Even as a majority of the top 10 altcoins within today's crypto market continue to see red, there are digital currencies like Waves, Maker, and Tezos that have witnessed an upward surge of 9%, 3%, and 2.5% respectively over the course of the past 24 hours.

Waves Continues Its Strong Performance

As can be seen from the chart below, around a week back the price of a single Waves token jumped by over 50% to touch an impressive price point of $2.32. In terms of what could have sparked this massive uptrend, many experts believe that the recent Waves Mobile app update could have had something to do with the increase.

For those not aware, the Waves dev team recently announced the launch of their much-awaited 'operational protocol upgrade' which allows customers to seamlessly "deposit, store and withdraw their altcoins" in a safe and secure manner. Not only that, but users can now also trade and lease out their assets on the Waves DEX with the touch of a button.

#WavesPlatform has had a great November with the release of our new mobile app and several other developments! We're continuing to build some outstanding tech to bring #blockchain to the mainstream. Here's what we've been up to in the past month: https://t.co/OcrvMyvkwn$WAVES

— Waves Platform (@wavesplatform) December 11, 2018

Additionally, it is also worth noting that the latest iteration of the Waves app will introduce several new exchange listings as well as provide users with full integration support with the Ledger Nano S hardware wallet.

Tezos (XTZ) Surprises Everyone With its Strong Performance

While many had relegated Tezos (XTZ) to the peripheral fringes of the crypto world recently, it now appears as though the project is making a steady comeback (especially since the currency has been showcasing a lot positive financial momentum over the course of the past week or so).

For those who may not remember, Tezos is probably most famous (or infamous) for having raised a whopping $232 million during its ICO phase as well as the scandal that rocked the project straight after.

Lastly, it is also worth pointing out that the XTZ token is currently trading below its original ICO price of $0.51 for around $0.375 (at press time). However, this drop is not as significant as the one witnessed by Ethereum as well as some of the other premier cryptos like BTC, BCH.

In this regard, a market analyst for iBuyTezos.com pointed out that Tezos was not even listed on a single exchange at the start of the year. The reason given for this delay was that the project's native blockchain network had not gone live till like mid-2018.

Tezos wasn't even on an exchange in Jan of 2018.

— Jovan Smith (@JvdollaJovan) December 6, 2018

Final Take

While many of the top crypto coins in the market have struggled to stay afloat throughout the year, there are some lesser-known assets that have continued their strong performance recently. It now remains to be seen how the future of smaller tokens such as Maker, DEX, Revain, Tezos plays out in the coming few weeks.

Cryptocurrency banking provider Bitwala has started offering its banking service to cryptocurrency users in Germany, starting with 40,000 pre-registered customers. A spokesperson for the company has shared details with news.Bitcoin.com about this new service which will soon add support for additional countries and cryptocurrencies.

New Banking Service for Crypto Users

Bitwala announced on Wednesday, Dec. 12, that it has started offering banking service to cryptocurrency users. "New users along with the 40,000 pre-registered customers will be onboarded one after the other based on their waitlist place," the announcement read.

The bank accounts are hosted by Berlin-based Solarisbank. This Bitwala partner has a banking license, so it is supervised by Bafin and Bundesbank, Germany's banking authorities.

Roman Kessler, a spokesperson for Bitwala, told news.Bitcoin.com:

For now, only German residents can go through the KYC [know-your-customer] process. Very soon, hopefully already in January, this will be extended to other jurisdictions inside of the EU.

Account opening takes a few minutes, the company noted, adding that customers need an ID to open an account. They must also complete the KYC process which includes video verification. The company also explained that "As with any bank account in Germany, all euro deposits up to €100,000 [~$113,274] are protected by the German Deposit Guarantee Scheme (DGS)."

Bank Account With Crypto Support

With the new Bitwala bank accounts, users will receive an Iban and a contactless debit card which will allow them to buy and sell BTC and manage expenses. The Bitwala account comes with a bitcoin wallet. Users can manage both their BTC and euro deposits in one place, the announcement describes.

A Bitwala debit card.

"The new bank account offers users SEPA transactions, easy management of recurring payments, and comes with a debit card for on-the-go payments and ATM cash withdrawals," Christoph Iwaniez, the company's chief financial officer, commented. "For instance, customers will be able to use their Bitwala account to receive salary payments and pay their rent. And if you want to trade bitcoin, you can draw liquidity from the same current account."

Kessler further shared with news.Bitcoin.com:

Only bitcoin [is supported] at the moment. You can access them through a multi-sig wallet to which only you have the private key. Other cryptocurrencies to follow shortly.

He also emphasized that "The online bank account and the [debit] card are free," but trading between BTC and EUR costs 1 percent. "According to our market research that is 5 percentage points below market average."

The Waves Platform, a decentralized blockchain ecosystem, has announced a comprehensive update of the Waves Wallet mobile app which is now available for download on the App Store and Google Play.

Launched over a year ago, the Waves mobile app was up to the task of enabling users to connect to the network and make transactions. However, as Waves' blockchain developed, the mobile team saw opportunities for improving the app by adding new features.

The result of many months of the mobile development team's effort is a comprehensive, all-in-one app for mobile devices with an absolutely unique feature set, including a crypto wallet, the Waves DEX and fiat gateway.

"We believe our app provides a step forward for crypto and blockchain community, a better experience for iOS and Android users than they can get elsewhere," says Sasha Ivanov, Founder and CEO of Waves Platform. "The new mobile app incorporates the most popular features of the desktop Waves Client going far beyond the functionality of the wallet. At the moment no other platform offers anything like that."

In the new app all traffic is encrypted, which is important for privacy and security. Private keys are encrypted and never leave user's smartphone and are never exposed to the web. A range of further security measures is added, including Face ID, Touch ID and Fingerprint scanning.

Users can trade on DEX, with the great tools and charts they've come to expect, but with the convenience of mobile. There's also access to fiat and crypto gateways, so users can deposit, store, trade and withdraw other assets.

The most popular digital asset management tools from the Waves Platform are also available. Users can send tokens to their address book contacts, lease WAVES, receive warnings about suspicious tokens and burn any spam assets. 

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by adjusted trading volume, has released a new video demo of its decentralized exchange, dubbed Binance DEX, ahead of its launch in early 2019.

Released Wednesday, the video demonstrates the trading interface of Binance DEX, along with a web crypto wallet and the explorer for Binance's native public blockchain, Binance Chain, which the firm says will be made available on a testnet soon.

Based on the video, Binance DEX will have a very similar interface to its existing centralized exchange, with some additional features. For example, it includes an option to generate a 24-word mnemonic seed phrase for users' private keys, a "balances tab" to inform users of the status of their accounts and a "user icon" in the navigation bar that shows individual wallet addresses.

With the blockchain explorer, users can search for an individual block and view transactions included in a particular block, the demo explains.

"User funds on the DEX will be secured with decentralized wallet applications like Trust Wallet, which has a server-free infrastructure that stores private keys only on the user's device, meaning only users have access to their funds," Binance said in a statement on Wednesday.

Binance DEX is built on its own Binance Chain, which was first unveiled in March of this year and is aimed to offer "low latency, high throughput trading, as well as decentralized custody of funds."

With the DEX, traders will be able to send and receive Binance's own BNB tokens and other coins via trading pairs, Binance said, adding that while BNB is currently an ERC-20 token, it will soon be migrated to Binance Chain upon its mainnet launch.

The first video demo of Binance DEX was released in August, which outlined via a command line interface the basics of issuing, listing and trading crypto assets.

In June, Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange Huobi also announced a plan to evolve into a standalone decentralized exchange, offering funding for developer assistance in creating an open-sourced blockchain protocol.

It has been widely reported this week that the U.S. government has blacklisted two BTC addresses linked to cyber crime. These particular addresses were singled out because their owners are believed to be Iranians, whose country is currently facing heavy economic sanctions from the U.S. While the BTC addresses are clearly connected to ransomware, mainstream media has gotten one crucial element of the story wrong: You can't blacklist a bitcoin address.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the financial intelligence wing of the U.S. Treasury Department. It enforces economic sanctions against foreign entities the American government has taken exception to. Right now, it has Iran in its sights. By OFAC's own admission, however, trying to blacklist bitcoin addresses is a first. "While OFAC routinely provides identifiers for designated persons, today's action marks the first time OFAC is publicly attributing digital currency addresses to designated individuals," explained the agency, adding:

Like traditional identifiers, these digital currency addresses should assist those in the compliance and digital currency communities in identifying transactions and funds that must be blocked and investigating any connections to these addresses.  As a result of today's action, persons that engage in transactions with [these addresses] could be subject to secondary sanctions.

You Can't Blacklist a Bitcoin Address

The addresses in question, 149w62rY42aZBox8fGcmqNsXUzSStKeq8C and 1AjZPMsnmpdK2Rv9KQNfMurTXinscVro9V, have been involved in over 7,000 transactions since 2013 and received close to 6,000 BTC. As of Nov. 28, anyone interacting with these addresses could technically be held liable by the U.S. government and punished in some way. In reality, though, these threats are little more than empty words. No one — not even the U.S. government, with its army of apparatchiks and enforcers — can prevent a specific address from sending or receiving bitcoin. With cryptocurrencies such as EOS or ripple, OFAC would likely have more success, but decentralized assets such as BTC and BCH are uncensorable.

To demonstrate the pointlessness of the blacklisting, both BTC addresses have received transactions in the past 24 hours. In one instance, vanity addresses were used to troll OFAC and to reiterate the futility of its digital currency sanctions. While cryptocurrency exchanges can and do block accounts linked to certain addresses, the Bitcoin protocol remains immune from such interference. Permissionless and stateless, bitcoin can't be blacklisted. That's why it's so valuable.

A South Korean lawmaker has reportedly introduced a bill to promote cryptocurrency trading and the development of crypto exchanges. In addition to requirements such as capital, manpower, and internal systems, the bill proposes establishing a committee to promote and support crypto trading.

Promoting Crypto Trading

Korean lawmaker Kim Sun-dong, a member of the National Assembly's Political Committee, announced last week that he has initiated the Digital Asset Trading Promotion Act, local media reported. Seoul Finance elaborated:

"The Digital Asset Trading Promotion Act' includes a comprehensive plan for establishing a guideline for promoting the development of virtual currency exchanges and blockchain technology, tax reduction and exemption, measures against hacking damage, and prevention of market disturbances."

Kim emphasized the need for a law dedicated to promoting crypto businesses to avoid companies leaving Korea, citing Bithumb as an example. He pointed out that even though crypto transactions in Korea accounted for a large percentage of the domestic stock market transactions at the beginning of this year, one of the largest crypto exchanges, Bithumb, was recently sold to a Singapore-based consortium.

He also noted that Japan has already completed legislative procedures to institutionalize crypto transactions and the U.S. has allowed the trading of cryptocurrency derivatives.

About the New Crypto Bill

The bill first defines "virtual content with an apparent value such as online money, points, game items and virtual currencies as digital assets," the publication detailed. It also defines the operators dealing with them as digital asset trading companies. The news outlet added:

"Those who want to operate a digital asset trading business should have more than 3 billion won [~$2.66 million] in capital, enough manpower, computerized systems, and physical equipment to be approved by the Financial Services Commission [FSC]."

If an exchange is hacked and its customers suffer losses of crypto assets, the bill submits that the exchange must assume the liability for damage to the traders.

The publication added that some examples of industry promotion mentioned in the bill include the establishment of a digital asset trading committee, the promotion of research and development projects, financial support, professional training, and tax reduction. According to Metro Seoul newspaper, the committee will be tasked with resolving issues requested by the FSC such as setting standards and policies relating to crypto assets, as well as coordinating between relevant administrative agencies.

Kim was further quoted as saying:

"The government is focusing only on the risk of virtual currency and concentrating only on the crackdown of illegal activities … In order to lead the global trend of blockchain technology development, it is necessary to prepare laws and regulations as soon as possible."

Auditors KPMG have published a report stressing the need for institutional investors to join the cryptocurrency industry. The report outlines the importance of cryptoassets as an investment alternative and how institutional investors can take part in the process.

Digital Assets Have Potential, Institutionalization Needed to Scale'

In the report, released Nov. 18, the Netherlands-based firm said a new world of finance is emerging in which transacting in digital assets may become standard operation. "Cryptoassets have potential," KPMG wrote, in the report titled 'Institutionalization of Cryptoassets."

"But for them to realize this potential, institutionalization is needed. Institutionalization is the at-scale participation in the crypto market of banks, broker dealers, exchanges, payment providers, fintechs, and other entities in the global financial services ecosystem," it said.

The study comes at a time the use of digital currencies is gaining worldwide adoption, both as a unit in financial transactions and as a store of value.

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, last week said central banks throughout the world should consider issuing digital currency to make transactions more secure. Lagarde argued that state-backed cryptocurrencies could satisfy public policy goals related to financial inclusion, consumer protection, privacy and fraud prevention.

Although observers point to the risks of central banks' involvement in cryptocurrency, such as the potential to slow down transactions and raise costs through over-regulation, KPMG views the coming on board of financial institutions as crucial to boosting public confidence in digital assets.

"Institutionalization is the necessary next step for crypto and is required to build trust, facilitate scale, increase accessibility, and drive growth," the auditors asserted, adding that it would be prudent for countries in hyperinflation, like Argentina, to adopt cryptocurrencies to preserve value.

KPMG said: "A globally accessible, decentralized store of value could have a significantly stabilizing impact on the country's economy. Bitcoin could potentially represent such a store of value in the future.

"Interestingly, even though there are large price fluctuations with Bitcoin, it is not inherently volatile. The supply is in fact fixed and algorithmically secured. It is the demand that is fluctuating and this could eventually stabilize as the market matures," it added.

Truly Open Global Financial System

Writing in the same report, Coinbase chief compliance officer, Jeff Horowitz, said cryptoassets are an opportunity to transform the financial industry into a truly open global financial system.

"Regulatory agencies are also beginning to seriously discuss cryptoassets, which could help drive institutional participation, encouraging the marketplace to think about how engagement with these assets fits into both existing rules and regulations and new frameworks that may be needed for crypto," he said.

However, Horowitz noted that the focus on cryptocurrency innovation must not come at the expense of security, compliance, and consumer protection.

"Leaders in the crypto space, including crypto entities and industry partners, have a responsibility to help influence and educate key legislators and regulators to advance the overall governance and enforcement framework," Horowitz detailed.

"In many ways, leading crypto companies should aspire to meet the standards and leading practices established by traditional financial services companies. We believe this will help promote trust and accelerate the adoption of crypto by investors and institutional clients," he added.