At the the Fortune Brainstorm Finance conference in Montauk, N.Y., Byrne told CNN Business that the social media giant’s launch of its own digital currency validates the space — and Overstock would be open to partnering with Facebook on the project.
Overstock has spent $150 million on its blockchain business, tZero; the company owns 82 percent of the exchange. Byrne predicted that security tokens will reduce friction in capital markets while also improving price discovery.
“The killer app of blockchain is security tokens,” Byrne said. “and those security tokens are going to need a regulated exchange. The regulated exchange will disrupt Wall Street itself.”
In other news, a representative of the Russian Ministry of Finance (MinFin) revealed that it might allow crypto trading.
According to Coin Telegraph, Deputy Minister of Finance Alexey Moiseev said that while a final decision hasn’t been made, the crypto trading could be approved via an upcoming bill in the Russian Federation.
Patrick McDonnell, a scammer that called himself the “coyote of Wall Street,” has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
McDonnell admitted to telling clients he would invest their money in cryptocurrency, but instead he spent the money on himself.
“I perpetrated a fraud. I claimed to invest it in virtual currency and spent it on personal expenses,” he told U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, according to Bloomberg.
McDonnell ran the scheme out of his home. The plea involves one count of fraud of one investor, who lost more than $164,000 in the scheme. Under the agreement, McDonnell faces between two years and 2 1/2 years behind bars when he’s sentenced in September.
And DigitalMint has announced a partnership with multinational convenience store chain Circle K, launching 20 bitcoin ATMs across Arizona and Nevada as part of pilot program.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with a respected organization like Circle K,” Marc Grens, president and co-founder of DigitalMint, said, according to a press release. “This partnership opens the door for massive expansion of bitcoin access to new markets around the globe.”
The Arizona ATMs are located in Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Tucson, Flagstaff, Surprise and Maricopa, while the Nevada ATMs are in Las Vegas.
“We are very happy to add DigitalMint as a partner, and we look forward to working with their team,” added Joel Konicke, category manager of Circle K Stores Inc. “Partnering with DigitalMint allows us to provide our customers with seamless access to bitcoin at a very reasonable price.”