FinTech Qenta Acquires Crypto Company Noble Money

Financial insurance platform Qenta has acquired digital currency company Noble Money, Inc. for an undisclosed amount, FinTech said in a press release on Wednesday (Aug 17).

Noble Money is working to scale digital currencies, starting with government adoption, the release said. It is backed by investors that include 8 VCs, Tribe Capital, Social Capital and Green Sands Equity, all of whom will join Qenta’s investor group.

“Combining our regulatory footprint and technology with Noble’s will greatly enhance our efforts around financial inclusion and access,” Qenta CEO Brent De Jong said in the release.

The release said the companies have begun making “a strong regional push” as the Pacific island nation of Palau considers legislation that would adopt a gold-backed digital currency – which would be managed by Noble – as an official currency alongside the US dollar.

Launched in the US in 2019, Qenta’s digital gold token G-Coin is available in 76 countries via digital asset exchanges and is the appropriate solution for this, the company said. Based in Houston, Qenta’s platform offers asset tokenization, multi-token wallets, alternative banking, cashless payments, and capital and risk management solutions.

“The fastest way to achieve our vision of making good money accessible to all people is to partner with an established player with a large payment and regulatory infrastructure and significant private-public experience,” said Spencer Kaye, CEO of Noble Money.

Read more: UN agency: Crypto adoption threatens developing countries

Last week, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) warned that the use of cryptocurrency threatens the monetary sovereignty of developing countries, especially their ability to collect taxes. Among the solutions? The global coordination of crypto taxation.

While recognizing that cryptocurrencies can make it easier for people working abroad to send money home – a positive for developing countries’ economies – other characteristics of cryptocurrencies can undermine the economies where they are used.

Enforcing capital controls is tough, as cryptocurrency transactions do not require intermediaries who can be forced to report activity and participants to governments, UNCTAD said. Additionally, regulations governing crypto transactions are too vague in much of the developing world to allow compliance.

“To improve taxpayer compliance and combat tax evasion, the IRS should clearly define the legal status of cryptocurrencies and require crypto exchanges, e-wallet providers and decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to report gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts,” it said that in the UNCTAD report.