Securitize, a firm that enables the issuance and management digital securities, announced its tenth on-chain digital asset: Curzio Equity Owners (CEO). The token represents an equity stake in our investment research publishing firm, Curzio Research. We’re not alone… In the past quarter, Securitize forged partnerships with 17 companies to securitize their assets, with details forthcoming.

The Singaporean government’s taxation agency is proposing to remove the goods and services tax from cryptocurrency transactions that function—or are aimed to function—as a medium of exchange. The agency has also set out detailed parameters on how digital payment tokens are defined. Examples of digital payment tokens are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Ripple, and Zcash.

Financial institutions are entering crypto with a quickening pace, setting the tone for the remainder of 2019 and 2020. What makes these years different from ones prior is the speed of professionalization taking place in the markets. In addition, these financial institutions are supporting a variety of blockchain projects focused on commodity trade finance and shipping.

Top cryptocurrency exchange Binance is launching an open blockchain project called “Venus,” which is focused on developing localized stablecoins worldwide. The exchange says it’s seeking partnerships with governments, corporations, technology firms, and other cryptocurrency and blockchain projects in order to develop a new currency ecosystem that will empower both developed and developing countries.

Catherine Coley has been appointed as CEO of Binance’s upcoming U.S. crypto exchange. Coley will be responsible for rolling out Binance U.S., as well as expanding the exchange’s marketplace in North America. Prior to joining the firm, Coley was an executive at San Francisco-based distributed ledger tech startup Ripple. Before entering the blockchain and crypto space, Coley worked for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong and London in the institutional foreign exchange market.

Wall Street’s self-regulatory organization—Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)—has sat for months on some 40 applications from companies that deal in crypto assets. Some industry members think FINRA is waiting for clear guidance from the SEC on how cryptocurrencies are to be treated under securities laws… while others are convinced the SEC has explicitly told FINRA to hold off.

After accidentally tweeting images suggesting a margin trading service was in development, Binance has confirmed the cryptocurrency exchange will be launching the service. Margin trading refers to using borrowed funds from a broker or exchange to trade an asset. Other cryptocurrency exchanges—including Kraken, Coinbase’s GDAX, OKCoin, Huobi and Poloniex—already offer margin trading services.

Securitize is partnering with one of the blockchain industry’s largest security token exchange companies as it open-sources the code behind its in-house protocol. Developers will be able to create dApps on top of the protocol, creating new opportunities for the market. Securitize co-founder and CEO Carlos Domingo said he believes the technology created by his team has “proven itself in the marketplace.”

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is willing to approve an ether futures contract, a senior official has told CoinDesk. The CFTC, which oversees derivatives markets in the U.S., has already allowed bitcoin futures markets to launch. Now the regulator is willing to oversee a similar product for ether, currently the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Serena Williams, one of the world’s most successful tennis players of all time, announced her VC firm Serena Ventures—which was secretly founded in 2014. She revealed in an Instagram post that she is an investor in cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Some of Serena Ventures’ other investments include startups in areas such as fitness, clothing, food, and women’s health and community.

According to a job posting on USAJobs, an official government jobs portal, the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets plans to hire the new legal expert in order to help develop a “comprehensive plan” to address crypto and digital asset securities. One of the key responsibilities of the new hire would be to apply their “knowledge of federal securities laws to digital asset securities and crypto matters.”

IBM has completed a trial of blockchain technology to track a 28-ton shipment of mandarin oranges from China to Singapore. The main shipping document, the bill of lading, was recorded on a blockchain. This document is normally mailed to all parties involved in the shipment, including banks providing trade financing. For the pilot, IBM created an electronic bill of lading, or e-BL, which helped reduce and speed up administrative processes “to just one second”—while the standard paper-based procedure takes five to seven days.