Day: January 21, 2018

Bitcoin enthusiasts living in the United States have multiple options at their disposal for buying and selling cryptocurrencies. Even so, there is still plenty of room for future improvements and competing services. Blockchain, the renowned Bitcoin wallet provider, has partnered with SFOX to make it more convenient to buy and sell cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Users in over 20 states can use this platform as of right now, which will bring some much-needed competition to the ecosystem.

Blockchain Lets Users Sell Bitcoin With Ease

It is always interesting to see Bitcoin-oriented companies evolve over time. Blockchain started out as a Bitcoin wallet service provider, both for online and mobile users. Over time, the company enabled support for Ethereum as well, which was somewhat of a surprise. To keep the momentum going, the company has now partnered with SFOX to let US-based users sell Bitcoin quickly and easily. This is another major development for this reputable company as it tries to enter new markets and expand its reach.

Although the functionality is only available in 22 states, it is still a good start. Trading Bitcoin in the US is subject to different legislation and guidelines in every single state. Some states have made it all but impossible for Bitcoin to thrive. Other US states are more open-minded, which means there is a chance for companies such as Blockchain to make a big impact. As one would expect, states such as New York, Washington, and Florida are not supported by the company at this time.

To make use of this new service, users will need to make some changes to their Blockchain accounts. An email address and mobile number will first need to be verified. Basic information will need to be submitted as well, including one’s name, address, and identity verification documents. This is not a new way of buying or selling Bitcoin anonymously, and thus anyone looking for such a service will be sorely disappointed. There’s a good reason why this service is not anonymous, as Blockchain adheres to all KYC and AML guidelines.

Furthermore, Blockchain users will need to link their bank account. People doing so through the Blockchain wallet will be able to start selling Bitcoin immediately. Those entering information manually will need to verify two small deposits, which is similar to how Coinbase works. Once their bank account has been set up, users can then sell as little or as much Bitcoin as they like. There will be some daily limits to take into account at first, but it seems those limits will be raised over time.

Do keep in mind not every Blockchain user will be approved for this service automatically. There is a very real chance that some users will be rejected, for various reasons. So far, no one has been rejected yet, but it is important to be as transparent as possible when signing up for this service. Sellers who wish to use a fake identity or omit specific information are better off looking for other solutions, by the look of things.

The big question, of course, is how popular Blockchain’s new service can become. With 22 US states supported, it is still a rather limited market. At the same time, having more competing services in the mix can only be considered a positive development. It is unclear if additional payment methods such as credit cards will be added in the future, but that seems highly unlikely. Moreover, it appears SFOX will take care of the people buying Bitcoin, and thus there is no real need to support anything but bank accounts for those people selling their cryptocurrency.

This week the UK-based company Blockchain has announced it has begun to roll out buying and selling features for U.S. residents. Starting now Blockchain Wallet users from 22 states can sell units of bitcoin core from within the wallets interface and other digital assets like bitcoin cash and ethereum will soon follow.

Also read: Markets Update: Cryptocurrency Prices Rebound But Uncertainty Still Lingers

Residents from 22 States Can Use the Blockchain Wallet to Trade Cryptocurrency

The firm Blockchain (otherwise known as Blockchain.info) is one of the most popular and oldest cryptocurrency businesses in the space with over 22 million wallet accounts, according to the company. The firm has just announced that users from 22 U.S. states can now sell their bitcoin core from within the wallet (buy options will be available shortly). Out of all users the company’s CEO Peter Smith estimates that 30-40 percent of those users stem from the U.S. On January 18 the firm announced a partnership with a company called SFOX, a business that has contributed to “laying the groundwork for our Blockchain users in the U.S. to seamlessly buy and sell digital assets.”

“We are on a mission to build an open, accessible, and fair financial future, one piece of software at a time — This announcement brings us one step closer to realizing that mission by making the exchange of digital assets fast, easy, and inexpensive for millions of users across the US,” explains Blockchain’s announcement.    

And this is just the beginning; in the coming weeks, users will also be able to buy bitcoin, and buy and sell other assets like ether and bitcoin cash.

Trading Will Open to More U.S. Residents In the Near Future

With Blockchain having a large user base stemming from the U.S. the company’s new feature service will compete with firms such as Coinbase. Earlier this week discussing the partnership with SFOX with the news outlet CNBC, the company’s founder Peter Smith said he was very optimistic about the future of digital assets. Smith also says it was easier to start the sell option first in order to control the initial launch more carefully.

“If we are prioritizing short-term gains, we would prioritize buy — that is what most people have done. But it’s really time to make sure we nail that experience,” Smith explains.

Information on how to trade within the 22 states can be found within the company’s support for trading bitcoin in the U.S. section. The process requires identity verification and the user must link a bank account. SFOX sends two small USD deposits to your bank account and once verification is complete users can sell their BTC using the wallet. The bitcoin core sell feature is currently available in Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.

“We’re looking to expand to new states in the near future,” Blockchain’s U.S. support portal notes.

What do you think about Blockchain Wallet offering trading services for U.S. users? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, and Blockchain.

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As is usually the case during the weekend, there is very little exciting news to report on when it comes to cryptocurrency prices. Everything is in the red once again, as Bitcoin struggles to find stable support above $12,000. With a Bitcoin price of $11,949 at the time of writing, we are looking at a 6.35% decline over the past 24 hours. Whether or not this trend will reverse again anytime soon, remains to be determined.

Bitcoin Price Struggles are not Over Just yet

The year 2018 has not been off to a good start as far as the Bitcoin price is concerned. In fact, it has been rather problematic in many different ways, mainly thanks to the lingering technical issues. Moreover, we have not seen the Bitcoin price show any sign of stability near the $12,000 level whatsoever. Any attempt to go above this value is always rejected fairly quickly, even though the Bitcoin price hit $14,4000 not that long ago.

Over the past seven days, we have seen some interesting Bitcoin price changes. On January 15th, we had a Bitcoin price of $13,400, which was eventually followed by a quick rise to $14,400. In the past few days, this price took a steep dip all the way down to $9.600. Ever since that time, we have seen the Bitcoin price remain stuck below $12,000 for most of the time, despite some bullish momentum pushing the value to over $13,000.

It is a bit unclear what all of this means for the long-term Bitcoin price, though. After the all-time high of over $19,000 a few weeks ago, things have certainly taken a turn for the worse. It is highly doubtful we will see such a high Bitcoin value anytime soon, although the unpredictable nature of cryptocurrencies has a tendency of surprising a lot of people. Most experts remain bullish on the Bitcoin price long-term, but it is evident there is too much negative sentiment in the markets as well.

If there is one positive thing to take away from the Bitcoin price woes, it is how the 24-hour trading volume is above $10bn most of the time. That in itself is rather remarkable, and it shows there is definitely a growing demand for Bitcoin and other currencies as well. With $10.4bn in the past 24 hours, no one will deny the demand to buy and sell Bitcoin is still very strong, even during the weekend.

Most of the Bitcoin trading volume originates from the Upbit platform, which is a rather interesting development. OKEx is in second place with their BTC/USDT pair, which is another intriguing turn of events. Bitfinex completes the top three with their BTC/USD pair. Further down the line, we see bitFlyer close in on Bithumb in terms of trading volume, and GDAX barely remains in the top 10 as of right now. It will be interesting to see what the future holds in this regard.

For now, we will have to wait and see what the next few weeks bring in terms of the Bitcoin price. More specifically, the current outlook is rather negative, as we may see another major drop to $10,000 a lot sooner than people expect. At the same time, the momentum can do a complete 180 tomorrow and the Bitcoin price may attempt to break the $14,000 resistance once again. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile and unpredictable and that situation will probably never change.

Investors are still looking for new opportunities in the crypto market, one of which is hidden in the currency called Byteball. In the following paragraphs we’ll take a look at advantages of this new technology.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

As time goes on, we can see some problems with Bitcoin and other currencies based on blockchain. Two huge problems are the amount of fees and the issue of transaction times. A new solution, with new technology, has entered the scene, known as Byteball. Byteball offers the solution to where Bitcoin and others went wrong by use of the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG).

Using the DAG system, transaction times are a fraction of what bitcoin is able to reach even under good operating circumstances. Since each transaction is linked to the next and the miner is taken out of the equation, transaction times actually go down as more people use the system.

As far as Byteball and smart contracts are concerned, they are available in a simple, readable form for the user instead of the complexity you see in Ethereum. This allows users to easily understand when and how they will be paid their Bytes.

Those who are interested in Byteball can also consider the untraceable second version of the currency called Blackbytes. It manages privacy, the inability to trace payments. Some of the other benefits that Byteball can provide include: atomic exchange, regulated assets, multi-signature transactions, sending Bytes by messaging services, settlement finalities, immutable storage and quantum security.

Recently, mainstream media has begun to notice the existence of Byteball, including the NY times and Forbes, and because of its low price compared to its rivals, it is a very interesting altcoin for investment.

The electronic devices we use on a daily basis are very prone to hacks, theft, and other software-related issues. One particular security bug uncovered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation has researchers greatly concerned. A new type of malware designed to look like popular social messaging applications has already stolen gigabytes worth of data. This puts smartphones and some tablets at risk, but finding a solution to this threat may prove far more difficult than anyone would like.

Lebanese Malware has Researchers Concerned

Any type of tool that is designed to steal sensitive information is of great concern to security researchers. That’s especially true when that software seemingly targets mobile device users, including lawyers, activists, journalists, and even military personnel. Any specific information obtained from any of these sources could be worth a lot of money to the right buyer. Stealing that information using malware that poses as either WhatsApp or Signal is a smart idea on the part of criminals, but a big problem for consumers all over the world.

The malware in question is mainly targeted at Android device users. Considering that Android is the world’s largest mobile OS, such a targeted campaign is anything but surprising. It seems the malware is known as Dark Caracal, and it appears to mimic the functionality of popular messaging applications. In the background, however, the malware steals one’s data, including call records, documents, audio recordings, and photos.

So far, Dark Caracal has made an impact in the US, Germany, France, Canada, and Lebanon. Do not underestimate the size of this threat, as researchers have discovered it to be a large-scale global campaign. Since mobile devices have become so commonplace, it is only normal that criminals will use sophisticated tools to target these devices. Mobile is now a primary target for criminals, which is a trend everyone should genuinely be worried about.

The security researchers also discovered that this particular malware may have been designed by Lebanese criminals. It is unclear if the Lebanese government has any relation to this project, but for now, nothing seems to indicate that is the case. The applications containing this malware were not found in or downloaded from the Google Play Store either. Instead, they were spread via third-party download sites and “ripped” apk files shared on social media as well as phpBB messaging boards.

Additionally, it seems Dark Caracal is not a new type of malware. A very similar variant was discovered in 2012, but tracking the progress this malware has made ever since has proven to be virtually impossible. There are so many espionage campaigns originating from the same domain names, this particular mobile malware dropped off the researchers’ radar entirely. This is a very worrisome trend, especially considering that these applications can be distributed on a global scale without too many repercussions.

For the time being, we will have to wait and see if the Lebanese government was indeed involved in this malware’s development. The obtained data could certainly give them a lot of information they wouldn’t be privy to otherwise. The targets are not picked randomly, though, which does indicate that a nation-state may be involved. Always download official applications from the Google Play Store and do not bother grabbing APK files from the internet.

At the beginning of 2018, I wrote an article outlining a New Year’s resolution that I thought could help boost cryptocurrency adoption and awareness in 2018. Last week was the second installment of my year of cryptocurrency. This week’s challenge was particularly easy to accomplish because I was at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami. Let’s dive in.

TRY TO SPEAK TO AS MANY PEOPLE ABOUT CRYPTOCURRENCY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN

Literally almost everyone I spoke with this past week was already well-informed about cryptocurrency or a new, curious person who had decided to go to the conference. However, I did get the chance to speak to some people not from the conference. Here are a few highlights from the latter conversations.

1. On my way back from the conference, my Lyft driver was very interested in what the conference was about and began asking me questions. He had been a forex trader in the past, so he was immediately interested in cryptocurrencies for potential arbitrage and exchange opportunities. However, I wanted to teach him more about the tech side of crypto and cool applications to show that this wasn’t just for speculators. He found the immutable data storage aspect the most interesting, and by the end of the trip he jokingly asked if I could pay him in Bitcoin. Sadly, the Lyft app does not allow that as a payment option.
2. While grabbing dinner at a divey-looking gastropub, the waitress asked me why I was in town. When I said “for the Bitcoin conference,” she immediately became interested. She was interested in what “mining” (her air quotes, not mine) was. The restaurant was slow enough that she had the opportunity to sit down and discuss how mining works with me. She ended the conversation with, “I think I get it more now, but definitely will look into it further!” I told her to check out Andreas Antonopoulos’ YouTube channel.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT CRYPTO

This was no difficult task at the conference. My favorite new tidbit of knowledge is not necessarily technical, but incredibly interesting nonetheless. In his fireside chat, Charlie Shrem brought up just how lax people had been with their Bitcoin at the beginning. I knew that it was far worse then than it is now, but I had not realized just how different it was. Charlie said that he and his friends would often have poker nights with Bitcoin as the pot, and that every now and then people would lose the private keys to 20 Bitcoin and not really care, since it used to be so cheap. 20 Bitcoin is worth an incredible amount of money now, and what’s been lost is now irretrievable.

He also mentioned that his first experience receiving Bitcoin involved a transaction in the amount of 1,000 BTC. I was stunned.

BE GENEROUS – GIVE AND USE YOUR COINS

While at the conference, I sent my friend some Dogecoin for his birthday and another friend some Litecoin because she seemed interested. The paper wallets I used were basic, but I told my friends to keep them safe. A pro-tip: if you’re ever giving away paper wallets, make sure to keep the private keys and set an expiry on them so that they don’t end up as lost coins. If they throw away the paper or lose it, you can always just reclaim and resend!

New York passed the BitLicense in a vacuum. Now state and federal laws are catching up, often with poor coordination, causing a compliance nightmare.

After a somewhat exciting day across all cryptocurrency markets yesterday, things are back to normal. We’ve seen small to big retracements for all major cryptocurrencies, with one notable exception. The EOS price is the only currency in the top 10 which is still in the green as of right now. Thanks to a small 1.48% gain during the past 24 hours, the EOS price is still well above US$14 for the time being.

EOS Price Hangs on by a Thread

It is always interesting to see how cryptocurrency markets evolve over time. In most cases, currencies will remain linked to Bitcoin first and foremost, and it seems that situation will not change anytime soon. In fact, we’ve seen all cryptocurrencies lose value for the past few hours thanks to yet another Bitcoin price dip. The world’s leading cryptocurrency has become somewhat of a bore in this regard.

One exception right now is the EOS price, which is still up by 1.08% on the day. This represents a small increase, even though the altcoin has noted a 4.5% gain over Bitcoin and a 2.69% gain over Ethereum. These are solid gains across the board for EOS, although reaching US$15 will take a fair amount of time. Right now, the markets are still far too unstable to speak of sustained growth, but things will turn around eventually.

Over the past 24 hours, we have seen the EOS price go as high as US$15.60, and as low as US$13.20. Such wild price swings create exciting opportunities for EOS price speculators, as a US$2.40 value increase and others like it can certainly net a lot of profits in the long run. If this current price dip keeps up for a few more days, there could be some more interesting swings ahead of us.

With almost US$3 billion worth of 24-hour trading volume, things are looking quite good for EOS. The demand to buy and sell this particular cryptocurrency is certainly in place right now, although it is evident that the market can easily go either way. Right now, it seems the buying pressure is a lot higher than the selling pressure, but nothing has been set in stone.

The vast majority of the EOS trading volume currently comes from South Korea’s Bithumb exchange. With this platform generating almost 70% of the past 24 hour’s trades, it is evident the rest of the world is not too interested in trading this particular altcoin right now. Huobi is the second-largest exchange by trading volume, followed closely by Bitfinex. Not much has changed as far as these rankings are concerned, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

For the time being, it remains to be seen what the future holds for the EOS price. There are no guarantees of future gains whatsoever, but things are still looking pretty good in general. If the momentum keeps up, we may see the EOS price move a bit closer to US$15, although finding stable support at that level will prove to be a big challenge. It’s a market well worth keeping an eye on today and over the next few days.

Decentralized public blockchains are the only way enterprises will commit to digitizing services in an interoperable manner, says EY’s Paul Brody.

Governments all over the world are seemingly cracking down on cryptocurrency activity. In India, things are slowly evolving in such a direction. Not only are banks closing bank accounts related to cryptocurrency activity, but the tax authority is getting involved as well. More specifically, a fair few speculators do not declare their investments on tax returns It is not an illegal activity by any means, but it does raise some questions which need to be answered. All affected investors have received an official tax notice as a result.

India is a very important country when it comes to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Local exchanges generate a high amount of trading volume, which is a positive sign. Unfortunately, local banks have begun freezing exchange’s assets for the time being. There is no indication as to why this is happening or when things will return to normal. To make matters even worse, the Indian income tax department in now probing cryptocurrency investors as well.

Indian Tax Authority Wants to Tax Bitcoin

More specifically, the Indian tax authority has sent notices to cryptocurrency investors. This includes all speculators not including their investments on the recent tax returns. Although India has no official cryptocurrency regulation or taxation guidelines, this development raises some questions. It is unclear what the tax authority is looking for exactly at this point. We do know all local exchanges were surveyed in the process. This seems to indicate the local authorities want to curb cryptocurrency trading in one way or another.

Whether or not this means India will tax capital gains through cryptocurrency, remains to be seen. It would not necessarily be in their best interest to do so. At the same time, taxing Bitcoin grants the cryptocurrency more legitimacy as well. It is a fine line to walk for the tax authority right now. Especially when considering how the government still mulls over cryptocurrency regulation. Taxation guidelines are a part of regulation, in a way. How all of this will play out, remains to be determined.

It is evident the Indian tax authority would like to collect such capital gains tax. A notice was sent out to investors last month regarding this particular development. It seems a lot of people ignored this request, which shouldn’t come as a big surprise whatsoever. Investors are not interested in sharing their cryptocurrency gains or losses with the government. After all, there is no legal requirement forcing them to do so. Until such a guideline is in place, the tax authority will fight an uphill battle.

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock

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