ShapeShift’s new one-stop shop for non-custodial crypto management is launching out of private beta today.

The new platform wants to rival custodians like Coinbase for ease-of-use, all while giving users full control of their private keys.

“Largely this came from my dissatisfaction with the reality that most of the large companies are custodial,” ShapeShift founder and CEO Erik Voorhees told CoinDesk in an interview. “It offers many services that a company like Coinbase would provide but on ShapeShift it’s done in a much more secure and self-sovereign way.”

The new platform allows users to buy, sell, trade and track multiple cryptocurrencies in a single place, with over 50 digital assets currently supported. Using the new platform requires a connected hardware wallet, like Trezor or KeepKey, which ShapeShift acquired in 2017. The company’s approach seeks to eliminate counterparty risk.

“There needed to be a platform that had great UX that my grandparents could use with limited instruction but that was built on a foundation of being non-custodial,” Voorhees said.

It’s a major launch for the five-year-old company, which was founded in 2014 as a way to swap one cryptocurrency for another.

The new ShapeShift has been over a year in the making and is aimed squarely at the retail market. And while the added functionality is meant to expand the company’s ambitions, Voorhees says the new platform is in keeping with ShapeShift’s libertarian roots.

“There’s a general sense within the industry is that if all that happens from the crypto revolution is that you just have a new set of custodians, then nothing really changed,” Voorhees said. By making it easy to hold your own keys, ShapeShift seeks to change that.

Voorhees said 20,000 users participated in the platform’s closed beta.

“A lot of people see it as the better way to use a hardware wallet,” he said of early user feedback.

Voorhees says more assets and features – like lending markets, derivatives and more fiat options – will be rolled into the platform going forward. ShapeShift also plans to release a mobile app. Notably, a know-your-customer (KYC) check is only required for trading.

“Large funds and institutions will likely still custody with third-party qualified custodians but as crypto becomes more mainstream, consumers will continue to custody using hardware solutions for some time,” Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera Capital, which participated in ShapeShift’s $10.4 million Series A in 2017, told CoinDesk. “ShapeShift is providing a much better experience and product than the existing players.”

The launch comes seven months after significant downsizing at the company, which is operated primarily from the U.S. state of Colorado. However, as the most recent crypto winter recedes into the rearview, ShapeShift is optimistic about its “next phase.”

Describing the platform in a press statement, Voorhees said:

“It is where crypto lives and breathes, and upon it we will build our vision for self-sovereign finance.”

Erik Voorhees image via ShapeShift

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Bitcoin leaped into the green in the European trading hours, and is now looking to scale key resistance above $12,000.

The top cryptocurrency by market value jumped from $11,400 to $11,916 in the 15 minutes to 09:10 UTC, according to Bitstamp data.

With the $500 spike, BTC has put an end to directionless trading seen over the weekend, in which the cryptocurrency was restricted to a narrowing price range above $11,000.

Interestingly, the range breakout occurred three days after bitcoin’s hash rate – a measure of total miners’ performance – rose to 74.5 million tera hashes per second, representing a more than 100% rise year-on-year, according to bitinfocharts.com.

Some observers including former Wall Street trader and journalist Max Keiser consider a rise in hash rate an advance indicator of impending price rise. If true, BTC could scale the resistance of the bearish lower high at $12,061 and soon revisit recent highs.

Conversely, though, many others, including renowned analyst Alex Kruger, are of the opinion that hash rate follows price, and the former outperforming the latter is a sign of “overly exuberant” miners. As a result, expecting a bullish move to recent highs on the basis of hash rate alone could prove costly.

That said, the short duration technical charts do indicate scope for a break above $12,061.

As of writing, BTC is changing hands at $11,830, representing a 2 percent gain on the day.

Hourly chart

BTC’s previous hourly candle closed at $11,790, confirming an upside break of the symmetrical triangle pattern created over the last four days.

The triangle breakout, a bullish continuation pattern, is backed by a rise in buy volumes (green bar) and indicates a resumption of the recovery from the July 2 low of $9,614.

Prices, therefore, could invalidate the bearish lower-highs pattern with a move above $12,061 (July 4 high).

Daily and weekly charts

Bitcoin fell 6.86 percent on July 4, taking the shine off the hammer reversal candlestick pattern created over the preceding two days.

A potential break above $12,061, as suggested by the hourly chart, would validate the bullish hammer reversal and open the doors to a retest of the recent high of $13,880.

Any move above $12,061 will likely be short-lived if trading volumes remain low.

It is worth noting that the weekly relative strength index (RSI) continues to report overbought conditions. So, the probability of a low-volume breakout trapping the bulls on the wrong side of the market is high.

Disclosure: The author holds no cryptocurrency at the time of writing

Bitcoin image via Shutterstock; charts by TradingView

Brian McNulty, a former R3 managing director who left the company in January, has emerged from the bushes with a blockchain project to streamline the fund management industry.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, FundAdminChain (FAC), which is helmed by McNulty, also boasts R3 CEO David Rutter as an advisor, as well as buy-side veterans Pete Townsend and Mark Harrison, both formerly of BNP Paribas. 

Built on R3’s Corda platform, FAC aims to bring the distributors, transfer agents, custodians and other intermediaries involved in the buying and selling of units in a fund onto a distributed ledger. The blockchain is targeting transfer agencies and messaging, to begin with, and then aims to build out into asset services. 

The size of this industry is about $100 trillion globally, according to FAC’s pitch deck; the London-based firm is starting with the comparatively modest goal of capturing 1.5 percent of the U.K. market’s $8.5 trillion in assets under management (AUM) in Year One.

A distributed ledger aimed at the funds space had been on McNulty’s mind for some time, he said, and he honed the idea during his time as global head of services at R3. As such, he’s in no doubt about the choice of platform. 

McNulty told CoinDesk:

“R3 is keen to fuel companies like us and we couldn’t do this without them. You could say I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, but to be honest I’d only do this on Corda. It’s the only one that’s fit for purpose. And having been in there for three years, I can see how we can work with some of the other builders of solutions.”

The potential savings from the technology are “exciting,” according to McNulty. FAC will charge fund managers 0.5 basis points for the registry, depository and transaction functions, compared to 5 basis points on average incumbents charge for the same services, he said.

Using FAC can save fund managers a minimum £30 million per year, per each jurisdiction where a fund is domiciled, for every £100 billion assets under management, McNulty claimed.

The minimum viable product is out the gates, McNulty said with 25 fund managers looking at it. He said FAC is expecting to do a raise at the tail end of this year and live production is slated for June 2020. 

McNulty joined R3 in March 2016 having previously founded the PTDL (Post Trade Distributed Ledger) Group, a blockchain consortium which numbered around 40 members including CME Group, State Street and the London Stock Exchange.

He left R3 as part of an internal reorganization there, but it appears there are no hard feelings.

FAC will be built using the full commercial version of Corda as opposed to being an open-source “CorDapp.” As such, the Corda licensing will be wrapped in the license for FAC, said McNulty, adding: 

“Most things that are going to go into production in banks probably need the enterprise [Corda]. So I am building on an enterprise version from the outset because I know that’s where we’ll end up.”

Logo pic courtesy of R3

IDG-backed cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has just launched a platform offering crypto derivatives trading.

Announced Monday, the KuMEX trading venue is now live in public beta and will offer initially a bitcoin perpetual contract (XBTUSDM), quoted in U.S. dollars, with up to 20x leverage.

Aimed to make pricing “more fair and rigorous,” KuCoin said, KuMEX uses a bitcoin spot index providing a volume-weighted average of the U.S. dollar price of bitcoin across six exchanges: Coinbase Pro, Bitstamp, Kraken, Gemini, Liquid and Bittrex.

The spot index also avoids a contract being liquidated “because of the low liquidity of the trading platform or the large price fluctuations of one or two spot exchanges,” the exchange explained.

KuMEX offers some protection from risk with an insurance fund it says is “fully transparent,” with the balance to be disclosed on the platform each day.

“This fund ensures that investors who are forced to close their positions will not lose money that exceeds their position margin,” according to the announcement.

Should the insurance fund turn out to be insufficient to cover losses, KuMEX also has an “auto-deleveraging” system, said to be less “inflexible” than settlement via more standard socialised loss mechanisms.

To encourage new retail investors to get involved with crypto derivatives, KuMEX is offering a lower investment threshold than found at some other providers.

“The XBTUSDM contract value is 1 USD, which enables traders to make a more flexible investment. At the same time, KuMEX offers a negative fee for Makers at a rate of -0.025% with a certain amount of fixed commission, encouraging users to provide liquidity to the platform through making the market and earning some commission as an incentive,” says KuCoin.

KuCoin CEO Michael Gan said:

“Compared to the spot market, derivatives are much riskier due to the leverage used, so we are more cautious in providing such services. KuMEX is a derivative trading platform independently developed by our team, and from its inception, we have positioned it as a genuine and advanced financial product, so that all users can trust the platform and trade on it freely, without worrying about the loss caused by any form of manipulation. ”

After the full launch of the platform, 50 percent of net KuMEX revenue will be assigned for distribution to holders of the exchange’s token, KuCoin, the release states.

Last November, the Singapore-based exchange raised $20 million in Series A funding from investors including IDG Capital, Matrix Partners and Neo Global Capital.

KuCoin image via Shutterstock

Facebook’s recently unveiled Libra cryptocurrency project threatens the stability of financial systems, according to a South Korean financial regulator.

In a new Korean-language trends update published July 5 and reported by CoinDesk Korea, the nation’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) looks at what might occur “If 2.4 billion Facebook users worldwide transfer one tenth of their bank deposits to Libra.”

Should that scenario come about, banks’ solvency would diminish, as would their loan reserves, representing a threat to emerging markets from the relocation of the capital out of those countries.

The FSC also raised concerns that bank runs could occur during financial or foreign exchange crises, as people move their national fiat currency to Libra. The simplification of money exchange and remittances through Libra is also expected to limit central banks’ ability to control international capital movements. The effectiveness of monetary policy would also be limited if Libra becomes widely exchanged for central bank currency.

The agency further expressed concern that Libra could be widely used for money laundering without proper bank-like controls. It added that “a large financial institution, such as Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan,” had refused to participate in Libra.

The project is a major threat to the traditional banking industry, the report says. If a company such as Facebook buys a bond instead of making a bank deposit with customer funds, the financial condition of the bank may be worsened. And if Libra allows virtually free overseas payments, South Korean banks’ trillions of won in revenues from remittances would be significantly reduced.

The likelihood of successful commercialization of Libra is higher than for other cryptocurrencies, the FSC goes on. Offering financial services through its social media services such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, with their billions of users, the firm can more easily guarantee convenience and price competitiveness.

The FSC stressed that the report is to “facilitate the understanding of the press and other media” on overseas trends and not its official opinion on Libra.

Facebook Libra image via Shutterstock

The European Central Bank (ECB) wants regulators to kick into a higher gear when it comes to developing rules for big tech firms moving into finance, such as Facebook and its Libra cryptocurrency project.

According to a report from Bloomberg, ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said in France on Sunday:

“It’s out of the question to allow them to develop in a regulatory void for their financial service activities, because it’s just too dangerous. We have to move more quickly than we’ve been able to do up until now.”

Such projects are a “useful wake-up call for regulators and public authorities,” said Coeure, since they pose a number of questions and may get regulators to improve the way they work.

The news comes as the latest in a string of reports indicating that global watchdogs are worried that the Libra project, in combination with Facebook’s billions of users, could pose a threat to national fiat currencies such as the dollar. There are additional concerns about Libra’s possible use in money laundering if not governed correctly

Some U.S. lawmakers are even seeking a freeze on development of the cryptocurrency, and different government agencies will hold hearings this month to discuss the project.

Elsewhere, watchdogs in nations such as France, Japan, Singapore have expressed some concern over Libra and said more needs to be known about the project.

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has previously said that “it is out of question’’ that Libra be allowed “become a sovereign currency. It can’t and it must not happen.”

On Sunday, Coeure argued that cryptocurrency development brings to light weaknesses in current regulations, as well as a failure of the banking system to adopt new technology, Bloomberg wrote.

ECB building via Shutterstock