Month: September 2017

Two candidates jockeying for Colorado’s 2018 gubernatorial election threw their support behind cryptocurrencies during a debate over the weekend. Appearing during the Nexus Conference in Aspen, Democrat Erik Underwood and Republican Lew Gaiter spoke about privacy, voting and issues facing the Colorado cannabis industry – and how cryptocurrencies and blockchain can fit into the equation. Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Venture, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees and Christina Tobin, the founder of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation, moderated the debate. Underwood Read more …

Regulation According to reports, a few banks in Singapore have ceased doing business with several startups that operate with cryptocurrencies. Singapore’s Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Industry Association claims that over ten companies have had issues with Singapore banks and that the corresponding financial institutions have provided no reasons for the account closures. Also read: Korea’s Largest Messenger App Launching Exchange With 110+ Cryptocurrencies ‘We Do Not Fit Anywhere In the Current Regulatory Framework’ Just recently the Singapore-based startup, Read more …

London, September 2017. BIP175 Pay-to-Contract protocol went into draft status earlier this month and is an implementation of the work on homomorphic payment addresses and the pay-to-contract protocol by Ijah Gerhardt and Timo Hanke in 2012. The new BIP can potentially open up Bitcoin to use cases not previously achievable on the public Bitcoin blockchain. The protocol is designed to mimic real-world payment interactions between merchants and customers whilst ensuring only the merchant and customer have cryptographic proof of who Read more …

Investors who followed Social Capital’s Chamath Palihapitiya into the early stages of two investments he advocated would have made an awful lot of money. Palihapitiya was early in both Facebook, the ubiquitous social network, and bitcoin, the disruptive crypotcurrency that has sharply divided investors who continue to argue over its legitimacy. Even with the major gains both have made, Palihapitiya remains hot on tech stocks in general, and bitcoin in particular. The digital currency, despite some volatile times, has soared Read more …

A new white paper has been published detailing a potentially transformative protocol for initial coin offerings (ICOs). The protocol, which would seek to produce an “equilibrium” between capped and uncapped token sales, represents a collaborative effort between ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin and developer Jason Teutsch, the creator of smart contract scalability project TrueBit.  In the white paper, released today, the authors detail a system by which an ICO could respond to the actions of buyers. Specifically, buyers would submit a valuation table via a smart contract Read more …

Mario Draghi, the erstwhile president of the European Central Bank (ECB) made some startling comments during his presentation today at the Hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. When asked about cryptocurrency regulations or bans, similar to the political decisions the Chinese central government has enforced, Draghi made it clear that there is no way to ban Bitcoin, or to even regulate it, saying: “It would actually not be in our powers to prohibit and regulate them. We Read more …

SMEs are the cornerstone of economic development. In most countries, they provide the platform for job creation and economic growth. Therefore, any product or system designed to encourage the entrepreneurial adventure of SMEs or simplify the business environment may as well be recognized as a solution to a global problem. Difficulties in traditional funding Loans and external funding are essential in the development of SMEs. However, the risk of not meeting up with the obligations of loan repayment makes it Read more …

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 Read more …

The recent Chinese cryptocurrency exchange ban has caused a massive spike in the number of users accessing peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms. The LocalBitcoins P2P platform registered an all-time trading high of $17.5 mln last week, and other local platform volumes have quadrupled as well. The rush for investors and Bitcoin holders to either buy or sell has driven them into these generally lesser-used platforms. As exchanges like ViaBTC shutter, the Bitcoin that they had previously been holding is being withdrawn into Read more …