Bitcoin Surpasses the $5,500 Mark from the First Time since Last November

Andres Chavez
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Bitcoin Surpasses the $5,500 Mark from the First Time since Last November

After months of a brutally cold market that filled the industry with fear and uncertainty, it looks like Bitcoin is officially back from its extended break, so to speak. Investors and traders have ramped up the activity in the past few days and; the world’s premier cryptocurrency surpassed yet another obstacle in its recovery: the $5,500 threshold.

In fact, BTC has been gaining value for several days now and, at the moment of writing this piece; it was exchanging hands at precisely $5,619.68, which is a 2.08 % improvement over the last 24 hours. Bitcoin’s total market cap remains steady at $99,253,018,596, with $15,497,278,559 worth of BTC traded in the last 24 hours at the moment of writing this article, and a total supply of 17,662,000 BTC.

Reaching a Five-Month High

BTC’s long journey to price recovery, then, brought the coin to the $5,500 mark for the first time in more than five months. Not so long ago, the planet’s most valuable crypto asset was hovering around $6,000 and $6,500, and prior to Bitcoin Cash’s November 15th hard fork, it started to fall precipitously.

Starting on November 14th, BTC initiated a downward turn that took its value from the aforementioned number to less than $3,200 in a matter of weeks. Hundreds of investors, business, companies, and other actors within the community felt the effects of the crypto bear market that extended for months.

It should also be highlighted that BTC was once worth almost $20,000: December 2017 was the moment in which an unexpected surge initiated, with a mid-January climax that surpassed the $19,000 mark. From there, the coin alternated moments of stability with price falls, but had been over $6,000 for several weeks before the November 2018 events took place.

Breaking through the Latest Slump

In fact, Bitcoin reached a high of $5,650 for a brief period on April 23rd, at approximately 4:00 UTC, which is its highest value since last year’s November 18th. At that point, BTC’s market cap also reached its highest point since November, with $96.9 billion.

Brian Kelly, a known crypto personality and noted entrepreneur, stated in the past few days (before the latest surge) on CNBC’s “Futures Now that “probably a reasonable target is close to $6,000 for this move.” It seems that the asset is trending in the right direction.

Consolidating Its Dominance Rate

Bitcoin’s percentage of the total cryptocurrency market also went up. The indicator, known around the industry as “dominance rate,” was at 53.2 % at the moment of writing this article, according to the always reliable CoinMarketCap.

The cryptocurrency data platform also reported that most of the tokens ranked in the top 10 by market cap showed price gains, in most cases, over two percentage points. Cardano (ADA,) which surged 9.71% on the last day, was one of the best performers on April 23rd.

The industry as a whole continues to grow. The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies rose to $184.3 billion, with an increment of 6.3 billion during the last 24 hours. However, there is still work to be done, as the all-time high stands at $835 billion, reached on January 7th, 2018.

By: Andres Chavez

Amazon Customers Can Buy with Bitcoin through an Extension for Internet Browsers

Maria Rodríguez
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Amazon Customers Can Buy with Bitcoin through an Extension for Internet Browsers

The extension will process purchases on the virtual store platform, converting cryptocurrencies into fiduciary money

Now, there is a tool which allows paying for products on Amazon with bitcoins. The news was released this week. According to specialized media reviews, it is a new extension for some web browsers, which will serve as a platform to process the payment.

The new tool is called Moon, and it works as an extension that can be attached to the browser of Google Chrome, Opera or Brave. When it is installed, the application will allow processing the payment directly from a digital wallet to the products selected for purchase in the virtual store.

During an informative interview, Amazon representatives explain that the company does not directly accept any cryptocurrency as a payment method, as well as it is explained in detail that the transaction in the virtual store platform does not specify the acceptance of this payment method.

In this sense, the application works through a financial institution which supports the conversion of bitcoin into conventional money, so it is not necessary for Amazon to have an alliance with Moon’s developers.

The CEO of Moon, Ken Kruger, detailed the procedure that the application performs to complete the transaction. “The extension will open a QR code and also, the extension will have the lightning bill that the user could copy and paste, if he cannot use the QR code for any reason. Users can pay with their favorite lightning wallet”, he said.

During the interview, Kruger did not want to reveal the name of the financial institution that will conduct the conversion of cryptocurrencies into fiduciary money, defending the confidentiality of that institution.

In another sense, it is known that in the official website of the Moon application, it is specified that the tool works as a solution to make purchases online. In this way, it is a method to process payments easily and without too many complications. Its page has a catalog of compatible cryptocurrencies, in order to explain the process to new users. Among these cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin, Ether, and others.

Similarly, it is important to clarify that the procedure can be done in two different ways: The client can use the Lightning Network platform to complete the purchase or associate the Coinbase exchanges account.

Moon Gets Expand

Kruger said that, at the moment, the extension to process cryptocurrency payments during online purchases is only available to Amazon customers. However, he said that the company is developing a possible update that will allow, in the near future, to make purchases on other platforms such as eBay or Target, using this method.

The novelty of the tool is to offer crypto-clients the possibility of using conventional shopping platforms through applications of easy access. About this point, Kruger commented that the company is in the process of evaluating the behavior of its clients, as well as their reception.

“There are many opportunities to help solve some of those usability problems and get people into the Lightning network and increase the adoption in that way. We are going to get involved with other people in the Lightning community, in order to see what people are doing, what they are working on and if there are significant gaps”, he concluded.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Beijing Opens Notary Office with a Blockchain System

Maria Rodríguez
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Beijing Opens Notary Office with a Blockchain System

The intention is to enable more offices and use blockchain technology for the registration of legal documents, as well as to improve processes and increase the confidence of its citizens through the notary system in the near future

Beijing finally opened its first legal office that will be certified for notarization of documents based on a blockchain technology system. This is a new advance for the Asian city and the projects made with distributed accounting technology.

The activities began with high expectations in the public notary of that region and it is expected that legal documents can be processed and registered in a blockchain database from the moment of opening, allowing for greater fidelity in the safekeeping of legal contracts, birth certificates, among others.

During the official launch, the Director of the office, Wang Mingliang, expressed that developers are very excited to take this leap to the certification of legal documents through blockchain technology. In addition, he assured that with this new mechanism to register the documents through blockchain technology, the user would expend the same value as registering the documents in a conventional way; even using blockchain would be cheaper.

According to Mingliang, this alternative offers advantages and facilities that only new technologies can offer. “Blockchain technology is essentially a highly credible data and computing technology which solves the problem of trust and cost in the asymmetry of information and uncertain environments”, Mingliang said.

To confirm this point of view, the Professor of the Business School at the University of Political Science and Law of China, Hu Jiyu, added that these new technologies can improve all the registration processes, besides reducing important costs with high security. Stability and efficiency make these new processes revolutionize the way to store important legal and financial data in the near future.

According to information offered by users who have already certified their documents, the new notarization system will allow the certification holder to review the document in detail by directly scanning the document, using a code provided to be decoded with a reading tool. This means that this tool, which is supported by a blockchain system, directly avoids falsifying documents and denying relevant data to scammers.

More Trust in Chinese Notaries

The number of scams and counterfeiting of documents is relatively high in the Asian city, so Mingliang believes that launching this new blockchain system in the city’s notaries could generate greater trust among citizens and public registry institutions, which is a very important solution. For this reason, Mingliang thinks that “through the dual credit enhancement function of national credibility + technical confidence” It would be an advance in this area.

This is just one of the many projects of this nature that have developed the Asian country. According to reports from Chinese media, the country leads, with 25%, the list worldwide of the countries with more projects related to blockchain technology. These data close the figure with 263 projects in development or already applied in the region.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Blockchain Intelligence Firm Chainalysis Will Monitor Transactions of 10 Cryptocurrencies

Maria Rodríguez
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Blockchain Intelligence Firm Chainalysis Will Monitor Transactions of 10 Cryptocurrencies

The company seeks to serve the users of four other cryptoactives: Tether (USDT), Gemini Dollar (GUSD), USD Coin (USDC), and the Binance Coin token (BNB)

With the appearance of new cryptocurrencies after the birth of Bitcoin, different wallets have been created, ATMs, but also monitoring systems that increasingly adopt more cryptoactive to respond to the users who prefer one cryptoactive or another.

The developments and monitoring work continue. For that reason, Chainalysis, the blockchain firm located in New York, United States, decided to expand its real-time transaction monitoring tools to cover a total of 10 cryptocurrencies, according to what the Reuters news agency reported on April 24th.

Chainalysis is a qualified company with the highest profile in the blockchain intelligence industry. One of the peculiarities it provides in terms of innovative technology is its patented tool Know Your Transaction (KYT), which allows companies, governments, and law enforcement agencies to track the flow of cryptocurrencies that are registered on the blockchain platform.

In addition, with Chainalysis, suspicions of illicit transactions can be traced, helping to uncover money laundering or terrorist financing. In order to make it possible, at the end of 2018 Chainalysis partnered with the Binance global exchange.

Secure Automation

Recently, the firm issued a statement in which it emphasizes that expanding its monitoring tools is a step towards the global cryptocurrency regulatory guide. This regulatory guide, that some users expect, would request companies such as cryptocurrency exchanges and financial institutions to automate the monitoring process of blockchain transactions with their respective cryptocurrencies.

From now on, KYT users can monitor four more cryptocurrencies in real time, including three stablecoins, Tether (USDT), Gemini Dollar (GUSD) and USD Coin (USDC), as well as the Binance Coin token (BNB).

Initially, the company monitored bitcoins (BTC), but last year this company started monitoring with the support of KYT for Ethereum (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Trueusd (TUSD) and standard Paxos (PA).

“We have been investing over the last year to redesign our entire platform. We want it to be compatible with multiple blockchains, to face global regulation. The global regulation of the cryptocurrency industry is inevitable for this truly borderless financial system to achieve a generalized adoption”, the Director of Operations and Co-founder of Chainalysis, Jonathan Levin, says.

Accusation against Chainalysis

Chainalysis issued an official statement in March of this year to clarify that when it provides its services to cryptocurrency exchanges it does not collect or sell personal data of the users who conducted the transactions.

This statement was made after other blockchain intelligence firms accused Chainalysis of circulating their clients’ data. These rumors emerged after Coinbase acquired the blockchain analysis firm Neutrino. Elliptic, a blockchain analysis firm based in London that provides technology to Coinbase, denied these allegations.

In February, Chainalysis raised USD 30 million in a Series B financing round led by the capital risk giant Accel. In addition, this month it got another USD 6 million for the round of the main Japanese investors Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and the capital risk firm Sozo Ventures. Chainalysis’ interest in crypto investments continues, as well as the expansion of the tools it offers.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Samsung Plans to Launch Its Own Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Platform

Maria Rodríguez
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Samsung Plans to Launch Its Own Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Platform

The network would be public-private to conduct both users’ and internal processes. This company has its own team dedicated to design developments related to distributed accounting technology

Samsung, the multinational company located in South Korea, not only now supports Dapps (decentralized applications). It is also developing its own blockchain, which would be public-private, and even considers issuing its own cryptocurrency.

According to workers and people “familiar with the internal situation of Samsung”, the blockchain work team of this electronic company is building a network based on the Ethereum blockchain (ETH). This initiative comes from the division dedicated to the blockchain sector of the company. However, the project is still in the stage called “internal experimental”.

Currently, the company plans to design a private blockchain network, although the representatives of the corporation are not decided so far about this point. In this project, the multinational also plans to create a chain of public blocks in the near future, and even to give shape to a hybrid network, that is, to combine the public chains of blocks, where users will access, with a private chain of blocks, in order to execute internal processes.

By completing these steps and finalizing its own blockchain platform, the South Korean giant could finally launch its own token, which would be called “Samsung Coin”, according to workers. This launch would take place possibly after the launch of the blockchain platform and when the company’s managers decide it.

The reason why they would follow this order to launch the platform is due to when the development of the blockchain is completed, the different exchange houses will be able to market the Samsung Coin, in the respective moment. Also, among the considerations of the Samsung workers is that the new cryptoactive complements the payment application of Samsung, Samsung Pay.

The implementation of a new cryptoactive and a blockchain platform for Samsung is another step in the path of adoption of distributed accounting technology and cryptography. Recently, this company launched the new smartphone Samsung Galaxy S 10, which includes a wallet for cryptoactives, but only supports Ethereum (ETH) and tokens based on Ethereum, so that users cannot store cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Currently, Samsung S10 supports four Dapps: The Ethereum Enjin gaming app, a beauty app called Cosmee, the CryptoKitties collectibles, and a BitPay service called CoinDuck.

Last week, the company participated in a USD 4 million investment round in the ZenGo wallet application for smartphones. With this action, Samsung demonstrated that it believes in the profitability and future of this emerging technology.

In addition, the company’s IT arm, Samsung SDS, has partnered with the Indian Giant Tech Mahindra, a multinational information technology provider. The aim is to strengthen the use of Samsung’s Nexledger blockchain security platform, especially in the United States, India and different regions of Europe.

This platform has been used in fields such as finance, manufacturing, logistics and other areas, so developments based on blockchain technology are just beginning.

The news, although it is not officially confirmed, occurs whilst Samsung continues its incursions into the world of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

By María Victoria Rodríguez

Japanese Watchdog Investigates Huobi Japan and Fisco Exchanges to Ensure Compliance

Andres Chavez
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Japanese Watchdog Investigates Huobi Japan and Fisco Exchanges to Ensure Compliance

Japanese financial watchdog, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) has made a priority of investigating two of the country’s most famous cryptocurrency exchanges: Huobi Japan and Fisco, as a procedure that followed a change of regime in both of them.

According to a report coming from international news agency Reuters, which cited two sources familiar with the matter, stated that the FSA made a visit to the two crypto trading platforms with the intention of reviewing their customer protection and anti-money laundering (AML) provisions.

Significant Changes in Management Structure

Both exchanges had endured significant alterations when it comes to the management positions, so the FSA investigation wanted to make sure that the two companies comply adequately with the watchdog’s regulations, per the sources.

The Huobi Group, originally from fellow Asian country China but with headquarters in Singapore, recently expanded its trading services to Japanese soil, when it completed the purchase of BitTrade, a licensed crypto exchange, in the month of September 2018.

Meanwhile, Fisco recently acquired the well-known Zaif platform, which was administrated by Tech Bureau in the past. Zaif suffered one of the most painful crypto hacks in recent memory, when it lost more than $60 million worth of Bitcoin (BTC,) Bitcoin Cash (BCH,) and Monacoin (MONA.)

A devastating Crypto Hacking Attack

After the devastating hacking event took place in September 2018, Tech Bureau decided that it had enough and opted to sell the business to Fisco, for a sum that hovered around the $44.7 million.

Since the event, the platform suspended new registrations, while performing critical operations with MONA (including trading, depositing, and withdrawing) had been paused. The last week, the ownership transfer to Fisco was completed, with the full catalog of services being officially active as of Tuesday, April 23rd.

Japan is among the worldwide leaders in Bitcoin adoption and use. In fact, it is one of the few nations that has officialized BTC as a legal payment method. But it is also very strict when it comes to regulating the activity: in April 2017, it passed a bill that brought crypto exchanges under AML and know your customer (KYC) norms; whilst also requiring platforms to be fully licensed.

Ensuring the Security of Virtual Currencies

As the Reuters report notes, the FSA is “pushing to ensure the security of virtual currencies as Japan aims to leverage the fintech industry to stimulate economic growth.”

The report seemed to suggest that there were insufficiencies, but did not provide details about potential violations. “The FSA conducted detailed checks with a view to administrative setup, considering that there are insufficient points in the management systems of the two companies and their efforts to protect customers,” it said.

Neither crypto exchange has provided public comments on the matter: according to Reuters, a Huobi representative “declined to comment on the FSA inspections or communications with the regulator. Fisco did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”

By Andres Chavez

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