Coinbase Set to Launch Insurance Subsidiary With Aon

Coinbase Set to Launch Insurance Subsidiary With Aon

Coinbase Set to Launch Insurance Subsidiary With Aon
                                  Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is teaming up with insurance provider Aon to launch a captive insurance subsidiary that would solely serve the exchange.

Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is preparing to launch

its own insurance company, according to a report from CoinDesk. The exchange is reportedly in advanced talks with insurance giant Aon to launch a captive insurance subsidiary, an insurance company solely owned by the firm being insured. Captives are maintained by firms to reduce insurance costs and improve access to reinsurance products.

A partnership such as this could be a solution to the reported shortage of insurance options that exists for cryptocurrency exchanges. Exchanges often have to self-insure by setting money aside for rainy days. Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) is a popular example. SAFU is an emergency insurance fund set aside by the exchange in case of potential loss of funds due to security breaches. Huobi and Kraken have emergency funds too. However, given the lack of proper structure and regulation, the companies can access the funds and use them for other purposes. This could go on to decrease available coverage in the long run. 

A captive insurance model like this could bring a stable, regulated and segregated infrastructure to the crypto insurance sub-industry. “If a firm is self-insuring, they’ve accepted responsibility for funding 100% of any loss,” Aon’s managing director, Jacqueline Quintal, said, per CoinDesk. “Captives, in comparison, provide a means through which firms can access insurance or reinsurance, while also pre-funding self-insured loss amounts in a more formal way than simply setting aside capital.”Earlier this year, Coinbase shared details of its $255 million insurance coverage for its hot wallets, which was purchased from Aon.

Article Produced By
Jimmy Aki

Jimmy has been following the development of blockchain for several years, and he is optimistic about its potential to democratize the financial system.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/coinbase-set-to-launch-insurance-subsidiary-with-aon

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Bibox Europe Gives Coinbase Competition; Offers Fiat On-Ramp for Traditional Investors After Equity Backing from Top Bank

Bibox Europe Gives Coinbase Competition; Offers Fiat On-Ramp for Traditional Investors After Equity Backing from Top Bank

Bibox Europe (Bibox EU) secured full regulatory compliance, allowing it to offer cryptocurrency offerings linked to the world of traditional finance.

                                

Bibox EU is making forays into linking digital assets

with the world of traditional finance. The market operator has secured full regulatory compliance, making it capable of offering reliable fiat-to-crypto services for retail and

institutional investors.

“Bibox EU allows easier access to digital assets by supporting fiat currency to crypto brokerage service and provides a reliable platform for all investors to build their own crypto portfolio. And we are regulated and compliant with Swiss banks and insurance companies having its back”, Bibox’s cofounder Aries Wang said.

In addition to the success of setting up a fiat gateway, Bibox EU has secured a funding round, through an equity investment coming from one of the top 10 banks in the world. Additionally, Bibox EU has access to the service of multiple Swiss banks, allowing it to support transactions within the regulatory framework.

Bibox thus follows the latest developments in the cryptocurrency space, where fiat access is becoming more important. The approach of Bibox EU is expanding on the moves of market operators like Coinbase to offer more chances for direct purchases of digital assets. Combining compliance and banking access has allowed Coinbase to expand its services to an additional 85 countries, and more than 100 in total. Coinbase has achieved this through the fully compliant USD Coin (USDC). Bibox EU offers another unique approach for a fiat on-ramp, exclusively accessible to 27 member-countries of the European Union and additional compliant states.

Bibox EU has four major directions of development in building the full fiat gateway for traditional finance investors. The first direction is getting access to digital assets through the most widely used fiat currencies – US Dollar, Euro, British Pound, and Swiss Franc. Secondly, Bibox EU offers fully compliant custodian services, offering greater ease and security for cryptocurrency storage. Bibox EU is under insurance coverage, securing all funds and transactions on the platform. Furthermore, the financial service provider is also aiming to add credit card services, as well as launching OTC trading desk to provide crypto brokerage.

Thus, Bibox EU sets out to be a blockchain financial service company, recognized by leading banking partners. The market operator has reached out to hedge funds, asset management firms and family offices, with the goal of creating the Bibox Finance Ecology. The exchange puts high importance on compliance and security, moving beyond the unregulated phase of the crypto-to-crypto markets. The European Union legislation also offers a clear framework for compliance and is one of the regions hosting some of the best-performing fiat-to-crypto and OTC services. Additionally, Bibox works as an innovative, highly liquid crypto-to-crypto exchange, offering its own BIX native token for trading incentives. The Bibox Token (BIX) is trading at $0.33, up more than 250% since the start of 2019.

Article Produced By
Christine Masters

Business writer with a knack for bubbles and market madness. Has tracked it all: the financial crisis of 2008 and the implosion of Lehman Brothers; bank bailouts and peak gold and silver, penny stocks…and now Christine has moved to cryptocurrencies for fresh stories.

https://cryptovest.com/news/bibox-europe-gives-coinbase-competition-offers-fiat-on-ramp-for-traditional-investors-after-equity-backing-from-top-bank/

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Coinbase Informs 13K Affected Customers Of Imminent Data Handover To IRS

Coinbase Informs 13K Affected Customers Of Imminent Data Handover To IRS

Coinbase Informs 13K Affected Customers Of Imminent Data Handover To IRS

 

US-based cryptocurrency exchange and wallet service Coinbase sent an official notice Friday, Feb. 23 to approximately 13,000 of its customers whose information it is legally required to turn over to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

 

The IRS had initially asked Coinbase in July 2017 to hand over even more detailed information on every one of its then over 500,000 users in an attempt catch those cheating on their taxes. However, another court order in Nov. 2017 reduced this number to around 14,000 “high-transacting” users, which the platform now reports as 13,000, in what Coinbase calls a “partial, but still significant, victory for Coinbase and its customers.”

 

On Friday, Coinbase told the around 13,000 affected customers that the company would be providing their taxpayer ID, name, birth date, address, and historical transaction records from 2013-2015 to the IRS within 21 days.

 

Coinbase’s letter to these customers encourages them “to seek legal advice from an attorney promptly” if they have any questions. Their website also states that concerns may also be addressed on Coinbase’s Taxes FAQ.

 

The ongoing legal battle between Coinbase and the US government dates back to November, 2016, when the IRS filed a “John Doe summons” in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

 

On Feb. 13, personal finance service Credit Karma released data showing that only 0.04 percent of their customers had reported cryptocurrencies on their federal tax returns so far this tax season.

 

 

 

Author Molly Jane Zuckerman

 

Posted by David Ogden Entrepreneur
David Ogden Cryptocurrency Entrepreneur

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

Prices Aside, Crypto’s Tech Stack Is Steadily Improving

Prices Aside, Crypto's Tech Stack Is Steadily Improving

Prices Aside, Crypto's Tech Stack Is Steadily Improving

Rachel Rose O'Leary and Alyssa Hertig

Feb 11, 2018 at 14:45 UTC

 

A look at the headlines of late may leave you with a familiar conclusion – with all the ups and downs in the market, it's just too early to take crypto seriously.

And it's true, despite the best efforts of even the industry's most notable developers, the world's largest cryptocurrencies remain not just volatile, but difficult (and risky) to use, at least in a way that their creators' intended.

Still, heading into 2018, enthusiasts the world over are hard at work on improvements.

As such, there's optimism advances could start to compound, creating a user experience that finally starts to transcend the issues – namely, the high fees and long wait times – users of most blockchains have become all too accustomed to.

In fact, in the year ahead, blockchain users could see exciting new features and scientific firsts that just might help push the industry closer to that vision:

 

1. Off-chain channels

What if it was possible for blockchain-based transactions to avoid using the blockchain at all?

That's the big idea behind off-blockchain payment channels, an idea that harkens back to 2015, but whose time may have finally come this year. Most associated with Bitcoin's Lightning Network, the idea is actually more general than this specific instance.

Essentially, off-blockchain payment channels would allow two people using any one cryptocurrency to send small payments back and forth, settling to the blockchain (and dealing with its high fees and slow transaction times) only when absolutely necessary.

Due to the potential impact, the idea is catching on – ethereum developers, while they often don't see eye-to-eye with their bitcoin peers, are at work on the same type of solution.

But there's more than just a rivalry at play, there's also reason to believe 2018 might be different in that actual live transactions could be sent in significant numbers.

The developers behind bitcoin's Lightning Network have declared the technology almost ready based on successful tests. Meanwhile, ethereum's developers have also unveiled successful tests for their versions of the concept, Raiden Network, with a more ambitious version, Plasma, potentially around the corner.

 

2. Real-live staking

As their popularity grows, attention is also being paid to the electricity required to sustain cryptocurrencies.

While the relevant data is difficult to pin down, proof-of-work, the consensus protocol that underlies bitcoin mining, is best defined as an energy-intensive process. As such, there are concerns about its electricity use could have large-scale environmental effects.

This is leading to new research on an idea from 2011. Called proof-of-stake, or "consensus by vote," the idea has been implemented, however, not at the scale intended by ethereum.

As such, it's long-awaited project Casper is likely to be under significant scrutiny this coming year, and early versions are beginning to see the light.

In a testnet released on New Year's Eve, one variation of Casper, was claimed to be functional. Karl Floersch, a leading developer behind the technology, told CoinDesk at the time that the code is working with "no hiccups."

Work remains to adapt this early version of Casper across the different ethereum clients, but ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has said he expects the technology will be tested alongside proof-of-work sometime in the future.

 

3. Privacy advances

Privacy has been a somewhat neglected promise in the majority of blockchains, but it's nonetheless an issue that could see improvement this year.

Most notable is the advances in zero-knowledge proofs, what Buterin has called "the single most under-hyped thing in cryptography right now," are getting cheaper and easier to deploy.

A form of cryptography that hides information without risking validity, it's already been adapted to a small degree into ethereum, which could lead to a wave of startups experimenting with private smart contracts in novel and unexpected ways.

Plus, in a white paper published earlier this month, a system for achieving zero-knowledge without compromising trust – a point of contention in some earlier iterations of the tech – was released, an update which could have exciting consequences.

And as existing tech matures, privacy-centric cryptocurrencies such as monero and zcash are also set to improve.

In preparation for an upgrade, zcash has been steadily reinforcing its security, while monero is stepping up to implement "bulletproofs," a feature that could cut fees by 80 percent.

 

4. Decentralized exchanges

No, this isn't just a new version of Coinbase or Kraken.

As the industry's largest exchanges struggle to cope with the influx of new adopters, an increasing number of projects are at work developing something called a decentralized exchange. The term denotes not just a new browser-based exchange, but rather a type of software users can use to swap one cryptocurrency with another without a central entity.

2017 saw a flood of new decentralized exchange projects, such as ShapeShift's Prism, 0x, OmiseGo, Kyber Network, and many others.

Expect those efforts to accelerate this year.

So far, hardware wallet Ledger has already integrated with decentralized exchange Radar Relay, allowing users to trustlessly exchange tokens based on ethereum.

While functionality is limited (it's only supported by a single wallet and only ethereum-based tokens can be sent), many in the industry see it as a glimpse into the future of not just cryptocurrency exchanges, but the technology itself.

 

Posted By David Ogden Entrepreneur
David ogden Cryptocurrency entrepreneur

David https://markethive.com/david-ogden

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