French Bank Licensed to Offer Crypto Services, New Crypto Products Launch
By Christopher Lamb
According to recent reports, one of the largest banks in France recently received the first license for crypto services issued by the French financial regulator, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF). The bank’s crypto unit is reportedly now licensed to offer cryptocurrency custody, trading and sales. The AMF license reportedly requires compliance with stricter rules than for companies only registered with the AMF in areas including corporate governance, cybersecurity and compliance.
According to another recent report, Gnosis, an Ethereum development firm, has partnered with a major global financial services firm to launch Gnosis Card, a physical debit card that connects to self-custodied cryptocurrency wallets, allowing users to “spend[] crypto like fiat” in traditional point-of-sale and internet transactions. Gnosis is also reportedly launching a set of developer tools that will allow others to create their own version of the Gnosis Card.
In a recent blog post, blockchain development firm Chainlink announced that “the Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) has entered the Mainnet Early Access phase on the Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon blockchains.” According to the blog post, “CCIP is the most secure, reliable, and easy-to-use interoperability protocol for building cross-chain applications and services.” The blog post notes that CCIP “enables protocols to quickly start transferring tokens across chains using audited token pool contracts they control without writing custom code and in a fraction of the time it would take to build on their own.” Among other things, the blog post notes that developers, applications and enterprises can use CCIP for cross-chain applications of tokens, lending applications, NFTs, account abstraction, gaming, and data storage and computation.
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FSB Publishes Global Regulatory Framework for Crypto-asset Activities
By Robert A. Musiala Jr.
The Financial Stability Board (FSB) recently issued a press release announcing the publication of its Global Regulatory Framework for Crypto-asset Activities (FSB Framework). According to the press release, “[t]he G20 tasked the FSB to coordinate the delivery of an effective regulatory, supervisory and oversight framework for crypto-assets.” The FSB Framework consists of two distinct sets of recommendations: (1) High-level recommendations for the regulation, supervision and oversight of crypto-asset activities and markets; and (2) Revised high-level recommendations for the regulation, supervision and oversight of “global stablecoin” arrangements. According to the press release, “In light of events of the past year, the FSB has strengthened both sets of high-level recommendations in three areas: (i) ensuring adequate safeguarding of client assets; (ii) addressing risks associated with conflicts of interest; and (iii) strengthening cross-border cooperation.”
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BITA to Merge with Global Blockchain Business Council
By Keith R. Murphy
Through a merger, the BITA Standards Council (BITA) will become an initiative of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC), with BITA members becoming members of GBBC, according to a recent press release. The GBBC reportedly is the largest industry association for the blockchain and digital assets community, and when combined with BITA, it will have more than 500 institutional members across more than 100 jurisdictions and disciplines. BITA focuses on the creation of open-source, royalty-free data standards in the global supply chain space. Following the merger, BITA will continue work to map, produce, publish and adopt those standards, according to the press release. One focus will be shipment/inventory tracking and tracing. “With combining scale and expertise of these two entities, we will help to shape a future for Web3 and blockchain that will enable businesses to collaborate more effectively and efficiently across the global supply chain,” according to GBBC Chair David Treat.
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