People who want to use UnionBank of the Philippines‘s (UBP’s) new bitcoin ATM will need to have an account with the bank. According to The Next Web, UBP, the seventh-largest bank in the Philippines, launched its first cryptocurrency ATM this week. However, users will need to use a UBP bank account — and show a government-issued ID — to exchange funds to and from the virtual currency. For now, only bitcoin is being offered.
“The reason we’re doing this is because our customers are asking for it,” said UnionBank Chairman Justo A. Ortiz.
Crypto exchange Binance is launching a new fiat-to-crypto exchange in Singapore later this month. Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao made the announcement at the Deconomy event in Seoul, South Korea.
“#Binance Singapore will come online in April. It will be our next fiat-to-crypto exchange servicing $SGD [Singapore dollar],” the company wrote in a tweet, according to CoinDesk.
It is currently unknown which cryptos will receive trading support. Last year, Zhao said his company planned to launch exchanges on almost every continent.
In a separate tweet, Zhao revealed that the exchange’s upcoming decentralized exchange, Binance DEX, will launch this month. The company also announced that there are plans to add a staking feature to its crypto wallet, Trust Wallet, by the end of the second quarter.
In other news, CODA, the first project of O(1) Labs, has received an additional $15 million in funding from investors Accomplice, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm and General Catalyst. Described as a succinct blockchain, only 22 KB are needed to store a copy of the CODA blockchain, which uses zk-SNARKs to generate proof that all blocks are correct. Once that is achieved, the main nodes generating the proof can get rid of old blocks, if desired. Unlike bitcoin, participating in the network doesn’t require terabytes of storage space.
“We see CODA as way more than just payments. What we’re excited about is for CODA to enable new kinds of apps and games, made possible by a cryptocurrency with a lightweight blockchain that is way easier to develop for and use,” CEO Evan Shapiro told CoinDesk.
A new startup from the co-founder of Simple Bank has launched an open beta. Founded last year, Sila is an “all-inclusive API platform” that connects existing payment systems with smart contract functionality on the Ethereum network for FinTech startups and other projects that often have problems obtaining banking services.
“If you’ve ever talked to anybody who’s built a FinTech startup and launched it, they’ve all had sort of the same horror story: ‘Hey, I had this product and launched it … and then I learned about banking and what a horrible process it is,’” Sila Co-founder and CEO Shamir Karkal explained to CoinDesk.
Karkal added that Sila’s role as the middleman between startups and banking services will enable developers to get their products to market faster.
“I think the one thing that’s super important to understand [that] is the biggest problem in this whole space is lack of access. You can’t get a bank license easily, and even the state money transmitter license is problematic, so just getting access to payment systems is huge, and that access is tied to regulations. [That’s] one of our key strengths,” he said.
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