Home / Trend News /Circle’s Cryptocurrency OTC Desk Swapped More Than $24 Billion In 2018

Circle’s Cryptocurrency OTC Desk Swapped More Than $24 Billion In 2018

05 Jan 2019

Following the ruling by Chile’s supreme court that a bank can legally close accounts of a crypto exchange, the country’s Court of Defense of Free Competition reaffirmed that banks must reopen crypto exchanges’ accounts. The Chilean antitrust court continues to hear the case alleging that banks exploit their dominant position to keep crypto exchanges off the market.

Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Chile’s Antitrust Court Orders Banks to Reopen Crypto Exchange AccountsChile’s Court of Defense of Free Competition (TDLC) rejected banks’ request on Wednesday to vacate its injunction that forced them to keep accounts of crypto exchanges open. Their request was “based on the ruling of the supreme court, issued in early December, which determined that the closure of an account of [crypto exchange] Orionx by Bancoestado was legal,” La Tercera publication wrote. Dario Financiero news outlet elaborated:

The TDLC noted in its resolution that the ruling of the country’s highest court ‘does not constitute a new precedent that will change the resolution.’

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Chile’s Antitrust Court Orders Banks to Reopen Crypto Exchange AccountsMartín Jofré, the CEO of crypto exchange Criptomkt, commented after the ruling: “For us, it is a success since we need bank accounts to operate in the market. In any case, we always rely on Chilean institutions, especially on the TDLC for its role as defender of free competition.”

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Chile’s Antitrust Court Orders Banks to Reopen Crypto Exchange AccountsCryptocurrency exchanges filed a lawsuit with the TDLC against 10 major banks in Chile last year, accusing them of abusing their dominant position after they unilaterally decided to close their accounts. The TDLC then ordered banks to reopen accounts of the exchanges for the duration of the trial.

Bancoestado and Itau took the case to the country’s supreme court which subsequently ruled that the banks can legally close accounts of a crypto exchange. With the supreme court’s validation, the two banks asked the TDLC to cancel its order for them to reopen accounts of the exchanges.

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Chile’s Antitrust Court Orders Banks to Reopen Crypto Exchange Accounts“The resolution of the court [TDLC] seems completely legally sound to us,” lawyer Samuel Cañas, representing local crypto exchange Buda.com, was quoted by Dario Financiero as saying after the TDLC ruled on Wednesday.

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Chile’s Antitrust Court Orders Banks to Reopen Crypto Exchange Accounts“On the other hand, the issuance of judgments such as that of the supreme court” against crypto exchanges “should not have legal relevance on the decisions that the Tribunal [Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia, TDLC]” makes on the subject of free competition, therefore it should be “inadmissible,” he added.

Mario Bravo, legal advisor to Cryptomkt, said that “the witnesses that we have cited, that is, the finance minister, the economy minister, the president of the central bank, the superintendents of banks, [and] the director of the UAF [Unidad De Analisis Financiero]” will give their testimonies to the TDLC in February. He concluded:

We believe that we will be able to prove that the banks illegitimately expel Buda and Cryptomkt from the market because they are companies that compete with them.

What do you think of the TDLC’s decision? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, TDLC, Cryptomkt, and Buda.com.

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The Romanian judiciary has decided to hand over to U.S. authorities the founder and CEO of Coinflux, one of the country’s cryptocurrency exchanges. Vlad Nistor has been accused of a number of crimes including the laundering of illicitly obtained funds through his digital asset trading platform.

Also read: Russians See Growing Number of Options to Buy Cryptocurrencies

Owner of Romanian Exchange Coinflux to Be Extradited to the USVlad Nistor was arrested in December by Romanian law enforcement officials and Secret Service agents in Cluj, where his crypto business is based. He was released soon after that by the Bucharest Court of Appeal but not allowed to leave the city. The 29-year-old entrepreneur submitted an appeal against the U.S. extradition request. On Dec. 20, the court rejected his objections.

According to local media, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Romania’s supreme judicial authority, has upheld the decision by the lower instance and ordered Nistor’s transfer to U.S. custody. Nistor is wanted for his participation in crimes committed by other Romanian nationals. Using Coinflux, the group allegedly laundered money from their criminal activities, including defrauding U.S. citizens.

Owner of Romanian Exchange Coinflux to Be Extradited to the US

Last month, the businessman’s lawyer Anatol Pânzaru protested against the extradition and argued that the requirements of the agreement on judicial cooperation between Romania and the United States have not been met. He thinks Nistor is wrongly accused of crimes committed in the U.S., and not in Romania as the American side claims, in which he was not directly involved.

Pânzaru explained that the scammers have initially exchanged their proceeds to bitcoin on U.S. territory and that’s where the actual money laundering occurred. Then other people converted the coins back to fiat currency on Nistor’s exchange in Romania. The lawyer insists his client had no way of knowing these were illicit funds.

In his statement in court, Vlad Nistor said he established the trading platform after working for seven years in the financial sector. “When you try to grow a business, you don’t think of committing crimes, because the value of that business is diminished,” stated the 29-year-old Coinflux owner, as quoted by the Romanian news agency Mediafax.

The exchange was founded in 2015 and has since traded cryptocurrency worth over $229 million, processing more than 203,000 transactions, according to its records. Last year the platform had a turnover of more than $3.4 million and made over 30,000 transactions. A warning on its website now reads “Trading disabled, bank account frozen.”

In a message to its users, Coinflux states that it has been forced to stop all digital currency exchanges due to an “unexpected investigation.” The company informs its customers it’s doing everything possible “to make sure everyone who had money deposited in Coinflux wallets gets it back.” But the team also notes their access to certain parts of the platform has been restricted.

Nistor’s case resembles that of the Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik who was arrested on a U.S. warrant in Greece in the summer of 2017. The IT specialist is the suspected operator of the now defunct exchange Btc-e. He is accused of laundering up to $9 billion through the platform, including bitcoins stolen in the Mt. Gox hack. Vinnik is currently fighting his extradition to the U.S. and to France, where he is wanted for other crimes.

Do you think Nistor and Vinnik will be extradited to the U.S.? Share your thoughts on these cases in the comments sections below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Vlad Nistor (Twitter).

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As President Donald Trump presides over geopolitical shape-shifting as the poster boy of separatist politics, the most significant clapback yet may be loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar. The dollar has been politically weaponized in the service of American interests and now other global powerhouses are betting on taking back control of their economies by phasing out the dollar as the de facto medium of international trade.

Also read: Over 900 Retailers Worldwide Now Accept Bitcoin Cash

Over the past year, China, Russia, India, Iran and Turkey, countries predominantly on the receiving end of U.S. economic sanctions and trade conflicts, have either disapprovingly reassessed the hegemony of the dollar as the global reserve currency or started de-dollarizing their trade relationships.

Bitcoin Primely Positioned as U.S. Foreign Policy Pushes Rivals to Ditch Dollar

Although cryptocurrency has not been tabled as an alternative, loss of confidence in the dollar is symptomatic of the political entanglements of fiat currencies and places decentralized digital currencies like bitcoin at the right side of history.

In a recent article, RT profiled a few countries opposed to the dollar and detailed what they are doing to cut back on dollar dependence. Unlike other dollar skeptics, India does not come across as a U.S. rival, but the populous country is taking measures to ensure that American sanctions do not get in the way of its trade partnerships.

According to RT, the Asian giant had to switch from the dollar to the rupee earlier this year for a military procurement from its BRICS partner, Russia, as well as for sanctions-hit Iran’s crude oil. A currency swap agreement between India and United Arab Emirates is part of a trend that China and Russia have also utilized to do away with the U.S. dollar as a medium of exchange.

China’s international ambitions include wider circulation of the yuan, which is already on course following the adoption of the currency, along with the dollar, the Japanese yen, the euro, and the British pound into the IMF’s currency basket. China’s gradual de-dollarization may be hastened by the current trade tiff between Beijing and Washington.

Bitcoin Primely Positioned as U.S. Foreign Policy Pushes Rivals to Ditch Dollar

Steps taken to this end include reducing the country’s share of U.S. treasuries, introduction of swap facilities in participating countries to promote yuan use in the developing world, and stronger trade among South East Asian neighbors.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has rapped the US as “making a colossal strategic mistake” by undermining confidence in the dollar. Although the Kremlin, a frequent target of U.S. sanctions, has not made an outright call for ditching the greenback, its finance ministry has been phasing out the currency in favor of the ruble, the euro, and precious metals, which it considers to be more secure.

Online banking solutions Visa, Mastercard, and Swift are also getting replaced in Russia by a national payment system in retaliation against an anticipated round of U.S. sanctions. Mastercard and Visa are not new to complicity with U.S. interests. Interestingly, BTC emerged as a politically agnostic payment alternative after the two institutions froze Wikileaks editor Julian Assange’s accounts.

Barack Obama left office with the Iran nuclear deal as one of his masterful diplomatic strokes, and a peace effort for his otherwise war-weary tenure. Trump was not eager to inherit the deal, renewing sanctions against Tehran with a nod from Tel Aviv. In addition to the currency switch arrangement with India for oil exports, Iran has also entered a barter trade arrangement with neighboring Iraq. The Islamic Republic has also spoken about the introduction of a national cryptocurrency to circumvent the sanctions.

Bitcoin Primely Positioned as U.S. Foreign Policy Pushes Rivals to Ditch Dollar

Turkey, which is enduring increasingly frosty relations with Washington, has been vocal about switching to alternative currencies for transactions with Iran. Dollar-free trade with China, Russia, and Ukraine is also being worked out.

In Africa, where issues of aid are tied to a series of often unreasonable demands, the dominance of the United States dollar as a settlement currency is already being challenged by emerging payment methods in financial technology and by native African fiat currencies. In the four years to 2017, fewer people in the continent of 1.2 billion transacted via the U.S. dollar than with their local currencies or mobile money, and perhaps cryptocurrency.

Virtual currency has in the past emerged as a solution to situations where other actors are victims of traditional financial instruments and the complicity of payment processors with powerful state interests. Replacement of the U.S dollar with other fiat currencies may facilitate similar problems in the long-term, all of which quietly makes the case for censorship-resistant cryptocurrency that is immune from international meddling. The only tenable solution that meets that description is, of course, bitcoin.

What do you think about the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

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According to China Judgements Online, a database of Chinese court documents, half of all lawsuits pertaining to cryptocurrencies were filed last year, highlighting an increase in fraudulent activity despite China’s regulatory crackdown. The database indicates that at least 202 cryptocurrency scams were promoted via more than 3,000 different platforms.

Also Read: Indian Central Bank’s Report Shows Cryptocurrencies Are Not Currently a Threat

Number of Chinese Crypto Lawsuits Doubles in 2018China Judgements Online, a website that publishes Chinese court documents, has estimated that 202 cryptocurrency scams were operational in China during 2018.

The website found that the scams were promoted across more than 3,000 different platforms and noted a significant increase in the number of pyramid schemes ostensibly associated with cryptocurrency over the last two years.

According to China Judgements Online, approximately half of the 406 lawsuits relating to cryptocurrency that have been filed in China since 2014 were filed last year. The data highlights the increase in fraudulent activity pertaining to virtual currency following the highly publicized cryptocurrency boom of 2017, despite China’s regulatory efforts.

Number of Chinese Crypto Lawsuits Doubles in 2018Chinese officials have continued to promote caution regarding cryptocurrencies in recent months, emphasizing concerns that an unbridled cryptocurrency market could lead to systemic risk throughout the domestic economy.

Li Lihui, the head of the state-backed National Internet Finance Association – a self-regulatory organization that collaborates with the People’s Bank of China and “relevant ministries and commissions” – recently emphasized concerns pertaining to the transparency of stablecoins while speaking at an event hosted by Tsinghua University.

“On the platform of the virtual currency exchange, the market value of [stablecoins] is hundreds of millions of dollars. But some stable currency accounts are not transparent enough, and there is no authoritative supervision, there is a risk of trust,” Lihui stated.

Do you think that the number of lawsuits pertaining to cryptocurrencies in China will continue to increase in 2019? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our Tools page? You can even lookup the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more.

Finance company Circle claims its over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency trading desk swapped a notional volume of $24 billion last year. The Boston-based company’s Circle Trade desk reportedly executed more than 10,000 cryptocurrency settlements between 600 unique counterparties in 2018.

Also Read: New Full Node Client ‘Bitcoin Verde’ Joins the BCH Ecosystem

Circle's Cryptocurrency OTC Desk Swapped More Than $24 Billion in 2018Last year the digital asset company Circle made a lot of moves behind the scenes within the cryptocurrency economy. In a blog post written on Jan. 3, Circle explained how it expanded significantly over the last 12 months and now services over 8 million customers residing in 195 different countries. In 2018, Circle claims to have processed more than 200 million digital asset transactions, adding up to over $75 billion in value. The Boston-based firm says customers stemmed from all over the world, with 30 percent of volume coming from the U.S. This is followed by the EU and U.K. (24%), Asia (24%), and the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America (21%).

Additionally, Circle discussed acquiring the cryptocurrency trading platform Poloniex and emphasized that the exchange’s services have improved a great deal over the last 12 months. “Through expansion in support operations and engineering, we helped customers by reducing nearly 200,000 open tickets at the start of 2018 to fewer than 1,000 by year-end,” Circle noted. Circle also remarked that Poloniex now has enhanced risk and compliance operations which allow the company to onboard customers within minutes of enrollment. The parent company detailed that Poloniex would see more UX improvements this year and the “continued launch of new markets.”

Circle's Cryptocurrency OTC Desk Swapped More Than $24 Billion in 2018Circle’s retail investment services saw growth last year as well, explained the company’s founders Sean Neville and Jeremy Allaire. More than 30 percent of customers buy unique collections of digital assets regularly the founders noted. Over 30 percent of all purchases on Circle Invest are recurring and repeat purchases like these have doubled since last September. With the company’s OTC operations, even though 2018’s crypto prices were extremely bearish, Circle’s OTC desk still expanded. Circle Trade saw $24 billion in notional OTC cryptocurrency volume, with its 24/7 coverage in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. By utilizing 36 different digital currencies, Circle Trade facilitated 10,000 OTC swaps between 600 different entities. The corporation detailed that Circle’s clients and partners include asset managers, other OTC desks, family offices, high net worth individuals, endowments, token projects, and exchanges.

The company’s flagship stablecoin offering, USDC, saw “significant penetration” in 2018 and is now supported by 40 exchange platforms. The Circle-backed stablecoin is also being used by over 80 companies like wallets and other types of applications. Despite all the layoffs throughout the crypto economy, Circle’s institutional sales team grew 3x in size. Circle’s 2018 report shows that the ecosystem is still alive and well, but investment providers have somewhat shifted towards catering to institutional clientele. There’s been a huge influx of OTC buyers and institutional customers throughout 2018. Many other large digital currency-based firms like Coinbase, Blockchain and Etoro have announced OTC desks in order to capture these types of customers.

What do you think about Circle processing over $24 billion in cryptocurrency-based OTC volume last year? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Circle.  

At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our Tools page? You can even look up the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more.

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