roadrunner

Since the recent Bitcoin Cash (BCH) upgrade, the protocol now has some newly added features like the re-enabled opcode OP_Checkdatasig. After the implementation, a few developers have been experimenting with the opcode and have developed concepts such as “spending constraints.” Moreover, in another instance, a programmer recently used the opcode to create an onchain chess game on the BCH blockchain. Also Read: BCH Upgrades: What’s New and What’s Next Spending Constraints Over the last week, BCH supporters have been slowly trying to move away from the recent blockchain split and concentrate on building. One example of this is a recent proof-of-concept written by a BCH developer called Pein Sama, which uses the opcode OP_Checkdatasig to explore new capabilities. Sama details that before the Bitcoin Cash upgrade, the BCH script was limited to someone specifying that one could spend a coin but at the time there was no way of adding constraints on how it could be spent. The developer then demonstrates how it is now possible to create spending constraints with the new BCH coding language called Spedn. Spending constraints using OP_Checkdatasig as described by the developer Pein_Sama. After Sama published his idea, the BCH community discussed the concept of spending constraints and other ideas like covenants as well. A few people specifically discussed the end of Sama’s documentation, which says the concept could produce things like OP_Return based tokens that are “miner enforceable.” The programmer explained that it could be argued that OP_Group is a cleaner way of adding native tokens, but he didn’t have a strong opinion on the matter. “My article is just exploring the new land,” the developer noted on the Reddit forum r/btc. A Game of Chess Not long after the published post about spending constraints with the opcode OP_Checkdatasig, a developer named Tobias Ruck was inspired by the opcode exploration and designed a chess game with the new feature. Because chess rules are deterministic, they can use a third party to help enforce the rules of the game and that’s where OP_Checkdatasig comes into play. By utilizing the “nifty spending constraints” originally published by Sama, Ruck shows how the concept can be applied to a game of chess. “The good thing about chess is that its rules are deterministic, so no need to throw dice or do some cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generator magic,” Ruck explained in his recent blog post. The developer continued by describing the benefits of using OP_Checkdatasig as trusted oracle within a game of chess by stating: If Kasparov were to challenge Anand for a round of chess, they might trust some third party (referee) or even each other to enforce/follow the rules, but if they are anonymous people on the internet playing for not insignificant amounts of money, it would be good if the rules of the games didn’t require a trusted third party. In his blog post, Ruck further elaborated how chess can be played with the new opcode and implemented the concept into a Python environment. This is where Ruck adds the “juicy parts” of the code, like operations such as “apply_move,” “white_has_won,” “black_has_won” and “is_stalemate.” After messing around with the program some more, Ruck eventually runs into the situation where a stalemate occurs and the game ends as a draw. Ruck explains that if the game was being played for a 1,000 satoshi incentive “neither white nor black can get any of the 1,000 satoshis, except if they agree to a draw and split the money.” A look at the chess game code developed by Tobias Ruck. The chess game creator also explains there are a few issues that could arise, like someone not making a move and the 1,000 satoshis getting locked into the blockchain forever. But Ruck says that a lock time could be added and the game will end after a certain amount of time has passed. Overall, Ruck’s chess concept is extremely raw and basic but shows how the opcode could be applied to all types of decision-based games. In conclusion, the developer’s blog post states that he hopes he was able to convey the idea of a chess game using OP_Checkdatasig as trusted and autonomous referee. Building a Turing Machine on Top of the Bitcoin Protocol After publishing the onchain chess game and while experimenting with the new opcode, Ruck realized that it is possible to build a Turing machine on top of the Bitcoin protocol. The researcher published a followup post, which shows how he simulated an old programming language using the BCH script. “A simple way to show Turing completeness is by simulating a Turing machine,” Ruck details in his second blog post. “For that, we’ll pick a derivative of Smallfuck, an esoteric programming language, which has been shown to be Turing complete — If we can simulate that on Bitcoin, we know it’s Turing complete,” the programmer adds. After showing how it can be done using the new opcode OP_Checkdatasig, Ruck emphasized that the Bitcoin protocol is Turing complete giving the technology a myriad of use cases. Ruck further adds that if developers optimized the code a “fully fledged and operational Bitcoin virtual machine (VM)” could be built. Ruck also adds that people who claim Craig Wright’s propositions “were right about OP_Checkdatasig introducing loops in the Bitcoin script are just wrong” and this is “false” information. “The idea that you could call another transaction by checking a signature is just ludicrous,” Ruck’s blog post states. In order to keep loops spinning, Ruck’s details that the program has to be fed with more satoshis per loop in a similar fashion to the Ethereum network’s gas limit. What do you think about the chess game that uses the BCH opcode OP_Checkdatasig as an autonomous referee? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Images via Shutterstock, Honest.cash, Pein Sama, Pixabay, and Tobias Ruck. Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com. The post New Bitcoin Cash Opcode Shows an Onchain Game of Chess is Possible appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A court in Switzerland has ordered the closure of bitcoin mining startup Envion AG over concerns of poor corporate governance. The company raised $100 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) in January, but a succession of boardroom wrangles have led to a breakdown in its corporate structure, bringing operations to a halt. Also read: Canadian Bitcoin Miner Fortress Blockchain Reports $1.16M Loss in Q3 Founding Partners Sue Each Other Founding partners Michael Luckow and Matthias Woestmann have repeatedly gone to court to sue each other over allegations of subterfuge, which supposedly took place at the time of the ICO or immediately after, according to a Handelsblatt Global report on Nov. 28. Among other things, Woestmann, who has since resigned as board chairman, “accused Luckow of manufacturing more coins than agreed on, so he engineered a capital increase that diluted Luckow’s share,” the paper alleged. In the capital increase, Woestmann allegedly issued actual shares, rather than tokens, effectively diluting the 81 percent stake of Luckow and his partners to 31 percent. Now, the cantonal court in Zug — Switzerland’s cryptocurrency haven — has ordered Envion to shut down, citing its lack of a functional board of directors and “the complete lack of any auditing function.” The company is to be liquidated, the court ruled. The article quoted a Zurich-based lawyer, Urs Schenker, as saying that Envion would likely go under. Schenker said liquidation was “unavoidable” because the financial regulator appeared to have reached a decision to investigate the cryptocurrency miner. The Lure of Riches Envion raised about $100 million in an ICO that attracted 30,000 investors between December 2017 and January 2018, when the cryptocurrency gold rush was at its peak. Investors paid $1 for each token in the offer, lured by the promise of over 160 percent growth and Envion’s low-cost approach to mining, using renewable energy. Today, the token is worth just $0.05, reports say. However, relations between the founders went sour after the ICO, with accusations of cheating, causing operations at the company to come to a standstill. Handelsblatt Global reports that both Luckow and Woestmann are now under investigation by regulators in Switzerland and Germany. It turned out that Envion’s finances and operations were being run from Berlin by Luckow’s company, Trado, even though the startup was registered in Switzerland. “Woestmann continues to blame Luckow, accusing him of not providing information about the ICO. Luckow says Woestmann always planned to push the firm into liquidation, but he will fight it and believes the original concept can still work,” the article said. The Zug court ruling is not final, as either party can still appeal the decision. In the meantime, all that investors can do is wait and hope for the best, as failed ICOs have already cost investors billions of dollars in losses throughout the world. What do you think about the counter lawsuits at Envion? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com. The post Bitcoin Mining Startup Envion Ordered to Close by Swiss Court appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has hit two celebrities with record fines for shilling initial coin offerings (ICOs). Boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. and music producer DJ Khaled were taken to task for failing to disclose payments they received for touting the projects. The case marks the first time the SEC has taken against celebs for ICO promotion. Also read: Deutsche Bank Headquarters Raided by 170 Police Officers Over Money Laundering Centra ICO Censured Again by SEC The SEC has settled charges with Mayweather and Khaled for ICO violations pertaining to Centra. The agency had previously charged the project’s founders over matters relating to securities fraud. Its latest settlement is the first time the SEC has gone after celebrity promoters of cryptocurrency projects however. “Without admitting or denying the findings,” explained the press release issued on Nov. 30, “Mayweather and Khaled agreed to pay disgorgement, penalties and interest. Mayweather agreed to pay $300,000 in disgorgement, a $300,000 penalty, and $14,775 in prejudgment interest. Khaled agreed to pay $50,000 in disgorgement, a $100,000 penalty, and $2,725 in prejudgment interest.” Paying Penance for the Excess of 2017 Floyd Mayweather posing with his Centra card In the halcyon days of summer 2017, everyone seemed to be launching ICOs, buying into ICOs, and shilling ICOs. In the cold light of 2018, however, many of those projects have failed, a handful have been prosecuted, and an unknown number are believed to be under investigation for securities violations. Tweets such as “You can call me Floyd Crypto Mayweather from now on” and Khaled’s “Game changer” description of Centra after receiving a $50,000 payment from the project have come back to haunt the pair. “These cases highlight the importance of full disclosure to investors,” said Stephanie Avakian of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “With no disclosure about the payments, Mayweather and Khaled’s ICO promotions may have appeared to be unbiased, rather than paid endorsements.” While ICOs have not died, despite the prolonged bear market and spate of SEC enforcements, the era of celebrity endorsements is effectively now over. Do you think this action by the SEC will put an end to celebrity ICO endorsements? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post SEC Hits Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled With Fines for Unlawful ICO Promotion appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Deutsche Bank’s headquarters and five other offices have been raided by 170 police officers, prosecutors, and tax inspectors over money laundering allegations. The bank’s written and electronic business documents were reportedly seized. Its employees allegedly helped clients set up offshore companies to launder money. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations Deutsche Bank Raided Six Deutsche Bank offices in and around Frankfurt, including its headquarters, were raided on Thursday over money laundering allegations. The raid of Germany’s biggest bank with assets worth approximately 1.48 trillion euros ($1.68 trillion) continued for a second day on Friday, according to Reuters. The publication described: Around 170 police officers, prosecutors and tax inspectors searched the offices where written and electronic business documents were seized. Deutsche Bank’s tweet confirming the investigation. “Of course, we will cooperate closely with the public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt, as it is in our interest as well to clarify the facts,” the bank was quoted as saying. Germany’s public prosecutors began investigating the bank in August, the news outlet detailed, adding that they are looking into the activities of two unnamed Deutsche Bank employees, particularly from 2013 through to 2018. The pair allegedly helped clients set up offshore firms to launder money. The New York Times reported that the two employees “are suspected of failing to report possible money laundering for transactions worth 311 million euros, or more than $350 million.” The Investigation The raid was part of an ongoing investigation stemming from the Panama Papers and other offshore leaks, Reuters explained. The Panama Papers consist of over 11.5 million leaked documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. “Deutsche Bank employees are alleged to have breached their duties by neglecting to report money laundering suspicions about clients and offshore companies involved in tax evasion schemes,” the publication detailed. The prosecutors elaborated: In 2016 alone, over 900 customers were served by a Deutsche Bank subsidiary registered on the British Virgin Islands, generating a volume of 311 million euros. The New York Times further quoted the prosecutors as saying, “Deutsche Bank helped customers found offshore organizations in tax havens by transferring illegally acquired money without alerting authorities to suspected money laundering.” Ongoing Money Laundering Concerns Deutsche Bank is also being investigated for its involvement in Danske Bank’s alleged money laundering activities since it acted as a correspondent bank for Danske Bank at the time. Reuters noted that the raid that began on Thursday is unrelated to the Danske Bank money laundering case. Last year, Deutsche Bank was fined “nearly $700 million for allowing money laundering through artificial trades between Moscow, London and New York,” the news outlet described, adding that the investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice is still ongoing. Moreover, the Federal Reserve has fined the bank “$41 million for failing to have an effective system for complying with bank secrecy laws and laws to prevent money laundering,” The New York Times wrote. Lisa Paus, a member of the German federal parliament, commented: It is the sum of incidents that give cause for serious concern … Something seems to be basically wrong in the compliance and anti-money laundering area of the bank. In September, German financial regulator Bafin ordered Deutsche Bank to improve its money laundering and terrorist financing prevention measures. Bafin also appointed KPMG to monitor the bank’s progress. Why do you think regulators are going after crypto when there is so much money laundering in the banking system? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Deutsche Bank. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Deutsche Bank Headquarters Raided by 170 Police Officers Over Money Laundering appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Digital asset exchange Kucoin has partnered with an Israeli startup to introduce credit card payments for cryptocurrency purchases and we’ve covered it in The Daily. Also, Coinbase has added privacy coin zcash to its professional trading platform, while Okex has delisted dozens of trading pairs with low liquidity. And in Ghana, over 100,000 investors have lost millions of dollars in a coin scam. Also read: Coinbase Launches OTC Desk, Huobi Opens Derivatives Market Kucoin Introduces Credit Card Payments Kucoin has teamed up with Simplex to allow its users to buy cryptocurrencies with credit and debit cards. The Singapore-based exchange’s new service is now available in over 100 countries. Its customers can use U.S. dollars and euros to purchase bitcoin core (BTC), ether (ETH) and litecoin (LTC). Simplex is a provider of payment processing solutions headquartered in Israel. The fintech startup operates globally and has subsidiaries in the U.S., U.K. and Lithuania. Merchants using its services receive their payments from Simplex, even in the case of fraudulent chargebacks. The company already cooperates with some of the leading platforms in the crypto space, including Shapeshift and Changelly. Kucoin recently raised a total of $20 million in a series A funding round. The exchange, which started trading digital assets in September of last year, now has more than 5 million registered users in over 100 different jurisdictions. Coinbase Pro Adds Privacy Coin Zcash Leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has listed privacy-centric digital coin zcash (ZEC) on its professional digital asset trading platform, Coinbase Pro. According to an official announcement, Coinbase Pro started accepting ZEC deposits on Thursday, Nov. 29. “We will accept deposits for at least 12 hours prior to enabling trading,” the company explained in a blog post, which also detailed: “Once sufficient liquidity is established, trading on the ZEC/USDC order book will start.” The San Francisco-based exchange also revealed that initially ZEC trading will be available for residents of the Unites States, excluding New York, and Coinbase Pro users in the U.K., EU member states, Canada, Singapore and Australia. Support for other jurisdictions may be provided in the future, Coinbase noted. The company will also consider adding ZEC to its consumer platform and mobile apps if there are no technical issues with trading on Coinbase Pro. Following the announcement, the price of zcash jumped by about 15 percent. At the time of writing, the coin was trading at around $88. Okex Delists Trading Pairs With Low Liquidity Okex, currently the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, announced that it’s delisting 38 trading pairs and tokens with weak liquidity and low trading volume. The decision pertains to firstblood, district0x, iconomi, santiment network and singulardtv, among other coins. The full list is available on the platform’s website. The trading pairs will be delisted on Nov. 30. Okex advises users to cancel their orders with the affected coins or the exchange will cancel them automatically and credit the assets to the trading accounts. Okex customers holding a number of tokens — VEE, LEV, AVT, CBT, WRC, QVT, MTL, DNA, DNT, OAX, 1ST, CAG, UKG, BRD, SAN, ICN, ATL, SUB, REQ, NGC, AMM, LA, DENT, CIT, DAT and MAG — have been asked to withdraw them to other cryptocurrency platforms before Dec. 14. Investors in Ghana Lose $27M in Coin Scam More than 110,000 Ghanaians have been reportedly defrauded in a scheme involving cryptocurrency investments. According to local media, Kwaku Kumi and David Opatey — executives of an entity called Global Coin Community Help (GCCH) — have been arrested and interrogated by the country’s Economic and Organized Crime Office. Both have been released on bail, however. The swindled investors lost an estimated 135 million Ghanaian cedi, or roughly $27 million, the Ghanaian news outlet Daily Graphic reported. According to investigators, GCCH accepted deposits without a license from the Bank of Ghana. The company promised to pay customers a monthly interest rate of 27 percent for a period of one year. Unable to pay the high interest rate, the fraudsters later offered to compensate the investors with digital coins traded on an exchange called Mintcrtx. When their deposits were converted, the tokens were valued at 20 Ghanaian cedi per coin, but their price has since dropped to only 2 cedi. Police found that the trading platform is owned and operated by GCCH. What are your thoughts on today’s news tidbits? Tell us in the comments section. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Make sure you do not miss any important Bitcoin-related news! Follow our news feed any which way you prefer; via Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, RSS or email (scroll down to the bottom of this page to subscribe). We’ve got daily, weekly and quarterly summaries in newsletter form. Bitcoin never sleeps. Neither do we. The post The Daily: Kucoin Enables Credit Card Payments, Coinbase Pro Adds Zcash appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Liechtenstein cryptocurrency exchange LCX has been granted a license to provide crypto trading services for utility and payment tokens. The exchange will be offering four main crypto services including a custody service and a fiat-to-crypto exchange in partnership with Binance. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations A Regulated Exchange LCX announced on Tuesday that it has been granted “a business license of the Liechtenstein Ministry of Economic Affairs to conduct its business in Liechtenstein (Gewerbebewilligung).” An LCX representative told news.Bitcoin.com: With this license, we got the permission from the regulator to provide crypto exchange trading services for utility and payment tokens. So, we can offer an exchange to investors, to safely trade utility and payment coins (stable coins for example), that is approved by the regulator. The representative added that LCX can now offer “services that other crypto exchanges offer … in a regulatory compliant manner.” As a regulated exchange, LCX says that it will apply the “highest technology standards for KYC [know-your-customer] and AML [anti-money laundering] to safeguard fulfillment of all regulatory requirements for AML and KYC.” He further noted that LCX has increased its nominal capital from 100,000 CHF (~$100,400) to 1,000,000 CHF in order to apply for additional licenses, such as the Financial Market Authority (Fma) license, to be able to trade security tokens and offer other regulated services. “We also want to offer security token trading to our clients,” he emphasized. Upcoming Services The company plans to offer four key products. One is a trading platform for security tokens and other cryptoassets. The second is a crypto custody service called LCX Vault. The third is called LCX Terminal which integrates the APIs of major exchanges — such as Binance, Bittrex, Coinbase, Poloniex, and LCX’s own exchange — into a single trading desk. This product recently entered the closed-beta phase. The company described it as “a trading desk for crypto assets equipped with portfolio management, analytics platform, auto trading functionality and audit reporting — integration of major exchanges.” The fourth is a fiat-to-crypto exchange unveiled in August in partnership with Binance. This exchange will offer the trading of Swiss francs and euros against major cryptocurrencies. The LCX representative explained to news.Bitcoin.com: The moment we decide we’re ready to integrate our exchange into the terminal we can go public with this product … All other products are in development and will be announced and made public in the near future. Furthermore, he noted that LCX’s exchange services “can be offered in a global manner,” adding that “we will be setting new standards in terms of KYC and AML, which every client of LCX should pass.” What do you think of LCX’s plans to provide crypto-related services? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and LCX. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post LCX Now Licensed to Provide Crypto Trading Services in Liechtenstein appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Recent research on the tone and frequency of cryptocurrency coverage in the mainstream media over the past five years suggests that some news outlets appear to be much more biased against Bitcoin than the norm. The results also indicate that overall sentiment has become more negative with time. Also Read: Coinbase Launches OTC Desk, Huobi Opens Derivatives Market Price Declines Sparked a Press Frenzy Blockchain-focused research company Clovr surveyed 7,527 cryptocurrency-related articles from 48 media outlets from January 1, 2013, to July 31, 2018. It used an algorithm to assess the broad sentiment expressed in each article. The researchers found that the mainstream media didn’t really pay much attention to cryptocurrencies until they started climbing in value. But what these news outlets really liked was to report about price crashes. Even during the great bull run of 2017, coverage spiked during sudden declines in market value. And the downturn from the peak at the end of the year created a “press frenzy” as the number of articles shot up. “In the wake of bitcoin’s market cap plunge in the final days of 2017, negative articles multiplied — with cryptocurrencies falling 34 percent in the first month of 2018, cautionary tales of vanished wealth were common,” the researchers note. Old vs. Young, Left vs. Right Long-established mainstream brands were particularly harsh with their cryptocurrency coverage, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist and The Financial Times. In contrast, the researchers found that business and financial news outlets that skew toward a younger audience, such as Forbes and Business Insider, had coverage that was consistently above the overall median for positive sentiment. Comparing American publications by their political leanings, the researchers found that those that skew conservative were considerably more negative in their crypto coverage than those that skew liberal. This was exemplified by Breitbart News, which was found to have published only negative articles — a surprising finding, considering that its former executive chairman, Steve Bannon, has gone on to present himself as a crypto revolutionary. The report indicates that some publishers became less hostile over time. However, the more common trajectory was for coverage to become increasingly negative, the researchers noted. The average sentiment of Reuters, USA Today and Gizmodo articles became substantially more negative over time, for example. And overall, financial news outlets seemed to be more positive than technology news sites. What are the most interesting findings from this research? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Research Exposes Anti-Bitcoin Bias in Mainstream Media appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Over the last few weeks, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community has been discussing how miners and nodes will handle bigger blocks in the future to encourage mass adoption. A company called Bloxroute has been coming up a lot lately, as it aims to resolve the block propagation bottleneck. Also read: Growing Number of Crypto Companies Operating From Belarus Bloxroute Claims It Offers Greater Efficiency Bloxroute claims it can provide more efficient block propagation for blockchains. The organization has been discussed a lot in the weeks since researchers noted issues with block propagation after the BCH and BSV chains processed a few big blocks. Bloxroute says it supports any blockchain underneath the system by broadcasting block data in the exact same manner for every user in a neutral fashion. “In particular, Bloxroute propagates blocks without knowledge of the transactions they contain, their number, and the ‘wallets’ or addresses involved. Miners are free to include arbitrary transactions in a block,” the Bloxroute whitepaper explains. “Furthermore, Bloxroute cannot infer the above characteristics even when colluding with other nodes, or by analyzing blocks’ timing and size — Bloxroute cannot favor specific nodes by providing them blocks ahead of others, and cannot prevent any node from joining the system and utilizing it.” Noticing Block Propagation Difficulties Big blocks have been a topic of intense discussion over the last few weeks, especially within the Bitcoin Cash community. The week before the Nov. 15 hard fork, a few sizable blocks were processed on the BCH chain, including numerous 32MB blocks. After the blockchain split, BSV miners processed a 64MB block, marking the largest onchain block ever mined on a blockchain. However, huge blocks that have been mined in the past and blocks above a certain threshold usually have issues propagating across the network. This was noticed by many observers when BMG pool mined a 23.15MB Bitcoin Cash block that took well over an hour to propagate correctly. “It took 85 minutes to find this block and the mempool was continuously growing at a rate that seems to be close to the limit nodes can accept transactions,” observed Jochen Hoenicke, the cryptocurrency developer otherwise known as “Johoe.” Researchers noticed these issues when the concession of 32MB blocks was mined on the BCH chain. And the 64MB block found by BSV miners also had significant issues and took an extremely long time to propagate — some believe the BSV stress test pretty much DDoSed the nascent network. Another recent post on r/BTC explains how the BSV chain is showing issues with stuck Child-Pays-for-Parent (CPFP) transactions. Hash War Winners or ‘Bloody Socialists’? Since these issues started appearing, Bloxroute has come up more and more in the block size debate among people like Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer and Nchain’s chief scientist, Craig Wright. For instance, Gün Sirer told his Twitter followers on Nov. 23 that the hash war had shown that Bloxroute is an interesting protocol. “The big winner in the hash war was, oddly, Bloxroute Labs. Coingeek demonstrated the importance of block propagation by accidentally selfish mining themselves. Anyone building high-performance blockchains needs to pay attention to the kind of things Bloxroute focuses on,” he said. However, Wright and supporters of BSV don’t seem to see many benefits with Bloxroute’s technology. “[Bloxroute] will never see the light of day with SV. In Bitcoin … miners vote and miners can choose to orphan blocks,” Wright recently detailed to his Twitter followers. “Basically, this is the complete opposite of everything Bitcoin is about. And it also does not work.” In another tweet, Wright claimed that Bloxroute proponents are “bloody socialists” and if miners cannot vote they are “neutered.” He continued by stating: It is not scaling, it is removing miners from having a say. Whether or not people agree with Bloxroute’s business model, its success or failure will be decided by the free market. If blockchain developers find use cases with this kind of system, it could theoretically thrive or simply introduce more problems. But no one can stop Bloxroute, as it’s free to provide these types of services in a permissionless fashion. Uri Klarman, CEO of Bloxroute Labs, responded to Gün Sirer’s statements on Nov. 25, after the BSV chain had processed some larger blocks. “Here’s why Bloxroute Labs is the big winner of the hash war: *Any* blockchain doing large blocks needs them to quickly reach other miners. Otherwise, they will mine empty blocks based on header and forks (orphans) — BSV just showed 30MB block take 20 minutes since they lack layer 0,” Klarman said. What do you think about the Bloxroute protocol and business model? Let us know in the comments section below. Images via Shutterstock, Bloxroute Labs, Twitter, and Pixabay. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Bloxroute Joins the Block Size Debate With New Block Propagation Service appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This post about better crypto UX was written by venture capitalist David Gold. He is the CEO of Dapix, Inc, which launched the Foundation for Interwallet Operability (FIO) and FIO Protocol. *** Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper laid out an intoxicating vision for a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” — free of involvement and interference from third-party intermediaries. Also read: Outrage Over Union Bank of Nigeria’s Threat to Close Crypto-Related Accounts Ten years later — despite much growth, shrinkage, excitement and hype — Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies in general, have yet to be put to any significant use in commerce, which is a key reason why crypto markets continue to face such extreme volatility. Crypto is currently too difficult and risky to use. This why it has not achieved mainstream adoption. Many other cryptocurrency and token-utility protocols have been launched to create variations that are faster, cheaper and more able to handle complex transactions. But very few have focused on how to make them easier, safer and more comfortable for people to actually use. Bad Utility Equates to Bad UX Imagine stopping people in the street to show them what it is like to use cryptocurrency with the incoherent crypto addresses, the lack of obvious route to learn the progress of payments, and the irreversible transactions — even in the event of payment errors. It seems reasonable to assume few would be comfortable using cryptocurrency to conduct an exchange of value. Praising third-party intermediaries is considered heretical in the blockchain world. But from the everyday users’ perspective, they at least can provide greater confidence that a transaction of value proceeds as intended. Checks can minimize errors, and errors often have the opportunity to be corrected. For Satoshi’s vision of a “purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” to become a broad reality, the user experience of sending/receiving crypto must be greatly improved. In fact, the user experience needs to be better than that of sending/receiving value in the fiat world because transactions are irreversible. Users need near certainty on the accuracy of their transaction details — including where funds are being sent, the amount of funds, the type of funds, and the purpose for which they are being sent. But all this needs to be achieved without a trusted third-party intermediary. Poor Attempt Efforts to address blockchain usability in a decentralized manner to date have almost exclusively focused on solving only one piece of the problem — the concept of human-readable “wallet names” to eliminate the need to deal with incoherent public addresses. Those attempts have failed to make any meaningful impact on usability for a number of reasons. First, many of the attempts at wallet names are as complex as the usability problem they attempt to solve. Next, some attempts have been blockchain-specific, meaning that a user would be faced with a wallet name for one token but not for other tokens in their wallet. Others have created “walled gardens” requiring all users to utilize specific browser plugins or wallets to obtain greater usability, but solving nothing for the multitude of users interacting with different wallets. Even if any of these efforts were successful, wallet names themselves are an insufficient piece of the usability solution, as they do nothing to provide confidence about the accuracy of transaction details, nor shared context for the purpose of the payment. Here We Go It’s time for wallets and exchanges to change the paradigm and enable dramatic improvements in usability across all blockchains. By uniting around a decentralized Paypal-like protocol, we can finally break through the barriers on blockchain usability. This protocol should be open sourced and available to all. In other words, every wallet and exchange should be able to participate. We need a protocol that works with existing blockchains rather than competes with them. We need a protocol that doesn’t require them to change in any way, and won’t sit in the middle of transactions. Rather, it should augment blockchains by enabling all wallets and exchanges to provide a decentralized suite of information and workflow not previously possible. A protocol like this would enable the first wallet names that work across every token and coin. Crypto users would be able to send a request for payment from within one wallet to another wallet — virtually eliminating the possibility of errors in sending tokens or coins. Cross-chain metadata could work identically for every token or coin so that transfers of value, regardless of token or coin utilized, could include secure details on the purpose. And these capabilities would only be the beginning. A raft of other usability solutions could be built if everyone gets involved. Calm After the Storm The volatility experienced by cryptocurrencies over the past year would greatly diminish if crypto just became more consumer-friendly. As long as blockchain tokens and coins are limited to being primarily an alternative investment asset class, market adoption will be constrained. The vision of a decentralized, peer-to-peer system for exchange of value is not only about accuracy in the ledger of transactions, it’s about the comfort and confidence of the user in the process of moving the value represented. I’m optimistic that the whole industry is about to come together to solve these usability issues. Soon the average person on the street will not only be comfortable using cryptocurrency, but will finally find it superior to fiat currency for a variety of transactions. Do you think a single protocol for interoperability between blockchains is the way to go? Will the industry unite to solve these pressing issues? Images courtesy of Shutterstock OP-ed disclaimer: This is an Op-ed article. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support views, opinions or conclusions drawn in this post. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the Op-ed article. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the content. Bitcoin.com is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any information in this Op-ed article. The post Honoring Satoshi’s Vision: Toward a Better Crypto User Experience appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has informed Belarusian customers that its services will no longer be available in their country. The announcement follows reports of similar restrictions for residents of other nations under economic sanctions, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Zimbabwe. Also read: Russian Miners Sell Their Equipment Amid Market Plunge Belarusians Lose Access to Global Exchange The correspondence from Binance, currently the world’s largest digital asset trading platform by daily volume, does not specifically say when the restrictions will go into effect, Forklog reported. However, the exchange notes that they are related to the latest update in its Terms of Use (ToU) and urges Belarusians to acquaint themselves with the changes. Under “Prohibition of Use” on the ToU page, the exchange explains that by accessing and using any of its services, customers acknowledge and declare they are not on any trade or economic sanctions lists, such as those prepared by the U.N. Security Council and the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department (OFAC). Binance says that it “maintains the right to select its markets and jurisdictions to operate and may restrict or deny its services to certain countries.” The exchange also insists on its stance that “prohibited users are not to use or access Binance and any of its services” and reserves the right to modify or change the terms and conditions of its user agreement at any time and at its sole discretion. The announcement comes shortly after Binance imposed restrictions on other countries under Western sanctions. In November, several global exchanges, including Binance, cut ties with Iran, according to members of the local crypto community. Zimbabweans have also been informed that the exchange is unable to provide services in their country and have been told to withdraw their funds. Gleb Kostarev, a representative of Binance in the Russian Federation, has confirmed the authenticity of the Belarus announcement. Speaking to Forklog, he also noted that the new restrictions would not affect Russian residents. But the different treatment of the two countries raises questions about the rationale behind the decision. The two nations are both members of the Eurasian Economic Union, which forms a common market. They are also subject to U.S. sanctions. But while Washington is constantly expanding its measures regarding Russia, sanctions relief has been granted for nine major Belarusian companies in the past three years. In October, OFAC extended the waivers for another year. The move is part of a policy aimed at encouraging reforms in the country, which is a traditional ally of Moscow. Belarusians Can Still Buy Cryptocurrencies Belarus is one of only a few jurisdictions in Europe that have adopted crypto-friendly regulations. The number of fintech entities operating in the country has been growing since President Alexander Lukashenko’s Decree No. 8 entered into force in March. The order legalized the business activities of crypto and blockchain companies registered with the Belarus High Technologies Park (HTP) in Minsk. The circulation and exchange of cryptocurrencies, however, remain largely unregulated. There are no cryptocurrency exchanges in the HTP and Binance’s decision to restrict services in the country will make it even harder for Belarusians to buy, sell and trade coins. Fortunately, other options are available. A number of online platforms offer exchange services in the post-Soviet space. Best Change, for example, lists dozens of verified online exchanges where crypto-enthusiasts can acquire and trade digital currencies, regardless of sanctions imposed by foreign powers or bans introduced by their own governments. Many platforms support popular payment methods such as Qiwi and Yandex Money, but credit/debit card purchases are also possible. Belarusians can order prepaid Mastercards from Belarusbank, a leading commercial bank in the country. Its Carte Blanche card supports deposits in four currencies — Belarusian rubles, Russian rubles, euros and U.S. dollars. The fiat funds can then be used to buy digital money on any of the Best Change-listed platforms supporting such transactions. Peer-to-peer exchanges such as Localbitcoins are also available to Belarusians who want to trade their coins. And Crexby, a platform recently launched by Belarusians in the U.S. as the first Belarusian crypto exchange, recently told news.Bitcoin.com that it plans to introduce support for Belarusian ruble trades. The company is already in contact with government officials in Minsk to ensure compliance with local regulations. What do you think about Binance’s move to stop services in Belarus? Tell us in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Belarusbank. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Binance Terminates Services for Users in Belarus appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Since the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) fork occurred recently, it’s a good time to discuss the difference between custodial and noncustodial cryptocurrency services. Newcomers to the digital asset economy often get confused when they hear about a blockchain split and may wonder how they should handle the outcome. Individuals should note that the best solution depends greatly on how they prefer to store their cryptocurrencies – in a custodial or noncustodial wallet. Also read: Follow This Branch: A Guide to Splitting BCH and BSV Third Party and Sovereign Control Over Private Keys If you have just joined the cryptocurrency space, you might find some parts of the ecosystem confusing. One of the most important lessons to learn is the best way to keep your assets safe and secure because no one likes to lose money. In the early days, around eight years ago, there were very few service providers offering wallets and exchanges. But now there are hundreds of wallets and exchanges offering a storage solution for cryptocurrencies. What some digital currency newcomers may not understand is that there is a big difference between custodial and noncustodial services. The recent Bitcoin Cash fork is a good example of why people should understand the differences between both systems. Custodial Wallet Services Custodial cryptocurrency services include most exchanges, brokerage services, and platforms that allow you to buy, sell, and store digital assets. A custodial business is basically a third party that offers to protect your assets within their system. People who store digital assets with a third party need to understand that they are not 100% in control of their cryptocurrencies. Coinbase is a great example of an exchange and brokerage service that also allows people to store digital assets within their wallet system. When you download the Coinbase application that allows purchases and sales, you’ll note that it is described as “the world’s most popular cryptocurrency wallet.” Therefore it’s safe to assume some users may think the application is a noncustodial wallet, but that isn’t the case. For example, with the last hard fork, Coinbase and a multitude of other third-party services paused customers from sending and receiving BCH to their wallets. Noncustodial wallets were 100% operational before, during, and after the hard fork, because these kinds of wallets are not controlled by a third party. In another instance, Coinbase explained to their customers that BCH wallets had been recently enabled and that in the future they will disperse BSV funds. In essence, this means that if you stored BCH on Coinbase before the fork you must wait for them to allow you access to the BSV tokens that were once tethered to your BCH. So the third party services that have re-enabled BCH transactions have split the coins stored there already, enabling you to transact once again with BCH without worrying about a replay attack or sending two types of coins. However, one of the most important slogans within the cryptocurrency community is “If you don’t possess your private keys you don’t own bitcoin.” And this is true for any cryptocurrency held on an exchange or custodial wallet, as that third-party service is in control of your coins to a large degree. Examples of custodial services include Kraken, Coinex, Bitstamp, Poloniex, Bittrex, Bitfinex, Binance, and the myriad of other trading and brokerage service platforms that also offer storage. Noncustodial Wallet Services That Give the User 100% Control Noncustodial wallet services are platforms that allow users to possess their private keys. The application will either give you a file or have you write down a mnemonic phrase that can consist of 12-24 random words. A platform that provides users with the ability to store a cryptocurrency’s private keys gives the user 100% control over the funds. If you possess your private keys, you wholly own bitcoin or any of the other 2,000+ cryptocurrencies in existence. Understanding private keys is important to financial sovereignty. So moving back to the BCH hard fork example, if you held pre-fork bitcoin cash in a noncustodial wallet, this will have allowed you to have complete ownership over your BCH and BSV. Noncustodial wallets include the Bitcoin.com client, BRD, Blockchain, BTC.com, Electron Cash, Copay, Jaxx, Coinomi, Edge, and many more because these platforms give users the ability to store their own private keys. An example of an Electron Cash mnemonic phrase or private key. Individuals using these types of user-controlled wallets had the ability to split their BCH and BSV right after the split happened. Because individuals store their funds in a wallet they have sovereign control over, they are 100% responsible for the safety and security of the keys. Noncustodial wallet owners also need to split their BCH on their own, unless the wallet software offers a native splitting solution within the client. This means that if a user sends some BCH without splitting their BSV first in a noncustodial wallet, they face losing the BSV after sending the transaction. Having full ownership of your cryptocurrency private keys by means of a noncustodial wallet means you are accountable for every action, including splitting coins. Research and Get to Know the Storage Solution You Choose There are lots of applications and platforms that offer cryptocurrency storage in wallets, but you need to be careful which one you choose. It is very important to understand the difference between custodial (third-party control) and noncustodial (sovereign control) storage solutions. The difference can be huge when it comes to exchange hacks, blockchain splits, and other unknowns that take place within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The best thing to do is research the service or application you use to store your cryptocurrency and perform due diligence. Find out whether or not the application you use is a custodial or noncustodial solution and decide for yourself if the service is safe and secure enough to hold your precious digital assets. Do you understand the difference between custodial and noncustodial cryptocurrency services? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below. Images via Shutterstock, Electron Cash, Pixabay, Jamie Redman, Bitcoin.com. Now live, Satoshi Pulse. A comprehensive, real-time listing of the cryptocurrency market. View prices, charts, transaction volumes, and more for the top 500 cryptocurrencies trading today. The post The Difference Between Custodial and Noncustodial Cryptocurrency Services appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Fortress Blockchain’s net loss worsened to $1.16 million (1.55 million Canadian dollars) in the third quarter, from $202,000 in the preceding three-month period, as price pressure continues to mount in the global bitcoin mining industry. The Canadian company said depreciation of $291,600 and listing expenses of $293,700 wiped away mining earnings. Also read: Outrage Over Union Bank of Nigeria’s Threat to Close Crypto-Related Accounts Revenue Falls as Bitcoin Plummets Fortress Blockchain, which listed shares on the TSX Venture Exchange in August, sold 179.8 BTC for $1.13 million in the three months to September, at an average price of $6,605 per coin. About 83 BCH was sold for $35,300. The Vancouver-based company extracted much less bitcoin and bitcoin cash during the third quarter, however, as global cryptocurrency prices plummeted. It mined 64.5 BTC and 52 BCH at significantly lower prices compared to the previous quarter. Revenue from its mining operations declined 37 percent to $463,900, from $741,000 in the previous quarter, according to an earnings release published Nov. 28. Revenue from the sale of bitcoin mining equipment coupons reached $267,500 in the three months to the end of September. It said it had faced challenging conditions due to the “volatility in bitcoin prices.” It has also seen a rise in costs related to depreciation, listing and share-based compensation. Gross mining margins came in stronger, however, at 62 percent. “The industry has gone through a corrective phase where mining difficulties are at an all time high while bitcoin prices have declined,” said Aydin Kilic, chief executive officer and co-founder of Fortress. “At press time, we have noticed the mining difficulty for Bitcoin has significantly decreased. However, this has been outpaced by a significant decline in the price of bitcoin.” Miners Continue to Struggle The global price of bitcoin has plunged more than 70 percent since January, dragging the rest of the cryptocurrency market down with it. Companies involved in mining or selling mining hardware have been hit hard. Reports say some companies have gone bankrupt, with a number of miners in China resorting to selling their equipment as junk to cut losses. Fortress, which has a market capitalization of $6.40 million, touts itself as a low-cost green energy miner. The company operates about 1,400 S9 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners at its 2 MW flagship facility in the U.S. state of Washington, with an average operating hash rate of over 18.9 petahash/second. Fortress has cut staff to achieve cost savings of $26,300 per month, said Kilic, who took a pay cut as part of a broader corporate reorganization exercise. The company also bolstered efficiency by installing Bitmain’s Overt ASIC Boost firmware on all of its mining hardware, resulting in a 14 percent average decline in power consumption, he said. By the end of September, Fortress had cash on hand of $7.98 million and $19,200 of digital currency holdings, compared to $6.90 million in cash and $769,900 in cryptocurrency at the end of June. Its shares closed up 4.4 percent at $0.09 on Nov. 28. What do you think about Fortress Blockchain’s quarterly performance? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com. The post Canadian Bitcoin Miner Fortress Blockchain Reports $1.16M Loss in Q3 appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

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. Also read: BCH Upgrades: What’s New and What’s Next Bitcoin: Unblockable Since 2009 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. Two of the addresses that have sent BTC to a ‘blacklisted’ Iranian address in the last 24 hours 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. What are your thoughts on the U.S. ‘blacklisting’ bitcoin addresses? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Blockchain.com Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post The US Government Is Powerless to Block Bitcoin Addresses appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In today’s edition of Chatter Report, crypto influencers debate the importance of buy walls to support crypto prices, reason for and against miner anonymity and ponder the outcome of governments attacking bitcoin. Also read: Markets Update: Bull Trap or Reversal? Traders Question the Recent Crypto Spike Hodlers of Last Resort and Buy Walls Early bitcoin adopter and investor in Kraken, Trace Mayer, argues that crypto market capitalizations are important, but not as important as the hodlers of last resort and “buy support.” Mayer reasons that the combination of investors who don’t panic sell their coins and buy orders that are reflected in order books are what keep crypto prices from sliding further down. However, Eric Wall argues that this is incorrect, because buy and sell orders are just an illusion. The cryptocurrency lead at Cinnober reasons that buy walls can be pulled quickly when market sentiment turns bearish, so data on order books can’t really be trusted. Wall’s distrust of order books is also shared by others in the thread, as they point out that over-the-counter market orders are unseen and obscure buy and sell data even further. Should Miners be Anonymous? After Nchain proposed the Optimal Miner Pseudo ID, crypto Twitter erupted in a fiery debate over whether miners should be anonymous or have their identities publicly known. Developer Chris Pacia argues that all miners should be anonymous because anonymity makes it more difficult for governments to shut down bitcoin. On the other hand, prominent bitcoiner Alex Pickard believes that miners should be known by the public, as that would “increase trust in the system,” which is better for the bitcoin ecosystem. The argument then shifted focus to the purpose of Proof of Work (POW), with crypto-Twitter regular Karate McAwesome arguing that POW is set up for miner anonymity. Pickard quickly disagreed, explaining that the point of POW is to prevent double spending and to maintain the fixed supply of bitcoin. He then elaborated, claiming that transparent miner identities could prevent the government from shutting bitcoin down. Bitcoin vs. the State Picking up on the idea of governments trying to destroy bitcoin, cryptocurrency proponent Chris G and Bitcoin Uncensored’s Chris DeRose began their own separate discussion. The former argued that bitcoin would benefit from the government trying to destroy it. G reasons that after the Chinese government tried to shut down bitcoin from 2013 to 2015, the subsequent years were fantastic for bitcoin prices. G goes on to draw parallels between bitcoin and Christianity, explaining that governments initially killed all Christians until Constantine figured out how he could benefit from the religion. Throughout the thread, DeRose appears convinced of G’s arguments. By the end, both parties conclude that divisions in the bitcoin community are more dangerous than governments trying to destroy bitcoin. What do you think of the significance of buy walls and hodlers to support crypto prices? Should miners be anonymous or known entities? Would governments attacking bitcoin actually be good for it? Let us know in the comments below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to know the price of bitcoin? Check this chart. The post Chatter Report: Buy Walls, Miner Anonymity and Bitcoin vs. the State appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In Thursday’s edition of The Daily, we feature stories that show cryptocurrency exchanges continuing to develop advanced services designed to attract institutional investors. These include OTC trading, derivatives and futures. Also Read: Major Video Card Supplier Enters Cryptocurrency Mining Business Coinbase Launches Dedicated OTC Desk Coinbase has launched an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk. The initiative went live earlier this month exclusively for its Prime members, who include hedge funds and other agency-level businesses. These high-rolling clients can now use the service to trade cryptocurrency via direct communication methods such as Skype, email and by phone, as is common for OTC desks in other markets. “We launched our OTC business as a complement to our exchange business because we found a lot of institutions were using OTC as an on-ramp for crypto trading,” said Christine Sandler, head of sales at Coinbase, in an interview with Cheddar. “We felt this was a huge benefit to our clients to actually leverage both our exchange and our OTC business.” Unlike other OTC desks, Coinbase claims it is not a counter-party in the deals it helps clients complete. The company plans to eventually offer delayed settlement and perhaps integrate this with its custodial service. Huobi Opens Crypto Derivatives Market Huobi announced on Wednesday, Nov. 28, it has opened a cryptocurrency derivatives market in beta, now available in selected countries. The contracts available on the new platform enable traders to buy or sell at predetermined prices on a weekly and quarterly basis. The Huobi DM exchange offers up to 20x leverage, and includes investor protections such as a 20,000 BTC insurance fund against catastrophic security failures. “Cryptocurrency is a rapidly expanding and maturing market,” said Joshua Goodbody, General Counsel of Huobi’s Global Institutional team. “As part of that maturation, we see more and more sophisticated investors and traders from more established financial markets looking to gain exposure, including institutional players. At the same time, we think many experienced, successful cryptocurrency traders are looking for a broader range of investment tools than has traditionally been available. Huobi DM is tailor-made to address these sorts of needs.” The platform is not currently available to users from the U.S., Singapore, Israel, Iraq, Hong Kong, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Malaysia, Syria, Eastern Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, Bangladesh, Ecuador and Kyrgyzstan. Nasdaq Teams Up With Vaneck on Futures Just as cryptocurrency exchanges are looking to attract institutional traders, traditional operators are setting their sights on crossing over to the other side. Nasdaq, for example, now plans to launch regulated bitcoin futures-type contracts in the first quarter of 2019. This is due to a partnership with MV Index Solutions, a Vaneck company with about $14 billion invested in its products, which last week launched an OTC Spot Index. The cooperation was recently revealed by Gabor Gurbacs, director of digital asset strategies at Vaneck/MVIS. What do you think about today’s news tidbits? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post The Daily: Coinbase Launches OTC Desk, Huobi Opens Derivatives Market appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The lawsuit against alleged Btc-e operator Alexander Vinnik for “fraud, money laundering, and other grave crimes” filed in Cyprus has reportedly been dropped. His lawyer says the case “fell apart at the very early stage” at the initiative of the plaintiffs themselves. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations Lawsuit Dropped The lawsuit filed in Cyprus against Alexander Vinnik has reportedly been withdrawn by the plaintiffs, Tass reported on Tuesday. Vinnik allegedly operated the now-defunct Cyprus-registered cryptocurrency exchange Btc-e. His lawyer Timofei Musatov wrote in a press release sent to the news outlet: A court session of the Limassol District Court was held on November 27, 2018, where the plaintiffs withdrew the action to accuse Alexander Vinnik of fraud, money laundering and other grave crimes. Expressing his satisfaction with the court’s decision, Musatov said that the court “not only formally satisfied the motion, but also made the decision on the compensation of all legal costs the defendant incurred.” He asserted that the case “fell apart at the very early stage … at the initiative of the plaintiffs themselves,” noting: [This] proves the weakness of accusations against Alexander, vulnerability of plaintiffs’ legal position and their unwillingness to get the case as far as an open legal battle. Other Legal Battles Continue Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25 last year on a warrant issued by the U.S. Department of Justice. He has been in a Greek prison ever since. The U.S. accuses him of laundering between $4 billion and $9 billion from Mt. Gox’s hack through Btc-e and other exchanges. The Greek Supreme Court ruled last year to extradite Vinnik to the U.S. and, later on, to Russia. However, “Due to the conflicting extradition requests, the decision on Vinnik’s extradition is likely to be made by the country’s Minister of Justice or, possibly, the Greek leadership,” Tass wrote. France also joined the dispute over the Russian national, accusing him of cybercrime and money laundering. “Now there are decisions to extradite Alexander Vinnik to the United States, to Russia, and to France,” Kommersant elaborated. Regarding whether he operated Btc-e, Vinnik told Tass in October that he was only a technical expert at the exchange. “I gave some advice to that platform. That’s not a crime, and the exchange itself is not a crime, it is just a platform for exchanging cryptocurrency,” he claims. Last week, Vinnik’s lawyer accused the judges of the Greek supreme court of violating his rights. He also reportedly went on a hunger strike a few days later. What do you think of the Cypriot court dropping charges against Vinnik? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Reuters. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Court Drops Charges Against Alleged Btc-e Operator Alexander Vinnik appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

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. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations 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 Sun-dong. 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. What do you think of this new Korean crypto bill? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Seoul Finance, and the FSC. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Korean Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Promote Crypto Trading appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

It’s been two weeks since the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork that upgraded the BCH chain and resulted in a blockchain split. But although many people have been focusing on the birth of Bitcoin SV, a number of BCH proponents are already moving forward and discussing the network’s latest upgrades, as well as the next hard fork scheduled for May. Also Read: Free Keene Activists Launch Tip-Card Creator Called Cryptotip.org BCH Chain Upgrades The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain has split and many supporters are ready to move on, as the hash war is said to be over because the Bitcoin SV developers have revealed that they will add replay protection. But with all the focus on the emergence of a new chain, many people haven’t even noticed that the BCH software has been upgraded. For instance, new protocol changes have been applied to the blockchain, including a clean stack for more efficient script evaluation, canonical transaction ordering (CTOR), an enforced minimum transaction size, push-only for scriptsig, and the addition of the opcode OP_Checkdatasig. The Most Discussed Additions to the BCH Chain The two recent fork additions, OP_Checkdatasig and CTOR, have been the topic of intense discussion over the past few weeks. With CTOR, transactions within a block are sorted differently, while removing the limits of topological transaction ordering (TTOR). Developers believe CTOR removes a lot of the complexity of block template creation time. When coupled with the Graphene protocol, the chain could see a more efficient method of broadcasting blocks as well. BCH developer and cryptocurrency miner Jonathan Toomin has published a comprehensive description of CTOR, while blockchain researcher Joannes Vermorel has also written about the protocol in great detail. And Bitcoincash.org explains that Bitcoin ABC developers believe CTOR “will have huge payoffs for the future of Bitcoin Cash.” OP_Checkdatasig and CTOR are the most discussed upgrades to the BCH chain. The other widely discussed addition to the Bitcoin Cash protocol was re-enabling the old opcode OP_Checkdatasig to improve the BCH script language. Basically, when someone uses the opcode OP_Checkdatasig, it calculates the hash within a transaction and checks the signature against that data set, which essentially validates or invalidates the signature in an autonomous fashion. Proponents of OP_Checkdatasig believe the script language can allow many different contract-like concepts, including permissionless cross-chain atomic swaps, native tokens and oracles. Bitcoin ABC developer Mengerian has written a detailed analysis of OP_Checkdatasig, in which he explains how the opcode could allow many types of decision-based transactions and smart contracts. Bitcoin ABC’s plans for Bitcoin Cash technical engineering going forward. New Opcodes and Schnorr Signatures Now that these new features have been added to the BCH chain, many are wondering what’s coming in the next hard fork, scheduled for May 2019. The Bitcoin ABC development roadmap published last August shows there are many different features planned for future software. Back in October, Bitcoin Cash developer Shammah Chancellor (Micropresident) also published a suggested specification for the May fork, so developers could discuss the proposal. Over the last few weeks, BCH developers such as Mark Lundeberg, Awemany, Andrew Stone, Mengerian and Jason Cox have been discussing the proposed specifications in great detail. 2019 Hard Fork Specification Draft Proposal #143 on Github The specifications under discussion include re-enabling the following opcodes: OP_Mul, OP_Invert, OP_Lshift and OP_Rshift. These specific opcodes are the same ones that were recently implemented on the BSV chain and they could add various scripting abilities and possibly allow for concepts such as Rabin signatures. The other specification listed on the proposal is enabling Schnorr signatures on the BCH chain. The benefits of Schnorr signatures has been discussed in great length within the cryptocurrency community and the signature algorithm could theoretically advance scaling by reducing bandwidth and storage by 25 percent. The Schnorr scheme also offers privacy benefits if the protocol is coupled with concepts like transaction tumblers. Essentially transaction signatures could be obfuscated by tweaking shuffling software in the same fashion as mixing the inputs and outputs of combined BCH values. There’s still a lot of time for the community and developers to discuss the next upgrade. 6 Months to Discuss BCH proponents on the subreddit r/btc have also discussed the developer’s documentation, with one person commenting that they appreciated that the development has been “progressing normally.” Other BCH enthusiasts in the r/btc conversation started asking when the next block size increase would take place. The well-known BCH community member Homopit has already provided a response, stating that “The limit is now 500x above demand — Developers are working on more important things — 40-minute propagation for the 64MB block on BSV chain. Remember?” Of course, the proposed specifications are only on the table for discussion at the moment, but it’s good for BCH proponents to get a glimpse of possible development plans. There’s also six months left and plenty of time for debate about the consensus changes slated for next spring. What do you think about the recent additions to the Bitcoin Cash blockchain and the proposal for the upcoming May 2019 hard fork? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Github. Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com. The post BCH Upgrades: What’s New and What’s Next appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Three days ago the crypto-economy suffered deep losses, with digital asset prices at their lowest across the board since September 2017. But on Wednesday the digital asset ecosystem started showing a slight recovery, as the entire market capitalization of all 2000+ coins gained $14 billion. Also Read: Free Keene Activists Launch Tip-Card Creator Called Cryptotip.org Cryptocurrency Markets Show Slight Recovery Cryptocurrency markets are doing much better today than they were three days ago, when we published our last markets update. For instance, most of the top 10 digital currencies are up between 12-18% over the last 24 hours. Bitcoin SV (BSV) has only increased about 0.44% today, but this is after spiking more than 90% over the last seven days. Bitcoin core (BTC) is hovering around $4,268, after reaching a 24-hour high of $4,332. BTC is up 15.2% in the last 24 hours but is still down 4.3% for the week. The top 10 markets on Nov. 28, 2018 The second-largest market valuation, held by ripple (XRP), is up 13.7%, with each XRP trading for $0.39. Ethereum (ETH) has seen a 16% increase this Wednesday and ETH is being swapped for $124 per coin. Stellar (XLM) has captured the fifth spot once again and each coin is trading for $0.16. Stellar is up more than 17.3% over the past 24 hours, but it lost more than 17% last week. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action Bitcoin cash (BCH) market action is better today as well, with an 8.9% gain during the last 24 hours. BCH is trading between $195-219, depending on the exchange, and has a $3.34 billion capitalization. Global BCH trade volume has increased to $120.53 million and BCH is the 14th most-traded cryptocurrency by volume. BCH/USD 1-day. 11-28-18. The top exchanges trading the most BCH include Lbank, Bluebelt, Hitbtc, Bitbank and Bitlish. Ethereum is still the top currency swapped for BCH this week, as (ETH) commands 46.4% of BCH trades. The ETH/BCH pair is followed by BTC (28%), USDT (17%), KRW (3.3%) and JPY (3%). BCH/USD 4-hour. 11-28-18. BCH/USD Technical Indicators The four-hour BCH/USD charts on Bitstamp show bulls are trying to keep above the $200 range. The long-term 200 Simple Moving Average (SMA) is still above the short-term 100 SMA, but the trendlines look as though they may cross hairs soon. Currently, this means the path toward the least resistance is still toward the downside. The four-hour Relative Strength Index (RSI) is still hovering in the middle between oversold and overbought regions, showing uncertainty in the midst. Looking at order books, bulls need to press past the current vantage point and keep above the $200 range. On the backside, if bears regain control there are some fairly solid foundations between now and $155. BCH/USD four-hour, Bitstamp at 3:20 p.m. EST on Nov. 28, 2018 Skeptics Unmoved by Market Optimism Overall lots of traders are hoping the bearish cycle of declining prices will end while others are itching for even lower prices. This Wednesday’s trading sessions has given a few traders some optimism but skeptics believe the reversal could be another dead cat bounce like the multitudes of traps that have appeared this year this year. Meanwhile, the low prices may be attracting mainstream observers as well as Google Trends data reveals that people searching the word “bitcoin” on the web has increased significantly. Where do you see the price of BCH, BTC and other coins heading from here? Let us know in the comments below. Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.” Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, and Satoshi Pulse. Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section. The post Markets Update: Bull Trap or Reversal? Traders Question the Recent Crypto Spike appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Nigerian digital asset owners have reacted angrily to Union Bank’s threat to close all cryptocurrency-linked accounts. Investors have accused the local banking system of hypocrisy, asserting that banks are “unfit” and “scammers” that continue to steal from the poor through spurious charges such as ATM maintenance fees and SMS alerts. Also read: Nigeria’s Union Bank Threatens to Shut Down Cryptocurrency-Related Accounts ‘Illiterate Banks Stifling Innovation’ Union Bank of Nigeria will with immediate effect begin monitoring accounts used for digital currency trading with a view to shutting these down without explanation, the bank said in notices to its customers this week. The bank claims it is acting in line with past warnings from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on virtual currency trading. However, cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts riled by the bank’s decision have taken to Twitter to express their disgust, questioning the integrity and financial literacy of the banking sector. Adekola Seyi initiated a thread accusing Union Bank of lacking basic research abilities and faulted the country’s financial system for retrogressive tendencies. Seyi regretfully hinted that other conservative banks may soon be following suit. Another Twitter user, Omuswe Precious, said that Nigeria’s banks are hostile to innovation while the world is fast moving ahead. He posted: Y’all sit there lazying about while d global market cap for cryptocurrencies is already worth more than your ancient institution. Guess this sort of laziness is d reason it takes your bank over 10 working days to reverse failed transactions whn other banks are on auto-reversal. The collective outrage follows a statement issued by the bank to its account holders warning them to desist from transacting in cryptocurrency, in which it said: “In order to guarantee the security of our customers’ funds, Union Bank will monitor accounts being used for cryptocurrency transactions and may impose restrictions including closure of such accounts.” The 100-year-old bank cited a series of cautionary statements from the CBN, which apparently do not completely prohibit virtual currency trading, to support its decision. ‘Worst Scammers’ Precious said the move was characteristic of the hypocrisy of Nigerian banks, whom he described as the “worst scammers.” He called out banks for manipulative charges for SMS alerts, card maintenance and other unmerited fees that are poisoning public trust in the institutions. “Come to think of it, the ATM maintenance fee that gets deducted from customers’ accounts hasn’t been labelled as scam yet! Our banking system is unfit and am sure one day banks will be a store for private keys and wallet addresses,” tweeted Awosika Ayodeji, echoing this sentiment. Seyi broke down the operation of blockchain in simple terms to illustrate Union Bank’s supposed misreading of both the technology and the CBN directive. “Blockchain transactions are not done on your [bank’s] network … then why the cry. Why can’t you tell #Nigerians how you will block what is not happening on your system?” Another Twitter user put the bank’s statement down to financial illiteracy on the part of the its staff. “I see we don’t go this way cos of our underpaid brothers and sisters that still work in the banks. However I dared @Unionbank_Ng to on behalf of the central bank publish their detailed report on #cryptocurrency and their research studies on #blockchain!” In January 2017, the central bank released a circular to financial institutions asking them not to use, hold or trade virtual currencies pending “substantive regulation and or [a] decision by the CBN.” A follow-up in February 2018 reiterated the same warning, adding that “virtual currencies are not legal tender in Nigeria … we wish to caution all and sundry on the risks inherent in such activities.” The Union Bank’s sudden decision to monitor accounts has sent panic into Nigeria’s digital asset community. Reports have started to emerge of nervous crypto investors already withdrawing their money to avoid the possibility of their accounts being frozen. What are your thoughts on banks closing accounts that have links with cryptocurrency? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Express yourself freely at Bitcoin.com’s user forums. We don’t censor on political grounds. Check forum.Bitcoin.com. The post Outrage Over Union Bank of Nigeria’s Threat to Close Crypto-Related Accounts appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Sapphire Technology, one of the largest suppliers of AMD-based video cards in the world, has announced that it’s officially entering the cryptocurrency hardware business. The Hong Kong-headquartered company is launching a flagship mining rig. Also Read: Crypto ATM Network Coinsource Expands Into Upstate New York A New Player Enters the Field Sapphire’s new rig, the INCA CS-14 Block-Chain Compute System, features 14 RX 470 GPUs and comes preloaded with the Linux operating system and mining software. It is expected to deliver a hash power of 410 MH/s, plus or minus 5 percent, with power consumption set at roughly 1,950 watts. The company claims it has put “over 15 years of know-how manufacturing state-of-the-art graphics cards” into the development of the new cryptocurrency mining rig. The system appears to be designed with professorial mining farms in mind, as it employs a range of data-center optimization technologies. It is compatible with standard racks made by most vendors, the airflow is optimized for large configurations, all the cables are installed in one direction, and it enables power management and monitoring down to the individual mining rig outlet. Mining Is Still a Growing Sector? Sapphire’s decision to enter the cryptocurrency mining hardware business is a surprising show of confidence in the future growth of the sector. Much of the recent news about mining has been less than positive, to say the least, with bear market prices pushing many operations below profitability. For example, earlier this month it was revealed that weak demand from GPU miners has been one of the leading contributing factors to the slump in sales for graphic cards manufacturers such as Asus and Gigabyte, which are struggling with unsold inventory. “The blockchain market is a very exciting space to be in and as this nascent industry continues to grow, it represents a significant opportunity for Sapphire,” commented Adrian Thompson, global vice president of marketing at Sapphire Technology. “Sapphire graphics cards are renowned in the industry for pushing the boundaries of performance, innovation and engineering quality and we are looking to leverage this experience and expertise to create industry leading Blockchain systems for commercial mining operations.” Is this a good sign that GPU manufacturers believe a recovery is coming soon? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Sapphire Technologies. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Major Video Card Supplier Enters Cryptocurrency Mining Business appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has outlined the key changes in cryptocurrency markets he needs to see before he is comfortable with a bitcoin ETF. While some solutions to the problems he mentioned have already been implemented, the chairman insists on seeing more improvements. Also read: Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations Key Upgrades Needed Jay Clayton At the Consensus Invest conference on Tuesday, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton explained what he needs to see before the SEC can consider approving its first bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). According to Cnbc, Clayton said he “needs to see key upgrades in cryptocurrency markets before approving a bitcoin ETF.” Specifically, the SEC chair “wants to see better market surveillance and custody for cryptocurrencies before being ‘comfortable’ with a bitcoin ETF,” the news outlet added. Better Market Surveillance The first issue Clayton noted was the lack of market surveillance at crypto exchanges. Market surveillance involves the use of systems that “monitor, prevent and investigate abusive and manipulative activity on the exchanges,” the publication described. The chairman explained that stock exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq already have these monitoring tools in place. However, “Those kinds of safeguards do not exist currently in all of the exchange venues where digital currencies trade,” he affirmed, asserting: What investors expect is that trading in the commodity that underlies that ETF makes sense and is free from the risk of manipulation … It’s an issue that needs to be addressed before I would be comfortable. Not all crypto exchanges lack market surveillance, however. In April, Nasdaq announced that crypto exchange Gemini “will be leveraging Nasdaq’s Smarts Market Surveillance technology to monitor its marketplace.” Nasdaq claims that its technology “is considered the most widely deployed surveillance system in the world.” This agreement followed the SEC’s rejection of the rule change proposed by Bats BZX to list and trade Coin ETF. The commission cited Bats BZX’s lack of “surveillance-sharing agreements with significant markets for trading” bitcoin or its derivatives as one of the reasons. On Tuesday, Europe’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Bitstamp, announced that it is implementing a monitoring platform provided by market surveillance provider Irisium. Inadequate Custody Clayton is also concerned with how safely crypto assets are stored, emphasizing that investors could be exposed to a risk of theft in ETFs’ underlying assets. A number of custody solutions have been explored by companies such as Fidelity Investments, Coinbase, Gemini, Bitgo, Itbit, Japanese bank Nomura, Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust and South Korea’s Shinhan bank. Nonetheless, the publication quoted Clayton as saying that custody solutions still “need to be improved and hardened.” The chairman elaborated: We’ve seen some thefts around digital assets that make you scratch your head … We care that the assets underlying that ETF have good custody and that they’re not going to disappear. What do you think of the SEC chairman’s stance toward bitcoin ETFs? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the SEC. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post SEC Chair Explains Key Upgrades Needed for Bitcoin ETF Approval appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

With a New York state Bitlicense in hand, Coinsource is now expanding into new areas. And with the addition of machines in four more states, the cryptocurrency ATM network now operates over 200 kiosks in more than 20 American jurisdictions. Also Read: Bitstamp to Deploy Market Surveillance to Fight Price Manipulation Empire State of Mind Coinsource, the Texas-based cryptocurrency ATM network, has announced plans to expand into upstate New York, where it will install kiosks in Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester. The move comes shortly after the company revealed it had secured a virtual currency license, or Bitlicense, from the New York State Department of Financial Services. “We started Coinsource because we believed in the power of Bitcoin, and its accessibility to those whose access to financial institutions has been hindered. Now that New York State regulators have given Coinsource the seal of approval, it is our hope that New Yorkers across the state will seize the opportunity to access the digital asset class of the future,” said Sheffield Clark, CEO of Coinsource. “We are dedicated to operating within all 50 states, and fully expect our expansions to continue as the technology matures and the general public begins to understand and utilize cryptocurrency to a greater degree.” 4 More US States The cryptocurrency ATM network has also announced it has expanded into North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. This bring the total number of jurisdictions that Coinsource operates its Bitcoin Teller Machines (BTMs) in to 23, including North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Florida, California, Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland and the District of Columbia. “The expansion of BTMs into these additional cities, and four new states, further demonstrates the results of a regulatory compliant campaign. Coinsource made every effort to remain compliant with stringent regulations; we hope to be an example that compliance in key, and directly related to a project’s success,” said Arnold Spencer, general counsel for Coinsource. “This expansion is not only a step in the right direction for mainstream adoption, but should also be seen as a case study for other companies to make every effort to remain compliant with current regulations.” Should crypto ATM providers seek a seal of approval from local governments? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Crypto ATM Network Coinsource Expands Into Upstate New York appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

For those who live in the northern hemisphere, winter is coming, while in the cryptosphere it’s already here. In Wednesday’s edition of The Daily, we look at the steps ICOs are taking to preserve their capital as they wait for the markets to warm up again, heralding that winter is over. Also read: Bitstamp to Deploy New Market Surveillance Tool to Fight Price Manipulation ICOs Offload ETH and Downsize to Survive Having belatedly realized that the crypto market may have further to drop, and that staying all in ETH could be fatal, tokenized projects have begun cashing out and cutting costs. Some, such as Aragon, have shown prudence in their treasury management, maximizing capital through smart cryptocurrency acquisition and liquidation. This week, the project sold $1.5 million of cryptocurrency, including $1 million of ETH, and has sought sanctuary from market volatility by taking out a 1 million loan of DAI, Maker’s ETH-collateralized stablecoin. Other tokenized projects have not been so fortunate or astute at balancing their budgets however. In addition to Aragon, over 100,000 in ETH has been sold by ICOs in the past week in a belated attempt to stem diminishing funds. A number of projects have also begun to lay off staff, including Steemit, which is shedding 70 percent of its workforce. In a blog post, Steemit CEO Ned Scott attributed the move to “the weakness of the cryptocurrency market, the fiat returns on our automated selling of STEEM diminishing, and the growing costs of running full Steem nodes.” He added: I would like to thank all of our employees and contractors for their months and years of dedication and hard work. It is incredibly difficult to part with these great people who I have gotten to know well and respect. Stably Announces Meta Stablecoin Stablecoins, representing the promise to pay the bearer a corresponding asset that promises to pay the bearer an agreed amount, are already very meta. Stably’s forthcoming dollar-pegged coin takes this metaness to a new level though. Its new stablecoin will use a basket of stablecoins as its reserve, including its own stableusd (USDS) as well as potential candidates such as USDC, TUSD, GUSD and DAI. “Our approach to building this basket will be to design a coin with institutional cryptocurrency traders in mind,” explained Stably. “The main advantage of this coin will be diversification of counterparty risk. A user can confidently trade this coin knowing that the risk profile of the coin is diversified with several other stablecoin projects.” Whether investors are swayed by this argument remains to be seen. In the U.K., meanwhile, London Block Exchange (LBX) and Alphapoint have launched GBPP, the first stablecoin pegged to the pound sterling (GBP). Bitcoin’s Not Dead and Here’s the Proof Finally, while cryptocurrency users need no convincing that there’s a lot of life in bitcoin yet, mainstream media aren’t so sure. For years, bitcoiners have directed crypto coroners in the direction of the obituary page that records the number of times BTC has been declared dead. Nic Carter has now assembled a handy flowchart to help set the record straight any time the media declare, for the umpteenth time, that bitcoin is dead. What are your thoughts on today’s news tidbits as featured in The Daily? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Twitter Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post The Daily: ICOs Hunker Down for Crypto Winter, Meta Stablecoins Are Coming appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The cryptocurrency market is a target of the same manipulation and abuse that the equity, commodity and forex markets have suffered for years, and exchanges that wish to protect their clients need ways to monitor trading activity. Bitstamp is now the latest exchange to implement such a tool. Also Read: Chinese Startup Gets Crypto Custodial Services License in Hong Kong Bitstamp to Deploy Irisium Bitstamp has announced a partnership with Irisium to launch a market-monitoring platform on the exchange. Irisium, a subsidiary of Swedish stock-exchange technology developer Cinnober, is a market surveillance service provider for traditional exchanges, clearing houses, regulators and trading firms around the world. “We are committed to crypto in the long term,” said Bitstamp CEO and co-founder Nejc Kodrič. “Our desire is to provide a fair and orderly market which reflects accurate supply and demand. In order for the industry to mature, effective market monitoring is crucial. We are cooperating closely with Irisium and will leverage their significant experience to provide a more robust and transparent trading venue for our customers.” The Market Surveillance Market Irisium, which is known to be used by other crypto exchanges such as Bitfinex, isn’t the only market surveillance company that is trying to expand from traditional markets into crypto. One of the biggest players in the institutional world, Nasdaq, is pushing hard for its Smarts surveillance platform to be adopted by digital asset exchanges. Coincidentally, Nasdaq announced a plan to acquire Irisium’s parent company, Cinnober, for $190 million earlier this year. The deal is now under review by the Competition and Markets Authority, which is the U.K. antitrust regulator. “Bitstamp’s proactive adoption of Irisium and close partnership with us demonstrates their desire to increase transparency, integrity and confidence in the cryptocurrency market,” said Alastair Goodwin, CEO of Irisium. “Integrating Irisium’s innovative technology into Bitstamp’s platform will support compliant and efficient operations. Enhanced customer protection and market integrity will help drive adoption and market liquidity.” Does this makes you feel safer about trading on Bitstamp? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Bitstamp to Deploy New Market Surveillance Tool to Fight Price Manipulation appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article