The Italian Banking Associations (ABI) is in the latest cryptocurrency news for the recent initiative in which it is ready to deploy blockchain technology and run reconciliations starting from March 2020. As the reports shared by Finextra showed, this will be the first use of the blockchain technology among Italy's banks - and the first one where distributed ledger technology will be integrated in the interbank processes in order to accelerate settlements. "It is hoped that the migration to a blockchain will result in full visibility of the transactions between banks, daily rather than monthly reconciliations and more effective communication between counterparties in the event of an exception," the source said. The move is also part of the Spunta Project, a program that is managed by ABI Lab which is the association's research and innovation arm. This project will improve the transparency and efficiency of communication between the banking counterparts. The altcoin news also show that the Italian Banking Association aims to enact daily as opposed to monthly reconciliations. The word "spunta" translates to check - hence the name of the entire project. Many best cryptocurrency news sites also recalled to the latest round of tests, which reportedly began in February and 18 banks participated in them, which is basically 76% of the Italian banking sector by the number of the employees. In October 2018, the first trial round was completed, supervised by the Italian Banking Association. In it, the bank Intesa Sanpaolo (the second largest in Italy) and 13 others participated - where each bank was assigned a node and the banks uploaded actual data bank, processing more than 1,200,000 transactions over the course of the entire trial. This trial was also featured in the coming altcoin news and blockchain news sections on many sites, validating the use of blockchain and smart contracts to assist in some delicate banking operations and reduce discrepancies between the banking ledgers. In February this year, the Italian House of Representatives also approved a bill in which it defined DLT and blockchain, as well as the entire technical criteria that smart contracts will have to comply with so that they could be legally valid.

One of the world's largest securities depositories, Euroclear, recently announced that it is pushing forward with building a blockchain based platform for the issuance of what's known as the ECP settlement which is actually the settlement of the European commercial paper (ECP). The news was reported by EuroClear on June 19. As the company noted, it managed to settle €791 trillion ($885.48 trillion)  in securities transactions and held €28.8 trillion ($32.24 trillion) on average in client assets last year (2018) according to the results which were published this March. The financial services giant also revealed that it successfully completed a proof-of-value study for an ECP-focused blockchain platform. As many best cryptocurrency news sites re-shared the news, Euroclear is partnering with the European Investment Bank, Spain's Santander Bank and the "Big Four" auditor Ernst and Young (EY) for the ECP settlement. The news also show that the blockchain platform will serve end-to-end for issuing as well as settling ECPs - which are essentially unsecured short-term debt instruments issued by banks or corporations, representing a $1.2 trillion market. The press release also noted that “based on the initiative’s success, Euroclear intends to move on to pilot phase soon.” The ECP settlement, as the altcoin news show, would be aided by a disintermediated blockchain platform, which would provide time efficiencies by replacing the cumbersome bilateral processing between market participants in a consolidated system. Euroclear also outlined the following:

“Other key benefits of this blockchain solution would be full transparency and traceability of ECP issuance related activities [...] making ECP same day issuance a new market standard.”

As previously reported, there are other partnerships similar to this one. One of them is the one including the German financial services company Commerzbank, the French corporate and investment bank Natixis, and the Dutch financial services firm Rabobank - jointly completing a live commercial paper transaction using the Euro Debt Solution application that was developed by the enterprise blockchain consortium R3 for its Corda platform. The effort done by Euroclear, as a true leader in the securities depositories market, is definitely worth featuring in the latest cryptocurrency news. Hopefully, the ECP settlement will proceed smoothly with no problems or challenges ahead.

The CCN shutdown due to the new Google updates and its search visibility took the world by storm and was featured in the latest altcoin news. As one of the best media outlets in the area of crypto and blockchain, CCN was dominant and posted reports of great quality. However, it seems like the website was affected after an update from Google, causing CCN's advertising revenue to collapse by 90% due to the lower visibility of its articles on Google. According to the official CCN announcement, the SEO analyzer Sistrix shows that the website's Google visibility following the new changes dropped from 1.2 to less than 0.6. This was reported by many best cryptocurrency news sites as the real cause for the CCN shutdown. The crypto media, after all, relied on this income and the money was directly funneled back into the financing of the operation. This is also a growing problem that many cryptocurrency news sites have. Media projects that are financed by advertising tend to create problems for more than a decade. Google AdSsense is by far the most important source of advertising revenue for most of these projects. The good news in this entire story is that as a media outlet and a source for the best Bitcoin and latest cryptocurrency news out there, our website DC Forecasts remains stable. In fact, our visibility on Google is always increasing thanks to our regular updates and most importantly - thanks to our team of SEO experts that is actively following every update released by Google. Furthermore, our website is not financed by advertising and is therefore less dependent on Google. We have our own investors and a community of people who should not depend on clicks in order to improve the quality of our content or expect more. As such, we are continuously innovating the crypto currency news space - being less focused on the broad masses and more focused on readers who want to learn the latest news in every segment related to cryptocurrency, fintech, blockchain and Bitcoin. In the end, we sincerely regret the news of the CCN shutdown. The community will definitely not be the same again and we will all lose a quality medium. Founded in 2013 (as CryptoCoinsNews) it was one of the first websites reporting on the latest crypto news, coming altcoin news and more - having the highest amount of traffic worldwide.

The latest cryptocurrency news show a new partnership on the horizon - between Ripple and MoneyGram - which seems to be a strategic collaboration that makes the most of blockchain based payments. The two firms have agreed to become partners in the cross-border payments and foreign exchange settlements with digital assets. As the official announcement shows, MoneyGram will be able to get up to $50 million dollars from Ripple in exchange for equity in the firm. Both Ripple and MoneyGram have agreed to use each other's products. The press release shared by many best cryptocurrency news sites shows that MoneyGram will use Ripple's xRapid liquidity product which allows money to be sent in one currency and instantly settled in the destination currency. Using the XRP token for such transfers, xRapid is a technology that can settle such transactions faster and better than with standard fiat currencies or other cryptocurrencies. As the CEO of MoneyGram Alex Holmes noted when announcing the Ripple and MoneyGram partnership:

“Through Ripple’s xRapid product, we will have the ability to instantly settle funds from U.S. dollars to destination currencies on a 24/7 basis, which has the potential to revolutionize our operations and dramatically streamline our global liquidity management.”

As the website shows, MoneyGram is the second largest payments firm in the world. The coming altcoin news and its partnership with Ripple will also help the blockchain firm to gain presence in more than 200 countries (where MoneyGram actively operates). Much of the company's business lies in the remittances market, which value is estimated at around $600 billion. The CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, also shared his excitement about the new Ripple and MoneyGram partnership, stating:

“This strategic partnership will enable MoneyGram to greatly improve its operations and enable millions of people around the world to benefit from its improved efficiency. This is a huge milestone in helping to transform cross-border payments and I look forward to a long-term, very strategic partnership between our companies."

Payment processing and sending money globally through the blockchain are definitely something that can be improved with this new partnership. By joining Ripple's growing and global network, financial institutions can process their customers' payments anywhere in the world instantly, reliably as well as cost-effectively.