Crypto Up; Bank of China Joins Blockchain
Investing.com - Major cryptocurrencies were trading higher in Asia on Thursday after a mixed performance the day before.
On Thursday morning, Bitcoin edged up 0.98% to $3,954.6 by 9:46 PM ET (02:46 GMT).
Ethereum added 2.42% to $146.71 and XRP rose 0.79% to $0.32767. Litecoin was the best performer, gaining 6.14% to $50.933.
The crypto market capitalisation rose further to $135 billion, compared to $120 billion last Friday.
In Asia, the Bank of China was said to be joining a new blockchain platform for homebuyers, Hong Kong news outlet The Standard reported.
The Standard said the Bank of China (Hong Kong) is the first bank user of blockchain platform PropTech, which was launched by New World Development and the Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI).
Through the platform, the banks will receive the homebuyer’s authorised, encrypted and digitally signed provisional agreement instead of paper documents. Users could save eight hours from less paperwork, ASTRI CEO Hugh Chow told The Standard.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the city’s de-facto bank, estimated that distributed ledger technology could reduce banks' operating costs by 15 to 60 per cent. In 2017, the authority set up a group joined by several banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) Bank to develop the technology.
The use of blockchain may also spread to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). Its CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company is mulling a potential blockchain use case where users could have control over their data.
“Basically, you take your information, you store it on some decentralized system and you have the choice to log into places without going through an intermediary,” he told Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain in an interview.
Elsewhere, The Bank of Lithuania reiterated its stance on digital assets and initial coin offerings. It advised financial market participants to separate their financial services activities from those associated with digital tokens. The bank has yet to allow these participants to get paid with virtual assets.
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