Bitcoin Daily: Binance Acquires Trust Wallet, Coinbase Names Chief Compliance Officer

Coinbase has named a new chief compliance officer to help guide the cryptocurrency exchange through the regulatory landscape, Reuters reported. The new hire, Jeff Horowitz, was previously Pershing’s global head of compliance.

eMusic wants to raise $70 million for its efforts to create a royalty management and distribution system based on blockchain technology, Reuters said. The company, which intends to conduct a presale of a digital token in September, said it has sold almost 1 billion music downloads.

In other news, bitcoin traded lower on Tuesday (July 31), as a Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman believes that a bitcoin price collapse is possible, MarketWatch reported. He said that bitcoin doesn’t have a tether and fiat currencies are still generally used for payments. The price of bitcoin was $7,681.01 as of 7:16 p.m. on Tuesday (July 31), sliding from over $8,000 at 6:00 a.m., according to CoinDesk.

A movie theatre operator in Thailand is allowing customers to buy tickets and popcorn with crypto, noted CCN. Major Cineplex plans to use Swiss FinTech developer RapidzPay to allow payments with digital currencies at its point-of-sale (POS) machines.

On another note, a candidate in the 2020 U.S. presidential election is taking crypto for campaign contributions, NDTV reported. Andrew Yang’s campaign said it will take Ethereum, bitcoin and any coin on the ERC20 standard — but only up to $2,500.

The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is teaming up with blockchain startup SportsCastr, which provides the FanChain platform, CoinDesk said. With SportsCastr, users can create streams and offer commentary on live sports events.

Sophos researchers have found that SamSam ransomware has caused users to lose almost $6 million since the end of 2015, The Hacker News reported. The attackers have reportedly netted $5.9 million — and 233 victims have reportedly lost funds to the attackers.

The Philippines’ bank Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is creating a unit to focus on FinTech and blockchain technology, according to Cryptovest. The news comes as the central bank seeks to increase digital payments.

The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), has issued a $300,000 loan with blockchain technology, Cryptovest said. The credit marks the bank’s first loan enabled with blockchain technology.

To complement its “centralized architecture,” Binance said it has acquired Trust Wallet, according to The Next Web. With the deal, however, the Trust Wallet team will reportedly continue to work on its core product on its own.