Latest posts of: ivanpoldark

JPMorgan Expanding Blockchain Project With 220 Banks to Include Payments

Investment banking giant JPMorgan Chase is planning to expand an existing blockchain project to include settlement features as it seeks to fend off competition from payments upstarts such as TransferWise and Ripple.

The blockchain-based Interbank Information Network (IIN), set up in partnership with Australia’s ANZ bank and the Royal Bank of Canada back in 2017, currently allows its over 220 banking members to quickly address payments that contain errors or get held up for compliance reasons – problems that can takes weeks to solve with multiple banks being involved across the payments chain.

The Financial Times reported Sunday that John Hunter, head of global clearing at JPMorgan, said the IIN is fast developing and that the bank is “looking at the ability to do more at the point of settlement.”

JPMorgan, he said, has now built in a feature that would allow for real-time verification that a transaction is being sent to a valid account. Currently, an error in the recipient’s account number, sort code, or other detail, can result in the payment being rejected days after it was sent.

On that issue, banks’ payment processing is still “in the mid-80s to the mid-90s,” according to Hunter. The “5 to 20 per cent of payments” that fail because of an error or compliance problems is “where we’re trying to alleviate some of that pain,” he said.

The FT said that the settlement system will be live in by Q3 2019, and will allow both domestic and international payments.

The Interbank Information Network has been built on Quorum, the ethereum-based blockchain network revealed by the bank in 2016. That platform is also the underlying technology for the banks much reported digital currency, JPM Coin, details of which were made public in February of this year.

The FT also reports that JPMorgan is setting up a testing sandbox – also said to be launching in Q3 – allowing fintech startups to use the IIN and ultimately develop and launch applications based on its features.

https://www.coindesk.com/jpmorgan-expanding-blockchain-project-with-220-banks-to-include-payments

Mongolia has taken a significant step forward toward bolstering its fintech sector, with the East Asian country’s central bank authorizing a local telecom operator to issue a digital currency under the country’s recently-passed national payment system bill.

As first reported by state-owned news agency Montsame, the Bank of Mongolia on Friday issued its first-ever digital currency license to Mobifinance — the fintech arm of Mobicom, the largest mobile phone provider in Mongolia.

Now licensed as a state-approved financial instrument, Mobicom’s virtual currency — dubbed “Candy” — is considered a “non-cash payment instrument” whose value is pegged to Mongolia’s fiat currency, the tugrik.

Read more: https://www.ccn.com/mongolia-issues-first-digital-currency-license-under-new-payment-system-law/

Thursday, September 27: crypto markets continue to rise as the crypto and blockchain industry is seeing some support from governmental and institutional entities. Following a sell-off that started on September 24, crypto markets are seeing the second day of a rebound, with daily trade volume now amounting to more than $16 billion.

All but two top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization have seen firm growth over the past 24 hours, following a slight price stagnation within the day and surging sharply within the past few hours.

Veem, a cross-border payments platform that uses bitcoin to move funds among businesses without the need of banks, has raised $25 million in a round led by Goldman Sachs, according to Forbes.

The service, which does not require either counterparty to hold bitcoin directly, has quadrupled its revenue in the past year. Also participating in the funding round were GV (previously known as Google Ventures), Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, and Trend Forward Capital.

Founded by Marwan Forzely, who previously developed and sold a service to Western Union to allow the transfer provider to connect to customer bank accounts directly, Veem uses an algorithm to route transactions automatically among the most efficient payment rails.

The onboarding process will deploy increasing levels of automation that will include built-in KYC/AML compliance.

Read more: https://www.ccn.com/google-backed-fintech-startup-uses-bitcoin-for-cross-border-settlement/

From soft and hard forks to protocol upgrades, to the implementation of Segwit and to the future outlook of the Lightning Network (LN), the Bitcoin network has come a long way since its inception in January 2009. As of Sept. 18, 2018, the average block size on the Bitcoin network is .8MB and the average number of transactions per block is 1609 — so a few eyebrows were raised when a block over 2MB was added to the blockchain on Sept. 5, 2018.

Bitcoin block 540107 came in at 2.26MB; in terms of megabytes, a block this big has never been added to the blockchain before. Although the bear market has been going on for nine months, block 540107 could be a sign that the Bitcoin network is progressing technologically. To understand why, let’s first have a look at the current state of the Bitcoin network.

Currently on the Bitcoin network, the average block size is 0.804MB and there are an average of 1609 transactions per block — that is why a block like 540107, which is 2.26MB big but only has 230 transactions included in it, is such an anomaly.

Read more: https://cointelegraph.com/news/the-current-state-of-the-bitcoin-network-and-its-biggest-block

On September 24th, Lamassu announced the introduction of their new line of cryptocurrency ATMs to the public. Lamassu calls its new line of ATMs, “Sintra.” The ATMs herald a new line of ATMs as another crucial step in crypto’s march towards widespread consumer use and accessibility.

GROWING INDUSTRY

According to CoinATMrader.com, there are currently roughly 3,750 crypto ATMs installed worldwide. Lamassu has been producing cryptocurrency ATMs since 2013 when they produced their first, which was called the Bitcoin Machine.

While that number sounds impressive, and the number of the crypto ATMs installed continues to grow steadily, it is important to put that number in context. Information from Data.gov, for example, indicates that there are over 5,500 bank-owned ATMs in New York State alone. Crucially, this ATM count does not include independently managed ATMs at convenience stores and other retail locations.

COST

Pricing for the new crypto ATM’s ranges from 5,200 EU for the cheapest Duoro II model, to 8,900 EU for the highest price Sintra Forte model. The mid-priced Sintra model costs 7,500 EU. The Duoro II model is the newest model of Lamassu’s original Crypto ATM, and features one-way fiat to crypto conversion, while both the Sintra and Sintra Forte feature two-way conversion.

Read more: https://bitcoinist.com/lamassu-new-line-crypto-bitcoin-atms/

This week the firm Squire Mining, a company that plans to offer next-generation 10nm ASIC chips, has revealed it is working with Samsung Electronics as its foundry partner. With help from Samsung’s foundry, Squire, and a company called Gaonchips, plan to complete its ASIC chip FPGA prototype by September 30, 2018.

Squire Mining Announces New ASICs Will Use Samsung Semiconductors

On Tuesday the company Squire Mining Ltd., (CSE: SQR), has announced the business partnered with two leading firms from Southeast Asia, Gaonchips and Samsung Electronics. According to the Canada-based Squire, the collaboration will focus on producing next-generation 10nm ASIC chips for bitcoin mining. Gaonchips will be used for Squire’s semiconductor design house and Samsung will manufacture the ASIC chips in Korea.

Squire explains during the firm’s partnership announcement on September 25 stating:

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Our front-end development team of engineers and programmers is currently working with Gaonchips to develop the company’s initial ASIC chip to mine Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, and other associated cryptocurrencies using a wafer process technology that, once confirmed and accepted as meeting certain prescribed specifications and criteria, will form the basis of an initial mass production test run of the ASIC chip by Samsung Electronics.

Cryptocurrency traders in China appear to have found numerous ways to circumvent the nationwide ban on trading with digital currencies. According to industry experts, as long as the transactions remain peer-to-peer and decentralized, regulators won’t be able to block them out completely.

TETHER AND VPNS TO THE RESCUE

Quoting sources familiar to the matter, South China Morning Post reports that many retail investors, in addition to using illegal cryptocurrency exchanges, would convert their fiat into stablecoin Tether, and exchange between cryptocurrency wallets directly. All online actions are carried out through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to protect the anonymity of the trader and to circumvent the restrictions.

The government hasn’t taken any actions on blocking VPNs, even though a source close to the matter revealed that:

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Chinese regulators definitely have the technical ability to shut down VPNs. […] However, traditionally it takes numerous conversations with different stakeholders to reach a consensus on configuring a firewall, which lengthens the process.

Some companies like Tencent have officially confirmed that they’d block transactions, or ban accounts, associated with cryptocurrency trading. How such accounts or transactions would be identified, though, is yet to be revealed.

Read more: https://bitcoinist.com/china-cryptocurrency-tether-vpn-bypass-ban/

Nasdaq might be on the cusp of giving institutional investors an analytical edge on trading hundreds of crypto assets.

According to a person familiar with the company's plans, the U.S. stock exchange is preparing to add tools for predicting the price movements of crypto assets to its Analytics Hub. The hub, launched last year, draws machine learning and natural language processing capabilities to parse through social media and other alternative data sources to give investors a better way to assess market movement.

To date, the Analytics Hub has focused on traditional assets, but the addition of crypto seems to be another signal of Wall Street's growing interest in the nascent sector.

Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/nasdaq-said-to-be-building-tool-to-predict-crypto-price-movements/

Blockchain Records Will now be Accepted as Legal Evidence, China’s Supreme Court Rules

Internet courts in China will henceforth deem evidence authenticated using blockchain technology as being legally binding.

This follows the publication of new rules by the Supreme People’s Court of China which state that blockchain records will now be admissible in court. According to the South China Morning Post, internet courts which have been set up with a view of handling internet-related legal disputes will now be in a position of recognizing digital data as evidence upon verification by methods that include among others blockchain, time stamps and digital signatures.

An announcement by the Supreme People’s Court stated the following:

“Internet courts shall recognize digital data that are submitted as evidence if relevant parties collected and stored these data via blockchain with digital signatures, reliable timestamps and hash value verification or via a digital deposition platform, and can prove the authenticity of such technology used.”

Read more: https://www.ccn.com/blockchain-records-will-now-be-accepted-as-legal-evidence-chinas-supreme-court-rules/

The regulator pointed to “a lack of current, consistent and accurate information” in the two crypto investment vehicles issued by Swedish firm XBT Provider AB following their entry into the US market last month.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Sunday issued an order to halt the trading in Bitcoin Tracker One (CXBTF) and Ether Tracker One (CETHF), two investment products that track cryptocurrencies. The two exchange-traded notes (ETNs) are issued by Swedish company XBT Provider AB, a subsidiary of U.K.-based Coinshares Holdings.

The two products have been listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange since 2015 and entered the U.S. market last month under the ticker CXBTF, enabling domestic investors to access and invest in the crypto ETNs in an over-the-counter (OTC) market with their U.S. dollars.

Read more: https://www.ccn.com/sec-suspends-trading-in-bitcoin-and-ethereum-investment-products/

A new blockchain event is coming to Atlanta, Georgia.

On Friday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reported on the upcoming “Atlanta Blockchain Week” event. The event begins on September 29th and concludes on October 7th — just over a full week.

The Atlanta Blockchain Week Website says:

The Atlanta Blockchain Week is a collective week of events with the collaboration of blockchain community organizations and startups.

A TRIP TO “WACOINDA.”

The event will revolve around a central “Tech Village,” in and will incorporate a number of outlooks and disciplines. The AJC describes the upcoming scene:

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Base camp is the Tech Village, but events also take place at other venues around town. For instance, “Welcome to Wacoinda: Love, Collaboration and Blockchain” will be in Grant Park, “Women of Blockchain” will be at Ponce City Market and a blockchain class that includes $20 of bitcoin will be held at Monarch Tower on Peachtree Road. There will also be a cryptocurrencies developers class, but that location is to-be-determined.

A top Australian financial regulator has indicated it will take a new approach when regulating cryptocurrency exchanges, as well as tighten scrutiny of initial coin offerings (ICOs),.

In its a corporate plan for 2018–2022, released Friday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) outlined its areas of focus for the period. Top of that list is to continue "monitoring threats of harm from emerging products" such as ICOs and cryptocurrencies.

Further, for 2018 and 2019, ASIC said it is developing a new framework that will apply "the principles for regulating market infrastructure providers to crypto exchanges" and will intervene where "there is poor behavior and potential harm to consumers and investors."

According to the ASIC website, its current market infrastructure principals include a licensing scheme, via which it seeks to supervise financial market operators, settlement facilities, derivative trading and market participants.

The planned framework follows cross-department efforts the ASIC has been taking to implement supervisory approaches, such as dispatching staff onsite in financial institutions related to emerging tech including cryptocurrency, ASIC indicated.

Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/australian-watchdog-to-apply-market-rules-to-crypto-exchanges/

A top Goldman Sachs executive looked to clear the air Thursday about the bank’s cryptocurrency ambitions after reports that it was abandoning plans to open a trading desk for cryptocurrencies.

“I never thought I would hear myself use this term but I really have to describe that news as fake news,” Goldman Sachs Chief Financial Officer Martin Chavez said on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in San Francisco.

The CFO said Goldman is working on a type of derivative for bitcoin because “clients want it.”

“The next stage of the exploration is what we call non-deliverable forwards, these are over the counter derivatives, they’re settled in U.S. dollars and the reference price is the bitcoin-U.S. dollar price established by a set of exchanges,” Chavez said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/goldman-sachs-cfo-calls-reports-of-shutting-down-crypto-desk-fake-news.html

A new presidential decree legalizes cryptocurrency trading in Uzbekistan, introducing licensing for crypto exchanges and a set of requirements they will be obliged to meet. To operate in the country, foreign trading platforms will have to establish local subsidiaries and abide by the country’s relevant laws.

Decree Introduces Licensing for Crypto Exchanges

Uzbekistan’s President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has signed a decree legalizing the activities of cryptocurrency exchanges, local and regional media reported. The document introduces a licensing regime for trading platforms as well as a number of requirements they need to meet in order to be allowed to operate in the Central Asian country. It comes after an earlier decree issued in July prepared the legal grounds for regulating crypto-related activities.

The decree “On measures to organize the activities of crypto-exchanges in Uzbekistan”, № ПП-3926 from September 2, states that an organization which provides an electronic platform for the exchange, purchase and sale of crypto assets is recognized as crypto exchange in Uzbekistan. The legal document defines ‘crypto assets’ as a set of records in a blockchain that has value and owner.

Read more: https://news.bitcoin.com/uzbekistan-legalizes-crypto-exchanges-and-trading/

The list of indicators signaling a long-term bullish reversal in bitcoin (BTC) continues to grow with each passing week.

The latest to join the list is the MACD histogram, which has moved above zero – turned bullish – for the first time since January. The MACD, which oscillates above and below the zero line, is one of the most popular technical indicators used to determine a trend's reversal and momentum.

A bearish-to-bullish trend change is confirmed when the histogram moves above the zero line. On the other hand, a bearish reversal is confirmed when it dips below zero.

The bullish turn of the MACD adds credence to BTC's strong defense of the psychological support of $6,000 in the last 10 weeks.

Further, it validates bearish exhaustion indicated by BTC's long-tailed monthly candle and the record low net shorts in the BTC futures market.

At press time, BTC is trading at $7,320 on Bitfinex, representing a 0.8 percent appreciation on a 24-hour basis.

Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-indicator-turns-bullish-for-first-time-in-8-months/

Walmart's recent patent efforts have showcased how the retail giant is investigating blockchain, and a new filing points to a focus on autonomous delivery drones.

The application was published on August 30, detailing a system by which "autonomous electronic devices" communicate with each other wirelessly and pass transported objects to each other after an identification process.

After one drone travels to a specific spot where another one is located, they exchange authentication signals using "blockchain keys," and if the first robot successfully recognizes its "co-worker," it passes it the package. Drones would rely on a database of delivery information stored on whichever blockchain the company is operating.

To identify each other, robots use can use a variety means to actually send signals from one to the other, including RFID codes, QR codes or ultrasound, the patent filing says.

Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/walmart-explores-blockchain-for-connecting-automated-delivery-drones/

One of the world’s largest financial groups, Japanese company Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has been trialing its own cryptocurrency.

The company has made its own Mufg coin available for payments by employees at its headquarters own convenience store in its Tokyo HQ. The experiment is said to be going well according to the company and “is quietly advancing” as Mitsubishi UFJ tests out whether either purchasers or merchant come across any issues.

Employees use the coin by simply scanning a QR code on their smartphones at checkout. The coins can also be used to exchange money between workers at the store. The coin is currently pegged to the Japanese yen at 1:1.

The company is carrying out the test to examine how blockchain may improve transactions such as payments and withdrawals, commenting:

“Potentially this coin could have large-scale commercial potential, as well serving small-scale retail bank customers. Other than Mufg coin, Mufg is testing another untitled digital currency rewards [program] for employees who reduce their overtime hours and practise a healthy lifestyle.”

Mufg has total assets of JPY 306 trillion (USD 2.76 trillion). Mufg Bank is Japan’s largest, operating in 40 countries outside of the country. The fact that that the bank is looking at looking at an internal cryptocurrency payment system, with a view to its wider applications within the company’s overall system, is sure to make significant ripples around Japan’s financial and banking sector.

The company stated that one reason for the coin trials stemmed from their obvious simplicity of use and convenience when compared to that of traditional fiat currency and banknotes, also providing the user and merchant a low-cost transaction option. These coins would offer the user “instantaneous transfer capabilities”.

Last year, Mufg president Nobuyuku Hirano suggested when the trials were forecast that the bank was planning to “overcome issues of virtual currencies and create a highly useful currency”. This is another indication of how Japanese acceptance of Bitcoin has filtered down to large corporations who are now beginning to examine cryptocurrency’s potential within financial systems in the country.

https://bitcoinnews.com/japans-largest-financial-group-trials-own-cryptocurrency/

Multi-award winning rap artist Eminem has just released his latest album, Kamikaze. On one of the tracks, collaborator Royce Da 5’9′ mentions Bitcoin in a light that is rare to see.

Bitcoin Takes Another Step Towards Mainstream Acceptance

Since the bull market of 2017, both news coverage and mentions of Bitcoin in popular culture have increased tremendously.

The latest example of the world’s number one digital currency moving into the mainstream is on Eminem’s latest record, which dropped last night.

The mention comes during the ninth song on the album. The track is called “Not Alike” and is a collaboration between the formerly peroxide-adorned enemy of angsty teenagers’ parents everywhere and lesser known rapper Royce Da 5’9′. During the number, Royce states:

“Remember everybody used to bite Nickel, now everybody doing bitcoin.”

What is interesting about this particular reference is that Bitcoin is not phrased as some bizarre niche or criminal activity. He literally says everyone is doing it.

Previous mentions of Bitcoin in popular culture have often presented it as something far too complicated for the average person. This was the case with the comic Ellen DeGeneres’s section on the technology on the “Ellen” show. In other instances, as on the audience-dividing Big Bang Theory, it was presented as the domain of the strictly geeky.

Elsewhere, there have been numerous references to the shadowy early days of Bitcoin made in popular culture. One such example is the 2015 comedy-drama movie Dope. The plot features a main character who gets into the world of drug dealing on the dark web using the cryptocurrency as a payment method.

Finally, another side of Bitcoin popularly portrayed in the entertainment industry is that embodied by the “get-rich-quick” crowd. In an episode of “Family Guy”, Peter Griffin suggests that Bitcoin might be the answer to the family’s financial difficulties.

According to new research reported by Forbes, the bitcoin price moves with a high degree of alignment to its Google searches. The study was performed by Joost van der Burgt of the Dutch National Bank. He told the publication:

“If the buzz is everywhere, it doesn’t matter exactly what the news is about… nobody wants to miss out and everybody’s trying to get a piece of it.”

Such mentions like that on Eminem’s Kamikaze encourage people to research Bitcoin more fully.

Read more: https://www.newsbtc.com/2018/09/01/eminems-latest-album-kamikaze-name-checks-bitcoin/

Initial coin offering advisory firm Satis Group believes bitcoin's price might jump to $96,000 over the next five years, according to a new report.

Satis Group published the latest report in its five-part analysis of the cryptocurrency ecosystem Friday, this time examining how the cryptocurrency market is valued and whether this valuation matches the actual assets underlying token prices. The report, written by researchers Sherwin Dowlat and Michael Hodapp, also created predictions for how the market might look over the next few years.

Notably, the report attempted to predict how different cryptocurrency prices might look over the next five years if valued based on the underlying assets rather than speculation, saying that coins like bitcoin, monero and decred should see their prices spike as they are "cryptoassets which apply unique value propositions within deep and viral markets."

On the other hand, the researchers believe that coins like bitcoin cash and other "cryptoassets which attempt to inherit brand recognition and provide minimal technological advantage to incumbents" will drop. Coins like XRP received the harshest predictions, with the Satis Group saying the token would drop to $0.01.

The report explained:

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"Within the currency networks, we continue to see upside in networks that have cultivated relatively organic growth and community (such as LTC), meaningful downside from networks that have inherited brand recognition and potentially short-lived adoption during hiccups from their fork-parent (such as BCH), and very little value in networks that are misleadingly marketed and not even required for use within their own network (such as XRP)."