New FATF Guidance, Capital Markets to Integrate Crypto and Blockchain

The CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) confirmed the approval of LedgerX’s registration as a designated contract market as a part of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations. Based on the reports, from July, LedgerX will allow consumers primarily located in the U.S. or Singapore to trade on its bitcoin derivatives exchange. As a Designated Contract Market (DCM), LedgerX will offer Bitcoin derivatives contracts, options, and futures to retailers of any size. LedgerX was initially registered with the CFTC derivatives clearing organization and as a swap execution facility. Following the events, these exchanges are seeing record trading volumes in the market driven mainly by institutional traders.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule change that would allow Wilshire Phoenix Funds to list shares of an exchange-traded fund backed by Treasury bills and Bitcoin primarily on the NYSE Arca exchange. Based on the reports, a fund manager will manage the trust and invest focusing mainly on short-term U.S. Treasury securities and bitcoin. The SEC is monitoring public comments on the rule change proposition and has 45-90 days from official publication in the Federal Register to decide the required action to be taken.

In another turn of Events, Bitcoin IRA, in partnership with BitGo Trust, has launched the first self-directed cryptocurrency Individual Retirement Account on Tuesday. As per Bitcoin IRA’s CEO, the company exceeds regulators’ requirements for asset capitalization and insurance. The retirement account claims to meet $100 million in insurance protection, a 30% percent reduction on wallet fees and 12 different digital assets for customers to diversify their holdings.

Other than this, A Chicago-based financial services firm agreed to transfer its private equity asset blockchain platform to a US-based publicly traded corporate services firm. The solution will be accessible to all private equity funds domiciled in Guernsey and Delaware. The corporate services firm will develop the platform as an industrywide private equity blockchain solution that provides data and analytics tools for the complex private equity lifecycle.

BlockState, a Swiss-based security token firm is planning to issue six ERC20 tokens backed by Ethereum public blockchain, on the private R3 Corda blockchain. The tokens are structured as part of Ethereum smart contract ensuring its security, and “mirrored” versions of the tokens will run on Corda. This is similar to that of global depository receipts, where a certificate representing ownership of the shares are traded in one country and shares of a company are held in custody in one country. The transfer or move will take place on R3’s network that is currently in development for the Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX), the world’s 13th-largest stock exchange.Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Steemit, and join our Telegram channel for the latest blockchain and cryptocurrency news