We built the Blockchain Wallet because we’re driven by a relentless passion for making crypto easy to use. We want everyone to be able to use it, not just invest in it.
We believe that owning and controlling your own private key is the single most important aspect of using crypto. Without a private key, you aren’t using crypto – you’re just speculating and you’re missing the defining part of crypto: user controlled, sovereign money.
It was enabling that exact need that underpinned the development of the Blockchain Wallet six years ago. The mission? Make it easy for every user to have their own private key, to get users away from storing funds at exchanges and “bitcoin banks”, and to enable everyone to be their own bank.
Fast forward six years and we’ve achieved a few things that we’re proud of:
Building the first cross-platform, non-custodial, and cross-chain wallet
Signing up 30 million wallets in 140 countries globally
Powering over $200 billion in consumer transaction volume and over 80 million consumer crypto transactions in the last two years alone
Championing the cause of financial sovereignty and user-control with regulators around the world. (We’ve spent thousands of hours and millions on education and outreach.)
Helping our users store millions of BTC, BCH & ETH coins and generate over a quarter of bitcoin network traffic alone
Most importantly, it’s been a honor and privilege to be the first place tens of millions of people turn in order to actually use crypto and hold their own keys.
But there’s a lot still to do.
At the end of the last bull run, we did a serious self-assessment and asked ourselves, what do users need that we aren’t delivering today? We identified four common requests and frustrations:
Better, faster ways for new users to get their first crypto and make their first transaction
More storage types, like hardware, as users’ balances increased
More assets as users want to store and use an increasingly diverse asset set
Better, more reliable sources of liquidity as trading and investing across assets continues to increase
Satisfying these demands meant building a huge extension of our platform, at scale. We’ve had our heads down much of this year doing exactly that and starting today we’re excited to begin delivering new solutions to you, beginning with two new capabilities.
First, we’re launching Swap by Blockchain: a next generation trading product with best-in-class liquidity and execution, powered by our new machine trading software platform that ensures best execution across assets. Blockchain Wallet users will now have access to exchange-like prices without giving up control of their keys or their crypto. And trade limits will increase from hundreds to thousands of dollars of crypto per trade.
While the system currently has deep liquidity drawn from a variety of sources, we plan to add more liquidity sources over time, including decentralized exchange protocols. We’ve rebuilt our risk and KYC systems, so that you can onboard with ease, in minutes. Swap ensures our users stay liquid and can trade at the best prices in the market, regardless of overall market volatility and challenges. We’ve started rolling Swap out today and everyone will have access over the next two weeks.
Secondly, we’re launching Lockbox: a hardware vault in your pocket, built in partnership with hardware leader Ledger. Lockbox is simple to use and is even more secure thanks to a locked endpoint that prevents phishing and spoofing attacks. It’s hardware made easy, with a setup that takes just a few moments thanks to our custom hardware-software integration.
With Lockbox you’re able to check your balance and receive transactions, on mobile and web, without the inconvenience of having to plug your device in every time. In an industry first, you’ll also be able to trade directly from your Lockbox while still maintaining your keys. In conjunction with Lockbox, we’re also excited to let current Ledger device owners seamlessly pair with the Blockchain Wallet and trade directly from the Ledger device they already own.
And we have more coming this year, including additional assets and new products within the Blockchain Wallet that will bring you new, faster, and better ways to get started in crypto.
We’re here to build a new financial system and the Blockchain Wallet is your passport to that new world. Store crypto, trade crypto, transact with crypto and most importantly truly own and control your crypto.
We’re dedicated to building the functionality you want, without compromising your control of your key. Your crypto is yours, and it should stay that way.
The Taiwanese Financial Supervisory Commission is drafting a set of national standards for initial coin offerings. The regulator reportedly aims to make tokens as easy to invest and as liquid as stocks. The commission emphasizes that it “has no intention of curbing the creativity and productivity associated with cryptocurrencies if they are not used as securities.”
Also read:
Taiwan to Regulate ICOs
FSC Chairman Wellington Koo.
The chairman of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has reportedly confirmed that the commission is drafting national standards for initial coin offerings (ICOs). The regulator aims “to make virtual tokens as easy to invest in as stocks and just as liquid,” the Taipei Times reported on Oct. 23.
At a finance committee meeting, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator William Tseng asked whether the government would regulate ICOs. He pointed out that 127 ICO whitepapers worldwide were found last year to be fake, the publication described. In addition, 80 whitepapers were found to be inaccurate as of April. The legislator additionally quoted findings from Satis Group showing that 81 percent of ICOs have been .
The news outlet conveyed Koo’s reply:
The commission would regulate ICOs … [but] tokens exchanged for goods, such as those used in accruing points at convenience stores or mileage points accepted by airlines, would not be covered by the standards.
In May, China’s National Committee of Experts on the Internet Financial Security Technology, a Chinese government-backed industry organization, said it 421 fake cryptocurrencies. Independently, the Wall Street Journal analyzed 1,450 ICOs and “found 271 with red flags that include plagiarized investor documents, promises of guaranteed returns and missing or fake executive teams.”
Securities Tokens
Taiwan’s Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director-General Tsai Li-ling was quoted by the Taipei Times commenting:
People often confuse an ICO with the trading of cryptocurrencies.
The governor of Taiwan’s central bank, Yang Chin-long, told the committee that “the government tends to regard cryptocurrencies as virtual commodities or assets rather than currencies, because they have no intrinsic value.” Tsai elaborated that “cryptocurrency trading is similar to trading in gold, for which the commission only implements money laundering controls.”
If a token functions similar to a security, “the commission would define it as a ‘securities token’ and subject it to the Securities and Exchange Act,” the publication quoted Tsai describing, adding:
The issuer would also need to disclose information similar to what companies that are publicly traded need to do now.
Regarding the time frame of the ICO standards, “The draft is to be completed by June next year,” the news outlet detailed, noting that “The commission has no intention of curbing the creativity and productivity associated with cryptocurrencies if they are not used as securities.”
“The more we regulate, the more this new economic behavior wanes,” Koo was quoted saying. In June, the FSC that it intended to maintain only a limited oversight of cryptocurrencies and focus on anti-money laundering measures. In April, news.bitcoin.com that Taiwanese bitcoin regulations are expected by November.
What do you think of Taiwan regulating ICOs? Let us know in the comments section below.
Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Wikipedia.
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