October was packed full with notable events and interesting developments. We saw the Ripple Swell conference, our one year anniversary with Coil and the launch of our new interview series “What’s for Tech Today?”.

We saw a big month for Ripple with Swell and the decarbonization of the XRP Ledger. ETH gas prices were spiking in September which was felt by ETH miners. DeFi does not come without its drawbacks though as susceptibility to illicit activity and regulatory scrutiny are coming to light. PayPal came out with cryptocurrency support which saw mixed reviews.

From our Product Team

Ripple published their annual Blockchain in Payments Report, which looks at the fintech industry and the increasing role of blockchain in payments. They found that familiarity with blockchain and cryptocurrency has grown from 82 to 94 percent and that the positive sentiment has improved globally to over 70 percent. Check it out!

Blockchain in Payments Report 2020: From Adoption To Growth | Ripple
The third annual Blockchain in Payments Report provides a comprehensive look into the fintech industry and blockchain’s increasing role in payments.
RippleTeam Ripple

The month of September was exceptionally successful for ETH miners who hauled in 450,089 ETH as reported by Glassnode. That is a 39% increase from the month before and means that mining ETH is 3 times more profitable than mining BTC at the moment. This is caused by surging DeFi activity that is great for farmers and miners but not for other users of the network.

Ethereum miners made 450K ETH from high network fees during DeFi peak
On-chain data shows Ethereum miners saw a 39% surge in revenue as fees soared during the DeFi craze.
CointelegraphAntónio Madeira

The Energy Web, Ripple and XRP Ledger Foundation, have announced the decarbonization of the XRP Ledger. Blockchain technology - especially proof-of-work - poses an enormous environmental challenge. The Energy Web is calling on other blockchains to make an effort towards a move to zero-carbon electricity.

XRP Ledger Foundation, Ripple & The Energy Web Announce World’s First Decarbonized Blockchain
Note- I Was Unable To Copy & Paste The Twitter Page Without Just Adding A Photo Of The Tweet To Medium 1, Real customers, real products- Ripple is the only enterprise blockchain company today with…
MediumHSV GTS

PayPal announced its support for cryptocurrency assets and the option to pay merchants in crypto. This announcement has received mixed sentiments after it was revealed that there would be no option to transfer cryptocurrency in or out of the system. The old phrase “not your keys, not your crypto” is being thrown around again.

Unpopular Opinion: Why PayPal Enabling Bitcoin Purchases Isn’t All Positive
PayPal supporting Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies undoubtedly buoy the image of the sector and the asset class. But PayPal’s integration of crypto assets comes with a catch.
ForbesJoseph Young

The pandemic seems to be boosting adoption of cryptocurrency. Brad Garlingouse talks about some of the trends that are seeing being caused by inflation and other economic factors. He also talks about PayPal’s recent move, regulations and clears up some misconceptions about Ripple’s funding and business.

Pandemic Put Tailwind Behind Crypto Markets: Ripple Labs
Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive officer at Ripple Labs Inc., discusses the trends he’s seeing for the cryptocurrencies, U.S. regulations and the possibility of the company moving out of the U.S. He speaks on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia.”
Bloomberg

From our Compliance Team

DeFi seems to be posing a significant risk of money laundering as exemplified by last month’s KuCoin hack. The current state of DeFi inherently allows illicit practices due to low regulatory scrutiny. This is very likely to change soon as we’re seeing more and more money locked in DeFi from around $1B in early 2020 to around $10B now.

KuCoin Hack Is Proof That Money Laundering Risk With DeFi Is Rising
The recent $200 million hack of Singapore-based major cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has been making headlines for the flow of funds to DeFi, everyone’s favourite new Crypto frontier. I have a solution.
ForbesPawel Kuskowski

CipherTrace’s analysis uncovered that 56% of 800 decentralized, centralized, and automated market maker exchanges do not conform to KYC guidelines and AML standards. The analysis uncovered a huge lack of KYC and AML practices by DeFi and DEXes too. The probable scenario is more regulatory pressure for entities with low KYC and AML compliance.

More than half of all crypto exchanges have weak or no ID verification
The highest number of exchanges defying regulatory norms are in Europe
CointelegraphAnupam Varshney

In Case You Missed It

Ripple Swell was held online this year on October 14 and 15.

We celebrated our 1 year anniversary with Coil on October 1 and commemorated this event with a few statistical facts. 90 creators are using GateHub to get paid for their contributions on the web with Web Monetization. All together they earned 35k XRP and 18M packets of value were transferred to GateHub via the ILP.

We also kicked off our new interview series called “What’s for Tech Today?”. Our first guest was Thomas Silkjær of XRP Forensics and xrplorer. A true household name in the world of XRP and AML on the XRP Ledger. Insightful, collected and informative. Check out our interview with Thomas: PART 1 and PART 2