copied many other jurisdictions in maintaining a risk-averse official stance on cryptocurrencies while championing blockchain.
In September, the country saw its first bank join R3’s Corda platform, a month after regulators urged consumers not to trade cryptoassets.

The debate around the industry’s compatibility with Islam also continues, Turkey adopting a conservative stance which, as Cointelegraph reported, subsequently proved particularly unpopular with one U.K. mosque.

Last week, an Abu Dhabi-based bank also announced it had completed the “first” suduk (a legal instrument also known as “sharia compliant” bonds) transaction with blockchain.

​​Ahead of Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork, The Coin’s Competing Visions Vie for Hash Rate

As the Nov. 15 Bitcoin Cash hard fork draws closer, a majority of hash power favors the Bitcoin Cash SV iteration favored by Australian computer scientist Craig Wright’s nChain, data from Coin Dance

According to Coin Dance, 66–77 percent of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) miners are backing the SV network based on currency hash rates, compared to 18–29 percent backing Bitcoin Cash ABC, which is favored by crypto evangelist Roger Ver.

The data is an estimate based on which mining pools have shown support for the coins after the eventual hard fork.

Conversely, Coin Dance notes that of the 2,246 nodes running on the Bitcoin Cash network, 1,079 are Bitcoin Cash ABC nodes, while 166 are Bitcoin Cash SV nodes.

Notably, neither factor is a total indicator of which camp will come out on top after the hard fork. Launching a Bitcoin node is cheap, and in theory, a user could launch several nodes for under a few hundred dollars. While hash rate is crucial for Proof-of-Work (PoW), if a coin is not accepted by exchanges, the hash would be wasted. At press time, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV are trading on Poloniex at $393 and $107, respectively.

The controversy surrounding the hard fork took a personal turn earlier this week, as arguments from each side’s largest proponents, Ver and Wright, became more strongly worded. Wright — who has previously claimed to be Bitcoin (BTC) inventor Satoshi Nakamoto — allegedly claimed in an email that Ver “hates Bitcoin” and regards him as “an enemy.”

Wright reportedly finished his email by repeating, “I AM Satoshi” and stating “Have a nice life. You will now discover me when pissed off.”

At press time, Bitcoin Cash is down four percent on the day, trading at 508.60, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

​​Azerbaijan Targets Utilities, Justice System for Blockchain, Smart Contracts Use

Azerbaijan is planning to use blockchain and smart contracts in the country’s legal system and housing sector, Central Asian-focused Trend News Agency reported Nov. 2.

Speaking to the publication, chairman of the Azerbaijani Internet Forum Osman Gunduz noted that plans for smart contract introduction in these areas by the country’s justice ministry had “attracted attention” at a meeting held Oct. 30.

“It was announced that in the future, the smart contracts will be introduced in the field of public utilities (water, gas and electricity supply),” he said, adding:

“This refers to the switch-over of existing contracts of citizens for utility services to smart contracts, which will ensure transparency and will allow to suppress the cases of falsification in this area. The citizens themselves will be able to independently control all these processes.”

Gunduz’s comments continue an increasing tendency to preference blockchain as a source of innovation in Azerbaijan.

As Cointelegraph reported last month, the Trend News Agency wrote that an intensive five-year economic plan involving the county’s central bank and IBM would seek to deploy the technology as part of a “digital transformation.”

For the justice ministry, meanwhile, the courts system forms a natural target for improvement, with Gunduz noting that progress had been suboptimal thus far.

“This refers to ‘electronic courts.’ So far, the work in this direction is very weak,” he continued, adding:
“According to my estimates, even more support is needed here.”

The Augur Oracle Platform Is Preparing for Its First Large-Scale Update

On October 5, representatives of the Augur decentralized platform reported on their readiness for the first update of the system. The developers have launched “indicative planned changes” for the deployment of Augur v2, which will be simplified from a technical point of view.

Harvard, Stanford, MIT Endowments All Invest in Crypto Funds

Multiple Ivy League and other prestigious U.S. universities are said to have made investments into “at least” one cryptocurrency fund. The report was published by the technology news site

Citing an unnamed source, the Information reported that the multi-billion endowments of Harvard University, Stanford University, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the University of North Carolina had all invested capital in the crypto space. This is “a sign of the asset class’ growing acceptance among institutional investors,” the source said.

Harvard’s endowment is reported to have hit $39.2 billion during the fiscal year 2018, making it “by far the largest university endowment across the globe.” In the wealthiest U.S. college rankings for the previous fiscal year, both Stanford and MIT’s endowments scored within the top ten – fourth and sixth respectively – with Dartmouth College and the University of North Carolina also appearing in the top twenty five.

As reported last week, fellow Ivy League titan Yale has also just been revealed to be a crypto investor. The college is said to have been one of those that helped to raise $400 million for a new crypto-focused fund created by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang, and Charles Noyes, formerly of stalwart crypto fund Pantera Capital.

With news that the world’s leading academic players are backing the emerging asset class, a host of top international universities have also been contributing to skill acquisition in the space by offering blockchain, smart contract, and cryptocurrency-related courses. Institutions such as Cambridge University have conducted substantial research into the crypto-finance field, and Swiss university Lucerne even accepts Bitcoin payments for tuition fees.

⚙️Coinbase’s Institutional Platform Head Leaves Firm After Five Years

Leading U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase has announced that veteran employee Adam White, head of its institutional platform group, is leaving the firm

Adam White was reportedly Coinbase’s fifth-ever employee, joining “in 2013 when the founders were still working out of a one-bedroom apartment and Bitcoin was trading around $200,” as Bloomberg notes. Prior to his work at Coinbase, he reportedly served in the U.S. Air Force and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.

For his most recent post, White served as Coinbase’s vice president and general manager of the institutional business. As of spring 2018, the exchange has been rolling out a series of products targeted at major institutional clients – including custodian services and an Index Fund – which Coinbase considers could “unlock $10 billion of institutional investor money sitting on the sideline.”

While White reportedly declined to comment on his departure, a company spokesperson told Bloomberg that:

“While we’re extremely sad to see him go, we’re also confident in that group’s ability to keep executing on the vision that he laid out to be the most trusted venue for institutional investors to trade cryptocurrencies.”

CEO Brian Armstrong gave his comment, saying:

“Over the past five years, Adam helped us build our exchange business into the largest U.S.-based crypto-trading venue, and was integral to growing Coinbase’s global presence and scaling our culture to multiple offices.”

Coinbase announced Oct. 3 that Jonathan Kellner, former chief executive officer of Instinet, is joining as a managing director of the exchange’s institutional business.

There has been a wave of new talent joining the San Francisco-based exchange, which recent reports have suggested could soon be valued at $8 billion. This week, Coinbase announced that Chris Dodds, a member of the board at Charles Schwab, would be joining the exchange’s board.

In late September, the company hired former Fannie Mae General Counsel Brian Brooks as its new Chief Legal Officer; former Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft employee Tim Wagner also joined Coinbase as vice president of engineering this summer.

Have the DEXs Fallen before Regulators?

Centralized, decentralized, hybrid, and so on. The choice of crypto exchanges today is broad, but it is not simple. Traditionally, the most obvious difference between CEX and DEX was controllability of the regulator. Centralized sites sought to improve relations with the SEC, sacrificing user comfort, while decentralized defended privacy. A new player, however, the decentralized Everbloom exchange, which has already established relations with several financial regulators, wants to break this balance of forces.

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Major altcoin Ethereum (ETH) is about to see a “trend reversal and rally strongly” up to $1,900 per token by the end of 2019, according to Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, as Bloomberg reported September 27.

In a note to clients of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Lee noted the “overly negative” sentiment on the Ethereum market, which he says will be a basis for its strong rebound in the near future.

In his prediction, Lee has referenced the historical performance of Ethereum, citing that the times when the altcoin “underperformed peers by two standard deviations,” the price trend saw a subsequent reverse.

Lee concluded that Ethereum will reach $1,900 by the end of 2019 — a price point that is at least 40 percent higher than Ethereum’s all-time high of $1,349, recorded on January 13, 2018. The price of Ethereum is $230 at press time, meaning that the altcoin’s price will surge by 726 percent by the end of the year, according to Lee.

In July, Lee reiterated his bull position in regard to major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), claiming that the cryptocurrency could trade between $22,000 and $25,000 by the end of the year. Most recently, the crypto analyst concluded that Bitcoin “could end the year explosively higher,” citing a correlation between BTC and emerging markets.

Launched on July 30, 2015, Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at press time. Ethereum provides an open-sourced blockchain that features smart contracts and a basis for emerging blockchain-powered applications in a number of industries.

After surging to above $1,300 in early 2018, Ethereum has seen a massive decline, with the current price amounting to just around 17 percent of the all-time high. Ripple (XRP) has twice overtaken Ethereum in terms of market capitalization in September.

Major altcoin Ethereum (ETH) is about to see a “trend reversal and rally strongly” up to $1,900 per token by the end of 2019, according to Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, as Bloomberg reported September 27.

In a note to clients of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Lee noted the “overly negative” sentiment on the Ethereum market, which he says will be a basis for its strong rebound in the near future.

In his prediction, Lee has referenced the historical performance of Ethereum, citing that the times when the altcoin “underperformed peers by two standard deviations,” the price trend saw a subsequent reverse.

Lee concluded that Ethereum will reach $1,900 by the end of 2019 — a price point that is at least 40 percent higher than Ethereum’s all-time high of $1,349, recorded on January 13, 2018. The price of Ethereum is $230 at press time, meaning that the altcoin’s price will surge by 726 percent by the end of the year, according to Lee.