This is the web version of The Ledger, Fortune’s weekly newsletter covering financial technology and cryptocurrency. Sign up here to get it free in your inbox. Fortune released its latest magazine issue this week, which features our 2020 list of companies who are changing the world. No. 3 on the list is fintech powerhouse PayPal, which has excelled during the coronavirus pandemic, seeing a jump in digital payments and leading the way on electronic stimulus payments, processing PPP loans, and...

Yesterday, there was a surprise announcement from Wall Street’s blockchain contingent: J.P. Morgan sold Quorum, the enterprise blockchain the bank spent years developing, to ConsenSys, the Brooklyn-based blockchain software firm run by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin. It was an interesting move by the big bank, which has lately been heading more towards the world of cryptocurrency than away from it. Last year, J.P. Morgan announced its own blockchain-based payment system, JPM Coin, and is now...

Investors will soon be able to buy gold and stocks in the form of cryptocurrency, the same way they might buy Bitcoin. Paxos, a New York-based firm that already offers a dollar-backed cryptocurrency (known as a stablecoin) as well as Bitcoin trading services, plans to introduce digital tokens backed by precious metals and publicly traded stocks sometime in 2019. The company launched its stablecoin, Paxos Standard, six months ago by tying cash reserves to a blockchain—a digital ledger of...

It’s tax season again, and unlike last year at this time—when many Bitcoin investors were sitting on exponential 2017 gains—there may be another reason for cryptocurrency holders to file their taxes: the possibility of a Bitcoin tax refund. The price of Bitcoin fell nearly 74% in 2018, making it likely that many people sold their cryptocurrency last year at a loss. And just like the IRS requires paying taxes on capital gains, so too can losses be deducted on tax forms, lessening what tax...

The biggest criticism of blockchain technology is generally that the decentralization and anonymity—or at least pseudonymity—it affords will also facilitate illegal activity outside the reaches of government, such as illicit marketplaces where you can buy anything from drugs to hitmen. That’s what ultimately led the U.S. authorities to shut down Bitcoin-enabled marketplaces such as AlphaBay and Silk Road. Of course, in certain circles of diehard crypto enthusiasts and cypherpunks, such online...