This digest is prepared for informative purposes only and does not represent an investment recommendation or investment advice. Please see our full disclaimer at the bottom for more information.

See below all the important happenings this past week in the world of crypto, presented by the experts at Kraken:

1. Kraken: Lisk (LSK) Trading Starts November 19!
2. CoinDesk: An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling
3. Ledger Insights: Major UK Legal Panel Considers Digital Assets are Property
4. Reuters: Fed Says U.S. Financial System Resilient; Flags Low Rates, ‘Stablecoin’ as Risks
5. Libra Association: Five Months and Growing Strong—The Libra Project
6. CoinDesk: Visa R&D Arm Develops a Blockchain System That Could Replace Financial Data Aggregators
7. Hahn Air: Hahn Air Issues First Airline Ticket on the Blockchain
8. CoinDesk: Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust Seeks SEC Reporting Company Status
9. Salesforce: Lamborghini Accelerates Trust and Authenticity with Salesforce
10. CoinDesk: Alibaba Denies ‘Partnership’ With Lolli, Highlighting Crypto Industry Pitfalls
11. The Block: CryptoCompare Updates its Exchange Rankings
12. Reuters: Bank of Japan Conducting Research on Digital Currency—Kuroda
13. Bloomberg Law: IRS Turns Critical Eye Toward Crypto ATMs, Kiosks
14. CoinDesk: FinCEN—Stablecoin Issuers Are Money Transmitters, No Matter What
15. WBD169 – Kraken’s OTC Head Nelson Minier on Running a Bitcoin OTC Desk
16. Elliptic: Bitcoin Money Laundering—How Criminals Use Crypto
17. CNBC: Facebook’s Libra is a Very Different Product Than Bitcoin, Says CFTC Chairman
18. MAS: MAS Consults on Proposed Changes to Regulate Payment Token Derivatives traded on Approved Exchanges
19. CoinDesk: Fed Reserve Evaluating Digital Dollar But Benefits Still Unclear, Says Chairman
20. UNIAN: Bill to Legalize Cryptocurrency Submitted to Ukraine’s Parliament
21. Ars Technica: Password Data for ~2.2M Users of Currency and Gaming Sites Dumped Online
22. Global News: $16M in Funds Allegedly Owed to Crypto-Traders All but Gone, Receiver Says
23. Bloomberg: Bitcoin Mining Company Canaan Raises $90 Million in U.S. IPO
24. Northern Bitcoin AG: Northern Bitcoin Merges with Leading US Competitor
25. House of Reps: Rep. Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Lance Gooden Introduce the Managed Stablecoins are Securities Act of 2019
26. CoinDesk: South Korea Takes Legal Step to Stamp Out Unregistered Crypto Exchanges
27. European Investment Fund (EIF): Why Do We Need to Support Blockchain and AI in Europe?
28. ZDNet Korea: Ministry of Science and Technology to Secure Blockchain R&D Budget of 45 Billion Won
29. Shanghai HQ People’s Bank of China: Increase Supervision and Control to Combat Virtual Currency Transactions
30. Shenzhen Special Zone News: Shenzhen Government Investigating Crypto Exchanges
31. The Block: Franklin Templeton Partners With Crypto Wallet Service Provider to Secure Tokenized Fund

1. Kraken: Lisk (LSK) Trading Starts November 19!
   • Lisk (LSK) will be listed on Kraken starting Nov. 19
   • Trading pairs include LSK/USD, LSK/EUR, LSK/XBT, LSK/ETH
   • Lisk will be available on Kraken, Kraken Pro, and our OTC desk, but won’t be available (yet) on Kraken Futures and for Margin Trading
2. CoinDesk: An Army of Bitcoin Devs Is Battle-Testing Upgrades to Privacy and Scaling
   • Xapo Bitcoin contributor Anthony Towns rallied a review group of ~200 Bitcoin devs to battle-test Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) around Taproot and Schnorr to ensure privacy & scaling solutions are safe, “This is a way to make sure more people understand the proposal as early as possible” 
   • Participants are spending +4hrs a week over the next two months sifting proposals and talking them over in small groups
   • The project description admits that “not many people are familiar with reviewing BIPs in the first place, and there are a lot of concepts involved in the three BIPs for people to get their heads around”; experts will guide devs who have never been through the BIP process and will hold a series of Q&As
   • Square Crypto project manager Steve Lee commented, “People from all over the world have registered, and many names I have not heard of before”
3. Ledger Insights: Major UK Legal Panel Considers Digital Assets are Property
   • Reported by The Times, a legal panel headed by the Chancellor of the High Court, Sir Geoffrey Vos, issued a statement classifying cryptoassets as property in the U.K. since they “have all of the indicia of property,” giving crypto and blockchain a legal standing similar to physical assets, “Novel or distinctive features possessed by some crypto-assets — intangibility, cryptographic authentication, use of a distributed transaction ledger, decentralisation, rule by consensus — do not disqualify them from being property”
   • The statement noted that smart contracts can “create more secure and more efficient ways of implementing — and automating the performance of — contracts between parties,” adding that there is potential in cryptoasset systems to revolutionize agreements with smart contracts, such as mortgages, medical research and property ownership
   • Instead of referring them to as “digital assets,” Sir Geoffrey refers to cryptocurrencies and blockchain tokens as cryptoassets because cryptoassets “directs attention to assets that are recorded on a distributed ledger, and stops short of electronic data and intellectual property”
   • Head of Blockchain and Cryptoassets at law firm Eversheds Sutherland James Burnie commented, “Perhaps the most welcome aspect of the report is as regards the recognition that a private key can be a signature. This reflects the reality of modern-day interactions, where it is not practical to, for example, suggest that documents need a wet ink signature to be validly signed. Indeed, given the weaknesses of the traditional signature in terms of fraudulent copying, a private key that is only under one individual’s control could be better in terms of providing evidence of an actual agreement”
4. Reuters: Fed Says U.S. Financial System Resilient; Flags Low Rates, ‘Stablecoin’ as Risks
   • In its latest bi-yearly review of financial stability, the U.S. Fed flagged high levels of corporate debt, the impact of an extended period of low global interest rates, and emerging stablecoin proposals as potential risks to the financial system
   • Overall financial stability conditions are little changed since its last report in May and “the core of the financial sector appears resilient”
   • While commercial real estate asset values are high, “risk appetite” is in line with “historical norms,” household debt is “at a modest level relative to income,” leverage levels are low among the largest banks, and the use of potentially volatile short-term funding pose only a modest risk to financial institutions
   • The report highlighted record-high levels of corporate debt, which some officials worry could go bad if business slows and worsen any economic downturn, adding that that low global borrowing costs could over time erode bank, insurance company, and pension fund returns, prompting them to take more risks
   • Fed Governor Lael Brainard said, “The current combination of very low credit spreads and high levels of indebtedness among risky nonfinancial corporates, including through leveraged loans, merits heightened vigilance. Over the medium term, the low-for-long environment and the associated incentives to reach for yield and take on additional debt could increase financial vulnerabilities”
   • The report warned that while stablecoins and other innovative FinTech products could serve as a new medium of exchange, the financial system could face “potentially severe consequences” if a broad-based stablecoin is poorly designed or regulated, “The possibility for a stablecoin payment network to quickly achieve global scale introduces important challenges and risks related to financial stability, monetary policy, safeguards against money laundering and terrorist financing, and consumer and investor protection”
   • The Fed contends that stablecoins must meet AML/CFT rules, issuers should fully disclose the terms of their services, should be transparent on how a stablecoin is tied to an underlying asset, and holders’ data privacy must be appropriately maintained
   • In a Fed survey of investors and gov’t contacts, “trade frictions” were cited as the chief economic risk, followed by concerns that looser monetary policy could lead to “excessive risk-taking”
   • Business credit has continued to grow faster than the economy, debt is high relative to both the size of the U.S. economy and the size of corporate balance sheets, and the fastest increases have been in “debt extended to firms with poorer credit profiles”; the Fed concluded that low borrowing costs have made that debt more sustainable, “Broader corporate credit performance remains favorable amid a strong economy, and, with interest rates low by historical standards, debt service costs are at the lower ends of their historical ranges, particularly for risky firms”
5. Libra Association: Five Months and Growing Strong—The Libra Project
   • Facebook’s Libra project, which has been running for “five months and growing strong,” has registered +51,000 txs and devs have developed 34 projects, including 10 wallets, 11 blockchain explorers, 2 IDEs, 1 API, and 11 clients, on its testnet since it was reset in mid-September
   • The Libra Association launched a “pre-mainnet,” a replica of the actual mainnet for testing purposes, which now has 7 nodes in operation and 14 more in process
6. CoinDesk: Visa R&D Arm Develops a Blockchain System That Could Replace Financial Data Aggregators
   • Visa’s R&D arm published a paper describing the development of LucidiTEE, a blockchain system for sharing sensitive personal data by crunching data within a trusted execution environment (TEE) and using history-based policies to ensure that each party receives an output of the computation, “[LucidiTEE is] the first system to enable multiple parties to jointly compute on large-scale private data, while guaranteeing policy-compliance even when the input providers are offline, and fairness to all output recipients”
   • The first application of LucidiTEE is sharing data between customers and financial apps (e.g., Mint or Credit Karma)
   • LucidiTEE could allow banks to share data to train machine learning algorithms for tackling fraud or keep financial data tracking apps from selling anonymized customer data
   • The system was tested on Tendermint and Hyperledger Fabric, both available in the public domain, but it can also be used on a forkless public blockchain using a PoS consensus system (e.g., Ethereum 2.0 or Algorand)
7. Hahn Air: Hahn Air Issues First Airline Ticket on the Blockchain
   • Hahn Air claims to be the first airline company to issue plane tickets on the blockchain
   • Three tickets were sold via open-source travel distribution platform Winding Tree to executives at Hahn Air and Winding Tree
   • Hahn Air Head of Sales Engineering Frederick Nowotny said the goal of the company is to “investigate and monitor the opportunities this technology holds for travel distribution, even if widespread acceptance is still a vision of the future”
8. CoinDesk: Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust Seeks SEC Reporting Company Status
   • Grayscale, which has ~$2.5B in AUM across 10 investment products, is seeking to register its Bitcoin Trust as a SEC reporting company, which would allow the trust’s shares to be registered under the Exchange Act of 1934 if approved
   • The shares are already publicly traded OTC, but reporting company status would improve transparency for shareholders since the trust would have to make public quarterly and annual reports, file 10-Q, 10-K and 8-K reports with the SEC, and provide updates on unscheduled material events and corporate changes
   • Grayscale Managing Director Michael Sonnenshein said that reporting company status could also improve liquidity by reducing the share lockup period from 12 months to 6 months
   • Sonnenshein added that the trust could attract investors who are restricted from participating in any investment vehicles that aren’t SEC-regulated reporting companies, “The fact that it would be an SEC reporting company would perhaps give some of those institutions greater oversight or greater comfort” 
   • Shareholders with +5% of the trust’s shares would be required to file beneficial owner reports, and while the trust has no directors or officers, (if it did) any with +10% of outstanding shares would have to report their txs
   • Sonnenshein noted that the trust was the second-most actively traded security on the OTCQX market last month, “We’re seeing an ever-growing demand for exposure to bitcoin through a security or an access product like we offer”
9. Salesforce: Lamborghini Accelerates Trust and Authenticity with Salesforce
   • Lamborghini will trial Salesforce’s enterprise blockchain to more efficiently authenticate heritage Lamborghini cars on the secondary market, “When a Lamborghini is resold, the vehicle often goes through 800 to 1,000 certification checks that take place at the Lamborghini headquarters in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy”
   • Lamborghini is digitizing its authentication process by creating a trust network among technicians, repair shops, dealerships and more; each vehicle will come with an immutable record of service, including restoration and prior ownership, and because all authentication checks are managed by Lamborghini and its trusted partner network, each car is armed against counterfeiting 
10. CoinDesk: Alibaba Denies ‘Partnership’ With Lolli, Highlighting Crypto Industry Pitfalls
    • Alibaba denied Lolli’s claims that the two firms partnered to offer BTC rewards to U.S.-based Alibaba shoppers, “One of Alibaba.com’s contractors hired a subcontractor who brokered an affiliate marketing program with Lolli. This was done without the knowledge of Alibaba.com. Alibaba.com’s contractor is terminating the relationship with the subcontractor who was working with Lolli. As a result, Lolli should no longer promote or bring traffic to Alibaba.com”
    • Lolli wasn’t completely off-base since there were contractual agreements that appeared to permit the usage of “Alibaba related keywords” in online materials; the startup had already been processing BTC rewards for AliExpress shoppers since May, had finalized paperwork, and even processed payments before the now-controversial announcement
    • An Alibaba spokesperson said that while Lolli saw this as an official partnership, Alibaba viewed it as a private and “transactional” deal mediated by third parties
    • Despite the rewards processed, the spokesperson claimed there was no direct contact between Lolli and Alibaba Group and claimed that Alibaba Group doesn’t work with BTC-related companies 
    • Lolli’s Head of Communications Aubrey Strobel said Alibaba.com trialed Lolli’s services for 24hrs during the campaign, then deactivated “the partnership” after publicity drew attention to the trial, “It seems as though there was a miscommunication on Alibaba’s end and while that’s unfortunate, we look forward to the possibility of working with Alibaba.com again in the future. In the interim, Alibaba Group’s AliExpress is still live on Lolli”
11. The Block: CryptoCompare Updates its Exchange Rankings
    • Crypto data provider CryptoCompare revised the methodology and rankings of its top crypto exchanges; the top ten spot exchanges (out of 164) are Gemini, Paxos’ itBit, Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, Liquid, OKEx, Poloniex, bitFlyer and Bitfinex, respectively
    • 8% of exchanges use a custody provider to store user assets and 4% of exchanges offer third-party insurance in the event of a hack
    • Top-tier exchanges (grades AA-B, or 45/164) accounted for 33% of global volumes (~$78B) this month, while lower-tier exchanges (grades C-E, or 119/164) accounted for 67% of global volumes (~$198B)
    • When asked how Bitwise’s top-10 list of exchanges with “real” volume (i.e., Binance, Bitfinex, Kraken, Bitstamp, Coinbase, BitFlyer, Gemini, itBit, Bittrex, and Poloniex) differ from CryptoCompare’s list, CryptoCompare CEO & Co-Founder Charles Hayter replied, “Bitwise focuses on the BTC/USD and BTC/USDT (Tether) markets”
12. Reuters: Bank of Japan Conducting Research on Digital Currency—Kuroda
    • Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank has no plans to issue digital currencies, but is conducting research in case the need to do so heightens in the future
    • Kuroda added that stablecoins shouldn’t be issued unless there is a sufficient framework in place to ensure governance and risk management, “If stable coins backed by companies with a huge customer base are issued globally, that could have an impact on monetary policy and financial system stability”
13. Bloomberg Law: IRS Turns Critical Eye Toward Crypto ATMs, Kiosks
    • According to IRS Criminal Investigation Chief John Fort, the agency’s criminal investigators are “very” focused on the potential tax issues raised by crypto kiosks/BTC ATMs, and are working with its law enforcement partners to police the illicit activity enabled by the tech, “We’re looking at those, and the ones that may or may not be connected to bank accounts […] In other words, if you can walk in, put cash in and get bitcoin out, obviously we’re interested potentially in the person using the kiosk and what the source of the funds is, but also in the operators of the kiosks”
    • Fort said, “They’re required to abide by the same know-your-customer, anti-money laundering regulations, and we believe some have varying levels of adherence to those regulations,” adding that the agency is “interested in looking at the compliance issues” related to the people that actually operate the kiosks
    • Fort noted that there’s potential for non-compliance in this area given the inherent lack of transparency and visibility, “We haven’t had any public cases filed, but we do have open cases in inventory”
    • The IRS is also shifting focus to global crypto exchanges, “We have concern that as things tighten up here in the U.S., that we are pushing people to foreign exchanges […] We have to focus on that as well”
14. CoinDesk: FinCEN—Stablecoin Issuers Are Money Transmitters, No Matter What
    • FinCEN Director Kenneth Blanco said all stablecoins fall under the regulator’s remit to protect money transmission services, “It does not matter if the stablecoin is backed by a currency, a commodity, or even an algorithm – the rules are the same”
    • Blanco insisted stablecoin administrators must register as a MSB with FinCEN, meaning firms dealing with them must follow federal KYC/AML laws under the Bank Secrecy Act, “FinCEN applies the same technology neutral regulatory framework to any activity that provides the same functionality at the same level or risk, regardless of its label. It is not what you label it, it’s the activity you actually do that counts”
15. *WBD169 – Kraken’s OTC Head Nelson Minier on Running a Bitcoin OTC Desk
    • Discussed topics include:
      • What Wall Street thinks of Bitcoin 
      • Bitcoin volatility
      • Running a 24/7 OTC trading desk
      • Facebook Pay & Libra
16. Elliptic: Bitcoin Money Laundering—How Criminals Use Crypto
    • As of 2019, $829M in BTC has been spent on the dark web (0.5% of all BTC txs), while ~$400M worth of XRP (0.2% of XRP txs) on a variety of Ponzi schemes and darknet activities (mainly scams)
    • Elliptic Chief Scientist & Co-founder Tom Robinson said, “Regardless of the amount, it just demonstrates that there is illicit activity going on in this coin. Therefore, if you are a business handling some of these transactions then you need to be checking for it because you don’t want to be the organization that’s being used to launder those proceeds”
    • There were 5,457 bitcoin ATMs worldwide as of Sept. 1
    • Link to coverage by Reuters & CoinDesk
17. CNBC: Facebook’s Libra is a Very Different Product Than Bitcoin, Says CFTC Chairman
    • CFTC Chair Heath Tarbert said it isn’t yet clear whether Libra will be a security, ”Libra is developing and there are a bunch of unanswered questions – and also the way that it’s structured, linking it directly to a set of national currencies – a very different product”
    • Addressing the perception that the U.S. isn’t the global leader in blockchain regulation, Tarbert said, “I don’t think we’re at the top of the list; we may not be at the bottom. I think the Libra association is a good example of this. They could have chosen any place in the world to set up. They chose Switzerland. My understanding is a second choice was Singapore”
    • The chairman added that he is working to ensure the U.S. is a leader since the cost of falling behind could be high, “I think whoever ends up leading in this technology will end up writing the rules of the road for the rest of the world”
    • Link to coverage by CoinDesk
18. MAS: MAS Consults on Proposed Changes to Regulate Payment Token Derivatives traded on Approved Exchanges
    • The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is proposing to allow payment token derivatives to trade on approved exchanges and to regulate the activity under the Securities and Futures Act, “There is international institutional investor interest, for example from hedge funds and asset managers, in payment tokens such as Bitcoin and Ether” (payment tokens as taxonomically separated from utility & security tokens)
    • In an effort to protect retail investors, MAS will require approved exchanges and licensed intermediaries to include risk warnings tailored to payment token derivatives in informational materials provided to investors, and additional margins will be collected from retail investors to add friction to leveraged trading of payment token derivatives and partially mitigate the risk of losses
    • Singapore now has 4 approved exchanges: Asia Pacific Exchange, ICE Futures Singapore, Singapore Exchange Derivatives Trading and Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited
19. CoinDesk: Fed Reserve Evaluating Digital Dollar But Benefits Still Unclear, Says Chairman
    • Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is aware of the efforts of other nations exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC), and that they continues to “carefully analyze the costs and benefits of pursuing such an initiative in the U.S.”
    • Powell added that a CBDC may not offer advantages to the U.S. that it does to other nations, e.g., some countries have seen a “rapid migration by comsumers [sic] away from cash, while demand for cash in the U.S. remains robust,” and payments in the U.S. are “innovative and competitive” leaving consumers with no shortage of options 
    • The Fed chief said a CBDC would raise “important” questions regarding law, monetary policy, financial stability, regulation and operations, e.g., would a “general purpose” CBDC be classed as legal tender and what are the “rights and obligations” of participants in such a system?
    • The CBDC may also raise concerns about privacy and IT security if the Fed must maintain a record of all txs made with the CBDC
    • Powell concluded that the Fed has “not identified potential material benefits of [a] general purpose CBDC to the implementation of monetary policy relative to our existing tools”
20. UNIAN: Bill to Legalize Cryptocurrency Submitted to Ukraine’s Parliament
    • Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Ministry, the Blockchain4Ukraine inter-factional parliamentary association and the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) organization proposed a bill on how crypto-related income should be taxed in Ukraine, “We are confident that the adoption of this [draft] law will create conditions for the launch of the virtual assets market in line with the legislation of Ukraine, taking into account the balance of interests of entities engaged in transactions with virtual assets and the state, which will get additional tax revenue from such transactions”
    • The bill defines cryptoassets as a “special type of valuable property in the digital form, created, accounted for and disposed of electronically,” such as cryptocurrencies, tokens and other kinds not specified in the draft
    • If the bill is passed income from trading crypto will be calculated as the difference between the purchase price and the amount received at sale with gains declared as “other” type of income, while losses may not be balanced out to reduce the total financial result before taxes; additionally crypto income would generally be taxed at the standard rate of 18%, but there’s an initial 5% rate on personal income from the sale of crypto for a 5yr period from when the bill is approved (assuming it passes), sales of cryptoassets won’t be liable for VAT, and tokenized assets (i.e., digital assets certifying ownership or non-property rights) would be taxed in the same way as the goods or services backing them
    • Link to coverage by CoinDesk
21. Ars Technica: Password Data for ~2.2M Users of Currency and Gaming Sites Dumped Online
    • Troy Hunt, a security researcher behind the data breach index site “Have I Been Pwned,” said that password data and personal information of 2.2M users of crypto wallet GateHub and RuneScape bot provider EpicBot have been dumped online
    • The first haul included personal info for ~1.4M user accounts from GateHub, while the second contained data for ~800,000 accounts on EpicBot
    • The stolen info includes registered email addresses, passwords, 2FA keys, mnemonic phrases, and wallet hashes, however GateHub officials said the wallet hashes were not accessed
22. Global News: $16M in Funds Allegedly Owed to Crypto-Traders All but Gone, Receiver Says
    • The Einstein crypto exchange was shut down by the British Columbia Securities Commission  (BCSC) on Nov. 1 amid allegations that it owes clients $16M, but it has since been revealed that the exchange only has ~$45,000 in “hard assets” remaining ($15k in crypto and $30k in cash), “This deficit stems for a series of credit card and bank draft frauds that the Einstein Group suffered, and that the majority of this loss is made up of cryptocurrency assets”
    • Grant Thornton was appointed as the receiver to seize Einstein’s assets and return the missing funds to clients
    • The Einstein Group informed the receiver that it believes it owes customers $8-$10M, not the alleged $16M
    • The receiver has issued notices to numerous banks in Canada and the U.S., “as well as Cannacord Genuity in Vancouver […] where Gokturk and/or Einstein Group may have deposits or investments”
    • The receiver also seized shares in various private companies and is investigating whether Gokturk or others have “beneficial” interests in various accounts
    • The company had ~200,000 clients worldwide, and the receiver has hitherto received inquiries from 200-300 customer
23. Bloomberg: Bitcoin Mining Company Canaan Raises $90 Million in U.S. IPO
    • Canaan Inc. raised $90M after pricing its U.S. IPO at $9 per share, the bottom of its marketed $9-$11 range ($90-$110M at 10M American depository shares)
    • The offering was led by Citigroup Inc., China Renaissance Holdings Ltd. and CMB International Capital Ltd
    • 28 companies based in China or Hong Kong raised $3.25B in U.S. IPOs this year, ~50% that from the same period in 2018
    • This year’s listings have fallen -6.6% on a weighted-average basis, however there was a +6.5% overall increase for U.S. listings and a +14% increase in the S&P/BNY Mellon China ADR Index
24. Northern Bitcoin AG: Northern Bitcoin Merges with Leading US Competitor
    • Data center developer Whinstone US signed a merger with Northern Bitcoin AG to launch a data mining farm in Texas that will begin with a 300MW capacity in 1Q2020 and expand to 1GB by 4Q, costing ~$150M in total to build and furnish
    • The first customers are two stock-listed corporations that will use a significant portion of the capacity for BTC mining, although the infrastructure can also be used for video rendering and AI applications in the future
    • This facility trumps the size of Bitmain’s Texas-based BTC mine, which it claims will be the largest BTC mine once it fulfills its plans to expand to a maximum capacity of 300MW
25. House of Reps: Rep. Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Lance Gooden Introduce the Managed Stablecoins are Securities Act of 2019
    • Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) and Congressman Lance Gooden (R-TX) introduced the bill Managed Stablecoins are Securities Act of 2019, which clarifies that “managed stablecoins,” such as Facebook’s Libra, are securities under the Security Exchange Act of 1934 and thus regulated by the SEC
    • Garcia said, “Bringing clarity to the regulatory structure of these digital assets protects consumers and ensures proper government oversight going forward”
    • Gooden added, “In what are called ‘managed stablecoins’, we have trusted brands marketing digital assets to consumers as secure and stable […] Everyday investors need to know they can trust the issuers behind their financial assets. This bill would bring them the security they deserve by applying the laws we use to regulate financial securities to this new breed of digital currencies”
26. CoinDesk: South Korea Takes Legal Step to Stamp Out Unregistered Crypto Exchanges
    • In an effort to align with FATF’s AML guidance, the South Korean gov’t amended the developing Special Financial Transactions Information Act to force virtual asset exchanges to register with the country’s FSC, charge unregistered exchanges with up to 5yrs in prison or a fine up to $42,460, require crypto exchanges to have “real name virtual bank accounts,” (i.e., sub accounts for users within an exchange’s primary account)
    • Easing legislation, the amendment also proposes a grace period for reapplication of certification of an exchange’s InfoSec management system should certification fail initially
    • The act is allegedly expected to be passed, but it may see more changes after review from other gov’t bodies
27. European Investment Fund (EIF): Why Do We Need to Support Blockchain and AI in Europe?
    • The EIF, an EU agency set up to indirectly fund SMEs, and the European Commission jointly setup a dedicated investment scheme that will make €100M (+$110M) available to investors that support AI and blockchain projects in an effort to prevent the EU from falling behind nations like the U.S. and China, “Western Europe is expected to remain the second-largest region in the world for blockchain spending in 2019 ($674m), coming after the United States ($1.1bn), but ahead of China ($319 m), according to the International Data Corporation” (much of the funding is directed at the research and proof-of-concepts)
    • The EIF said private investors are now expected to bring up to €300M (~$331M) into the fund, while the total could rise further from next year with national promotional banks being able to co-invest under the scheme; Sifted reported that the fund could ultimately raise up to €2B ($2.2B) under the InvestEU Programme
    • The scheme, which will start from 2020, is also aimed to address the lack of investment in developing “larger scale projects” in the EU, “Investing in a portfolio of innovative AI and blockchain companies will help develop a dynamic EU-wide investors community on AI and blockchain. By involving national promotional banks, we can scale up the volume of investments at a national level” 
    • Link to coverage by CoinDesk
28. ZDNet Korea: Ministry of Science and Technology to Secure Blockchain R&D Budget of 45 Billion Won
    • South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Technology plans to invest 450B won (~$382M) in blockchain R&D over a period of 6yrs from 2021 to 2026
    • Anonymous gov’t officials said the goal of the initiative is to create a foundation for a blockchain-powered data economy, “The data trust problem must be solved in order for the data economy to become active. A blockchain can create a trust base for data sharing […] The direction of the new blockchain R & D business is to develop technology that will actually help (develop the national economy) rather than become a leading blockchain country”
    • The ministry researches various blockchain areas, including smart contract reliability, interoperability among blockchains, scalability and consensus algorithms
    • Link to coverage by The Block
29. Shanghai HQ People’s Bank of China: Increase Supervision and Control to Combat Virtual Currency Transactions
    • Shanghai HQ of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced that it will crack down on crypto exchanges in the city
    • The central bank will “adopt monitoring measures such as interviews, inspections, and bans on the monitored entities involved in virtual currency activities to resolve related risks in a timely manner”
    • The PBoC said crypto speculation is rising amidst recent promotion of blockchain in China, adding that investors shouldn’t mix blockchain with cryptocurrencies, “There are multiple risks in virtual currency issuance financing and trading, including false asset risk, business failure risk, investment speculation risk, etc. Investors should enhance their risk prevention awareness and beware of being fooled. Being cheated”
30. Shenzhen Special Zone News: Shenzhen Government Investigating Crypto Exchanges
    • In response to an alleged resurgence of crypto speculation and related illegal activities in China following the president’s blockchain endorsement, the Shenzhen gov’t is investigating crypto exchanges in Shenzhen and has already identified 39 exchanges to inspect, “The operation will focus on three activities: first, providing virtual currency trading services or opening virtual currency trading places in China; second, providing service channels for overseas virtual currency trading places, including services such as drainage and agency trading; In the name of the sale of tokens, raise funds for investors or virtual currency such as Bitcoin and Ethereum”
    • The Shenzhen branch of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) will join the finance bureau for investigation, among other local authorities
    • The authorities have been asked to shut down businesses that are found violating rules and to complete the inspection by Nov. 25
    • Link to coverage by The Block
31. The Block: Franklin Templeton Partners With Crypto Wallet Service Provider to Secure Tokenized Fund
    • Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment firm with +$700B AUM that recently proposed to tokenize its new money market fund on Stellar, will use Curv’s crypto wallet solutions to secure these tokenized shares
    • The fund will invest +99.5% of its AUM in gov’t securities, cash, and repo agreements, however, it won’t invest in crypto
    • Curv’s multi-party computation protocols will secure these tokens while retaining the ability to access them instantly 
    • Franklin Templeton EVP Roger Bayston said, “In comparison to traditional tech stacks evaluated, Curv’s cryptography changes what is possible in digital asset custody, delivering to our clients instant availability and total autonomy over their investments”
    • Curv’s crypto wallet solution allows users to take custody of their own digital assets while eliminating the need for private keys