Blockchain Trade Led by Standard Chartered in Bangladesh
Standard Chartered PLC has officially leveraged blockchain technology to conduct Bangladesh’s first blockchain trade transaction. The Standard Chartered PLC is a British multinational banking and financial services firm headquartered in London, England.
Aside from that, the Standard Chartered bank released a Letter of Credit (LC) for the trade among garment exporter Viyellatex Ltd and Viyellatex Spinning on the Contour blockchain network. An LC is a letter from a bank confirming that the seller will receive the buyer’s payment on time, for the correct amount.
The whole transaction was reportedly paperless and finished digitally through Contour’s network. Contour’s blockchain network builds on R3’s Corda blockchain. It allows all participants to leverage the network to make and renew trade data in real-time for global distributed digital trading.
It stated, “Contour improves data transparency, removes administration costs and reduces friction in global trade: all of this leading to an overall increase in efficiency and reduction in costs for all parties.”
Then, Viyellatex Group Chairman and CEO KM Rezaul Hasanat explained that blockchain technology would surely boost trading efficiency and diminish the LC process’s turnaround time.
German banking and tech giants have used Corda’s platform to finish a 100,000 euro money market security transaction. This was according to a previous report.
Bitcoin Bigger than Bank of America and NZ Dollar
Elsewhere, Bitcoin (BTC) is receiving more support from first-time investors. With that, the market capitalization has increased past Bank of America’s market valuation. This put it within striking distance of Paypal.
Based on AssetDash data, Bitcoin’s current market cap sits at more than $226 billion. This is an increase of 3.2% on the last day. However, Bank of America’s market cap has dropped to over 2% to $224.4 billion. BTC’s bullish behavior and a slight fall in BoA’s rank indicate that the analytics site ranks Bitcoin as 25th most valuable asset in market capitalization. This is just a few steps behind Paypal at $230 billion.
Currently, BTC is now ahead of the site’s estimate for the overall number of NZD in circulation at $346.6 billion or about $227 billion. As a result, it makes Bitcoin the 34th most valuable out of all fiat currencies.
Choosing Crypto
Moreover, the price of Bitcoin has boosted substantially in 2020. This is as the Federal Reserve has shifted many controversial measures to reduce the economic effect of the pandemic. Thus, this prompts a lot of prominent figures in finance to consider crypto for the first time.
Billionaire Warren Buffet has made his thoughts on cryptocurrencies clear, stating they have no value. Others, such as Morgan Creek Digital’s Jason Williams, have predicted that Buffet’s multinational conglomerate holding firm, Berkshire Hathaway, might invest in Bitcoin soon. He noted that young managers and analysts at the company would make the decision to purchase BTC. This would be true even if Buffet were unaware of the actions.
Also, Buffet is not the only billionaire to possibly consider crypto as a way to hedge bets in the economy. Hedge fund Tudor Investment Corporation’s founder, Paul Tudor, is also bullish on Bitcoin. It seems that the crypto asset was part of his portfolio in May.
