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Two EOS Gambling Platforms Fall Prey to $260,000 Hack

Smart contracts on two EOS gambling platforms have been hacked in the last four days to the tune of more than a quarter of a million dollars, with another platform paying out $600,000 to one user in an unusual-looking jackpot which EOSBet insists was simply luck.

DEOSGames Hacked — $24,000 Stolen

The first and more minor hack occurred on Sept. 9 when a DEOSGames user named runningsnail went on what appeared to be quite the winning streak, with $1,000 payments made dozens of times. The user would deposit 10 EOS and then win the jackpot 30 seconds later, like clockwork, a suspiciously-automated process which can be seen here in the user’s eosflare account overview.

DEOSGames confirmed that its smart contract had been hacked, spinning the malicious exploit as “a good stress test” in a short statement released on social media.

EOSBet Hacked — $236,000 Stolen
EOS cryptocurrency

Yesterday, /u/EOSBetCasino released a statement on Reddit explaining the nature and scale of a smart contract hack resulting in a major loss of funds.

“Dear EOSBet Community,

On September 14th around 3:00AM UTC we experienced a hack and breach of our bankroll, resulting in a theft of 44,427.4302 EOS before our contracts were taken offline by the development team. The remaining 463,745 EOS in our EOSBETDICE11 and EOSBETCASINO contracts are safe, the vulnerability is patched, and we are back online. We want to be as transparent as possible in explaining this breach and addressing any concerns the community might have.”

The hacker exploited a flaw in the code that allowed them to bypass the esio.token ->transfer function, which meant that their funds were not deposited to the smart contract. Whenever they lost, they didn’t have to pay, but if they won they would win real funds which could then be cashed out, essentially allowing them to gamble in a consequence-free casino dishing out free money.

The team posted the section of code that was vulnerable for inspection and went on to explain what had been changed and for what reason, a move that was met by praise from several of the users on Reddit. Others were not so forgiving, with one user mocking the skill of the team and the third-party auditors they claim to have hired in a section of the team statement, which read:

“We take security very seriously at EOSBet. Our code was audited extensively by our development team and multiple independent 3rd parties.”

Did a Third EOSBet hack take place?
This statement comes days after a user on the same platform won $600,000 in a series of consecutive wins which took place in which the user repeatedly doubled their money in a series of dice rolls over the course of 36 hours. The incident was suspicious enough for The Next Web to characterize it as a hack, but EOSBet have since claimed that there was no code exploit and that the user was simply lucky, something which is currently being investigated.
South Korea Customs uses Samsung SDS

The South Korean customs intends to use Nexledger, a corporative blockchain platform of the subsidiary of the electronic giant Samsung SDS, as the basis for a decentralized customs clearance system. Forty-eight organizations, including government agencies, shipping and insurance companies, also signed a Memorandum of Understanding, seeking to participate as nodes in a distributed network, which will increase the transparency of the customs process
​​China’s Central Bank Supporting The Creation Of A New Trading Platform

Even that countries around the world are giving a hard time to crypto-traders, investors and coins in general, there are many that do support the technology behind them. One of them is China which is signing various blockchain-related patents being on constant support for growing the tech.
The platform backed by PBoC or People’s Bank of China named Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Area Trade Fi-nance Blockchain Platform is going to hurdle with various financial and transaction-related issues that micro to medium firms deal with.

Going by the report, on standard it takes up-to two weeks to clear one round of trade financing, however using the revolutionary blockchain technology it could be done in approximately 20 minutes. At the same time costs would lower dramatically as described as noted out by the Vice President of the Transacting Division of Ping an Bank.
🚀 Raincheck-Global loyalty & rewards points exchange aggregator on Stellar

Want to be able to transfer your existing reward/loyalty points into one digital unit that can be used at any scheme? How about accurately monitoring your points, with the flexibility of transferring them at any time, on a fast and secure network? RAIN Token will give you this power at a fraction of the cost of other providers. Built on the Stellar Blockchain your secure transactions will go through within seconds at the cost of one cent per 100,000 transactions, whereas Ethereum based projects still cost around $0.20-1.45 per transaction. RAIN Token is the seamless and inexpensive experience you’ve been waiting for.

Built by a team with diverse backgrounds in full stack software development, data/cyber security, global payments, retail, travel, finance and investment; Our two founders pioneered the internet in the early 90’s, founding several tech startups and have a combined 50+ years experience in the ICT sector. The RAIN Token team recognises the faults in current loyalty/rewards schemes and with their wealth of knowledge, and experience, have created a solution.

Plus, unlike some exchanges, RAIN Token has your back if you get stuck. A dedicated customer service team is available 24/7. No more submitting a support ticket and waiting 2 weeks to get an automated response.

The RAIN Token is all about simplifying the reward/loyalty point systems and giving power back to the consumer, allowing them to attain the best value - Creating opportunities for retailers, and customer, alike. Get in on this awesome project before it takes off.

https://raintoken.org/
https://t.me/getraincheck
💪 EOS VS Ethereum 👊
The EOS community will be launching it when the clock hits 6 pm EST on Saturday, June 2nd. EOS is an intriguing point in time for the blockchain community, during which Ethereum will be faced with its first legitimate competitor in the space. After the announcement of launching EOS, the smart contract war has begun. This war is sounding similar in early days of the internet where Mac and Windows ultimately won- it was unlikely there will be a defined winner in the end, and it’s likely that there will be a few dominant platforms that offer fundamentally different themselves from one another.

While comparing EOS vs Ethereum it is found that, Ethereum uses a proof of work called PW, consensus model and has first mover advantage in the smart contract and decentralized app(Dapp) platform space. This projected value the second highest valued blockchain project right now and it criticized for its high transaction costs. As the blockchain industry facing a huge problem because Ethereum has not yet allowed their developers to build consumer grade applications at that scale. The biggest actors in the public blockchain space right now are speculators, miners, and crooks which are zero or negative sum activities.

Ethereum main use case is supposed to be supporting applications, but only less than 10% of the total transactions on the network are coming from the 100 applications built on Ethereum and the other 90% of transactions are coming from ICOs and payments.

In comparison of EOS vs Ethereum you can see that, EOS is launching high profile dApps that are building on their platforms, like Everipedia. It is expected that mainnet will be able to handle between 1000-6,000 transactions per second shortly after launch, and the software has made economic performance tradeoffs that acknowledge the actual fact about every single transaction in a global scale dApp is being validated by a large network of computers at around the globe is unnecessary and this is unrealistic- for your average consumer cares to more about performance than they do sovereign censorship resistance.

Block one, the company who launches EOS is not going to launch mainnet, but only the open source software system. There is a minimum adoption threshold to release this built-in software in the protocol level, and Dan Larimer, Block one’s CTO, has silently announced that they will use their voting shares (which is 10% of the total of EOS tokens) to ensure the launch goes as intended if needed.

Though Ethereum has plans to innovate further to become more scalable, including plasma, sharding and switching to a proof of stake protocol, which is all intriguing options. If, however, Ethereum is unable to accomplish their goals, I can conclude on the basis of shared facts that EOS will become the dominant smart contract platform because of following reasons; scalability, Fee-less economic model, Team, User experience, Governance, Token Model, and storage.

EOS = 600 transaction per second
Ethereum = 15 transactions per second.
​​Ethereum Classic (ETC) Enters UTRUST Platform as Payment Solution
Ethereum Classic (ETC) is in partnership with UTRUST, one of the largest crypto payment solutions after signing an MOU (memorandum of understanding) to get integrated within UTRUST. This is a step in the right direction for ETC as it spreads its reach by collaborating with UTRUST.

UTRUST has a strong reputation in the industry for being a secure and fast payment provider. The goal for UTRUST is to get global recognition and the adoption of buyer protection, cryptocurrency payments etc. UTRUST has a lot of experience in the industry from entering into partnerships with companies like Pundi X (a POS platform based in Singapore), Digibyte (a blockchain technology service provider), UMT (a massive Mobile payment technological platform n Europe) and Gambio (the largest e-commerce solution in Germany).

According to Nunu Correia, the Co-founder and CEO of UNTRUST, he stated that ETC (Ethereum Classic) is among the few cryptos that possess an institutional demand and that it matches the vision UNTRUST has when it comes to features and delivery.
The UNTRUST team have chosen Ethereum Classic as their preferred choice to integrate their payment gateway after weighing their shortcomings and successes and the reasons are obvious, ETC has improved massively in price and development which is why they are best suited for the integration.

Furthermore, ETC is one of the tokens with the highest demands in the market thus giving the coin an edge with so many suppliers and merchants who wish to adopt the coin. This in turn, will generate more customers for UNTRUST.

In recent times, blockchain payments have no doubt messed up financial dealings, however, UNTRUST is here to add a vital element of consumer protection, swift transaction and low fees. In essence, it has the responsibility of being an escrow which will secure funds until products and services are delivered as agreed.
News and reviews of cryptocurrencies, ICO, blockchain technology. Always up-to-date and useful information. Join https://t.me/channel_crypto
​​John Mcafee: Trust only Decentralized Exchanges
John McAfee, the security master turn cryptocurrency devotee, who is accepted to have the precious stone ball for his correct expectations in the cryptocurrency showcase as he would like to think says that decentralized exchanges (DEX) will before long gain the core of the cryptocurrency network with parts jettisoning centralized exchanges. This he says will drive them to shut down.
​​Blockchain Showdown: NEO Set to Debate Ethereum This Week
The stage is set for Ethereum (ETH), the largest smart contract platform in the world, to debate NEO (NEO), largely considered the Ethereum of China, this upcoming week.
The event, which will take place during Consensus Singapore, will bring together Virgil Griffith, who’s in charge of special projects at the Ethereum Foundation, and Da Hongfei, the founder of NEO, to discuss everything from technology development to communities.

The description of the event reads as follows, “Ethereum meets NEO, one of the most popular smart contract platforms in China. Apt comparison or misleading advertising? Representatives from two crypto communities debate whether they’re going after the same market after all.”

Coindesk’s head of research, Nolan Bauerle, will be moderating the discussion, which will hopefully feature some heated topics regarding the future directions of both blockchains. We should ultimately learn more about how both projects are considering each other in terms of the competitive landscape.

The event will take place on September 19 between 3:00 PM-3:20 PM (GMT+8). While there is no indication that there will be a live video stream, the details will likely be posted shortly after its conclusion on the NEO Reddit page.

ETH and NEO are ranked 2 and 13, respectively, in the AltDex 100 Index (ALT100), a benchmark index for large-cap cryptocurrencies and tokens.
​​🔥 Tron Foundation Burns 4.9 Billion ERC20 Tokens
As the Tron mainnet is working smoothly across the world, Tron Foundation has burnt yet another set of tokens to facilitate its transition from the Ethereum blockchain. On Thursday, Sept. 13, the Foundation burnt 4,917,487,036.059613 TRX. These were the old ERC20 tokens used by the blockchain before shifting to its mainnet. The burn is essential to avoid confusion and help all Tronics move smoothly to the mainnet and utilize the unique Tron blockchain assets.
Orvium - Open and Transparent Science Powered By Blockchain
It is time to get involved and get the control back of the human knowledge.
Orvium is more than another startup — you are about to participate in a project driven by top engineers and scientists with many years of experience driving innovation at CERN, the birthplace of the Web, and NASA.
Orvium aims to disrupt one of the most lucrative industry world-wide, with profit margins reported to exceed those of companies such as Google, Amazon, and Apple, while making science more transparent, universal and open than ever. Orvium creates a unique decentralized platform powered by blockchain, decentralized storage, big data and artificial intelligence to create an unprecedented decentralized solution to process, validate, disseminate and preserve scientific knowledge forever.
We want you to be part of our future: Our TGE offers you the unique opportunity to buy ORVIUM tokens and join an excellent team. With your participation, we are going to scale science and become the leading publication platform while returning the benefits of science to society. The Web was originally designed to meet the demand for transparent and automatic information sharing between scientists around the world, lets do it now and for all.
Early-birds will be rewarded with a 10% bonus during our pre-sale.
Join us and be part of this exciting journey:
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Ethereum's upcoming hard fork, Constantinople, will activate in a testing environment next month, core developers agreed on Friday.

As detailed by CoinDesk, Constantinople features changes designed to increase the platform's efficiency, alter its economic policy and delay the so-called "difficulty bomb," a piece of code meant to encourage the network to alter its core consensus algorithm.

Speaking in a bi-weekly video call, developers said the upgrade will activate around October 9 on a cross-client testnet, named Ropsten, which mimics the conditions of the ethereum network itself. However, due to the unpredictability of block confirmation times in the testing environment, an exact block number – the way most upgrades are timed within the blockchain space – for the testnet activation has yet to be finalized.
Japanese Regulator Unveils Crypto Regulation Updates

Japan’s financial regulator has recently unveiled the current state of the crypto regulations in the country. Three crypto operators are currently being reviewed. With 160 companies wanting to enter the space, the regulator plans to add more personnel to help review new applicants. In addition, a self-regulatory plan for crypto exchanges has also been submitted to the regulator.

Current State of Crypto Regulations

Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), published several documents from its fifth crypto study group meeting on Wednesday, September 12. The current state of crypto regulations and exchange registrations were discussed.

Japanese Regulator Unveils Crypto Regulation UpdatesThe agency confirmed that out of the 16 companies that have been allowed to operate crypto exchanges while their applications are being reviewed, only three have survived the agency’s recent inspections. Coincheck, Lastroots, and Everybody’s Bitcoin are currently being reviewed. The FSA reiterated that it is “currently reviewing the work improvement report” of Coincheck and, going forward, it will periodically conduct on-site inspections of registered exchanges.

Out of the 16 companies, one was rejected by the agency and 12 others have withdrawn their applications. In addition, approximately 160 companies have expressed their intention to register crypto exchanges.

FSA Expanding Crypto Team

The FSA’s vice commissioner for policy coordination, Kiyotaka Sasaki, said at the meeting that “The biggest problem is how to deal with new operators,” Reuters reported on Wednesday.

He noted that the agency currently has 30 personnel whose jobs include monitoring crypto exchanges and traders, supervising unregistered operators, and reviewing registration applications.

However, with over 160 companies wanting to enter the market, the FSA is seeking additional workforce to help with reviewing applicants. The agency is requesting 12 more personnel in the financial year 2019 to swiftly respond to crypto exchange operators, the publication conveyed.

Plan for Self-Regulation

Also discussed at the meeting are self-regulatory rules established by the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (Jvcea).

Currently, the members of the association are the 16 government-approved crypto exchanges: Money Partners, Quoine, Bitflyer, Bitbank, SBI Virtual Currency, GMO Coin, Bittrade, Btcbox, Bitpoint Japan, DMM Bitcoin, Bitarg Exchange Tokyo, Bitgate, Bitocean, Fisco Virtual Currency, Tech Bureau, and Xtheta.

The president of both the association and Money Partners, Yasunori Okuyama, explained to the meeting attendees the long list of self-regulatory rules, Impress Corporation reported. One of the rules relates to the handling of cryptocurrencies at exchanges, which states:

When handling a new virtual currency, after conducting an internal review by the member, it is necessary to notify the association beforehand, and if the association gives an objection, it will not be handled.
Another rule concerns the management of customer assets. The association explained that extra restrictions have been added such as “measures concerning margin trading using virtual currency” in compliance with the fund settlement law and the administrative guidelines.

The leverage limit designated by the association is four times but members can choose their own limit under certain circumstances. The margin trading rule aims to “suppress the risk of loss of users and excessive speculative transactions in leverage transactions using virtual currency,” the association explained.

Furthermore, exchanges must have anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) measures as well as rules regarding anti-social forces. Among other rules are ones covering basic transactions, dispute resolution, solicitation and advertising, trading guidelines, ethics and how to ...
​​SBI Nears Launch Ripple Blockchain Payments App ‘MoneyTap’ in Japan
Japanese financial services group SBI Holdings will launch its consumer payments application MoneyTap, on both Android and iOS, using Ripple’s blockchain technology. SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture established by SBI Holdings and San Francisco-based FinTech giant Ripple in early 2016, will soon launch ‘MoneyTap’, CEO Takashi Okita revealed on his own Twitter handle.

MoneyTap is the first real noteworthy application of Ripple’s blockchain tech for consumer-ended retail payments in Japan, enabling domestic bank customers to transact instantly 24 hours a day and seven days a week using a QR code, a phone number or a bank account number. There is no indication – it’s also unlikely – that the technology uses XRP, Ripple’s native crypto token.

‘Zengin’, Japan’s decades-old national payments clearing platform, only allows domestic money transfers between users of different banks between 8:30 AM and 3:30 PM in Japan, with the added pitfalls of banking fees. As reported by CCN in March, MoneyTap was initially announced by the SBI Ripple-led banking consortium that comprises of over 80% of Japan’s banking assets. The Japan Bank consortium was first launched in November 2016.

MoneyTap’s website does not provide a specific launch date for the mobile app but does reveal the user interface (UI) while confirming the proposed launch, in fall this year (September-December).

At launch, customers belonging to three members of the consortium will be able to use the service before its eventual rollout to the remaining 59 banks of the consortium. Thee three banks supported at launch are Suruga Bank, SBI Net Sumishin Bank and Resona Bank.

Still, MoneyTap isn’t the first consumer-based retail payments application using Ripple’s blockchain technology.

In April, Spanish banking giant Banco Santander launched a personal payments app for retail customers in Spain, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Poland. The smartphone app enables near-instant transfers, end-to-end tracking of payments with complete transparency of foreign exchange fees, all in “3 clicks and 40 seconds” according to Santander. This particular solution uses Ripple’s enterprise blockchain software xCurrent, a product that does not use XRP.
​​CRYPTOCARZ IS THE WORLD'S FIRST BLOCKCHAIN-ENABLED VR RACING EXPERIENCE

CRYPTOCARZ IS A MULTIPLAYER, VIRTUAL REALITY (VR)-ENABLED RACING EXPERIENCE, DEVELOPED USING THE ETHEREUM BLOCKCHAIN.

To play, users will have to load the car assets into the game from an Ethereum wallet, where they are stored as an ERC721 token. The ERC721 token has paved the way for a new class of digital assets called non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These allow users to own, customise and maintain control in the
same way as in the physical world.

Blockchain Studios contends that this new asset class opens up new opportunities for user engagement and ownership. We believe that the first wave of innovation will come from gaming. CryptoCarz is the first platform to bring together blockchain, VR and gaming technologies. By giving gamers new options to visualise, own, adapt and race their own car, we think a new era in gaming has arrived.

WE BELIEVE GAMING IT WILL BE TRANSFORMED BY THE RISE – AND INTEGRATION – OF THREE TECHNOLOGIES: BLOCKCHAIN, E-SPORTS AND VR.

Each of them, independently, represents a paradigm shift for game development and consumption. Their attributes will make technology more individual, inclusive and immersive. The combination of these technologies will give rise to new scenarios, where gamers can own, modify, trade and play in an unprecedented way

THE CONCEPT

Cars, gaming and cryptocurrency are shared passions at Blockchain Studios, so combining them was a natural choice when we started working on CryptoCarz. We see strong synergies between the cryptocurrency community and gamers and we believe there is a market for a game that blends racing, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. CryptoCarz is a multiplayer, fully immersive, VR-enabled racing experience, powered by the Ethereum blockchain. To race in the game, a user will have to demonstrate ownership of a car that is modelled and stored as an ERC721 Ethereum token in the gamer’s private wallet. The car will then be loaded into the game via integration with MetaMask and other proprietary tools

The game will initially offer 20 car models representative of the top cryptocurrencies. Each model will have a maximum of 650 units, hard-coded and numerically defined in the smart contract.No further cars in these models will be produced in the future.

Links:
Telegram Group: https://t.me/cryptocarz
Website: www.cryptocarz.io
Whitepaper: https://www.cryptocarz.io/docs/CryptoCarz_WP.pdf
One pager: https://www.cryptocarz.io/docs/CryptoCarz_1P.pdf
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cryptocarz
Medium blog: https://medium.com/@cryptocarz
Malta stakes new claim on crypto leadership with Delta Summit
Malta, which has gained a reputation as a “blockchain island” on account of its positive attitude to digital assets and distributed ledger technologies (DLT), will host its first official industry event to cement its position as a regulated digital currency and initial coin offering (ICO) hub.

The Delta Summit will take place in St. Julians, a picturesque city located on the Mediterranean coast. The event is poised to become Malta's official platform for promoting business opportunities for blockchain companies and fostering the development of the technology.

Who's coming?
Technology innovators, business leaders, influencers, and experts will attend the Malta summit to exchange ideas and discuss a wide range of topics vital for CEOs, investors, regulators, software developers, and crypto enthusiasts.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, Parliamentary Secretary Silvio Schembri, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao, and Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger are just a few prominent figures set to share their opinions and provide insights on the industry’s development.

What's to be discussed?
The summit participants will engage in discussions on various topics related to DLT and cryptocurrencies, while companies will get the opportunity to introduce their blockchain solutions.

Here is a sneak peak of the topics to be covered at the conference:
Navigating the regulatory landscape
Tokenizing assets - the way forward
Token economy and ICOs: the good, the bad, and the ugly
Malta: building a blockchain community
Digital assets exchanges- what's next?
Global trends in digital assets and blockchain regulation

Malta is the world’s first country to adopt comprehensive cryptocurrency and blockchain regulations. The favorable environment has transformed this island into a buzzing crypto hub, encouraging large companies and small startups alike to take commercial root in Malta. The Delta Summit will provide a perfect platform for finding partners or job and business opportunities while also allowing participants to meet investors and get involved in the blockchain space.
​​I believe that Bitcoin should strive to be P2P electronic cash for the world as soon as possible through onchain scaling.

🗣Roger Ver, crypto enthusiast, Bitcoin Cash promoter.
​​💡LG UPlus launches an international payment network based on blockchain technology.

It is expected that the launch in the test mode will take place in early 2019.

Users of one mobile operator will be able to carry out transactions in payment networks of other operators.

For example, users of LG UPlus will be able to buy goods using mobile phones, while in Taiwan or Japan, Far EasTone users will get the same opportunity when traveling to Korea or Japan.

The blockchain will be used to quickly confirm transactions and will allow users to save considerably on commissions, usually levied when using bank cards for international payments. In addition, the solution will eliminate another common problem in the form of changing exchange rates.

A memorandum of understanding between LG UPlus, Taiwan's Far EasTone Telecommunications, Japanese SoftBank and American TBCASoft was signed last week.
​​👨‍💻Hacker has stolen 44 427 EOS which is around 200,000 USD from EOS-based gambling application.

He took advantage of a bug in the smart contract with the help pf a ‘abi forwarder’ code. The bug allowed the hacker to bet without making money to his account.
When losing, he did not lose money, and in case of a win, he received payments in full.

The bug was removed in 24 hours.
But some other scammers used the name of the eosbetdicell account, similar to the EOSBet official account (eosbetdice11), and sent a small amount of EOS to the account of the hacker who used the bug.
The transaction was accompanied by a message stating that if the hacker will not compensate for the damage, EOSBet would use a team of lawyers from China to further prosecute the user. It is uknown yet whether the scammers managed to scare this person.

The application' developers stated that everything is fixed and the platform functions as before.
Binance to launch closed Beta testing of new crypto-fiat exchange in Singapore

Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance is set to begin a closed beta testing at Singapore fiat exchange on September 18, according to CEO Zhao Changpeng’s twitter handle.
Initially, beta testing will be by invitation only. No further details have been disclosed yet, however, media reports point that Singapore dollar will be available.
In July, Singapore ranked third most favorable country for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), in terms of the number of top global ICO projects, due to its relatively low taxes and tech-friendly atmosphere, according to analyst associated with the Crypto Finance Conference.
​​Morgan Stanley to launch Bitcoin swap trading
Morgan Stanley is set to launch a derivative product tied to the prices of Bitcoin. This new means for its clients to get exposure to Bitcoin will reportedly be launched once enough institutional client demand is met and upon finishing an internal approval process.

An anonymous person working at Morgan Stanley revealed to Bloomberg on Sept. 13 that the multinational investment bank and institutional service company will soon launch a Bitcoin derivative product aimed at offering traders and investors synthetic exposure to the leading cryptocurrency’s performance.

The proposed derivative product will work as price return swaps allowing market participants to take a short or long position on trades. The New York based bank will be charging a spread for each transaction.

💡What are Swaps?
According to Investopedia, a swap could be defined as a derivative contract that allows two transacting parties to exchange financial instruments. Those financial instruments could be anything from cash flows, interest rates, derivatives or securities such as stocks or bonds. Even though different types of swaps exist, interest rate swaps remain the most commonly used kind.

At the moment, it still remains unclear what exact type of Bitcoin swaps Morgan Stanley is planning to offer and how would it work. However, the same source confirmed to Bloomberg that the product would be based on Bitcoin futures contracts, not on physical Bitcoins.

Furthermore, the leading US investment bank is believed to be technically ready to launch the product once enough demand at the institutional level is met and once it clears an internal validation process of the product. As of press time, Morgan Stanley hasn’t yet released any comment or official statement on both the alleged initiative and the spread of the news.

Derivatives as the safest way to grant exposure to cryptocurrencies among Wall Street Banks
Morgan Stanley is yet another Wall Street guru that aims to get into the cryptocurrency market. In fact, according to Business Insider, Citigroup recently created a financial instrument known as Digital Asset Receipt (DAR) allowing clients to get exposure to Bitcoin. The DAR works the same way as an American depository receipt allowing US investors to own foreign stocks not listed on American exchanges. It is also believed to be the most straightforward way for clients to invest in cryptocurrencies without having to actually own them.

Furthermore, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Financial Officer Michael Chavez denied to CNBC last week reports that the bank was ditching its plans to open a cryptocurrency trading desk. The “fake news” has caused the market to slide, with major cryptocurrencies recording around 5% to 15% price losses in the few hours following its spread. In fact, Chavez affirmed that Goldman Sachs is still working on a type of derivative for Bitcoin in response to its clients’ demand.