After Fork, Blossom Zcash Successfully Activates New Faster Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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After Fork, Blossom Zcash Successfully Activates New Faster Blockchain

The project completed its third fork, which activated the new Blossom network. The update had a slight positive impact on the price of ZEC, the Zcash token.

The Zcash project successfully completed its third scheduled fork, whose code name is Blossom, on Wednesday, December 11th. This was announced by Electric Coin Company (ECC), the company behind the development of Zcash, in its Twitter account @ElectricCoinCo.

The update, which was supported by both ECC and the Zcash Foundation, occurred at block height 653,600, extracted at 21:51 UTC by the mining pool Poolin, as reflected in the Zchain block explorer. At the time of writing this note, they have added about 700 new blocks to the chain, without any reported setbacks.

It is worth highlighting that one of the main novelties of the Zcash Blossom, or NU2 update (Network Upgrade 2), is the halving of the time between blocks, which went from 150 seconds to 75 seconds. The modification was part of the Zcash ZIP 208 improvement proposal, which also implies a half-reduction of the block reward.

It is explained in the GitHub repository of the proposal that the reduction of the time between blocks is aimed at improving network performance, at the same time as guaranteeing the security of transactions with fewer confirmations. Besides, low confirmation rates would be maintained.

Zcash Blossom Activation Does Not Raise ZEC Prices

The new features in the Blossom update seem not to have aroused great enthusiasm in investors. In the week before the hard fork, the price of ZEC, the Zcash native token, registered a slight upward movement, from a valuation of USD 28.18 to USD 30.80 per unit, a variation of less than 10%.

This increase does not compensate for the sharp decline in the price of this cryptocurrency, which is focused on private transactions, in the last three months. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the ZEC tokens were quoted around USD 53 by September 18th. However, a few weeks later, around November 25th, it marked its all-time low record of USD 25.45.

Some hours before the Blossom hard fork, a well-known analyst who is identified on social networks as WhalePanda, published a tweet in which he described the Zcash project as a failure for its current market capitalization. “After a round of financing, 3 years of rewards from the founder and a request for an extension of these rewards, the market capitalization of its currency is even less than that of Dogecoin (DOGE),” WhalePanda remarked.

His comment derives from the fact that DOGE, which emerges from a popular meme in social networks, is ranked 31st in the CoinMarketCap ranking, while ZEC occupies the 33rd position by market capitalization. Even though, according to WhalePanda, the DOGE project has not received an update in five years.

The influencer’s post received a response from Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, who said that Zcash privacy research has had a major impact on cryptocurrency technology. Buterin explained that it has been doing cutting-edge research and deployment of privacy technology, at the same time as exploring uncharted terrain in blockchain governance, and the platform continues to improve. He said not to have any idea of how it can be considered a failure.

By Willmen Blanco

Loans and Credits with Bitcoin Will Be Possible Thanks to This New Protocol

Willmen Blanco
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Loans and Credits with Bitcoin Will Be Possible Thanks to This New Protocol

The new protocol, called Money on Chain, allows users to trade stablecoins backed by Bitcoin. The two tokens owned by the platform are DoC, which is anchored to the US dollar, and BPRO, which generates liabilities in Bitcoin.

It was announced that a new platform for anchored cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, backed by smart contracts using bitcoins, is already active in the RSK network. On Thursday, December 12th, the companies Money on Chain and IOVLabs confirmed the launch of the initiative, after having spent 11 months developing the new software.

It was explained that Money on Chain is a protocol that uses RSK smart contracts to generate stable cryptocurrencies (stablecoins), that is, those anchored to the price of another asset. In this way, crypto assets are collateralized by Bitcoin, thus providing decentralized financial services for BTC holders.

The protocol consists of two different tokens, which are called Dollar on Chain (DoC) and BitPRO (BPRO). The DoC token is anchored to the value of the US dollar, as are the stablecoins Tether, USDC and DAI. Users can send, receive or save in DoC when using the protocol, according to the company.

It should be remembered that DoC has a stable price with parity to the US, which makes it an ideal option for those with Bitcoin risk aversion seeking stability in the volatile environment of cryptocurrencies. On the other hand, BPRO is a token aimed at Bitcoin holders that absorbs the unwanted volatility of Bitcoin from DoC. In turn, part of this volatility is passed to the exchange of leveraged Bitcoin operations, thus giving BPRO holders a passive income for the loan at the same time as they receive a small leverage for free.

It was also noted that Bitcoin holders can generate liabilities with their saved cryptocurrencies, by using the BPRO token. It should be noted that all users who purchase BPRO will receive a percentage of the fees charged by the Money on Chain platform. They will also receive interest rate gains and leverage on the price of Bitcoin.

It was reported that the developers, of both RSK and Money on Chain, had been working on the execution of this protocol for 11 months before the announcement. During that period of time, several simulations, performance tests and two audits were conducted before the launch of the Alpha version to the market.

The idea of ​​the creators of Money on Chain and IOVLabs is to generate a decentralized financial (DeFi) services platform for Bitcoin holders. Max Cajurzaa, CEO of Money on Chain, stressed that through this platform users can develop a loan, credit and trade market for Bitcoin users. It is worth mentioning that this idea has also been explored by Venezuelan entrepreneur Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, in his Ledn project.

The fact that this RSK network is using the Money on Chain protocol provides an opportunity for potential investors that do not like to take risks, since it owns two stablecoins that help users avoid the volatility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

By Willmen Blanco

Spanish Securities Operator Will Certify Financial Guarantees through a Blockchain

Willmen Blanco
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0
Spanish Securities Operator Will Certify Financial Guarantees through a Blockchain

The time that it takes to issue certificates would be reduced from 24 hours to 10 minutes. Renta 4 Banco is the first customer enrolled in the BME blockchain registration service.

It was announced that the Spanish Stock Markets and Exchanges (BME) will use a blockchain to register processes of pledge (guarantees) on institutional debts. Essentially, the process will be available for Renta 4 Banco, an institution that accompanied the process of developing the tool, which groups together the main stock exchanges of the European country, such as the Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Bilbao and Valencia stock exchanges, among others.

Through a press release, BME announced last Wednesday, December 11th, the successful completion of 9 months of tests to implement the registration system with a blockchain, through a platform called Be DLT-Prenda.

The Spanish company said in the text that this platform “supposes the digitalization of processes and guarantees the access of all the participants to the information in real time.” In this way, they allege that a reduction in the time taken to create a pledge (guarantee), from about 24 hours to less than 10 minutes, is generated.

Through this platform, those involved in the process will also have the possibility of having direct access to the information and will participate in the validation of the transactions, according to the note. However, it is not explained what the process will be like for the parties to be involved in that validation.

It was explained that pledges are securities given as collateral for debts contracted with Renta 4 Banco, which is in charge of the BME Clearing House. The new process aims to eliminate “physical certificates and the exchange of paper documentation,” according to the note published by BME.

The platform was developed by DLT-Lab, a wing within the BME technology area that focuses on the study and development of solutions with the use of a blockchain. This area works with other offices within the institution, as well as with financial entities associated with BME.

Latest Announcements about Blockchains in Spain

In recent weeks, there has been a proliferation of announcements in Spain about the use of blockchains in companies and public institutions. The various purposes of these developments range from the financial area, as is the case of BME, to ecological initiatives.

Regarding the mitigation of the environmental impact, there have been several recent announcements in Spain. For example, the company Greenb2e, originally from Valencia, launched a project to tokenize the use of renewable energy and the promotion of ecological practices in the business field.

For its part, both Meliá Hotels and the State Post and Telegraph Society of Spain joined the ClimateTrade network, a project of the startup Climate Blockchain Initiatives to contribute to environmental projects and compensate for their environmental impact.

Previously, Siemens Spain launched e-ing3ni @, a platform based on a blockchain for transactions and trading in the energy sector. This platform is based on the Alastria blockchain and provides a direct connection between producers and domestic consumers so that the latter can choose the origin and type of energy that they will consume at their homes.

Additionally, the association of authors and publishers CEDRO announced that it will register its copyright licenses on the Ethereum blockchain. Likewise, the University of San Pablo CEU will certify the issuance of its degrees through a blockchain.

By Willmen Blanco

Cryptocurrency Companies Are Allowed 48 Hours to Make Cash Withdrawals

Willmen Blanco
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Cryptocurrency Companies Are Allowed 48 Hours to Make Cash Withdrawals

The Brazilian regulatory body CVM notes that the main objective is the protection of investors. The communication reinforces a 2013 provision that established a deadline of 2 working days.

The CVM (Brazilian Securities Commission) issued on Monday, December 9th, a new communication that reinforces, among other guidelines, that withdrawals of investments by customers must be completed within 48 hours after the request made to custody companies.

It was noted that CVM/SMI8/2019 Official Circular Letter must be complied with by all the companies that are authorized to operate in the Brazilian exchange market, including cryptocurrency exchange houses.

The document establishes a series of guidelines on what the commission calls “the best practices” that should be adopted by cryptocurrency exchange and custody companies, to handle transfer requests. According to the CVM, the purpose of the communication is for the market to act in the interests of investors.

In this regard, Francisco José Bastos Santos, from the Superintendence of Market Relations and Intermediaries of the CVM, said that the custodian must not only act diligently to mitigate the possibility of fraud in the transfer of securities, but also to privilege the interests of the customer and, especially, it must comply with the Regulation in terms of two working days for the transfer of cash.

Good Practices

The CVM letter also instructs companies to make available, both on their websites and in their applications, a step-by-step guide on how the investor should proceed to formalize transfer requests. The regulatory body also requires companies to provide the investor with a team capable of answering his or her questions, either by e-mail, online chat or phone.

It should be noted that the determination of 48-hour withdrawal period is not new, since it is already contained in Article 10 of CVM Instruction 542/13, published in the Federal Official Gazette on December 26th, 2013.

The determination of the CVM can be understood as another message to suspicious companies or those that have already been investigated for the practice of the Ponzi scheme or financial pyramid. Some of the cases with greater media coverage are those involving Atlas Quantum and the companies of the Bitcoin Bank Group (GBB), the latter being in the process of judicial recovery.

Previous Measures

The letter is the second measure of the CVM in less than a week that has a direct impact on the cryptocurrency market. On Friday, December 6th, the CVM issued CVM Instruction 617 to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

This instruction determines, among other aspects, a greater detail of the routines linked to the “know your customer” (KYC) policy, which is part of the compliance required of companies. Its purpose is to prevent fraud, but its use is not yet standardized by cryptocurrency exchange houses.

Within the CVM there is concern about the scams that use cryptocurrencies and money exchange brokers that act as bait. The regulatory body has a special webpage on which it alerts investors about the “main irregular activities” that occur in the market.

By Willmen Blanco

SpaceChain’s Bitcoin Wallet Is Traveling in Earth’s Orbit at about 5 Miles per Hour

Willmen Blanco
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0

This is already the third launch of SpaceChain. The node will operate for about a year, ensuring transactions with multiple signatures.

It was reported that on Thursday, December 5th, at 12:29, a Bitcoin wallet created by SpaceChain developers was launched into the Earth’s stratosphere aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

Upon arriving at the International Space Station (ISS), the node weighing 2 lb, which is only a fraction of the 5,700 lb load of the SpaceX CRS-19 refueling mission, became the first active Bitcoin node of the ISS.

SpaceChain believes that the launch is a step forward in its mission to build a robust and decentralized blockchain infrastructure beyond Earth. The wallet will be beyond the jurisdiction of any country and beyond the reach of any physical hardware.

SpaceChain nodes are a radical new way to make cryptocurrency transactions safer. This is the third launch of the three-year-old company and the first made from the United States, as the other two were made from China.

Zee Zheng, CEO, and co-founder of SpaceChain, believes that the wallet will play a small but important role in meeting that goal. Once the astronauts aboard the ISS install it, the node will operate for approximately one year, securing multiple signature transactions through the ISS data feed.

The company of 23 people focused on this launch for much of 2019 and pursued that goal since they proposed it 18 months ago.

Zheng said that all of the company’s resources were put into the project. SpaceChain refused to disclose cargo space and research and development costs. What they did report is that they were established through Nanoracks, whose CEO, Jeffrey Manber, is also an advisor to SpaceChain.

Creating a space wallet was one thing, but making it compatible for use in the ISS was something completely different. The SpaceChain open source protocol had to be examined by NASA and designed to plug the station’s architecture, according to Zheng.

The executive said that having Jeff Garzik as Technical Director of SpaceChain helped in that regard. Garzik was one of the leading Bitcoin developers and led the construction of the software that will soon be integrated with the ISS. Besides, he had thought about the use of blockchain technology in space even before SpaceChain was founded.

It should be noted that this launch is far from its first space project: a Raspberry Pi equipped with a Qtum node that the company launched from the Gobi desert of China in February 2018.

Its second release, also from China, was a little more developed. That hardware could run blockchain dApps on the SpaceChain operating system and communicate directly with Earth.

This new wallet will operate independently from the previous launches of SpaceChain. It will not communicate with the previous nodes and all communications will be sent through the transmission of the ISS to ground. This means that the device will have a slower connection and will take hours, not minutes, to complete a single transaction.

Zheng said that they wanted to make the device slower and he described the speed as a feature rather than an error.

This attribute could attract important customers: custody services, exchange houses and business customers, according to Zheng, who are more willing to make transactions for a few extra hours, for their peace of mind.

The node will live with other experiments sent to the ISS, including Anheuser Busch’s study on malt sugar in space and an experiment to test the effects of microgravity on genetically modified mice.

In recent months SpaceChain received a grant of EUR 60,000 from the European Space Agency. Zheng explained that the exposure that comes with NASA and SpaceX will help make the mission bigger.

However, he insists that SpaceChain is rocket agnostic, so he is willing to commit to any agency, anywhere and at the right time. He also believes that NASA and SpaceX were the ideal partners for the December 5th launch, as were the Chinese partners for the first two.

Zheng notes that next March they will use an Indian rocket, referring to one of the two launches that SpaceChain has planned for the next 18 months.

Within 10 years, SpaceChain could deploy a network of satellites that “talk to each other” and manage much more blockchain infrastructure than any ISS wallet, Zheng reported. Until then, Zheng and SpaceChain would continue the race towards their orbital goal.

By Willmen Blanco

Ukraine Approved Law Against Money Laundering Supported by FATF Guidelines

Maria Rodríguez
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Ukraine Approved Law Against Money Laundering Supported by FATF Guidelines

The law will consider digital assets as a “wealth reserve”

According to press releases from the Ukrainian media, it was recently approved by the government a new law that will fight against money laundering, which is used by digital funds, as well as manage suppliers and companies engaged in the business of digital assets. This law was supported according to the report and recommendations issued by the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

The last revision of the law that was approved on December 6th by the Legislative Body of Ukraine (the Rada) defines digital assets as a good of value that should be considered as “wealth reserve”, thus giving importance to recognize that they could be subject to criminal acts, as a form of money laundering, active in fraud and extortion and as a method of financing terrorism.

As the law is known, it specifies the methods that the government will use to regulate and control the use of cryptocurrencies. Among the most popular of the guidelines that the law indicates is the supervision of all transactions made with cryptocurrencies with a value of less than 30,000 grivnas, the equivalent of (US $ 1,300). In this way, the regulatory body will have the public key of the issuer to be checked by the government.

Then, if the amount of the transaction made with cryptocurrencies exceeds the minimum amount indicated, the regulatory entity will have, as expressed by law, the power to verify not only the sender but also the recipient of the money. Thus, demanding the identity certification of both parties involved in the operation. Verification of the type of commercial relationship that both parties have will also be conducted.

Konstantin Yarmolenko, who is a Ukrainian specialist in the sector and a member of Blockchain4Ukraine, explained to a local news web portal that Ukrainian legislation states that there is usually a minimum cap, but when it is above the price level (about 1,600 American dollars).

The entity in charge demands that the necessary data of the operations be delivered to them, and especially when these merchants are outside the jurisdiction that is not endorsed by the FATF recommendations against money laundering, or when the merchants are a family association, when transactions occur using cash, among other means of payment or when those involved in the operation are foreigners.

Binance Collaborates with the Ukraine Government to Create a Legal Environment for Cryptocurrencies

In recent news, it was revealed that the cryptocurrency giant Binance signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ukrainian government to jointly create a legal environment regarding cryptocurrencies that suits the country.

Working directly with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Binance is developing a plan that seeks to establish progressively a set of laws that can help the economic growth of Ukraine around the crypto industry, as well as shaping its legal structure to attract new investors.

According to the agreement between the company and the Ukrainian government, they will be dedicated to assembling a working group that will be fully involved in the plan to use the blockchain platform to establish a whole network which allows the development of new digital assets, as well as creating a whole crypto market in the country.

By María Rodríguez

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