The IBM and Stellar partnership has been featured on many altcoin news sites and was praised as something that the crypto world needs. However, a series of disruptions have apparently put this partnership in jeopardy, the latest news show. As a company that is always pro technology, IBM (International Business Machines) has been pioneering the adoption of blockchain and cryptocurrency in the Fortune 500 arena for some time now. In order to strengthen its presence, the American firm has teamed up with some of the biggest companies and showed them how its technology can be used to benefit their bottom line - and society as a whole. The IBM and Stellar partnership was one of the examples of further innovation in the crypto and blockchain spaces. However, it all changed when a recent exclusive from a crypto-friendly news site known for its "scoops" and interviews showed that IBM has just lost its chief technology officer - Stanley Yong. Yong acted as the company's lead for its central bank digital currencies (CBOC) initiative. As reports in the coming altcoin news show, he was integral to the "Big Blue's" ventures in the blockchain space. Now that he is gone (along with his connections), the IBM and Stellar partnership is in clear jeopardy. Most importantly, no one knows why Yong left or where he is headed next. However, the latest cryptocurrency news show that IBM is concerned  - as well as many other involved parties. https://twitter.com/arrington/status/1140297606431510529 Aside from Yong, the IBM and Stellar partnership is also concerned by the news (from weeks ago) that Jesse Lund, the Global Head of IBM Blockchain who made a $1,000,000 Bitcoin price prediction, suddenly departed the firm. Both Lund and IBM gave very immaterial and confusing statements, with the former stating that he had left “but am still optimistic about payments innovation using Blockchain.” With all of this in mind, the IBM and Stellar partnership is definitely in jeopardy. Anonymous news sources show that there is no one to laud the projects and lead the company and partnership in the right directions.  Still, the good news is that IBM is unlikely to shutter its blockchain division because of the executive departures.

The latest cryptocurrency news show that Facebook is working with one South American online marketplace named Mercado Libre while developing its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency project. According to a cryptocurrency news website and its reports on June 14, the two firms are working alongside in pushing the Libra into life and giving the crypto community its much-expected project. According to the news outlet, an executive from the South American online marketplace Mercado Libre said that the purported cryptocurrency is apparently going to be integrated in the e-commerce platform as a form of payment. Even though the anonymous executive confirmed the partnership, there is no statement by Facebook in the altcoin news with details on the case. The executive also said that it was likely that the company could operate as a node in Facebook's forthcoming blockchain network. Right now, Mercado Libre is one of the most popular South American online marketplace websites and e-commerce platforms in South America with operations in 19 countries. As another recent report shows, the testnet for Facebook's Libra platform is to be unveiled later this week. The platform has reportedly gathered support from dozens of firms such as Mastercard, Visa, Uber and PayPal. Another report by The Block shared by many best cryptocurrency news sites stated that a consortium has been formed to govern the project. This consortium, will apparently include organizations such as venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, the crypto exchange Coinbase as well as non-profit organizations including Mercy Corps. A while ago, an RBC Capital analyst named Mark Mahaney and Zachary Schwartzman said that Facebook's Libra stablecoin is going to be one of the most significant events in the company's history. According to him, the project would "unlock new engagement and revenue streams." The South American online marketplace Mercado Libre has about 4,000 employees and is right now the most popular e-commerce site in Latin America in terms of its number of visitors. However, the executive has asked not to be identified and could not say with certainty about the news. Still, he admitted that "it is very likely that yes" and noted that negotiations have been made directly by the first step of the company.  

Gold-backed Russian crypto is still under exploration and the possibilities of developing it are high in order to be used as a cross-border settlement alternative for other countries and we read more about it in the coming altcoin news. Due to the heavy sanctions from the United States, the potential of the value of gold-backed Russian crypto could help the country escape from the usage of the Dollar as the main currency standard. Russia’s State Duma member Vladimir Gutenev proposed the creation of the cryptocurrency and he suggested that the pegging of the value to gold could alleviate issues related in cryptocurrencies and that this idea could be linked to a stablecoin. Russia has been on standby on gold reserves as a way to fight the US Dollar and by boosting the reserves could allow the country to diversify foreign exchange and to reduce the high reliance on the US dollar. This has been a policy of Russia for quite some time. The central bank also reported that back in May their gold holdings reached up to $492 billion. The idea of tokenizing of their stores would give them much more freedom and power with the value of the gold reserves. Cryptocurrencies that are launch by the central bank are still met with high resistance. The head of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina stated:

 “As for mutual settlements, we will consider, of course, a proposal on a cryptocurrency that is tied to gold. But, in my opinion, it is more important to develop settlements in national currencies.”

Nabuilna explained that CBR is still unsure whether to use cryptocurrencies and how they could be launch into Russia’s monetary system but the idea of a zero-volatility digital asset is inviting:

 “The CBR, in principle, is opposed to cryptocurrencies being launched into our monetary system. We do not see the possibility that cryptocurrencies fulfill the function of monetary surrogates. We have prepared an analytical report and will soon present it which will analyze what cryptocurrency is, what is happening in the world, what approaches different countries to have, and what regulation is envisaged. And, if the phenomenon of cryptocurrency in any perspective may cause risks to our macroeconomic stability, we need to understand that.”

As noted in one of the best cryptocurrency sites, Russia is under significant economic sanction from the United States.

Crypto trading in the US is becoming much more difficult to conduct since the two major US-based crypto exchanges have announced the delisting of multiple cryptocurrencies for the customers in the country. Their decision comes due to the regulatory uncertainty and the big questions which crypto assets will be considered as securities so we read more on how to fix this problem in the altcoin news below. Binance, for example, announced that starting from September 12 this year, it will prohibit United States customers from trading on the exchange and stated that they even aimed to launch a local exchange Binance U.S. however, it is still unclear what tokens will be available on the new platform. Now, the crypto community is wondering what can be done about the crypto trading in the US problem and there are already some solutions. Some of the solutions include moving the altcoin trading offshore, trading only regulated assets and using decentralized exchanges. U.S. traders might have to choose the offshore option in order to trade digital assets. Depending on the exchanges this could mean smaller and less liquid exchanges to use. Additionally, the U.S. traders could go to decentralized exchanges such as Binance DEX which is now fully decentralized. Using a VPN on a centralized exchange that has a geoblock on the United States is a risky affair but could be one of the solutions as well. Keep in mind with the latest option that the risk of losing funds is much greater. At last, U.S. traders with high trading volumes could switch to those crypto assets that have been approved by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission such as Bitcoin and ETH and those coins that have been approved as security tokens. This can reduce the investable portion of the community but it will ensure that no funds would be jeopardized with the upcoming regulation in the states. As reported in the latest cryptocurrency news, Poloniex crypto exchange also ceased to offer the trading of 9 cryptocurrencies because of regulatory uncertainty. Bittrex also made the same decision. However, Bittrex did not specify that the reason for banning the traders from using the exchange was regulation, we could assume that the reasons are the same.