Bank of England to Explore Distributed Ledger Tech for Settlement

The Bank of England has indicated it will consider the impact of distributed ledgers as part of a plan to modernize the country’s settlement system.

During a speech given at the Bank of England yesterday, Minouche Shafik, the central bank's deputy governor for markets and banking, laid out a four-point vision for the initiative, which has the mandate to deliver goals by the end of this year, with technological development beginning in 2017.

The blueprint will seek to answer four questions, Shafik said. These include defining the bank’s policy objectives, determining what functions the payment system should have, establishing who should be able to access the system and electing the right role for the Bank of England to play in the service’s delivery.



http://www.coindesk.com/bank-england-distributed-ledger-settlement/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoinDesk+%28CoinDesk+-+The+Voice+of+Digital+Currency%29

Deloitte Delves Into The Blockchain Conversation with Interactive Branded Paper


In an interactive branded paper on their website, Deloitte singles out blockchain as being the “Enigma. Paradox. Opportunity.” Deloitte, being an internationally recognized firm that provides audit, consulting, tax, and advisory services to some of the largest companies in the world clearly wants in on the potential action.

Discussion continues to swirl around Bitcoin and blockchain among heavy hitters in the financial space who are eager declare whether they are rooting for the alternative technologies to be adopted and mainstream or whether they’re just a fly-by-night fad. What’s evident in the discussion though is that it’s not as polarizing as one would expect because there are plenty of people who aren’t quite on board with Bitcoin still have their eyes on using blockchain technology for their benefit.

The paper is aimed at businesses and “public sector leaders” in helping them understand how blockchain will affect their businesses or government’s financial and operational processes. The paper also seems to set up Deloitte as having a brand new service segment to market to their already massive customer base who may or may not already be interested in getting involved with blockchain technology.

From the outset, the interactive nature of the paper is interesting to navigate at first, however, there are a lot of different links to PDF files, some of which are just one or two pages, others which are 25 pages long. This makes for a disjointed reading experience. Many pieces of content on the page could be missed altogether by an busy executive or public officer looking to get the scoop in a hurry.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/deloitte-delves-blockchain-conversation-interactive-branded-paper/

Two of my all time favorites are Blazing Saddles and Animal House.
And one comedy that I laughed out loud mutiple times was Real Men starring Jim Beloushi and Jack Ritter.

Digital security giant Gemalto has partnered with blockchain startup Symbiont to allow financial institutions to more securely execute smart contracts and blockchain-based transactions.

Under the deal, Symbiont will use Gemalto's SafeNet hardware security modules (HSMs) to protect blockchain identities and transactions, with the aim of preventing theft, forgery and other types of criminal activity.

The HSMs will provide protection for Symbiont's platform by "securely managing, processing and storing" cryptographic keys, Gemalto said. It added that the devices are used by a number of large financial institutions to protect more than $1tn dollars in financial transactions every day.

The firm explained in a statement that integrating its HSMs ensures the "highest levels of regulatory compliance and trust for cryptographic identities authorizing these transactions".

Mark Yakabuski, Gemalto's vice president of business development strategy, said:


Automating legacy systems

Symbiont utilises blockchains to allow institutions and investors to issue, manage and trade a range of financial instruments more efficiently over an encrypted peer-to-peer network.

These instruments, which Symbiont calls 'smart securites', are self-enforcing, self-executing contracts that can offer cost and time savings compared with transactions brokered using legacy systems.

Once a security is issued onto Symbiont's distributed ledger, it acts autonomously, eliminating the traditional manual processing of financial transactions.

Founded in 2014, Symbiont raised $1.25m in June 2015, and issued its first smart security on the bitcoin blockchain shortly after, in August.

Based in New York, the startup has roughly 10 employees and is focused on capital markets applications of blockchain teach

http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-symbiont-security-gemalto/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoinDesk+%28CoinDesk+-+The+Voice+of+Digital+Currency%29

What are you going to do if Donald trump become president?
I personally don't want him to become my president

Is the United States of America a Christian country?

Religiots: Why has the bible not been able to disprove what's written in science books?

I used to be a Democrat until the Jimmy Carter, that's when I became a Republican, and now I'm somewhat of an Independent. What that means I'll vote for another Independent or a Republican never a Democrat, they are way too untrustworthy

A new HTTPS Certificate Authority, Let’s Encrypt, allows the general populace to attain explicit trust for their websites and apps. In theory, the service makes the goal of a fully encrypted web more attainable and eliminates the price-prohibitive procedure of attaining an CA certificate. Recently, though, trojans and spyware signed with Let’s Encrypt certificates have begun to crop up. This means malware commonly flagged by antivirus programs can go unnoticed by Windows systems – and collect your personal info, including any login info you use to get into online wallets, and accounts used for 2FA on these wallets.


Closed-Source OS Lags Behind in Security

This exploit allows malware creators to package any old malware they have that gets recognized by network traffic irregularities, effectively re-enabling them by making them look safe to your computer. This is going to cause huge headaches in the future for internet security application developers – by making the current system open, they’ve essentially invalidated its usefulness.

So how can you protect yourself if you use Windows? The truth is, you can’t, short of buying your bitcoin face to face and becoming a hermit, that is. The current certificate trust system is integral to the way traditional websites and web apps implement security, and that’s not going to change in the near future.

This exploit extends to any system that doesn’t allow low-level security tweaks by the user (MAC OSX, Anddoid, etc.) Luckily, people using platforms like Linux and *BSD have more granular control of what cert authorities they trust, so what scanty malware there is for these systems will be recognized right away, and locked down by default. Installing a new OS just isn’t a practical short-term security solution, however. For now, If you use Windows, keep your money in local wallets as much as possible and use as many security measures outside of online accounts as possible; phone number 2FA and public key signing are good options.


This new exploit — revealed by open-sourcing the certificate system — is more an indictment of the current centralized trust system than anything else. It should give the security-minded Bitcoin user pause to know that thousands of oppressive regimes and companies in the business of shipping products with weakened security and backdoors are trust authorities in the current system. Further, the moment a service comes up that lets individuals easily sign their work as secure, it’s exploited by people looking to steal information and money from the people it’s supposed to serve.

These events make the case for trustless security and distributed systems that much stronger. All it takes is one exploit, and current internet security measures fall apart. Until a decentralized solution for package signing and web page encryption gains widespread acceptance, We’ll continue to see devastating zero-day exploits and security holes that put many users at risk, like the one discussed in this article. Until then Our only option is to stick to open-source software platforms and use applications that have their own implementation of trustless security. Sure, these are band-aid fixes for a massive systemic problem, but at least, they’re there for people that want to minimize exposure to the broken security systems we use today.

http://bitcoinist.net/lets-encrypt-certificate-abuse-put-windows-bitcoiners-risk/

Finance firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc
GS
 has become a pillar of the financial sector with traders looking to the bank's advice for everything from investing to saving. For that reason, Goldman Sachs Director Don Duet's positive remarks regarding blockchain could be a catalyst for the technology's success.

Blockchain Potential

Bitcoin has had a rough ride over the past year, as many of the coin's users suffered losses due to volatile prices and exchange collapses.

However, the technology that bitcoin runs on – a ledger-like system called blockchain – has been gaining momentum. This is especially true in the financial sector, where banks say blockchain could improve their operations and make things like cross-border payments more streamlined.

Related Link: Blockchain Moves Forward In The Financial Industry

Using Blockchain

Earlier this month, Duet commented on blockchain, saying that he sees the technology as both exciting and groundbreaking. He said blockchain systems have the potential to revolutionize banking operations and the technology could help banks share information and conduct asset transfers more easily and securely.

A Single Truth

Duet said blockchain provides banks with a "single truth," meaning that it creates one constant system that all banks can use. One of the problems with the banking sector as it currently stands, he said, is that every bank is operating with different systems and protocols.

Because of this, banks have to spend a lot of time reconciling differences in order to conduct transactions. However, using blockchain could change all of that by providing banks with one single ledger updated with each transaction.



Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/news/16/01/6177441/blockchain-gets-a-much-needed-stamp-of-approval#ixzz3yY24GeBh

Skuchain: Here's how blockchain will save global trade a trillion dollars


Global supply chains use a fundamentally broken system that locks up many hundreds of billions of dollars within a complex milieu of intermediaries and financiers. However, blockchains change value transactions that have come to exploit the need for trust.

We are talking about an $18tn (£12.6tn, €16.5tn) market dominated by antiquated, paper-based methods such as letter of credit and factoring that accounts for about $5tn of annual trade today. Letters of credit have been around for hundreds of years and have not really changed. They work by couriering hard copies of documents around the world, while banks employ hundreds of people to review those documents.

Mountain View-based Skuchain sees the potential to make the existing system faster and cheaper, while making financing available to small and medium-sized businesses in locations where it wasn't previously accessible. It has development projects under way with multiple international banks and has just announced funding from Digital Currency Group, Amino Capital and Fenbushi Capital, the first China-based VC that exclusively invests in blockchain companies.

Travis Giggy, head of international business at Skuchain, told IBTimes UK: "Letter of credit [LC] is an expensive process and it's a real pain in the ass, which is simply not available to businesses in emerging economies."

He said traders are starting to move away from LC but like everything in supply chains, it's a slow process. Open account systems are prevalent ($15tn) but require a high degree of reputation. "90% of trade is financed and if you are not an established player, you can't get the open account terms and you can't get a letter of credit from your bank and get a loan for the cash in advance transactions." He added the potential savings would be in the hundreds of billions and rising.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/skuchain-heres-how-blockchain-will-save-global-trade-trillion-dollars-1540618

Bitcoin is gaining global recognition for being a very disruptive force in the financial industry. Though the community is currently divided by the block size issue, the technology carries on and with it comes the ongoing opportunity to spawn innovation, create new applications for blockchain technology, and start new businesses. Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of Bitcoin to develop new platforms and businesses that expand the utility of the blockchain and empower people with additional financial power.

Innovation: Building With Bitcoin


Innovation comes from the desire to solve a problem in a new way. Innovation can be combining things or ideas in a way that hasn’t been done before, or it can simply be doing something better, cheaper and faster.

Blockchain technology has the ability to simplify payments, make them faster, and cheaper, therefore it is a primary protocol to base next generation financial platforms on. While new uses of the blockchain have been discovered, it’s still a very young market which has large potential for new players to innovate and apply the tech to industries which haven’t used the technology previously.

Because Bitcoin is technology-based, most new applications and businesses will be rather technical, requiring either extensive coding experience or startup money to hire a professional developer or team. These technological hurdles do stifle some innovation, but they should never stop a truly great idea. Distribution, encryption, financial control, and speed are all fundamental properties of Bitcoin which can be utilized towards accomplishing multiple tasks over a wide variety of applications.

The boost.vc incubator, founded by Tim Draper, has become a well-known Bitcoin incubator in Silicon Valley, accepting multiple startups into its program every year. In fact, there are incubators for tech-based projects all across the world that aim to help new entrepreneurs develop their business models, build their products and services, and begin the path to success. The disruptive nature of Bitcoin makes it a great protocol to integrate into the development of new ideas and platforms. Bitcoin has the potential to reduce costs, and increase speeds and security. Distributed assets and cloud computing will likely change drastically within the next decade as computing power continues to increase exponentially.

Entrepreneurship is all about solving problems with methods that improve or disrupt the current norm. If you can think of something that solves a problem in a way that improves on the norm and is an opportunity rather than an idea, you can innovate and start working on a business model. Entrepreneurship is all about identifying opportunities and inefficiencies that can be solved and applying a unique solution to them. While there will be resistance and friction in customer adoption, true innovation and disruption shines though. Bitcoin is a great platform to build and innovate with as it is still very young and the potential for new applications is immense.

http://bitcoinist.net/innovation-through-bitcoin-entrepreneur-heaven/

hello

i have a limited paypal account with ~45 euros on it

can you remove limit
they ask for prof of address, id

Bank of America Drawing up 20 More Cryptocurrency & Blockchain Patents

In addition to 15 previously filed blockchain-related patents, Bank of America is now reportedly drafting up another 20 patents that will be submitted to the US Patents and Trademark Office (USPTO) later this month.

While numerous reports from regulators, settling houses and even governments talk up the potential of Bitcoin’s underlying technology – the blockchain, Bank of America (BOA) is trying to get ahead in the blockchain space as one of the few big financial institutions actively filing patents related to crypto technology.

Speaking to CNBC, a spokesperson for the bank revealed that BOA is “currently in the process” of drafting 20 patent applications that are to be submitted to the USPTO later this month.

Chief operations and technology officer at BOA, Catherine Bessant spoke about blockchain technology at Davos last week. In an interview with CNBC, she stated:

The end of December 2015 saw 10 Bank of America patent applications published by the USPTO in relation to cryptocurrencies. These patents were originally filed by the bank in June 2014. The patents filed were in addition to an existing patent application by the bank for a wire transfer system using cryptocurrencies.

“It’s very important in the intellectual property world to reserve our spot, even before we know what the commercial application [of blockchain] may be,” she added.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bank-of-america-20-more-cryptocurrency-blockchain-patents/

Bitcoiners like to defend their community by proclaiming it just that – a community. But, what if in a court of law, Bitcoin could be defined as a corporation. What would this mean for Bitcoiners?

If the so-called Bitcoin Community were declared a corporation, the precedent would then be set for online creation communities to thus be considered corporations. This would have far-ranging implications for all online creation communities, which encompasses technologies like Linux.

If Bitcoin were ruled a corporation, then it would have operated for numerous years unregistered. As many early bitcoiners argued, holding Bitcoins would be like owning stock in an early tech startup. If this were the case, then Bitcoiners might all be seen as stakeholders in the Bitcoin corporation.

Who would be considered the controlling parties? This might imaginably fall back on the developers, in particularly the core developers. The responsibility to incorporate, it might be argued, falls back on the development team for not incorporating.

If not the developers, then perhaps the bosses are the miners. If most Bitcoiners are from North America, then their bosses are Chinese (since most miners hail from behind The Great Firewall).

Bitcoin as a corporation makes sense. What is Bitcoin otherwise? A protocol? A community? These sorts of things do not exist in the legal framework. So, there must be some compromise.  When the anatomy of an online creation community is dissected, what’s left to behold is a organizational type structure that reflects the modern institution. The question, then, is simple: Is Bitcoin most like a government, a private corporation, a non-profit or a church? This might be the sort of things discussed in a court of law. Of course, the final decision might have implications for Bitcoin development and users.

Now, forget Bitcoin. Let’s look at some Bitcoin 2.0 technologies. In particular, Ethereum. Ethereum took on nearly $20 million worth of bitcoins in a pre-sale. Ethereum does not consider itself a corporation. But, if it were, what it did in terms of the pre-sale is akin to an unregistered stock issuance.

Ethereum developers and community, similar to Bitcoin, considers the project an online creation community, not a corporation. But, having taken on $20 million, new stakes are raised for the Ethereum development team. If their vision fails, and many people lose their investment, law enforcement investigations could ensue.

In the coming years, how the definition of Bitcoin evolves could have wide-ranging legal implications for the technology and its users.

Because protocols, nor online creation communities, fall under heretofore existing regulatory frameworks, a ruling maybe in order to regulate Bitcoin beyond its currency, property and commodity attributes, and regulate it as an entity.


https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-as-a-corporation/

A Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company developing identity solutions for blockchain-based systems won $15,000 at a startup competition hosted by the venture arm of Spanish banking group Banco Santander yesterday.

Announced in November, the Distributed Ledger Challenge was organized by Santander InnoVentures, the $100m FinTech venture fund created by Banco Santander in 2014, and Onevest, a venture capital network based in New York. The Amazon Web Services Pop-up Lofts, a working space located in Manhattan, hosted the event.

Cambridge Blockchain, which won the event, was one of five finalists that saw more than 100 entrants submit pitches. In addition to Cambridge Blockchain, the list of finalists included Coinprism; ExiVest, a startup equity dark pool project; Midasium, a startup seeking to develop smart contracts for the real estate industry; and blockchain rewards network startup Ribbit.me.

It was through Santander InnoVentures that the Spanish banking group invested in Ripple and Digital Asset Holdings. The firm later published a report on potential cost savings banks could unlock with the technology.

The panel of judges featured Mariano Belinky, managing partner for Santander InnoVentures; Julio Faura, head of research and development for Banco Santander; Juan Jiménez Zaballos, director of corporate innovation for Banco Santander, Greg Shvey, partner for TradeBlock; Peter Smith, CEO and co-founder of Blockchain; and James Smith, CEO of Elliptic.

The event opened with an introduction by Belinky and Faura, followed by a question-and-answer session with the panel of judges.

http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-identity-startup-15k-at-santander/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoinDesk+%28CoinDesk+-+The+Voice+of+Digital+Currency%29

Lots of people all over the world are keeping a close eye on Bitcoin, and some of them are even making a strategic investment in the popular digital currency. When the world of agriculture and Bitcoin collide, interesting things are bound to happen sooner or later. Especially when the nation of Vanuatu is gambling on their Bitcoin investment paying dividends in due time.


Finding an investment opportunity with a chance of paying dividends in the future is not an easy task in this day and age. Traditional finance is seeing a lot of volatile action, and stock markets are losing ground on a daily basis. For investors, there is no better time than now to look at alternative options, such as Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

South Pacific Plantation Management Ltd. had the same idea, by the look of things. Most people will have never heard of this company before, which is only normal, as they are operating in the national of Vanuatu. As one would come to expect from such a small place, agriculture is still big business over there, and Bitcoin could be the perfect fit.

https://news.bitcoin.com/nation-vanuatu-embraces-bitcoin-payments-farmland/

1. MJ 2. Magic Johnson 3. Kareem 4. Shaq 5. Wilt 6. Larry Bird 7. Bill Russell 8. Kobe 9. Oscar Robertson 10

She will not be indicted; that is just a conservative fantasy. You can't stand the fact that she will win.

No. There shouldn't even be a debate about this. That would be the most blatant violation of the 1st Amendment. If Christians can't have a cross in the public square, Sharia law most definitely can't be imposed anywhere on U.S. soil.