The intersection of digital money and traditional finance is at 400 South LaSalle Street in Chicago this weekend. That’s where trading in bitcoin futures opens Sunday evening, as the first major U.S. exchange offers a product pegged to the wildly fluctuating cryptocurrency.

The currency has risen more than 1,500 percent this year, and about 85 percent just in the past two weeks, driven largely by demand from individual investors. But even as bitcoin — launched in 2009 as an alternative to banks — divides Wall Street executives and central bankers worldwide, those kinds of gains are a powerful magnet.

The futures offered by Cboe Global Markets Inc., and similar contracts that start trading in a week at at another Chicago-based exchange, CME Group Inc., may open the door to greater inflows of institutional money, while also making it easier to bet on bitcoin’s decline. Either way, it’s likely trading will start slowly, said Mike Novogratz, chief executive officer of Galaxy Investment Partners, which is raising a crypto hedge fund targeted at $500 million.

“If people have expectations that it’s going to have huge liquidity on day one, they’re just wrong,” Novogratz said Thursday in Toronto. “It’s going to take a while to build liquidity. People need to go through at least one cycle to figure out how it settles.”

Derivatives trading is the culmination of a wild year for bitcoin, which captured imaginations and investment around the world, propelled by its stratospheric gains, and its anti-establishment mission as a currency without the backing of a government or a central bank, and a payment system without a reliance on banks. The derivatives contracts should thrust bitcoin more squarely into the realm of regulators, banks and institutional investors. In addition to the contracts at Cboe and CME, which will start trading Dec. 18, Cantor Fitzgerald LP won approval from regulators to trade binary options, and LedgerX, a startup exchange, already trades bitcoin options.

“There will be a ramp-up time,” said Ari Paul, chief investment officer of Blocktower Capital Advisors LP. “There just isn’t a rush. The professional traders will mostly be looking to do arbitrage, between the futures and bitcoin itself. I don’t expect massive money flows right away but then I expect gradual buying from people who want passive exposure” without buying bitcoin directly.

The two exchanges on Dec. 1 got permission to offer the contracts after pledging to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission that the products don’t run afoul of the law, in a process called self-certification.

“Derivatives should have the effect of bringing a deeper liquidity to the market which should reduce volatility,” said Alistair Milne, chief investment officer and co-founder of Altana Digital Currency Fund that is based in Monaco. “As the whole cryptocurrency economy gets bigger the volatility should reduce.”

But not everyone is convinced it’s a good idea. On Dec. 6, the Futures Industry Association — a group of major banks, brokers and traders — said the contracts were rushed without enough consideration of the risks. Last month, Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire chairman of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., wrote an open letter to CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, arguing that bitcoin’s large price swings mean its futures contracts shouldn’t be allowed on platforms that clear other derivatives.

Still, Interactive Brokers will offer its customers access to the futures, though with greater restrictions. They won’t be able to go short — betting that prices will decline — and Interactive’s margin requirement, or how much investors have to set aside as collateral, will be at least 50 percent. That’s higher than either Cboe’s or CME’s margin requirements.

Cboe’s futures are cash-settled and based on the Gemini auction price for bitcoin in U.S. dollars. The exchange plans to impose trading limits to curb volatility, halting trading for two minutes if prices rise or fall 10 percent, and a five-minute halt kicks in at 20 percent. Margins for Cboe bitcoin futures, which will be cleared by Options Clearing Corp., will be at 40 percent or higher.

Cboe’s futures market is a niche player in derivatives trading, which could limit how many contracts change hands in the initial days. Fueled by contracts on the VIX, the Cboe Futures Exchange handled 56 million contracts during the first three quarters of 2017, according to data compiled by the Futures Industry Association, the industry’s trade and lobbying group. CME traded 3.1 billion contracts in the same period.

Some traders also will prefer CME contracts over Cboe’s because they’re based off four exchanges, instead of just one, reducing risk of disruptions because of outages, attacks or price manipulations.

The smaller Cboe does have an advantage over CME Group, however, because it’s a major player in stock and equity options trading, giving it access to broker-dealers and investors who may not trade on CME.

http://fortune.com/2017/12/09/bitcoin-mainstream-finance/

According to RT, analysts expect the number of bitcoin users to reach 200 million by 2024, within the next seven years, given the current exponential growth rate of bitcoin.

5 Million Unique Users in March

A Cambridge study conducted by Dr. Garrick Hileman and Michel Rauchs in March of 2017 revealed that the number of active users of bitcoin wallets was in the range of 2.9 million and 5.8 million.

However, since then, proportional to the market valuation and price of bitcoin, the cryptocurrency’s user base has grown at a rapid rate. Coinbase alone, the global market’s largest bitcoin brokerage and wallet platform, serves more than 13 million active users. In November alone, Coinbase recorded 1.2 million users.

Major regional bitcoin exchanges such as Japan’s Bitflyer and South Korea’s Bithumb also have nearly one million users on each platform.

If the hot wallets or bitcoin addresses on bitcoin exchanges are included, the number of unique bitcoin users is likely over 10 million.

Driving Factors of Bitcoin Mainstream Adoption

Essentially, with 200 million active users, bitcoin will penetrate the mainstream market, and the vast majority of investors and casual consumers will embrace bitcoin as a robust store of value and a digital currency.

The listing of bitcoin futures by CBOE and CME in mid-December will drive adoption of bitcoin in the traditional finance market, amongst large-scale institutional investors, retail traders, hedge funds, and investment firms. As tens of billions of institutional money move into the bitcoin market, casual consumers and investors will follow, creating a domino effect.

Then, more financial institutions, financial service providers, and fintech platforms will begin providing services around bitcoin, improving the usability and liquidity of bitcoin. Already, in November, massively popular and widely utilized fintech application Square integrated bitcoin, allowing users to store, purchase, or sell bitcoin.

Shinhan, the second largest commercial bank in South Korea and an influential financial institution within the local finance industry, has begun the testing phase of its bitcoin vault and wallet services, as CCN reported.

“Shinhan is testing a virtual bitcoin vault platform wherein the private keys of bitcoin addresses and wallets are managed and issued by the bank. The bank intends to provide the vault service for free and charge a fee for withdrawals,” said a Shinhan representative."

Lastly, as bitcoin solidifies itself as the leading global store of value, an increasing number of unique and active users will begin utilizing the cryptocurrency as a day-to-day currency and a replacement of fiat currencies.

However, for users to embrace bitcoin as an alternative to fiat currencies, the underlying scaling issues of the Bitcoin blockchain network must be solved. Through second-layer infrastructures such as Lightning, in the long-term, bitcoin users and businesses will be able to process micropayments, or transactions with substantially lower fees, to settle payments for goods and services.

Once bitcoin service providers and exchanges integrate Lightning and other potential second-layer scaling solutions, more users will be able to utilize bitcoin to settle small payments as well as large payments, with the former being processed on Lightning channels and the latter on-chain, with higher fees.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/exponential-growth-number-bitcoin-users-reach-200-million-2024/

Stop feel sorry for lost opportunities, be a man, you had that chance to hold your tokens, but you decided to sell them at a convenient price. If you were rich man, no problem, just hold you tokens and get your profit from one or another. But we must be flexible, to pay our bills. Good strategy on my opinion would be sell half of your bounty tokens and "hold" the rest to the end.

The average citizen in many Latin American countries has turned to Bitcoin in order to survive, and now many wealthy families are becoming a believer in the cryptocurrency and are buying as much as they can.

The economic situation in many Latin American countries is extremely dire. Hyperinflation has hit Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil, with some countries in worse shape than others (Venezuela). Many normal residents began to turn to Bitcoin when the economic situation began to hit rock bottom. Now it seems that the upper echelons of Latin American society have taken note as many wealthy families are now diving enthusiastically into Bitcoin.

A land of upheaval

Venezuela has served as ground zero for the economic crisis in Latin America. The situation is so desperate that many turned to crypto mining in order to buy the basic necessities, such as food and medicine. A shocking stat is that a full 3/4th of the country lost weight last year due to food shortages. Despite government crackdowns, the local population continues to actively trade in cryptocurrency, with Localbitcoins serving as the main hub.

The elites of Latin America have not proven immune to the economic situation. Wealthy families are now buying big into Bitcoin as a means to protect their assets from currency controls and rising consumer prices. Several cryptocurrency funds have opened up in 2017 to provide service to this elite clientele.

One of these funds is Solidus Capital, founded by Carlos Mosquera Benatuil, who fled to Rome from Venezuela to open the business. He says that family offices make up most of the funds, who are looking to turn around their fortunes. He says:

"Latin America is very volatile. Cryptos are turning into a new haven for these families."

Continue reading >>> http://bitcoinist.com/wealthy-families-latin-america-snapping-bitcoin/

CNBC on Wednesday ran a segment claiming bitcoin is a bubble. The segment began showing CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer calling bitcoin “monopoly money” and saying that investing in it is “pure gambling.” Cramer said gamblers would be better off in Las Vegas than investing in bitcoin.


Bitcoin’s Place In History’s Bubble

After running clips of financial experts denigrating bitcoin, the CNBC segment compared bitcoin to the tulip bubble of the 1600s, the Mississippi bubble, the South Sea bubble, the tech bubble, the financial crisis, Japanese stocks, the Great Depression and the S&P 500 today. The chart compared the multiple starting prices for each of these bubbles, then noted bitcoin’s multiple is approaching that of the greatest bubble in history, the tulip bubble.

The segment cited the following signs of a bubble that bitcoin exhibits: rapid pace movements, a lot of speculation without a lot of understanding of the risks, and a lot of non-traditional investors jumping in.

The narrator compared the bitcoin futures being launched by Cboe, the CME Group and Nasdaq to a move the Dutch made prior to the tulip bubble crash.

‘Unexplainable Highs’

“For every asset bubble, it’s the same story; otherwise level-headed people drive prices for a certain asset to unexplainable highs, whether that’s the price of beanie babies, stocks, houses, or perhaps cryptocurrency,” the narrator stated.

Bitcoin, since its inception, has increased almost 50-fold, the segment noted. If it maintains that growth rate, it will eclipse the U.S. economy in a few years. Where other assets yield returns of some sort, bitcoin has no intrinsic value, and generates no income besides an expectation of further price increases, the narrator said.

“It’s valuable because people think it’s valuable.”

“Bitcoin has gone parabolic, so that usually does not end well,” an expert named Cashin stated. Bitcoin’s price has gone “parabolic,” and such bubbles don’t last, the segment concluded.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/cnbc-segment-warns-bitcoin-could-be-greatest-bubble-ever/

Yahoo co-founder believes digital currencies will play a significant role in the future of society, even though bitcoin isn’t “quite there yet”.

Speaking at the sidelines of the Fortune Global Forum in China, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang drew parallels to bitcoin’s volatility and technology stocks from the “early days of the internet”. Refreshingly, the early internet pioneer opted to speak about bitcoin as a currency rather than the go-to narrative of its value at a time when bitcoin price struck a new all-time high of $15,000 today.

“Bitcoin as a digital currency is not quite there yet,” he told CNBC. “People are not using it to transact. People are using it as an investable asset.”

Notably, he added:

"I personally am a believer in where digital currency can play a role in our society. Especially in, not only the front end of doing transactions but also in the backend of creating a much more efficient system and a much more verifiable system."

Yang’s remarks about digital currencies like bitcoin ring a similar tune to those offered by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who sees bitcoin as a cryptocurrency that is “more genuine and real” than the U.S. dollar and superior to gold as a store of value.

“But for now,” Yang added, “it seems like [bitcoin] is more driven by the hype of investing and getting a return rather than using it as transactional currency.”

The technologists’ opinions on bitcoin are in marked contrast, however, to that of JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon who labelled bitcoin a ‘fraud’ recently. A noted bitcoin skeptic, Dimon has previously said bitcoin “is worth nothing” in 2015, at a time when bitcoin was trading under $300. Yesterday, bitcoin’s soaring price helped propel the entire cryptocurrency market cap ahead of JPMorgan’s $360 billion.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/yahoo-co-founder-jerry-yang-believer-bitcoin-currency/

Regulators in South Korea have reportedly banned the trade of futures contracts and other derivatives tied to bitcoin.

According to a Dec. 6 report from the Korea Herald, directives from the country's Financial Services Commission led securities firms such as eBest Investment & Securities and Shinhan Financial Investment to cancel seminars marketed towards bitcoin futures investors. Those seminars were reportedly set to take place early next week.

Investments in derivatives developed by foreign exchanges are also banned, the newspaper further said Wednesday.

The reported ban comes less than two weeks after the Financial Supervisory Services's chief, Choe Heung-sik, said the regulator would not be regulating bitcoin trades, noting that the nation considers bitcoin as a speculative product rather than a currency or payment method.

It's also a notable development given the move by some exchanges in the U.S. to develop such products, including CME Group and CBOE. CBOE is expected to begin trading its bitcoin future on Sunday, with CME moving to officially tee off their own the week after.

CME chairman emeritus Leo Melamed previously argued launching futures contracts could help regulate bitcoin’s price, though some quarters of the industry have strongly pushed back against the concept.

In an open letter addressed to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and published yesterday, the FIA industry trade group expressed its members' concerns over the pending launches, as well as the process that led to their approval.

"A public discussion should have been had on whether a separate guarantee fund for this product was appropriate or whether exchanges put additional capital in front of the clearing member guarantee fund," wrote Walt Lukken, the group's chief executive.

https://www.coindesk.com/report-bitcoin-derivatives-banned-south-korean-government/

Bitcoin's long wait for the Lightning Network is almost over.

Announced today, the startups behind the three most active Lightning implementations have revealed test results, including live transactions, proving their software is now interoperable.

The findings, released by ACINQ, Blockstream and Lightning Labs, effectively bring Lightning (the mechanism many see as the best solution for increasing bitcoin's capacity) closer to public launch.

And while admittedly technical, today's announcement offers evidence that makes it seem like enthusiasts will soon get their wish.

Firstly, the Lightning specifications, in progress since last September, have entered version 1. These describe the rules of the network, comparable to the standards that prop up the internet.

While that's not to say the specifications won't evolve over time, they've now been deemed good enough to support the first real Lightning Network.

According to the founder of ACINQ, Pierre-Marie Padiou:

"This is the Lightning standard we've been working on for more than year. There's been a lot of work from us and from all participants. It's a big milestone."

Secondly, all the implementations have been shown to be compatible with one another, based on Blockstream engineer Christian Decker's over 70 tests, which he put together over the summer.

And last, but not least, as displayed with the two live transactions, the three main implementations of Lightning are indeed interoperable, a piece of the puzzle that developers have been working on since last year.

"We've been able to make successful payments on the mainnet that goes all around the world, and which involves different compatible implementations," Padiou said. "That's kind of a big deal."

Interoperable, at last

While Lightning is still not ready for public use, Padiou emphasized that interoperability between the implementations is key to continuing development.

With the specifications complete, other developers now know what rules to implement to build their own Lightning networks. Bitcoin startup Blockchain's Thunder Network and MIT's Lit, for example, are two other well-known Lightning projects that could one day also implement the specifications.

And this compatibility between implementations has now been demonstrated with two test transactions, showing how Lightning could be used in the future for small value payments.

One transaction was routed through Blockstream's C-Lightning nodes to ACINQ's fake coffee app Starblocks (a play on Starbucks), which sells "Blockaccinos" for 0.015 mBTC.

The other transaction unlocked a blog post on the content platform Yalls. The process used ACINQ's Eclair wallet to send a tiny fee through C-Lightning to Yalls, which runs on Lightning Labs' LND software.

The engineers conducted both of these Lightning payments with nodes scattered across the globe, Padiou said.

"It's a very small network, but it demonstrates how the interoperability works," Padiou said, adding that this highlights a live proof-of-concept for the scaling mechanism.

No rush

But there's still one more step before users can take advantage of Lightning: releasing mainnet software.

According to Padiou, each implementation needs to release beta software for the mainnet that allows bitcoin users to make real payments over the Lightning Network for the first time.

And while many are excited about the opportunity, that software will need plenty of work before the dream of paying for morning lattes (and everything else) using bitcoin is realized.

In conversation, Lightning developers stressed there are kinks left to work out with the user experience before they recommend businesses adopt it.

Padiou argued that this cautious approach to development shows developers are making sure they get the technology just right, so as to eliminate the chance of users losing funds.

"It also demonstrates the approach has been very conservative. We're not going to rush anything," he told CoinDesk, adding:

"We're almost there."

https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-last-test-shows-bitcoin-scaling-solution-almost-ready/

A recently-announced Russian presidential candidate, Boris Titov, is a bitcoin advocate. He promises to legalize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies if elected. Titov is friends with President Vladimir Putin and heads up his efforts to fight corruption. He has also repeatedly advocated for the legalization of bitcoin in Russia, suggesting the country should follow Japan’s lead.

Bitcoin Advocate Running for President of Russia

Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights and business ombudsman Boris Titov is running for Russian president in the 2018 election. The 56-year old is representing the business-oriented Party of Growth, the party announced this week.

“Titov is part of the Kremlin establishment and friends with president Vladimir Putin,” the Moscow Times described, adding that “he is also an economic liberal and heads up the president’s efforts to fight corruption.”

He told publication Mail.ru that “We will legalize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in Russia” and further elaborated:

Popular cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ethereum, will be legalized. People will have the opportunity to store them in banks and crypto exchanges and use as a means of payment, however, only for external transactions.

Titov explained, “in the domestic Russian market, say, for a sandwich, you cannot pay [with] cryptocurrency.” He added that “it is necessary to change the Russian economy. There is a need for change in society,” noting that “we are talking about the digital economy – development of the blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and IT-sphere.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/russian-presidential-candidate-legalize-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-russia/

The county government of Mecklenburg, North Carolina, has been hacked, leaving their server files being held for a ransom of 2 bitcoins.

One of the growing problems for businesses and governments today is having their electronic files hacked and held for ransom. Last month, computer hackers targeted the Sacramento Regional Transit system, resulting in 30 million files being deleted. The ransom price demanded by the hackers for that attack was a single bitcoin. Now that ransom price is being doubled as hackers have hit the Mecklenburg, North Carolina county government and are demanding 2 bitcoins.

Don't open that attachment!

County Manager Dena Diorio said that the hackers got into the county’s system when an employee clicked on an email attachment they shouldn’t have. (It’s amazing in this day and age that people still click on strange email attachments.) Once the click took place, spyware and a worm were unleashed into the system, freezing all of the electronic files.

Diorio told county commissioners in a meeting that the files were being held for ransom as the hackers were demanding 2 bitcoins, which is now worth almost $25,000 (at the time of this article’s writing). The deadline for paying the ransom is 1pm EST today.

Dena Diorio told reporters that the county was considering paying the ransom, but she did express some concerns over doing so, stating:

"There’s a risk you don’t get the decryption key and don’t get your files back. There’s also the chance if they think you’ll pay, they may try to get you to come back again."

Is it cheaper to pay the ransom?

Local governments and businesses do find themselves in a quandary when targeted by hackers. Is it actually cheaper to pay the hackers off to once again have access to critical files? A third-party group could restore said files, but using them could cost more than what the hackers were demanding. Of course, as Diorio mentioned above, paying off a hacker could embolden them to attack you again.

This difficult decision is summed up by Diorio when she said:

"We need to determine how much it would cost (to pay) versus fixing it on our own. There are a lot of places that pay because it’s cheaper."

The short deadline is obviously putting pressure on the country commissioners to capitulate to the hackers. As of now, the county is switching to paper records for their employees today.

As for the hacking attack, County Manager Dena Diorio summed it up by saying:

"I don’t think we were targeted. I don’t think we were at fault. There have been many, many institutions that have been breached. I think we do everything we can to keep our firewall secure."

Do you think Mecklenburg, North Carolina should pay the ransom of 2 bitcoins or not? Let us know in the comments below.

http://bitcoinist.com/democratizing-finance-regtech-leader-coinfirm-beats-presale-goal-amlt-token-announces-public-sale-date/

Earlier today, on December 6, the bitcoin price achieved a new all-time high at $12,278, within 24 hours since achieving its previous all-time high at $12,000.



Yesterday, on December 5, CCN reported that the price of bitcoin surpassed the $12,000 mark ahead of the launch of CBOE’s bitcoin futures launch. The market has been highly optimistic in regards to CBOE and US-based bitcoin exchange Gemini’s listing of bitcoin futures, given that CBOE is the largest options exchange in the world and its listing of bitcoin futures will lead to a spike in liquidity of the cryptocurrency.

Why is Market So Optimistic About Bitcoin Futures?

Yesterday, on December 5, CCN reported that the price of bitcoin surpassed the $12,000 mark ahead of the launch of CBOE’s bitcoin futures exchange. The market has been highly optimistic in regards to CBOE and US-based bitcoin exchange Gemini’s listing of bitcoin futures, given that CBOE is the largest options exchange in the world and its listing of bitcoin futures will lead to a spike in liquidity of the cryptocurrency.

As of current, high profile investors, large-scale hedge funds, and institutional investors are restricted to three bitcoin investment instruments: Sweden’s Nordiq Nasdaq-listed bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETN) XBT Provider, Grayscale Investment’s Bitcoin Investment Fund (GBTC), and LedgerX’s US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-regulated bitcoin options exchange.

The launch of two bitcoin futures exchanges by CBOE and CME by mid-December, two of the largest options exchange in the global finance market, will immediately provide institutional and retail investors with sufficient liquidity and robust infrastructure to invest in bitcoin.

In an official corporate announcement, CBOE Global Markets chairman and CEO Ed Tilly revealed that to promote the usage of and investment in bitcoin, CBOE’s bitcoin futures exchange will initially offer trading for free.

“Given the unprecedented interest in bitcoin, it’s vital we provide clients the trading tools to help them express their views and hedge their exposure. We are committed to encouraging fairness and liquidity in the bitcoin market. To promote this, we will initially offer XBT futures trading for free,” said Tilly.

Impact of Bitcoin Futures on Short and Mid-Term Price Trend of Bitcoin

Several reports over the past week from mainstream media outlets and high profile investors have claimed that the price of bitcoin could be negatively impacted by the launch of bitcoin futures, as it will be significantly easier to short bitcoin as well.

However, if that is the case, the price of bitcoin would not have increased at an exponential rate over the past few weeks, breaching the $12,000 mark.

As many experts including $1.6 billion bitcoin and cryptocurrency brokerage Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong noted, the launch of bitcoin futures and other institutional investor-targeted bitcoin trading platforms will enable over $10 billion in institutional money to flow into the bitcoin market.

If the price of bitcoin declines in the next few days, it will likely be triggered by the rapid increase in the value of bitcoin and the stabilization of the market. Often, as demonstrated by the performance of bitcoin dating back to 2014, the price of bitcoin tends to experience a major correction after achieving a new all-time high, and recover back to its previous all-time high to initiate a new rally.

In the short-term, the price of bitcoin will likely increase, especially upon the December 10 and December 18 bitcoin futures launches by CBOE and CME.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-hits-new-ath-at-12278-market-optimistic-on-futures-listing/

Police in Kenya arrest three Bitcoin traders on charges of money laundering by using stolen money to purchase cryptocurrency.

There are some definite advantages to using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, such as anonymity and ease of use. Of course, one of the main benefits of digital currency is that anybody, no matter where they are in the world, can be an active participant in the crypto economy. But there are times when the advantages of Bitcoin can lead some people into hot water, such as what happened recently in Kenya where three Bitcoin traders were arrested by the police and charged with money laundering.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF THE DIGITAL AGE

We do live in a age of wonder due to the technological advances that have been made over the last few decades. The internet allows for instantaneous communication between people from all corners of the globe, not to mention the joy of watching funny cat videos. Likewise, cryptocurrency allows for anonymous and easy transfers of capital across national borders without the hassles of dealing with bureaucratic red tape from governments and banks. However, all progress can be marred due to criminal mischief.

The three Kenyan Bitcoin traders found out that being able to easily buy digital currency can come with a cost. The three traders (Emma Kariuki, Stanley Mumo, and Timothy Gachehe) were using funds to buy Bitcoin on the LocalBitcoins exchange that turned out to be stolen.

It seems that the funds came from an anonymous person known as “BADASS20” that stole the equivalent of $100,000 from the I&M Bank and a Safaricom Pay Bill account. The police traced the stolen money, which eventually led to the bank accounts of the Bitcoin traders. What is interesting is that it appears the traders were unaware that the money had been stolen, which the authorities note due to their chat history. Still, the Kenyan Banking Fraud Investigation Unit (BFIU) arrested the three, but they were able to make bail and be released.

BITCOIN SOARING IN KENYA

While the story of the three traders should serve as a cautionary tale in vetting your sources of money, I love the fact that Bitcoin has crept into the fabric of everyday life in every corner of the globe. The P2P trading market in Kenya is very active and on the rise. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has noticed the popularity of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, even though they note that such digital currencies are not legal tender within Kenya.

The CBK noted:

"Domestic and international money transfer services in Kenya are regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya Act and other legislation. In this regard, no entity is currently licensed to offer money remittance services and products in Kenya using virtual currency, such as Bitcoin"

The final fate of the three Bitcoin traders has not yet been determined. While they appear to not know the money was stolen, they did use it to buy Bitcoin, which could legally be viewed as money laundering. While it’s great that any person with a smart phone in Kenya can become part of the crypto world, if someone calling themselves “BADASS20” offers you $100,00 to buy Bitcoin, maybe you should just say no.

http://bitcoinist.com/police-arrest-three-bitcoin-traders-kenya/

This week the international business school, Varna University of Management (VUM), located in Bulgaria, has announced that ten applicants for the school’s software engineering bachelor’s program will earn bitcoin-based scholarships. Students will be able to choose to receive the scholarship fund for 1000 EUR in the equivalent amount of bitcoins.

VUM: ‘Endorsing and Integrating Bitcoin Is a Rational Choice for Us’

Lately, lots of universities are starting to offer bitcoin courses and have begun to accept the decentralized currency for books and tuition. Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on the Swiss vocational school Lucerne University accepting bitcoin for tuition. Alongside this, NYU is planning to offer undergraduate courses in cryptocurrencies. Now, this week the Bulgarian-based Varna University of Management plans to provide bitcoin scholarships worth 1000 EUR to ten students who apply for the funding. The bitcoin scholarships will be given to students based on their background, and past achievements.

“[VUM] is pleased to announce that ten applicants for Software Engineering bachelor’s programme will now have the opportunity to earn Bitcoin scholarships, starting from Fall 2018 semester,” explains the Bulgarian school.

"We strongly believe that cryptocurrency is an inevitable technical development that will lead to significant innovation in all aspects of our lives — VUM is an innovative and future-oriented university — Endorsing and integrating bitcoin is a rational choice for us. We are always interested in delivering disruptive technologies in our IT and business programmes and cryptocurrency is definitely one of them."

Link >> https://news.bitcoin.com/this-bulgarian-business-school-is-offers-bitcoin-scholarships/          

Bitcoin’s extraordinary price surge means its market capitalization now exceeds the annual output of whole economies, and the estimated worth of some of the world’s top billionaires.

With the debate over its bubble status still raging, the flagship cryptocurrency continued its march higher on Monday, solidifying above $11,000 and bringing its climb this year to more than 1,000 percent. With market tracker Coinmarketcap.com putting the total value of all bitcoins in circulation at $190 billion, it’s come a long way from August, when one coin could buy you a hefty supply of avocados.

Here are five things that have been eclipsed by bitcoin in terms of market capitalization:

New Zealand’s GDP

The South Pacific nation’s farm-and-tourism-led economy is valued at $185 billion, according to World Bank data as of July, putting it some $5 billion below bitcoin. The cryptocurrency’s market cap is also bigger than the likes of Qatar, Kuwait and Hungary.

Goldman Sachs, and UBS

Bitcoin’s run-up has even seen it valued more highly than two of the world’s most influential banks. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s market cap was $97 billion as of Friday, while Zurich-based UBS Group AG came in at about $67 billion. Add those numbers together and it still falls short of bitcoin.

Both financial heavyweights have taken a hands-off approach to the digital currency, with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein saying it’s too early to draft a bitcoin strategy and UBS — the world’s biggest wealth manager — saying it won’t allocate it in portfolios because of the threat of a government crackdown.

Boeing

It may make jumbo jets but Boeing Co.’s market cap of $162 billion is also less than that of a digital currency that didn’t exist 10 years ago. The Chicago-based company, which describes itself as the world’s largest aerospace firm, is more than a century old and employs 140,000 people in more than 65 countries, according to its website. Rival Airbus SE fares no better — it’s got a market value of 66 billion euros ($78 billion).

Fourteen Aircraft Carriers

If bitcoin’s market cap could be used to buy military equipment, it would pack a mighty punch. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of a new class of nuclear-powered supercarriers, was delivered to the U.S. Navy in May. It cost an estimated $13 billion, so if investors put all their bitcoins together they would be able to buy a fleet of fourteen ships.

Bill Gates, Buffett and the Queen

They sit atop Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index, but even if Bill Gates and Warren Buffett pooled their fortunes they wouldn’t have enough to buy all the bitcoins in circulation. Gates is worth $90 billion and Buffett has $83 billion, according to the index. Not even Queen Elizabeth II could get them over the line if she brought her $383 million to the table. While we don’t know what he told Katy Perry, Buffett has called bitcoin a “real bubble” in the past.

http://time.com/money/5048100/bitcoin-is-now-worth-more-than-new-zealands-economy/

Israeli Regulator: We Need to Welcome Cryptocurrency to Develop International ICO Hub

One of the toughest financial regulators in Israel has made some surprisingly positive comments today regarding the acceptance of ICO crowdfunding and cryptocurrency. The outgoing chairman of the Israel Securities Authority (ISA) talked about a need to foster the creation of an international financial center based on ICOs.

Speaking for the last time as the ISA head before the Israeli corporations conference, Prof. Shmuel Hauser discussed the main challenges that the regulatory body still faces. Regarding ICOs he said:

“We will have to bring order to the market. Some countries decided to examine digital tokens on a case by case basis. A small number decided to ban them. We have decided to find out, with a team headed by the chief economist and the head of the corporations division, under which terms is it a security? Coin? Or some hybrid I call a security-coin?

“The team is meant to file its report by the end of December. We will have to define for ourselves and the market what is this beast. Among other things, we will need to consider expanding the supervision on security-coin and define a proper regulatory framework, different from the one we know for IPOs.

“I believe that the topic of digital currencies and their offerings must receive a favorable regulatory response, maybe even daring somewhat, to give a chance for the option to develop an international financial center for security-coin from the type of ICOs.”

Still, the professor added that the regulatory framework will need to show a certain degree of paternalism to make sure ICOs won’t develop in directions he considers to be negative.

Link >>> https://news.bitcoin.com/israeli-regulator-need-welcome-cryptocurrency-develop-international-ico-hub/

Nobel Economists Don’t Like Bitcoin Because it Disrupts Traditional Finance

Over the past week, Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Robert J. Shiller claimed governments will ultimately “outlaw” and crack down on bitcoin in the long-term.

Shiller stated:

“Bitcoin, it’s just absolutely exciting. You’re fast. You’re smart. You’ve figured out nobody else understands. You’re with it. And bitcoin has this anti-government, anti-regulation feel. It’s such a wonderful story. If it were only true.”

Nobel laureates and leading economists along with bankers truly understand and fear the disruptive nature of bitcoin and its decentralized structure which threatens the very existence of central banks and the global fiat-based monetary system.

But, bitcoin disrupts the entire worldview of these conventional economists, and the system of finance they have studied for many decades. Shiller claimed that bitcoin has an anti-government and regulation “feel.” The bitcoin market has proven for nine years that decentralization and transparency provide security value to the Bitcoin network and the currency. It has evolved into a $183 billion market within a decade.

Economists like Shiller persistently claim that governments have the authority to outlaw or shut down the Bitcoin network, which is entirely inaccurate. The sole reason bitcoin is a viable replacement of the global banking and fiat system is because it eliminates money and state, as ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees famously said.

Bitcoin and decentralized cryptocurrencies eliminate an important source of power for governments that is leverage over reserve currencies. The Federal Reserve Bank of the US, the central bank of the country for example, has the ability to produce tens of billions of dollars at their demand through “quantitative easing.” Governments have absolute control over the current financial system and bitcoin eliminates the manipulation of the global finance market through a currency that exists peer-to-peer.

For the vast majority of economists, it is challenging and perhaps humiliating to adopt bitcoin and embrace the cryptocurrency. Hence, most of the economists like Shiller have chosen not to adapt to the change bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market have started to lead in the finance sector.

However, the abrupt alteration in tone of economists has begun to become more evident and obvious to the public eye. Shiller claimed that bitcoin’s value will surge and plunge in the long-term. Shiller stated that the price of bitcoin will not plummet to zero though, just to a lower value.

Previously, many economists including Shiller claimed that bitcoin is a scam, a bubble, and a fraud that will eventually be banned and dissipate in the upcoming years. Within a year, because of bitcoin’s exponential growth rate, most economists changed their tone in regards to bitcoin’s future.

“I don’t know where it’s going to stop. It’s going to go way up, like the stock market in the 1920s. We will reach a 1929 eventually. But then it won’t go to zero, it just will come down,” said Shiller.

Nine years in, governments such as the US, Japan, South Korea, and Russia could have banned bitcoin. Instead, leading governments and countries have implement strict regulations to oversee the rapidly growing bitcoin market.

At this phase, the probability of governments attempting to “outlaw” or “banning” bitcoin is close to zero, given that any form of aggressive regulation will lead to the bitcoin market moving underground, which is significantly more difficult to regulate.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/nobel-economists-dont-like-bitcoin-disrupts-traditional-finance/

Dilemma for Ukrainian Regulators: Bitcoins Cannot Be Recognized as Money, Legal Tender, Currency or Securities

A joint statement between the Ukrainian central bank and the country’s top financial regulators shows that existing legal concepts do not apply to cryptocurrencies. For example, they cannot be recognized as money, legal tender, currency or securities.

Crypto Legal Status Dilemma

Ukraine is actively working on the regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. The country’s top financial regulators, the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NCSSM), and the National Commission for the Regulation of Financial Services Markets, jointly issued a statement regarding cryptocurrencies on Thursday.

They noted the lack of one single approach to determine the legal status of cryptocurrencies or their regulations among the regulators of the world’s leading countries. As for Ukraine, cryptocurrency does not fall under any existing legislation so it “cannot be recognized as money” or “as a currency or legal tender of a foreign state and has no monetary value,” the three financial authorities explained. In addition, cryptocurrency cannot be recognized as electronic money, valuable paper, or money surrogate. According to their statement:

"Despite the existence of numerous uses of cryptocurrency in the world including as a measure of value, a means of exchange and accumulation, its complex legal nature does not allow it to be identified with any of the related concepts (money, currency, currency value, legal tender, electronic money, securities, money surrogate, etc.)."

Full article >>> https://news.bitcoin.com/cryptocurrencies-ukrainian-regulators/

The bitcoin price has fully recovered from its most recent major correction in which it fell from $11,441 to $8,800.



Bitcoin Recovers to $11,000, Preparing a New Rally?

Given the tendency of the bitcoin price to endure a major correction after achieving a new all-time high and recovering back to its previous all-time high, the bitcoin price is currently in an optimal position to sustain upward momentum and gear towards a new rally.

Over the past few days, the daily trading volume of bitcoin has also stabilized in the $5 billion region. During strong rallies, the daily trading volume of bitcoin tends to spike up to over $10 billion and decline by more than 50 percent as the market becomes stable. The US market has also recently overtaken the Japanese bitcoin market, becoming the largest bitcoin exchange market with approximately 30 percent of the global bitcoin market share. Well regulated exchanges such as Coinbase’s flagship trading platform GDAX and Bitstamp have started to lead the global bitcoin market.

t is important to acknowledge that the demand for bitcoin from the US and its traditional finance sector is increasing at a rapid rate due to the announcement of the world’s largest financial institutions to engage in bitcoin trading in the upcoming weeks.

On December 2, JPMorgan global markets strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou stated that bitcoin futures will add legitimacy to the cryptocurrency, which already has a market cap of over $186 billion.

“The prospective launch of bitcoin futures contracts by established exchanges in particular has the potential to add legitimacy and thus increase the appeal of the cryptocurrency market to both retail and institutional investors,” said Panigirtzoglou.

He further emphasized that bitcoin has the potential as a new asset class to transform the global finance sector by providing a robust store of value, an alternative to the fiat currency system and gold.

“In all, the prospective introduction of bitcoin futures has the potential to elevate cryptocurrencies to an emerging asset class. The value of this new asset class is a function of the breadth of its acceptance as a store of wealth and as a means of payment and simply judging by other stores of wealth such as gold, cryptocurrencies have the potential to grow further from here,” Panigirtzoglou added.

As Bitcoin Futures Launch, Bitcoin Volumes Will Increase

Upon the December 18 launch of CME’s bitcoin futures exchange, the trading volume of bitcoin will likely surge, along with its price. In the mid-term, analysts expect the price of bitcoin to surpass $14,000, as billions of dollars flow into the bitcoin market.

In the long-term, as CCN reported, investors like billionaire hedge fund legend Mike Novogratz see the bitcoin price surpassing $40,000 by the year’s end, as herds of institutional investors move into the bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets.

“There’s a big wave of money coming, not just here but all around the world. What’s different about these coins than other commodities … there is no supply response here. So it’s a speculator’s dream in that as buying happens there’s no new supply response that comes up,” said Novogratz.

The number of jobs relating to bitcoin and cryptocurrency on Linkedin and Upwork has grown significantly in recent years. Both platforms report an increase in the listing of skills relating to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology by several hundred percent.

Linkedin Reports a More Than 500% Increase in the Listing of Skills Pertinent to Cryptocurrency

The majority of the job listings pertaining to the cryptocurrency industry on Linkedin are for the software industry – with Bloomberg reporting that such comprises approximately 70% of all crypto-related listings. Crypto-based positions in the software industry are continuing to proliferate, with the number of such listings in the software industry comprising a 460% larger share of total listings in the sector than three years ago.

The industry with the largest growth in crypto-related job listings in the financial services industry – with the share of total listings on LinkedIn pertaining to cryptocurrency in the financial services industry having grown by roughly 900% during the last three years.

In recent years, bitcoin has emerged from the throes of niche status to attaining increasing mainstream adoption. LinkedIn reflects this trend, with the social media network noting that there are 28 times the number profiles that cite skills pertaining to cryptocurrency than four years ago, with 550% more people boasting specifically bitcoin-related abilities.

Upwork Has Reported a More Than 2500% Increase in Billings Relating to the Blockchain Industry

CNBC recently reported on the increasing trend of students from elite business school transition towards exploring career opportunity in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. The article states that popular freelancing platform Upwork witnessed blockchain-related skills become the second most rapidly growing sector on the website during the third quarter of 2017. Upwork is also reported to have seen a 2,625% increase in the number of freelancer billings for work relating to the blockchain industry when compared with 2016. The article also states that Stanford University plans to launch a detailed course covering cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

The data from LinkedIn and Upwork adds to a growing body of data evidencing bitcoin’s move towards the early majority stage of adoption. Forbes recently published an article title “It’s 1994 in Cryptocurrency” – a reference to analogous characteristics shared by the present cryptocurrency industry and the early stages of the internet boom of the 1990’s. Forbes’ article asserts that global adoption of cryptocurrency is currently estimated at 0.5% of the total population – double the 0.25% of consumers that had an internet connection in 1994.

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-related-job-postings-have-spiked-on-linkedin-and-upwork/

The chief of the French central bank has today warned on the risks of investing in bitcoin.

Francois Villeroy de Galhau, governor of the Bank of France, said the "speculative" asset is not a currency and, confusingly, not "even a cryptocurrency," according to The Independent.

Making the remarks at an event in China, Villeroy continued:

"Its value and extreme volatility have no economic basis, and they are nobody's responsibility."

The central bank, he said, warned that those buying bitcoin "do so entirely at their own risk."

Villeroy's statement echoes that of Vitor Constancio, vice president of the European Central Bank, who said Wednesday that investors are taking a risk buying bitcoin at current high prices.

The news comes amid much media excitement over the price of bitcoin, which climbed passed $11,000 this week. At press time, the cryptocurrency is passing hands for over $10,600.

The astonishing price gains have prompted a number of notable figures in finance to declare bitcoin a bubble, including this morning billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Like other central banks, the Bank of France has shown an interest, not in cryptocurrencies, but in the blockchain technology that makes them possible.

Back in February, the financial institution launched a new innovation lab, with an eye to collaborations with blockchain startups.

https://www.coindesk.com/invest-in-bitcoin-at-your-own-risk-warns-french-central-bank/