roadrunner

The Japanese regulator has issued business improvement orders to six of the country’s 16 fully-licensed crypto exchanges including Bitflyer, Quoine, and Tech Bureau. The agency confirmed to news.Bitcoin.com that at least one of the six exchanges has some form of involvement with the Yakuza. Responding to the improvement order, Bitflyer has halted new account registrations. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space Punishing 6 Regulated Exchanges Japan’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), issued six new business improvement orders on Friday, June 22. The orders to Bitflyer, Tech Bureau, Bitpoint Japan, Btcbox, Bitbank, and Quoine follow the agency’s first rejection of a crypto exchange registration on June 7. Bitflyer, Japan’s largest crypto exchange by volume, received an “administrative penalty” order. The agency said that after an inspection, “an effective management system has not been established to ensure proper and reliable operation of the business, as well as countermeasures against money laundering and terrorist financing.” The exchange must submit a written report to the agency by July 23. The regulator elaborated: Management has not established an internal control system including an internal audit, giving priority to reducing costs. The other five crypto exchanges received similar orders. Japan currently has 16 fully-licensed exchanges. Previously, the only regulated exchanges to receive business improvement orders from the FSA were Tech Bureau which operates Zaif exchange and GMO Coin. Today’s order is the second Tech Bureau has received. Bitflyer Halts New Account Registrations Responding to the FSA’s orders, Bitflyer apologized to its customers and outlined plans to comply with the agency. In order to “promptly build a proper identity management system for existing customers, we have decided to re-check the status of approval,” the exchange wrote, adding: If defects and deficiencies are confirmed within a customer’s registration information by any chance, it will be necessary to re-implement the person’s confirmation process. Therefore, in some cases, we ask visitors to re-present their identity confirmation documents, so we are sorry for any inconvenience. “In addition, we have reexamined the status of identity confirmation of existing customers, and the internal control system. Until reinforcement is in place, [we will] voluntarily suspend account creation by new customers,” Bitflyer emphasized. Organized Crime Involvement In an interview with a news.Bitcoin.com reporter in Tokyo, the FSA confirmed that at least one of the six crypto exchanges above was found to have some kind of involvement with organized crime groups, particularly the Yakuza. Without naming the guilty crypto exchanges, a spokesman for the agency told a crowd of reporters: The FSA found that some companies do not have an updated database for screening the individuals who sign up…We strongly recommend those companies to remove all ties with anti-social forces [organized crime groups]. As the crypto industry grows in Japan, the FSA pointed out the necessity for exchanges to work with the local authorities to create an increasingly secure environment with proper monitoring systems, including screening users identification. What do you think of the FSA’s action and Yakuza’s involvement with crypto exchanges? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Nikkei, Firstlogic, and Pixabay. Editor’s Note: Nathalie Stucky contributed to this article. Some statements have been translated from Japanese. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Japan Penalizes Crypto Exchanges – Yakuza Involvement Confirmed appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Despite seeing their investment return above 20% in 2017 for two consecutive years, the richest people in the world say they are not fully satisfied with their asset managers and want to learn more about crypto. Also read: At Least $20 Billion in Crypto Investment Awaits Custody Streamlining, Approval Only a Third of the Richest Were Informed on Crypto The collective wealth of the world’s millionaires went up to US$70 trillion for the first time, and they will have amassed US$100 trillion by 2025, a survey released earlier this week revealed. The Capgemini World Wealth Report 2018 found that rich people are increasingly interested in cryptocurrencies, but only about half of them are happy with their wealth managers, Reuters reported. Only a third of these millionaires said they got information about cryptocurrencies from their asset managers. Twenty nine percent of these “high net wealth individuals,” (HNWIs) defined by the Capgemini investigation reportedly expressed a high interest in buying or holding cryptocurrencies, and twenty seven percent said they were just overall interested in the topic. Although the general public is still skeptical about cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, an increasing amount of people express a wish to understand it better. “I am surprised how many of my younger friends are now involved with cryptocurrencies. I wanted to buy some myself, but I don’t understand it well enough to make major investments,” a business woman in Tokyo said. Sally Young (34), who already made millions in real estate investments in the U.S. and in the Philippines, says she is reluctant to invest in crypto at the moment because she doesn’t know enough about them. “When I invest my money, I need to know exactly what I’m investing in,” she said. “With bitcoin, it seems way too difficult to understand how the system really works, and the stories I hear just sound too good to be true,” she explained. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which is the coordinating agency for the world’s central banks, is by definition conservative. In its 2018 annual report released on June 17th, the agency said that “Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a poor substitute for dollars, euros and other central bank-backed [currencies], because they don’t scale with growing demand, require excessive amounts of energy and fluctuate greatly in value.” In a recent analysis, the BIS also said that digital coins “come up short on all three measures of usefulness as currency,” Reuters reported. “Their prices can fluctuate wildly, making them poor substitutes for fiat currencies for transactions, which require relative stability for price comparison. For similar reasons, they fall short for investing purposes because they cannot be relied upon a store of value.” Despite regulatory uncertainty and firm caution currently preventing cryptocurrencies from penetrating the wealth management industry, the strong demand for information on crypto from younger HNWIs around the world may force wealth management companies to “at least develop and offer a point of view” in the near future, the World Wealth Report said. Nearly 50% Japanese Say They Won’t Invest in Crypto When cryptocurrencies boomed in Japan in 2017, the Japanese crypto investors were mainly people in their 20s and 30s, a survey reported by Nikkei Newspaper this week has showed. By the time the survey was conducted in April of 2018, 17.2% of Japanese people had invested in cryptocurrencies. Although many saw their assets swell by 2 to 5 times their investment at the peak, it was reported that sixty percent people actually suffered losses. Looking closer into those Japanese people who invested in crypto, it was found that more than half of them were under the age of thirty and 52.3% among those have invested less than JPY5 million (US$45,500). Nearly fifty percent responded to the survey that they will not invest in cryptocurrencies in the future. Do you think average poorer people and older people will invest in crypto? Let us know in the comments. Images via the Pixabay. 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 Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Only a Third of the Richest Informed on Bitcoin appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

From the serious to the ridiculous, today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief has got it all, and by “all” read “a varied selection of crypto-related topics numbering no less than four and no more than six.” That doesn’t sound nearly as alluring though, does it? All it is then. Take a deep breath and let’s dive right in. Also read: Craig Wright Referenced as Satoshi in Chinese University Textbook Oh No Nano! Yesterday was a big day for free transactions altcoin Nano: its Android wallet was released. Shortly after being unveiled, however, a small problem was detected. Okay, make that a pretty big problem: For the record, Nano is the coin synonymous with the collapse of Bitgrail exchange and that was trading for $33 late last year, versus under $3 today. Nano holders have been hurting enough, in other words, without this latest debacle to deal with. Nano dropped in price following news of its wallet fail. Everything Is a Copy of a Copy With the launch of Tron’s mainnet in progress, it seems a good time to revisit claims of plagiary surrounding Justin Sun’s much hyped altcoin. Technically these claims aren’t being revisited in fact, since they’re fresh ones, not to be confused with the original claims of Tron having plagiarized large chunks of its whitepaper. Digital Asset Research have been poking around in Tron’s codebase and what they’ve found looks very familiar. They write: While copying code without attribution opens the project up to some legal risks, they pale in comparison to the technical risks that the project faces. EthereumJ [which Tron is based on] is known to be unreliable and has issues like memory leakage. As a parting salvo, they add: “The TRX token is one of the most centrally owned large cap ERC20 tokens”. A Quick Look at Crypto Funds ICO Rating has released a detailed report on crypto funds. Its findings? 17% of all funds are tokenized (i.e. deploy a native token for profit sharing), 42% of all funds are based in the US, and the number of funds being founded has declined since 2017, which mirrors their declining returns as the crypto markets have went south. Most crypto funds don’t publish their ROI, but of the 8% ICO Rating could find numbers for, the median ROI this year is just 14% versus 600% in 2017. It’s true what they say: any idiot can make money in a bull market. Most of the funds studied were under $100m, but ICO Rating also found 15 funds of between $100-500m and nine whale-sized funds of over $500m. Another One in the Basket As we reported earlier this month, cryptocurrency baskets are growing in popularity. Two more noteworthy baskets that never made that list have since emerged. The first is Iconomi, whose digital asset management platform allows for “one-click diversification.” And the other is a newcomer to the scene, Bitdiem. It’s an ethereum-based payments and savings protocol for setting up recurring and conditional payments. One of the tools it provides is the means to create customizable token baskets that “enables users to build an inflation-resistant basket of goods, minimizing volatility and serving as a lasting store of value. Essentially, the basket can serve as the token equivalent of a mutual fund or 401k.” Everyone’s Raising Money The bear market doesn’t seem to have dented the ability of crypto projects to raise vast amounts of money – and then rapidly start redistributing it. Over in Santa Monica, STO incubator Start Engine, responsible for nurturing the likes of free speech network Gab.ai, has closed a $5m funding round and is preparing a $10m sale of tokenized common stock. It’s also revealed plans to build a decentralized application on the Ethereum blockchain called LDGR to increase liquidity in the secondary marketplace for trading securities. Meanwhile, over in Europe, Essentia, fresh from raising $26m in its pre-sale, has announced a $1m hackathon to fuel projects built on its open source protocol. Fun with Numbers Finally, following on from yesterday’s post about an unusual block header starting with 18 zeros, all sorts of crypto figures have been weighing in with their 10 sats on the matter. Nic Carter decided to spend the evening calculating how many bitcoin blocks reference their own block height in the corresponding hash. There are apparently seven five-digit blocks in which this occurs. He also investigated whether supposed Satoshis “CSW” or “Hal” appeared in any block hashes in hexadecimal form. Hal does but the initials of Craig Wright do not, confirming absolutely nothing. The point is, people will see anything they want to in numbers, including evidence of divine creation and giant quantum leaps. Still, though, those 18 zeros…it’s got to be aliens, right? Do you think there’s something funny with all those zeros in that block header, or is it much ado about nothing? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, ICO Rating, and Twitter. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Bitcoin in Brief: Plagiary, Numerology, and Nano Does a No-No appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Following the alleged hacks of South Korean crypto exchanges, the government has formally launched an investigation into the cause of the hacks. The authorities will also perform security checks on all crypto exchanges’ systems. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space Government’s Response The South Korean government announced on Wednesday, June 20, that it has formally launched an investigation into the cause of the alleged security breaches at two crypto exchanges, Bithumb and Coinrail. At the time of this writing, Bithumb is the country’s second-largest crypto exchange by volume, behind only the Kakao Corp-backed Upbit, according to Coinmarketcap. Coinrail is the country’s seventh largest crypto exchange. The government’s notice states: The Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (hereinafter referred to as ‘Science and Technology Ministry’) and the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) said that they are investigating the cause of the accident caused by the virtual currency leak that occurred in Coinrail and Bithumb. So far, the authorities have not confirmed that the two exchanges were hacked. Coinrail announced on June 10 that it was hacked with an estimated loss of approximately $40 million. Just 10 days later, on June 19, Bithumb revealed that approximately $31 million worth of its cryptocurrencies was stolen. Investigating Security Breaches In its announcement, the Korean government explained: As soon as a company reports a hacking incident, a KISA accident investigation worker is quickly on the scene and is investigating. In cooperation with the police, the agency will analyze and respond to the cause of the accident. The Science and Technology Ministry inspected the level of information security of 21 cryptocurrency exchanges from January to March this year. After discovering that “most companies have security weaknesses,” the ministry suggested some additional measures aimed at boosting the exchanges’ security systems. According to the ministry, 17 companies had a “system access control deficiency” while 16 had “insufficient network isolation.” 17 were found to have “abnormality” in their “monitoring system” and 18 had poor security management of crypto wallets and cryptographic keys. Furthermore, 10 companies needed “crypto security management” and 12 companies had inadequate firewall and security systems. While the authority confirmed that Coinrail has not implemented additional measures, Bithumb said during the investigation process that it “plans to check the implementation of the recommendations for complementary measures,” the government described. The ministry says it will encourage the 21 crypto exchanges that were inspected to implement additional measures by the end of the month and will review their security measures again afterwards, reiterating: We plan to check whether the improvement measures for security vulnerabilities have been completed. Furthermore, all newly identified crypto exchanges will also be inspected, the ministry informed, clarifying that upon confirmation of a new crypto dealer, security checks will be conducted. What do you think of the Korean government launching an investigation into the cause of the alleged hacks? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and Pixabay. Editor’s Note: Some statements have been translated from Korean. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Korean Government Launches Investigation into Crypto Hacks appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Rumor has it vaunted, long awaited institutional money, big investment in crypto is coming. One of the many holdups involves custody regulation, as both large funds and those ecosystem companies best poised look for a smooth way to guard cryptocurrency holdings securely, alleviating whales’ greatest fears: theft and loss. Also read: Troll Slayer: Derek Magill Defends Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Against Defamation Investment Whales Want Custody Assurance “There are a lot of investors where custodianship was the final barrier. Over the next year, the market will come to recognize that custodianship is a solved problem. This will unlock a big wave of capital,” hedge fund Multicoin Capital’s Kyle Samani told Olga Kharif and Sonali Basak by phone. Custodial arrangements in traditional, legacy finance are well understood and regarded. Precious metals, diamonds, and even cash are carefully guarded by trusted institutions such as JP Morgan. The brave new world of cryptocurrency scares the hair off of big finance, so a regulated, risk averse arrangement, complete with liability insurance, is, some professionals feel, key to big money entering the space in a substantial way. Popular ecosystem bank, Coinbase, is among those who’ve announced movement in this area. As these pages reported last month, it “announced a new suite of services meant to attract more big money players such as the many new crypto hedge funds that pop up all the time. It will launch a cryptocurrency custodian in partnership with an SEC-regulated broker-dealer to a group of initial clients that include 1confirmation, Autonomous Partners, Boost VC, Meta Stable, Multicoin Capital, Polychain Capital, Scalar Capital and Walden Bridge Capital.” About the same time, Tokyo-based investment bank Nomura announced its new venture, Komainu. It was “established to help overcome barriers for institutional investment in crypto-assets with a custody solution and offering new services, standards and best practices.” Jez Mohideen of Nomura explained, “Global investment managers have long been held back from full participation in digital asset markets, limited by operational and regulatory risk. Our new partnership will set the required standards that will bring peace of mind to digital asset investors, and provide tools and products to enable better integration with more traditional investment vehicles such as mutual funds.” When Lambo? Coinbase estimates $20 billion worth of crypto is sidelined until custody solutions make sense. Crypto assets will flow into custody services once they’re available, estimates Sam McIngvale, who’s leading Coinbase’s project — and that number is probably considerably higher with the ubiquity of initial coin offers, for example. “Such projects would pave the way for vast tracts of investors to expand into crypto,” Bloomberg claims, “potentially reviving prices in markets that have tumbled in recent weeks. Regulated crypto custody would allow more institutional buyers — such as hedge funds and pensions — to invest in Bitcoin, Ether and a multitude of other coins. Retail brokerages would have a safer way to let clients add crypto to portfolios stuffed with stocks and bonds.” Regulatory clarity in this area seems to also be paramount for future growth in professional circles. Literally hundreds of funds have popped up in recent years, touting crypto toe-dips of one kind or another, and managers worry the, at times trigger happy, US Securities and Exchange Commission could very well fire first with prosecutions, asking questions later. Coinbases of the world, pending formal approval, would go a long way toward easing those concerns. Do you expect major institutional money to enter the crypto market soon? Let us know in the comments. Images via the Pixabay. 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 Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post At Least $20 Billion in Crypto Investment Awaits Custody Streamlining, Approval appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Three Cambodian government bodies have jointly announced that the propagation, circulation, buying, selling, trading, and settlement of cryptocurrencies without obtaining a license are illegal activities. The agencies have also outlined four main risks associated with crypto trading or investing. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space License Needed The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), the Commission of Cambodia, and the General-Commissariat of National Police jointly made a statement regarding the legality of crypto activities in the country. It was signed on May 11 but published on Tuesday, June 19. “Competent authorities have recently observed that cryptocurrencies such as Kh Coin, Suncoin, K Coin, Onecoin, Forex coin and other similar cryptocurrencies have been propagated, circulated, bought, sold, traded and settled actively in Cambodia,” the trio wrote, adding: Competent authorities clarify that the propagation, circulation, buying, selling, trading and settlement of cryptocurrencies without obtaining license from competent authorities are illegal activities. The authorities emphasized that “Any person or legal entity” engaged in any of the above activities without a proper license “shall be penalized in accordance with applicable laws.” However, the statement does not mention bitcoin or any crypto with a large market cap. Regulators Outline Crypto-Related Risks The statement continues to explain that the aforementioned crypto-related activities are not regulated by the authorities and “will cause potential risks to the public and society.” The trio named four specific risks. Firstly, “The issuance of cryptocurrencies is not backed by collateral,” they wrote. Secondly, “Investment in cryptocurrencies may incur losses due to the volatility of its face value.” Then they claim there is a risk of “cybercrime and loss of funds due to the system being hacked.” Lastly, not only is there “no customer protection mechanism” with cryptocurrencies, but the regulators also noted the risks of money laundering and financing of terrorism since “the user of cryptocurrencies is an anonymous person who has no identity or historical records.” The Cambodian Securities and Exchange Commission previously warned citizens of the risks of trading or investing in cryptocurrencies. In December, the NBC “reconfirmed its stand not to recognize digital currency bitcoin being introduced by some businesses in Cambodia,” the national press agency, AKP, wrote. The central bank released a resolution in December to all banks and microfinance institutions in the country to ban the trading of cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, the Phnom Penh Post described, adding that, as a result: Many of these financial institutions prevent customers from using their accounts to buy or sell digital coins or tokens. What do you think of this statement by the three government bodies? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Cambodian government. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post License Needed for Crypto Trading, Circulation, and Settlement in Cambodia appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

According to reports a Chinese economics textbook that’s used in some of China’s leading universities states that the notorious Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. The university textbook authored by Frederic Mishkin calls Wright an “Australian geek” who invented the cryptocurrency bitcoin almost ten years ago. Also Read: “I Am the Real Satoshi” Claims Hawaiian Man After Filing Bitcoin Cash Trademark Dr. Craig Wright is Referenced as Satoshi Nakamoto in a Chinese University Textbook Dr. Craig Wright is an interesting man, and he is well known for publicly identifying himself as the creator of Bitcoin not long ago. Multiple news publications and key members of the Bitcoin community such as Gavin Andresen and Jon Matonis say that Wright has signed messages using Satoshi Nakamoto’s keys. Although during that time, and even now, that topic has been a contentious issue amongst the cryptocurrency community, and since then Wright has stopped discussing the claim. Not long ago Dr. Craig Wright publicly identified himself as Satoshi Nakamoto. However, Wright has remained very noticeable within the crypto-ecosystem and now works as the chief scientist for the blockchain firm Nchain. Wright is also a staunch supporter of the decentralized currency bitcoin cash (BCH) and believes it is the ‘true bitcoin’ that’s intended to be a peer-to-peer currency, as opposed to a store of value. Now, this week the journalist Jasmine Solana discovered a Chinese economics textbook that states Dr. Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto. The economics textbook, “The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets (sixth edition),” was written by an American economist and writer Frederic Mishkin. Image and translation via Coingeek journalist Jasmine Solana. The Economics Textbook Calls Wright an ‘Australian Financial Geek’ While Another Individual Recently Claimed to be the Creator of Bitcoin The book was originally written in English and has been translated to Chinese, and on page 11 the authors say Wright is an “Australian financial geek” who created the peer-to-peer electronic cash network. The textbook was approved and translated by the Wuhan University Press, and one of China’s largest educational institutions the Department of Finance of the Economics and Management School (EMS) uses the text. There are other school textbooks worldwide like universities such as Princeton, MIT, and other well-known colleges that reference the creator, but only identify him/her/group as a pseudonym called ‘Satoshi Nakamoto.’ Lately, Wright and his company Nchain has been releasing a series of academic papers on certain subjects like ‘selfish mining’ and other technical topics. Alongside this, the London-based firm has launched a programmers’ toolkit called Nakasendo built primarily for BCH developers. The Chinese textbook news also follows the recent claim from a Hawaiian man who has attempted to trademark the words ‘Bitcoin Cash.’ An individual named Ronald Keala Kua Maria from Hawaii says he is the ‘real’ Satoshi Nakamoto and has been purchasing domains and IP rights, including an attempt to trademark the BCH name. What do you think about Craig Wright being identified as Satoshi Nakamoto in the Chinese textbook? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below. Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Coingeek. 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 Craig Wright Referenced as Satoshi in Chinese University Textbook appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

About sixteen major cryptocurrency exchanges, payment processors and digital wallet providers have joined the EU’s law enforcement agency for an event about preventing money laundering. The three-day conference on digital currencies and cyber crime began on Tuesday in the Hague. Also Read: The Daily: Akon Launches Akoin, ICO Mogul Buys $19M Land with Bitcoin “Tracing and Attribution” The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), formerly known as the European Police Office and Drugs Unit, said that the event would primarily be about the “tracing and attribution” of cryptocurrencies. Attendees will also focus on methods to thwart services for hiding the source of funds, presumably such as coin mixers. Besides the representatives of the crypto companies and Europol, the event also includes people from the authorities of a number of European countries. A spokesperson for Europol told the Financial Times that attendees at the conference would discuss “the abuse of virtual currencies for illegal activities,” and ways to “enhance the capabilities of law enforcement.” Tackling Money Laundering Europol headquarters in the Hague According to the report, some would have wanted the agency to create a centralized ledger of addresses that the authorities want blocked, so that the service providers will be automatically notified and won’t help their owners exchange crypto to fiat. However, this is already being done privately inside the industry with major players collaborating with companies that developed tools specialized for this task (for example Chainalysis). As Eric Demuth, CEO of Bitpanda, explained: “You have a bird’s-eye view from above so you can see every transaction ever done. Every exchange has it, it’s a no brainer. People trying to launder money with bitcoin are three years too late.” Besides this, the agency has been able to successfully fight money laundering without the need for such a centralized system of forbidden addresses. Back in March, Europol announced it had busted an international gang that hacked bank ATMs and laundered its illicit gains with prepaid cards linked to cryptocurrency wallets which were used to buy goods such as luxury cars and houses. Should the privacy of all crypto exchange and wallet users gained through coin mixers be sacrificed to fight money laundering? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock. Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Crypto Exchanges, Payment and Wallet Firms Join EU Police to Fight Privacy appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Leading companies from the crypto sector in Ireland have complained they are being denied services by some of the country’s major financial institutions. Among the affected businesses are bitcoin exchange Bitcove, winner of the bank-sponsored “Best Business Startup” award, and Ireland’s “longest running” bitcoin broker, Eircoin. Also read: Swiss Crypto Company Acquires License to Distribute Funds to Investors Banks Close Accounts of Award-Winning Startup Several Irish businesses have been forced to either stop trading cryptocurrencies or seek partners abroad after local financial institutions refused to offer them banking services. Some of them have lost their bank accounts, while others have never been allowed to open one in the country, the local press reported. Bitcoin exchange Bitcove, which has been operating since 2014 and had previously worked with Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Permanent TSB and Bank of Ireland, is one of the affected companies, The Irish Times reported. One of its co-founders, Peter Nagle, told the newspaper the banks closed its accounts stating they do not support companies offering cryptocurrency exchange facilities. The trading platform has since been using the services of “a more progressive banking partner” in Europe. “Particularly disappointing was Bank of Ireland. We were participants on the Ignite startup program, which is backed by the bank. Our business and its progress were reviewed monthly by a panel which included Bank of Ireland representatives. At the end of the incubator Bitcove won the award, but then just a few months later our accounts were frozen and eventually closed,” Nagle explained. One of Ireland’s First Bitcoin Brokers Also Hit Another crypto firm that has suffered from the clampdown is Eircoin, one of Ireland’s oldest bitcoin brokers, which closed a couple of months ago. An affiliated consulting business was also refused banking services. “We are being shuttered due to a negligent and defensive banking system,” Eircoin’s cofounder Dave Fleming said, quoted by the Irish daily. He added that his company, along with other cryptocurrency sellers, had previously consulted with the Central Bank of Ireland which told them that as long as they were abiding by the regulations their operations were in line with the law. Bank of Ireland, one of the four largest Irish commercial banks, admitted in a statement it was not providing banking services to virtual currency exchange platforms, but noted that its customers were not prevented from transacting cryptocurrency. AIB Group, another “Big Four” bank, denied it was refusing services to companies from the crypto sector. A spokesman was quoted as saying, “We don’t discriminate in relation to providing banking services to cryptocurrency companies nor have we been systematically exiting such companies.” According to the official, some of these businesses are unable to comply with the anti-money laundering and know your customer requirements that the bank is obliged to adhere to. The Banking and Payments Federation of Ireland (BPFI) stated that it wasn’t aware of any policy to close accounts of companies trading cryptocurrencies. However, the organization presenting 70 traditional financial institutions noted that Irish lenders are expected to take measures to minimize the risk of facilitating “financial crimes which are enabled by cryptocurrencies,” such as money laundering and terrorism financing. Sharp Contrast The negative attitude of the legacy financial institutions towards crypto businesses sharply contrasts with the view of Ireland as a crypto-friendly jurisdiction in general. Recently, it was reported that a new government-backed platform will promote the country as a hub for developers of applications based on the technology behind cryptocurrencies. Blockchain Ireland was launched by the Irish Blockchain Expert Group in partnership with a young company called Consensys. The initiative is supported by Enterprise Ireland, the Department of Finance, members of the industry and representatives of academic institutions. The agency promoting foreign investment in the country, IDA Ireland, has also backed blockchain and crypto projects. Cryptocurrencies and the related economic activities received another recognition by authorities in Dublin with the decision of the Irish revenue service to issue guidelines on the taxation of crypto transactions. The new “Tax and Duty Manual” clarifies related matters and confirms that in most cases the existing tax regulations apply to the crypto sector. According to the advisory, crypto incomes and profits are subject to direct taxes such as corporate tax, income tax, and capital gains tax. Officials have also stated that for VAT purposes bitcoin constitutes a currency. The Irish tax agency regards cryptocurrencies as “negotiable instruments” and exempts them from the value added tax. Do you think the bank clampdown on crypto businesses in Ireland is temporary? Share your thoughts on the subject in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Bitcove, Eircoin, BPFI. 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 Bitcoin Businesses Denied Banking Services in Ireland appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

00000000000000000021e800 – that’s 18 zeros followed by 21e8 and another two zeros – doesn’t look particularly remarkable. Nor does 00000000000000000021e800c1e8df51b22c1588e5a624bea17e9faa34b2dc4a, which is the complete hash it’s associated with. And yet this series of numbers and letters has sent the cryptosphere into overdrive, sparking talk of quantum computing breakthroughs, time travel, Satoshi’s return, and the hidden meaning of bitcoin. Also read: Robinhood Reportedly Considering Formal Banking Services One Row of Zeros, Infinite Possibilities On June 19 at 19:32 UTC, block number 528249 was discovered by the BTC.TOP mining pool. On the face of it, there was nothing unusual about the block: it measured just over 1MB, had almost 6,500 inputs, 1,047 outputs, and 125 Segwit transactions. But when the block is viewed in an explorer such as Blockchair, something astonishing appears when you hover your cursor over the block hash: the number 00000000000000000021e800 appears. To some, the appearance of so many zeros, followed by 21 (a number synonymous with bitcoin’s total supply), is merely a coincidence; an occurrence as inevitable as a roulette wheel landing on red 18 times after half a million spins. To others, it’s a near-impossible feat that signals intervention from another world, be it celestial, extraterrestrial, or future. The Mother of All Hashes It was Mark Wilcox who discovered the oddity first, tweeting a hash of the block around 90 minutes after it was discovered. Half of crypto Twitter immediately began losing their minds, while the other half began scratching their heads. What was the significance of this hash – if, in fact, there was any? Humans are programmed to see patterns in everything, and thus the fixation on 18 zeros in a row is understandable. But it’s what comes next in the block hash that’s equally startling, for those who like to be startled, or for anyone partial to pareidolia: perceiving a pattern where none exists. 21e8, also known as E8, refers to a Theory of Everything, also known as a Unified Field Theory. There’s even a website, 21e8.com, which displays a fractal pattern based on the elementary particle spin that forms a part of E8 theory. The last time bitcoiners got all excited over a block hash beginning with an unusually high number of zeroes was when Satoshi mined the genesis block. After the fact, once bitcoin had developed a community, the significance of block hash 000000000019d6689c085ae165831e934ff763ae46a2a6c172b3f1b60a8ce26f was pondered in a Bitcointalk forum thread. There are a number of unusual things about this hash: for one thing, it contains two hex zeroes more than were required, and for another, as we explained in a previous article on the genesis block: “It took six days to mine. As speculated in an old Bitcointalk forum thread, this may have been yet another deliberate trick on the part of Satoshi, to mimic the biblical account of creation. As we read in Genesis 2:2, “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested.” What Does It All Mean? There are two ways that a block containing an unusually high number of zeroes could have came about: by accident or design. If it was the former, there is nothing to read into the significance of block 528249 commencing with 18 zeros; their presence is no more meaningful than any other string of numbers. If it is the latter, however, and someone inserted those numbers by design, then that individual has a level of computing power that is currently unattainable by several orders of magnitude. It has been estimated that it would take 2,500 years to create that hash, working at a rate of 1 exahash/second (which represents around 2.5% of the current BTC network hashrate). For this feat to have occurred deliberately, it would had to have been performed on a yet undiscovered quantum computer, or by a time traveler taking advantage of future advancements in processing power. As theories go, this one’s pretty tinfoil, but there are those who believe that Satoshi Nakamoto was a time traveler. 21e8.com Such matters are beyond the scope of this article. As a less sensational hypothesis, one writer has postulated that the hashed number could have been the work of Andrew DeSantis, who is working on a quantum computer, and regularly posts cryptic messages that have shades of E8 theory to them. DeSantis, for his part, has posted a series of responses to the original tweet that revealed the hash, suggesting that the odds of him hitting upon the number are infinitesimally small. While the chances are that the hash of block 528249 is little more than an amusing coincidence, the mystery will fuel further speculation as to Satoshi Nakamoto’s whereabouts in space and time, the serendipity of the hashed genesis block, and the appearance of 18 consecutive zeros in another block, hashed nine years later. Do you think there’s any significance in this number or are people overreacting? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Twitter. With thanks to Jamie Redman for sourcing the dank memes. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Why the Cryptosphere Is Losing Its Mind Over This 18-Digit Number appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

This week news.Bitcoin.com received the new Coolwallet S — the cryptocurrency hardware wallet shaped like a credit card. As we previously reported, the interesting digital asset storage card started shipping last month so we decided to give the wallet a hands on review. Also read: North Carolina Banking Bill Passes — Adds Virtual Currency License Requirements Testing Out the New Credit-Card Shaped Hardware Wallet Last month we reported on the Coolwallet S hardware wallet launched by the Taiwanese financial-tech company founded by Michael Ou. The wallet is different than other wallet’s we have reviewed in the past like the Keepkey, Ledger nano, and Digital Bitbox because the Coolwallet is shaped like a traditional credit card. On June 20 our new Coolwallet arrived from Taiwan and when we observed the package the box was sealed very nicely. In fact, the Coolwallet’s packaging was sealed so tight you need a tool like a pocket knife to open the box, which is also sealed with special Coolwallet branded foil tape. The Coolwallet S comes tightly sealed with tamper-resistant tape. On inspection, the product was not touched by any third parties and when opened, the box kind of resembles a jewelry box with a quote from Michael Ou on the revolutionary aspects of blockchain technology. The box comes with the Coolwallet itself which is basically a card that’s roughly 85×53 mm with rounded corners, and has a display on the backside. Just below the screen is the cards command button which has a clicking feel when pressed. Below that are two very small metal circles that are used to charge the battery and the card had some charge when it was delivered. The box also comes with the card’s charger, a USB connection, directions, a blank seed card, and a Coolwallet sticker. Packaging and battery charger. The first thing we did was connect the USB wire to the card’s charger and plugged the card into the thin slot. This powered up the card and it then asks to pair with your mobile phone. You need to download the Coolwallet app from the Google Play store or Apple’s App Store to get the wallet platform and pair the card. After opening the app the phone will see the card and show you the serial number on your phone’s screen. The serial number for our Coolwallet X is blocked out for privacy, but it is at the top left corner next to the card’s screen. When pairing the app it will ask for a code which is shown on the card’s screen and after typing it into the app, the two should pair. Coolbitx states that the messages sent between the mobile phone and card use encrypted Bluetooth settings. After pairing with a mobile phone the wallet asks to ‘create’ a new wallet or ‘restore’ an existing wallet. After hitting create you can choose between a 12, 18, and 24 length seed. After pairing with your mobile phone you can either create a new wallet or restore an existing one. If you choose to create a new wallet you can choose between a 12, 18, and 24 length seed, but this seed is not your typical mnemonic phrase. Coolwallet uses numbers rather than words and asks you to write them all down in concession. After that, it asks you to add all the numbers up, and you must type in the sum to finish verifying the seed. This method is an interesting way of recording a seed as most others use randomized words. Coolwallet holds the following coins BTC, LTC, XRP, ETH, BCH, EOS, JAYZ, USDT, and WETH. After the seed is verified, the mobile wallet loads and you are brought to the main interface which shows all the wallets and the sum of total assets. After the wallet was set up it was time to load the card. At first we did try to load some BTC dust ($2.00 USD) from the Digital Bitbox we reviewed a few months ago but unfortunately, with BTC fees rising again, the Swiss-made Bitbox would not send the funds. Following the attempt, we decided to load up the card with bitcoin cash (BCH) and sent multiple fractions to the new Coolwallet for about 0.0000111 BCH or less per transaction. Coolwallet S shows the balance on the card depending on the coin you are viewing. After the funds were accessible, we decided to send a few transactions out of the wallet. Using the send screen you can toggle to whatever coin you feel like sending, and all you do is fill in the receiving address field, and set the amount. You can also adjust the fee settings and type the fee manually if you want to set a lower fee as well. We found the lowest fee settings for bitcoin cash on the Coolwallet was too high, and had to manually adjust the fee to below the one U.S. cent threshold. After pressing the send button when all the fields are complete, the app asks you to turn on the card. When the card is turned on the app syncs with the phone and you are asked to verify the send function using the button on the card. After pressing the button three times the transaction will send as the card acts as a second-factor authentication for the application. We found the app and card worked very well except for the fee settings section for bitcoin cash as it was set too high. Another thing we noticed is that it takes a touch longer for the app and card to sync funds and transaction history after performing an action, but it’s not unbearable. Charging the card doesn’t take long and the charge lasts for an extremely long time as the system shuts down when it’s not being used. As for the cards’ shape and how bendable the card is without hurting the device is a great feature. It’s easy to hide in your back pocket, in your physical wallet, or anywhere you can hide a small credit card. Size is a plus because the wallet is definitely more concealable than Trezor or Ledger models, and other hardware wallets that are even larger than those two products. Lastly, Coolbit has just partnered with the decentralized exchange Joyso, which means users will soon be able to trade ERC-20 tokens within the wallet using the hybrid decentralized exchange (HEX). The Coolwallet S is a bit more expensive than other hardware wallet models as the card goes for $189 USD (duo set $299) but the card’s size advantage and the ability to tether to both iOS and Android mobile has its benefits. What do you think about the new Coolwallet S hardware wallet? Let us know in the comment section below. Images courtesy of Jamie Redman, and Coolwallet. Now live, Satoshi Pulse. A comprehensive, real-time listing of the cryptocurrency market. View prices, charts, transaction volumes, and more for the top 500 cryptocurrencies trading today. The post A Hands On Review of the New Card-Shaped Hardware Device Coolwallet S appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

A musician who wants to use cryptocurrency to create a “real-life Wakanda” in Africa is the main feature in today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief. Additional stories include an ICO mogul who bought land worth $19 million with bitcoin, a massive trove of Coinbase customers’ complaints and more. Also Read: Control of Highly Demanded Crypto Classes May Spark Turf War at Universities Akon Launches Akoin Akon, the Senegalese-American singer, is launching his own cryptocurrency token called Akoin. The stated purpose of the project is to build a futuristic city in Senegal that is meant to be a “real-life Wakanda”, referring to the fictional highly technologically advanced African nation featured in the recent Black Panther movie. Speaking on a panel at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Akon explained: “I think that blockchain and crypto could be the saviour for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people and brings the security back into the currency system. It also allows the people to utilize it in ways where they can advance themselves and not allow government to do those things that are keeping them down.” According to the project’s website, the “100% crypto-based” Akon Crypto City is being built on 2,000 acres of land gifted to Akon from the President of Senegal. It’s within 5 minutes of the new international airport, close to the coast and a short drive from Dakar, the capital city of Senegal. ICO Mogul Buys $19M Land with Bitcoin According to newspaper reports from Israel, the serial entrepreneur and cryptocurrency advocate Moshe Hogeg has bought 5,000 square meters of private land to build himself a new house in the very affluent community of Kfar Shmaryahu not far from Tel Aviv. The price of the real estate is about $19 million and he reportedly paid 15% of that sum in Bitcoin. Hogeg is the man behind Sirin Labs, which raised $157.8 million in an initial coin offering (ICO) last year. The money was meant to be used to build an “ultra-secure” cold storage crypto wallet-phone which was promoted by soccer superstar Leo Messi. 134 Pages of Coinbase Customers’ Complaints A stack of 134 pages full of costumer complaints against Coinbase, filed to the US SEC and the California Department of Business Oversight, have been obtained by Mashable following a five-month FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) process. The files show the frustration and anger of clients that felt they could not get adequate support for their issues with the platform. The company sees the high number of complaints as a result of the mad rush to enter the crypto market last year. “In 2017, the cryptocurrency space experienced a profound uptick in mainstream awareness and growth,” explained a Coinbase spokesperson. “As part of that, consumer demand for our services increased by 40x and we experienced transaction volumes in November and December of that year that grew by 295 percent.” Bitmain Is Back on Twitter Chinese ASIC giant Bitmain Technologies has now regained control of its @Bitmaintech official Twitter account. As we reported a few days ago, the company was banned from the social network after trolls apparently convinced Twitter admins that the account belonged to a four-year-old. Aaaaand we are back! We missed Twittersphere and it appears that some, like @Satoshi_N_ , missed us even more.https://t.co/x14bJoTkhD Oh, and it feels good to finally be over 13 years old @Twitter /s — BITMAIN [Not giving away ETH] (@BITMAINtech) June 20, 2018 Bittrex Adds ETH to USD Bittrex, which recently introduced fiat currency support, has now announced the addition of support for Ethereum (ETH) to USD trading. Initially, the Seattle-based exchange offered the USD paired against just BTC, tether (USDT), and another stablecoin, Trueusd. The move can be seen as part of a larger trend by exchanges trying to gradually wean themselves off dependency on the controversial tether. It might also help to delink the price of ETH from BTC in terms of USD if more exchanges follow this move. What do you think about today’s news tidbits? Could Akon’s crypto city succeed in building a real Wakanda? 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: Akon Launches Akoin, ICO Mogul Buys $19M Land with Bitcoin 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. Cryptocurrency trading completely free of intermediaries will be very soon available with the advent of StreamDesk Service. A beta-version of the decentralized platform based on the smart-contract architecture will be launched on June 25 along with the phase #2 of its ICO campaign, the project’s team reveals. According to the announcement, early birds will be able to use the service free of commission. StreamDesk is a decentralized platform for the exchange of cryptocurrencies for fiat money, based on the smart-contract architecture and the API of payment systems. It allows users to trade without intermediaries, guarantees fair deals and security. Developers are going to supplement a basket with a number of altcoins. The negotiations about their addition are close to completion, the team reveals. “We are currently working at connecting major payment systems for easy of use. Negotiations are underway”, Vladislav Kuznetsov, Streamity CEO and Founder, says. First time, no commissions will be implemented within the system, so that early birds will be able to take advantage of the platform free of charge. All it takes is just to enter the blockchain wallet address. Once done, the following process is automated with no third-party service to transfer cryptocurrency or check user’s balance. The currency, both crypto and fiat, is never stored within the platform, so this guarantees safe custody. Streamity took into account the mistakes made by developers of the already existing P2P-services, such as violation of the core idea of decentralization and vulnerability of user’s accounts, which are often targeted by hackers. The smart-contract technology makes the process secure and instantaneous. In addition to currently existing features, Streamity has also launched free educational webinars and presented its new regular column, “Development Update.” In the run-up to the second stage of its ICO, the project has 20 mln tokens sold up and over 3.000 people already joined the project. The total contribution to StreamDesk accounts for $ 4.2 mln. More details are on the website streamity.org available. Contact Email Address ceo@streamity.org Supporting Link https://streamity.org/en/ 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: StreamDesk Starts the 2 Phase of ICO And Offers to Test Beta-Version appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Unnamed sources suggest popular free crypto and stock trading application (app), Robinhood, is negotiating with US regulators about prospects for it becoming a bank, complete with traditional services such as savings accounts. It’s still early going, and very preliminary, but such an arrangement could well be the future of banking. Also read: Bitcoin More Influential in US Politics Than Ever Robinhood Looking to Provide Banking Services By all accounts it has been a skyrocketing year for the smartphone trading app Robinhood Markets, Inc. out of Menlo Park, California. Success appears to have emboldened the scrappy firm, according to Bloomberg. In late January, the company announced it would add bitcoin core (BTC) and ether to their platform, which caused 1 million people to sign up. Only a month after its formal February crypto rollout, by March it boasted a cool $5.6 billion valuation after three years of operation. And mid-May saw its services grow from one or two US states to ten. Unnamed sources are pointing to the popular free crypto trading app as querying regulators about the possibility of it becoming a full-fledged bank. The company has proven its ability to grow a consumer base, reaching more than 4 million in the United States. That it might be able to offer savings accounts could signal a broader change in the legacy industry, one gearing itself toward the next, more tech savvy, generation. Banking laws in the US effectively prevent Robinhood from going forward on its own in this regard. Bloomberg insists the company is “in early discussions with regulators to begin offering banking-like products through different licenses or partnerships.” Discussions are between it and “the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which charters and regulates all national banks and federal savings associations.” Everyone associated with the matter was careful to stress how nothing concrete has been decided. Still, should things progress, most expect the company would partner up with an existing institution, rather than go it alone. Whatever the case, other startups have moved along similar lines with an eye toward poaching dissatisfied traditional banking customers tired of unfavorable interest rates, a friction filled online experience, and the want to have most/all of their financial dealings in one convenient application. Is banking a good move for Robinhood? Let us know in the comments. Images via the Pixabay, Robinhood. 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 Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com. The post Robinhood Reportedly Considering Formal Banking Services appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Following multiple hack reports, the South Korean government explains how it will strengthen the regulatory framework for cryptocurrency exchanges. A bill has already been submitted which imposes multiple new obligations on crypto exchanges. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space Korean Government’s Solution Following recent reports of multiple security breaches at cryptocurrency exchanges, the South Korean government has revealed the details of the new bill to regulate crypto exchanges, local media report. Choi Jong-ku. On Tuesday, June 19, South Korea’s second largest crypto exchange, Bithumb, posted a notice on its website and tweeted that about 35 billion won (~US$31 million) worth of cryptocurrencies was stolen. However, the exchange promptly removed the notice and deleted its tweets about the theft shortly afterward. The Bithumb incident came just 10 days after the country’s seventh largest crypto exchange, Coinrail, claimed that it was hacked on June 10, with the damage estimated at approximately $40 million. Choi Jong-ku, Chairman of the country’s top financial regulator, the Financial Services Commissions (FSC), commented on the Bithumb news on Wednesday. He was quoted by Newsis saying: In order to prevent this, we need to make the [crypto] transaction system stable and strengthen the protections of the traders by virtual currency handling businesses. He explained that an amendment bill to the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information has already been submitted to the National Assembly in order to achieve this. Crypto exchanges are currently “in the blind spot” of the Korean regulators, Newspim wrote, adding that they are “expected to be monitored by the financial authorities through the ‘report system’.” The publication elaborated, “This will block illegal money laundering using virtual currency exchanges and enhance the rules for transactions with commercial banks in cooperative relations such as opening virtual accounts.” The Revised Bill According to the proposed bill, the government “will define a virtual currency exchange as a virtual currency handling business,” the publication described, noting that the obligation to prevent money laundering will be imposed on all crypto handling businesses. “If the bill passes the National Assembly, a virtual currency exchange must be obliged to report to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) as a virtual currency handling business and be regularly supervised by the FIU,” the news outlet detailed. If the authorities find any illegal activities, then the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and the FIU will inspect and investigate them. Son Sung-eun, FIU’s Director of Planning and Cooperation Team, was quoted saying: We could not afford to let virtual currency centers become a hotbed for money laundering. The proposed amendment also obligates all financial companies to “preserve financial transaction data and information related to the implementation of obligatory transaction reporting, high cash transaction reporting, customer confirmation, etc. for five years.” Penalties and Punishments Sanctions will be imposed on any crypto businesses in violation of or failing to comply with the financial regulators’ rules. They include “recommending the dismissal of officers at the same level as banks and securities companies, suspending business operations, warning of institutions, and corrective orders.” FIU manager Kim Ji-woong explained one particular disciplinary measure: The defendant’s fines will be charged at 30 million won [~$27,077] if the virtual currency provider does not go through the customer verification process or does not check or report suspicious transactions. Hong Sung-ki, Vice Director of Virtual Currency Countermeasures, was quoted by Hankyung reiterating that the enactment of this bill “does not mean that virtual currency exchanges are legally recognized and absorbed into the system.” What do you think of the Korean government’s plans for crypto exchanges? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and the Korean government. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Korean Government Details Regulatory Plans After Multiple Crypto Exchange Hacks appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The state of North Carolina has pushed the passage of House Bill 86 and some digital currency advocates and firms like Coinbase believe the bill makes the state more friendly towards cryptocurrency businesses. At the moment North Carolina’s House Bill 86 has been presented to Governor Roy Cooper and awaits his signature. Also read: Major Korean Crypto Exchange: $31 Million Vanishes North Carolina House Bill 86 Includes Money Transmission Changes and Licensure Guidelines in Regard to Virtual Currencies Passes Unanimously On June 14, 2018, North Carolina’s general assembly unanimously ratified House Bill 86 which adds new language to the state’s permissible investments and statutory trust under the Money Transmitters Act. The bill’s final revision includes legal definitions concerning virtual currencies like bitcoin and other tokens. North Carolina’s legislation also requires the licensure of businesses that work with cryptocurrency activities. Furthermore, the state’s Commissioner of Banks Ray Grace can request data from the licensed cryptocurrency firm at any time. North Carolina House Bill 86 states: If the licensee possesses virtual currency as permissible investments under this Article, the Commissioner may at any time request that the licensee verify, in a manner acceptable to the Commissioner, aggregate virtual currency transmission obligations outstanding and virtual currency held as permissible investments, including virtual currency stored offline. Coinbase Believes North Carolina’s Bill ‘Helps Cryptocurrency Companies Comply With the Letter of the Law’ Coinbase executive Mike Lempres Commissioner Grace had also helped write the revised edition which included virtual currency definitions and licensee requirements. The firm Coinbase applauded the passage of House Bill 86 and formally thanked the banking commissioner, representatives Tim Moore, Dan Bishop, Jon Hardister, Bill Rabon, Stephen Ross, Jason Saine, and Jeff Tarte for helping bolster the legislation. “Passage of House Bill 86 exemplifies how regulators and legislators can work together to foster innovation by either licensing cryptocurrency money transmissions or exempting cryptocurrency from money transmission laws,” the Chief Legal and Compliance Officer at Coinbase, Mike Lempres said last Thursday. By helping cryptocurrency companies comply with the letter of the law, leaders in both states are paving the way for the economic and social benefits of this new technology to flourish within their communities. The firm also complimented the state of Wyoming for recently passing its blockchain and cryptocurrency legislation after it had issues with the state prior to the passage of Wyoming’s guidelines. A while ago Coinbase suspended its services to Wyoming residents and the firm said at the time that the state’s Division of Banking made Coinbase operations impractical. As both North Carolina and Wyoming change their money transmissions laws the state’s look like they may see more business operations due to the legislative changes. What do you think about North Carolina’s House Bill 86? Do you think more states will adapt virtual currencies into their laws? Or do you think these regulations are bad for cryptocurrencies in general? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below. Images via Pixabay, Wiki Commons, North Carolina Emblem, Coinbase, and Medium. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post North Carolina Banking Bill Passes — Adds Virtual Currency License Requirements appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

France’s financial markets regulator has issued a new warning against unauthorized platforms offering cryptocurrency investments. The regulator has added four websites to its list of blacklisted domains offering crypto investments without authorization. Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space French Regulator’s Warning The French financial markets regulator, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), on Monday warned “the public against several companies proposing atypical investments without being authorized to do so.” The AMF is an independent public authority responsible for ensuring that savings invested in financial products are protected. According to Law no. 2016-1691 on transparency, no investment offer can be directly marketed in France without a registration number or prior approval by the AMF. Alongside Monday’s warning, the regulator also published a list of four “new unauthorized websites offering atypical investments.” The four websites are bitoraxe.com, solutioncrypto.com, solution-crypto.com, and connect-coin.fr. At the time of this writing, connect-coin.fr is already offline. The other three are still live but solution-crypto.com redirects all traffic to solutioncrypto.com. The AMF previously published a list of 15 websites offering crypto investments without authorization. The regulator maintains three lists of unauthorized websites – one for forex products, one for binary options, and one for other goods including diamonds, wines, and cryptocurrencies. The agency started keeping track of blacklisted sites in July last year and began including crypto sites in December. AMF Concerned About Crypto The AMF has been tracking losses in cryptocurrencies through its Epargne Info-services center, which receives investment complaints and claims. During the AMF’s annual report presentation last month, Chairman Robert Ophèle said: During the first four months of the year, out of the more than 4,000 requests processed by our Epargne Info-services center, 700 concerned crypto-assets with nearly 250 claims or reports reporting more than € 9 million (~US$10.43 million) in losses. He added that cryptocurrencies have taken over binary options and highly leveraged contracts for difference (CFDs) as the most pressing problem. France is currently creating a legal framework for initial coin offerings (ICOs), which is expected to be finalized next year. The agency started clamping down on bitcoin derivatives in February. In April, the country slashed the tax rate on crypto capital gains from 45% to 19%. What do you think of the AMF warning investors of these unauthorized platforms? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock and AMF. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post France Warns of Several Unauthorized Cryptocurrency Platforms appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Can only a law professor teach about smart contracts? Universities have faced several challenges with adding crypto classes to their curriculum such as a scarcity of knowledgeable lecturers and an ecosystem that develops much faster than they can reprint books. Now they also have to worry about different departments bickering over control of the multifaceted subject. Also Read: You Can Now Exchange Your Leftover Euros for Crypto at Schiphol Airport Academic Tug of War Over Crypto Classes Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain classes are all the rage at academic institutions around the world, from Chicago to Brazil and even North Korea. In fact, they are now in such high demand that academics fear they might lead to a turf war between computer science, economics, law, accounting, finance departments and business schools. Garrick Hileman, who lectured about cryptocurrencies as part of a master of finance course at the University of Cambridge, told the Financial Times that: “It wouldn’t surprise me to see some turf wars break out over who owns the blockchain curriculum at business schools.” David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University Stern School of Business, started teaching about Bitcoin to MBA students back in 2014. He explains that: “It’s interdisciplinary. The computer science and finance industries have merged and this needs to happen in universities too. But universities are bureaucratic — it will be political and take time.” Demand From Students, Finance and Tech Companies The reasons for the strong demand for blockchain courses include of course the great price rally of 2017, but also the new avenues opened up by smart contracts and ICOs. “The increase in value in the cryptos played a large part in the increase in public interest,” explained Jens Martin, a director at University of Amsterdam Business School. “However, we feel that the finance industry is very interested in the technology itself and the possibilities it offers. We see many applications not only from people with a banking background, but a more diverse group who are interested in applying these concepts to finance.” Robert Wardrop, director of the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the Judge Business School, said that demand for teaching crypto skills is mainly coming from tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. “The core focus of interest is growing from non-financial firms.” These “are essential to related projects that these businesses are working on. Understanding issues like asset tokenisation is quite fundamental . . . in terms of your business model but also to your capital raising,” he added. Should Bitcoin classes be part of computer science or finance programs? 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 Control of Highly Demanded Crypto Classes May Spark Turf War at Universities appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

Tether has released a surprise “Transparency Update” that purports to show it has enough funds in the bank to cover the $2.6 billion of USDT in circulation. The company has stopped short of a full audit, however, leaving critics bemoaning Tether’s inability to settle the solvency debate once and for all. Also read: Major Korean Crypto Exchange: $31 Million Vanishes Tether Tries to Dispel the FUD Speculating over the solvency of Tether, and specifically whether its dollar-pegged stablecoin is actually backed by fiat reserves, is a pastime that has spawned entire Twitter personas devoted to the issue. Vocal Tether critic Bitfinexed has been joined by a growing chorus of critics demanding full transparency from Tether, which is part owned by Bitfinex. Tether has now obliged, producing, for the second time in six months, a legal report into its financial standing. The report, which was produced by the law firm of a former FBI director, carries weight from a legal perspective. But it fails to provide cast iron guarantees that Tether is not operating a fractional reserve. Until the company’s accounts are professionally audited, the true state of Tether’s finances will remain a point of speculation. “As many are aware, Tether and related parties have been the subject of scrutiny over the course of the past several months,” begins the Transparency Update. “We have spent our time largely disregarding these allegations, instead letting our efforts, and the continued faith of our community of users, speak for themselves.” Many cryptocurrency traders would rather Tether had addressed these issues sooner rather than letting the blind “faith” of its community serve as a guarantee. Enter Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan The magnificently named Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan are the legal firm who were handed the task of taking a snapshot of Tether’s bank balance. This they did on June 1, whereupon they confirmed that there were sufficient funds to cover all USDT in circulation on a 1:1 basis. “Recent reports have opened our eyes to the fundamental lack of understanding surrounding Tether, the issuance and redemption mechanisms, and the compliance procedures that we have built,” continues the Transparency Update document. “To mitigate this, we will be taking additional steps aimed at opening up Tether to the general public and clearing away any uncertainty that may exist.” The simple answer, and the one that cryptocurrency holders have been screaming out for, is for Tether to commission an independent audit. Only once that has been completed can the lingering doubt disperse and faith in Tether be restored. While today’s report is hardly the all-clear that the crypto community might have hoped for, its release still helped propel BTC up by $150, undoing the damage inflicted hours previously by the news of Bithumb’s $31 million hack. Do you think Tether has the funds to cover all of the USDT in circulation? Let us know in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Tether. Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section. The post Tether Shows Law Firm Its Funds But Stops Short of an Audit 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. The decentralized interoperability protocol Essentia is set to launch a fund valued at over $11 million to expand their ecosystem and incentivize projects to be built on top of the platform. The fund will drive development of a thriving program to accelerate real world adoption of blockchain technology, based around Essentia’s enterprise-oriented solutions, while forging close ties with the community, without whom we could not have reached this stage. Over the last few months, we’ve been privileged to meet many of you at conferences and blockchain events around the world, and have relished the sense of camaraderie and the enthusiasm you’ve shown for the decentralized systems we’re building. Your interest is clearly visible in the dAppstore as well, where you keep voting for the best applications to be integrated to the framework. We’ve also been grateful of your support in participating in the Essentia pre-sale and forthcoming public sale, which commences on June 25. In the meanwhile check out 10 reasons why Essentia is worth the wait! Upon completion of our public sale, the hard work doesn’t stop. In fact, that’s when we kick things up a notch with the launch of the Essentia $11M fund. In the coming weeks and months you’re going to see a range of new initiatives introduced including: EssCons: A series of Essentia conventions for developers, businesses, community members and anyone interested in engaging with the Essentia ecosystem. These events will be held regularly throughout the year, starting in Kiev on July 25th. ESS Local Meetups: A more informal series of events will take place in major cities throughout the world including Kiev, Amsterdam, London, Seoul, Hong Kong/Shenzhen, Tokyo and Berlin. These will provide a chance to exchange ideas and interact with other Essentia supporters in a relaxed setting. ICO Competitions: The Essentia framework will also serve as a launchpad for ICOs. To spearhead this initiative, we’ll be launching a number of ICO competitions in a bid to uncover the best tokenized projects, with our first event taking place in Amsterdam in August. ESS Hackathons: We can’t wait to discover some of the applications for Essentia’s open source protocol that developers dream up. To nurture dApps and other integrations built on the Essentia protocol, we’ll be hosting our first hackathon in August, and inviting teams to participate. ESS Incubator: The projects that demonstrate the most potential and real world application will be supported through mentoring and grants provided by the ESS Incubator. We’ll take these teams under our wing and help them to create dApps built on top of our protocol and then deeply integrate these into the Essentia framework. We’ve already announced details of some of the projects we’re supporting, including ORCA, whose app is being integrated into our protocol. Aside from this and our partnerships with MTK and Finland, we have a number of other major partnerships that we’ll be releasing details of soon. With the aid of the ESS Incubator, expect to see future integrations of DEXes, blockchain enterprise solutions, GDPR compliancy provisions, logistics management platforms and much more. The Essentia Ecosystem and Community Program will be driven by the same principles that define blockchain technology: visibility, transparency, and accountability. We promise to communicate regularly as we embark on the next phase of our journey, and to solicit the advice and ideas of our developer community, whose input will be critical in helping us realize our goal of connecting the decentralized web and making it accessible to all. At Essentia, we’re not interested in merely paying lip service to the concept of community: engaging with and growing our global network of supporters and developers is of paramount importance to us. We have every intention of maintaining the momentum we’ve acquired in the run-up to our crowdsale, as we move into the next phase of Essentia’s evolution, with our sights firmly set on establishing a thriving ecosystem built upon distributed, decentralized technologies. To be a part of their growing community join their Telegram channel. Contact Email Address matteo@essentia.one Supporting Link www.essentia.one 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: Essentia.one Earmarks $11m to Foster Development of Projects Based on Its Protocol appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

On June 17, 2018, the 21 block producers or nodes that run the EOS network chose to freeze seven accounts that were allegedly stolen from EOS community members. According to reports, all 21 block producers unanimously decided to freeze the compromised assets but the decision was met with controversy from the EOS community, and possibly some second thoughts from the block producer EOS New York. Also Read: Ripple Gateways Can Freeze Users’ Funds at Any Time EOS Block Producers Unanimously Decide to Freeze Accounts The decision made by EOS block producers brings a lot of questions to the table again in regard to whether or not a public blockchain that has centralized nodes with freezing powers can truly be considered a permissionless blockchain. On June 17, the 21 EOS block producers (BP) had agreed unanimously to freeze several accounts on the EOS blockchain that were allegedly stolen. According to the BP members and the EOS911 (a system that shows if EOS keys were compromised), malicious actors using phishing attacks and other forms of social engineering were able to steal people’s keys. Seven accounts have been frozen even though there seems to be more complaints of compromised keys to hand. EOS New York Shows Reluctance Even though all 21 BPs chose to unanimously vote to freeze these accounts, EOS New York has written that even though they voted on enacting the account blacklist, the organization wavered on the decision. “EOS New York chose to enact this freeze because we believed that we were following the spirit of the governance system we as a community seek to create, despite it being formally absent. EOS is a platform meant to enable solutions which protect life, liberty, and property and that’s what we believed we were doing through this emergency action,” the New York-based BP noted. “As of right now, we do not have a timeline for when the freeze action can be lifted or sanctioned by ECAF — Freezing accounts outside of formal processes with no timeline or next steps is not ok,” EOS New York emphasizes. “We have asked for ECAF to submit a formal ruling on the merits of the case by 1300 UTC 19 June 2018. If no such ruling is released by this time, EOS New York will remove the “freeze”, which cannot be enforced without unanimous consensus by all top 21 Block Producers.” However, EOS New York stated that if this continues to happen they may not be so supportive unless the state of the network was in critical need of the blacklisting solution again. We are encountering these problems on a daily basis and we do not have the tools in place to properly address them. Other Well-Known Chains with the Ability to Freeze Accounts The decision was controversial among EOS participants and the cryptocurrency community in general to say the least as the topic erupted into debates about centralized chains and immutability once again. Many people are skeptical that a blockchain with centralized nodes with freezing abilities can even be called ‘decentralized’. The third highest valued cryptocurrency network held by Ripple (XRP) has also been accused of the same freezing process multiple times in the past. Furthermore, the EOS blacklisting took place not long after the network was officially launched last week when the 21 BPs voted to initiate the chain, but then had critical issues with block production shortly after the launch. The EOS chain and concept has been on the hype train ever since its inventor Dan Larimer (also the creator Bitshares and Steemit) announced the protocol, leading to the token’s market capturing the fifth highest market cap. What do you think about the EOS block producers’ ability to blacklist and freeze accounts? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comment section below. Images via Pixabay, Disney’s Frozen, the XRP and EOS logo, and Wiki Commons. 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 EOS Decentralization Questioned as Block Producers Freeze Accounts appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

One of the most inconvenient things about international travel is getting stuck with foreign money that can’t be accepted in your home country. Luckily for passengers and visitors to Schiphol Airport, they now have the chance to experience the benefits of a truly global currency first hand and get rid of their fiat at the same time. Also Read: Bitcoin in Brief: McAfee Stops Shilling ICOs as Reckoning Nears New Crypto ATM at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the main international gateway of the Netherlands, has announced that, starting immediately, passengers at the busy airport can exchange their leftover euros for cryptocurrency, including BTC and ETH at an automated kiosk. The ATM is on a trial period and Schiphol claims to be the first European airport to offer this service. “Schiphol is constantly looking for ways to innovate and provide optimum service to passengers,” says Tanja Dik, director of Consumer Products & Services at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. “With the Bitcoin ATM, we hope to provide a useful service to passengers by allowing them to easily exchange ‘local’ euros for the ‘global’ cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum. That can be beneficial if, for instance, it’s not possible to spend euros in their home country.” Six Months Trial The airport explained that for now, the Bitcoin ATM at Schiphol is on a six-month trial period aimed at exploring whether demand for this service exists among passengers. The machines are located in Arrival Hall 2 and also in the corridor to Departure Halls 1 and 2, where thousands of passengers pass through daily. Importantly, the placement also enables visitors to Schiphol Plaza to reach the ATM, enabling them to buy cryptocurrency even if they are just passing by. This trial is the result of cooperation between Schiphol and the Dutch company Byelex Data Solutions BV, operating under ‘The Byecoin Company’. “We are excited that Schiphol is willing to join us in exploring ways to introduce passengers to the new cryptoreality,” commented Byelex director Herman Vissia. Schiphol isn’t the only airport making crypto advancements. Recently we reported that at Brisbane Airport in Australia, all merchants and airport terminals have begun accepting various digital assets, making it one of the friendliest cryptocurrency airports in the world. What are some other great locations for crypto ATMs? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Schiphol. 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 You Can Now Exchange Your Leftover Euros for Crypto at Schiphol Airport appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

John McAfee’s decision to stop shilling ICOs as a regulatory day of reckoning draws near is the top item in today’s edition of Bitcoin in Brief. Additional stories include Bittorrent trying to reassure users it wont cryptojack them to mine tron, Binance’s latest venture in Malta, a tether replacement getting VC backing, and Paris Hilton’s dad getting into crypto. Also Read: Cryptocurrency Hedge Funds Were Down 12% to 19% in May 2018 Day of Reckoning for ICOs Antivirus pioneer and token pump master, John McAfee, has announced he is no longer working with ICOs nor is he going to keep recommending them. The reasons he gave for the move are “SEC threats” and that “those doing ICOs can all look forward to arrest. It is unjust but it is reality.” An explanation for what McAfee might be fearing came from Chris Concannon, the president of Bitcoin Futures supporting Cboe Global Markets. “The reckoning will come in two waves,” he said in an interview with Business Insider. According to him, ICO investors should lay awake at night worrying as the SEC will soon go after market participants. Following that he expects a torrent of class-action lawsuits against the teams behind projects. “If you sold someone an unregistered security you are liable to them if they decide to take them to court,” Concannon said. Despite all of this don’t count McAfee out of the market just yet. He also claimed to be working “on an equivalent alternative to ICOs which the SEC cannot touch.” Bittorent Tells Users Not to Worry About Tron Takeover Bittorrent Inc, the company managing the development of the peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, is trying to reassure users they have nothing to fear following its recently reported $120 million acquisition by Tron founder Justin Sun. It issued a statement that: “Our attention has been drawn to the news items that have appeared in the past few weeks speculating about a change in BitTorrent’s business model. We wish to reiterate that BitTorrent has no plans to change what we do or charge for the services we provide. We have no plans to enable mining of cryptocurrency now or in the future.” Binance Backs Accelerator at Malta Stock Exchange The Malta Stock Exchange has announced it is joining forces with Binance for the launch the MSX Fintech Accelerator Programme. The stock exchange will offer crypto startups access to professional business services and facilities including in-house accounting services and payroll, as well as office space, communication, conference rooms and a training centre. In addition to Binance, the programme has also signed up other companies including Thomson Reuters as mentors. The Chairman of the Malta Stock Exchange, Mr Joseph Portelli said, “It is clear that Malta is becoming a Fintech and blockchain centre of excellence and we want to allow local and foreign companies the ability to bring their ideas to the market faster. This programme offers foreign entrepreneurs easy access to a ready-made solution at one of Malta’s most prestigious addresses – the Malta Stock Exchange.” A Binance spokesman added, “We moved our operations to Malta precisely because it has demonstrated its progressive approach to supporting and developing the crypto and blockchain industry. Malta is creating a safe and legislated environment for the industry to become reputable, attracting companies like ours and many others. The Malta Stock Exchange reflects these values, providing the infrastructure for entrepreneurs and start-ups to flourish in what is otherwise a highly competitive industry.” Stablecoin “True USD” Raises $20 Million Trust Token, the creator of the Trueusd (TUSD) stablecoin, has announced it completed a $20 million strategic investment round with support from the firms Andreessen Horowitz, Block Tower Capital, Danhua Capital, GGV Capital, and others. The money is meant to support the development of the asset tokenization platform and expansion of its legal, partnership, product, and engineering departments. Since launching in March 2018, Trueusd’s market capitalization has grown to $49 million, with the tether alternative reaching an average daily trading volume of $22 million on exchanges such as Binance, Bittrex, and Upbit. Trust Token CEO Danny An said: “The support of these leading investment firms represents a significant step towards our goal to build a compliant tokenization platform for currencies, commodities, and real-world assets. We will draw on the combined expertise and network of these firms as we grow our industry partnerships and extend the reach of our first product, TrueUSD.” Paris Hilton’s Dad Wants Some Serious Crypto Richard Hilton, a real estate broker from Beverly Hills, hotel royalty and father of Paris Hilton, is now tapping the bitcoin whale market. He is reportedly offering an 11-bedroom 16th Century mansion in Rome for sale with cryptocurrency. The auction for the property, estimated to be worth over $35 million, will begin on June 28. “The auction shows real estate’s growing trust in blockchain and provides crypto investors an opportunity to diversify and solidify their portfolio with a trophy asset,” Hilton said. 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 Bitcoin in Brief Wednesday: McAfee Stops Shilling ICOs as Reckoning Nears 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. DECOIN’s 2nd pre-sale stage, featuring a 39% bonus, ends Friday, June 22nd.. A Community-Driven Development Solution DECOIN, a revenue-sharing exchange and trading platform, has a simple, albeit ingenious solution to the problems hampering cryptocurrency exchanges. They use proof-of-stake (PoS) as a means of validating DECOIN wallet transactions and sharing the value created by the exchange. Instead of requiring a MasterNode, users with a minimum amount of DECOIN are entitled to a proportionate return on their investment. Boasting a 4.5/5 rating on ICOBench, DECOIN is poised to be one of 2018’s most interesting blockchain projects. As DECOIN aims to attract a worldwide user base, they are accepting multiple payment mediums for their ICO–including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Visa and MasterCard. Decoin’s Innovative Offering DECOIN transactions are digitally signed and verified for security. The revenues of DECOIN are then shared with coin holders. These revenues include spreads, commissions, aggregation, risk positions, and margin interest. Their algorithm rewards loyalty by ensuring an average of 6.2% annual interest return to all coin holders that stake their coins in DECOIN’s online wallet. Thanks to new currencies, approaches, ideas, and technologies, the crypto community is in constant flux. One shift is particularly fundamental: the changing nature of the blockchain-mining ecosystem. Blockchain mining requires incredible processing power, making it both environmentally damaging and no longer profitable for its miners. DECOIN offers an innovative, community-driven proof-of-stake (PoS) solution. Progress in Development DECOIN has already finished the development of their blockchain environment. This includes the generation of coins and native wallet creation. They have even launched a website for the public to view the progress. Along with this rapid technical progress, DECOIN has added multiple languages to their platform, allowing users worldwide to benefit from their ground-breaking technology. Attention to Regulation DECOIN’s CEO Shay Perry has publicly stated that their team is applying for local licenses where needed, in order to ensure the viability and continuation of both DECOIN and the DTEP exchange and trading platform. Anticipating the potential scenario that DECOIN may be construed by regulators as a security, DECOIN is taking a number of precautions–including the exclusion of investors from China and the United States from participating in the ICO. The company has commenced RMO regulatory procedures in Singapore. After this process has been completed, DECOIN’s DTEP trading and exchange platform will be able to act as a global exchange, while adhering to stringent regulatory framework. Looking Forward Upon DECOIN’s launch, platform users will have the ability to trade numerous cryptocurrencies on the DTEP exchange and trading platform in addition to the proprietary currency–including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Neo, and Ripple. DECOIN itself will also be listed for trading on multiple exchanges, which are soon to be announced. More information on the ICO and the company itself, including whitepapers and vision, can be found on https://www.decoin.io Follow us on our social media channels: Website : https://decoin.go2cloud.org/SH1H Telegram : https://t.me/xDECOIN Bitcointalk ANN : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3311450.0 Twitter : https://twitter.com/@decoin_io Contact Email Address sydney@ifergan.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: After a Sold-Out 1st Pre-Sale Stage, DECOIN Finishes Development of Blockchain Environment appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has leased a chapter from its forthcoming annual report that delivers a critical appraisal of bitcoin and cryptocurrency. The report attacks virtual currencies from several main standpoints: claiming that cryptocurrencies do not effectively perform monetary functions due to price volatility, that the retail adoption of blockchain-based payment mechanisms would “bring the internet to a halt,” mass cryptocurrency adoption would reap a drastic environmental toll, and that the trust engendered by a decentralized network is too “fragile” to compete with that of centralized institutions. Also Read: Medium Is the Latest Platform to Start Censoring Crypto Companies BIS Annual Report Provides Critical Appraisal of Crypto The chapter addressing cryptocurrencies in BIS’ upcoming report opens by stating that “Less than 10 years after their inception, cryptocurrencies have emerged from obscurity to attract intense interest on the part of businesses and consumers, as well as central banks and other authorities. They garner attention because they promise to replace trust in long-standing institutions, such as commercial and central banks, with trust in a new, fully decentralized system founded on the blockchain and related distributed ledger technology (DLT).” Despite acknowledging that “Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin promise to deliver not only a convenient payment means based on digital technology, but also a novel mode of trust,” the BIS report seeks to highlight a number of “economic limitations” arising from “permissionless cryptocurrencies.” Price Volatility BIS first attacks the notion of cryptocurrencies comprising an effective form of money, arguing that stability in value is a requisite quality for the facilitation of exchange. Cryptocurrencies, the report claims, are unstable in value due to “the absence of a central issuer with a mandate to guarantee the currency’s stability.” By contrast, BIS claims that central banks emerged as the product of a “quest for solid institutional underpinning trust in money” that arose “in direct response to poor experiences with decentralized money.” “The independent central bank,” the report claims, is the “tried, trusted and resilient way to provide confidence in money in modern times.” Scalability BIS asserts that Scalability comprises another significant issue confronting cryptocurrencies. The report poses “A thought experiment” as evidence of “the inadequacy of cryptocurrencies as an everyday means of payment,” claiming that “To process the number of digital retail transactions currently handled by selected national retail payment systems, the size of the ledger would swell well beyond the storage capacity of a typical smartphone in a matter of days, beyond that of a typical personal computer in a matter of weeks,” and “beyond that of servers in a matter of months” – adding that “only supercomputers could keep up with verification of the incoming transactions.” “The associated communication volumes,” the article posits, “could bring the internet to a halt, as millions of users exchanges files on the order of magnitude of a terabyte.” Efficiency According to BIS, the rigid protocols, which are described as underpinning the confidence in a cryptocurrency, have the adverse side effect of manifesting limitations in the ‘efficiency’ of virtual currencies. Firstly, BIS emphasizes the ecological strain caused by the mining process. The report claims that “the total electricity use of bitcoin mining” equates to that of “mid-sized economies such as Switzerland,” adding that “the quest for decentralized trust has quickly become an environmental disaster.” The report also posits that cryptocurrencies are inefficient as a form of money, arguing that the rigidity of their underlying protocols prevent them from “being supplied elastically.” Trust BIS claims that there is a “fragile foundation [to] the trust in cryptocurrency” stemming from “uncertainty about the finality of individual payments, as well as trust in the value of individual cryptocurrencies.” Said “uncertainty,” the report claims, arises from concerns pertaining to forks and 51% attacks. “Trust can evaporate at any time because of the fragility of the decentralized consensus through which transactions are recorded,” the report concludes. What do you think of the Bank of International Settlement’s appraisal of cryptocurrency? Share your thoughts in the comments section below! Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Wikipedia Did you know Bitcoin.com has an awesome podcast network? Check out the ‘This Week in Bitcoin’ series and ‘Humans of Bitcoin’ by listening to our very own podcast. The post Retail Adoption of Crypto Would “Bring the Internet to a Halt” – BIS Report appeared first on Bitcoin News. View the full article