Chainlink Co-Founder Says CCIP Protocol Could Attract Huge Investments From Banks

Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov says the company’s CCIP Protocol can potentially attract trillions of dollars from banks into the crypto industry. Speaking during an an interview at ethCC, he said the protocol is designed to do more than just connect public blockchains.

Nazarov says he expects banks and financial institutions to eventually develop their own blockchains, which they may also want to link to public blockchains such as Ethereum as time passes and as regulators eventually permit such connections.

At that point, he anticipates that Chainlink’s CCIP protocol will become a go-to solution for such banks. If this happens, a huge amount of value can be attracted to crypto.

“You have this public blockchain and internet of contracts primarily defined by DeFi, and you have this bank-chain world, which I think will be primarily defined by real-world asset tokens. The next stage will be getting these two worlds to overlap,” Nazarov siad during the interview.

“And when that happens, beyond the efficiencies and the gains for each of these groups, then you will see the blockchain industry as a whole, I think grow very, very rapidly by trillions of dollars,” he added.

The CCIP protocol is a protocol that facilitates transfer of tokens from one chain to another. The protocol uses the Chainlink network to facilitates the exchange of information between blockchains, steering the movement of assets in a secure manner. The protocol is still in testing mode, with projects like Synthetix and Aave involved.

Top financial institutions considering CCIP

CCIP seems to be gaining a lot of traction with mainstream financial institutions following its testing traditional finance. Already, SWIFT and other leading financial institutions are already exploring the use of of CCIP for token transfers across public and private chains through the existing Swift messaging infrastructure.

“So I’ve been selling these banks blockchain stuff for about six, seven years. And the historical pattern has been that when there is a downturn in crypto prices, the banks lose interest. But this time is the first time after the four cycles that I’ve been through that this hasn’t happened. And I think the reason it hasn’t happened is because their clients want blockchain stuff,” Nazarov said.

Nazarov maintains that there are three stages of bank adoption, the first being focused on custody, the second being tokenization of real-world assets and the third being the stage where banks develop financial protocols that resemble DeFi. He says it is at the third stage that CCIP will become relevant to them.

Where CCIP comes in

Nazarov says after banks develop their own private blockchains, complete with their own stablecoins and DeFi protocols, they will eventually wish to merge with the existing decentralized public blockchain ecosystem when regulations have grown to accommodate such merger.

“So what we’re doing is we’re setting up the technical foundation for them to do it technically, and then doing it legally is something they’re going to work through and figure out within the next three to five years,” he said.

The reason banks will want to connect according to Nazarov is so that they can widen the reach of their financial products. 

This promises a huge reward of growth for the crypto industry which although is currently facing regulatory challenges, seems determined to outgrow those challenges in the near future.

Chainlink is currently experimenting with proof of concept and will move to the pilot stage, which Nazarov says could be the beginning of great things for the company.

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Cloudax Launches Crypto P2P Platform in Nigeria

Cloudax, an innovative technology-driven ecosystem built for wholesome content creators and communities is launching a crypto peer-to-peer P2P) trading platform in Nigeria. The company is launching both a website and app for the platform at once.

According to reports, the aim is to onboard Africans into the crypto ecosystem and to meet the ever rising demand for cryptocurrencies in Nigeria. Nigeria is one of the countries with the highest P2P crypto trading volume in the world.

The demand for cryptocurrencies has been on the increase in the largest African economy despite a ban on cryptocurrencies by its central bank. Indeed, the ban seemed to have increased interest in crypto assets as the trading volume for the country went up 15% at the time following the announcement of the ban.

Speaking on the growing interest in crypto assets in Nigeria, the chief executive officer (CEO of Cloudax, Olumuyiwa A, said the demand is driven by the challenges africans face in accessing international payment with ease.

“I think the quick adoption of cryptocurrency in Africa is largely driven by the difficulties the African youth faces in conducting borderless financial operations whilst living and working in the global village that the world has become,” Olumuyiwa said.

“Digital currencies have become the easiest means to conduct financial transactions and it’s encouraging to see that several African governments appear to be developing or on their way to developing regulations which promote the use of cryptocurrencies in their regions,” he added.

Bridging the crypto gap in Nigeria

Crypto P2P trading is particularly popular on the African continent, mainly because other payment methods are not available to most African countries. In Nigeria for instance, government policies have made it impossible to make international payment with Naira debit cards.

Muyiwa said that the new platform, CloudP2P will bridge the gap between crypto enthusiasts and mainstream users in Nigeria.

“We are excited to introduce our P2P platform, which will bridge the gap between crypto enthusiasts and mainstream users in Nigeria. Our mission is to empower individuals with a seamless and affordable solution for crypto transactions,” the CEO said.

With asset security being the greatest concern of most users, CloudP2P gives the best customer experience with its extremely secure and user-friendly marketplace for swift and seamless buying, selling, and swapping of crypto,” he concluded.
Bringing many amazing features

CloudP2P is an innovative platform coming with many features tailored to provide the best services to crypto traders. First, users will enjoy a secure and reliable environment to buy and sell crypto. The platform also provides reduced transaction cost that makes it affordable for all, and also has new features under development.

The crypto market in Nigeria is steadily growing, and launching this platform is a great step towards ensuring that the market thrives. Also noteworthy is the fact that the country has passed a cryptocurrency bill into law that considers cryptocurrencies as it seeks to be a part of the revolutionary digital economy.

With such legislation, Nigeria may be getting ready to position itself as a crypto-friendly economy, even though this is still in the pipe lines. Meanwhile, similar platforms are being launched in many other regions. One of the most noteworthy is the P2P platform that Bitfinex launched to cater to Latin American users.

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Binance Labs Invests $10 Million in Radiant Capital for Expanding to Other Chains

Binance venture capital arm Binance Labs announced on Thursday, July 20, plans to invest $10 million in Radiant Capital. The announcement revealed that Binance Labs plans to support lending and borrowing services on the Radiant platform.

The investment will be utilized in expanding Radiant connection to other blockchain network. The report demonstrated that the $10 million will support Radiant in expanding borrowing and depository services.

Radiant Capital Receives $10M from Binance Labs

Firstly the Radiant group plans to strengthen its network capability by connecting its omnichannel interoperability protocol centered on LayerZero to another blockchain. The lending company will connect to other blockchain to support its existing Ethereum-focused network, including BNB Chain and Arbitrum. Additionally, a significant amount the investment will be rerouted in product development aiming at reducing transaction costs.

Previously, the Radiant team had announced plans to bring 100 million users to decentralized finance (DeFi). This has prompted the lending company to invest in improving the Radiant protocol through Ethereum mainnet development, abstracted repayments, and diversifying the collaterals portfolios. 

An announcement conveyed by the head of Binance Labs, Yi He, revealed that the Binance Labs latest investment in Radiant marks a significant milestone in the ongoing push for the mass adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms.

In support of this, the founder of Radiant Capital, George Macallan, was delighted to announce the strategic partnership with Binance Labs. The executive believes that collaborating with Binance Labs will enable Radiant to expand its protocol to different chains.

He added that the partnership will support the protocol to scale and restore utility to the Radiant ecosystem. Macallan anticipates that Binance and Radiant would leverage their expertise, resources and strategies to support the protocol.

Radiant Capital Set to Improve DeFi Platfroms

Surprisingly Binance Labs joined other influential figures to push for cryptocurrency adoption through investment in blockchain and crypto technologies. A few months ago, Binance Labs invested millions to support Cosmos Labs in building a “Neutron Platform.”

During the Cosmos fundraising, Binance Labs led other firms, including CoinFund, Nomad, and LongHash, to generate a capital of $10 million. The Cosmos team will use the investment to develop Neutron, a smart contract blockchain that will be used to connect to different chains.

The Cosmos investment marked a significant move for Radiant to expand to more chains centered on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). An EVM technology supports multiple chains on the smart contract to interact easily with each other.

The development by Radiant to connect to more chains aligns with the company mission statement, “growing into a cross-chain money market.” The company core value has inspired Radiant to support ten digital assets in the bid to revolutionize the DeFi sector.

A review of the Radiant’s website demonstrated that the firm’s best-performing digital tokens include Arbitrum (ARB), Ethereum (ETH), DAI, USDC, and others.

Besides the efforts made by the Radiant group to bridge to different Ethereum chains, other companies are exploring ways to improve efficiency and reduce transaction cost. Also, tech developers have teamed up resolve challenges on the Ethereum mainnet. A few months ago, the Ethereum team failed to overcome technical issues that resulted in suspending withdrawals.

The Ethereum team claimed that the base layers experienced high activity that challenged developers to examine ways to support the network. After analyzing the mainnet challenges, the Ethereum team agreed to integrate a layer 2 scaling solution, including Arbitrum, which is crucial in increasing speed and reducing transaction costs.

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Bank of Russia Set to Start ‘Digital Ruble’ Testing in August

In an advanced report issued by the Bank of Russia, the market regulators confirmed that the testing for the central bank digital currency (CBDC), commonly known as the digital ruble, might start soon. On July 18, the regulators presented the bill before the Federation Council, the highest legislative unit in Russia, for review. 

In the review process, the members of the Russia Federation Council green-lighted the bill. The bill outlined the fundamental law for supervising the implementation of CBDC in Russia.

On July 11, the bill was submitted to the State Duma for regulatory scrutiny. After passing the review process, officials at the State Duma adopted the bill. 

Russian Regulators Approves CBDC Bill

From the legislative approval of the draft law, the financial regulators plan to submit the bill to Russian President Vladimir Putin for final consent. However, if President Putin enforces the bill, the Bank of Russia will be granted the authority to conduct pilot tests for the digital ruble. Soon after the president signs the bill, the financial watchdog will commence the CBDC pilot test in early August.

Earlier, the Bank of Russia had announced that the CBDC would be used in payment and transfer. The apex bank will impose a restrictive measures to bar the use of digital rubles in lending and depository services.

However, the Russians will be allowed to use their digital wallet in payment for services and transfers. The wallet will be built on the Bank of Russia ecosystem to ease the supervision of CBDC. Also, one of the strategic partners of the Russian central bank will have partial control over the user’s digital wallet. 

In an interview with Bloomberg, the Bank of Russia revealed plans to partner with 15 lending platforms to conduct digital ruble pilot tests. The bank stated that the CBDC trials will enable the users to create a digital wallet account on the Bank of Russia homepage. Afterward, the partners will support the bank to ensure the local bank can easily assess the Bank of Russia platform. 

Russian Regulators Set to Commence CBDC Testing

Addressing the Bloomberg team, the Bank of Russia plans to work with best-performing payment and financial service providers Mastercard, Visa, Mir, and others in the CBDC pilot tests. In response to the public inquires, the bank told Bloomberg the CBDC will improve cross-border payment.

In subsequent report issued by the deputy chairman of the Federation Council, Nikolay Zhuravlev the excutive urged the regulators to consider developing payment and financial infrastructure that can operate independently. The official believes that if Russia adopts advanced financial tools, the country will perform well in foreign trade.

With the latest development in CBDC, Russia joins other countries to explore ways to implement digital currency. In the Asia region, Russia plans to follow the footstep of Japan and China, which have completed the pilot trials for CBDC. 

On the contrary, the US CBDC project has been limited by the competing interests between President Joe Biden’s team and the Federal Reserve. In a recent debate, the Biden administration engaged in a legal exchanges with the Federal Reserve concerning the launching of the CBDC.

Even though the country’s national currency backs CBDC, digital fiat has been a center of speculation. Market critics argued that the CBDC exposes the public to privacy concerns since the authority is given the power the supervise digital currency transactions.

A statement issued by the head of the central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, CBDC, is considered the product of mass surveillance where user privacy is a threat. The executive confessed that the CBDC would provide different anonymity than cash transactions.

Even though the war against Ukraine has undermined the Russian economy, the country continues to make strategic moves to cope with emerging economies. The Ukraine war has resulted in the imposition of Western sanctions that have adversely affected the ruble’s value. Currently, the Russian ruble ranks among the worst-performing currency in the world. 

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Vitalik Buterin Explains Account Abstraction Challenges on Ethereum at ETHCC

As account abstraction technology continues to gain popularity in bringing more people to the Ethereum network Vitalik Buterin has a different view. The inventor of Ethereum shared some of the problems encountered when integrating the account abstraction technology into the blockchain network.

Speaking at the Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) in Paris, Buterin described account abstraction (AA) as elegant technology. He noted that, unlike other upgrades on the blockchain ecosystem, any development on the account abstraction has minimal changes to the primary protocol.

Challenges Facing Account Abstraction

Buterin mentioned that developers have been improving the account abstraction technology since 2015. Despite the efforts much has not been achieved in migrating the Externally Owned Wallets (EOAs) to the smart contract network.

However, if the developer’s efforts yielded the desired results, Buterin acknowledged that managing crypto wallets would become more effortless than owning an email account. The crypto entrepreneur anticipates that the AA developers will expedite the transition to the smart contract wallets.

If achieved the user will be allowed to recover their seed phrases more effortlessly. A seed phrase is vital in every transaction since it provides the user with the necessary private key.

In an email account, the seed phrases provide the user with the reset password account option. This feature supports improving the privacy of the email account.

Even though the AA team have been exploring ways to enable users to use smart contract instead of the EOAs for decades, the Ethereum team joined them in 2021 after debuting Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4337 (EIP-4337). This development provided developers with a platform to build non-custodial wallets on programmable smart contract networks.

The team behind the EIP-4337 aimed at providing the user with wallet recovery features. Beyond this Ethereum upgrade focused more on reducing the transaction cost by facilitating signless transactions.

Role of Account Abstraction in Web3 Adoption

In light of July 19 report, Buterin stated that the EIP-4337 and other related AA development would drive Web3 adoption. Despite the upgrades, Buterin revealed plans to introduce a new feature on blockchain to enable the user to receive funds before completing the registration process.

In his report, the Ethereum co-founder restated that the incoming projects aim to allow users to receive tokens, including stablecoins, on their smart contract wallets. This development will enable the user to pay the gas cost without their converting their Ethereum tokens.

Ethereum Reveals Next Move

In the meantime, the Ethereum team plans to introduce a “paymaster” on the EIP-4337. The paymaster will enable the user to pay gas fees with other tokens.

Buterin explained that integrating signature aggregators on the EIP-4337 will support paymasters. During the release of the said signature aggregators, multiple signers were allowed to take part in the transaction, but only one signature will be used. 

Reflecting on the performance of the signature aggregators, the Ethereum developer confessed that the upgrade was a big deal in enhancing Ethereum rollups.

Interestingly, the roll-up technology enables the Ethereum network to combine batches of transactions into a single batch. The executive explained that Ethereum utilizes the layer 2 scaling network, including the Optimism and zero knowledge rollups to batch transactions before it validates on the mainnet.

He believes that the account abstraction technology will support signature aggregators. Buterin mentioned that the upgrade will support more data to undergo compression at a cheaper computation. With the upgrade, Buterin estimated that cost to be cheaper by 86 times.

After the successful launch of EIP-4337, the Ethereum team embarked on developing Proto danksharding (EIP-4884). In a previous report, the Ethereum team announced that the Proto-danksharding feature would reduce cost and improve data usage efficiency.

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SEC Accepts Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF Filing for Review

On Monday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) acknowledged the recipient of the spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) filing from Valkyrie, an investment management firm based in Nashville. The submission came days after the SEC accepted the application of Bitcoin ETF from the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock.

After receiving the application, the SEC revealed plans to proceed with reviewing the document. In this phase, the SEC will examine whether Valkyrie’s proposal meets the requirements and upholds compliance.

Valkyrie Resubmits Spot Bitcoin ETF to SEC

Initially, the asset management company proposed introducing a spot Bitcoin ETF on its services. On June 21, the Valkyrie team resubmitted the Bitcoin ETF filing to the SEC. 

Soon after submission, the asset management firm announced the Bitcoin ETF would enable Valkyrie to provide the user with the most convenient platform for buying crypto assets.In 2021 Valkyrie submitted its proposal to the SEC, targeting to introduce crypto assets in their portfolios. 

After passing the 21-day review process, the SEC rejected Valkyrie’s proposal.Subsequently, other firms in the financial sector replicated Valkyrie’s move to introduce crypto to their product. The race to dominate the growing financial industry motivated Valkyrie to revise and resubmit the proposal to the SEC.

In early July, the investment company resubmitted the document seeking the Valkyrie Bitcoin fund to be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “BRRR.” According to the Valkyrie report, the symbol mimics the sound of printing money.

The application will undergo further review involving comments from the private and public sector . In the review phase, the SEC will examine the impact of Valkyrie Bitcoin Funds on the financial sector. The market regulators will also evaluate the risk to the customers and the investors if the spot Bitcoin ETF is approved.

Significance of Bitcoin ETF to Financial Markets

Guided by the regulatory process, the review process obliges the SEC to extensively research the consequence of Bitcoin ETF on the economy. Ideally, the comment period will will take 21 days fromthe filing day.

After the review process, the SEC will examine whether the applicant fulfills the requirement. In most cases, the SEC has been requesting firms seeking Bitcoin ETF approval to provide additional information. In fact, after rejecting BlackRock’s submission, the SEC demanded the asset manager to provide a surveillance-sharing partner. In the amended application, the BlackRock team identified Coinbase as a co-applicant for contentious market surveillance.

However, if the SEC approves BlackRock or Valkyrie Bitcoin ETF application, the firm will be officially allowed to provide investors with a pooled investment security.

Typically, Valkyrie, BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco and others are seek to improve the issuance of Bitcoin and exposure of crypto to the financial sector. Even though Bitcoin ETF products are still available in the traditional markets, the SEC seeks to address the compliance risk. This has forced the SEC to adopt strict regulations to mitigate the impact of Bitcoin ETF on the financial market.

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FCA Targets Crypto Firms in Renewed Effort to Curb Indiscriminate Social Media Promotions

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK has announced a fresh crackdown on social media promotion of financial products. According to a press release on Monday 17 July, the financial watchdog said it will focus primarily on the use of memes to promote financial products.

“Too many people across the UK are being shown financial promotions from unsuitable sources. We’ll be ramping up our work to stamp out illegal financial promotions, particularly those found on social media,” the watchdog wrote in a tweet.

As part of efforts to ensure compliance with the rules of the agency in financial promotions on social media, the agency is updating and modernizing the information that companies should use when promoting financial products or services on online platforms.

In view of this, it says it is in consultations on how to expand its guidelines, considering the evolving ways in which social media platforms now serve as media for advertising financial products.

“We’ve seen a growing number of ads falling short of the guidance we have in place to stop consumer harm,” said director of consumer investments Lucy Castledine. “We want people to stay on the right side of our rules, so we’re updating our guidance to clarify what we expect of firms when marketing financial products online.”

Crypto Firms and Meme Advertising

The FCA has expressed concern particularly concerning crypto firms which it says uses memes to advertise crypto assets. The agency further said that crypto firms are fond of circulating memes online without knowing that they are subject to its promotional regulations.

“Use of memes in promotions is particularly prevalent in the crypto asset sector,” it said in the press release.

Castledine also called out social media influencers who help to promote such memes, saying the agency has noticed “the significant increase in the notoriety of influencers,” adding “those touting products illegally, we will be taking action against you.”

Although the use of cryptocurrencies isn’t forbidden in the UK, the FCA has established guidelines for advertising them, including a risk warning for crypto assets which it considers to be high-risk investment options.

“We remind firms that there are requirements to include risk warnings or other statements in promotions for certain products/services. These rules are media neutral, so apply to social media as they would any other channel. We expect risk warnings on social media to be clear, prominent and without a design feature that reduces their visibility or prominence,” the agency said in the press release.

FCA Calls for Public Opinion

In its effort to curb indiscriminate advertising of risky investments on social media, the FCA has cautioned influencers and crypto companies that their promotions could constitute an offense, punishable by a potential two-year jail term, an unlimited fine, or both.

Such guidelines apply to companies outside the UK as well, as long as they advertise to UK citizens. The watchdog is also open to suggestions and is seeking public opinion on its proposed guidance by 11 September 2023.

The FCA had earlier this year invited crypto companies from around the world to rub minds on creating a regulatory framework for crypto in the country. Although the UK is stringent about advertising crypto to its citizens, it remains one of the most friendly climes for the industry.

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