Gemini Targets UAE Crypto License

Cosmose AI, an artificial intelligence-driven retail analytics firm headquartered in Singapore, has opted to collaborate with the Near Foundation with the aspiration of building a blockchain-based payments system centered on low transaction fees as a more cost-efficient alternative to more conventional payments processors like Stripe and PayPal. Payment platform disruptionThe Near Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for guiding governance, contracting protocol maintainers and funding ecosystem development relative to the proof-of-stake (PoS)-based Near blockchain protocol. In a blog post published to the Cosmose AI website on Sunday, the company set out the extent of its new partnership with the Near Foundation.Cosmose AI uses AI-powered analytics to track in-store foot traffic as a basis to engage with shoppers online. Both companies will work towards building a payment system that facilitates shoppers to purchase goods and services at low transaction fees through cryptocurrency. As part of the deal, Near has made a strategic investment in Cosmose AI, reflecting a Cosmose company valuation of $500 million.In its press release, Cosmose stated that the investment from the Near Foundation means that the Cosmose “is set to apply Web3 principles and further advance the AI-driven retail ecosystem. Cosmose believes that it can leverage Web3 such that users maintain complete control over their data while benefiting from the ecosystem they help to create.The AI-driven company has a suite of retail solutions, including the KaiKai app, which enables retail customers to discover retail stores in their local vicinity. The app also includes an online targeting platform. Both elements are being overhauled with a Web3 facelift, with the Near collaboration enabling the integration of blockchain into the app.KaiKai already settles payments by leveraging Near Protocol with the creation of its own native stablecoin, Kai-Ching. Near Foundation CEO Marieke Flament said that Near will give Cosmose “the means to leverage the full potential of Web3 in a way that is sustainable, transparent, and infinitely scalable.” Moving away from Stripe, PayPalIn an interview with TechCrunch, Cosmose Founder and CEO Miron Mironiuk stated: “ I’m not sure if you know how expensive and slow it is to process online payments. It’s absolutely crazy.” The Near protocol leads with an ability to achieve inexpensive, scalable blockchain transactions. If successful in building this blockchain-based payments system, Cosmose would be in a better position to replace the use of payments service providers like Stripe and PayPal.Mironiuk gave the example of a simple coffee purchase. Small transactions like that can involve transaction fees in excess of 10%. This overhead is reflected in the overall price of the cup of coffee, with the seller passing on the cost to the buyer. In that one isolated example, Mironiuk makes the point that a regular coffee drinker could be spending an additional $200 per year to cover the costs of payments intermediaries.Over the course of nine years, Cosmose has grown to a point where it extends its service to 20 million stores. The firm operates on a global basis, with its team of eighty staff distributed across centers such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Shanghai and Warsaw, as well as at its Singapore headquarters.

OKX Wallet to Support BRC-20 Tokens and Bitcoin OrdinalsIn a press release published on Tuesday, Seychelles-based cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange OKX announced that it is in the process of enabling an Ordinals marketplace on the OKX Wallet, which will enable customers to mint and trade BRC-20 tokens.Photo by Karolina Grabowska on PexelsRising BRC-20 market capThe move will also enable users to inscribe non-fungible token (NFT)-based digital content on the Bitcoin blockchain by way of ordinal inscriptions. The market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens has been rising exponentially over the course of the past few weeks despite only being in existence since March.BRC-20 is an experimental token standard which was created by an anonymous developer with the handle “Domo” and username ‘@domodata’ on Twitter. A token standard governs how and where a cryptocurrency can be used. The approach has been pioneered by developers on the Ethereum blockchain who created the ERC-20 standard a number of years ago, relative to the Ethereum network.OKX has clearly identified a rising trend and wants to be an early adopter in benefiting from it. In their short existence, BRC-20 tokens have mainly implicated meme tokens but as more experimentation follows, use cases that rely on the token standard are likely to expand.Binance has signaled a similar intent, having stated last week that before the month is out, Bitcoin Ordinals will be added to its NFT marketplace. Ordinals preceded the development of the BRC-20 standard by a couple of months, with over five million of the inscriptions having been generated since they emerged. It’s believed that the minting of those Ordinals has generated fees to the value of around 1,000 BTC (or $27 million as per the BTC/USD price at the time of publication).Growing painsWhile the emergence of the BRC-20 standard and Bitcoin Ordinals brings quite a lot of excitement to a bitcoin blockchain that many found to be boring and lacking diversity in terms of potential use cases, it’s not been without its problems. On the one hand, these tokens and inscriptions make use of unused block space on the network.They also offer a solution to the longer term issue of a reduction in fees. The bitcoin blockchain in-built subsidy to miners is halved every four years, meaning that there will be a need for fees to sustain the incentive to miners to continue to secure the network.The downside to these recent developments is that the new tokens are going beyond using up unused block space. Instead, they’ve been responsible for driving Bitcoin transaction fees up to uncomfortable levels over the course of the past two weeks. It’s still early days in terms of this development, so there is every hope that developers can find solutions to the issue.Last week, Singapore-based project OmniBOLT announced that it will support BRC-20 tokens on Lightning Network. Taking some of this activity away from the bitcoin mainnet will serve to dampen excessive transaction costs and transaction delays due to an excessively long queue of transactions within the bitcoin mempool.The recent transaction cost difficulty relative to Bitcoin has prompted Binance to respond by stating its intention to add support for Lightning Network transactions in the not too distant future. OKX already supports Lightning transactions but not from within its wallet. As part of this announcement, the company stated that Lightning support will be coming to its wallet in the near future.

Report Reveals Global Trends and Online Discourse on Crypto Travel RuleCODE, the only Travel Rule solution provider in South Korea, together with blockchain consulting firm Catalyze Research, published a report that sheds light on global trends in Travel Rule legislation and popular online keywords associated with the Travel Rule. The Travel Rule is a set of guidelines that virtual asset service providers (VASPs) and financial institutions are obligated to observe in order to counteract money laundering and terrorist financing. These guidelines require these entities to share information about both the sender and the recipient of cryptocurrency or financial transactions.The authors of this report gathered online comments related to the Travel Rule from January 1, 2019 to July 31, 2023. They conducted this analysis across news outlets, media platforms, online forums, and various social media channels, encompassing over 200 countries and 150 languages.Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on UnsplashKey events driving discussionsAccording to the report, online discussions concerning the Travel Rule intensified around the time of several key events. These events include the enforcement of the Travel Rule in South Korea in March 2022, the approval of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) by the European Union in April 2023, endorsements of the Travel Rule by G7 countries in Japan in May 2023, and the subsequent implementation of the Travel Rule in Hong Kong and Japan in June 2023.Notably, South Korea, Japan, and France experienced the most substantial surges in Travel Rule-related discussions during the first half of 2023. In South Korea, comments were prompted by a lawmaker’s scandal related to cryptocurrency trading. Meanwhile, Japan and France observed a rise in comments linked to the enforcement of their respective local Travel Rule regulations in the second quarter.Negative market responsesIn addition, markets responded more negatively than positively to the tightening of Travel Rule regulations. The concerns about the market contraction were stronger than the positive outlook on the advantages of preventing money laundering.Lee Sung-mi, CEO of CODE, highlighted the growing significance of Travel Rule solution providers in ensuring the compliance of virtual asset service providers (VASPs) with the regulatory demands of various jurisdictions. Particularly, with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), G7 nations, and the EU at the forefront, countries have been making noteworthy strides in Travel Rule implementations since 2023, she further noted. Lee emphasized CODE’s commitment to aiding its member VASPs in adhering to Travel Rule regulations by delivering secure and convenient services that align with the evolving global regulatory landscape.