Bitcoin Daily: American Express Ventures Invests In FalconX; Malta’s Banks Skeptical Of Blockchain

American Express Ventures has invested in cryptocurrency exchange platform FalconX, according to a press release.

The amount was not disclosed in the release, but the investment adds to the $17 million in funding FalconX announced in May, including from investors Accel and Lightspeed Venture partners, among others.

FalconX offers its institutional clients an integrated platform that services cryptocurrency trading, clearing and credit. The company said in the release that it has seen its revenue grow 350 percent since its May funding round.

“We’re seeing growing interest from traditional asset managers who are adding cryptocurrencies as an inflationary hedge, catalyzed by recent macro-economic policies,” said Raghu Yarlagadda, FalconX CEO and co-founder, in the release.

Meanwhile, banks in Malta are skeptical of jumping on the blockchain bandwagon, according to Cointelegraph.

While Malta passed blockchain-friendly regulations in 2018 to encourage innovation, “traditional banks have written off blockchain at its early stages,” said Malta Finance and Employment Minister Clyde Caruana, Cointelegraph reported, citing Lovin Malta, a media outlet.

“The banks must be convinced that this is something that can really happen; unless banks are on board it will be very difficult,” Caruana said.

In other news, the U.S. appears to be growing stricter toward unregistered crypto exchanges, Cointelegraph reported, and foreign exchanges are responding by shutting service to U.S. customers.

“It is very difficult to be AML-compliant in the United States,” Dmitri Laush, CEO of GetID, an identity verification provider, told Cointelegraph.

According to the report, many foreign exchanges may try different ways to ban U.S. users to avoid running into potential compliance issues.

“U.S. regulators have not shied away from using long arm jurisdiction to go after exchanges and protocols allowing investments or participation by U.S. residents, and I expect such enforcement actions to continue,” John Wagster, an attorney at Frost Brown Todd, told Cointelegraph.

Other G20 countries are cracking down as well, Cointelegraph reported, citing John Jefferies, CipherTrace’s chief financial analyst, a trend that he said he expects will continue.