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BackAnother week, another round of crypto news, CoinMetro updates, live Q&A, and Kevin Explains Crypto term. Back due to popular demand, here’s a synopsis of the major points covered last Friday by CoinMetro CEO, Kevin Murcko.
Alternatively, you can watch the full episode on YouTube here.
Latest CoinMetro Developments
Kevin just returned from a trip to Montenegro, where he moderated and sat on panels at the Futurama summit. While there he met with the president of CMA (Capital Market Authority), who offered to help develop a regulatory sandbox for CoinMetro. This will allow us to operate an MTF and CSD under the CoinMetro brand, creating the first and only legitimate STO market in the world!
In other news, Kevin acquired an IBAN last Friday which will allow CoinMetro to accept 33 different currencies (including USD, GBP, and more) by the end of July. You can expect manual transactions in the next 2 weeks, followed by more automation like virtual IBANs over the next 6-8 weeks, and puts CoinMetro on the path to a real multi-currency debit card.
Crypto Market News Highlights
1. “France creates G-7 Cryptocurrency Taskforce as Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra unsettles governments.” Read it here.
They’re going to use it to monetize different sections/pieces of their ecosystem, and they’re also going to bring on players in other payment services so that they can basically create one large payment gateway. That’s where they’re going to run into problems, for the most part, the FTC in the US will do an investigation, governments around the world that don’t understand what they are doing think that they are trying to create a sovereign currency.
They are not creating a currency, at all, they are simply creating a payment vehicle, a payment gateway, that will allow them to move quickly, and basically a remittance network, all these different nodes are basically going to be points/places that people can spend/remit, and settle this little token that they are creating.
2. “Tether treasury prints 100 million USDT; large inflow of stable coins into exchanges follow suit” Read it here.
Let me put this into perspective for you, most people got into crypto because they wanted to get away from the centralized power that governments have to create currency, and then we have all these people pouring money into a centralized company that printed a centralized token, backed by the same fiat money that they were trying to run away from in the beginning.
This reeks of something shady, that’s for sure, they’re quantity easing basically on the blockchain, so we’ll see how this pans out.
3. “FED rate cuts will likely boost Bitcoin says Deutsche Bank” Read it here.
They say this after Bitcoin rises a bit, obviously, to make themselves in hindsight look awesome. I don’t think rate cuts do anything to push people into crypto yet, I think this is just somebody trying to get a headline.
CoinMetro Funding Updates
The CEO of a very large company in the UK, in the Easyjet family, arrived in Tallinn last Friday but pushed their meeting with Kevin to the first week of July. There are also possible fundraising options coming in from a partner in Poland.
Some contacts made in Montenegro are looking to push some money towards CoinMetro. Other entities and individuals are also on the list, so CoinMetro is closing in on a few fronts and every week that passes we get closer and closer to securing our next round of funding.
Ask Me Anything (AMA) Questions
Questions from the Live Q&A
Q: When will CoinMetro launch Agrello/Voice-login?
A: It will happen around the end of July.
Q: What’s the plan for XCM/XRP pairing?
A: Not yet, pushed out some pairings that were asked for by the community, and not really seeing the volume on them. If seeing more and more volume on XRP and start seeing people that are buying XRP or coming in with XRP that come in to exchange it to buy XCM, then it will definitely be looked at.
Q: How is the new website going?
A: The new website is going well, will probably happen in the month of July, likely in the first half of July.
Q: What’s the status on API?
A: FIX is nearly ready, it’s just a matter of documentation which will likely be coming in July. QuickFIX which is basically used by main institutions is 100% open source and everybody uses it. Not much reason for a REST API (would definitely be HTTPS if one is released) but we may release one if enough people ask.
Q: When will we see Margin Posting?
A: Working on the GUI right now as well as a tech-side integration. Still around 5-8 weeks for delivery.
Q: Will we see NEO/GAS anytime soon?
A: If enough people want to see NEO, then we would be okay to list it. It would have to pass via LHV but we’d probably be able to get that done.
Q: What’s the ETA on the first STO?
A: A few companies, securities, approached us for our IEO-like platform. That’s probably where we’ll start, though we will make an announcement when we get the official OK from Montenegro, which I expect to happen in 2-4 weeks. It will probably take a few weeks after that for us to go through vetting processes.
Q: Will XCM be listed on other exchanges?
A: Without stability on at least one exchange with a stable price it doesn’t make sense. There is no price discovery mechanism in crypto, so that means if you go to an environment with many traders and your asset isn’t yet well known you run the risk that it will be shorted rather than purchased, even if at the native exchange it’s being purchased.
Also, if XCM is listed on multiple exchanges and has multiple use cases pushed by CoinMetro we would need an e-money license. Right now is not the right time, but that doesn’t mean it will never happen.
Q: Can competitors copy the sandbox once CoinMetro has laid the groundwork?
A: While CoinMetro is initially conducting the sandbox for the MTF and for CSD, we will own it, which means no, they won’t be able to come into Montenegro. Can they go somewhere else and try to do the same thing? Sure, they can already do that, and they haven’t.
The key advantage here is that it’s a copy of MiFID II, which means we can show the EU authorities that we did this test. It’s in Montenegro, which is not part of the European Union, but they followed the MiFID II directive when creating this MTF license structure, which we will follow to the letter as well as the CSDR. This will allow us to petition even here in Estonia, who is looking at creating a sandbox.
Q: When can we expect TAM?
A: Before August; it will have a slightly different name, but the premise will be nearly identical. Some really good algo-trading companies and manual traders that are in our network are ready to roll once we make this service live. This is our main focus right now.
Q: What makes CoinMetro unique?
A: Many things CoinMetro does within its own ecosystem is unique. Margin trading isn’t unique, but unique in terms of how we do our business. TAM is still unique. Especially under the guise of regulation.
Q: When will leverage be increased?
A: It’s too early to do that, we are still fine-tuning things here and there and I want to do it soon, but want to make sure it’s stable. We have to see the system itself functioning as volatility rolls in, and ensure that we don’t see people running into negative balances and things like that. Keeping it low key right now is crucial, but the goal is to raise it, that’s for sure.
Q: What are the priorities once CoinMetro lands a big ticket investment?
A: Hiring support, compliance, marketing, then pushing marketing around products we already have, but not a substantial amount. Pushing out products and pushing heavy on the marketing as those products roll out, especially unique products that no one else has or unique services or unique news like 33 fiat currencies in one single virtual IBAN connected to a debit card.
Q: What happened to the piggy bank?
A: Still there in the works. It’s coming back, just getting a bit of refinement (the new version looks great).
Questions from Reddit
Q: What’s the status on virtual IBANs?
A: Sent an email about this to LHV, we also have a secondary provider and that will probably go live in July.
“Kevin Explains Crypto” Term: Nonce
A nonce word is basically an occasionalism, meaning it’s used for a very specific purpose, and only a very small piece of the population understands what it means. When it comes to cryptology, a nonce is a randomized set of digits used to verify that data that’s being submitted has only been submitted once. Learn more about what a nonce is here.
Listen to Last Week’s TWiC on the Go
Get the complete scoop by tuning in to our audio version of last week’s TWiC on SoundCloud. Happy listening!
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Well, that’s it for this week’s AMA with CoinMetro Founder Kevin Murcko! Please join us next week on CoinMetro’s Facebook and YouTube Channels at 14:00 UTC for another round and make sure you submit your questions to the CoinMetro Subreddit!
As always, we’re available to answer any questions you may have on our Telegram Group 24/7.