The services that KB Kookmin Bank will offer to its customers include Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

KB Kookmin Bank (KB), the largest bank in South Korea, announced its intention to offer Bitcoin custody services to its customers. It is now on the side of the new form of money.

The financial institution itself stated that it had signed a contract with the blockchain company Hashed and the Cumberland Korea exchange.

With this new agreement, the main cryptocurrency takes a new step towards its consolidation as a safe haven asset. Currently, dozens of US institutional investors are buying Bitcoin in large quantities.

State Bank Offers Bitcoin Custody Services

This financial institution belongs to the state of South Korea. Likewise, the bank applied with the corresponding entities last January to operate with crypto assets.

Under the brand name KBDAC, the institution will cover more than 20 areas related to cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin will be among these services, which the aforementioned largest bank in South Korea will offer.

On the other hand, the institution stated last August 7^th that they will not limit themselves to the use of cryptocurrencies. Besides, they explained that they will evolve into the field of real estate and works of art. They plan to issue and trade all of them through the blockchain platform.

Part of a Competition

This move towards new technology by KB responds to the plans of competitors. Rival bank NH Bank announced that it would also offer cryptocurrency custody services, which will focus on corporate services.

In this way, Bitcoin is now becoming present among Korean banks; it is one of the services that they offer. These institutions are reforming some limitations that existed around the use of cryptocurrencies in that Asian nation.

Simon Kim, CEO of Hashed, the firm with which KB partnered, reportedly stated that this is a sign of the transformation that is taking place in the world of finance.

Concerning the combination of their knowledge in the blockchain industry and the provision of technical and business consultations, he asserted that this will inevitably open new doors for consumers and the country to start the new era of digital transformation.

Echo of the United States

This South Korean bank decided to incorporate Bitcoin among the services that it offers to its customers. However, it did so after a major announcement in the United States about the role of banking in the world of cryptocurrencies.

The Office of the Comptroller of Currencies gave the go-ahead to local banks to trade cryptocurrencies. Banks will now be able to store and manage cryptocurrencies on behalf of their users.

Getting modern regulation on cryptocurrencies is one of the top priorities of the crypto community. For example, the New York State Department of Financial Services has recently authorized New York banks to take into custody and operate with various cryptocurrencies.

Seoul had previously banned initial coin offerings (ICO), but amended in March, lifting that prohibition on these digital products. In that way, the State gave cryptocurrencies official recognition as exchange goods.

By Alexander Salazar

 The United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority or FINRA encourages broker-dealers to notify their assigned FINRA risk monitoring analyst as to whether they, their affiliates or their associated persons intend to conduct, digital asset activity. Here is also included the non-securities activity including non-securities activity.

This is a request that cannot be exaggerated due to its prolixity. of this request cannot be overstated. Associates who are deep in the market selling and buying Bitcoin that are not affiliated to FINRA and engage in digital asset activities completely separated will all be in request to report to FINRA.

This is a request that reaches beyond the expertise and even its securities mandate across the line for FINRA’s regulatory reach. There are a lot of troubles that can be found on this overreach. The first one is that FINRA’s mandate must be exclusive and restricted in terms of activities of its members.

The second one is that FINRA receives reports of the digital asset activity beyond the scope, and alter the actual FINRA set of rules and policies. This regulatory behavior is taken as an intrusion into the non-securities digital asset environment and the efforts to create an expansion beyond its domain.

For securities broker-dealers

This mandate is directed to the banking sector, the general purpose is intended to be: “To promote through cooperative effort the investment banking and securities business, to standardize its principles and practices, to promote therein high standards of commercial honor, and to encourage and promote among members observance of federal and state securities laws.”

FINRA’s expertise has focused mainly on the upgrade of skills regarding securities. This entire operation and regulations are beyond its mandate, FINRA’s concept of digital assets is: “Cryptocurrencies and other virtual coins and tokens (including virtual coins and tokens offered in an initial coin offering (ICO) or pre-ICO), and any other asset that consists of, or is represented by, records in a blockchain or distributed ledger (including any securities, commodities, software, contracts, accounts, rights, intangible property, personal property, real estate or other assets that are ’tokenized,’ ’virtualized’ or otherwise represented by records in a blockchain or distributed ledger).”

A regulatory overreach can be seen there, mainly because FINRA is requiring broker-dealers to report on non-security digital asset activity. FINRA should only request reports on qualified digital assets.

FINRA is requesting that broker-dealers directly report digital asset activity related to their affiliates and associated persons. The main statement is the request is contemplated under the rules 3210, 3270, and 3280. There is no obligation to report such activity to FINRA; these rules are closely related to the internal information-gathering policies of broker-dealers.

  What is FINRA?

 The United States Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is a not-for-profit organization that works under the eye of the SEC and creates engagement providing a secure environment for investors, firms, and others, generating bonds, collaborative spirit, and associations, all through a series of fair policies.

By Jenson Nuñez

Dan Morehead, the CEO of Pantera Capital, considers that XRP will be one of the cryptocurrencies that will manage to survive in the long term.

Given that blockchain technology generates news that changes the landscape practically every day, it is very difficult to predict the future of the crypto world. For that reason, it is a risky task to try to predict what projects will still be in place in a few years or even months.

Independently on that, CEO of Pantera Capital, Dan Morehead, has dared to say that XRP will be one of the few cryptocurrencies in the crypto world that will survive.

XRP, the cryptocurrency that the Ripple company developed, is currently one of the most important virtual currencies in the world. According to the CoinMarketCap ranking, it is the third cryptocurrency in the world by market capitalization. It is also one of the best known in the entire community.

Ripple designed XRP to make international transactions more efficient. This allows people to send money across borders without having to rely on banks and other intermediaries. That way, they can instead take advantage of the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

This would greatly reduce the time needed for these transactions, as well as the fees that they charge. For this reason, important financial companies, such as Banco Santander, have already established partnerships with Ripple to use its cryptocurrency’s platform, which would facilitate cross-border transactions for their customers.

Dan Morehead’s Opinion on Cryptocurrencies

The CEO of Pantera Capital has stated that he thinks that XRP will be one of the few cryptocurrencies that will survive in the long term. He believes that it will outperform other projects that, despite their apparent current strength, will remain behind while the crypto market reaches maturity.

Morehead considers that Ripple has done a great job until now. He says that it is one of the big companies in their business and has hundreds of engineers who are creating a lot of codes. Besides, he notes that they are doing it in a slightly different way.

The executive is aware that “many purists” in their industry are obsessive about whether or not it is fully decentralized. He predicts a world where there will be between eight and ten important blockchains within ten years, one of which will be XRP.

The support that Pantera Capital has provided to Ripple goes beyond Dan Morehead’s statements. The investment fund was among the first that put their capital into XRP. That was an investment diversification strategy between different startups related to the blockchain. That seems to be bearing fruit with a steady increase in the price of the cryptocurrency.

To conclude, Dan Morehead also talked about the projects in which Pantera Capital has placed most of its capital. He mentioned that the firm would have considerable investments in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, Filecoin, Augur, and 0x. Like the cryptocurrency XRP, Morehead considers all of these projects will remain strong in the long term.

By Alexander Salazar

Energy and transportation startup EVShare is launching a community energy-sharing pilot in Los Angeles. The creative project is receiving a very juicy amount in funding based on $20 million and a plus from the California Energy Commission estimated in $9 million. This project initiative is to manage the localization of a renewable energy grid in the area.

The system connects local solar energy systems with electricity-based transportation, creating this way a completely organic energy market with huge complexity. The localized grid can empower 50 households connected to a pool of shared electric vans.

The role of the blockchain is to record data on solar panels and also energy storage. The project is innovative and could send hopes for an evolution in the industry of renewable energy. The blockchain system based on the RSK Bitcoin sidechain and the RSK Infrastructure Framework will be used to empower this pilot.

This data is focused to be used mainly to support a carbon credit trading market; members will receive tokens if the reduction of carbon print data is conducted by each one of them. The use of renewable energy will be completely profitable; everyone will take their part as it also serves as a way to educate people about the dangerous use of energy in the present times

Electricity consumption will be the main target of the tokens. People can pay tokens to get electricity; it consolidates a circular economy based on carbon credits. Basset, a community in Los Angeles County is where it’s all happening right now; residents in the neighborhood will soon be allowed to access the Green Commuter app. Eduardo Javier Munoz, the CEO of EVShare announced that they have been working on the project for a long time.

 Now we can turn Blockchain into energy

 The blockchain’s main mission is to certify carbon credits between assets through Smart Contracts; all the process is completely automated. The use of blockchain gives the project a more efficient development and increase transparency at the same time; it’s an outstanding idea that needs to evolve to a bigger thing in shortly.

RSK is a smart contract platform that uses a pegged version of Bitcoin as its native token and is merge-mined with the Bitcoin blockchain to derive security from its mining ecosystem. The government is aware of the project and has shown support and partnership. It is creating a scenario for a decentralized finance ecosystem whose position is in Bitcoin DeFi due to RSK’s connection with the principal network.

Although other blockchain systems are active around the world, the year 2020 has seen a surprising explosion of projects like this in several countries. A lot of companies have collaborated with locals and governments have launched their related projects. This can be seen as the dawn of renewable energy, with all hopes this project will positively affect the way American citizens see energy consumption.

By Jenson Nuñez

Elena Giralt said that it is only possible to trace public Zcash transactions. Giralt believes that blockchain espionage forces projects to optimize their privacy.

“Advances from blockchain surveillance companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic do not affect Zcash’s privacy.” That is the opinion of Elena Giralt, head of marketing for Electric Coin Company, the firm that leads the development of this cryptocurrency.

In recent days, Giralt established a differentiation between public and private transactions that are possible through the Zcash protocol.

In this regard, the company’s representative stated that it is only possible to monitor the public transactions of this currency, but the same does not happen with its private transactions.

Although it is not possible to trace private transactions but only public ones, the discrimination between the two types would facilitate identifying and even censoring private transactions, which could lessen the incentive to use them.

Regardless of the discussion about whether or not Zcash’s privacy is at risk, Giralt considered it important to note that “if someone can monitor transactions on a cryptocurrency network, which shows the lack of privacy of that protocol.”

Beyond criticizing surveillance companies, Giralt is inclined to see in the espionage by these companies the emergence of a new need. In this regard, she said that it is necessary “to struggle to have a technology that really provides privacy.”

Additionally, she reflected on the growing interest of governments, banks, and financial institutions in tracing private transactions with cryptocurrencies. She believes that this is the result of users’ concern for their privacy and the use of these types of tools.

On the one hand, Chainalysis and Elliptic announced that they would begin tracking activity on the Zcash blockchain. On the other hand, governments like that of the United States are exploring tools like these to reduce the privacy of various cryptocurrencies and even payment solutions such as Bitcoin’s Lightning network.

Zcash Protocol and Privacy in Transactions

Zcash uses a so-called “zero knowledge” transaction confirmation system, which Giralt describes as a process to verify that a transaction is true, “without knowing the details of the fact.”

To get the chain started, there is a “ceremony” on the Zcash network during which the “trusted setup” of zero-knowledge proof transactions receives approval.

Giralt acknowledged that this type of configuration has not been without controversy. She says that there have even been initiatives that propose to eradicate this configuration methodology, but keeping the confirmation mechanism.

The controversy arises from the fact that it is necessary to “trust that the people who are approving the configuration are not cheating”. Not all people interested in the project regard it favorably, according to the representative of Electric Coin Company.

Venezuela and Use of Cryptocurrencies

Elena Giralt believes that cryptocurrencies have “a more enthusiastic audience in Venezuela” than in other countries due to its particular economic situation.

However, she considers that it is not right to refer to Venezuela as a “crypto paradise” or a “crypto nation”. Although there is interest from the population and companies working in the area of ​​cryptocurrencies, Giralt thinks that many are trying to take advantage of the Venezuelan case as an opportunity to market their projects or particular cryptocurrencies.

Giralt said that many seek to sponsor or offer their projects as a “solution” for Venezuela. However, she explained that part of the interest from emerging cryptocurrency companies grew out of a curiosity to consider the South American country as a possible use case.

By Willmen Blanco

ETC Labs hired the law, firm Kobe & Kim, to bring the case to justice. The organization says that it will analyze the transactions to identify those responsibly.

A team of developers from ETC Labs will take legal action against those responsible for the two 51% attacks that Ethereum Classic recently suffered. This is the first time that members of the blockchain community have planned to bring a cryptocurrency theft by miners to state authorities.

ETC Labs announced the hiring of a law firm and blockchain analytics firm CipherTrace to investigate the case in depth.

Since last July 31^st, the Ethereum Classic blockchain has suffered several attacks that manipulated the record of its transactions. The attackers caused the ETC network to lose more than USD 6 million after they managed to manipulate the accounting records of the blockchain.

The impact of this attack on the network has led members of Ethereum Classic Labs to hire the law firm Kobe & Kim, who will be in charge of filing criminal charges against those responsible. On the other hand, the firm CipherTrace will be in charge of leading the investigation and analysis of transactions to find the miners who perpetrated the attack.

Ethereum Classic thus becomes the first blockchain that plans to demand legal repercussions for all those involved in a 51% attack on it. If they succeed, ETC Labs could set a risky precedent for decentralizing public blockchains. Government authorities (trusted third parties) would be involved in problems derived from deficiencies in the security of these networks since they do not have the support of the mining community.

A 51% attack is a type of malicious activity that groups of miners can do on a blockchain by concentrating more than 50% of their hashrate. In this way, these miners can delete the transaction history and replace information. They would do all this to spend the coins stored in the blocks of the network more than once and seize the rewards for mined blocks.

The decrease in the hashrate on Ethereum Classic continues to be one of the reasons for the proliferation of these types of attacks since it is inexpensive for miners to do these activities. Leading to a legal dispute over the security mechanisms typical of the operation of blockchains seems a sterile debate. However, it could motivate the imposition of legal measures that are detrimental to the decentralization and community development of these networks.

In recent days, a group of miners managed to accumulate this amount of hashrate on the Ethereum Classic blockchain on two occasions. They double-spent 807,260 ETC and 238.306 ETC on each of these raids. In this way, the malicious miners managed to steal more than USD 6 million from the Ethereum Classic network, not to mention the fees per block mined.

Ethereum Classic has already suffered 51% attacks on other occasions. For example, it was the victim of a theft of 219,000 ETC through the double-spending of cryptocurrencies in January 2019.

The community has proposed changing the mining algorithm to avoid this type of incident, but the solution has raised doubts and debates. While discussions about an update continue, Ethereum Classic is still exposed to attacks of this type since it has a hashrate of only 2.98 TH/s.

By Alexander Salazar