Month: August 2022

Money is Moving Faster. Time for you to Understand.

Posted on by Rand Preston
Image: CHUTTERSNAP

As the world move closer to widespread adoption of ISO 20022, the future standard for international transactions, what can we expect from the cryptocurrency world? For one, it is unlikely that major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) will be used for conducting cross-border transactions. Not only is Bitcoin built on a proof-or-work consensus, but its transaction time is exceedingly slow compared to other projects in the fintech space. Bitcoin is also not currently an ISO 20022 compliant digital asset.

Of the thousands of cryptocurrencies in existence, the following currently comply with the ISO 20022 standard: (courtesy cryptopolitan.com)

One only needs to visit the ISO 20022 website to dive deeply in the guts of the project. Here, you can explore the many members of the standards committees across the five domains that the standard will address. The business domains are: payments, securities, cards and related retail financial services, foreign exchange, and trade services.

As far as the ISO standard’s syntax, the most widely used is eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML). This is not to be confused with the digital asset minted by Steller, the Lumen (XLM). The reason for using this syntax is simple, it is the most widely used method for encoding documents electronically.

Real Time Gross Settlement processing (RTGS) is speeding up the movement of money. It facilitates the electronic movement of money from bank to bank in seconds, settling out with near immediacy. This enhancement of transaction speed creates new levels of liquidity by freeing up funds that would otherwise be used as nostro/vostro or delayed settlement through old messaging systems, such as SWIFT MT. Follow this link to see a timeline of the adoption for ISO 20022 and RTGS across the globe.

Image Source: Compact

The ISO 20022 project is over a decade old and quickly approaching unilateral adoption across the global monetary system. Referring back to the five business practices gives you a good understanding of the impact that the world of finance will experience in the coming months. While many cryptocurrency projects are left seemingly unaffected, watch for the legal outcome of one particular company engaged in the global payment remittances sector, Ripple. While the US Securities Exchange Commission is trying to convince the legal system that the cryptocurrency XRP was sold as an unregistered security, the digital asset XRP does comply with the ISO 20022 standard and the company Ripple is on the ISO 20022 Payment Standards Evaluation Board as an expert for one of the five business practices: payments.

Best,

Rand

This is not investment advice. I am not an investment advisor. This is for entertainment and informational purposes. Consult a licensed financial advisor before trading.

Blockchain Impacts – Understanding ISO 20022

Posted on by Rand Preston
Photo: NASA

Most people have never heard of SWIFT, nor do they have any idea of how money have moved around the globe for the past 40+ years. Regardless of catching up to speed now, the world of international payments is about to receive a major overhaul. There is a massive amount of information regarding this standard and by 2025, all financial institutions will have to be able to process ISO 20022 compliant payments. The five business domains that ISO 20022 covers are: payments, securities, cards and related retail financial services, FX (foreign exchange), and trade services.

The new standard, currently in an opt-in phase, will allow for open and transparent messaging between financial institutions around the globe. Within the new syntax-rich messaging system is a central repository containing the information necessary to support the various APIs.

In order to move the current financial messaging system from the existing legacy system, a team of dedicated professionals work to support the migration to the new system. This is a delicate transfer and must be performed with diligence, since not all institutions are migrating at the same time.

Putting it simply, all major currencies that exist have already adopted ISO 20022 or have a migration plan to adopt. The reason, in a nutshell, is the improved efficiency that this standard provides. End-to-end processing of payments messaging are streamlined, and delivery is straight forward. SWIFT MT has been the legacy system enabling payments to move around the globe since the 1970s. This will no longer be the case.

Interesting information about ISO 20022 can be found on the Payments Standards Evaluation Group page on the ISO 20022 website. Under the list of EXPERTS, two of the member entities listed in the column dominated by countries are in fact, not countries. These two member entities are SWIFT, the current legacy payments system, as well as Ripple. Ripple is a US based company deeply engrained in the development of RTGS (real-time gross settlement) digital ledger technology. Ripple is also embattled in a lawsuit that was brought on by the US Securities Exchange Commission in December of 2020. SWIFT is a registered expert on the list of all business domain experts while Ripple is on the list for payments.

If you are interested in the payments portion of the ISO 20022 standard, research ISO 20022 compliant digital assets. Any financial institutions that are processing payments on the SWIFT MT network will be switched over to the ISO 20022 standard by November 2022.

To understand the standard more intimately, I suggest viewing the standards website for the most specific information.

Best,

Rand

This is not investment advice. I am not an investment advisor. This is for informational and entertainment purposes. Consult an investment advisor.

The Lawsuits are Piling-up. It’s a Bad Time to be a Successful Crypto-exchange.

Posted on by Rand Preston

This suit is not so dissimilar to another brought against Ripple, creator of XRP, when a couple of XRP holders felt their returns were not what they should have been. I’ve included the article from dailyhodl.com, so please follow the link for more information.

Coinbase Hit With Lawsuit From Shareholder Alleging 2021 Stock Listing Was Based On Misinformation. https://dailyhodl.com/2022/08/10/coinbase-hit-with-lawsuit-from-shareholder-alleging-2021-stock-listing-was-based-on-misinformation/

Top US-based crypto exchange Coinbase is getting hit with a lawsuit alleging that the firm’s 2021 stock listing was based on misleading information. …

Coinbase Hit With Lawsuit From Shareholder Alleging 2021 Stock Listing Was Based On Misinformation

People need to understand the risks associates with investing and know the difference of investing early in new technologies that may or may not survive.

In a technologies infancy, there are likely to be wild price swings. Do your homework and only invest what you can afford to lose.

Best,

Rand

This post contains a repost from dailyhodl.com

BlackRock Partners with Coinbase

Posted on by Rand Preston

When the world’s largest asset management firm, BlackRock, partners with a leading cryptocurrency platform, we must begin to take notice of the emerging asset class. Read the Bloomberg article here. VanEck already has approximately $500M worth of digital assets under management in ETFs, but holding the actual digital asset may be where the real money is. The Blackrock and Coinbase partnership fuses just that; access to the actual tokens as well as custody through Coinbase Prime.

I would be remiss not to draw attention to Larry Fink’s previous stance on cryptocurrency can be listened to in this Bloomberg video. Mr. Fink was showing no signs of interest in digital assets, even though his firm, along with others, were building out digital asset trading platforms.

Ultimately the operational outcome of this move will allow BlackRock’s platform, Aladdin, to work with Coinbase Prime. Coinbase stock price suffered a substantial drop since going public on April 14, 2021. However, the partnership announcement with BlackRock has been nothing but good news for the titan cryptocurrency platform struggling recently due to tightening financial markets around the globe.

Best,

Rand

All opinions are my own and should not be considered investment advice. I am doing this to provide entertainment.

#crypto #xrp #xlm #algo #hbar #miota #qnt #xdc #iso20022 #cryptocurrency #money #futureofmoney #blackrock #coinbase