Bitcoin Daily: US Treasury Penalizes Petro-Backing Moscow Bank; China Tops US In Blockchain Patents

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against a Moscow-based bank because it helped finance Venezuela’s petro cryptocurrency.

“The illegitimate Maduro regime has profited off of the suffering of the Venezuelan people,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin in a press release. “This action demonstrates that the United States will take action against foreign financial institutions that sustain the illegitimate Maduro regime, and contribute to the economic collapse and humanitarian crisis plaguing the people of Venezuela.”

As a result, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added Evrofinance Mosnarbank — which is jointly owned by Russian and Venezuelan state-owned firms — to the Specially Designated Nationals List.

In other news, Nasdaq and Bcause, creator of the first full-stack crypto ecosystem, announced that “Bcause’s markets will operate on Nasdaq’s matching engine, clearing and market surveillance technology via the Nasdaq Financial Framework platform.” Bcause has also “filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become a designated contract market (DCM),” as well as create a derivatives clearing organization (DCO).

“We have tremendous respect for the Nasdaq brand, and are honored that we can deploy these robust, tried-and-tested platforms — customized to our unique markets — as the foundation of our technology,” said CEO Fred Grede of Bcause in a press release. “I fully expect that our markets will attract a broad range of users, from those who are already quite active in the financial markets and familiar with Nasdaq technology, to a new breed of investors wanting to participate in the growing cryptocurrency marketplace.”

When it comes to filing blockchain patents, China topped the U.S. last year. According to The Next Web, data compiled from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) showed at least 1,060 patents were published last year. So far in 2019, WIPO has approved 242 crypto or blockchain-related patents, with the year on track to see over 1,200 new patents.

Last year, China was at the top with 790 patent approvals, while the United States came in second at 762. South Korea and Australia followed with 161 and 132, respectively, while the U.K. was the only European nation to hit the top 10 with 36 approvals.

The data showed other top applicants to receive approvals so far in 2019, including nChain Holdings Limited (50), IBM (18), Alibaba (14), Microsoft (12), Hangzhou Fuzamei Technology (8), Mastercard (5), Intel Corporation (4), Visa (4) and Coinplug (2).

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the country’s first portal for scrutinized initial coin offerings (ICOs). The portal aims to protect investors by scrutinizing ICOs and auditing their smart contracts, as well as ensuring Know Your Customer (KYC) processes, according to CoinDesk.