Some Crypto-Exchanges Leave the U.S. Due to Regulatory Uncertainties

Maria Rodríguez
-
0
Some Crypto-Exchanges Leave the U.S. Due to Regulatory Uncertainties

Investors are looking for “clear” rules to operate in the United States of America, and in other countries, without future problems.

Asian investors and crypto exchanges are calling for regulatory clarity on cryptocurrencies in the United States. Some of these companies say that the US is leaving blockchain-based companies in the “dark” due to the lack of regulation or explanations about the future of these digital assets in that country.

These companies are commonly located in Singapore, Switzerland or Hong Kong, and some of them have left the US because they do not know what will happen with crypto regulations and they do not want to have problems because of the legal tension that currently is present.

This “tension” that the companies mention probably is based on the current controversy around Libra, the digital currency that the social media giant Facebook plans to launch next year. The problem is that, during the last months and weeks, US lawmakers and different governments around the world have shown themselves against that project.

For instance, the US Financial Services Committee considers that Libra would threaten consumer privacy. Also, the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire said he was against Libra.

Besides, the US President, Donald Trump, consider that the digital coin must be regulated, whilst German Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, thinks that Libra should be prevented. Additionally, four important partners left the Libra project some weeks ago, such as MasterCard, eBay, Stripe, Visa, and Paypal.

However, last month, the last one said that it will continue supporting other projects of Facebook and that it will “look forward to dialogue and find ways to work together in the future”.  

Restrictions for American Users

One of the digital asset exchanges that “cut” with US users was Poloniex. Now, it will not allow American customers to trade on its platform.

On the other hand, Binance established “Binance US”, in conjunction with BAM Trading Services, a partner of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Fincen). Binance US is a separate entity from Binance.com, which used to operate in the US.

Edith Yeung, partner of different startups in China, and Rae Deng, founding partner of the Singapore-based VC firm Du Capital, ask US authorities for “clear” regulations on cryptocurrencies.

“We welcome more regulations as a vacuum of the proper regulation last year or the year before turned into vulnerable situations”, Rae Deng said.

Yeung is interested in the development of the American regulatory environment. She calls the industry to keep paying attention to what is happening in the country.

Her interest is maybe because she invests in blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI) startups through Proof of Capital, with a portfolio that includes Solana, Oasis Labs, Stellar, Nebulas, Hooked, among other companies of this type.

Deng is backing distributed ledger technology companies and those that operate in the surrounding ecosystem.

Hence, these Asian investors are looking for opportunities to operate and trade with cryptoassets. The truth is that the launching of Libra or other assets could be close and it would be necessary for the U.S. authorities to prepare a complete regulation that does not only protect its citizens but also that establish what is allowed and what is not.

By María Rodríguez

Binance Acquires Indian Bitcoin Exchange WazirX

Andres Chavez
-
0
Binance Acquires Indian Bitcoin Exchange WazirX

In an attempt to gain a stronghold of the growing Indian market, famous cryptocurrency exchange platform Binance has announced the acquisition of WazirX, one of the leading Bitcoin exchanges in the country. The idea is to make it easier for people in the nation to have access to crypto assets.

Binance itself broke the news on its official webpage in the last few hours. The announcement explained that people in the Asian country will be able to use their local currency, Indian rupees (INR) to acquire and sell crypto assets through the Binance Fiat Gateway. They could do it as early as November 25.

“The young demographic in India give an edge to adopt and build on new financial technologies, and I believe this will play a vital role in making India a global blockchain innovation center to also spur cryptocurrency adoption throughout the larger public in the country,” said CZ (Changpeng Zhao), Binance CEO.

Commitment to the Indian People

The leader of Binance also stated that “the acquisition of WazirX shows our commitment and dedication to the Indian people and strengthen the blockchain ecosystem in India as well as another step forward in achieving the freedom of money.”

According to the project’s roadmap, WazirX’s auto-matching tool will be integrated into the exchange’s recently announced Fiat Gateway in 2020’s Q1. That way, Binance.com users will earn the ability to place orders on the exchange to acquire USDT against INR. The resource will let any crypto asset available on Binance to become accessible for people that get USDT through WazirX.

“Building fiat-to-crypto bridges remain a key mission for Binance, and WazirX will help this by providing a simple and cohesive way to purchase cryptocurrencies in a country which is home to more than a billion people,” were the words of Wei Zhou, currently providing his services as the CFO of Binance.

On the other hand, WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty observed that “the next phase of mass adoption for Crypto will arise from developing nations around the world. India with more than a billion people is primed for massive crypto adoption and this acquisition by Binance gives us the opportunity to not only cater to India but every developing nation where fiat on-ramps have to be built. The acquisition is yet another step towards achieving our shared mission with Binance of decentralizing the world.”

Kashif Raza, the Co-Founder of Crypto Kanoon (a news and analysis platform covering Indian crypto regulation developments) told a prominent site in the industry that the development is welcomed by the community. He said that Binance’s recent acquisition provides a morale boost to a country in dire need of one, given the uncertain landscape of digital assets in India.

Uncertain Future

And it is because of the uncertain nature of the crypto industry in India that WazirX agreed to form an alliance with Binance, one of the sector’s heavyweights, according to Raza’s latest remarks.

The murky crypto regulation landscape in India forced WazirX to shift its focus and morph into a P2P platform in the summer of 2018, after the Reserve Bank of India’s decision to ban banks’ dealings with crypto-related companies.

“Fiat ramps play a critical role in deciding the size and adoption of cryptomarket. Binance has all the major traders in the world and WazirX has tried and tested technology for next-generation peer to peer exchange, together we can drive mass adoption across the globe by solving fiat ramps,” said Siddharth Menon, WazirX COO.

By Andres Chavez

USD 75 Million in Bitcoin Will Be Donated by “Unknown Fund” to Privacy-Focused Projects

Willmen Blanco
-
0
USD 75 Million in Bitcoin Will Be Donated by “Unknown Fund” to Privacy-Focused Projects

The organization will deliver the funds as an investment, through donations. The “Unknown Fund” considers anonymity to be the “greatest challenge” of this era.

An organization called Anonymous created a funding instance under the name of “Unknown Fund”. With this fund, they will contribute a total of USD 75,000,000 in Bitcoin (BTC) to projects focused on user privacy, an issue that they consider central at the present time.

Through a press release, the organization announced the financing, which will contemplate support for startups and projects on four core issues. The text highlights that it is specifically about “personal data protection, tools for online anonymity, cryptocurrencies and blockchains.

The Unknown Funds said that the protection of personal data is one of the main challenges in today’s world. The use of data has already become a powerful tool for manipulating people. The effectiveness of this tool is amazing and scary.

Unknown Fund

The identities of the organization’s members, financiers and investors were not disclosed in the statement, released through the organization’s website unknown.fund. In this regard, the note only indicates that they are “common and anonymous people from different countries”, who began to meet through the 4chan forum site. Besides its name, this relates the organization to the group of cyber activists Anonymous.

This group is known for revealing information about criminal organizations, as well as getting involved in various political events. Recently, they published information after servers of the Institute of Human Rights of Chile had been hacked. It should be mentioned that members typically wear Guy Fawkes masks to hide their identity.

Against Manipulation with Personal Data

The organization’s text also indicates, as examples of manipulation through the use of personal data, cases such as the last elections in the United States, in which an organization had access to data from users of social networks, seeking to manipulate their intention of the vote.

However, they also refer to current real-life cases, such as manipulation facts orchestrated by large worldwide corporations. The press release says that a perfect example is the level of addiction of the general population to social networks.

Regarding the mechanism to share the Bitcoin funds offered, the organization suggests new businesses or nonprofit projects focused on the privacy topics mentioned above. Currently, the unknown. fund website offers access to an e-mail address through which project members that consider the fund’s contribution relevant can submit their application.

Unknown Fund says that the path of investments and donations is not the only one that they explore to support the development of privacy-focused tools. Without any further details, they claim to have developed “a series of strategies and methods that will be announced later.”

Interest in Bitcoin and Privacy

The interest in online privacy and cryptocurrencies seems to be correlated. At least this is shown in the results of a recent survey conducted by the privacy-focused search engine, DuckDuckGo.

According to the results of this poll, done among the users of the platform in general, the growing concern about the use of their personal data could be reflected in greater adoption of Bitcoin. According to DuckDuckGo, the cryptocurrency is basically the financial equivalent to the removal of Facebook’s personal account.

By Willmen Blanco

Phineas Fisher, a Known Hacker, is Offering $100,000 to Fellow Cybercriminals to Attack Halliburton

Andres Chavez
-
0
Phineas Fisher, a Known Hacker, is Offering $100,000 to Fellow Cybercriminals to Attack Halliburton

Phineas Fisher, a well-known hacker that has always preferred to operate under anonymity, has stated that he will pay $100,000 worth of crypto assets to cybercriminals that prove capable of leaking compromising and damaging data about some of the most prominent companies in the planet.

According to a Vice report in the past few days, the bounty is dubbed the “Hacktivist Bug Hunting Program” and was published on November 15. Among the targets are Halliburton, an influential firm in the oil industry, and NSO Group, a spyware provider from Israel.

The intention behind the “initiative” is to compensate cybercriminals that can promote politically motivated attacks against specific companies, per the report. The situation would result in the revelation of highly sensitive documents that are the object of public interest. Among the reported targets are, besides the companies already mentioned, mining and livestock firms based in South America.

Payments in Bitcoin and Monero

In an alleged manifesto that became public over the weekend, Phineas Fisher offered to pay the cybercriminals in crypto assets such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR,) a coin with a focus on privacy.

It is not yet clear whether Phineas Fisher is a person or a hacking association because he has never been spotted or identified. According to the published report, the cybercriminal explained:

“Hacking to obtain and leak documents with public interest is one of the best ways for hackers to use their abilities to benefit society […] I’m not trying to make anyone rich. I’m just trying to provide enough funds so that hackers can make a decent living doing a good job.”

Fisher’s identity has never been associated with any individual or group, even when it was in the middle of an investigation involving the ever-famous Hacking Team hack: back in 2015, Phineas Fisher managed to take over the Hacking Team servers.

Hacking Team is a company based in Europe, more specifically in Italy, that is known around the industry for offering hacking and surveillance resources in the form of software to police and other organizations. Phineas Fisher hacked them and revealed the firm’s secrets in a torrent file that had all kinds of information, from files, emails, addressed, and even source code.

A Complete Investigation Proved Unsuccessful

The authorities looked over the matter and proceeded to perform a thorough investigation to reveal the identity of the individual or group behind the Phineas Fisher pseudonym, but every attempt was unsuccessful.

At the same time that Phineas Fisher announced the bounty and has remained under anonymity for five years now, the anonymous label of hacktivism is becoming worrisome for countries up to this point. As Andrew Thompson, an executive from the FireEye cybersecurity company, said, he has “zero percent trust in anything portrayed as hacktivism, which is anonymous.”

Just a few days ago, an anonymous institution named Unknown Fund announced its intentions of donating a whopping $75 million worth of Bitcoin to help startups focused on privacy, anonymity, and data protection.

By Andres Chavez

NBA Basketball Team Executive Says Fans Stopped Spending Bitcoin when Prices Went up

Andres Chavez
-
0
NBA Basketball Team Executive Says Fans Stopped Spending Bitcoin when Prices Went up

It is no secret that Bitcoin has reached the stage in which most of us can say for sure that it has an enormous influence on the world and people’s everyday interactions. However, what we often overlook is how influential it has been for the last few years, not just now. Cryptocurrencies and their price swings can have a direct impact on commerce.

That is the experience of the Sacramento Kings, a franchise in the National Basketball Association, or NBA, the world’s most renowned professional basketball league. The team spearheaded payments with crypto and Bitcoin for merchandise since 2014, and through its Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Ryan Montoya, has revealed some of the details.

Montoya offered his remarks to Front Office Sports in the middle of the week. Among other things, he explained that “people from all over the world were buying Kings jerseys, tickets, different Kings gear. They were super excited that this team was accepting Bitcoin […] We even put a Bitcoin ATM in the arena. Then the Bitcoin price went up to $1,200 and they quit spending the Bitcoin.”

Back in 2014

According to the team executive, back when the club launched the BTC payments initiative in 2014, the asset was valued at $800, which is almost ten times less than what it is worth at the time of writing this piece.

Yet, Montoya and the team are filled with optimism regarding the people’s use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general despite any fluctuations in the price. BTC’s appreciation may make it less enticing to complete purchases with the asset, but despite that, the team remains committed and heavily involved in crypto and blockchain affairs.

For starters, the Sacramento Kings mine Bitcoin in its data center, according to reports. Also, this year they came up with a blockchain reward system, thanks to a strategic alliance with the Blockparty company. Montoya stated that “we have a very tech-savvy ownership group and innovation is a given; it’s part of our DNA.”

People continue to use crypto to pay for important things and services when it comes to the team. For example, those that hold seasonal tickets still use BTC to pay for them, per information provided by Montoya. Also, the Kings want to integrate blockchain across its ecosystem because it believes it has the potential to decrease friction for fan engagement.

Educational Purposes

Montoya said that the Sacramento Kings mining facility was set up for educational purposes, mostly. In fact, it is part of the MiningForGood community program, promoting the development of the local workforce.

“We utilize that to engage the community and teach the youth about STEM education and the importance of blockchain. Students of Sacramento should not be exposed to it 10 years from now, they should understand now that it’s a cool piece of technology and powering these things in the arena,” were Montoya’s words.

Not only are the Kings heavily engaged with blockchain technology, but they are also deep into crypto. For instance, they joined forces with CryptoKaiju and tested the waters of the crypto-collectibles world, also running interactive scavenger hunts for fans. They can earn Kaiju collectibles that go hand in hand with other benefits, such as courtside seats and VIP tours, for example.

By Andres Chavez

All-Time Highs Reached by Use of ERC-721 Tokens for New Game in Ethereum

Willmen Blanco
-
0
All-Time Highs Reached by Use of ERC-721 Tokens for New Game in Ethereum

ERC-721 tokens register a volume of almost 500,000 transfers per day. The popularity of this type of tokens emerged in 2017 with the game CryptoKitties.

The 25th report of the cryptocurrency data analysis company Coin Metrics shows in detail that Ethereum tokens are increasingly exceeding market capitalization. In fact, the ERC-721 standard, particularly useful for creating digital collectibles, is enjoying great popularity, driven by the Gods Unchained card game.

The study, published on November 12th, shows data showing that the activity of the Gods Unchained collectible card game increased considerably, recording a volume of nearly 500,000 daily transfers of its non-fungible tokens (NFT), at the end the week from November 4th to 8th. This record is five times higher than the one reached by CryptoKitties at the end of 2017 when it was booming.

Gods Unchained is just one example of many blockchain-based games with non-fungible tokens (NFT) that are now being developed. NFT, which are tokens that are not consumed, unlike ERC20, are being used in applications such as Ethereum Name Service and virtual worlds such as Decentraland.

Although it is still early, the data analysis firm suggests that Gods Unchained might soon become an example of the actual use of tokens in games. Each one of its cards is represented by an ERC-721 token, which indicates that users really own their cards and can freely exchange them in the market, similarly to what is done with cryptocurrencies.

Considering that players own assets, they cannot be censored, which the Coin Metrics report highlights by including a recent event related to its competitor Blizzard, developer of titles such as World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, who was involved in an event last month.

Smart Exit of Gods Unchained

The figures of Gods Unchained have been on the rise since it managed to capitalize on Blizzard’s decision to veto Hearthstone professional player from Hong Kong, Chung Ng Wai (also known as Blitzchung), after he had publicly requested freedom for Hong Kong, due to a series of popular protests that started in March, when the government of that country announced a series of measures to have greater control over government entities and citizens.

After Blitzchung’s public demonstration in favor of the protests in his country, Blizzard published a statement announcing the veto to the player for a year, as well as blocking his earnings until then (almost USD 10,000), which he was later reimbursed.

Blizzard’s veto imposed on Blitzchung caused a stir. Reddit users expressed their distaste for the situation, but the moderators of the company’s subreddit marked the thread as private. However, the measure made the situation that moved to Twitter worse, positioning Blizzard as a global trend. Then, several players organized a boycott against the company and even founded the protest group Gamers for Freedom.

Amid all this, Gods Unchained published a tweet in which it stated that Hearthstone cared more about money than freedom. They offered to pay all lost earnings to the player banned by Blizzard, as well as a free ticket to a Gods tournament. Subsequently, Gods Unchained announced that all its Genesis card packages, which have a total value of 33,333 ETH, equivalent to about USD 6.2 million, were sold.

Concerning the event, Coin Metrics observes how in the Blizzard game Hearthstone, as well as in CryptoKitties, players have considerably less control of their assets, than those of Gods Unchained, due to centralization.

By Willmen Blanco

1...1,4421,4431,444...1,654Page 1,443 of 1,654