Author: David Canellis

Crypterium, a cryptocurrency banking solution, has announced a very strong move: appointing the former CEO of Visa UK as it’s new Chief Executive Officer.

Marc O’Brien brings a lot of credibility with him to his new role, he spent six years as the head of Visa UK & Ireland, and in that time Visa increased its market share of debit card payments to a reported, and enormous, 97%. Their overall business revenue also doubled under O’Brien’s leadership.

Crypterium wants to be next to get the O’Brien bump. Most recently O’Brien has been acting as a key advisor in Revolut, a fellow FinTech consumer-level payment platform whose valuation is fast approaching US$2 billion.

I am delighted to be joining Crypterium at such an exciting time. I strongly believe that cryptocurrency is about to go mainstream and we can be pioneers to build Crypterium into a terrific business,” said O’Brien.

It is understood that the new CEO will be spearheading the release of the Crypterium App, which promises to bring cash-like convenience to the cryptocurrency user. A main drawcard of the platform will be virtual cards that can be linked to Apple or Android Pay, bound to cryptocurrency wallets and able to be used with any NFC terminal.

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A press release yesterday announced that the eToro investment platform will finally be offering cryptocurrencies in the United States.

Over the past decade the eToro investment platform has grown to accommodate over ten million registered users in over 140 countries. The addition of U.S-based investors, worth a sizeable percentage of the global cryptocurrency market, is the next obvious step in order to compete with other major cryptocurrency exchanges based outside the jurisdiction of the SEC.

There is a waiting list though, and initial users will be offered just ten cryptocurrencies, but the company pledges to integrate ‘several more’ cryptocurrencies throughout the rest of the year.

CEO and co-founder of eToro, Yoni Assia, said this of the expansion:

Consumers all over the world should have access to the tools they need to participate in cryptocurrency markets, regardless of their expertise. We’re excited to make our platform available to U.S. users, who have shown a strong enthusiasm for participating in these growing markets. Within the platform, our U.S. users will find rich knowledge and insights into how to effectively trade and invest in cryptocurrencies.”

The initial cryptocurrencies offered will be: Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Dash (DASH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Stellar Lumens (XLM), NEO (NEO), Ethereum Classic (ETC) and EOS (EOS).

The full eToro platform enables users to copy the trades of other investors, manually invest, and it even provides opportunities for automatically investing in a diversified portfolio.

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Global smartphone giant HTC has revealed its latest smartphone: the Exodus.

Pitched perfectly towards the cryptocurrency user, it is touted to be focused on decentralized, open-source apps and has strong visions on allowing each phone to be its own node, a la internet-of-things style projects such as IOTA.

In fact, the ‘its own node’ angle has been pushed by their marketing team: they have openly declared their intention to have twice the nodes that Ethereum has and triple that of Bitcoin’s.

Being successful would make the new HTC Exodus blockchain network the largest in the sector.

While being marketed as a means to ‘take control of your data’ it is still unclear whether it will support popular traditional and centralised apps as well as dApps.

With details being so sparse, there’s a strong chance that it purely exists as a blueprint at this stage. It has been confirmed already, though, that it will be an Android-based device and will come complete with support for Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems and networks such as Lightning and Dfinity.

Smartphones geared for cryptocurrencies aren’t exactly new, but previously there has been a heavy focus on security rather than usability and general use of dApps, let alone capable of becoming the largest blockchain network in existence.

The introduction of a flagship smartphone focused on all things decentralized, by a company such as HTC – who in 2016 posted revenue in excess of US$130 billion – could signal we about to experience an increased rate of adoption across the market.

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Bloomberg has announced the launch of a Cryptocurrency Benchmark Index in collaboration with Galaxy Digital Capital Management.

Called the Bloomerg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI), their platform will track the performance of the most liquid portion of cryptocurrency market.

The BGCI will be market capitalization-weighted and will measure the performance of 10 USD-traded cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Monero, Ripple and ZCash.

This recent partnership between Bloomberg and Galaxy Digital Capital Management looks to create the cryptocurrency equivalent of S&P 500.

The official announcement reads that the index will be administered by Bloomberg Index Services.

Mike Novogratz, a well known Bitcoin bull and CEO of Galaxy Digital Capital management has said that the index will bring “unprecedented transparency to the crypto market.”

It was worth mentioning that Novogratz is both a former partner at Goldman Sachs and a former Principal and Chief Investment Officer at Fortress Investment Group.

In October 2015, Fortress Investment Group and its US$2.3billion of managed assets were liquidated and all funds were returned to clients after posting losses two years in a row.

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Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei has announced that future models will include an integrated Bitcoin wallet.

In an official release the company has revealed that it will partner with BTC.com for the inclusion of Bitcoin wallet to its AppGallery. The AppGallery itself will be installed by default on all new devices including Huawei and Honor phones.

The move is set to give a significant advantage to Huawei in their home market of China.

China has been a focal point of the entire crypto-market over the past few years.

Huawei’s decision to provide crypto-support completely by default may suggest that the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general is likely to increase in the upcoming months.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the BTC.com vice president has commented that:

The use of cashless payments with apps is very big and the traditional banking system is lacking, so there’s a good use case for crypto payments to grow there.”

Huawei, founded in 1987, enjoys almost a 25% share in the entire share of the IT networks market in China.

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