How do you know that you got all of your tokens? Spreadsheet is locked, no answers from dev`s here, people already complained about small reward, this hidden reward looks like throwing a bone. I will not participate in russian projects any more, they are greedy. Thanks a lot for something.

Ex-Fortress Billionaire: Crypto Market Will Be 'Largest Bubble of Our Lifetimes'

A former principal at Fortress Investment Group is reportedly moving to establish a $500 million hedge fund focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Bloomberg News, citing a source with knowledge of the plans, reports that Mike Novogratz is investing $150 million of his own, with an additional $350 million expected to be raised from outside sources by the end of 2017. Novogratz opted not to confirm or deny his plans when asked directly, according to the outlet.

If true, the initiative would represent the billionaire hedge funder's most aggressive move in the space to date. Novogratz previously made headlines earlier this year when he revealed that 10% of his net worth has been invested in bitcoin and ethereum. Speaking with Bloomberg, Novograts said that his stake in the market has since grown.

Even if he isn't setting aside funds to back a cryptocurrency-specific hedge fund, Novogratz made it clear that he intends to take part in what he called "the largest bubble of our lifetimes."

He told Bloomberg:

    "This is going to be the largest bubble of our lifetimes. Prices are going to get way ahead of where they should be. You can make a whole lot of money on the way up, and we plan on it."

https://www.coindesk.com/ex-fortress-billionaire-crypto-market-will-largest-bubble-lifetimes/

The number of merchants accepting Bitcoin as a means of payment has steadily increased over the past year. The latest to accept Bitcoin is Sharps Pixley, a London gold dealer.

Sharps who?

Sharps Pixley, whose origins date to 1778, is a London-based dealer of precious metals. It is a full member of the London Bullion Market Association. It acts as a full service shop for investors to buy, store and trade precious metals. Although it has been in operation for ~250 years, Sharps Pixley has shown that it is in sync with the times by deciding to accept Bitcoin as a means of payment.

Ross Norman, the CEO of Sharps Pixley, said:

    “It is our view that many investors in Bitcoin would like the option of holding intrinsic value in a traditional safe haven asset like gold; and be able to switch across in a simple and cost effective  way. That avenue is now open to them.”

Digital gold

Bitcoin may be called digital gold, but it still has a long way to go before it can rival gold as a safe haven asset. The volume of gold traded annually is estimated to be $22 tln and there is a flourishing derivatives market for it. Bitcoin investors represent a niche class of investors, although awareness about cryptocurrencies is increasing.

Giles Mable, a Business Development Director at Sharps Pixley, said:

    “We are bridging the gap between the world’s oldest currency and its newest, offering new and existing customers the means to exchange and diversify digital currency for a real, tangible asset which they can store and trade at Sharps Pixley.”

Bitcoin accepted through Bitpay

Sharps Pixley will accept Bitcoins for the sale of gold through the payment processor Bitpay. This will help them avoid any risk of Bitcoin’s fluctuating price. Given that Sharps Pixley’s core competency lies in trading precious metals, the decision not to accept Bitcoins directly is wise.

Unless merchants have some costs which are denominated in Bitcoin (and not fiat), they will be exposing themselves to Bitcoin’s price volatility if they accept Bitcoins directly. We still have a long way to go before Bitcoin can be used at each stage of a product’s value chain – right from the raw material to the sale to the end customer.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/distinguished-london-gold-dealer-accepts-bitcoin-for-payment

LocalBitcoins to Compensate Users for ‘Bcash’ Holdings, Will Not Support Future Forks

Peer-to-peer bitcoin trading platform LocalBitcoins has announced it will not add support for bitcoin cash and will not distribute airdropped coins to users who held bitcoin balances at the time of the fork. Instead, LocalBitcoins has compensated users with bitcoin deposits corresponding to the value of the bitcoin cash given to their accounts.

When bitcoin cash forked away from the main bitcoin blockchain on August 1, all bitcoin holders received “airdropped” BCH balances corresponding to their BTC holdings. Exchanges and wallet services had to decide whether and how to distribute those funds to their customers. Most major order-book exchanges have added support for bitcoin cash trading, while some other services have allowed customers to withdraw their bitcoin cash balances but will not support BCH.

LocalBitcoins, which is one of the world’s most popular P2P exchanges, has decided to take an alternative approach, which they announced in a blog post:

    "LocalBitcoins has decided against supporting Bcash, for various reasons. Our primary focus is to provide easy access and global liquidity for Bitcoin and to ensure the security of Bitcoins held in customer accounts."

“Bcash” is a pejorative term many bitcoin supporters use to describe bitcoin cash since they do not believe the coin should be allowed to profit from the bitcoin brand. LocalBitcoins says that adding support for Bcash would shift resources away from their primary mission, which is to serve the bitcoin community itself.

    "Adding support to an alternative cryptocurrency that shares address space with Bitcoin would have significantly shifted resources away from this main focus. We believe supporting Bcash would create confusion and complicated situations e.g. due to the possibility of sending Bitcoins to Bcash addresses, which would result in extra hassle and possibly loss of funds for our customers."

However, LocalBitcoins has decided to compensate customers who were holding bitcoin balances at the time of the August 1 hard fork. To that end, the platform exchanged the bitcoin cash airdropped to customer accounts for bitcoin and credited those funds to customer BTC balances. The service states that eligible customers have now been compensated.

Nevertheless, LocalBitcoins warns customers that they should not expect to receive similar compensation in the future, which is almost certainly an allusion to the potential SegWit2x hard fork currently scheduled for later this year. “You should not expect any previous or future cryptocurrency airdrops to be compensated or supported by LocalBitcoins.com,” the post states.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/localbitcoins-to-compensate-users-for-bcash-holdings-will-not-support-future-forks/

NXC, the holding company of Nexon, the $10 billion Japanese gaming company founded by South Korean entrepreneur Kim Jung Ju in 1994, has acquired Korbit, the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea and the first bitcoin exchange in the country, at a $150 million valuation.

According to sources close to the deal including Hankyung, South Korea’s largest finance and business news publication, Nexon purchased 65.13 percent of Korbit’s shares for $90 million, valuing the company at over $150 million.

Why Did Nexon Purchase Korbit?

As of current, the daily trading volume of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market is similar to that of the trading volume of major South Korean stock markets including the KOSDAQ. For years, Korbit has led the South Korean cryptocurrency and bitcoin exchange markets, receiving investment from billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper and South Korea’s largest telecommunications conglomerate SK Telecom.

While Korbit is only the 16th largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and is far behind Bithumb, its competitor in terms of daily trading volume, it has strong brand power within the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market. More to that, Korbit remains as one of the leading cryptocurrency trading platforms for certain cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum.

In an interview with Hankyung, a fintech advisor based in South Korea explained that the deal between Nexon and Korbit is unprecedented, and that the acquisition of Korbit would likely spur an increasing number of investments and mergers within the South Korean cryptocurrency sector.

Strengthening of the Japanese and South Korean Bitcoin Markets

The South Korean gaming and technology industries are familiar with the company Nexon because it has operated within South Korea since its launch in 1994. The company initially started out as a South Korean gaming company with headquarters in Seoul and as a result, the majority of gaming enthusiasts still to this date consider Nexon as a South Korean company.

In actuality, Nexon is a multi-billion dollar technology giant headquartered in Japan and listed on the Japanese stock market. The holding company of Nexon is based in South Korea, which is known as NXC. And now, the holding company of a Japanese technology conglomerate is the parent company of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market’s second largest exchange in Korbit.

Large-scale conglomerates in South Korea including SKT have made several investments into the cryptocurrency sector and emerging startups. But, the Japanese bitcoin industry has become significantly more active due to the involvement of companies GMO and Nexon and their major investments in bitcoin companies.

Earlier this year, the GMO group, another multi-billion technology and Internet company, announced the launch of Z Coin, a bitcoin trading platform targeted at institutional and retail investors. Upon the launch the Z Coin trading platform (coin.z.com), GMO also announced its plans to invest $30 million in manufacturing ASIC miners and establishing bitcoin mining centers in Europe.

“We expect to incur expenses for establishment of the next-generation mining center and research and development and manufacturing of hardware including the next-generation mining chip. We will not disclose the specific amount due to the non-disclosure agreement with our alliance partner, but it will be more than 10% of the consolidated noncurrent assets as of December 31, 2016 (¥3,489 million),” said GMO.

The acquisition of Korbit by Nexon will likely trigger more deals and mergers in the Japanese and South Korean bitcoin industries and exchange market in the upcoming months.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/south-koreas-second-largest-exchange-korbit-acquired-at-150-million-valuation/

Why bounty spreadsheet is locked? I would like to check my stakes, if all were counted well, because i have some doubts. Reward is rather small. I`m confused.

According to multiple reports, Venezuelan citizens suffering from the country’s horrible economy are now playing massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) to collect in-game items and sell them for bitcoin.

Recently there have been many reports of Venezuelans “Gold Farming” on a MMORPG called Runescape. Recent headlines explain that in-game farmers are selling treasures for bitcoin to make a living. Gold Farming has always been considered a controversial and profitable operation since online gaming became extremely popular. The business model started trending in China where players acquire in-game currencies or items and later sell them for “real money”. In 2009 it was estimated that over 1 million gold farmers were based out of China, but in-game gold farming also happens all around the world. Because of the secrecy, it is hard to get an accurate figure on how much revenue gold farming brings in, but it was estimated to be about USD $300 million in 2008.    

Continue reading > https://news.bitcoin.com/venezuelan-gold-farmers-are-selling-runescape-items-for-bitcoin/

Bitcoin peer-to-peer lending platform Wayniloans has withdrawn its support for the SegWit2x bitcoin scaling proposal and the New York Agreement (NYA).

The company, which was the first peer-to-peer bitcoin lending platform in Latin America, made the announcement in an email distributed to the Bitcoin-segwit2x mailing list. Wayniloans co-founder Juan Salviolo wrote that, when they signed the NYA, they did not realize how contentious the scaling proposal would be. Specifically, they cited concerns that Core developers universally oppose it and that it is unpopular in Latin America.

   
Additionally, Wayniloans criticized NYA proponents for not implementing mandatory, opt-out replay protection, which would prevent attackers from broadcasting transactions on both blockchains and stealing coins from unwitting victims.

   
SegWit2x developer Jeff Garzik has proposed opt-in replay protection, but this would require users to protect themselves manually, which critics argue is too difficult for casual users who are not technically-proficient.

Wayniloans joins several other companies in withdrawing support for SegWit2x and the NYA. Banking and payment processor Bitwala announced last month it will only follow the SegWit2x blockchain if it receives support from Bitcoin Core, which does not appear likely. Additionally, web content platform Yours decided to launch on the bitcoin cash blockchain, and F2Pool–claiming they only agreed to support the NYA through July–say they stop signaling for SegWit2x the next time they update their pool servers.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/segwit2x-nya-agreement-lose-another-signatory/

Only USA government and European Union working together can forbid bitcoin circulation, and make this technology useless. But something tells me, that they will not do this. Western countries are build on freedom of entrepreneurship fundamentals, government will try just to get their taxes.

It seem like all these bankers, Nobel laureates, talkers, are not able to realize the scale of cryptocurrency and bitcoin infiltration in our life. It`s brand new revolutionary technology, lazy bank system just can`t compete with cheap, fast and transparent crypto transactions. Bankers just afraid to lose their bacon.

The president of the European Central Bank has criticized the Estonian government’s plan to launch a national cryptocurrency. The statements have implied that the European Union (EU) states will not be permitted to launch state-issued cryptocurrencies that compete with the Euro as the major currency within EU jurisdiction.

Estonia Had Planned to Launch a State-Administered National Cryptocurrency

The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has rejected Estonia’s plans to launch a state-backed national cryptocurrency. Draghi has stated that “no member state can introduce its own currency. The currency of the eurozone is the euro.”

Last month, Estonia unveiled its plan to launch Estcoin, a state-backed national cryptocurrency. Estcoin would be centrally administered by the Republic of Estonia and launched as an ICO. Estonia also planned to make the cryptocurrency available and made available to any investor worldwide through its e-residency program. The Estcoin project has been closely evaluated and praised by Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum.

Peter Ehrlich of the European Central Bank is reported to have stated that “within the legal framework of the European Union, in all member states that, like Estonia, have introduced the single currency, only the euro is the legal tender and the monetary policy lies exclusively with the European Central Bank.” Daniel Heller of the Peterson Institute for International Economics has echoed this position, adding that EU obligations mandate that governments are unable to raise funds in any currency other than the euro. “If you sign up to the Eurozone, you sign up to the euro. Your financing is in euros”.

https://news.bitcoin.com/european-central-bank-criticizes-estonian-national-cryptocurrency-plans/

New survey data from online student loan marketplace LendEDU suggests that younger consumers in the United States are more interested in investing in bitcoin.

The startup published the results of its survey today, which was conducted online in August and drew 1,000 participants from around the US. The survey focused on a number of areas, including a basic question about whether they've heard of bitcoin at all. As it turns out, roughly 78% of respondents said they had.

Among the notable findings in the LendEDU survey is that, according to the data, younger consumers – those between the ages of 18 and 34, showed more willingness to invest in bitcoin than older age groups.

Of those between the ages of 18 and 24, 35.9% said they plan on investing in bitcoin, versus 43.5% who said no and 20.5% who weren't sure. For the 25-34 age group, the "yes" figure grew to 40.4%, with 31.7% of respondents in that demographic saying no.

By comparison, just over 10% of those between the ages of 45 and 54 indicated an interest in investing in bitcoin. Less than 5% of those over the age of 55 expressed the same sentiment, the survey data shows.

In a blog post detailing the results, LendEDU predicted that this data foreshadows a greater role for bitcoin among younger consumers.

"Judging from this data, as the years go by and younger Americans develop more spending power, you can expect bitcoin to become more and more prevalent in the American economy," the company said.

https://www.coindesk.com/survey-younger-americans-likely-invest-bitcoin/

Following the regulatory crackdown in China, bitcoin’s price has climbed back up 30 percent over the $4K zone since the market’s nosedive last Friday. Now China’s bitcoin trade volume has dropped to the fourth position globally as Japan has taken the reigns over the past two days. Chinese traders have once again taken trading to the ‘streets’ and have also migrated business to Hong Kong and Korean exchanges.

Japan Captures the Lead in Global Bitcoin Trade Volume

According to statistics from data sites like Crypto Compare and Coinmarketcap, Japan has taken the lead in global bitcoin trade volume. Currently, ¥ 93B worth of bitcoins are being swapped in the country as Japan is capturing over 47 percent of the global BTC volumes. Since the regulatory fiasco in China, exchanges like Bitflyer, Zaif, Coincheck, and others have jumped forward when it comes to BTC and global fiat swaps. Japan’s leading trade volume is followed by U.S., Korea, China, and Europe.


Japan captures 47 percent of the global bitcoin trade volume at press time.

https://news.bitcoin.com/regulations-push-chinese-bitcoin-volumes-to-otc-and-neighboring-countries/

 LONDON — The price of Bitcoin is surging on Monday after a week in which it lost more than $1,000 in value and dropped below $3,000 per coin for the first time in over a month.

Bitcoin collapsed spectacularly last week as news of a regulatory crackdown in China broke. The cryptocurrency dropped 16% against the dollar on Thursday after Chinese media reported that the country's regulators were moving closer to shutting down exchanges.

But Bitcoin is now surging again.  By 9.00 a.m. BST (4.00 a.m. ET), Bitcoin is up by more than 6% against the dollar — its key pairing in the currency markets — to trade at $3,950 per coin, just below the psychologically significant $4,000 mark, as the chart below illustrates:



http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-update-monday-september-18-2017-9

It’s been over forty-eight days since the hard fork, and the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network is alive and well.

Five Different Development Teams Are Working With the Bitcoin Cash Project

As the blockchain’s days continue, BCH developers have been revealing the upcoming plans to improve the cryptocurrency’s protocol. Discussions revolving around bitcoin cash development shows the protocol’s programmers have a very ambitious roadmap for the digital currency’s future. This includes a deep focus on on-chain scaling, and not fearing hard forks down the road in order to upgrade the BCH software. Currently, there are five development teams who say they are working with the BCH project, which include developers from Bitcoin ABC, Unlimited, Nchain, XT, and Classic.

Bitcoin Cash Developers Don’t Fear Hard Forks

At the moment there are lots of ideas being tossed around like a malleability fix without the  additions Segregated Witness adds, and a different difficulty adjustment algorithm. To push these new ideas forward, some BCH developers are not afraid to hard fork the network occasionally.   

“If we want to scale big we’ll have to do a hard fork from time to time,” explains Bitcoin ABC developer Amaury Séchet recent developers mailing list post. “Longer term, we may want to use extension point to add new features, but we are not there yet — more on extension points later on.”

Séchet and many other developers have been discussing quite a few different concepts regarding the future of Bitcoin Cash. The lead Bitcoin ABC developer Séchet mentions a new Merkle tree format and improving light client security with UTXO commitments. Other developers would also like to work on non-consensus changes to improve and make the BCH network more reliable. Development discussions have also revolved around how a hard fork should be coordinated and combining multiple changes in a consensus change.

Continue reading
https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-cash-network-continues-to-grow-with-an-ambitious-roadmap/

Guys, i know that many of you are expect news about taking off your Propy signatures. So, i would like to share news with you, please use this info on your own risk. It`s from telegram, conversation with team member, on russian languague, September 16.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1991170.msg21907470#msg21907470

Please inform on what day of the week is planning to calculate signature campaign stakes for the current week. When signature "week 5" is going to be closed for example?

Finland has said it has “solved” the problem of refugee identity, using the Blockchain to record data of new residents.

As part of its commitment to support asylum seekers, Finland is providing arrivals with a prepaid debit card instead of cash, and linking the identity of cardholders to the Blockchain.

As Technology Review reports, quoting Finnish Immigration Service director Jouko Salonen, the issue of “strongly authenticated identity” is no longer a problem.

“We have found a way to solve that,” he told the publication.

The cards are the product of local startup MONI, and function more like a bank account replacement than a simple payment device.

In issuing them, Finnish authorities are able to track both spending and identity with the added benefit that the Blockchain data is immutable.

“Our purpose has always been financial inclusion, and especially to help people in developing countries,” MONI CEO Antti Pennanen added.

A cross-Europe effort to solve the problem of refugee identity is currently a topic of debate for the European Parliament.

A task force is looking into the options for using the Ethereum Blockchain to alleviate the problem, with the latest information showing an allocation of €850,000 ($1 mln) for 2017 having been half spent.

“[...] EU governments in partnerships with other countries and organizations (e.g. NGOs) need innovative solutions to manage increasing flows of migrants and their temporary stay in different countries,” the organization commented last month.”

https://cointelegraph.com/news/finland-solves-refugee-identity-with-blockchain-debit-cards

Hi manager, i`ve send you a list with my finished twits through a google form a week ago. But i`am not seeing myself in a twitter bounty spreadsheet. My nickname is "@iam_terraformer". Thank you.

Mainstream financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs are finally beginning to realize what forward-thinking venture capitalists have known for years: investors need to pay attention to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

A few months ago, Goldman’s hedge fund clients asked the bank to begin providing analysis on bitcoin investments. In July, chief technical analyst Sheba Jafari accurately predicted that the bitcoin price would pull back to about $1,850 before setting a new record during its current wave; she forecasts it could extend as far as $3,915 before the wave is over.

Now, Goldman Sachs is counseling institutional investors to give cryptocurrency a closer look. In a note distributed this week, Goldman analyst Robert D. Boroujerdi advised portfolio managers that with the total cryptocurrency market cap reaching record levels, investments in this space are getting harder to ignore:

    "With the total value nearly $120 billion, it’s getting harder for institutional investors to ignore cryptocurrencies."

The Goldman Sachs team notes that initial coin offering investments–which are approaching $2 billion in 2017 alone–have exceeded angel and seed funding during the past few months.”

Mainstream financiers have begun to view ICOs as digital gold mines and have abandoned lucrative posts to stake their claims. Boroujerdi says that whether or not one believes cryptocurrencies have merit, “real dollars are at work” in the cryptocurrency space and warrant attention from investors.

    "Whether or not you believe in the merit of investing in cryptocurrencies (you know who you are) real dollars are at work here and warrant watching especially in light of the growing world of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and fundraising that now exceeds Internet Angel and Seed investing."

One hurdle institutional investors must overcome is the uncertain regulatory environment. Until recently, ICOs have been largely unregulated. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued a ruling suggesting that some ICO tokens are “securities” and thus subject to federal securities laws. It is unclear how soon and to what extent the SEC will begin enforcing securities laws, but Adam Draper of Boost VC advised developers to avoid using language like “DAO” and “ICO” because the use of such terms virtually guarantees attention from the SEC.

Other nations are beginning to view ICOs more closely as well. An advisor to the Chinese national bank recently said that ICOs need moderate regulation. Just last week, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced it would begin regulating token distributions.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/goldman-sachs-cryptocurrencies-getting-harder-to-ignore/