roadrunner

Alexander Vinnik, the suspected operator of the infamous BTC-e exchange, plans to start a hunger strike on Monday, days before his next court hearing. The Russian, who has been accused by U.S. authorities of laundering billions of dollars through the now-defunct crypto trading platform, fears he is not going to receive a fair trial. Also read: BTC-e Successor Wex Loses .nz Domain Complaints About Rights Violations Vinnik, who has been detained in a Greek jail since his arrest in Thessaloniki last summer, is protesting prison conditions and violations of his rights, the head of his defense team, Timofey Musatov, told Russian reporters. The lawyer said Vinnik has already informed the Russian consul in the northern Greek city about his decision to go on a hunger strike. Greek police detained the Russian national in July 2017 on a warrant issued by the U.S., where he has been charged with laundering funds from the Mt Gox hack and more than 20 other crimes. Prosecutors believe Vinnik and his accomplices laundered between $4 billion and $9 billion through BTC-e, once the largest Russian crypto exchange. In early October, a court in Thessaloniki ruled in favor of Vinnik’s extradition to the U.S. His lawyers have filed an appeal with the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court of Greece in Athens and his next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 29. Russia has previously objected to the extradition of its citizens to the United States. The authorities in Moscow want him back in the Russian Federation, where he is accused of stealing 600,000 rubles ($9,000). France also requested Vinnik’s extradition in June. However, according to Musatov, the 90-day European arrest warrant issued by Paris has already expired. Vinnik wants to return to his native country and even confessed to Russian fraud charges in May. His defense team fears the French authorities would immediately hand him over to the U.S., where he faces a possible life sentence. Fear of an Unfair Trial But Vinnik and his lawyers don’t want a trial in Greece, either. They claim the Greek judicial authorities are depriving him of a proper legal defense, as he has been moved multiple times between the prison in Athens and the court in Thessaloniki for hearings and interrogations. In a letter to the Russian Consulate in Thessaloniki, quoted by RIA Novosti, Vinnik complained that he had been treated inhumanely. He said he has been transported numerous times between various Greek cities, handcuffed in the back seats of small cars. He described it as torture and claims he has been forced to sleep on the floor without a mattress. His lawyer, Musatov, stated: On Monday, Vinnik will go on a hunger strike to protest against this situation. He sees no other way out – it’s either justice or death. At his next hearing at the Supreme Court on Thursday, Vinnik’s defense team plans to ask for the appointment of a new judge, as different Greek courts have supported extradition requests filed by Russia, France and the U.S. Musatov wasn’t able to confirm whether the defendant will be present in court. What are your expectations about the outcome of the Vinnik case? Tell us 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 BTC-e Operator Alexander Vinnik to Go on Hunger Strike, Lawyer Says appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In a recent interview, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee and National Security Agency (NSA) subcontractor turned whistleblower, Edward Snowden, argued that the price and value of bitcoin is an expression of the “large population” that believes in its “usefulness” as a means of exchange. Also Read: UK Regulators Plan “Comprehensive Response” to Illicit Crypto Use Edward Snowden Discusses Intrinsic Value of Bitcoin Famed whistleblower, Edward Snowden, recently spoke in favor of bitcoin’s capacity to function as a money during an interview with McSweeney’s. Snowden describes distributed ledger technology as comprising a “new kind of database” on which “history … can’t be manipulated,” which Snowden also argues comprises the fundamental intrinsic value underpinning bitcoin. Snowden stated: “Imagine that instead of today’s world, where publicly important data is often held exclusively at GenericCorp LLC, which can and does play God with it at the public’s expense, it’s in a thousand places with a hundred jurisdictions. There is no takedown mechanism or other “let’s be evil” button, and creating one requires a global consensus of, generally, at least 51 percent of the network in support of changing the rule.” Snowden Argues “Large Population” Believes in Bitcoin as Monetary Commodity Snowden gave a critical appraisal of the value ascribed to fiat currencies, stating: “What makes a little piece of green paper worth anything? If you’re not cynical enough to say ‘men with guns’, which are the reason legal tender is treated different from Monopoly money, you’re talking about scarcity and shared belief in the usefulness of the currency as a store of value or a means of exchange.” On the subject of gold, the former CIA employee asserts that the precious metal is “worth so much more than its limited but real practical uses in industry” because “people generally agree it’s worth more than its practical value.” Like gold, Snowden asserts that cryptocurrencies have “very limited fundamental value,” adding: “at most, it’s a token that lets you save data into the blocks of their respective blockchains, forcing everybody participating in that blockchain to keep a copy of it for you.” Ultimately, Snowden argues that “the only thing that gives cryptocurrencies value is the belief of a large population in their usefulness as a means of exchange,” adding: “As long as there are people out there who want to be able to move money without banks, cryptocurrencies are likely to be valued.” “Town-Sized Godzillas of Computation” Being Devoted to Crypto Mining On the topic of mining, Snowden asserted that the “flaw” in the “brilliance” of cryptocurrency was “the failure to account for Bitcoin becoming too successful,” and the resulting effects of increased prices and adoption on the mining process. Snowden continued: “The reward for winning a round, once worth mere pennies, is now around one hundred thousand dollars, making it economically reasonable for people to divert enormous amounts of energy, and data centers full of computer equipment, toward the math — or ‘mining’ — contest. Town-sized Godzillas of computation are being poured into this competition, ratcheting the difficulty of the problems beyond comprehension.” Do you agree with Snowden’s arguments regarding the intrinsic value of bitcoin and cryptocurrency? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock The Bitcoin universe is vast. So is Bitcoin.com. Check our Wiki, where you can learn everything you were afraid to ask. Or read our news coverage to stay up to date on the latest. Or delve into statistics on our helpful tools page. The post Snowden: “Large Population” Believes in Bitcoin as Means of Exchange appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Rather than round up a series of stories from the deep web, this week we’re focusing on just the one. The tale, concerning Silk Road’s most enduring mystery, is so labyrinthine it warrants recounting in full. Also read: 5 Opsec Errors That Caused Cryptocurrency Users to Lose Everything ‘Redandwhite’ Indicted in Black and White Ross Ulbricht Silk Road is a saga that just won’t end. Every few months, a new prosecution or a trove of freshly discovered clues adds further intrigue to the deep web’s most notorious drugs marketplace. Despite the conviction of Ross Ulbricht in 2015, there remains a number of questions concerning his stewardship of Silk Road. One of the most puzzling pertains to the murder for hire charges that Ulbricht was indicted for, despite evidence showing that no assassinations were ever carried out. The arrest of James Ellingson, 42, by Canadian authorities last month, however, has shed some light on the matter. If the allegations are proven true, Ulbricht was duped and defrauded multiple times by Ellingson, who operated under several pseudonyms on the Silk Road marketplace. While numerous opsec errors Ulbricht made would likely have led to his arrest anyway, Ellingson, or ‘redandwhite’ to use one of his personas, played a pivotal role in consigning Ulbricht to life behind bars and ruining Silk Road for the thousands of buyers and sellers who had conducted business with minimal friction up until then. One Man With a Multitude of Handles In 2013, redandwhite contacted Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR), as Ulbricht was known, offering to solve a problem with another user, Lucydrop. Lucydrop was blackmailing DPR by threatening to release compromising information on thousands of Silk Road vendors. Ulbricht consented to redandwhite murdering Lucydrop, by which point DPR had information that would lead to redandwhite’s arrest years later. As Canadian court documents released earlier this month explained, “Redandwhite communicated with and received bitcoin payments from Mr. Ulbricht, in connection with purported attempts to begin selling narcotics on the Silk Road. A laptop recovered from Mr. Ulbricht contained a file labelled “save_red,” which housed multiple photographs referenced in the communications.” They continued: The photographs were sent by redandwhite and consisted of packaged drugs and Canadian currency. Some of the photographs showed a man in front of a building holding an envelope with a numerical code. Based on a comparative analysis with Mr. Ellingson’s driver’s license, authorities have identified him as the person in the photograph. The most astonishing revelation to have emerged from the case is that Ellingson appears to have been the cause of and purported solution to DPR’s problems, donning many different hats to extort DPR multiple times over. As All Things Vice blog summarizes, “DPR had apparently paid bitcoin worth around $650,000 … to a slick-talking shyster and opened himself up to charges of conspiracy to commit five new murders that had never taken place. Tony76 [one of redandwhite’s previous Silk Road accounts] first robbed hundreds of Silk Road customers to the tune of six figures in April 2012, scammed them again for a similar amount under the name Lucydrop in 2013, then attempted to blackmail Dread Pirate Roberts with customers’ addresses he had gathered while selling as Tony76 and Lucydrop. When that failed, he extracted the money out of Silk Road by pretending to be a hitman, carrying out the murders of himself and his alter egos. Given the level of deception he was up against, both from Ellingson and from law enforcement, whose chief investigating officers committed a litany of crimes including blackmail and extortion, Ross Ulbricht never stood a chance. A few bad apples from the criminal and law enforcement fraternities were all it took to seal Ulbricht’s fate. What are your thoughts on Ross Ulbricht’s conviction and on this latest twist in the Silk Road saga? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Silk Road Fake Murder Mystery May Be Solved appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

It’s been a tough week for cryptocurrency holders, as the top 10 virtual currencies by market capitalization have lost 30% to 60% of their value over the past seven days. Prices this low have not been seen since the spring of 2017 and at the moment the entire economy of all 2000+ coins has a market valuation of about $128 billion. Also read: Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform Over $60B Lost During the Last 7 Days A lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been using words like “carnage,” “bloody” and “capitulation” to describe the recent cryptocurrency market downturn. The top digital asset markets show deep losses for nearly every single cryptocurrency besides stablecoins. Trade volume has increased since the slump, but only by a few billion, as global trade volume is currently hovering around $18.5 billion. The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market valuation on Nov. 25, 2018 Bitcoin core (BTC) markets dipped to a low of $3,475 on Nov. 24 but managed to rebound a hair back to the $3,817 range where it rests today. BTC’s spot value is down 11% today and 31.8% over the last seven days. Ripple (XRP) markets currently hold the second-highest valuation but markets are down 14.4% today and 32.6% since last week. One XRP is trading for $0.34 per coin and ripple’s market capitalization is $13.9 billion. Ethereum (ETH) has lost 9.9% over the last 24 hours and 37% since last week and the price per ETH today is $110. Lastly, the fifth-largest market valuation is held by eos (EOS), with the token trading for $3.24. EOS values have lost 9% in the last day and have seen losses of around 29% over the last week. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action Bitcoin Cash (BCH) markets have also seen better days and currently, the price is hovering around $160-195 (depending on the exchange), but reached a low on Saturday night down to $177. BCH is down 18.2% today and over the last week, has lost 56% of its market value. The cryptocurrency market dumps alongside the recent blockchain split has caused severe losses throughout bitcoin cash markets in general. BCH/USD seven-day charts At the moment, BCH global trade volume is 126 million and the total BCH market valuation today is hovering around $2.94 billion. The top exchanges swapping the most BCH this weekend include Lbank, Huobi, Bluebelt, Bithumb and Bittrex. Again the top currency pair with bitcoin cash today is ethereum (ETH), capturing 38.2% of today’s BCH trades. This is followed by BTC (30.9%), USDT (17.3%), KRW (12%), and USD (0.4%). The Korean won has made a noticeable increase throughout BCH trade volume over the last two weeks. Bitstamp 4-hour BCH/USD on Nov. 25, 2018. BCH/USD Technical Indicators The four-hour BCH/USD charts on Bitstamp and Bittrex show bears have managed to make it quite difficult for bulls to gain momentum. The two Simple Moving Averages (SMA) show the long-term 200 SMA is still well above the short-term 100 SMA. This indicates the path toward the least resistance for BCH traders is still the downside. BCH/USD has been clinging to long-term support for over the last seven days and oscillators like the Relative Strength Index and Stochastic have seen extreme oversold conditions twice this past week. Bitstamp four-hour BCH/USD on Nov. 25, 2018 Currently, four-hour RSI levels are meandering in the middle (-46.8)m showing some uncertainty throughout the ranks of traders wondering what will take place next. Order books show on the upside that bulls need to move past the current vantage point and the $220 price region in order to face smoother seas. Further, at the time of publication, the MACd shows things might be heading northbound for a short period of time and there’s plenty of room for improvement. On the backside, things look a bit dreary as there are solid foundations between now and $145, but after that things begin looking slimmer. The Verdict: Traders Evaluate a Range of Price Forecasts Most traders have been very curious about the next big move for cryptocurrency markets and the last two dips came as a surprise for many. The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization has lost a significant amount of value, shedding $60 billion since last week. After the big dips, most traders began waiting for a strong bounce that never materialized, leaving most digital assets clinging to long-term support. Top digital assets like BCH, BTC and ETH indicate there is pretty solid support at the current vantage point on the weekly’s EMA200 and a bearish-to-bullish trend reversal could take place in a matter of days. Some traders are betting a reversal is coming, but others anticipate more losses. Most traders this weekend are playing positions like a game of musical chairs and hoping their predictions will be correct. Do you think cryptocurrency market prices will recover any time soon? Let us know in the comments section 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. At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published. The post Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In today’s edition of The Daily, we cover cryptocurrency-related news from different parts of the world. Documents have revealed that an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) plans to investigate the technology behind Bitcoin, while a teenager in Israel has been convicted of making bomb threats in exchange for BTC. In India, a major accounting firm has announced plans to hire more digital talent, and a capital-raising platform that intends to support security tokens has obtained regulatory approval in Singapore. Also Read: Miner Goes Bankrupt, Manufacturers Stuck With Inventory, Rigs ‘Sold By Kilo’ as Scrap Darpa to Investigate Consensus Protocols The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) is the DoD’s arm for investing in cutting-edge technologies such as autonomous cars, drone swarms and humanoid robots. According to a recent request for information document, the agency intends to hold a workshop in February 2019 to investigate the technology powering Bitcoin. “Technologies for distributed consensus protocols have been revolutionized by their prominent role in cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. These technologies have dramatic implications for the security and resilience of critical data storage and computation tasks, including for the Department of Defense (DoD),” the agency explained. “At the same time, the concrete applications and security of these technologies for the DoD is unclear. Darpa is interested in better understanding the broader implications that such technologies may play for the DoD.” This isn’t the agency’s first exposure to the matter. Two years ago it signed a $1.8 million deal with two tech firms to study the use of blockchain to secure sensitive military data. Autistic Teen Sent to 10 Years in Jail A 19-year-old suffering from severe autism was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Thursday. The young man from Ashkelon, Israel, was found guilty of making fake bomb threats to schools, airlines, embassies and many other locations around the world since he was about 16. An investigation by the Israeli cyber police found that the young man had offered his services on the darknet, charging $40 to call a private residence, $80 to threaten a school for kids that didn’t want to face an exam, and $500 to say he had put a bomb on a flight. He reportedly earned almost 184 BTC from his illegal ventures, but the authorities were not able to recover the loot, as he refused to hand over his private keys. He was spared from a possible maximum sentence of 17 years in jail due to his age and medical/mental condition. EY to Expand Blockchain Staff in India Ernst & Young (EY), one of the Big Four global accounting firms, is set to expand its Indian workforce by about 2,000 people over the next couple of years. The new hires are needed to serve clients that work with technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. “There is significant capital available for new startups and big Indian companies are investing in digital,” Ram Sarvepalli, partner emerging markets at EY told Indian daily The Economic Times. “The government is heavily investing in digital from a citizen services perspective. Many of the traditional customer-oriented industries are trying to find models which allow access to customers to tier-two, tier-three towns from a digital perspective. There are regulatory changes like… e-filing and automation of central and state govt departments … all of this is triggering a massive opportunity and the need for hiring digital talent.” Singapore Regulator Approves 1exchange Private capital platform Capbridge Pte. has announced that it has received approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to run its new 1exchange (1X) as a recognized market operator. The company is working with Consensys to builf a fully compliant private securities exchange on the public Ethereum blockchain. The developers promise that, “in due course,” the regulated exchange will offer services that include the listing and trading of security tokens. Johnson Chen, founder and CEO of Capbridge commented: “We can now offer an even more integrated suite of private capital services to deserving companies seeking growth capital and sophisticated investors looking for alternative growth options.” 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: US Defense Department Probes Blockchain, Singapore Approves 1X appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Christopher Woolard of the United Kingdom (UK) Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has indicated that UK regulators are planning a “comprehensive response” to the illicit adoption of crypto assets amid increased adoption among local businesses and consumers. Despite announcing increased regulatory action regarding illegal use of crypto, Woolard stated he does not view crypto assets as a threat to financial stability. Also Read: Venezuela Approves Law Granting Legal Effect to the Petro UK Regulatory Institutions Collaborate to Assess Crypto Speaking at the Regulation of Cryptocurrencies event in London, Christopher Woolard, the executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, stated that the regulator is planning to take significant action to crack down on the illicit use of cryptocurrencies. In response to the dramatic increase of crypto adoption in recent years, Woolard stated that the FCA has sought to facilitate collaboration between itself and Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and the Bank of England to examine the impact of cryptocurrencies and distributed ledger technology with regard to “consumers […] market integrity, and the risk of financial crime.”. Woolard stated: “The FCA, HM Treasury and the Bank of England are each taking a number of steps over the coming months to address these harms and to encourage future beneficial innovation.” Plans To Take Significant Action Woolard announced that the HMT plans to take significant action against the use of cryptocurrency in the financing of illegal activities. Woolard stated: “To combat financial crime risks, the treasury will undertake one of the most comprehensive responses globally to the use of crypto assets for illicit activities,” adding that the HMT will be “applying and going further than the existing directive, the fifth EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive.” Despite the firm tone, Woolard stated that he and the Financial Stability Board do not view cryptocurrencies as a threat, however, and emphasized the need for regulators to remain vigilant. The FCA official also expressed his expectation that crypto assets will continue to see increased adoption among UK consumers and businesses. Do you think that regulators worldwide are ceasing viewing cryptocurrencies as a threat? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock, fca.org.uk The Bitcoin universe is vast. So is Bitcoin.com. Check our Wiki, where you can learn everything you were afraid to ask. Or read our news coverage to stay up to date on the latest. Or delve into statistics on our helpful tools page. The post UK Regulators Plan “Comprehensive Response” to Illicit Crypto Use appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

India’s supreme court has set a new date to hear the petitions against the cryptocurrency banking ban by the country’s central bank. Meanwhile, the crypto community in India is campaigning on social media for “positive regulations” and the rollback of the banking ban. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space New Supreme Court Hearing Date The Supreme Court of India has reportedly set a new date to hear the petitions against the crypto banking ban by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The central bank issued a circular in April banning all regulated financial institutions from providing services to crypto businesses. Banks complied and closed accounts of crypto exchanges by July. A court document circulating on Twitter on Thursday indicates that the supreme court has scheduled Jan. 15 as the date it will revisit the crypto case. The court originally scheduled to hear the case on Sept. 11 but continually postponed it. Then, on Oct. 25, it directed the government to submit a counter affidavit within two weeks, detailing its crypto regulatory progress. Finance Ministry Backs RBI According to Quartz India, the government has filed a counter affidavit, stating that it expects the regulatory framework will be finalized in December. On Saturday, Inc42 reported that the finance ministry’s counter affidavit defends the RBI banking ban. The news outlet wrote: Representatives from the finance ministry submitted that the RBI circular as well as warnings issued by finance ministry on December 29, 2017, and by finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech on February 1, 2018, are in line with the first inter-ministerial (interdisciplinary) committee’s recommendations on cryptocurrencies. The finance ministry set up an inter-ministerial committee in November last year, led by its Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, to recommend crypto regulatory measures. The publication noted that this committee has “yet to draft its report.” Its next meetings are in December and January. Community Campaigns for ‘Positive Regulations’ The CEO of Indian cryptocurrency exchange Wazirx, Nischal Shetty, started an ongoing Twitter campaign on Oct. 31, calling for “positive regulations” for the Indian crypto industry. He tweeted to his 55,200+ followers: Please bring positive regulations in crypto and over 5 million crypto Indians will be thankful to you. Youth of India have found a new way to make wealth & this is especially important when there are not enough jobs for everyone. Nischal Shetty. He further wrote, “We need to tweet to our ministers every day till we get [a] reply. The more we tweet the more chances of our voices being heard and crypto getting a positive regulation in India.” Shetty plans to continue the campaign “till the time the government takes a positive stance on regulating cryptocurrency in India,” Inc42 quoted him emphasizing. The CEO elaborated: We are worried about the RBI’s banking ban on crypto. It has hampered the entire crypto sector of India and the innovations that come along. In addition, the news outlet noted that crypto exchange Bitbns started a campaign on Change.org, demanding the repeal of the RBI circular. This petition has garnered 44,626 signatories at press time. Do you think the Indian government will implement positive crypto regulations? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Linkedin. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Indian Supreme Court Moves Crypto Hearing, Community Calls for Positive Regulations appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On Friday, Nov. 23, the developers behind the Wormhole project announced the launch of the Wormhole Cash wallet. The application allows users to store, send and receive BCH, WHC and any type of token created with the Wormhole software. Additionally, the new client allows users to burn BCH for WHC alongside the ability to crowdfund and create token assets. Also read: Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform Wormhole Developers Launch New Light Client for BCH, WHC and Tokens The Wormhole software developers recently released a beta version Wormhole Cash wallet for desktops and Android. The client allows users to safely store, send and receive bitcoin cash (BCH) and wormhole cash (WHC), as well as tokens created using the infrastructure. Wormhole.cash is a project that uses the BCH chain and a fork of the Omni Layer protocol to allow smart contract and representative token creation. The Wormhole Cash wallet beta version for desktops The beta version of the Wormhole Cash wallet has been designed to allow research and testing for those who are interested in the technology. Over time the developers will polish the open source software and periodically upgrade the client. “The wormhole wallet is an open source project, we’re trying our best to contribute for the whole BCH ecosystem,” explained the Wormhole development team. The Wormhole Cash wallet is also available for Android. This Saturday, news.Bitcoin.com took a look at both the Android and desktop versions of the Wormhole Cash wallet interface to give our readers an inside glimpse of this beta platform. When signing up for the desktop wallet, the user is asked to tether a valid email and password to their newly created Wormhole account. This creates a whole new wallet and the wallet identifier is sent to the registrants’ email address. With the Android version, users can import an existing wallet or create a new one after launching the application for the first time. After creating a new set of keys, the Wormhole Cash client provides a 12-word mnemonic phrase to write down and makes the user enter the string of words to verify that they were recorded correctly. Wormhole Cash wallet users can also burn BCH for WHC at an exchange rate of 1 BCH – 100 WHC. Tokens, Crowdsales and Proof-of-Burn The Android and desktop versions of the wallet give the user a fresh BCH address to store, send and receive BCH and WHC. The wallet can also hold and create WHC and store and launch an assortment of Wormhole-based tokens. Essentially, Wormhole Cash wallet users can burn BCH for WHC at an exchange rate of 1:100 using the Wormhole proof-of-burn mechanism. WHC is used to crowdfund and purchase utility tokens, and wallet users can create their own with the client. Tokens can represent anything the creator desires and can be used for novel features like loyalty points. Users can set crowdsale specifications. For instance, after a user creates a token they can use the wallet to conduct an initial coin offering (ICO). Once a Wormhole node validates the crowdsale, the sale becomes active. Users interested in purchasing from the crowdsale use WHC. The ICO creators can manually shut down the sale or close it automatically when it sells out or reaches a certain time or block height. Wormhole smart property settings Moreover, users can create an airdrop for specified holders as long as they pay a fee in WHC. Wormhole Cash wallet users can also browse ongoing crowdsale events hosted on the blockchain and buy tokens with WHC. Users can create and revoke their own fixed number of tokens and also change the existing token issuer within the Wormhole system. Users can create an airdrop with the Wormhole Cash wallet. Wormhole developers have detailed that the protocol will become more robust and permissionless down the road. The ability to create a decentralized exchange supported on the protocol, a virtual machine, and smart contracts will come during the project’s “Exophere” phase. In addition to the latest desktop and Android Wormhole Cash wallets, the project’s programmers plan to release an iOS version of the client in the near future. What do you think about the Wormhole Cash wallet? Let us know in the comments section below. Disclaimer: Software reviews and editorials are intended for informational purposes only. There are multiple methods and steps that are ultimately made by the decisions of the user. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the mentioned company or any of its affiliates or services. 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 content, goods or services mentioned in this article. Images via Shutterstock, Wormhole.cash, and Pixabay. Have you seen our new widget service? It allows anyone to embed informative Bitcoin.com widgets on their website. They’re pretty cool, and you can customize by size and color. The widgets include price-only, price and graph, price and news, and forum threads. There’s also a widget dedicated to our mining pool, displaying our hash power. The post New Wormhole Wallet Can Create Tokens and Crowdsales in Minutes appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Major online retailer Overstock expects to finalize a deal to sell its retail operations by February. The Utah-based company is selling the business so it can solely focus on the cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology (DLT) sector. Also Read: Bitcoininfo.ru Wins Court Case Against Ban Overstock Expects to Soon Sell Retail Business According to The Wall Street Journal, the chief executive officer of Overstock, Patrick Byrne, has indicated that the company expects to soon finalize a deal pertaining to its retail business. In 2014, Overstock was reported to have become the first online retailer to accept bitcoin payments, through a partnership with Coinbase. Later recalling the move, Byrne stated: “We were the first. The largest company accepting Bitcoin then was an $800,000 a year restaurant diner in Western Australia. We stepped up and started taking it — we were $1.4 billion.” Now the company appears to be going all-in on crypto, entirely devoting its energy to such ventures. “Being the guy who pedals along and makes $10 to $20 million a year wasn’t sustainable,” Byrne said, adding his belief that Medici Ventures, Overstock’s DLT venture, owns “maybe several multibillion-dollar properties.” Overstock Bets Big on Tzero Among the company’s major crypto ventures is Tzero, an upcoming securities token exchange owned by Medici Ventures. First unveiled in April 2015, Tzero is currently slated to launch during the first quarter of 2019, but it has already failed to meet several planned start dates. At launch, it will solely facilitate the trading of its own security token. Tzero currently loses millions of dollars each month, but Byrne remains confident of the company’s decision to invest significant resources in the project. “I don’t care whether Tzero is losing $2 million a month,” he stated. “We think we’ve got cold fusion on the blockchain side.” Medici Ventures has also made investments in Bitsy, Chainstone Labs and Ripio, among other crypto and DLT companies. But despite Byrne’s “multibillion dollar” predictions, the Overstock subsidiary posted a loss of $39 million for the first three quarters of 2018, and a $22 million loss for 2017. Do you think that Overstock’s plan to sell its retail business and focus on crypto ventures will pay off? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, tZero The Bitcoin universe is vast. So is Bitcoin.com. Check our Wiki, where you can learn everything you were afraid to ask. Or read our news coverage to stay up to date on the latest. Or delve into statistics on our helpful tools page. The post Overstock to Focus on DLT, Expects to Sell Retail Business by February appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In today’s roundup of cryptocurrency influencers and project leaders, we detail the latest talking points from social media. In addition to Calvin Ayre bargaining with Bitcoin ABC, Wormhole SV has offered the entire Wormhole team a new job. Oh, and Blockstream are using the BCH hash war to market their new hats. Also read: Fisco Completes Takeover of Japanese Crypto Exchange Zaif Calvin Ayre Bargains With ABC In a surprise turn of events, Calvin Ayre has attempted to bargain with Bitcoin Cash implementation ABC, urging them to incorporate replay protection into their chain. Ayre even offered to stop attacking BCH if ABC follows his advice. Ayre’s tweet provoked a passionate response, with Vin Armani, founder of Cointext, educating Ayre on the complexity and cost associated with adding replay protection for BCH businesses. Armani went on to reason that BSV should be the chain to add replay protection as it is currently the minority chain. Emil Oldenburg, CTO of Bitcoin.com, echoed Armani’s argument that BSV should be the chain to add replay protection, explaining that the best replay protection at present is for users to split their own coins. Wormhole vs Wormhole SV This week Senior Developer at Bitcoin.com Gabriel Cardona landed in Beijing to meet with the Wormhole Cash (WHC) team at Bitmain headquarters. Excited to be finally working with WHC in person, Gabriel tweeted a photo of himself with the team. Not everyone viewed this collaboration as positive, however, with the team known as Wormhole SV (WSV) offering everyone in the photo the opportunity to “join the real BCH.” Interestingly, Wormhole SV has discovered that its own technology is not welcome in the BSV community, as Craig Wright doesn’t believe in the concept of burning coins. In fact, the Nchain leader dislikes the idea so much that he chose to block WSV on twitter. BCH Hash War Drama = Blockstream Hat Marketing Strategy? Blockstream CEO Adam Back has tweeted news of the highly anticipated launch of Samson Mow’s “reckless” hats. In an attempt to capitalize on the sensationalism surrounding the BCH hash war, Back held a Twitter poll to determine whether the crypto community preferred the hat in “Samson’s Vision white” or “Back in Black black” colors. Even Mow joined in the fun, the Blockstream CSO replying that the hats should be called “Reckless-BIB” and “Reckless-SV”. Given Blockstream’s track record with execution, we can only hope that the hats take less than 18 months to ship. What do you think of adding replay protection to Bitcoin Cash? Should the ABC chain or BSV chain implement this provision? Let us know in the comments below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Chatter Report: Ayre Bargains With ABC, Blockstream Sells More Hats appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Since the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork on Nov. 15 resulted in a blockchain split, many pre-fork holders are interested in finding out how to split their BCH and BSV into two separate currencies. Over the last week, a few infrastructure providers have released tools and some exchanges have offered to split the two for customers as well. In this guide we’ll detail how anyone can split their coins in a more privacy-centric manner using the Electron Cash wallet. Also read: Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform Splitting BCH and BSV With the Electron Cash Wallet It’s been more than a week since the BCH hard fork and the blockchain split that saw the birth of the BSV token. Because of the split and the identical chain histories, anyone who owned bitcoin cash prior to the split now owns the same amount of BSV. Some people elect never to bother splitting their coins, while others choose to split their coins and sell one or the other right away – or alternatively to hold them both. At the moment, the best way to separate BSV from your existing pre-fork BCH holdings is by utilizing the Electron Cash wallet. This button allows Electron Cash users to switch between the BCH and BSV networks. There are more convenient ways such as sending unified coins to an exchange that has promised to split the tokens for customers, but this method is less private. The Electron Cash wallet allows users to split the tokens and add them to a separate address or multiple addresses independently. Further, because the software serves as a noncustodial wallet, the user remains in charge of their private keys and funds at all times. Mobile and Other Types of Noncustodial Wallets The first thing to do is download the latest Electron Cash wallet release 3.3.2 from the official landing page. After downloading the software, if you use a client like the Bitcoin.com wallet you need to import the wallet seed into Electron Cash using the BIP39 seed and correct path. The Bitcoin.com wallet uses path m/44’/0’/0′, but other noncustodial wallets may use paths like m/44’/145’/0′. Importing BCH using a WIF private key or seed phrase to Electron Cash. Your wallet’s derivation path will be different depending on which wallet you use. m/44’/145’/0′ (BadgerWallet, Electron Cash, mttr.app, hardware wallets) m/44’/0’/0′ (Bitcoin.com, Coinbase Commerce) m/0′ (BRD/Breadwallet, Handcash) From here you want to split your coins and you can do so easily by sending yourself some dust from post-fork coins that contain the new opcodes. For instance, the Bitcoin.com Faucet and other services online will disperse a small fraction of BCH originating from an output using OP_CHECKDATASIG. When this small amount of dust is mixed with the original BCH funds the coins will automatically split into two. Throughout every send and receive step you should wait for the transaction to confirm before proceeding to the next steps. Adding some dust by depositing 0.0001 post-fork BCH originating from an output using OP_CHECKDATASIG. Using the Electron Cash server, switch in either the tools/network section or the green circle at the bottom of the wallet that shows two crossroads that will allow you to switch between BCH and BSV servers. The server that starts with the alphanumeric string “1d95671421@” will allow the user to follow the BSV branch by right-clicking the server and selecting “follow this branch.” Connecting to the BSV branch. Use the green crossroads button or connect to the server in the tools -> network section. The best way to tell if you are following the correct BSV branch is checking to see if the last dust transaction is logged in the wallet, and if the transaction used the output OP_CHECKDATASIG it shouldn’t have been recorded. If the post-fork coins haven’t been added to the transaction log you can then create a new address for the BSV coins or send the BSV to an exchange. You can test to see if everything is working correctly by selecting a server after testing small fractions of coins. Always wait for a few confirmations and use small fractions of dust for testing to make certain you are doing everything correctly. Sending coins from the ABC branch should not appear on the BSV branch and vice versa unless they were replayed, and replayed transactions can lead to losses. After switching to the BSV branch the 0.0001 post-fork BCH and other transactions following the ABC chain should not show up. Hardware Wallets This procedure can also be done with a hardware wallet by using coin control with the Electron Cash wallet. With this procedure, the user simply starts by creating a “new wallet,” selecting a “standard wallet,” and choosing “hardware wallet.” The device, whether it be a Trezor or Ledger, should be displayed after choosing the hardware wallet and the Electron Cash client will ask you to enter the device PIN. It may look a little different but the PIN entry is the same as using the wallet’s traditional interface. Hardware wallet users can connect to the Electron Cash wallet as well. Ledger users can follow these directions and Trezor users can follow these steps here. After this, you need to confirm the derivation path. Most bitcoin cash accounts for both Ledger and Trezor devices use the path m/44’/145’/1′. After entering the derivation path in the text field the wallet should display all your transactions. Again, if you haven’t used your hardware wallet’s funds since the fork then you need to split these funds as well by following the same steps above using some dust containing the new post-fork opcodes. Always wait for full confirmations, test with small fractions first, and make sure you are following the right branch before sending funds. Bitcoin cash user Emergent Reasons has also written a few guides on how to control any BCH wallet with the Electron Cash client similarly to the hardware wallet coin control. Always remember there is no rush to do this and people don’t ever have to split funds if they don’t want to as it is entirely the owner’s choice. It’s always a good measure to be patient and read the various guides, examples, and walkthroughs online that detail the step by step methods for people who want to safely split their BCH away from BSV. The methods mentioned above are intended for informational purposes and for wallet users who understand the basic concepts of the steps explained. Further, if you would feel more comfortable, there are exchanges that are splitting coins for customers such as Kraken and Coinex. Exchange users should note that most trading platforms are requiring anywhere between 10-30 confirmations for deposits. Additionally, some wallets like the Edge client and BTC.com have announced they are adding native splitting tools to their wallets. So if you use a client that offers a native splitting tool like this, you can wait patiently until they release these services. Have you tried splitting your BCH and BSV yet or know another method you would like to share? Let us know about it in the comments section below. Many of the methods and tools detailed in this editorial were originally described in guides this past week and written by the blockchain programmers such as Mark Lundeberg, Emergent Reasons, Jochen Hoenicke (Johoe), Ledger Wallet, and the Electron Cash client developers. Images via Electron Cash, Shutterstock, and Pixabay. Disclaimer: Walkthrough editorials are intended for informational purposes only. There are multiple methods and steps that are ultimately made by the decisions of the user. There are various steps mentioned in reviews and guides and some of them are optional or different depending on the software used in each experience. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses, mistakes, skipped steps or security measures not taken, as the ultimate decision-making process to do any of these things is solely the reader’s responsibility. For good measure always cross-reference guides with other walkthroughs found online. The post Follow This Branch: A Guide to Splitting BCH and BSV appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Uganda will seek to regulate crypto assets to prevent criminals from exploiting digital currencies to scam citizens. This comes as thousands of Ugandans have fallen victim to a number of Ponzi schemes, including the D9 Club, which promised to pay members in bitcoin. Minister of State for Finance (Planning) David Bahati said the government has now finalized a bill on national payments, which will be tabled in parliament for approval in December. Also read: Venezuela Approves Law Granting Legal Effect to the Petro Legislators Call for Regulation “In October, Cabinet approved the National Payment System Bill. We intend to bring it to parliament next month so that it caters for all these forms of digital financial transactions,” Bahati told the Ugandan parliament on Nov. 21. He was responding to concerns by lawmakers over the lack of regulation in the eastern African country’s growing cryptocurrency industry, which has spawned several counterfeit bitcoin schemes. Bahati did not provide specific details about how the proposed law will be applied. Earlier, Mathias Mpuuga, a member of parliament (MP), took the finance minister to task, demanding an explanation about the existence of unregulated cryptocurrency dealers, such as one Telex Free, a pyramid scheme accused of allegedly fleecing Ugandans out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He alleges that the scheme defrauded some Ugandan legislators as well. “There are several agencies posing as cryptocurrency dealers such as ripcoin, namecoin and bitcoin. The challenge is that while this is taking place, there is no legal framework for supervising these players,” Kampala-based daily The Independent quoted Mpuuga as saying. He exhorted the government to see unregulated virtual currency brokers as “a potential bomb” that warrants state intervention to help protect individual investors. Mpuuga demanded: If there is no law but you are aware there are agencies operating in the country, who must answer should a problem arise? Can government at least tell the country (who) the cryptocurrency dealers operating (are). Pyramid Schemes Rising In Uganda, the adoption of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology continues to grow. In October, Binance — the world’s biggest digital asset exchange — opened its first fiat-to-crypto trading platform in the country, reportedly amassing 40,000 sign-ups during its first week of operation. That’s despite warnings by the Bank of Uganda against the use of unregulated digital currencies such as bitcoin. The country of 44 million people hosts blockchain conferences and is home to a number of associations, ostensibly with support at Cabinet level. But Bahati said the government has not “officially approved” cryptocurrencies. He told parliament: The central bank issued a statement that bitcoin and all related currencies are not under their control. We are cautioning the public to be aware that government has not officially approved such currencies. Government will next month present a bill to this effect. His statement will be of little comfort to those who have lost money in shady bitcoin schemes such as the D9 Club. The Ponzi scheme, now collapsed, posed as a sports trading company, promising members hefty weekly payouts in bitcoin on initial investment of between $250 and $2,000. For many Ugandans, joining cost an arm and a leg, as MP and lawyer Odonga Otto knows all too well. “I am currently privy to a case in court of one of the pyramid schemes called D9 that has defrauded many Ugandans, including some MPs, yet there is no legal regime in which people can claim their money,” Otto said. It is unclear how much money Ugandans have lost in the scheme. What do you think about the plan to regulate cryptocurrencies in Uganda? 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. Checkforum.Bitcoin.com. The post Uganda to Regulate Cryptocurrency as Fake Bitcoin Schemes Surge appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Satoshi Revolution: A Revolution of Rising Expectations Section 5: Saving the World Through Anarchism Chapter 11, Part 6 How the Blockchain Provides Private Justice The key to…an anarcho-capitalist court system is found in the concept of a “personal judiciary”. [Acting as your own judge.]…The courts’ purpose is to enable men to settle disputes so as to avoid violent resolution as well as aggression-overcompensation cycles. Regarding the courts’ decisions as legitimate is the only way for the litigants to avoid personal judiciary actions. – Karl T. Fielding, “The Role of Personal Justice in Anarcho-Capitalism” Justice is a stumbling block for all political systems. It is a particular problem for anarchism because its conception of justice sounds bizarre to many; anarchism uniquely argues that justice should be a commodity or service provided through the free market, rather like insurance. The view of justice also sounds contradictory to some; how can a society based entirely on voluntary exchange deal with crimes such as theft that might require seizing stolen goods and holding criminals against their will? The latter objection was ably dismissed by Murray Rothbard during a remarkable debate on anarchist justice with Professor of Philosophy John Hospers. Rothbard wrote, “I see no reason whatever why anyone should worry about the consent of criminals to their just punishment. I believe that nothing should be done to anyone without his consent, except for the just punishment of criminals who have already violated the “consent,” the person or property, of their victims.” The main point becomes whether or not the free market can deliver justice. And the first question to arise on this topic is usually, “What would free-market justice look like?” The unsatisfying answer is that no one knows for sure, any more than people from decades ago knew that communication would look like the Internet or transactions like the blockchain. (More on this later.) Meanwhile, the principles upon which private justice is based can and must be defined with clarity. John Locke’s “TINA” Argument The classical-liberal philosopher John Locke used a “There Is No Alternative” argument in his book Second Treatise of Government. It is a type of either/or reasoning in which disproving the “either” (anarchism) means validating the “or” (the state). In this article’s opening quote, Karl Fielding used the term “personal judiciary.” The term is based on a political argument presented by Locke, and it refers to the idea that a man has a natural right to be the judge of his own case. Every man has the right to forcefully reclaim his property from a thief, for example, because this is an extension of his right to defend person and property. Locke acknowledged this right, but he was against practicing it. He wrote, “That in the state of nature every one has the executive power of the law of nature, I doubt not, but it will be objected, that it is unreasonable for men to be judges in their own cases, that self-love will make men partial to themselves and their friends: and on the other side, that ill-nature, passion and revenge will carry them too far in punishing others; and hence nothing but confusion and disorder will follow.” “The state of nature” refers to human existence without “society,” in the modern sense of that word. In a state of nature, Locke believed all men were equal with the same natural right to judge their own cases. Again, if a possession had been stolen, then the owner could judge the act to be unfair and personally remedy the injury; he could retrieve his property, including whatever compensation he deemed was due. In short, private justice is a matter of right. Locke believed a private judiciary process would tend sharply toward unfairness, however, because even an honest man sees things from his own perspective and self-interest. Even a well-meaning man could be mistaken about the facts, including the aggressor’s identity. This means a world occupied by people who judged their own cases would lead to discord, especially if the aggressor himself felt aggrieved. An aggressor might think the violence used in retrieving the possession was excessive, for example, or that the compensation added was unreasonable. At that point, the aggressor would judge his own case and find himself to be the victim; he might well seek redress or revenge. Or a falsely-accused non-aggressor might decide to rectify the wrong done to him. The process could easily become an endless loop of violence because the justice was not accepted as legitimate by both parties. Locke believed that breaking the cycle of “confusion and disorder” required an unbiased judge whose assessment would be seen as legitimate by both sides. Put in crypto terms: decentralized justice needed to be centralized under the authority of a trusted third party. The stakes were non-trivial. Without a trusted third party to judge cases and render legitimate decisions, civil society was not possible. The need for legitimacy in justice was a major reason—if not the major reason– Locke advocated a limited state. For centuries, this has been a mainstay argument against anarchism and freedom. And the either/or argument is correct, in this case. It is either freedom or it is the state, with justice being a pivot point between the two. (A form of this argument is playing out within the crypto community; it is either anarchism or the state, with recourse against theft and fraud being the pivot point.) Otherwise stated: If individuals cannot render justice, then the state becomes necessary, even for those who view the state as a necessary evil and try to constrain it through checks and balances. What does this have to do with the blockchain? With the blockchain, the centralization of justice is reversed immediately; control is taken from the state and returned to the individual, without blood or votes or revolution. But if Locke is correct about justice requiring a trusted third party, then the state’s monopoly over justice is likely to establish itself again. What can transparent ledgers do to prevent this? A definition of justice is a place to start answering. Justice is far too closely associated with police officers, lawyers, courts, and prisons. Such state employees are not justice; they are the ones who come into play when justice breaks down; they are there to protect the state, not individuals or the peace. The state so dominates this area, however, that administrative justice is the first definition that comes to people’s minds. Ethical justice applies to the conduct of civil and private life. The Aristotelian definition appeals to common sense: everyone should receive what they deserve from each other. Few things are as just as the free market in which two people make a direct exchange for agreed-upon values, and then walk away. A woman who goes shopping, buys a tomato, and goes home is enjoying justice. It may seem as though she is merely enjoying daily life, because that statement is also true. In normal life, the free market generally provides people with what they deserve, even if it is not what they want. The tricky bit is what to do when the justice of normal life breaks down—a situation that is otherwise known as violence. Eliminating the most pervasive form of violence—the state—would also eliminate most injustice. But a stateless society would experience private violence against person or property. Two approaches to minimizing private violence and its damage are prevention and punishment. Prevention is the best approach, by far, for a free society. It preserves person and property; it avoids the unpleasant process of correcting an injustice; it greatly reduces the need for procedures or institutions to correct injustice; it does not create an entry point for the state. The blockchain does not merely promote freedom, it also prevents theft by both the state and by private individuals. A peer-to-peer transfer avoids the trusted third party participation where so much theft occurs; privately-held wallets eschew the need to trust banks, exchanges, or other third parties. The blockchain’s transparency makes it possible to view where every piece of crypto goes. The irreversibly and time-stamping of the transfer were included specifically to prevent theft. The anonymity that is possible with a bit of effort provides protection as well. The protection of crypto and the blockchain breaks down most dramatically when trusted third parties are once again introduced into the equation. Many of the problems that the blockchain cured return with trusted third party involvement. The greatest theft has occurred in exchanges, for example. With unethical exchanges or centralized ones that function like banks, the user’s trust has been misplaced, and the exchanges become thieves. The ethical but incompetent ones serve as an invitation to hackers, and the user’s trust has again been misplaced. Ones that are both ethical and competent are still risks because they are public; they are like well-locked houses that get burglarized, nevertheless. Guidelines are available for using exchange in as a safe a manner as possible. Choose a decentralized one, for example, and never surrender private keys. But the crypto community has not adequately addressed the problems created by re-introducing trusted third parties. To my knowledge, no exchange even offers users an insurance policy or charges higher fees as a warranty against theft. So far, only the impact of the blockchain on economic justice has been discussed, but the possibilities for all forms of justice are immense. Distributed systems can transmit peer-to-peer smart contracts that are self-enforcing. A recent U.S. Senate report stated of smart contracts, “the concept is rooted in basic contract law. Usually, the judicial system adjudicates contractual disputes and enforces terms, but it is also common to have another arbitration method, especially for international transactions. With smart contracts, a program enforces the contract built into the code.” (How smart the current contracts actually are is a debated point, but they are a proof of principle.) The 19th century individualist-anarchist Benjamin Tucker referred to anarchism as “society by contract.” The contracts could express any exchange, from leases to prostitution, from insurance policies to drug deals. The contracts would not be legal or illegal, only consensual. Just as crypto bypasses central banking and decentralizes economic control down to the individual, smart contracts have the potential of bypassing much of the legal system and returning to the people’s law—contract law. But, like crypto, the contracts would not require a trusted third party. [To be continued next week.] Reprints of this article should credit bitcoin.com and include a link back to the original links to all previous chapters Wendy McElroy has agreed to ”live-publish” her new book The Satoshi Revolution exclusively with Bitcoin.com. Every Saturday you’ll find another installment in a series of posts planned to conclude after about 18 months. Altogether they’ll make up her new book ”The Satoshi Revolution”. Read it here first. The post Wendy McElroy: How the Blockchain Provides Private Justice appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In the Saturday edition of The Daily, we look at a technical issue with Amazon’s cloud services network that has forced two major South Korean crypto exchanges to temporarily go offline. In other news, Malta-based digital asset exchange Okex has launched a platform offering information on initial coin offerings and Estonia has issued licenses to a new cryptocurrency exchange called Serenity. Also read: Bitpay Adds Another Stablecoin, Waves to Launch Exchange in Malta Amazon Web Services Network Failure Hits South Korea Upbit and Coinone, two leading South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, were forced to go offline Thursday morning due to an hour-long failure of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform in the country, Zdnet reported. The outage also affected a number of e-commerce hubs, with networks in Seoul taking the hardest hit. AWS confirmed the glitch in a statement quoted by The Next Web: Between 3:19 p.m. and 4:43 p.m. PST we experienced increased error rates in the Asian-Pacific region. AWS, whose cloud services are used by some of South Korea’s largest companies — including Samsung, Hyundai and Korean Air — has conducted an emergency inspection of its Asian network. According to media reports, it has assured customers the issue has been resolved and that the system is already operating normally. The two exchanges were the only cryptocurrency platforms affected by the interruption of the company’s centralized cloud services. Following the outage, Upbit apologized for not being able to warn users in advance and said it would be canceling some trades under certain conditions. Coinone informed its customers it would undergo maintenance. Okex Sets up Information Center for ICOs Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange Okex has announced the launch of Okex Project Info, a platform offering information about token issuers, their roadmaps, their development progress and third-party reviews. The company promised strict monitoring of the data provided by the teams of the reviewed ICO projects in order to ensure the accuracy and unbiased nature of the published information. In an announcement, the exchange explained: We created this platform with the mission of helping our customers to gain a better understanding of the projects before they make any trading decisions. The digital asset trading platform also said that teams that fail to update the status of their projects every 30 days will be removed from Okex Project Info. “We are doing so to promote transparency in the ecosystem, letting our users know what to expect in owning the tokens,” the exchange said in a blog post. Startups conducting ICOs are welcome to apply for listings on Okex Project Info via email. The team will contact applicants to confirm their details and guide them through the process. Serenity Crypto Exchange Licensed in Estonia New digital asset trading platform Serenity has obtained two licenses from the Estonian Financial Intelligence Unit. They will allow it to exchange digital and fiat currencies and operate as a provider of wallet services in the crypto-friendly EU jurisdiction. The company will officially launch its Serenity Escrow service by the end of this month. It is currently integrating a system that will allow it to process fiat currency deposits. Revolut Crowned Europe’s Allstar Company of 2018 U.K.-based digital bank Revolut was crowned Europe’s Allstar Company of 2018 at the recent annual Investor Allstars Awards ceremony, Wired has reported. The fast-growing fintech startup, which raised $250 million earlier this year, recently announced that it now has more than three million users. According to GP Bullhound, an investment company and co-organizer of the event, Revolut has become a leader in the European tech ecosystem. A recently released report reveals the fast-growing sector is now worth around €200 billion ($230 billion). 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: Cloud Outage Affects Exchanges, Okex Launches ICO Information Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The owner of Bitcoininfo.ru has won an appeal against a ruling to block the cryptocurrency website. A court in Saint Petersburg has decided that access should be restored and that Nikolay Tonkoshkurov should be compensated for the unlawful actions of the prosecutors and judges who presided over the case. Also read: BTC-e Successor Wex Loses .nz Domain Prosecutor’s Office to Pay Compensation Oktyabrsky District Court in Russia’s Northern Capital has ordered the regional Prosecutor’s Office to pay Tonkoshkurov 150,000 rubles ($2,250), Bitnovosti reported, quoting the Digital Rights Center. The law firm specializes in providing legal assistance to companies with online operations. Tonkoshkurov was represented by the firm’s lawyers and the legal team of Roskomsvoboda, an organization that fights against Russian internet censorship. The legal saga began when prosecutors in Saint Petersburg asked a local court to block Bitcoininfo.ru. They argued that the website posed a threat because of its cryptocurrency-related content. Access to the platform was restricted in 2016, when the Vyborgsky District Court determined that it had violated the “On the Central Bank of the Russian Federation” law by publishing materials about Bitcoin. So-called “money surrogates” are illegal in the country, the court argued. The domain administrator appealed against the decision because he had not been subpoenaed by the local court, which violated his rights. His appeal was rejected and the case was then taken to the Supreme Court in Moscow, which ordered the Saint Petersburg City Court to hear the appeal again. The city court overturned the decision of the Vyborgsky District Court to block the Bitcoininfo.ru website. In the latest ruling on the case, the Oktyabrsky District Court has ordered that the site should be restored and his owner compensated. Legal Precedent in Russia Experts claim the decision may set a precedent in Russia, where hundreds of websites with similar content have been blocked over the past few years. In March 2018, the Saint Petersburg City Court struck down a ban on 40 other Bitcoin-related sites offering information and exchange services, but the Bitcoininfo.ru case was the first to reach the Supreme Court. This is also the first time a government institution has been ordered to pay compensation to a defendant for abusing its authority in the digital space. Roskomsvoboda’s legal team commented: From now on, prosecutors will think twice before filing ill-considered and unreasonable lawsuits that cause significant damage to both the Russian internet business and ordinary users. Sarkis Darbinyan, one of Tonkoshkurov’s lawyers and the co-founder of the Roskomsvoboda project, also expressed hope that the case would set a legal precedent. He believes the ruling could reduce the number of lawsuits filed by Russian prosecutors against online platforms. Bitcoininfo.ru currently redirects to the Cryptorussia.ru domain, which hosts the same content as the original website, including news about cryptocurrencies, information about the legal framework for the crypto sector and the applicable tax regime, as well as exchange rates for major digital coins in both U.S. dollars and Russian rubles. Apart from legitimate websites such as Bitcoininfo.ru, however, the Russian authorities still have to deal with a growing number of crypto-related online platforms that show signs of fraudulent activity. For example, the Rostov-on-Don District Court recently blocked the website of Cashbery, a company that was allegedly running a pyramid-like scheme offering cryptocurrency investment services and promising unreasonably high returns. Natalia Kostenko, a lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party, has asked Russian prosecutors to investigate 17 such sites, most of which are trading digital assets. What do you think about the court ruling in the Bitcoininfo.ru case? Share your thoughts on the subject 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 Bitcoininfo.ru Wins Court Case Against Ban appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In recent exchange news, the Mt. Gox trustee will seek to extend the deadline for rehabilitation claims. In other news, Gibraltar Stock exchange has become the first national stock exchange to operate a regulated virtual currency exchange, and Okex has denied accusations of market manipulation relating to its recent short-notice settlement of BCH futures contracts. Also Read: Fisco Completes Takeover of Japanese Crypto Exchange Zaif Mt. Gox Trustee Moves to Extend Rehabilitation Claims Deadline to Dec. 26 Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee of defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, will seek to request an extension on its deadline for the filing of civil rehabilitation claims. In a recently published letter, the trustee stated that efforts will be made to “request the court to accept proofs of rehabilitation claims received by December 26, 2018.” As such, the trustee also requests that Mt. Gox users and creditors file proof of rehabilitation claims by the proposed deadline. Gibraltar Blockchain Exchanges Receives Regulatory Licensing The Gibraltar Financial Services Commission has granted a Distributed Ledger Technology License to Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX). GBX announced that the licensing makes the Gibraltar Stock Exchange the first national stock exchange to own a regulated virtual currency exchange. Nick Cowan, the chief executive officer of GBX, praised Gibraltar’s regulatory apparatus regarding cryptocurrencies, stating: “Gibraltar has found the right blend of sensible and supportive regulation, which has helped position the jurisdiction as a lodestar for the global cryptocurrency space, while allowing blockchain companies to flourish.” The exchange was granted level three licensing, which is the highest offered by the regulator. Okex Denies Contract Manipulation Accusations Okex has denied accusations of market manipulation following the exchange’s decision to settle BCH contracts the day before the Bitcoin Cash hard fork with little notice given to investors. Cryptocurrency market making firm Amber AI was among the traders burned by the decision, with the company posting an article on Medium asserting: “Over the past week we have seen behavior indicative of market manipulation by OKEx, and estimate $400m+ of futures contracts have been forced into liquidation as a result.” In response to Amber AI’s accusations, Okex has stated: “Amber AI has done serious damage to Okex’s brand credibility by defaming the platform for manipulating the market without evidence. We will file a lawsuit against Amber AI and would like to present transaction data related to the BCH contracts to the court.” Were you burned in the fallout of Mt. Gox? Share your experiences in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock At Bitcoin.com there’s a bunch of free helpful services. For instance, have you seen our Tools page? You can even lookup the exchange rate for a transaction in the past. Or calculate the value of your current holdings. Or create a paper wallet. And much more. The post Exchange News: Mt. Gox Trustee Extends Deadline, GBX Licensed in Gibraltar appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Regulated Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Zaif has completed its business transfer. Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange is its new operator, taking over from Tech Bureau. This follows Zaif’s September hack, which cost the exchange approximately $62 million in three different cryptocurrencies. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space One Operator, Two Separate Exchanges Osaka-based Tech Bureau Corp., which has been operating cryptocurrency exchange Zaif, announced on Thursday that it has completed transferring all of Zaif’s businesses to Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange Inc. Fisco also operates a regulated Japanese exchange under the name Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange (Fcce). Starting on Nov. 22, Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange is the new operator of Zaif. Tech Bureau clarified that Fisco will operate both its own exchange and Zaif “as separate services as before.” The takeover follows the hack of Zaif, which occurred on Sept. 14, from which the exchange claims to have lost 7 billion yen (~$62 million). Following the hack, Fisco agreed to provide “financial support of ¥5 billion yen” to Tech Bureau and entered into a “capital alliance enabling acquisition of a majority of the company’s shares.” Dissolution and Suspension of Services Current users of Zaif have been asked to give consent to the business transfer before they can resume using the exchange. Zaif’s website now displays the message: “The administration of the site has changed to Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange Inc … We request that all users who have not given their acceptance to the migration of their contract in the Transfer of Business to complete the consent procedures.” Members who have given consent can continue to use Zaif’s services, less some that have been temporarily suspended. For those who have not given consent, Tech Bureau explained: Since we plan to conduct the dissolution process after abolishing the registration of the virtual currency exchange after the transfer [to Fisco], we are highly unlikely to be able to [continue to] offer the services related to Zaif business. Some services have been suspended during the transition period such as the deposits and withdrawals of BTC, BCH, and MONA — the three cryptocurrencies stolen in the September hack. Members also cannot buy or sell MONA at this time. In addition, the withdrawals of a number of cryptocurrencies have been halted. The Zaif Coin Reserve service, which Tech Bureau describes as a “fixed-amount installment deposit service for virtual currencies,” has also been suspended. This includes new registrations, debits from bank accounts, and purchases of cryptocurrencies through the service. Japan’s Changing Exchange Landscape Both Zaif and Fisco Cryptocurrency Exchange are among the 16 regulated cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan. The others are Bitflyer, Money Partners, Bitbank, Bitpoint, Quoine, SBI Virtual Currencies, Btcbox, GMO Coin, Bittrade, DMM Bitcoin, Bitarg Exchange Tokyo, Ftt Corporation, Xtheta Corporation, and Bitocean. In September, Huobi acquired a majority stake in Bittrade. In April, Yahoo! Japan confirmed the acquisition of Bitarg through its wholly owned subsidiary Z Corporation. Japan also has three other crypto exchanges that have been allowed to operate while their applications are being reviewed by the country’s financial regulator. The three are Coincheck, Lastroots, and Everybody’s Bitcoin. Coincheck was acquired by Monex Group after it was hacked in January. SBI Group is a major investor in Lastroots, and Everybody’s Bitcoin has been acquired by Rakuten. What do you think of Fisco taking over Zaif? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Fisco, and Tech Bureau. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Fisco Completes Takeover of Japanese Crypto Exchange Zaif appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A government plan to counter economic sanctions is coming into force in Venezuela after parliament passed a law on crypto asset regulation. The law, originally proposed by the country’s leader Nicolás Maduro, gives legal effect to the petro, Venezuela’s multi-asset-backed digital currency. Also read: Nigeria’s Opposition Leader Promises Cryptocurrency Policy If Elected President ‘Breaking Financial and Commercial Blockade’ In a statement released by the country’s Ministry for Communication and Information, the new law, approved by the National Constituent Assembly on Nov. 20, allows for use of the petro in commercial transactions inside Venezuela, including the acquisition of goods and services. The law consists of 64 articles and five transitory provisions, it said. Andrés Eloy Méndez, head of the special commission on cryptocurrency regulation, is quoted in the Ministry’s statement as saying that “this law is fundamental to breaking the financial and commercial blockade imposed by the United States and other powers against Venezuela.” He stressed that the petro will help “to establish new business relationships with the world” by circumventing the global banking system, which has been used by the U.S. government to enforce economic sanctions against Venezuela “and [to] forcefully subjugate the people.” Venezuela’s national cryptocurrency went on sale on Oct. 29, but the only proof of ownership is a petro certificate of purchase issued by the state after full KYC procedures. The certificates also serve as a wallet after Google suspended the petro’s digital wallet. Exodus to Cryptocurrency In addition to a series of sanctions targeting some sectors of Venezuela’s economy, the U.S. has slapped top politicians in the oil-rich south American country, including president Maduro and his wife, with travel bans for allegedly plundering the national wealth and undermining democracy. Maduro says he is the victim of an “economic war” led by U.S.-backed adversaries. However, under Maduro’s socialist government, inflation has spiraled to more than 200,000 percent, causing the local fiat unit, the sovereign bolivar, to become almost worthless. Basic foods and medicines, like rice and antibiotics, are increasingly difficult to obtain. That has driven a multitude of Venezuelans to the cover of cryptocurrency. And so has the government. Since the idea of the petro was first announced a year ago, president Maduro has been at the forefront of actively promoting the cryptocurrency. He bought the petro when it officially launched, becoming one of the first top government officials to do so. The Venezuelan government is also planning to use the digital currency as a unit of account for oil trades under OPEC, a grouping of the world’s top oil-producing countries, as well as for paying civil servant salaries. Eloy Méndez, the special commission head, noted that the petro is vital in the country’s economic recovery and growth objectives in the sense of facilitating the exchange and purchase of goods and services and for stabilization of the price of the sovereign bolivar against major currencies. Do you think that the petro will be effective as a sanction-busting tool? 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. Checkforum.Bitcoin.com. The post Venezuela Approves Law Granting Legal Effect to the Petro appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The following piece on blockchain inclusion was written by Alexander Vasylchenko. He is the CEO and founder of Sofitto and the creator of Sugi-Card, which is a cold-storage cryptocurrency wallet. Alexander is also the former CTO of Mycelium, one of the first secure mobile Bitcoin wallets, created in 2013. Cryptocurrencies have only been around for a decade, but their impact on global and local economies is palpable. Last month, a pilot project launched in Uganda provided 1,000 farmers with cryptocurrency loans. In a country where almost half the population is underbanked, the project allows farmers to buy necessary tools to scale their businesses without depending on banks. Also read: Bitcoin Isn’t Volatile – the World Is Toward Mass Adoption and Blockchain Accessibility But many of today’s cryptocurrency tools do not commit to making blockchain technology easily accessible. Consumer products are still far too technical, placing an overwhelming responsibility on the user to educate themselves on how to navigate this new landscape safely. A recent report revealed that while 93 percent of British people are aware of Bitcoin, they don’t know how it works. Only 4 percent understand it. If we are to see mass adoption of distributed ledger technologies, we need to make them as accessible as possible for every person — from unbanked communities in emerging economies to populations with established financial infrastructure. Blockchain inclusion — the idea that the technology will only make a meaningful difference when everyone, regardless of their culture, demographic or technical know-how is empowered to use it — must be the industry’s focus. From Cypherpunks to New Adopters The first users of cryptocurrency were technically proficient. They were drawn to blockchain technology’s potential to disrupt the financial, social and political realms. A nod to the cypherpunk era, Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin whitepaper appealed to those who already sought to challenge traditional finance, which in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse had proven that the system was failing. Blockchain’s consensus mechanism was a promising alternative; it effectively withdrew power from centralized financial authorities and shifted trust into a self-governed network built to resist human-driven misconduct. Due to the rising market price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from 2015 to 2017, we saw the next major wave of users enter the space. While the core philosophy of bitcoin was not founded on promise of financial returns, the initial coin offering (ICO) boom attracted countless new players to the space. Luckily, ICOs now seem to be a thing of the past — their popularity fading as fast as they arrived — giving the industry a chance to shift the focus to its consumers. The Challenges of a Nascent Technology But for many people, simply storing crypto can be a daunting process, and this hinders its mass adoption. Corporate solutions are, for the most part, years away from being placed in the hands of consumers. Wallets still require technical acumen and are typically inaccessible for making everyday purchases. Online wallets are far easier to use. However, they are not designed with security strong enough to resist hacks or phishing attacks. Usability and accessibility often comes at a great cost to security. As we now enter a new stage of cryptocurrency adoption, it is up to companies and teams to make the use of crypto as simple and safe as possible. Projects face a number of challenges as they try to blend this nascent, complex technology with both usability and security. While users should take the initiative in educating themselves, the tools and products they use should provide a smooth and effortless transition. Blockchain is Not Inclusive by Default In the same way that entire unbanked communities have grown from rigid, traditional banking processes, we run the risk of crypto finance solutions creating an exclusive ecosystem. The World Bank’s Global Findex database estimates that 1.7 billion adults do not have bank accounts. However, more than one billion of these unbanked adults have mobile phones, which opens up an avenue for convenient access to financial services. Blockchain inclusion depends on the teams building the technology, not their users. In an ideal world, the phrase “build it and they will come” would resonate with us all. The reality is far less encouraging; as with any new technology, it’s the creators and innovators who bear the burden of engineering products that are easily adoptable. According to the Technology Acceptance Model, user adoption depends upon two core factors: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. In theory, the combination of these two factors pulls users in and pushes crypto into the mainstream. Developing blockchain tools that are both useful and easy to use is challenging, but it is within our reach. In order to drive the mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, we need solutions accommodating all users regardless of technical ability, simplifying the process of both storing and using crypto. Blockchain Should be Designed for Everyone As cryptocurrencies begin to filter slowly into the global economy, we need to ensure that their entry into the mainstream is as fluid as possible. As with all new technologies, there are multiple barriers to entry such as accessibility, cost and education. Products such as wallets and payment options should be so simple that individuals can make cryptocurrency transactions without understanding the mechanics behind them. Our technologies should be made blockchain agnostic, meaning they can operate on top of any blockchain. User Experience Should Be at the Heart of Our Solutions We can also engineer crypto products that look and feel like traditional banking products. These include classic payment cards and banking mobile apps. They can easily be embedded within our current financial infrastructure, and signed to be used at ATMs and POS terminals. Products do not have to rely on third parties; we can process payments, transfers and just about anything else to do with crypto. This will ensure faster transmission and lower transactions costs. The barriers to both technological and financial inclusion will crumble if we make it simple to use cryptocurrency. We need to place users at the heart of our solution. We should be committing ourselves to blockchain inclusion, while still having a chance to build the products that will define our new digital economy. Do you think bad user experiences are contributing to problems of adoption? How far away from more “blockchain inclusion” are we? 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 Op-Ed: To Achieve Mass Adoption We Must Fight for ‘Blockchain Inclusion’ appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

An Indian minister has reportedly revealed that a state government is working to protect businesses operating without a regulatory framework in India. They include cryptocurrency exchanges and crypto-accepting merchants. The move follows the arrests of the founders of a crypto exchange after they tried to set up an ATM-like kiosk at a local mall. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space Innovation Authority India’s Social Welfare Minister Priyank Kharge has reportedly revealed that the Karnataka state government “is working on setting up an Innovation Authority” with the aim “to protect consumer-friendly technology businesses that are operating in regulatory grey areas,” the Economic Times reported. “Technologies are fast changing and our policies are only trying to catch up,” he told the news outlet on Monday. “Instead of banning a people-friendly business on the grounds that the regulations do not allow it, the Innovation Authority would intervene to come up with a quick policy framework.” The minister elaborated: For example, bitcoins are traded in restaurants in Bengaluru, and we will need to interact with the government and get a regulatory clarity instead of banning those technologies for which regulations are not yet in place. Confusion Over Unocoin’s Kiosk Cementing his point about the need for innovation-friendly policies, Kharge referred to the recent arrests of Unocoin founders, the publication conveyed. Unocoin, one of India’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is based in Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka. Following the crypto banking ban by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the company placed a machine in a local mall in October to handle fiat deposits and withdrawals for its customers. This machine was originally marketed as a Unocoin ATM but the company soon rebranded it to a kiosk. The Bengaluru cyber crime department soon seized the machine and arrested the company’s founders, CFO Harish BV and CEO Sathvik Vishwanath. “The detaining was on the accusation that we as a company were not having necessary approvals to set up an ATM,” Unocoin explained in a statement on Tuesday. According to the exchange, the police took the stance of “The ATM kiosk installed by Unocoin at Kemp Fort Mall has not taken any permission from the state government and is dealing in cryptoasset outside the remit of the law.” The company argued: Since this is a private kiosk, there isn’t any need for procuring any license or an approval of any sort from authorities. Kiosk machines of Unocoin do not fit RBI’s definition of ATM which connects to the banking network. Police Questioned Legality of Cryptocurrency Unocoin clarified that “The situation finally came under control once the police authorities understood our initiative in its original intent.” The exchange added that the authorities were also “made aware that we haven’t violated any law in setting up the kiosk and thereby the whole fiasco came to a speedy conclusion albeit some formal legal proceedings.” Regarding the kiosk, Vishwanath told news.Bitcoin.com that so far the police “have understood” that it is not an ATM. However, he noted: Because they have started a legal proceeding, it will take its own sweet time and course before the issue gets cleared. Prior to his arrest, the Economic Times quoted Vishwanath explaining that cryptocurrency is not illegal in India. He emphasized that the statement by the country’s finance minister “was clear: cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in India. He did not say ‘illegal tender.’ There’s a huge difference.” The CEO told news.Bitcoin.com: Their [police’s] main concern is around the legality of crypto assets itself, and it is difficult to make the police understand the regulatory stance of our country as the topic is quite new to them. What do you think of this Indian state government trying to help the crypto industry? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Unocoin. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Indian State Working to Help Cryptocurrency Businesses Grow appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

All eyes have been glued to cryptocurrency markets over the last week as a great majority of digital asset values plummeted to their lowest prices since last year. There’s been a slight price recovery and some consolidated sideways action taking place as some market observers have noted an attempt to reverse the trend may be in the cards. However, others think even though we could see a slight comeback it could end up materializing into another “dead cat bounce” leading to a bit more capitulation. Also read: Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform The Top Cryptocurrencies Have Been Suffering From Deep Losses For those who were hoping for some bullish cryptocurrency markets toward the end of the year, looking at the charts right now may be a bit depressing. The entire digital asset economy has lost well over $70 billion in the last two weeks and the plunge has come to a halt for now. This Friday, Nov. 23, the top digital currencies are down between 4-8% over the last 24 hours and the entire crypto-market capitalization is hovering around $144 billion. Cryptocurrency global trade volume, in general, is weaker than last week with only $14.8 billion swapped over the last 24 hours. Bitcoin core (BTC) markets are down 4% today and one BTC is averaging a spot price of around $4,322. BTC has lost 22.6% over the last seven days and commands a total market valuation of about $75 billion. Ripple (XRP) commands the second spot today as each XRP is trading for $0.40 per coin. The currency’s market capitalization currently sits at $16.4 billion and has lost 13% over the course of last week. Ethereum (ETH) is showing a spot price of about $122 per ETH and seven-day charts show ETH markets have lost 31%. Lastly, Stellar (XLM) holds the fifth position but has been moving back and forth for the fourth position with bitcoin cash (BCH) a few times already. XLM is trading for $0.17 per coin and markets have dropped around 25.6% over the last seven days. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action Bitcoin cash (BCH) commands the fourth position among all 2000+ coins but as we mentioned above the cryptocurrency has been battling with stellar (XLM) in order to hold the fourth spot. At the time of publication, bitcoin cash is trading for $207 per BCH but markets are down 4.9% over the last day. BCH markets have also lost 48% over the course of the last week since the fork that took place on Nov. 15, which ended up splitting the chain. Volume has gradually been climbing back up, however, as many exchanges are coming back online allowing BCH deposits and trading. At the moment, over the last 24 hours, BCH global trade volume is around $92 million. Similarly to our last two market updates, ethereum (ETH) is still the top traded currency pair with BCH today. ETH commands 39.2% of the global BCH trade volume and this is followed by BTC (34.7%), USDT (15.5%), KRW (7%), and the EUR (2.5%). BCH/USD Technical Indicators Looking at the 4-hour BCH/USD chart on Bitstamp shows bears have managed to push the value down extremely low. The Relative Strength Index (RSI -39) still indicates oversold conditions and the MACd is meandering in the middle as well. The two long and short-term Simple Moving Averages (SMA) on the 4-hour BCH/USD chart show the two have recently crossed hairs. Currently, the short-term 100 SMA is above the longer term 200 SMA, indicating the path toward the least resistance is the downside. However, both trendlines are very close and could seemingly cross hairs again in the near future. Order books on both sides are pretty massive right now, which means there’s plenty of resistance above and some foundational support below the current vantage point. Bulls need to muster up some extraordinary strength to surpass the current position all the way until $260 for some smoother seas. On the backside, bears don’t have it so easy either, as there is pretty solid support up until the $165 region. The Verdict: End of the Year Cryptocurrency Trend Reversal Becomes More Uncertain Overall, there is uncertainty for those hoping for cryptocurrency markets to show bearish-to-bullish trend reversal toward the end of 2018. Digital assets are not the only markets hurting, as traditional assets worldwide have also seen deep price declines over the last two weeks. For instance, tech stocks and high yield bond markets have seen fervent selling and drastic drops in value across the globe. In addition to economic uncertainty on the global front, Tom Lee, the co-founder and head of research at Fundstrat believes certain circumstances have led to cryptocurrency market sliding. “Crypto-specific events have led to greater uncertainty in the crypto market, including the contentious hard fork for Bitcoin Cash,” Lee explained the day before the BCH split. Do you think cryptocurrency market prices will recover any time soon? Let us know what you think is in store for digital asset markets in the comments section 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. At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published. The post Markets Update: Crypto-Capitulation Causes Uncertainty Toward Year End Prices appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release. DappGram, a Telegram-like app used in blockchain field was launched in New York, attracting much attention of the regional blockchain players. Users in all regions of the world can use it for unobstructed communication. Unlike Telegram, it has functions such as wallet, quotes and transactions besides chatting. Users can monitor real-time market transactions while chatting with various project communities. Creators of DappGram believe that the major pain point in blockchain field is the asymmetrical information exchange between blockchain companies and users. DappGram will break this boundary, and users can register with just the telephone numberW without complicated mnemonics. DappGram provides full range service from information access to real time transaction. According to DappGram project manager, “community+transaction” is not only a model innovation but also a renewed empowerment to the community. The community will be not only a social platform but also a micro-exchange encompassing all pieces of the blockchain ecology. Moreover, the right to make trading rules will be given back to the company side. DappGram has shown the potential to revamp the existent transaction landscape, representing the new model going forward. Based on the Telegram super community, DappGram connects all aspects : wallet, transaction, and market. Users can do transactions and asset transfers while keeping an eye on community updates.. The world’s first community-based Exchange providing bespoke transaction model DappGram’s biggest innovation compared to Telegram is that it gives the trading function back to the community. Each community becomes a micro-Exchange, and the company does not have to invest heavily in promotional activities prior to IPO. In this way, it brings the cost down significantly because as long as the company has its own community and been authorized to do trading it could start mining and better, it could define its own terms. Potential linkage to multiple Exchanges, trading option stays with the user DappGram is more than just a social-network-based Dapp. It is dedicated to grow into the largest and best-connected platform in blockchain world. It is in collaboration talks with many globally famous Exchanges in an attempt to save users the trouble of logging into the Exchanges with only one button click. Contact Email Address contact@dappgram.com Supporting Link http://www.dappgram.com This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. 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 content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post PR: Social Messaging App DappGram Launches in New York appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Adrian Barwicki, the creator of the Panda Suite software development kit for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), revealed on Nov. 18 that he has been working on a “Medium-like” social media platform built around the BCH network. On Nov. 22, Barwicki announced the activation of his project, Honest Cash, which allows 100 accounts the ability to experiment with the beta platform. Also read: Hash Wars: BCH Community Evaluates Six Days of Battle BCH Platform Honest Cash Aims to Fill a Void In October, news.Bitcoin.com reported on Barwicki winning the first BCH Devcon grand prize in Amsterdam with the Panda Suite SDK. Now Barwicki is deep in the midst of creating a social media project that is similar to popular blogging platform Medium. The Honest Cash platform allows users to create a profile and then post written content. The application also gives users the ability to earn bitcoin cash if people appreciate the shared content and tip the user/writer. The Honest Cash Manifesto states that the application will be uncensorable, community-driven, privacy-centric and always open source. After the blockchain split on Nov. 15, a few BCH blogging platforms like Matter and Yours.org decided to follow the BSV roadmap. This inspired Barwicki and his teammates to build the Honest Cash project specifically for the BCH community. The Honest Cash content feed After gaining access to the early activation period of Honest Cash, news.Bitcoin.com took a tour of the platform before the developers allow the general public the ability to join. The user interface is fairly simple and gives each user a profile, which can be tethered to a public BCH address for tips. A few people, including the developers, have been adding test posts and there’s also a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section for people who need help getting started. The platform’s profile section shows a username and a place where users can add a public bitcoin cash address. If you have posted anything on the Honest Cash platform, these posts will show up on your profile feed as well. Honest Cash gives users the ability to format posts and add links to the content as well. Anti-Censorship and Pro Peer-to-Peer Cash Next to the profile section, there is a little pencil icon that allows users to post content on the site. This particular section allows you to write a title and the body of any type of written post you desire. For testing purposes, news.Bitcoin.com uploaded a paragraph from Eric Hughes’ timeless piece, “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto.” News.Bitcoin.com added a paragraph from “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto,” written by Eric Hughes in 1993. The application allows for various types of formatting techniques like adding boldface letters and headers to the written content. Honest Cash writers can simply highlight any of the words and a format menu window appears. Users can also add links inside posts and add tags to the content as well. At the moment the platform does not allow pictures, but Barwicki has informed news.Bitcoin.com that this particular feature will be added in the future. Barwicki also explained why he decided to build the Honest Cash social media application: “We had seen during the hard fork that content was censored by other platforms that did not align with their agenda — The content was removed and people were banned,” Barwicki emphasized. “This led us to start Honest Cash and our goal is to create a permissionless platform for authors to share their viewpoints without the risk of being censored.” The Honest Cash team has also been listening to feedback and observing the first activation period for any issues. The project’s developers believe peer-to-peer cash payments are the missing link in the world of social media and users should be able to earn money directly from the people who support them. What do you think about the Honest Cash application? Let us know in the comments section below. Images via Shutterstock, Honest Cash, and Pixabay. At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published. The post Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

In this edition of the Daily, we look at Bitpay’s decision to add the U.S. dollar-pegged PAX token to its list of settlement currencies. We also cover a couple of recent announcements in the crypto industry. Waves is preparing to launch a regulated exchange in Malta and bitcoin mining giant Bitfury is planning to establish a startup accelerator in Russia. Also read: Binance Adds KYC, Bitcoin Businesses Block Gab Bitpay Offers Paxos Standard as Settlement Option Crypto payment processor Bitpay has introduced support for another regulated stablecoin. Paxos standard (PAX) is now among the cryptocurrencies that are available for merchant settlements, along with the recently added gemini dollar (GUSD) and Circle’s USD coin (USDC). The other two cryptocurrencies accepted by Bitpay are bitcoin cash (BCH) and bitcoin core (BTC). The platform also supports seven fiat currencies, including the U.S. dollar, the euro and the British pound. “The paxos standard token (PAX) is now integrated with Bitpay as a settlement option for Bitpay merchants,” the crypto startup announced in a press release this week. “Paxos standard gives financial markets the power to transact in a fully USD-backed asset with the benefits of blockchain technology and oversight from financial regulators,” added Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-founder of Paxos. PAX is one of several stablecoins backed 1-to-1 with the U.S. dollar that have been launched recently. In September, the New York State Department of Financial Services authorized Gemini Trust and Paxos Trust to issue digital coins pegged to the greenback. Later the same month, U.S.-based Circle launched its own stablecoin, USDC, in collaboration with open-source consortium Centre. Tokenomica to Trade Digital and Fiat Currencies Waves has announced the upcoming launch of a new cryptocurrency trading platform based in Malta. The Tokenomica exchange will support trading pairs with both digital assets and fiat currencies. The new entity will be regulated under the Maltese Virtual Financial Assets Act. According to its team, the ability to operate in the regulated environment of “Blockchain Island” is a serious advantage. Representatives of the crypto startup told Forklog that before listing a new coin, Tokenomica will conduct a thorough inspection of the virtual asset and analyze other products and services offered by its issuer. Technical, marketing and business criteria will be applied during the review process. The exchange is already accepting requests for new listings. According to its developers, Tokenomica is the first element of a planned global financial platform that will allow companies to issue tokenized stocks and bonds, as well as other digital financial instruments. The new platform will meet all regulatory requirements, including know-your-customer and anti-money laundering rules, promised Alexander Ivanov, founder and chief executive of Waves. Bitfury Supports Startup Accelerator in Russia Bitfury Group, one of the largest mining companies and hardware manufacturers outside China, plans to establish an accelerator for Russian crypto and blockchain startups. The project is part of a strategic partnership agreement with Plekhanov University of Economics, the oldest business school in the country, and is backed by the Russian Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media. Under the agreement, the partners will develop a program to support promising new companies in the cryptocurrency sector and conduct educational courses to train experts for the nascent industry. “The development of the digital economy and blockchain technologies is impossible without high-quality education and training,” said Dmitry Ufaev, head of Russian operations at Bitfury. The global company, which has offices in San Francisco, London, Amsterdam and Hong Kong, recently closed an $80 million private placement funding round. Media reports have suggested that it may become the next bitcoin mining giant to conduct an initial public offering. In Russia, Bitfury is also supporting a professional course for legal experts working with cryptocurrency businesses. 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: Bitpay Adds Another Stablecoin, Waves to Launch Exchange in Malta appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This is a paid press release, which contains forward looking statements, and should be treated as advertising or promotional material. Bitcoin.com does not endorse nor support this product/service. Bitcoin.com is not responsible for or liable for any content, accuracy or quality within the press release. iCumulate is an industry changing Social Investment Trading Platform and Ecosystem based on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform combines all of the communication benefits of a social network with a revolutionary trade execution interface. Meticulously designed from the ground up by industry professionals over the last 14 months, the project has attracted high retail interest. This week they announced their TokenSale. iCumulate will be issuing their own utility token on Ethereum. It will be directly linked to the trading fees and services on the ecosystem. The token is called; ‘ICU’. For the first-time users will be able to compare and invest in crypto assets directly against a FIAT base without the need to involve base crypto currencies, such as ETH or BTC and from one account, rather than having to split their funds and hold several exchange accounts. With products such as FX and commodities also available on the platform, hybrid combinations such as Ether vs Gold, or Bitcoin vs Oil are now available for the first time. The addition of micro lot trading also makes investing affordable to everyone. The core of the iCumulate social investment ecosystem is founded on the principle of combining modern social media communication behaviours and investment talent discovery. Platform users can benefit from the skills and experience of the very top ranked investors by following or copying their portfolios. iCumulate have developed a blockchain based tokenized portfolio system to enable this process to be executed with all parties achieving identical performance for the first time in the industry. Regular big prize investment competitions, an educational portal and a gateway for external content providers to offer services such as analysis, investment advice and automated trading systems are also included. As CEO Angelos Diamantis notes: “The team we have put together is one of the most experienced in the professional electronic trading industry. Having the resources in-house to cover everything from algorithmic and risk modelling to legal and compliance frameworks has allowed the project to continue to break new ground with this industry changing product” Angelos goes on to note: “We are so excited to finally be able to bring such a revolutionary product to market. Removing existing investment decision isolation by carrying social media behavioral habits into the investment world is going to be truly game-changing” iCumulate is based in Gibraltar and will be one of the first companies to be fully regulated under the new world leading DLT regulatory framework there. The 1-week Pre-Sale starts November 30th 2018, shortly followed by the 3-week Main-Sale which starts on December 10th 2018. A working demo is available on the website allowing users and token sale participants to try out the functionality of the trading interface. If you have any questions on the project, you are invited to join their telegram channel Press Contact Email Address marketing@icumulate.io Supporting Link https://www.icumulate.io/ This is a paid press release. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company or any of its affiliates or services. 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 content, goods or services mentioned in the press release. The post PR: iCumulate – A New Era in Social Investing appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article