Source: Adobe/Aleksei

Crypto Briefs is your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.

Exchanges news

Alon Goren, the Founding partner at blockchain venture studio Draper Goren Holm, said today that he “officially launched the WordPress Cryptocurrency Exchange Plugin.” “Using Totle’s API, I created a way for anyone to add a Decentralized Crypto Exchange to their WordPress website. It’s as simple as installing the plugin and typing into any page or post on your WordPress site,” Goren said.

Gemini said that they have completed a SOC 1 Type 1 examination, which covers the financial operations and customer reporting controls of their exchange and Gemini Custody. This exam was conducted by Deloitte & Touche.

Binance has stated that it will hold an online Russian-language “meetup” with its CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao as it attempts to boost its presence in Russia and the CIS. The event will see the CEO deliver a speech, along with Binance’s head of operations in Russia and CIS. The exchange says the event, to be held on April 30, will also feature a panel discussion on “crypto-economics during the COVID-19 pandemic,” with contributions from Cardano, NEO and other projects.

Blockchain news

Tencent’s CEO Ma Huateng has written a preface to a new Chinese book about blockchain, which was published in full by media outlet the Economic Daily. In the book, named Industrial Blockchain, Ma claims that Tencent has been working on blockchain R&D initiatives since 2014, and that it has already launched blockchain-powered supply chain financing, smart taxation, judicial certificate storage, smart medical care and public welfare-related blockchain initiatives. Ma adds that the company is also working on a blockchain-powered electronic invoicing pilot program.

Blockchain technology and other industry 4.0 advances have been included on an official government list of technologies to be used to manage information flows in China in the future. In a further sign of how seriously Beijing now takes all things blockchain-related, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), formerly the Chinese State Planning Commission, made specific mention of blockchain technology in a recent announcement about the future of the IT industry. Although the NDRC was non-committal when it came to concrete pledges, the commission is believed to be one of the most powerful policy-making bodies in the country.

Chinese bank the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has published what media outlets in the country are calling the commercial banking sector’s first-ever banking blockchain-related white paper. Per media outlet Sina, the paper compares the status of Chinese financial companies’ blockchain-related progress with initiatives conducted by companies based overseas, and claims that there are now 420 registered blockchain-related enterprises in China.

Career news

John Roth left his position of Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer at crypto exchange Bittrex for a position at Fannie Mae – the Federal National Mortgage Association, a United States government-sponsored enterprise and a publicly-traded company the purpose of which is to expand the secondary mortgage market by securitizing mortgage loans in the form of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). According to his LinkedIn page, Roth spent two years and four months at the exchange and is now working as director of legal and regulatory compliance at Fannie Mae.

Crime news

Blockchain analytics specialist Chainalysis tracked just under USD 930,000 worth of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) payments to addresses associated with child sexual abuse material (CSAM) providers in 2019. Per their report, this represents a 32% increase over 2018, which in turn saw a 212% increase over 2017. The company attributes most of the yearly increases to rising adoption of cryptocurrency rather than an increased demand for CSAM, saying that these transactions represent a minuscule fraction of all cryptocurrency activity, but also that they’re a concerning trend for the crypto industry, from both a moral and reputational standpoint.

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