''Utrust has become a member of Bitcoin Association Switzerland, a non-profit organization with the objective to promote digital currencies, educate the public on bitcoin, blockchain and provide an environment for the community to meet and exchange knowledge.''

Why Utrust is planning to get E-Money License only in QUARTER 4, 2018, is this procedure require so much time? I think when they get this license or provide real market values, the price could grow fast, because UTK is already presented on large exchanges - Huobi, Kucoin, OKEx, HitBTC

In telegram Utrust team stated that only this roadmap is credible.

https://utrust.com/#roadmap

There were no exact date for web wallet app release, so the news below were incorrect.

https://coindar.org/en/event/utrust-utk-wallet-web-app-1876

Another billionaire investor has made bullish comments on bitcoin.

Marc Lasry, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Avenue Capital Group, an investment firm with $9.6 billion in assets under management, weighed in on his bitcoin investment on CNBC Wednesday.

Speaking during the channel's "Squawk Box" segment, Lasry said he has invested around 1 percent of his personal fund in bitcoin, betting that the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap might soon be worth as much as $40,000 per coin at some point.

He noted:


Lasry has an estimated $1.7 billion in his personal fortune, according to the 2018 World's Billionaires List released by Forbes.

Although investors are betting on all kinds of cryptos, Lasry believes "the one will have the biggest market benefit is going to be bitcoin."

"I like bitcoin because it's the one that where everybody is going to come to," he said, adding that the price of bitcoin will rise if the average Americans can get access to bitcoin.

One of the Wall Street's most renowned "vulture" investors, Lasry said he has started investment in bitcoin a few years ago, but bought a lot more in the last year.

https://www.coindesk.com/billionaire-marc-lasry-sees-bitcoins-price-reaching-40000/

PECUNIO Tier1 KYC verification process is in pending for few months. Show some respect for your investors and supporters, what is the reason for such a long delay? If your staff busy with partnership agreements, you can always hire freelancer for this task. It`s about project reputation in the long term, especially important factor for investment fund.

What happens with LCS on Hotbit exchange? LocalCoinSwap was available for trading yesterday, but today it is just disappeared form all trading pairs. Maybe this listing was unofficial and the team sent a request of temporally delisting LCS token?

P.S. All works fine now, but be advised, Hotbit exchange has enormous commissions for USDT withdrawal - 50$!.

I hope currently LCS price is at it`s lowest level and will not plunge until exchange launch.

16 Июля, Новости.

Datawallet представили новых членов команды, более 20 человек.

https://medium.com/datawallet-blog/introducing-our-new-team-members-cfdd4aa7c9e

В следующие несколько месяцев будет выпущена Beta платформы. В целях маркетинга заключено партнерство с PR фирмой Edelman, ведуться переговоры с несколькими корпорациями по совместному тестированию Беты.

HelBiz пообещали сжечь 5.25m токенов, постепенно скорректировав общее количество до 1 млрд монет. Если рынок начнет подниматься, а продукт стабильно пилиться, то пару иксов к концу года можем сделать, но достичь цены ICO это действительно марс.

Cryptocurrencies extended their rebound on Wednesday as Bitcoin traded above $7,500 for the first time in a month, shrugging off security and regulatory concerns that have plagued the digital currency for much of this year.

Bitcoin climbed as much as 3.1 percent to $7,543, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Rival cryptocurrencies including Ripple, Ether and Litecoin also advanced. Bitcoin remains more than 60 percent below its all-time high in December.

The cryptocurrency last traded above $7,500 on June 8, before getting caught in a sector wide sell-off that erased about $42 billion of market value the following weekend. Some observers pinned that retreat on an exchange hack in South Korea, while others pointed to lingering concern over a clampdown on trading platforms in China. Cryptocurrency venues have come under growing scrutiny around the world in recent months amid a range of issues including thefts, market manipulation and money laundering.

Advocates of the virtual currency did receive some good news this week, such as word that the CFA Institute, whose grueling three-level program has helped train more than 150,000 financial professionals, is adding topics on cryptocurrencies and blockchain to its curriculum for the first time next year.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-17/bitcoin-surges-after-breaking-back-through-7-000-level

A Bitcoin miner project operating under the Kodak brand has collapsed. The company behind the scheme has said that it has been stopped from proceeding any further by the SEC.

UNREALISTIC PROMISES AND INCORRECT MATH

In January, a Bitcoin mining computer called the Kodak KashMiner was unveiled at the CES technology show held in Las Vegas. Even though it was displayed at the official Kodak stand, the computer was actually a product from a company called Spotlite USA — one of several entities that operate under license to sell products under the Kodak’s brand.

The company planned to rent out the Kodak KashMiner machines to customers for an initial fee of $3,400 USD. It had also shared its plans to set up hundreds of devices at the Kodak headquarters in New York in order to take advantage of an on-site power plant’s cheaper electricity. Investors would receive part of the bitcoin mined by the machine they rented from the company, and there were promises of a $9,000 return ($375 per month) over a two year period.

The Kodak miner was, however, put under scrutiny and dismissed outright as a scam by people like The Bitcoin Standard author Saifedean Ammous. Now, it appears that the criticism was justified as promises of guaranteed returns against the ever-increasing Bitcoin mining difficulty were indeed too good to be true.

Read more: https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-miner-scam-from-kodak-licensee-shut-down-by-sec/

Iran may employ cryptocurrencies as part of its efforts to circumvent the upcoming US sanctions, according to a high-ranking Iranian lawmaker who said the matter will be discussed in parliament soon. The Iranian MP also believes that digital money can help with overcoming the hegemony of the US dollar. 

Teheran Mulls Evading US Sanctions with Crypto

Cryptocurrencies are one of the major mechanisms Iran can use to evade the new US sanctions, a senior Iranian lawmaker said in an interview published recently. Mohammad Reza Pour-Ebrahimi, chairman of the parliamentary Economic Commission, also noted that digital currencies could help get rid of the dollar hegemony in international trade. Speaking to the Mizan News Agency, he said the matter will soon be reviewed in the parliament of the Islamic Republic.

Pour-Ebrahimi also noted that one of the main priorities of the Iranian legislature, in the current volatile economic situation, would be to explore the issue of money treaties as another mechanism to evade the sanctions. “Today, many countries like Russia, China and Brazil have already turned to mutual or multi-national money treaties which facilitate trade transactions,” he explained.

Amid rising tensions with the US, since Washington pulled out from the nuclear deal in May and threatened Teheran with harsher measures, Iran’s national fiat currency, the rial, has lost half of its value in the past several months. The new set of economic sanctions is expected to take effect in November this year and Iranian authorities have been looking for ways to circumvent them, the Iran Front Page reports.

Read more: https://news.bitcoin.com/iran-considers-using-cryptocurrencies-to-evade-us-sanctions/

Цена LCS держиться очень достойно, возможно LocalCoinswap станет одной из лучших бирж, они очень активны в соц. сетях и в маркетинге, заявляется поддержка пользователей в телеграм 24/7.

Mark.Space приезжали в HongKong, чтобы учавствовать в “RISE Hong Kong” конференции. Это самая большая тех. конференция в Азии, примерно 60 000 участников из 160 стран. Марина Данилюк участник команды, будет на выставке, если ваша компания заинтересована в открытии своего вирт. магазина во вселенной Mark.Space, свяжитесь с Мариной на выставке или в любое удобное время.

Helbiz — Monday update 16 July.

CEO Salvatore mentioned Helbiz will conduct a soft launch in Los Angeles in the near future. A few weeks after the soft launch Helbiz will start its marketing efforts to increase its brand awareness.

This week first  Helbiz hardware unit and smartlock will be installed in Salvatore’s personal Range Rover.

5.25m tokens will be burned.

Nearly two years after its initial announcement and months of delays this year, the world’s first bank-owned cryptocurrency exchange finally sees its public launch in Japan.

With an announcement on Tuesday, Japanese financial giant SBI Holdings has formally launched its cryptocurrency exchange platform, dubbed ‘VCTRADE’.

As reported by CCN in early June, SBI first announced a limited launch of the exchange for some 20,000 pre-registered users – enrolled during an early alpha last year – while holding off on a wider public launch in Japan, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading markets where exchanges are required to be licensed under regulatory laws.

SBI Holdings, through its wholly-owned subsidiary SBI Virtual Currencies – the operator of VCTRADE – has now begun accepting applications from Japanese users for new accounts. The public launch sees the bank-backed cryptocurrency exchange open its doors for all Japanese residents between 20-70 years. At this time, the exchange is only accepting retail investors with no applications from corporate or institutional investors currently under consideration.

During its preliminary launch last month, VCTRADE initially offered trading of XRP, Ripple’s native token that powers the Ripple Consensus Ledger (RCL). SBI Holdings is intrinsically partnered with Ripple with its crypto foray, jointly-operating SBI Ripple Asia with the San Francisco-based FinTech giant to explore the application of Ripple’s blockchain tech and XRP in remittance flows among Asian markets.

Within weeks, VCTRADE also added support for Bitcoin Cash (BCH/JPY) and Bitcoin (BTC/JYP), a total of three cryptocurrencies support so far since its preliminary launch in early June.

As reported previously, SBI postponed the launch of its exchange in early 2018 despite completing its registration and acquiring a license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan’s financial regulator, in September 2017.

The financial giant determined it had to strengthen its security measures further – in the aftermath of an infamous $530 million hack of Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck in January – as justifiable cause for the self-enforced delay earlier this year.

The SBI Group first announced its intent to launch its in-house cryptocurrency exchange in October 2016, making it the first mainstream traditional financial institution to enter the crypto space.

“In recent years, virtual currencies, like bitcoin, have attracted plenty of interest and have been covered in major media,” the company said at the time. “It [cryptocurrencies] are also being traded actively.”

https://www.ccn.com/worlds-first-bank-owned-cryptocurrency-exchange-launches-publicly-in-japan/

As the Indian Supreme Court declined to end a circular issued by the country's central bank that bars crypto exchanges from working with banks, trading platforms are taking varied actions ahead of the next court hearing set for July 20.

Zebpay, the largest crypto exchange in India by trading volume, said in a Tweet on Wednesday it had paused the Indian rupee deposit and withdrawal services until banks allow it again following the Supreme Court's decision earlier this week.

As previously reported by CoinDesk, the Supreme Court held a hearing on Tuesday and said the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) circular issued in April will "remain implemented," which prohibits banks from facilitating fiat transactions on Indian crypto exchanges.

However, Zebpay said the fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-crypto trading services are still on. According to data from CoinMarketCap, Zebpay is seeing over $5 million trading volume in the past 24 hours.

While the company has not made further notes on the court's temporary decision, Ajeet Khurana, chief executive of Zebpay, commented in a Tweet:


In a similar move, several exchanges in India with relatively smaller volume also announced they would suspend fiat currency deposit and withdrawal services for now, such as Coinome and Pexo.

Meanwhile, other exchanges appear to be not deterred and said they will continue allowing investors to deposit and withdraw fiat currency even if the RBI's circular indicated July 5 as the deadline for bank account closure.

For instance, BitBNS, an exchange with over $1.4 million 24-hour trading volume on CoinMarketCap, confirmed on Twitter on Tuesday it will continue the service for depositing and withdrawing Indian rupee after July 5.

The exchange has not responded to CoinDesk's enquiry for further details. Similarly, another smaller exchange named KoinOK also claimed its fiat currency deposit and withdrawal services are running fine.

On the other hand, shifting to over-the-counter trading has also become one strategy that several Indian exchanges are taking to circumvent the RBI's bank account curb.

KoinEX, an exchange with around $1.5 million 24-hour trading volume according to CoinMarketCap, has collaborated with another platform called WazirX to launched a peer-to-peer trading service dubbed KoinLoop, based on a local news report on Tuesday.

The service is seen as a way to cut the exchange's direct ties with banks so that investors can buy or sell cryptocurrency assets in a peer-to-peer manner.

"If banking is something the exchanges are not allowed to do, then the solution is something that direct banking doesn't come in," WazirX's chief executive Nischal Shetty was quoted as saying.

https://www.coindesk.com/crypto-exchanges-are-already-adapting-to-indias-bank-account-ban/

Can you please provide a link to updated roadmap? I`m trying to find information when NVB will be available on exchanges, or other product development timelines. As for strategic partnership with BeEasy, that's good, but Native VBox is an advertising/marketing company, why do they need exchange partners like BeEasy for their business on early stages?

Согласен, Sether явно работают над своей платформой, провели презентацию в Каннах командой из 9 человек, обещают еще больше новостей. Сегодня член консервативной партии британского парламента Едди Хьюз заявил что Британия нуждается в блокчейн технологии, ее применение пожет сохранить £8 Billion в будущем. Из Sether сейчас просто вывели наличные деньги инвесторы, мне так кажется, ведь команда работает. Если верите в проект, вопрос когда зайти обратно в Sether, до прихода крупных рекламодателей.

Conservative member of the British Parliament Eddie Hughes has said that the British government needs a Chief Blockchain Officer to enable social freedom, increase efficiency and rebuild societal trust.

In a report issued today entitled ‘Unlocking Blockchain,’ MP Hughes  made a number of other recommendations including an international blockchain competition to encourage talented blockchain developers and proposed a UK blockchain developmental target described as “a longterm aim for government departments to make a 1 percent efficiency by embracing blockchain and other associated technologies.”

The 1 percent saving would amount to £8 billion or $10.5 billion and would be achieved by the chief officer overseeing the application of blockchain technology to UK public services databases.

The report was published by Freer, a think-tank connected with the British Tory conservative party, and suggests that businesses standing to benefit from increased adoption of blockchain technology could fund the international blockchain competition and benefit both themselves and the national economy as a whole.

It also discusses what Hughes calls a “trust deficit,” a lack of public trust in government institutions created after the 2008 financial crisis and “a series of serious public scandals ranging from the illegal misuse of parliamentary expense accounts to claims of harassment and abuse against charity workers.”


Hughes identifies DLT and blockchain technology as a way in which the government can increase transparency in government institutions and grow public faith and trust once more.


Hughes goes on to discuss the other applications of blockchain technology, stating that the retail industry had explored and positively identified the capacity to greatly increase operational efficiency through the automation of labor-intensive processes with 82 percent of retail professionals sharing that sentiment in a global survey.

He then cited a Santander Fintech report stating that banks could greatly reduce costs associated with cross-border payments, regulatory compliance, and securities trading through the application of DLT with a cost reduction of up to $20 billion by 2022. Sweden is predicted to save $100 million through the use of the technology in their national land registry by automating the processes involved in fraud prevention.

The report also details the environmental benefits – a report from the Dubai Blochain Strategy predicts that 25.1 million economically productive hours can be reallocated through reduced document processing times and 114 MTons of C02 emissions eliminated through reduced trips.

The report is particularly comprehensive in drawing on multiple sources citing the social and environmental benefits of blockchain application on government systems and databases, perhaps a significant indicator in the shifting tide of opinion towards the emerging technology.

At the recommendation of British Prime Minister Theresa May, a digital copy of the report will be sent to every member of British Parliament for their consideration.

https://www.ccn.com/british-mp-says-blockchain-technology-can-save-uk-8-billion/

"We managed to list on the exchanges before the promised date (EtherDelta, ForkDelta and TokenSwap)" said Ivan from KYC support, but volume on ForkDelta is 0! I hope this project was not initially designed as deceptive business, but at the moment it`s hard to get information about progress in KYC.legal product development or new exchange listings.

A group of European banks announced they have completed first live blockchain-based financial trades across borders via their jointly developed we.trade blockchain plaform.

According to an announcement on Tuesday, the real-life trades were executed over the past five days among 10 companies and were facilitated by four banks using the blockchain technology.

HSBC, one of the nine institutions that set up the platform as a joint venture, claimed that three of its clients managed to complete open account transactions last week via we.trade within Europe.

Built on IBM's Blockchain Platform and its Hyperledger Fabric technology, we.trade was established by Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Nordea, Rabobank, Santander, Société Générale and UniCredit, in a bid to boost the efficiency of cross-border financial transactions.

As reported by CoinDesk in April, we.trade was planning to begin testing the platform in May with an expected commercial release in the summer.

At the time, Société Générale told CoinDesk the reason we.trade's development can move fast is that it focuses on small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) trading within Europe.

Parm Sangha, IBM's blockchain lead in Europe, commented in today's announcement:


Currently, we.trade operates in 11 European countries. Roberto Mancone, the platform's chief operating officer said in the announcement the next step will be "getting buy-in from additional banks and their customers in Europe and further afield."

https://www.coindesk.com/european-banks-complete-first-live-blockchain-financial-trades/

Digital asset broker Octagon Strategy has said that the company “remains bullish” on bitcoin despite the current decline in price and the possible obstacles that await it in the future.

Bitcoin’s continued dip in price has led to a new set of bearish sentiments as regards its future and the possibility that it can reach the heights achieved last year.

Speaking to CNBC in an interview aired July 1, Octagon Strategy’s head trader Ryan Rabaglia said perspective matters a lot in the evaluation of bitcoin’s future. According to Rabaglia, there is plenty to look forward to as the bitcoin market is still in a “growth phase.” He went on further to explain why his company remains bullish by saying for a market that is “only eight years old,” bitcoin has continued to “yield 100 percent year over year,” which is quite impressive.

“I think it’s more interesting to remember where we came from in this market and year [on] year we’re up well over one hundred percent,” he said.

Uncertainties

When asked about the negative influence of regulation in the market, Rabaglia told the network the “regulatory phase” that the market is currently in should be seen as a “double-edged sword.”

He believes the regulatory stance of the industry while influencing the downward spiral of bitcoin would also lead to its revival.

“The uncertainty that drives around this market drives it further down as people don’t know where the price would end up,” he said. However, the same topic that brought about the uncertainty would also lead to its revival.

He added:

“Once we actually establish that regulation, the professional and traditional players that are going to be entering the market… are going to get that support from regulators.”

Read More: https://www.ccn.com/octagon-strategy-remains-bullish-on-bitcoin-despite-price-decline/