Craig Wright threatens to force Bitcoin.org and Bitcoin.com operators to change web domain

Willmen Blanco
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Craig Wright threatens to force Bitcoin.org and Bitcoin.com operators to change web domain

Wright’s statements are a clear indication of the programmer’s lack of knowledge of the laws applicable to copyright on the digital currency.

Craig Wright, the controversial Australian programmer claiming to be the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto’s alias, said that he held the rights over the name “Bitcoin.” Consequently, he would force the Bitcoin.org and Bitcoin.com portals to stop using those domains.

Wright’s recent statements came as a result of a discussion on Twitter with Jihan Who, one of the creators of Bitcoin Cash and founder of the Bitmain mining company. The Australian programmer said that the Bitcoin.org and Bitcoin.com domains violated copyright laws by using the name of the main digital currency. However, the real reason seems to be that such enmity is caused by the fact that those sites openly support Bitcoin Cash.

However, some critics note that such statements by Wright are simply an indication of the programmer’s lack of knowledge regarding copyright on Bitcoin, since the project operates under an MIT license and is open source, thus having very few legal restrictions.

Wright and the White Paper

When Wright first submitted the request to the US Copyright Office, the measure aroused strong opposition from Bitcoin’s community of enthusiasts. They alleged that the Australian programmer had not presented enough evidence that he was the person behind Satoshi Nakamoto’s alias.

For this reason, in protest, a group of people submitted their requests to the Copyright Office, claiming to be the authentic creators of Bitcoin’s foundational document, the White Paper.

Regarding Wright’s request, the organization released a statement to clarify that it “had accepted” the programmer as he author of that document. They said that, when the Copyright Office receives a request application, the requester generally certifies the statements made in the documents presented. They also explained that the organization “does not investigate whether there is a provable connection between the claimant and the pseudonymous author.”

Craig Wright and the Court

It appears that the possibility that Wright is conducting only causes more controversy over the reputation of the Australian programmer. It should be mentioned that he already faces strong opposition from influential members and people who make life in the ecosystem of the main digital currency.

Wright is currently facing a court trial in which Ira Kleiman accuses him of illegally appropriating assets belonging to his late brother, Dave Kleiman, who was a life partner of the Australian programmer. For the moment, it seems that the legal process will end badly for Wright as the court has found inconsistencies in the allegations and evidence presented by him. It all seems to indicate that he is trying to take credit for a job that he did not do.

In recent days, Wright has raised controversy again. He presented the founding document of Bitcoin before a reputed international scientific journal (SSRN), claiming to be the author of the White Paper and version 1.0 of the digital currency code. For the time being, the SSRN team has not accepted or rejected the request, stating that it will only check if the publication follows the research lines supported by the portal.

By Willmen Blanco

Philippines is Closer to a Definitive Adoption of Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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Philippines is Closer to a Definitive Adoption of Cryptocurrencies

The Philippines is among the countries with the highest acceptance and adoption of cryptocurrencies in the world.

Since the beginning of the operations with cryptocurrencies, many countries have found a potential risk for traditional economies in said assets. Moreover, cryptocurrencies have been a commercial ally in other nations that helps economies which face crises and deficiencies, this, as well as an alternative to innovate and improve technology platforms.

There are some governments in the world that have banned trading, mining and even owning cryptocurrencies. They argue that cryptocurrencies could destabilize internal negotiations and generate complex economic problems. However, other countries have seen the crypto-economy as a viable option to boost international marketing and ensure citizens the freedom to save money with the currency of their choice. This includes, in some cases, the modification of government laws and support.

In the case of countries like the Philippines that have opted for new commercial technologies, there have been major changes and important actions that put the Asian country as one of the nations with more acceptance of digital currencies.

An example of this is shown by the highest financial institution, as the Central Bank registers more movements and transactions with cryptocurrencies every day. Just as other state institutions have acted in concert with the industry, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission of the country that has acted strongly with everything related to the cryptocurrency business.

To deepen the actions of the crypto economy in the Philippines, it should be noted that the Philippines has been the first country in the world that has allowed its national banks to fully operate in transactions involving digital currencies. Through a circular issued by the Central Bank, in 2017, national banks are forced to register in the main registry of companies that handle transfers and remittances at the Central Bank. This will help to have complete control of transactions the of this nature since, in general, there are exchange operations between digital currencies and fiat money.

It is important to emphasize that the Philippines is one of the countries that have great advantages as it is considered a “special economic zone”, where, in this way, encryption exchange companies receive a license to operate abroad. It is known that up to now 37 licenses have been granted to exchange operators.

Luis Buenaventura, Founder of the company Bloomsolutions Inc. one of the companies related to cryptocurrencies with permission to operate in the Philippines, mentioned that the country has all the advantages to be a world power in the world of digital currencies.

“We have not only a real regulatory framework for crypto exchanges, but we are also predominantly an English-speaking population who can use the same tools and applications as the American public. Therefore, we tend to be a launching pad for new American companies looking to expand in the region”, he said.

To support the idea of ​​the definitive adoption of cryptocurrencies, Buenaventura explained that more than two million Filipinos have ever used cryptocurrencies, thus supporting the thesis that it is almost an economic fact in the country.

By María Rodríguez

Australia Will Use Blockchain ​​Technology to Protect Biodiversity

Maria Rodríguez
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Australia Will Use Blockchain ​​Technology to Protect Biodiversity

The initiative will seek to take advantage of blockchain technology to help conserve biodiversity in the oceanic country, as well as establishing “biotokens”, adapted to the central needs of cities.

Since the birth of blockchain technology, it has sought to take advantage of its multiple functionalities for different areas of daily life, whether in medicine, finance or education. Its potential has managed to solve many of the communication problems that were previously tedious and heavy to solve.

Some governments and companies have discovered that they can use blockchain technology to transmit encrypted information among their allies, in order to protect valuable data, or create administrative models for almost any area.

Many governments have established study plans for young people who are interested in this technology and want to be trained abroad. Also, said study plans are designed for those who want to form special work or research groups in order to take advantage of the technology in the best way possible.

For this reason, companies such as Commonwealt Bank of Australia have decided to bet on the development of this technology. This institution is also now in the project for environmental protection that is conducted in the country. In this way, the bank will use blockchain technology to establish a market to obtain the token and preserve the ecosystem.

The initiative will have the participation of the Government of New South Wales and the association BioDiversity Solutions Australia (BDS). A virtual market will be established where landowners in Australia will receive a token reward for helping preserve nature. The token will be launched with the platform and its name will be “biotoken”.

Landowners in Australia may offer tokens for sale on the platform, establishing a market to purchase these assets for those who are making efforts to preserve biodiversity. This action will lead to environmental projects, helping to compensate the damage that can be generated to the ecosystem. The idea will be part of the “compensation” policies promulgated by the state government from now.

All transactions could be conducted within the blockchain platform, something that makes the process safe, auditable, transparent and ecological. According to information about the project, it was informed that the creators of the initiative have thought about the expansion of the project and the growth of the market. As an example of this, they commented that the “biotoken” could be obtained by turning cities into more sustainable places, proposing ideas such as building with greener materials in the heart of the city, and similar ideas.

This project would become one of the many ecological initiatives that can take advantage of all the potential of blockchain technology, in order to improve the quality of daily life and the “health” of the planet.

This initiative demonstrates that crypto technologies not only impact the central world of finance, or education, but also helps to make positive changes in areas that seem impossible to imagine changing with the support of this kind of financial technology.

By María Rodríguez

Israeli Banking institutions Refuse to Open Accounts to Associations Related to Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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Israeli Banking institutions Refuse to Open Accounts to Associations Related to Cryptocurrencies

The refusal is due, in part, to the distrust that banking institutions have for businesses with cryptocurrencies

The issue of cryptocurrencies in Israel is uncertain. In that sense,the position of the financial system with respect to the crypto-economy is uncertain. However, recently a measure to ask questions, made during a petition to judicial bodies, requested to mark a trend with respect to the issue. But a conclusion was not reached about the attitude that banks should have towards Bitcoin.

Until now, banks in Israel have not been condescending with the crypto-industry, a faithful example of this aspect has been the actions of the Central Bank of the country, an institution that stays away of taking a position regarding the crypto world, and serves as specifically example to other commercial banks which avoid being involved with cryptocurrencies.

Laws in Israel state that the entire financial system, that is, any commercial bank, must immediately inform the Central Bank of any commercial transaction that has been rejected or denied. This is in order to avoid illegal actions. But, the bank is not required to share this transaction with the general public.

For this reason, some time ago, the Israeli Bitcoin Association requested detailed information to the Central Bank about the state policy regarding cryptocurrencies. It also asked the Central Bank its position regarding the digital business and the actions that national banks should have about these issues.

Central Bank sources refused to give details about these issues and simply limited themselves to not respond the questions. Due to the poor result, cryptocurrency enthusiasts filed a judicial appeal in order to pressure the Central Bank to take a position and provide information.

The legal advisor of the association, Jonathan Klinger, talked about the topic. Among his central statements, he focuses on how energetic and prevailing it was for his supporters to know these details.

“Under the Bank Law, it is a duty for banks to inform the Bank of Israel the policy under which they operate or reject transactions. We, therefore, contacted the Bank of Israel to request information, but the Bank of Israel did not want to disclose this policy. For this reason, we have decided to fill out a petition in court, forcing the Bank of Israel to provide us with a copy of the policy sent to it by the banks”, concluded Klinger.

It is known that the central motivation of the organization in making an important effort to know the state policies regarding cryptocurrencies is because the Association received a direct refusal from some banking institutions to have an account opened.

This happens even when the banks know that the account would not be used for the sale, purchase or storage of cryptocurrencies. For that reason, the organization assumes that this rejection is due to a part of the name of the association, which includes the word “Bitcoin”.

In Israel, these types of actions have proved to be common. In other opportunities, some companies that have had some connection with a crypto business have had trouble keeping their bank accounts active.

This is part of some kind of distrust towards cryptocurrencies that some current companies have to face.

By María Rodríguez

English Premier League Champions Manchester City Unveils Project that Tokenizes Players

Andres Chavez
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English Premier League Champions Manchester City Unveils Project that Tokenizes Players

The world is, little by little, becoming increasingly more “tokenized,” as companies and firms want to incorporate their offerings into the blockchain technology. The world is shifting to the digital platform, and even football clubs are joining the revolution, with more of them being associated to the distributed ledger, cryptocurrencies, and similar concepts.

One of the United Kingdom’s top clubs, Manchester City FC, revealed a new partnership with Asian blockchain football gaming startup Superbloke with the objective of tokenizing its own players, according to an official release by the sky blue outfit.

Expressing Fandom through the Blockchain Technology

Thanks to the new partnership, people following the team will be able to show their fandom through the blockchain technology. The terms of the agreement state that Superbloke incorporates the club’s players into its blockchain-powered soccer game FC Superstars, letting fans from all over the world to support the footballers through online gaming.

The club let the world know that Superbloke will now be its official blockchain-based Gacha partner in specific strategic locations, such as South Korea, Japan and South East Asia. FC Superstarts is a decentralized application (dApp) of collectibles, which enables fans to create, gather and grow figures of football stars and hold them in the form of digital assets.

The press release states that fans of the Manchester-based club can develop and nurture a digital team by collecting and training cards of Manchester City players, feeding from real life games and stats, offering the ultimate experience.

More Events and Collaborations

The partnership, now official and ready to roll, was first published in June by Superbloke, which launched an open beta service of the game back in April. Then, the blockchain startup revealed that there would be additional events and collaborations with the top-ranked British club.

Damian Willoughby, currently the Senior Vice president of partnerships for City Football Group, emphasized the club’s growing involvement with gaming as a way to provide fans a little bit more than going to the stadium or watching the games on televisions. They seem to always want more, and the club is ready to deliver.

“This new partnership with Superbloke marks another exciting milestone in City’s growing relationship with gaming and will create unique experiences for fans to engage with the Club through digital platforms,” he said.

“Growing Knowledge of This Developing Industry”

“We look forward to welcoming Superbloke to the Manchester City family and growing our knowledge of this developing industry,” Willoughby stated. Recently, fellow English club Leicester City announced that it would be renewing its partnership with crypto investment platform eToro.

Superbloke Chief Strategy Officer Nak-Hyoung Kim was quoted by the release as saying that “it is fantastic to cooperate with Premier League champions, Manchester City. Superbloke has a vision to use blockchain technology to help football fans so that they can permanently own players’ tokens they have collected. We expect that this partnership with Manchester City will be the first step to get closer to our vision.”

By Andres Chavez

Litecoin Difficulty Rate and Network Hash levels Dropped Significantly after its Halving

Willmen Blanco
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Litecoin Difficulty Rate and Network Hash levels Dropped Significantly after its Halving

Experts say that the new trimmed profit margin and the drop in digital currency prices threaten the profitability of mining operations, especially those that have older devices.

The difficulty rate of Litecoin (LTC), a coded measure of how difficult it is to solve the mathematical puzzles used to write blocks on the network, was reduced from 15.93 million on August 4th (one day before the halving of LTC) to 11.40 million.

According to BTC.com mining group, in addition to the difficulty rate, the hash levels on the network also decreased by 28%. This reflects a decrease in interest in Litecoin mining, which is not surprising. It should be noted that on August 4th, the halving of the network had reduced block rewards from 25 to 12.5 LTC, significantly reducing the profitability of current miners.

Fall in Difficulty Levels

The fall in mining difficulty by 28.44% is said to represent the lowest level since April 29th. Even BTC.com data estimated that it would continue to decrease by another five percent until the next adjustment date.

The Litecoin mining difficulty is designed to automatically adjust every 2,016 blocks, approximately every 4 days, to ensure that the block production interval remains approximately 2.5 minutes, according to the average hashing power in the current cycle.

Hashing Power

The average 4-day hashing power on the Litecoin network also decreased from 456 TH/s recorded on August 4th to 326 TH/s by August 22nd, when the last difficulty adjustment occurred (representing a drop of 28%).

The data for the distribution of the hash rate within three days indicate that the miners currently connected to the Poolin group represent 23% of the total computing power of the network, followed by those connected to Bitmain’s F2pool and Antpool.

F2pool data show that the most profitable miners on the Litecoin network, manufactured by InnoSilicon and FusionSilicon, now have a return of between 10% and 20%, since the price of LTC has dropped from US $93 to US $74.83 by the time of writing this note.

If LTC Continues Being Mined

According to CoinDesk, and assuming that the electricity needed to power the miners costs US $0.04 per kWh, it is estimated that these models generate a daily profit between US $0.20 and US $0.50. At the current price of the LTC, older mining equipment such as Bitmain’s AntMiner L3 and L3 + would earn just over US $0.01 per day, according to the F2pool index.

Actually, the figures indicate that many miners, which work to support the Litecoin (LTC) block network and compete for rewards, disconnected their machines after the recent halving.

In any case, there is no certainty about whether this fact is leading the cryptocurrency to continue falling in price, although some studies indicated that it would not.

A recent research by Strix Leviathan said that Bitcoin and Litecoin prices would not be affected by halving. Regarding this, the researchers indicated that these updates do not usually have a significant impact on or against the value of such cryptocurrencies.

By Willmen Blanco

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