Ripple Small Win Against Investors Claiming XRP Is a Security 4435

Ripple’s efforts to consolidate multiple lawsuits filed against it are proceeding successfully. Ripple, which has been sued by a number of parties claiming the XRP token it uses to power some of its products is a security, has been pushing to have the various class action lawsuits against it combined, or at least coordinated, to limit the number of cases it fights at once.

On Wednesday, a California Superior Court suit filed by investor David Oconer was formally designated as “complex litigation” – meaning it will now be coordinated with the remaining suits.

According to public filings, this follows another California case, filed by investor Vladi Zakinov, which has already been deemed complex as of June 2018. Under California court rules, one of the requirements for a complex designation is that a case involves “securities claims or investment losses involving many parties.” With the new designation, a single judge should oversee actions relating to the case to prevent duplicated efforts and potentially different results due to different cases.

However, one result of the Oconer action is the case is now assigned to Judge Marie Weiner, who Ripple successfully moved to disqualify from presiding over the Zakinov case. It is unclear whether Ripple will again move to have the judge disqualified from the new preceding.

Ripple filed to coordinate the Zakinov and Oconer lawsuits earlier this month, claiming that the two class actions concern “‘all or a material part of the same subject matter’ and involve ‘all or substantially all of the same parties.'”

Another related class-action lawsuit, filed by investor Ryan Coffey, was voluntarily dismissed by the investor last week. That case was moved to the District Court of the Northern District of California by Ripple, though Coffey tried to move it back to a lower court. His voluntary dismissal comes after that effort was rejected.

Previous ArticleNext Article

Oasis Pro Markets LLC Receives U.S. Regulatory Approval for its Digital Security Alternative Trading System 13653

Oasis Pro Markets (“Oasis”), a regulated broker-dealer, announced today that it recently received approval from FINRA and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) for its Digital Security Alternative Trading System (“ATS”).

Oasis is the first US-regulated ATS allowing Subscribers to trade digital (“blockchain”) securities and make payment for those digital securities in digital cash (i.e., Stablecoins such as USDC and DAI and, when available, central bank digital currencies (“CBDCs”) or fiat. Oasis’s ATS is authorized to allow its Subscribers to:

  1. Trade both registered and unregistered securities on the ATS
  2. Trade digital securities OTC
  3. Trade both equity and debt in digital form through the use of a blockchain
  4. Invest in initial private offerings that can be recorded on a blockchain

Approval for the ATS comes after working closely with the SEC and FINRA to ensure the platform offers legally compliant, regulated trading of digital securities.  Expected ATS launch date is Q2 2021.

“Obtaining approval with the world’s leading financial regulatory bodies has the potential to unleash a tremendous market opportunity; it advances investor protections, and coupled with digital cash, has the potential to unlock trillions of dollars of value in the digital securities space,” said Pat LaVecchia, CEO and Co-Chairman, Oasis Pro Markets. “Moving quickly with a regulation-first mindset, digital cash for digital security, and a deeply experienced team is a tremendous competitive advantage, and the only way to ensure that digital securities trading is viable long-term within the U.S. financial system.”

Oasis’s ATS provides access to liquid private and public digital security markets, via a secure interface that offers a range of custodians and digital security investments.  The ATS focuses on

  1. Institutional Quality Interface
  2. Overall Low Cost of Trading
  3. Liquidity with leading Market Makers
  4. Regulatory Protections
  5. Robust Technology

“Oasis’s ATS is set apart from other trading systems by the ability to accommodate Stablecoins and enable a more accessible, liquid, and transparent market for privately offered digital securities. We have worked tirelessly to deliver a low friction, digital security trading platform with streamlined onboarding and the type of volume that will excite issuers of securities and subscribers alike, whether accredited or institutional investors,” added Joseph Quintilian, Co-Chairman, Oasis Pro Markets.

“The only responsible path to successful financial industry adoption of blockchain’s advantages in digital securities trading, is through registered entities acknowledging the unmatched benefits and credibility that is provided by a regulated financial system,” said LaVecchia.

CES 2021 BayPay Rides Rise in Token Commerce with Its Simple, Fast, and Safe Payment Service 13273

BayPay is a technology company that builds economic infrastructure for blockchain with a promise to offering simple, fast, and safe payments, especially with the anticipated growth in token-based commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people don’t necessarily want to hold physical money. BayPay’s Founder and CEO Scofield Yeh is positioning his company to reap the benefits of growth in the token economy. He said that, despite the fact that blockchain-related businesses are growing faster than the rest of the economy, only about 0.3 percent of global commerce happens on “chain” today.

“Regulatory complexity, a byzantine global financial system, and a shortage of engineers are constraining the impact of the token economy. Removing the barriers to token commerce helps more new businesses get started, expedites growth for existing companies, and increases economic output and trade globally. BayPay combines a payments platform with applications that put blockchain data at the heart of business operations,” Yeh said.

“Businesses of every size, from new startups to public companies, use our software to accept payments and manage their token businesses on chain,” he said.

He said that sitting atop BayPay’s blockchain platform are applications like the token, wallet, and cashier, which manage the lifecycle of the blockchain and deposit money into user bank accounts anywhere. BayPay includes a powerful API engine that makes transferring asset ownership easy. “Our SaaS (Software as a Service) infrastructure provides reliability, scalability, and security,” said Yeh.

NO-KEY

BayPay said that the biggest obstacle for users to enter the blockchain world is concerns related to establishing a wallet of their own such as managing private keys and remembering recovery phrases. By separating the two roles of identity authentication and authorization, BayPay allows users to use wallets as easily as using Gmail. It also allows companies to integrate token services into existing products to provide consistent user experiences.

NO-FEE

Yeh said the tokens issued by BayPay support the payment of fees by designated service providers, making it as easy for consumers as using ordinary points. “All transactions have costs. For example, the use of VISA cards incurs a fee charge of about 2%. Also, when the transaction fee is determined by the consumer and paid by the consumer using a token, it will confuse and inconvenience consumers. This is the current state of the token economy,” he said.

PAY-AS-YOU-GO

BayPay cloud service provides hundreds of application programming interfaces to assist your token economy operations as well as dozens of third-party integrated applications that help enterprises operate, including vouchers, discount coupons, gift certificates, meal coupons, redemption coupons, points, loyalty programs, and much more. The best part is that services are priced based on usage, without expensive program development costs and lengthy launch times.

Yeh noted that there are several ways to leverage BayPay. For example, it allows merchants, even those without blockchain knowledge such as POS retailers and e-commerce websites, to accept tokens as cash or to drop a link through chat or a Facebook post.

BayPay also helps ICO issuers improve the liquidity of their tokens. “Users can set the buyback price of their tokens and we will collect the tokens for them. There is no need to allocate manpower to work with your vendors and no more marketing subsidies need be spent on low-impact efforts.”

The company’s E2E also helps customers aggregate their spending power from separate sources and transfer their assets to whomever they want through the wallet. “No annoying private keys like with other wallets. All of the assets on BayPay are safeguarded by a hardware key vault.” Moreover, the B2B helps enterprises create stable coins as checks and deposit cash to their clients. This reduces the cost of accounting by adopting the distributed ledger services of blockchain. The innovative services of BayPay have earned the company selection by Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) as one of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups showcased at CES 2021.

BayPay’s Founder and CEO Scofield Yeh is an experienced chief technology officer with specific skills in operations management, IT service management, business model development, management, and accounts management. Yeh is a strong information technology professional. He earned his executive master of Business Administration (EMBA) focused on entrepreneurship from National Taiwan University.

ACORD Solutions Group Launches Data Exchange Platform with First-of-Its-Kind Implementation by Aon & Zurich North America 13730

ACORD Solutions Group (ASG), the industry-owned subsidiary of ACORD, the standards-setting body for the global insurance industry, today announced the successful implementation of its ADEPT platform to perform automated, real-time premium accounting reconciliation between insurers and brokers. This market capability was developed working closely with some of the industry’s largest stakeholders, with the first data exchanged by professional services firm and broker Aon plc and carrier Zurich North America.

“While ACORD works closely with virtually all major brokers and carriers, we owe special gratitude to Aon and Zurich, who have been leading the way in defining and implementing this technology,” said Bijesh Jacob, SVP of Technology & Standards, ACORD. “Their contributions have been invaluable in launching an industry-wide platform to enable secure, digital data exchange and validation for brokers and carriers.”

Working with Aon and Zurich, ACORD recognized the common issues and themes associated with the premium settlement process. “The premium accounting process is a highly inefficient transactional service provided by brokers and carriers. Leveraging the Blockchain-based backbone of ADEPT will provide brokers and carriers with an industrial-strength platform to identify and resolve inconsistent transactions very early in the process. This industry innovation will not only drive out non-value-added cycles, but also provide clients a more seamless premium payment experience,” noted Mark Schmalzer, Aon’s Global Service Delivery Leader.

ADEPT (ACORD Data Exchange Platform & Translator) offers a secure, decentralized storage and access service which acts as a ‘single source of truth,’ enabling participants to verify payment information. By structuring, translating, and validating the data in real time, ADEPT greatly reduces the time and cost of reconciliation.

“The insurance industry is experiencing unprecedented change and technology is unlocking new and efficient ways of conducting business,” said Tracey Bailey, Billing Solutions Lead, Zurich North America and project manager for Zurich’s implementation of the ADEPT platform.

“The ACORD ADEPT solution is well aligned with Zurich’s continued efforts to improve our customer experience and broker interactions through innovation. We are proud to be on the front end of this journey with ACORD and Aon and are excited about ADEPT’s continued adoption within the insurance industry.”

ADEPT is a market capability which leverages the industry-accepted ACORD Data Standards to link trading partners with real-time data exchange, transformation, and validation. Although extracting inefficiencies from the premium accounting process provides significant value for the trading partners, it only provides a glimpse of transformational functionality to come. Now that a central matching mechanism for policies is created, future use-cases may include claims, placing and other critical insurance processes covering all major lines of business.

“We are honored to help pioneer the first data exchanged on the ADEPT platform. Our collaboration with ACORD showcases Aon’s continued commitment to innovation within the insurance industry,” said Joe Propati, Chief Operating Officer for North America, Aon. “This technology will change the way we do business, boosting efficiency for insurance carriers and brokers all while protecting the integrity of the data.”

“Thanks to the efforts of these visionary organizations, ADEPT is now in production and able to support millions of transactions,” Jacob added. “By improving operational efficiencies, strategic positioning, and customer satisfaction, ADEPT will truly transform the operating economics of our industry.”

AccuChain Secures Investment from Vertex Partners 11839

AccuChain, Inc. today announced that it has received an investment from Vertex Partners Inc. in Tokyo, Japan. This investment will accelerate development of AccuChain’s Human Resource technology software. The funding also demonstrates Vertex Partners’ long-term vision and commitment to launch AccuChain in Japan and other countries in SE Asia. AccuChain is developing a resume validation and recruitment platform. This innovative platform will allow individuals to create their own validated resumes and enable HR departments to find the best qualified candidates.

Vertex Partners, a business development firm, reveals that there is a growing need for AccuChain in SE Asia. Junichi Yukihira, Co-founder of Vertex Partners Inc., said “It is very exciting and also significant for us to have the opportunity to participate in the AccuChain investment this time. We highly value the potential of AccuChain’s HR solutions based on AI/machine learning and blockchain technology, and as their business co-creation partner, we are now working together to develop markets in Japan and other Asian countries. We are confident that this investment will strengthen our relationship.” Hiring in SE Asia demonstrates a growing need for qualified candidates. AccuChain will reduce bad hires using validation methodologies, immutable records, matching of jobs to qualified candidates and uncovering false information.

AccuChain CEO, Tim R. Connelly adds “The Vertex Partners investment demonstrates the importance both of our organizations see in next generation HR recruitment software. The combined resources of our companies will make a positive difference in the successful launch of AccuChain in Japan and then SE Asia.” AccuChain is working to improve their hiring process, and create a new standard for applicants’ digital resumes. The technology will help reduce fraudulent resumes.

Stratis Brings Blockchain as a Service to All Businesses via Its C# Native Platform 12276

Stratis was created for a simple purpose – to provide enterprises with blockchain as a service (BaaS) solutions, designed to implement complex blockchain architecture within mainstream coding languages, used by everyday companies away from the crypto niche. It does this through cloud solutions, support for C# and .NET application building, alongside tool customization via its open source protocol. The result of this? Stratis unlocks the power of blockchain technology for mainstream businesses, and unlocks the mainstream market for the blockchain industry – two powerful combinations.

Enterprises that find themselves relying on the Stratis tool set will access a less expensive and less complex blockchain building framework. Companies no longer need to purchase and manage their own full nodes, nor do they need to build a blockchain infrastructure from scratch – something which is niche and represents a huge barrier to entry by setup cost to all but the largest of companies. Moreover, businesses in need of smart contract support will be pleased to find that Stratis supports virtual machines via Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Stratis – Tailored with Perfection

Stratis holds several key values that make it an optimal choice for blockchain operations – decentralization, privacy, scalability, practicality, accessibility, reliability, security, and performance. To better understand this, Stratis blockchains run a number of cloud-based full nodes, so decentralization is assured. Privacy is guaranteed – through cryptographic encryption, all transactions and communications remain private. Stratis is also keen on providing an adaptable degree of scalability, achieved through the means of intuitive sidechain usage.

Companies looking to leverage the power of smart contracts must know that Stratis is the only platform providing support for C# execution, so developers can efficiently code self-enforcing programs utilising their existing development tools and existing knowledge of a rich and versatile programming language. Stratis is also working on facilitating cross-chain communication between contracts running within Stratis’ ecosystem and those deployed on the Ethereum blockchain, hence increasing their suitability for today’s interconnected world.

STRAX Swap on Binance

In September 2020, the team introduced STRAX, a more powerful protocol designed to flawlessly integrate within the platform’s existing business model. Previously-minted STRAT tokens have been swapped to STRAX tokens on a 1:1 basis via Binance. Following the shift, Stratis will introduce a series of other advanced features, such as the STRAX SideChain, Stratis InterFlux, SegWit support, cold-staking, the DeFi app library, IoT development tools, and many others.

Since STRAX is based on the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, network participants can receive token-based rewards in exchange for staking their STRAX tokens. Stratis is well-aware of the security risks posed by hot wallet storage, so the team has decided to use cold-staking for ideal token security.

2021 – The Year for Stratis & BaaS

In Q1 2021, Stratis will launch the Unity Development Kit (allowing the integration of NFTs and decentralized identities within the gaming ecosystem), the DeFi Software Library (a catalogue of C# standardized smart contracts), the Stratis DAO (a means of funding next-gen developments via voting), the Stratis System Contracts (introducing on-chain logic and simplifying user-driven processes), and the mobile wallet featuring token support (supporting tokens issued on the Cirrus Sidechain).

In Q2 2021, Stratis will launch the Python Development Kit (allowing Python coders to build on Stratis), the IoT Development Kit (meant to introduce Stratis solutions to IoT hardware), a new version of Proof-of-Stake (boasting improved security and additional features), Stratis Oracles (a distributed means of accessing off-chain data), and Dex Mobile Support (allowing mobile trading of SRC20 tokens).

In Q4 2021, Stratis will launch Ethereum Interoperability (known as InterFlux, this will enable usage of wrapped STRAX tokens on the Ethereum chain), alongside the STO & Digital Asset Platform (providing the tools needed to manage token offerings).

GridPlus Sets a New Standard for Blockchain Security with the Release of the Enterprise-Grade Lattice1 Wireless Hardware Wallet 17663

GridPlus, a manufacturer of secure hardware for cryptocurrency and blockchain applications, today launched retail sales for the Lattice1, a wireless hardware wallet that sets the new standard for security, utility, and ease of use. Combining a hardware security module and a Linux mini-computer, the Lattice1 is an all-purpose blockchain security hub that lets users accomplish complicated tasks with ease, free from the prying eyes of hackers. The Lattice1 introduces features that advance the state of the art for hardware wallets: physical anti-tamper protections, card-based backups, and permissioned signing which will make automatic cryptocurrency payments possible.

With the Lattice1, security and versatility go hand in hand. Its 5″ TFT touchscreen clearly displays transactions for users’ approval via an intuitive interface. The secure and general computing environments are segregated at the hardware level so the user’s private keys are isolated and safe, even when the paired phone or computer might not be.

As Dr. Karl Kreder, GridPlus Chief Security Officer and lead designer of the Lattice1, notes, “Blockchain technology is advancing at an increasing rate, but the security tools available simply have not kept pace. The difficulties associated with storage and use have prevented widespread adoption. The Lattice1 was designed for daily active use of cryptocurrencies and digital assets instead of just storing them until sold.”

In a world where we no longer need to rely on traditional banks, the Lattice1 is your personal financial center. Blockchains eliminate the need for costly intermediaries, but this requires individual custodianship which is a huge challenge for the average person. The Lattice1 gives less technical users access to powerful blockchain tools with the peace of mind that their assets are safe.

The Lattice1’s always-on wireless connectivity allows users to pair and sign with multiple devices via secure channels. This means there’s no need to reach for a USB cable every time you want to sign a transaction. Pairing simplifies key management by allowing you to use the same wallets across multiple devices.

The complicated task of securely backing up accounts with a seed phrase is also made simple using PIN-protected GridPlus SafeCards which employ the same physically unclonable chips found on credit and debit cards. SafeCards let users create backups, create additional offline storage, and easily switch between accounts on the fly. SafeCards allow anyone that can use a debit card to safely and securely use cryptocurrency.

Users can manage multiple accounts and easily interact with decentralized finance (DeFi) applications as they earn interest on their holdings, open cryptocurrency collateralized loans, and trade assets.

Preventing physical attacks on the device was a key design consideration. The Lattice1 was designed to withstand tampering and reverse engineering attempts from sophisticated attackers with direct access to a user’s hardware. This is achieved through a feature not found on other hardware wallets: a laser direct structured (LDS) mesh which encases all secure components.

The LDS mesh is a three-dimensional maze of electrical traces with a unique waveform travelling through it constantly. This circuit is monitored for continuity from the moment of provisioning to end of service. If the circuit is ever broken, the Lattice1 securely destroys all sensitive information – essentially a tripwire set off by intrusion attempts. The user could then recover their funds using GridPlus SafeCard backups.

The Lattice1 meets stringent security industry standards including FIPS, PCI, and EAL 6+ and is the only hardware wallet designed to safeguard against edge case risks such as attackers remotely accessing a user’s secrets via RF emissions.

The Lattice1 is designed, engineered, and manufactured in Texas and is available for purchase in North America, Europe, and Singapore.

About GridPlus, Inc.
Founded in 2017, GridPlus manufactures blockchain hardware infrastructure with uncompromising security. Its team of hardware, software, and cryptocurrency experts is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Visit gridplus.io for more information.