Japan’s Largest Rewards Site Operator With 5 Million Users Launching Bitcoin Exchange

The operator of Japan’s largest rewards site with 5 million users is launching a bitcoin exchange. Ceres Inc has partnered with Japanese exchange Bitbank to use its B2B white label bitcoin exchange service to launch a cryptocurrency exchange.

Operator of Japan’s Largest Rewards Site Launching Bitcoin Exchange

The operator of Japan’s largest consumer rewards site for smartphones and PCs, Ceres Inc, recently announced that it has established a subsidiary called Mercury, for a digital currency trading business.

The Tokyo-based company founded in 2005 operates three rewards sites including Japan’s largest, called Moppy. Reward points are transferable and are accumulated by “browsing ads that are delivered via free games, online shopping, e-mail, etc,” the company’s website details. “We define ‘point’ as a kind of virtual currency and think that it has a very high affinity with virtual currencies such as bitcoin which is a global payment method.” Points can be exchanged for cash, electronic money, etc.,” the company explained. According to its website:

        ‘Moppy’ is the largest point site in Japan with a total of 5 million users…The accumulated points can be exchanged for digital contents such as cash, various electronic money, games, ‘1 point = 1 yen’.

>>> https://news.bitcoin.com/japans-largest-rewards-site-operator-launching-bitcoin-exchange/

Developers said in whitepaper that they need min. 750 000 USD for the job to start. And it`s quite realistic goal. I don`t get where "InvestmentKenny"  found the amount of 87$ mln.

Hi Sylon, if understand correctly bounty will be paid in ETH, right after token sale, in case of achieving minimum goal of 750 000 USD?

Total tokens supply is 100 000 000. One token = 1$. Even including bonuses propy`s investors should spend at least 50 000 00 USD for 18 days left. So it`s no need to hurry, everyone will get their tokens, the question is what bonuses do they get, if they will be participated at the end.

Bank of Mexico Rejects ‘Virtual Currency’ as Legal Classification for Bitcoin

The governor of the Bank of Mexico, Agustin Carstens, has rejected adopting ‘virtual currency’ as the legal classification for bitcoin. Carstens has argued that the term ‘currency’ comprises an inappropriate classification for bitcoin due to the cryptocurrency’s absence of central bank backing or issuance.

Carstens Believes That Bitcoin’s Lack of Central Backing Disqualifies It From Being Classified as a ‘Virtual Currency’

The governor of Mexico’s central bank has argued that cryptocurrency should fall under the governmental domain of cyber security, and not be viewed as a ‘virtual currency’ by the nation’s regulators. Carstens stated that cryptocurrencies “are not necessarily immune to hacking”, and argued that bitcoin’s greatest utility is “the fact that it offers users anonymity” – before warning that bitcoin comprises an attractive a monetary instrument to black market entities.

Carstens proposed that Mexican authorities seek to prudently promote the development and application of cryptocurrency technology within the nation’s financial system. Speaking at the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico, Carstens articulated that “this technological development in the financial system can not be the result of innovation alone. There must be a free step that does not cause problems to the financial system that in the end affect the whole society” – suggesting that Mexico’s central bank will seek to actively guide the integration of cryptocurrency technology into the Mexican economy. Carstens also stated that “financial authorities will soon present” detailed proposals for cryptocurrency legislations.

>>> https://news.bitcoin.com/bank-of-mexico-rejects-virtual-currency-as-legal-classification-for-bitcoin/

I would tell my kids that now we are living in era of centralized economy. But development of computer technologies gives humanity a unique opportunity to get rid of government dictatorship. Certainly our kids will be living in economy of another kind, with God will.

In an interview with The Verge, at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey revealed that he’s a bitcoiner and that he believes that blockchain technology will be a part of our future.

According to The Verge, Jack Dorsey believes that blockchain’s potential goes far beyond accounting, as he stated that it has the potential to “be applied to so much more,” and described it as “the next big unlock.”

Dorsey went on to talk about blockchain’s benefits and potential, even stating that it enables proof of work and proof of one entity in an untrusted network. This led to a simple conclusion that, presumably, means Jack Dorsey shares the ideas of experts who have described blockchain technology as analogous to the early days of the internet. He stated:

    “There are so many problems we can help solve [with blockchain] that are not just related to finance, but finance is an obvious one.”

The entrepreneur also warned that despite blockchain technology’s availability and potential, it shouldn’t mean that everyone should try to use it. Per his own words, he believes there will be a bunch of people trying to apply blockchain everywhere and solve every single problem with it, the same way machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence are currently being used to address every problem we have.

Dorsey believes we need to be more thoughtful with this type of technology, and first stop to think about people’s needs and how technology can help them progress.

Jack Dorsey is a Bitcoiner

Daring the interview, Jack Dorsey also addressed bitcoin and its explosive growth, both in value and in popularity. His company Square has been accepting bitcoin payments since 2014 and Dorsey even admitted he has personally invested in the cryptocurrency, although he didn’t reveal how much he had.

Notably, the entrepreneur revealed that his friends and family, who aren’t as tech-savvy as one would expect, have been asking questions about investing in the cryptocurrency. He stated that they keep asking him how they can buy bitcoin, as they heard it is “a fast easy way to make money” and that “someone said it’s like digital gold.”

In the interview, Dorsey went on to talk about the pros and cons of a decentralized digital currency like bitcoin. Regarding his friends and family asking him about the cryptocurrency, he concluded:

    “It’s not about the currency at all to these people who asked me. It’s about the investment.”

>>> https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/twitter-ceo-is-a-bitcoiner-talks-up-blockchain-tech/

Great news, thanks for keeping your weekly update. Your investors and adherents are with you, believes into the idea, and looking forward for ETT client and adding new exchanges.

Situation with the price remains uncertain. For the past 8 days it increases on 30%, but it is still very low. I agree that current exchange grounds are dump be their nature, we should wait for big whales and famous exchanges.

Japan’s Largest C2C Ticket Marketplace with 5 Million Users Accepts Bitcoin

Japan’s top customer-to-customer (C2C) ticket exchange marketplace, Ticket Camp, announced last week that it has become the first in the Japanese ticket industry to accept bitcoin. The site has about 5 million users and processes approximately 5.8 billion yen per month.

First in Ticket Industry to Accept Bitcoin

One of Japan’s most popular ticket marketplaces, Ticket Camp, announced last week that it has become the first in the Japanese ticket industry to accept bitcoin, starting on August 17.

The marketplace is operated by Hunza Co. Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mixi Group. The company describes in the announcement:

        "Hunza Co., Ltd. develops and manages the largest C2C ticket sales site ‘Ticket Camp’ in Japan, with the vision of creating web services that become the culture of the world."

Similar to online ticket exchange Stubhub in the U.S., Ticket Camp allows users to buy, sell, and request event tickets between each other. “Sellers decide on the price they want to sell at and list their tickets for sale on the marketplace,” the Mixi Group detailed. “In addition, Ticket Camp uses an escrow system where payment is held by Hunza until the tickets arrive in the hands of the buyer, ensuring safe and secure transactions.”

The site has no membership or registration fees but takes a percentage of the purchase amount. “Ticket Camp’s earnings come from transaction fees set at 13% of the ticket sale price, divided between the ticket seller and buyer,” the Mixi Group wrote. Registration takes one minute, their website states.

Ticket Camp is only two years old, but has grown to 5 million monthly users, according to Hunza’s press release. It processes about 5.8 billion yen monthly as of December 2016, or approximately $53 million. Google Play Store shows 7,008 ratings for the app of 4 stars on average. On Apple’s iTunes store, there are 15,007 ratings averaging 4.5 stars.

Full article >>> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=post;board=77.0

Bitcoin was a first of his kind. It is like a trademark today, you know. Just look at all these attempts to save BTC from extinction - Segwit2x activation, hardfork split, all these crutches. It`s hard to imagine for me that in the foreseeable future it would not go up. 10 000 not a limit, just one more level to cross.

Save for fun? Bitcoin is money, and personally i respect money, because they represent the value of humans labor. Saving for future is a smart decision, but if one wants to save more for future, than, just lying BTC will not bring much profit. Investing, trading, that is what i am talking about.)

Bitcoin proponents often talk about the many benefits the decentralized currency can offer the world, and one of these attributes is bitcoin’s censorship resistance. This week news.Bitcoin.com chatted with, Firas Zahabi, a well known Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) grappling trainer from Canada who decided to use bitcoin as an incentive to promote online grappling events.

Firas Zahabi has trained many champion MMA fighters and is the founder of Tristar Gym, a grappling martial arts training center located in Quebec, Canada. The gym is well known as one of the world’s top MMA training camps, and grappling fights are very popular in the region. However, Zahabi tells us over a phone conversation that the local governments in Canada have deemed holding MMA events illegal. Grappling martial arts itself is legal in the region, but MMA events are not allowed, which gives young Canadian fighters less of an opportunity to compete and show their skills. So Zahabi decided to create online MMA events on Youtube which he calls the Pure Victory Championship and fighters compete for bitcoin prizes. Zahabi believes the act of hosting events online decentralizes the playing field and bitcoin leaves the middle man out of the equation.

Full Interview >>> https://news.bitcoin.com/mma-championships-use-bitcoin-to-circumvent-censorship/

Maybe Mark Cuban not understand the nature of volatile cryptocurrencies, because of lack of time. But we should not underestimate his entrepreneur and businessman talent. "Idiot" guy will never gain such money and assets as he has. He is owner and co-owner, famous investor and philanthropist.

Most of you guys are talking about artificial raise of BCC price, i agree with you. All these days major crypto media outlets are full about "BCC record highs" news, this looks like paid advertisement that surges price levels.

For me such regulation only means an attempt to get people pay taxes for their criptocurrency holdings. Many talks about struggling against drugdillers, but governments understand that real payoff would be from taxes.

The bitcoin price pulled back from its all-time high this weekend, weighed down by a bitcoin cash price surge and disagreements over the SegWit2x scaling proposal.

However, Wall Street strategist Tom Lee believes that the long-term prospects of the bitcoin price remain quite promising. As CNBC reports, Lee–who co-founded Fundstrat Global Advisors and is bearish on the outlook for the stock market–wrote a note to clients establishing a mid-2018 bitcoin price target of $6,000. He also forecasts that it could rise as high as $25,000 by 2022.

Bitcoin Price to Reach $6,000 in 2018

He says several factors will fuel bitcoin’s continued rise to $6,000,  including a 50% increase public adoption of bitcoin as a store of value and mainstream financial investments in cryptocurrency:

    "We see bitcoin as gaining from institutional sponsorship, improving transaction platforms and ultimately, greater public adoption."

Pointing to LedgerX and CBOE Holdings, which have both receive regulatory approval, Lee says the availability of cryptocurrency options and futures trading will increase overall bitcoin transaction volume.

    "[This] implies significant rise [in] institutional holdings of Bitcoin in next 6-8 months given recent approvals….No doubt, this will lead to an increase in overall transaction volumes for bitcoin."

Central Banks Could Acquire Bitcoin

Lee’s comments echo a recent Goldman Sachs note, which advised that it is “getting harder” for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies. He adds that even central banks may begin acquiring bitcoin if it reaches a market cap of $500 billion, which will happen if the bitcoin price reaches about $30,000.

    "While one may say this is preposterous to say central banks would own bitcoin — we believe that Central banks would view crypto currencies differently if Bitcoin’s aggregate value exceeded $500 billion"

That said, Lee anticipates short-term volatility for the bitcoin price heading into late August of this year.

    "Short-term traders should be prepared for another volatile consolidation period heading into late August given the XBT is nearing our next resistance levels with daily/short-term momentum becoming overbought."

Other Bitcoin Price Forecasts

A number of financial analysts have issued bitcoin price forecasts. Sheba Jafari, a chief technical analyst at Goldman Sachs, believes the bitcoin price will near $5,000 but crash as low as $2,221 as its fifth wave ends. Stock researcher Ronnie Moas believes bitcoin will beat Lee’s target and cross $7,500 in 2018, and one Harvard academic believes a unique application of Moore’s Law could result in bitcoin breaking through $100,000 in 2021.

>>> https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-price-to-reach-6000-in-2018-predicts-wall-street-strategist/

The total Bitcoin market cap has surpassed the $70 billion mark, putting the digital currency on par with several S&P500 companies including PayPal and Netflix.

Bitcoin Performance

In the last couple of months, the Bitcoin price has steadily risen to new levels. On August 17, 2017, the Bitcoin price reached its all-time high of $4,483! The new Bitcoin all-time high was even predicted back in July 2017 by a Goldman Sachs analyst. Many analysts believe that the Bitcoin price rise was attributed to the recent blockchain fork, which created Bitcoin Cash.

The current popularity of initial coin offerings has also been attributed to the rise of the cryptocurrency market cap, the most notable example of which is the recent Dmarket ICO, which managed to raise $7 million within 24 hours.

According to CNBC, financial services firm Goldman Sachs is forecasting a further Bitcoin price raise of $344, which could take the bitcoin price to $4,827.

Taking on PayPal in the S&P 500

After reaching a new all-time high, the Bitcoin market cap reached almost $71 billion, which puts the popular cryptocurrency on par with top S&P 500 companies like video streaming service, Netflix and famous online payment system, Paypal. According to an article by prominent website MarketInsider, Standpoint Research’s Ronnie Moas has predicted that the Bitcoin price might hit as high as $7,500 in 2018. The most exciting achievement that Bitcoin reached was the fact its market cap surpassed that of Paypal.

CEO of BlockTower Capital, Ari Paul, offered his thoughts on Bitcoin’s recent achievement on Yahoo Finance:

    "PayPal was initially created with a similar vision to Bitcoin — as permissionless money. PayPal wasn’t able to fulfill that vision, but Bitcoin is well on the way. Bitcoin can be used to transfer $100 million anywhere in the world in 10 minutes and for less than $2. Bitcoin rising in value above PayPal reflects its growing role as the best way to move money globally."

Many believe that PayPal is still hindering cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and preventing them from becoming mainstream in the online payment world, but the fact that Bitcoin alone could surpass the market capitalization of PayPal may indicate that cryptocurrencies could become the future of online payments.

>>> http://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-surpasses-market-cap-paypal-netflix/

Government agencies are looking further into adopting blockchain technology and bitcoin. They hope to commandeer these protocols in order to protect military from mass-hacking campaigns, counterintelligence, and otherwise hostile attacks on their systems. The Pentagon is has especially shown recent interest in using cryptographically-guarded blockchains to aid their operations.

An August 17 Washington Times post elaborated on why governments needs blockchain tech. It read, “Particularly alarming to U.S. defense analysts are Chinese intelligence collection operations aimed at commercial transactions, which have been highlighted as a growing threat to U.S. national security with the American military personnel, national security decision-makers and critical infrastructure entities increasingly targeted.”

Government Experimentation with Blockchains

The Pentagon and other agencies hope to use blockchain technology to take advantage of its tamper-resistant and immutable features. They believe these qualities can prevent malicious actors from either stealing their information, ransoming them, or eavesdropping. They also believe it will cut costs over the long term. This is why they have started to experiment with different implementations of various blockchain protocols.

The Washington Times article suggests the Pentagon and NATO have been working in secrecy to determine how best to utilize blockchain. NATO is particularly interested in making their intelligence processes more efficient, including financing and logistical work.

        "The Pentagon and U.S. NATO allies have been moving discreetly but aggressively in recent months to develop military-related apps exploiting the capabilities of blockchain. NATO is considering the technology to improve efficiencies across such traditional processes as logistics, procurement and finance."

DARPA and Blockchain Usage

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) also appears to have taken Government Agencies Clamor to Adopt Bitcoin and Blockchain Technologyinterest in blockchain technology. They have currently been interested in developing a blockchain-based messaging application. The goal of this project is for them to have a secure platform to send encoded messages to operatives in combat situations. Furthermore, according to various sources, DARPA has interest in creating “unhackable” code for use with blockchain. This would allegedly help expose hackers who attack them.

A Foundation for Defense of Democracies memo expanded on DARPA’s goals, citing different attack vectors. It discusses a variety of ways that malicious actors could attack the United States. The memo also explored what would happen if the United States failed to act against these threats.

        "The cost of inaction is great. While we laud the recent focus on supply chain security problems of the defense industrial base (DIB),[9] we endorse a broader notion of the range of U.S. interests threatened by this phenomenon…In a conflict scenario, the collapse of the domestic economy would not only degrade national morale but disrupt the primary source of material support for U.S. forces."

Government Believes Blockchain Can Guarantee More Security

With these threats on the radar, government believes their greatest ally might be blockchain technology. They think they can prevent their supply chains from being interrupted by placing their sensitive documentation on the blockchain. However, it is presently unclear how exactly various agencies will implement blockchain and bitcoin to further their agenda.

>>> https://news.bitcoin.com/government-agencies-want-to-adopt-bitcoin-and-blockchain-technology/

Your disturbance are absolutely normal thing. I also would like to see an investment with its continuously price increase in BTC. Maybe HMQ team will go to forthcoming BTC London september event and shows us something interesting.