Ep. 57. Assassination Markets & WTF ETFs

Simon's with Noelle Acheson, CFA and Editorial Producer at Coindesk, Vinay Gupta, Founder of Mattereum, and Stephane Malrait, MD Global Head of Market Structure and Innovation for Financial Markets at ING.

We kick things off with a potential U.S. Bitcoin ETF launch in 2018, widely anticipated as a catalyst to jolt Bitcoin out of its bear market, an ETF launch for the cryptocurrency in the U.S. this year is unlikely, in Bloomberg’s view. The SEC is increasingly sensitive to public opinion and well-aware of the potential market impact. The SEC may release its decision on the latest proposed Bitcoin ETF from CBOE Global Markets on Aug. 10.

Next up the panel looks at IBM, Barclays and Citigroup building a blockchain-based app store. IBM and foreign exchange settlement service CLS are building a network based on blockchain technology for testing new applications. Nine financial institutions, including Barclays and Citigroup, are already signed up to participate.

We move on to BBVA's inability to hold cryptocurrency and why it's a problem. In the process of executing what was expected to be the third in a series of blockchain-based corporate loans, the bank had to work around a lack of legal and regulatory clarity over whether it could (or should) hold the cryptocurrency needed to power a transaction on ethereum. However, erring on the side of caution, BBVA chose to abide by European Banking Authority (EBA) recommendations and not use the native token of ethereum, ether. Instead, the bank anchored the loans to an ethereum testnet, a blockchain which simulates the live version, but that doesn't move real value.

This week's Tweet of the week comes from Vitalik Buterin criticising the focus on ETFs and pushing for adoption strategies.

All this and more on this week's episode of Blockchain Insider. And if you enjoyed our tweet of the week why not send us your best tweets to try and get a shout out on the show!

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This week's episode of Blockchain Insider was produced by Laura Watkins and Petrit Berisha. Edited by Holly Blaxill.

Special Guests: Noelle Acheson, Stephane Malrait, and Vinay Gupta.