The Italian giant TAS Group and the Austrian start-up that has made a name as leading Bitcoin ATM provider are teaming up to deliver a crypto debit card. It will allow clients to quickly and easily exchange from crypto into fiat or vice versa on any Cointed ATM, as well as making payments to selected retailers.

The rampant growth of the digital currency industry together with the increased media attention are clear signs that more and more people are getting involved. Making big money from crypto would be of little use if it can’t be spent. Yet, despite cryptocurrencies’ rising popularity there are very few ways to exchange to fiat and make secure payments.

Why a partnership?

The success of a financial solution depends on two factors: relevance to the client’s needs and reliability in its operation. This explains why a 30+ years of experience company is partnering with a start-up?

TAS Group brings in reliability.

They have vast experience and a developed network of partners. Besides, a crypto debit card needs a placed network to be used. More partners means more places you can use it. In turn, demand for the card grows.

Cointed is responsible for the relevance factor.

As they are already an operating exchange from crypto into fiat money and a leading Bitcoin ATM provider, they know what people need.

Of course, when it comes to money and payments, trust is a another huge factor.

TAS Group is an established company with good track record.

Meanwhile, Cointed is one of the few companies involved with digital currency exchange and mining that is in the process of acquiring a banking license. That makes them a trusted partner in the largely unregulated cryptocurrency market.

The Card

The new card is a dual prepaid card that supports both fiat money and bitcoin. It stems from TAS Group’s cashless 3.0 platform and would be produced under a white-label strategy.

Clients can use the card to buy cryptocurrencies and cash in on their gains at all Cointed’s Bitcoin ATM locations. The fiat balance is spendable everywhere in the International Circuit (VISA, MC, Amex and etc.) The card also has a dedicated app.

This card is special. It is the only one that allows bitcoin balance to be charged directly at selected retailers of the joining Acquiring partners. Also, recharging is easy and accessible. It can be done through a mobile app, online or through Cointed ATMs.

Initially, the card will support Bitcoin. But with Cointed supporting numerous others, an inclusion of Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero and Ripple is possible in the future.

Besides, TAS Group and Cointed know that crypto users form an international community. That’s why their card will have FREE international delivery!

Giveaway

Cointed will be giving away crypto debit cards to those who participate in their ICO campaign until December 14th.

Get more information here and also make sure to follow the latest Bitcoin News.

About Cointed

Founded in 2015 by Wolfgang Thaler and Christopher Rieder, Cointed provides their clients with easy and simple access to cryptocurrencies. In less than two years, they have turned their start-up into Europe’s leading player in the digital currency industry.

Their services include an online exchange, bitcoin ATMs and payment solutions for retailers of any size.

About TAS Group

TAS Group provides software solutions for e-money, payment systems and capital markets. Their products create a seamless customer experience when dealing with financial intermediaries.

Trusted by European Central Banks and US institutions alike, TAS Group is a preferred partner in the finance industry.

The post TAS Group and Cointed Crypto Debit Card: The future of money today appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Bitcoin Cash supporters will be pleased with the Grayscale Investments news. This company decided to sell investors’ BCH balance instead of issuing it to them directly. Said liquidation process has been officially completed as of two days ago. A total of 172,501 BCH tokens has been sold on the open market over the past five weeks. So far, this has not had any major impact on the price whatsoever.

In a way, this liquidation has been a good thing. with so many tokens controlled by one entity, Grayscale Investments could have crashed the market. Instead, they took the slow route and slowly released funds on the market. The tokens were in the company’s custody as of November 6th of 2017. According to their Trust Agreement, all tokens were liquidated on behalf of their customers. All cash proceeds will be issued to shareholders of the company accordingly.

Grayscale Investments is Done With Bitcoin Cash

More specifically, every shareholder will receive a sum of $113.195042 per share. This is good news for Grayscale Investments shareholders. Some people will probably get more money than originally expected. After all, the Bitcoin Cash price has gone through a volatile period ever since it came to market. However, things have stabilized around the $1,400 mark for some time now. This liquidation did not trigger any major market shifts, which is somewhat surprising.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Bitcoin Cash. With this major liquidation behind us, the market will have an easier time standing its ground. Most tokens have surged in value over the past few days, and it seems  BCH will continue to do exactly that as well. How things will play out for all parties involved, remains to be seen, though. Now that Grayscale Investments is no longer a threat looming overhead, things look pretty decent for BCH.

The year 2017 has been pretty interesting for all cryptocurrencies. Despite so many people opposing Bitcoin Cash from the start, the altcoin is surviving with relative ease. Grayscale Investments successfully did its part in this matter and this hurdle is now behind us. The end of 2017 will most likely bring some more fireworks, to say the least. How things will play out, remains a big mystery, for the time being.

The post Grayscale Investments Completes Bitcoin Cash Liquidation appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Artificial intelligence is already permeating the workforce, changing the way businesses function. Today you’ll find A.I. software, like chatbots, completing administrative tasks—such as scheduling, booking, transcribing. They also conduct communication tasks, such as compiling and sharing information, answering questions, and more on behalf of humans. While the earliest examples followed very basic decision trees, advances in machine learning have opened the door for an expansive new workforce of competent, useful bots. However, better solutions for transparency and control are necessary to enable full deployment of this new category of software.

BotChain: Benefitting Developers and Their Customers

BotChain is a decentralized, Ethereum-based platform providing two major benefits designed to meet the needs of A.I. software developers and end users alike.

First, it is designed to help manage the trust of A.I. products, like bots, or other robotic process automation tools, by allowing bot registration, identification, audit and compliance to occur on the blockchain.

Second, with standardized protocols for bot-to-bot communication, it increases the speed at which developers can provide value to their end users, so that bots can coordinate workflows with other intelligent agents, or tap into knowledge sources in the BotChain’s open marketplace of skills.

An Example of the BotChain in Action

From end-to-end, an example of this process would be a conversational bot that books business travel for employees. Suppose that a sales manager needs to kick off travel booking for a large prospective deal the next week. First, she and the bot would need to verify the identity of one another. Once verified by the Botchain platform, she can let the bot know her travel details and preferences. If the bot needs additional information, it can check her schedule by communicating with another bot she uses to schedule her meetings. The BotChain supports standardized communication protocols between A.I. software, making this functionality not only feasible (today, no standards exist) but quick for developers to deploy. The details of these transactions—both between the sales manager and her travel booking bot, and the travel booking bot and the meeting scheduling bot can be hashed using a digital certificate to the BotChain ledger. Suppose that the transactions need to be audited to uncover what payments have been authorized by different members of the sales team over the past several months. The immutable ledger of these transactions remains, providing trust needed to ensure that an accurate picture of what has occurred can be revealed.

BotCoin (BOT) Utility Token Sale

Developers on the network are required to possess some portion of a BotCoin to access and/or deploy bots and interact with them.

The BotCoin utility token sale is set to begin in January.  These tokens will be available for purchase with Bitcoin or Ether payment. The BotChain website notes that the token sale details are subject to change, and information on the initial price, token distribution and pre-sale discount can be found on their website.

More information about the BotChain is available at – https://botchain.talla.com/

The post In a World with A.I.-Powered Assistants, How Can You Trust a Bot? appeared first on NEWSBTC.

So we’ve come to the start of another day in our bitcoin price trading efforts and we’re just about midway through the week in Europe. Things have been pretty interesting this week so far and we’ve seen a bunch of fresh inputs impact price.

Last night, we jumped straight into the action so as to avoid missing out on any potential entries and – this morning – we’re going to do exactly the same. Things are moving too fast for us to waste time looking at what happened overnight so, instead, we’re going to get straight into what’s on and what we are looking at right now.

As ever, then, take a quick look at the chart below before we get started so as to get an idea where things stand and where we are looking to jump in and out of the markets according to the rules of our intraday strategy.

The chart is a one-minute candlestick chart and it’s got our key range overlaid in green.

As the chart shows, the range that we are looking at for the session today comes in as defined by support to the downside at 16669 and resistance to the upside at 16849. That’s a pretty wide range and – normally – we’d be looking at bringing our intrarange strategy in to play on this sort of chart.

Today, however, things are moving a little too fast for intrarange (as there’s the potential for chop outs on intrarange action). So, with this noted, we’re going to stick with our breakout approach.

Specifically, if we see price close above resistance, we’re going to jump in long towards an immediate upside target of 16900. A stop at 16830 defines risk.

Looking the other way, if we see price close below support, we’ll try and jump in short towards a downside target of 16620.

Charts courtesy of Trading View

The post Bitcoin Price Watch; Breakout Only Right Now appeared first on NEWSBTC.

In recent years, The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a catchword of industry insiders in identifying the roadmap of home automation and smart city planning. Now IoT technology leveraged in a host of projects is giving a boost to global informatization.

ETC, one of the latest technologies applied to IoT, increase the way how information and value are shared in the digital economy. Its smart contracts serve as a dynamic channel where information and value are automatically transmitted and a made-to-order business model for IoT and the network of payment machines is rendered. Based on a flexible and intuitive platform that programs smart contracts and supported by ETC, the go-global strategy for IoT takes a step towards scope, security and decentralization.

ETC DEV team, the technology’s development panel, pays due attention to the application of ETC in IoT scenarios and unveil an IoT-friendly virtual machine that is with universality, independence and high efficiency, [and for which the team is also going to upgrade several protocols to fit ETC into mobile devices and embedding machines.] To better the use of IoT apps, the ETC community has customized a development plan for cross-chain operation. For the surge in transaction data via IoT, fragmentation and side-chain technologies have been devised to guarantee security and enhance efficiency. [All such efforts are more than just technological solutions, ETC’s engineers have worked out a specific timetable where ETC nodes will be effected on Raspberry Pi, the faddish IoT OS, by the end of 2018.]

In Into the Ether with Ethereum Classic, a thesis released by Grayscale this August, this sponsor of ETC Investment Trust wrote, “We believe that one day ETC will become the foundation of the globalized, secure and decentralized IOT.” IoT, appearing many times in the paper, seems to be one of the major reasons that Matthew Beck, the author, contends to make out a strong case for ETC. According to the analysis and figures from Beck, ETC can be suitable for automatic transaction machines. Beck points out that by 2025, if ETC can obtain 10% data flows from IoT devices, the price per token will enjoy a more-than-ten-fold increase. Coming to ETC investment, Beck wrote, “First, the storage attribute that ETC boasts is typical of precious metals and bitcoin and makes the token a good hedge against inflation and a long-term investment instrument. Second, as a digital currency that operates ETC smart contracts, this commodity in short supply can add fuel to the globalized IoT.”

The combination of ETC and IoT will not only raise the bar for IoT technology but also give ETC development a boost. IoT technology will hence be made safer and decentralized and come out independently and universally. The marriage also gives rein to ETC’s advantage and best represents ETC’s value.

Despite ETH apps are superior to ETC in number, the CryptoKitties-choked Ethereum blockchain has indicated the extra mile for ETH to go from flawed to flawless. [On the contrary, the rigorous attitude of ETC’s team towards technology makes every ETC proposal practically justifiable and turns its second-mover advantage into competitive strength.] On top of that, the ever-expanding scope of application in IoT practice has ratcheted ETC several notches higher. In terms of the outlook for ETC, it can be predicted that a decentralized and tamper-proof public infrastructure is in the making.

The post Will the Marriage of IoT and ETC Bring the Next Investment Opportunity? appeared first on NEWSBTC.

David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook and ex-PayPal president, has joined the board of directors at Coinbase.

Bitcoin Gold and Segwit2x have made the headlines these days. In terms of fork, there is more digital currencies than bitcoin that forked – Ethereum.

On 20 July 2016, Ethereum’s hard fork occurred at block 1,920,000 in order to resolve the DAO exploit. The blockchain then split into Ethereum Chain (ETH) and Ethereum Classic Chain (ETC).

Unlike ETH, ETC is the continuation of the default settings: decentralization, irreversibility, freedom from third-party inspection and being unstoppable. Therefore, the development process of ETC is more prudent and security-conscious.

A security-based policy

It’s widely known that ETC has launched its production cut plan which set out that the supply will be reduced by 20% per 5 million blocks on December 12 and this will continue until the total supply is controlled somewhere between 210 million and 220 million. An anti-inflation currency model under this policy will thus come into being to solidly underlie values for investors and developers.

In nature, the most important premise of the plan is to maintain cybersecurity and be self-reliant. A suitable monetary policy will indirectly promote the development of the network and provide a secure platform required for the development of all smart contracts. Large, high-risk, or high-value applications can be hard to come by without a secure network which will in turn attract many apps to develop there.

The Engineers: More technology than price

On the day before the implementation of the reduction plan, the ETC community held a forum on the future development of ETC and many ETC developers joined the discussion.

When asked about ETC price, the developers said, “We focus on technological development, our job, rather than price.” The has been pragmatically and steadily promoting the development of ETC. They’d rather slow down the development progress than do rash experiments. This would avoid users’ future loss caused by irreversible errors. By now, the team is working hard to make ETC more stable, more flexible and full-fledged. A dedicated and mature team is a good foundation for the rise of token price.

ETC on apps

ETC lags behind ETH in applications. However, it is also accelerating to narrow the gap. ETC is a universal blockchain smart contract platform that can run a variety of potential applications, such as IoT applications. ETC is currently working on several new projects, such as replacing the existing EVMs (Ethereum Virtual Machines) with SputnikVM for faster speed and more compatibility with IoT; Emerald Project provides a platform for Dapp developers; and more tools to integrate external services into ETC.

The potential use cases of ETC are very broad and theoretically, include most of the applications that require trust and contract. There is special advantage in developing IoT applications on the ETC platform: stable and secure network, fixed cap, capacity expansion, privacy transaction, payment machine, etc. The combination of IoT and ETC will transfer more apps to the ETC network.

The development of ETC gives precedence to technology and concentrates on technological development and applications, which does good to digital currency. A technology-based token will only end up dying if it fails to keep a balance between marketing and technology. This is why ETC is technology-focused and will become a decentralized and tamper-proof public infrastructure that lead the industry.

The post ETC: Technology First, Leader Next appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Teenagers to middle-aged investors in South Korea are engaging in cryptocurrency trading, investing in bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and a wide array of cryptocurrencies and assets.

Government Steps In To Regulate Bitcoin

In the beginning of 2017, the South Korean government, local financial authorities, and the ministry of strategy and finance remained neutral to bitcoin and declined to regulate the space because any sort of regulation would provide legitimacy to the cryptocurrency market.

The South Korean government was hesitant towards regulating bitcoin and business merely 6 months ago because it believed that the imposition of strict regulatory frameworks and policies would further lead the South Korean finance market and general consumers into the bitcoin market.

Since South Korean prime minister Lee Nak-Yeon’s public statement in early November about his concerns over teenagers and students jumping into cryptocurrency trading, the South Korean government has formed a task force operated by the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Financial Services Commission, Ministry of Justice, Fair Trade Commission, and Financial Supervisory Commission to create regulations around the cryptocurrency market.

Earlier today, on December 13, leading South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb noted that the imposition of regulations in the South Korean cryptocurrency market would further legitimize and validate the industry, given the rapid increase of demand from local investors for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the market.

”A right set of regulations will rather nurture the (virtual currency) market, and we would welcome that,” Bithumb told Reuters.

South Korean cryptocurrency trading platforms such as Bithumb, Korbit, and Coinone, which have a daily trading volume that is larger than KOSDAQ, South Korea’s main stock market, are already equipped with well-structured Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) systems.

The rigorous verification and approval process of cryptocurrency trading accounts by the three abovementioned exchanges are well recognized. The exchanges require traders and investors to submit a wide range of documents such as government-issued IDs, proof of income, bank account information and carry out face-to-face interviews.

Why is Government Regulation Necessary?

Middle to high school students, college students, middle-aged investors, and grandparents are investing in bitcoin. As Isaac Chung, a college student turned bitcoin enthusiast told CNN Tech, “First, it was just tech people. Now, literally, everyone is interested in bitcoin.”

In an interview with Nathaniel Poppers of the New York Times, Tony Lyu, the co-founder and CEO at Korbit, the South Korean cryptocurrency market’s third-largest exchange which was recently acquired at a $140 million valuation, emphasized that the South Korean finance sector tends to overheat quickly, as investors desperately move to follow the recent trend.

“Word just spreads really fast in Korea,” said Lyu. “Once people are invested, they want everyone else to join the party. There’s been this huge, almost a community movement around this.”

In South Korea, literally, investors of all ages are starting to invest in bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market, and the demand for cryptocurrencies has reached a point in which the government deemed regulations for cryptocurrency business and investors are necessary.

The post South Korea is Going Crazy Over Bitcoin: Real Mainstream Obsession appeared first on NEWSBTC.

WEST PALM BEACH, FL December 12, 2017:  Finova Financial, a digital financial services provider transforming the future of global banking, announced today that it is partnering with crowdfunding platform WeFunder to make Finova’s JOBS Crypto Offering (JCO)—the world’s first equity-linked token—available to investors large and small. Finova’s token will carry the unique attribute of being linked to a share of equity in Finova and will provide for an ERC-20 Ethereum token standard that can not only be traded in cryptocurrency but is also backed by assets in a U.S. corporation.

“We’ve been watching the blockchain, crypto, and ICO (initial coin offering) space for a long time now, looking for a way to bridge the gap to crowdfunding while remaining in compliance with SEC regulations,” says WeFunder co-founder Nick Tommarello. “The JCO appeals to us because it’s the first model we’ve seen that offers a promising new path for companies to raise capital using cryptocurrency as well as take advantage of the crowdfunding clause of the JOBS Act.”

Finova introduced the JCO in November, announcing it as a hybrid of initial coin offerings (ICOs) and a traditional IPO, which allow companies to raise capital more readily through cryptocurrency investments, and an initial public offering of stock.

“The blockchain and ICOs represented fundamental shifts in crowdfunding, with the blockchain promising to open it up to everyone while ICOs weathered a regulatory adjustment that limited them to accredited investors,” says Finova CEO Gregory Keough. “The JCO merges blockchain and crypto with crowdfunding in a legally compliant way and takes us back to the original promise of the ICO an investment opportunity for even small investors.”

The founders of WeFunder helped Congress pass the JOBS Act and have been preparing ever since for the day that they could finally offer a “kickstarter platform for investing.” With a goal of “building a new type of stock market,” the company has helped more than 165 startups and small businesses via funding from over 125,000 investors.

JCO:  How it Works

The JOBS Crypto Offering (JCO) is a new financing process that allows for companies to issue securities to the general public in exchange for cryptocurrency or other funds in compliance with SEC regulations. Ownership of such securities would be represented by entries in a distributed electronic network or database maintained by or on behalf of the Company in accordance with Section 224 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which we refer to as Tokens. The Tokens would be listed on an Alternative Trading System that is compliant with Regulation ATS under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.

For more information, visit:  http://jco.finovafinancial.com

About Finova Financial

A digital financial services provider  transforming the future of global banking, National Financial Holdings, Inc. (known as “Finova”)  develops fair and affordable financial technologies to create a more inclusive financial system and provide a path to financial health for the 2 billion people outside of the traditional financial system.  Founded in 2015 by a team of financial services, technology and payment experts, Finova is backed by leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms and Wall Street private equity investors.

For more information:  www.finovafinancial.com

The post World’s First Equity-Linked Token, Finova Financial’s JCO to be Available through WeFunder Crowdfunding Platform appeared first on NEWSBTC.

For once, most of the current cryptocurrency-related discussions will not revolve around Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin. Instead, we saw XRP gain a lot of value overnight and reaching a new all-time high. It has been a while since the XRP price showed any significant momentum. However, things are looking pretty good right now. Whether or not we will see more XRP price gains, remains to be seen, though.

XRP Price Tops out at $0.51

The year 2017 has been extremely bullish for all cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Although most Bitcoin and altcoin fans don’t like Ripple or their native XRP asset, it has certainly cemented its legacy in this industry. Earlier this year, we saw the XRP price rise from $0.0066 al the way to $0.34 in quick succession. No one knew for sure what spurred this sudden surge back then, and most people dismissed the XRP price gain as a pump-and-dump cycle.

Thanks to some solid partnerships with Asian banks, Ripple’s ecosystem has been growing pretty significantly as of late. Moreover, the Ripple team announced their lockup of 55 billion XRP – over half of the maximum supply – in time-locked escrow contracts. This funds will not be made accessible on exchanges, although Ripple will try to sell XRP to their current and future partners. Ever since this lockup was announced, people have been waiting for any significant XPR price momentum.

Nothing seemed to happen at first, as the XRP has hovered between $0.20 and $0.25 for most of Q3 and Q4 2017. Things suddenly picked up momentum late last night, as the XRP price noted major gains in quick succession. An initial push to $0.35 was rejected, yet the price bounced to $0.42 in the end. After more pushback, another leg up began to propel the XRP price all the way to $0.51. Since hitting that mark, the market has turned bearish gain, as people start taking major profits.

With over $3.216bn in 24-hour trading volume, the demand for XRP certainly is genuine. It is uncanny how this volume rose so quickly, even though the XRP market usually generates a few hundred million on a daily basis. Seeing this number go into the $3bn range is pretty spectacular and entirely unexpected as well. At the same time, all currencies and assets in the top 10 are in high demand as of late, and XRP is not an exception in this regard.

Unsurprisingly, the South Korean exchanges are driving the Ripple price up right now. Bithumb generated over $1bn in XRP trading volume, whereas Coinone added another $308.68m. Bittrex is in third place, although they are not that far ahead of Poloniex, Bitfinex, and Korbit. It seems a lot of fresh capital is flooding of the XRP market right now, although we know this is only a momentary snapshot of how the markets are evolving. Anything can change on a whim’s notice, especially in the world of cryptocurrency.

It is interesting to keep an eye on this XRP price momentum right now. While most people dismiss this asset as “not a cryptocurrency” and ‘evil bank money”, it is evident there is a lot of merit to what Ripple has to offer. Whether or not we will see the Ripple price continue to rise in the next few hours and days, remains to be determined. As is the case with most cryptocurrencies rising in value, things will either calm down or reverse altogether. Then again, all markets are thriving right now, and we may not see any major XRP price changes anytime soon.

Japanese internet giant GMO revealed yesterday that it soon allow staff to receive some of their salary in bitcoin.

There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the Bitcoin regulations in South Korea. More specifically, we all know there will be an emergency meeting later this week. However, there are seemingly no plans to ban Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. Instead, new KYC and AML requirements will be introduced for all local exchanges. None of these measures are invasive whatsoever, which is only to be expected.

South Korea has quickly become the go-to region for cryptocurrencies. Ever since China decided to ban all CNY trading, South Korea quickly filled the gap. We have seen local exchanges generate a ton of volume for all of the prominent altcoins. If a ban were to happen, things would unravel pretty quickly. Luckily, it seems that is not the objective of the local government whatsoever. Or that is how it appears right now, at least.

Everything is Fine in South Korea, for Now

With the news regarding Friday’s emergency meetings between the government and exchanges, speculation runs wild. In most cases, such meetings won’t have a positive outcome. The last time a major meeting occurred was in China, and we all know how that ended. South Korea will hopefully be a different creature in this regard, although it is still too early to say. According to local sources, there will be no ban whatsoever, though.

Instead, exchanges will have to adhere to additional KYC and AML regulation. More specifically, six new requirements will be issued. These guidelines are not overly difficult to adhere to whatsoever. Separation of fiat currency into a third–party account is perhaps the biggest challenge. More order book transparency can only be a good thing for platform users. For now, there appears to be nothing one should be even remotely worried about. We will know more on Friday, though.

It is good to see these new regulations come into place. More specifically, once this hurdle is out of the way, nothing can stop further cryptocurrency adoption in the region. There is no indication the government will lift the ban on initial coin offerings, though. Nor should anyone expect that, as ICOs are still a very problematic industry all over the world. A very interesting future lies ahead for the cryptocurrency, that much is evident.

Why South Koreans are going crazy over Bitcoin. Read here.

The post South Korea Won’t ban Exchanges but Introduce new Reasonable Regulation appeared first on NEWSBTC.