Bitcoin Magazine's Week in Review
Bitcoin Magazine’sWeek in Review brings you the most critical, interesting and popular news affecting Bitcoin this week.
Adoption
Coinbase: Bitcoin Adoption on the Rise in the U.S.
Bitcoin adoption is on the rise in the U.S. and is gradually becoming mainstream, as more people have Google searched “Bitcoin” this year than the “royal wedding” or “election results,” according to research by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
The research also found that currently 58 percent of Americans say they’ve heard of Bitcoin, and 15 percent are “somewhat” or “very” likely to buy bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency in the near future.
Regulation
G20 Supports FATF Crypto Recommendations
Leaders of the G20 economic bloc formally announced their support for the FATF cryptocurrency guidelines at a conference in Osaka, Japan, last week. The G20 leaders, who represent the 20 largest economies in the world, believe these guidelines can help regulate fraudulent uses of cryptocurrencies, such as money laundering, terror financing and other nefarious activities.
The FATF, an international regulatory organization that makes formal policy recommendations to various nations and their economic regulators, went live with the guidelines on June 21, 2019.
Privacy and Security
CipherTrace, Shyft Unveil ID Protecting Solution to FATF Crypto Guidance
Not all crypto users are pleased with the new FATF guidelines, particularly when it comes to client privacy. As a result, blockchain analytics company CipherTrace and attestation platform Shyft are working on developing an anonymous identity protocol that would allow crypto services to share information without disclosing user identity. This partnership plans to act as a mediator between government officials and crypto companies by creating a proof-of-knowledge identity protocol that would satisfy regulators without sacrificing client information in the process.
Digital Assets
Blockstream Announces Atomic Swap Integration for Liquid Blockstream announced this week that it has launched a Liquid Swap Tool on its platform that will allow users to execute atomic swaps on the Liquid Network. In order to help clients utilize the tool efficiently, the company has also released a configuration guide as part of its developer resources set.