Expansion of Swiss Digital Asset Bank Seba to Reach Other Countries

Willmen Blanco
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Expansion of Swiss Digital Asset Bank Seba to Reach Other Countries

Seba, one of the few digital asset banks in the world, will launch a new round of financing in Switzerland for USD 96.5 million.

It is well known in the crypto world that the issue of regulations is quite complicated, there are many limitations established in almost all countries for the free development of the cryptocurrency-based economic activity. However, there is a European country whose regulatory framework favors cryptocurrencies. It is nothing more and nothing less than Switzerland, a state in which institutions such as the digital asset bank Seba have been erected.

Regulations in the Crypto World

It has already been discussed on several occasions that the issue of regulations is one of the most important to cryptocurrencies due to how they positively or negatively impact the development of crypto asset-based projects.

In general, most of the States have not yet been dedicated to the generation of specific regulations on cryptocurrencies. This situation leaves them in the gray territory of “non-legality”, in which they do not have the approval or disapproval from the State, nor its protection.

To make matters worse, the outdated status of most of the world’s laws causes difficulties for the creation of financial institutions essential for the crypto economy, such as digital asset banks that can provide the necessary financing to projects related to blockchain technology.

It should be noted that this is not the case in Switzerland since it has already demonstrated on other occasions its openness to the projects of the crypto world, being one of the few countries worldwide that has already declared that it would allow the launch of Libra in its territory. Besides, it has opened the doors to the formation of companies such as Seba, a digital asset bank that is in full expansion.

Thus, this financial institution would be one of the few digital asset banks on a global scale that has all the required regulatory licenses to operate. This would allow it to do a secondary capital rising of 96.5 million US dollars (USD) or 100 million Swiss francs (CHF).

Seba Bank AG is a recently launched company, which had not obtained all the permits to start operations until November of last year when the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) approved its exit to the financial world.

Since the first fundraiser, Seba had reached 103 million US dollars, completing its financing and foundation process in just 18 months. Soon after, it partnered with Hypothekarbank, another Swiss-based bank, and is now making plans to expand to 9 other countries, among which are Italy, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom.

However, this initial capital seems to have been little for Seba and its expansion projects, which may have been its main motivation for the launch of this new round of financing. This also serves to demonstrate the speed with which events take place in the crypto world.

Seba and other initiatives of this type allow cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin to reach a larger market. Of course, countries around the world must favor the development of blockchain projects, particularly those related to crypto-assets.

By Willmen Blanco

Lightning Network’s Second Torch Can Travel More Than 20 Times per Day

Willmen Blanco
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Lightning Network’s Second Torch Can Travel More Than 20 Times per Day

The network has accumulated 360,000 satoshis in just over 24 hours. User Hodlonaut began by sending the torch to a Venezuelan user.

It was announced that the initiative promoting the use of the Lightning Network for Bitcoin payments has started a second edition one year after its creation. The so-called chain of trust, symbolized by a torch and promoted by the Norwegian bitcoiner @hodlonaut, began again with this user sending 100,000 satoshis to @bitbrothersvzla.

The start of this second chain of trust occurred last Sunday, January 19th. Since then, more than 25 different users have held the torch, that is, the accumulation of funds in their Lightning Network wallets has already reached around 360,000 satoshis.

The same as last year, the premise is that each user receiving the torch must add 10,000 satoshis and send them to someone that they trust so that he or she will keep the chain alive. On this first day, the torch has reached 360,000 satoshis, with the accumulation by the 26 users that have participated until now.

The most recent of these users is Yoni Assia, Founder, and CEO of eToro, who has been questioned for reducing the journey pace of the torch passing between users. At the time of writing this article, the CEO of eToro has not sent the torch to a new user.

Among the users who have participated in the chain is Mati Greenspan, founder of Quantum Economics, who sent the funds to Assia.

The first recipient of the Lightning Network’s torch, @bitbrothersvzla, is not the only user in Venezuela that has spent funds on this initiative. Satoshi in Venezuela, the team that helps educate those interested in Bitcoin in the South American country, has also been part of the chain.

On the website created for this initiative, users can see that the torch has also passed through countries like the United States, Iran, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia.

A succession of the Chain of Trust

User @hodlonaut said that, when he first launched the initiative in 2019, it all started for fun. However, his idea eventually became a demonstration of Lightning Network’s ability as a tool for making micro-payments in BTC.

In its 2019 journey, the torch managed to raise more than 4,000,000 satoshis, which were donated to the non-profit organization Bitcoin Venezuela.

The chain of trust path eventually connected more than 50 countries, among which the most prominent are Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, and Uruguay, as well as Venezuela.

Besides, one of the most remarkable episodes of that first version of the torch was the passage through Iran, which proved to be a bit controversial. Initially, the user who would send the funds to the western Asian country refused to do so. However, a few more steps brought the torch to its first Iranian recipient.

Coinex executive Ziya Sadr received the torch and celebrated as a sign that it is possible to overcome government restrictions on moving money outside a country’s borders.

By Willmen Blanco

CEO of Cryptocurrency Exchange House IDAX Disappeared Mysteriously

Alexander Salazar
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CEO of Cryptocurrency Exchange House IDAX Disappeared Mysteriously

IDAX stopped processing cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals last November 22nd. Some days later, they announced the disappearance of its CEO, interrupting the exchange of assets.

During the ten years of existence of the cryptocurrency community, various projects and companies, including exchange houses, have been formed. Not everything has been positive for this sector since there have proliferated cases of internal fraud and thefts. IDAX Exchange, originally from China, has been recently added into the list of platforms whose CEOs have disappeared with no explanations.

It should be noted that the platform IDAX Exchange, also known as International Digital Asset Exchange, was founded in China. According to its webpage, its first site was opened in Mongolia, but it also owned offices in Singapore and South Korea. The firm not only provided Bitcoin, Ether and USDT trading services but also offered futures contracts and OTC market. In line with these services, the company launched in early February its token IT, which was even listed in official markets.

However, users of the platform denounced last November 22nd that they were not able to withdraw their funds. The board of IDAX blamed the unusual situation on congestion in the withdrawal channel due to increased demand. A few days later, the team reported that its CEO, Lei Guorong, had disappeared, but they did not know the reasons.

Due to the escape of its founder, the company restricted the access to the hardware wallet, where all the funds of the exchange house were deposited. The users were unable to use the platform, without the possibility to make deposits of withdrawals until further notice. The staff of IDAX promised to make an emergency plan to solve the situation, but they still have not replied.

Possibility of Fraud

The team of workers, comprised of more than 40 people, disappeared together with the CEO, after that report. The company has not given any more press releases or tweets regarding the future of the exchange house, disappearing from the social networks.

Not only the staff of IDAX disappeared abruptly but also the companies affiliated with this business. The exchange house was administered by an organization called Global Blockchain Center (GBC) of Research, according to its website. Investigating more deeply, it can be confirmed that these two services were managed by a single group originally from the city of Shanghai, known as Nianxiang. The access to the webpage of this company is currently disabled, thus increasing the irregularities around the IDAX case.

Everything seems to indicate that it will be difficult, and even impossible, for the affected users to access again their funds. This situation leads to asking whether these situations can be prevented and whether there was an alert signal that went unnoticed. Undoubtedly, there already existed irregularities at the exchange house that would eventually cause problems.

First of all, the board and the staff of IDAX were a group of strangers, differently from legal exchange projects, where all the members introduce themselves with their first and last names. Similarly, Bitwise denounced in mid-2019 that the IDAX market was built to register a daily volume larger than the one generated. Even worse, it was also a non-regulated service, which led to greater exposure to the theft of funds and fraud. The relative youth of the platform should have also been considered by the users before trusting their money to it since the years of experience on the market are good indicators of honesty and a good reputation.

By Alexander Salazar

Course on Bitcoin and Ethereum Is Promoted by Petropolis City Hall

Alexander Salazar
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Course on Bitcoin and Ethereum Is Promoted by Petropolis City Hall

A Brazilian mayor’s office takes the initiative to implement education about cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and Ether were chosen because they are the most capitalized cryptocurrencies.

It was reported that Petropolis City Hall took the lead by promoting a course about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Besides, several training courses will be offered, including basic computer science in the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) of that city in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

In this way, Petropolis Mayor’s Office hopes to train its population in subjects related to science and technology. Courses will be offered to people over 12, who will not have to pay for training.

The City Hall informed that more than 100 people registered in 2019 for the courses. In 2020, greater participation of the population is expected, estimated at almost 200 thousand people, according to IBGE 2010. The city of Petropolis, located north of Rio de Janeiro, is considered a tourist place.

Training in Bitcoin and Ethereum

Undoubtedly, the new digital economy has already attracted the attention of the rulers of Brazil and the world. Composed of digital currencies, mainly Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are the most capitalized, the cryptocurrency economy arouses interest.

Since it is a novelty of 2020, Petropolis Mayor’s Office said that it will offer lessons on cryptocurrencies. The subject will be discussed in the third module of the course on financial education.

The initiative highlights the Petropolis City Hall as it is not common for a public body in Brazil to place this issue in the guidelines of courses offered to the population. Instructor Carlos Daniel Montes said that the course will address the basic concepts of technology.

The courses will deal with the main virtual currencies, virtual currency mining, its history, and how to acquire and market these currencies in virtual exchange houses.

In the cryptocurrency community, there is an extensive debate about the attributes as a medium of exchange and reserve of value for these digital assets. Bitcoin as money would have both features, but some people criticize the aspects of value reserve. A medium of exchange is a way of using money as an intermediate reference in a transaction.

Examples of this debate are Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV, which emerged after it was stated that Bitcoin would only be a medium of exchange. However, the currency would rather be a reserve of value with little use as a medium of exchange, according to its creators.

For Petropolis Mayor’s Office, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are means of exchange. As far as it is concerned, Blockchain-based technology would be responsible for validating and recording transactions made in public networks.

To summarize, the course offered by the CERT contemplates the teaching of disruptive technology. Also, the concepts addressed show that students will be trained in technology, beyond the price speculation that this market involves.

Petropolis City Hall is not the one promoting the initiative linked to cryptocurrency education. Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, launched a university research program focused on blockchain to develop solutions in the industry. The Brazilian Government increasingly considers the adoption of blockchains and the contributions of their technology.

By Alexander Salazar

Launch of Block.one Social Network Will Not Occur on EOS Blockchain

Alexander Salazar
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Launch of Block.one Social Network Will Not Occur on EOS Blockchain

According to Voice, that social network will run on an EOSIO blockchain, developed from scratch for that purpose. This decision seeks to avoid competition for computer resources on the EOS blockchain.

The company behind Block.one, the greatest initial coin offering (ICO) in history, announced the launch of the social network Voice, which will compete with Facebook. It promised that the blockchain would run on the EOS mainnet, but there have been some plan changes.

Voice aims to be a new type of social network, one with integrated cryptocoins and one that defeats bots when verifying the identity of each account. The company had kept Voice secret for moths, after the summer announcement, but it disclosed last December that the launch could occur on February 14th.

This announcement had additional details such as a Frequently Asked Questions page on the Voice website and the fact that the new application would run on a private integration of the EOSIO software. Block.one does not have any obligation to execute Voice on EOS.

This contradicts an unequivocal statement made during the public announcement of Voice in July: “Block.one will launch the Voice platform on the EOS public blockchain.” As an additional sign of its pledge to use EOS, Block.one reserved in late May 3.3 million RAM eos on the mainnet.

Although Block.one never confirmed it, most observers interpreted it as a bet on the computational power behind Voice. On EOS, users reserve RAM to reserve part of the computational power of the blockchain.

It is worth noting that Blok.one develops software that is implemented by other organizations. It created the EOSIO software and a coalition of organizations all over the world launched what was considered as EOS mainnet.

According to data from Messari, EOS is the eighth biggest blockchain on a global scale by market capitalization. However, there are other examples of open source software deployment, such as Telos, Worbli and the newly launched Lynx, which are also implementations of the EOSIO software.

Sharif Bouktila, CEO of EOS Dublin, who served as a block producer on the EOS blockchain and other EOSIO blockchains, stated that he remains bullish regarding EOS in the long term despite the uncertainty around the greatest Block.one project after EOS itself.

Possible Explanations

EOS has experienced performance problems that, since mid-2019, have become serious. Last September, many doubts were expressed about whether the OS blockchain was maintained by companies that prioritize technology over speculative earnings. Then, it got stuck in November due to a smart contract called EIDOS, which rewarded users for conducting as many transactions as possible.

By late November, the architect of EOSIO Dan Larimer indicated the mistakes made in the assumptions that govern the applications created for EOS aimed at optimizing the distribution of computer resources. A little later, the company Block.one announced that Voice would start with a private implementation of the Larimer software and not on the EOS network.

Aaron Cox, from Greymass, who runs a supporting block producer of EOS, as well as other chains, said that he came to back the decision strategically. There exists a competition for resources on EOS, which would be a distraction for a new application that seeks to compete with Facebook, one of the biggest companies worldwide.

By Alexander Salazar

A Bitcoin Node Runs on a Tesla Car

Alexander Salazar
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A Bitcoin Node Runs on a Tesla Car

The node was synchronized with the Bcoin browser software. Currently, more than 10,000 nodes are part of the Bitcoin network.

It has been observed that complete nodes of the Bitcoin network can run on computers, specialized devices, and smartphones, but they can also do it on a Tesla car. At least, a video posted last January 16th on social networks shows that this is possible.

In the material posted on Twitter, it can be seen that the screen of a Tesla car shows the Bcoin browser software, which allows synchronization with a complete Bitcoin node through any device.

It should be noted that the video was published by Bcoin itself on the aforementioned social network. In two other messages, the same account showed images of the Bcoin control panel on the car’s browser, which can be seen on its dashboard screen.

A complete Bitcoin node can be defined as a device or server, connected to the Bitcoin network, whose role is to validate blockchain transactions and blocks. Currently, there are over 10,000 public nodes of this type worldwide, according to data from Bitnodes.

Of course, the publication by Bcoin did not go unnoticed, since some enthusiasts celebrated the experiment. Among those who were not so optimistic, network user @0berisk just asked the question: “But why?”

Another user, identified as @brandylee79, questioned the idea because of processing risks for the car’s navigation system and possible long-term damage to its memory system. She explained that Tesla is known for having problems with the useful life of its memory module due to limited read/write cycles.

Nodes on Android, HTC, Bluewallet

Beyond the curiosity raised by the Tesla case, some precedents for nodes on mobile devices can be mentioned. For example, Taiwanese cell phone manufacturer HTC launched in October 2019 the Exodus 1s model, which can run a complete Bitcoin node. Therefore, phone users can confirm transactions, as well as have their integrated wallet.

The application ABCore was launched in 2017 so that it could run a complete node from devices with the Android operating system, with versions from 4.1 onwards.

It should be remembered that not all hardware devices have the ability to run a Bitcoin node. This depends on features such as RAM, stable Internet connectivity and data storage capacity. Regarding this last feature, it can be highlighted that a complete copy of the Bitcoin blockchain data currently exceeds 258GB.

Elon Musk, “Crypto” and Bitcoin

Even though several social network users made comments on the account of Tesla and its founder and CEO, South African tycoon Elon Musk, none of the profiles have replied.

However, Musk is no stranger to the world of cryptocurrencies. Actually, just a few days ago he issued one of his common cryptic messages about this issue, by publishing that Bitcoin is “not his safe word.”

Previously, coinciding with April’s Fools Day jokes, the businessman was proclaimed via Twitter as the “Dogecoin CEO.” Precisely, that cryptocurrency began as a joke, based on the popular meme that shows a dog of the Japanese breed Shiba Inu.

Already in January 2018, Musk had joked about cryptocurrencies during the introduction of the flamethrower of The Boring Company, of which he is a founder. He said that the device had the safe word “cryptocurrency”, as well as “a free blockchain.” The joke became so popular that the third version of the Borderlands video game includes the weapon, with references to Musk’s tweets.

By Alexander Salazar

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