Coins & Blockchain News

Russia is preparing for the long-awaited legislation tailored to regulate its crypto space. According to the latest reports from Moscow, the term “cryptocurrency” has been taken out of the legal texts. Nevertheless, Russians have no reasons to doubt the existence of the decentralized electronic cash. They have many options to get involved in cryptocurrency, regardless of what the law says about it. Also read: Iran to Allow Mining Hardware Imports, Cyprus Creates Fintech Hub Report: Revamped Law on Digital Assets Drops ‘Cryptocurrency’ The Russian crypto regulatory framework has been delayed for months. In May, three bills were filed in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, and were scheduled for adoption in July, as ordered by President Putin himself. However, deputies found it hard to synchronize and compile the drafts into a single legislation – after the first reading…

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Visa and Mastercard have run up the mother of all credit card bills. The monopolistic payment providers had been embroiled in a long-running lawsuit instigated by merchants protesting their excessive fees. The credit card giants have now conceded defeat and agreed to settle the price-fixing case for a whopping $6.2 billion. Also read: Raising the Dead: Is Bitcoin Cash Fiat Currency? Visa and Mastercard Cop to Running a Card Cartel Millions of Visa and Mastercard customers enjoy a love-hate relationship with their credit card provider. While the ability to buy goods on credit is undoubtedly convenient, the hidden charges, sporadic service interruptions, and security risks all take their toll. They’re not alone: merchants are equally weary of Visa, Mastercard, and their punitive fees. Unlike the helpless customers, however, the merchants have the ability to do something about it. Shares in JP…

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The UK Treasury Committee published a report on crypto-assets for its Digital Currencies inquiry. In the report, they seem keen on pushing a ‘Wild West’ analogy. Time Flies… The Digital Currencies inquiry was launched in February of this year, with a remit to “cover the role of digital currencies in the UK.” This includes the opportunities and risks to consumers, businesses, and the government that digital currencies may bring. Further, the inquiry will look at the potential of distributed ledger technology to impact financial institutions and infrastructure. The inquiry will also examine how to balance the regulatory response, to provide protection yet not limit innovation. However, the report published today does not address either of these aspects. Wild West The chair of the committee, Rt. Hon. Nicky Morgan, MP, comments: Bitcoin and other crypto-assets exist in the Wild West industry of crypto-assets….

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Some of Brazil’s biggest banks have come under investigation for alleged monopolistic tendencies in the trade of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The Administrative Council for Economic Defense, a transparency and competition body, accuses the financial institutions of shutting down accounts of brokers trading cryptocurrency without merit. Also read: Zimbabwe’s Golix Battles To Grow Volume After Breaking Into Seven African Countries Banks Probe To Fish Out Monopolistic Practices The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) said on September 18 that it had started a probe of six of Brazil’s biggest banks for alleged malpractice in the trade of cryptocurrencies. According to a report by Reuters, the Brazilian transparency and competition body is looking into allegations of “monopolistic practices…that could be limiting the action of brokers” within the cryptocurrency industry. “In fact, the main banks are imposing restrictions or even prohibiting … access to the…

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On Wednesday, September 19, a team of developers launched a platform called the Open Savings Initiative. The application allows any Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) user to save funds in a time-locked address that cannot be spent until a specific date and time has passed. Also read: Critical Bug Found in Bitcoin Core Invokes the Multiple Client Argument Open Savings Initiative Allows Bitcoin Users to Lock Funds Until a Specific Time There’s a new platform that allows people to save BCH and BTC in a time-locked address making the funds unspendable until a specific time. The Open Savings Initiative (OSI) is an open source application that uses the opcode OP_checklocktimeverify to build a custom pay-to-script-hash (P2SH) address. The coins held inside the address cannot be spent until the predetermined timestamp with the lock-time parameter is met. So essentially a…

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Major South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit will reportedly begin operations in Singapore next month. The new exchange will offer Singapore dollar trading as well as crypto-to-crypto pairs in three markets offered by Bittrex, Upbit’s US-based partner. Also read: 160 Crypto Exchanges Seek to Enter Japanese Market, Regulator Reveals Upbit Expands to Singapore Dunamu Inc., the operator of the Kakao-backed exchange Upbit, said on Wednesday that it is launching a cryptocurrency exchange in Singapore next month, Yonhap reported. Upbit is currently South Korea’s second largest crypto exchange. At the time of writing, its 24-hour trading volume is approximately $229 million, second only to Bithumb which has a 24-hour trading volume of $392 million. At present, Upbit has 271 cryptocurrencies listed. Dunamu established a Singaporean branch office in February and has been preparing for an exchange launch ever since, the news outlet conveyed. Kim Kook-hyun,…

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Famed cryptographer and digital money pioneer, David Chaum, revealed he thinks he’s built a “better” cryptocurrency. The post Ecash’s Creator Is Back – And He Thinks He’s Built the Fastest Cryptocurrency appeared first on Your Daily Satoshi.

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Bitcoin recently made a sharp dip lower but quickly found its way back inside the short-term rising channel on the 1-hour time frame. This suggests that price could still regain ground from here and that bulls are keen on defending the longer-term floors. However, the 100 SMA is crossing below the longer-term 200 SMA to signal that the path of least resistance is to the downside. In other words, the selloff is more likely to resume than to reverse. These moving averages are also holding as dynamic resistance levels as well. RSI has room to head higher before indicating overbought conditions, but the oscillator seems to be topping out already and looking to move south. Similarly, Stochastic has yet to reach overbought levels but seems ready to move lower, indicating a return in selling pressure. In that case, the price…

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Russia is preparing for the long-awaited legislation tailored to regulate its crypto space. According to the latest reports from Moscow, the term “cryptocurrency” has been taken out of the legal texts. Nevertheless, Russians have no reasons to doubt the existence of the decentralized electronic cash. They have many options to get involved in cryptocurrency, regardless of what the law says about it. Also read: Iran to Allow Mining Hardware Imports, Cyprus Creates Fintech Hub Report: Revamped Law on Digital Assets Drops ‘Cryptocurrency’ The Russian crypto regulatory framework has been delayed for months. In May, three bills were filed in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, and were scheduled for adoption in July, as ordered by President Putin himself. However, deputies found it hard to synchronize and compile the drafts into a single legislation – after the first reading…

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LINE, the messaging app giant from Japan, has unveiled plans that will see it launch an ambitious, token-powered ecosystem by the end of 2018. Aimed at capitalizing on the company’s big user base – LINE claims to have more than 160 million monthly active users – the plan is centered around its previously announced LINK token. Supported by a $10 million venture fund and a newly-launched cryptocurrency exchange, LINE has already said that its initiative will focus heavily on the development of decentralized apps, or dApps, that are tied to the LINK blockchain. The plan, as a whole, represents one of the more notable enterprise-level efforts of 2018 to apply blockchain to mainstream use cases. LINE is hoping that its LINK token will serve as the fuel for a wide range of consumer-facing applications, from payments for restaurants and other…

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Bitfury has announced the release of a new Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip, as well as a new generation of its Bitcoin mining hardware. The Bitcoin mining firm plans to integrate its new offerings across many of its data centers around the globe. Bitfury’s New Catalog of Bitcoin Mining Hardware The company announced the launch in a blog post published on September 19th. According to the announcement, Bitfury is releasing a new ASIC chip as part of a new catalog of BTC mining hardware. Commenting on the launch, Bitfury CEO Valery Vavilov said: Bitfury is looking at all factors, including silicon packaging, chip efficiency, optimal power distribution, cooling designs and speed of development when designing our mining hardware. We think that this will lead to solutions that deliver the best ROI to our customers — regardless of ASIC size. The new…

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Visa and Mastercard have run up the mother of all credit card bills. The monopolistic payment providers had been embroiled in a long-running lawsuit instigated by merchants protesting their excessive fees. The credit card giants have now conceded defeat and agreed to settle the price-fixing case for a whopping $6.2 billion. Also read: Raising the Dead: Is Bitcoin Cash Fiat Currency? Visa and Mastercard Cop to Running a Card Cartel Millions of Visa and Mastercard customers enjoy a love-hate relationship with their credit card provider. While the ability to buy goods on credit is undoubtedly convenient, the hidden charges, sporadic service interruptions, and security risks all take their toll. They’re not alone: merchants are equally weary of Visa, Mastercard, and their punitive fees. Unlike the helpless customers, however, the merchants have the ability to do something about it. Shares in JP…

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More than half of the total market capitalization of Bitcoin is held in wallets which hold over 200 coins (roughly around $1.25 million). This signals for serious faith in the world’s leading cryptocurrency, according to a new research. #HODL! According to new research by Diar, over 55 percent of Bitcoin’s total supply is held in wallets which contain over 200 units. Moreover, one-third of those wallets have never made an outgoing transaction, including during the price’s peak at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, indicating strong faith in Bitcoin by those investors. The research also shows that upwards of 87 percent of all Bitcoins are stored in wallets which hold over 10 units, accounting for a little less than $100 billion of the total market cap. Interestingly enough, only 0.7 percent of all Bitcoin addresses hold these coins….

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A recent Bitcoin Core update fixes a vulnerability that, according to experts, could have crashed the entire network for $80,000

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New York University has launched a major program in blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies

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R3 blockchain consortium has partnered with a Dutch digital security company to test a blockchain-based digital ID solution

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Yet another Japan-based cryptocurrency exchange has been hacked with a loss of total 6.7 billion yen, or $60 million worth of cryptocurrency, including 6,000 bitcoin. The exchange, called Zaif, operated by Tech Bureau and a licensed exchange in Japan, said on Thursday that the exchange first noticed unusual funds outflow on the platform around 17:00 Japan time on Sept. 14, after which the company suspended asset deposit and withdrawal services.. Tech Bureau further explained that after further investigation, it discovered the unauthorized access to the exchange’s hot wallets had stolen a total of $60 million worth of cryptocurrency in bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and MonaCoin. At the moment, however, the amount of bitcoin cash stolen remains unknown. The exchange added that since its own asset reserve is currently at around 2.2 billion yen (or $20 million), it has reached an agreement…

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Some of Brazil’s biggest banks have come under investigation for alleged monopolistic tendencies in the trade of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The Administrative Council for Economic Defense, a transparency and competition body, accuses the financial institutions shutting down accounts of brokers trading cryptocurrency without merit. Also read: Zimbabwe’s Golix Battles To Grow Volume After Breaking Into Seven African Countries Banks Probe To Fish Out Monopolistic Practices The Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) said on September 18 that it had started a probe of six of Brazil’s biggest banks for alleged malpractice in the trade of cryptocurrencies. According to a report by Reuters, the Brazilian transparency and competition body is looking into allegations of “monopolistic practices” within the cryptocurrency industry “that could be limiting the action of brokers.” “In fact, the main banks are imposing restrictions or even prohibiting … access to the…

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Keeping a cryptocurrency safe and secure from harm is a full time responsibility. Even in the case of Bitcoin, new flaws can be discovered after nearly 10 years of ongoing development. One such issue has been disclosed earlier this week, as it caused a denial-of-service issue with Bitcoin Core 0.16.2. The Bitcoin Core DoS Issue In the world of cryptocurrency, denial-of-service incidents are rather uncommon. Although it is possible to completely cripple smaller-cap blockchain projects with some effort, one would not necessarily expect such issues to present themselves where top currencies are concerned. In the case of Bitcoin, it seems such a vulnerability has been present for quite some time now. Ever since Bitcoin Core client version 0.14.0 was introduced a while ago, there has been a denial-of-service vulnerability lurking within the code. Until this week, that problem went by…

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Paragon, the outfit which raised over $70 million in an ICO to build a “social network of cannabis startups,” has lost 96 percent of its market cap. Doing Nothing With Blockchain Perhaps the latest example of the “irrational exuberance” of the 2017 ICO rush, Paragon (PRG) 00, which had the backing of US rapper The Game and an infamous video to match, currently has a token market cap of just $2.7 million. The project was the brainchild of Jessica Versteeg, aiming to use Blockchain to grapple with the patchwork legality of cannabis in the US and even change governmental approaches to the industry. Now, one year on from the ICO, social media users are drawing attention to the seeming lack of activity on the part of Paragon’s developers. Re-uploading the publicity video featuring The Game and Versteeg, Cinnober cryptocurrency lead…

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E.U. competition regulators will deliver a decision on Microsoft’s acquisition of hosting service GitHub by October 19

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