Day: January 26, 2018

The InsurePal crowdsale that started on January 16, 2018, closed in under 80 seconds, making a record in the history of ICOs so far. The distributed social proof insurance platform reached its token sale hard cap of $18 million within first two minutes of the crowdsale. With the latest success, the platform’s IPL tokens are being traded on Livecoin.net exchange, followed by IPL listing on other exchanges soon.

About the Crowdsale

In the pre-sale, InsurePal had already sold 70 percent of IPL tokens, while the remaining $5.4 million were sold out in crowdsale in 1 minute and 20 seconds. The contributors got their tokens immediately after the end of the crowdsale enabling them to start trading the tokens. Same way, it will also enable the community members who wanted to be in on the crowdsale to purchase the tokens. The number of users (20,194) who wished to buy IPL tokens in crowdsale, represents a high market demand for the IPL coins.

What the Founders Say About this Achievement

Talking about the way InsurePal has raised funds for its social proof based global blockchain insurance platform by achieving much appreciation and support from global community, Matt Peterman, the CEO of InsurePal says,

“For us, this is a tremendous opportunity and a great honor and we are focused on the future as we wish to be fully operational in the shortest possible time. Our goal is to utilize the progress made thus far to launch the platform in six months’ period. The pilot project will take place in the UK, where we`ve already held several talks with insurance companies as potential partners and with the regulator. We partly assembled a team as well,”

Excited about the future of insurance industry Peterman stated,

“The insurance platform that introduces social proofing can truly act as a universal solution disrupting the existing $7 trillion insurance market and at the same time, entering into many new segments. I am convinced that we will achieve our business goals in planned time and thus become the leading global provider in this field,”

The company will use the funds for the technological development of the platform, as a prime priority, and then for patenting process, acquisition of regulatory permits, expansion of operations and human resources and strategic business alliances.

InsurePal is on the Right Track with Blockchain Experts on Board

Insurance industry represents a big challenge in terms of regulations, especially for a new company with a crypto offering as it comes across a lot of regulatory and legal approvals along the road. The Insurepal team is happy to place the platform in the market at the right time, in accordance with its roadmap comprising of target regions of UK, Europe, and the U.S.

InsurePal has already acquired well-known crypto advisors and globally recognized experts for the platform’s development. Charlie Shrem, a Bitcoin pioneer who established Crypto IQ, is also part of the InsurePal team that has a disruptive potential to put forward a widely-applicable and upgraded alternative to the existing insurance system.

Talking about the opportunities InsurePal is expected to bring in crypto economies, Shrem says,

“InsurePal`s greatest asset is its team and idea. I am super excited to watch the team execute the platform. I always ask myself before getting involved: “Would I use this product?” With InsurePal, the answer is definitely yes”.

InsurePal Gains Industry-wide Appreciation

The InsurePal team is gaining an industry-wide appreciation for a successful crowdsale. Vinay Gupta, the Co-Founder of Mattereum, congratulated the InsurePal team and said,

“I am very happy to hear about how successful the InsurePal fundraising efforts have been. We at Mattereum are looking forward to working with them closely in 2018 on a range of projects, including some close integration between insurance and arbitration.”

InsurePal and Mattereum are already in a partnership for disrupted insurance and dispute resolution support that will help the user-managed crypto economy grow.

To know more about the platform, please visit https://insurepal.io/ or visit InsurePal Official Facebook page, Twitter Account & Telegram group.

The post InsurePal Token Sale Hits Target in Under 80 Seconds appeared first on NewsBTC.

Starbucks chairman Howard Shultz said the ubiquitous coffee chain sees the blockchain and digital currencies in its future–but not bitcoin.

As we know, blockchain technology is premised on anonymity. Transactions are public, but linked only to an electronic address. Anonymity, though, is the main fuel for underground economies, whose transactions are currently conducted primarily through cash. If cryptocurrencies were to replace cash as the preferred medium of exchange, they could potentially expand the underground economy because of associated anonymity and convenience.

The U.S. Government recognizes this. Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, said recently that Bitcoin could become “the next Swiss bank account.” And the Internal Revenue Service estimates that it loses about $500 billion annually because of unreported wages alone. But although the IRS has been pushing to break the anonymity of cryptocurrencies, the agency has hit a hurdle: From 2013 to 2015, less than 900 people each year reported Bitcoin transactions on their taxes.

That said, every purchase you make with cryptocurrencies, is supposed to be reported. So whether you’ve used Bitcoin — or any other coin — as an investment or a currency, in their eyes, you owe taxes on it. Let’s say you’ve held Bitcoin for less than a year and sell them, that cash could be taxed as income. If you’ve held for more than a year, it could be taxed as a capital gain — which run up to 20%. Furthermore, adding on transaction and accounting fees could raise costs to a staggering 60%.

Exchanges are facing trouble, too. Last year the IRS served a summons to Coinbase. In the summons, the agency called for the records of over 14,000 users who “bought, sold, sent, or received at least $20,000 worth of Bitcoin in a given year.” A federal court ultimately ruled in favor of the IRS, but the tax status of those transactions is still unknown.

Moving forward, things have looked slightly better. A bipartisan bill, “The Cryptocurrency Tax Fairness Act,” was presented to Congress this past September. The bill seeks to create a tax exemption for transactions under $600. Regardless, though some remain hopeful for amnesty, it looks like the IRS is going to continue to pursue a cut of the cryptocurrency market — only the future will tell how successful they are.

The post The IRS Wants to Tax Your Cryptocurrency appeared first on NewsBTC.

Cryptocurrency will continue to make a big impact in the world of traditional finance. More and more companies are offering cryptocurrency-related CFDs as we speak. HYCM, a global leader in online capital markets trading, has added both XRP and Bitcoin Cash to its range of cryptocurrency offerings. It’s a major step forward for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, although it remains to be seen whether or not this will have any long-term impact.

HYCM Adds More Cryptocurrency CFDs

It’s always good to see companies double down on their cryptocurrency-related CFD offerings. Whereas most providers grant access to Bitcoin through vehicles such as this one, it is evident there are other currencies worth paying attention to as well. HYCM has acknowledged there is a lot more to cryptocurrency than just Bitcoin, which is why they added both XRP and BCH CFDs to their list of offerings earlier this week.

Some people may wonder why the company chose those two currencies. After all, XRP is not even a traditional currency, and Bitcoin Cash is considered a “Bitcoin clone” by most Bitcoin enthusiasts. At the same time, HYCM already offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin CFDs, and thus they had the important currencies covered. Adding two more offerings to the list seems to make a lot of sense for the company. All of these decisions are made based on investor demand, by the look of things.

Considering that both of these currencies are currently in the top 4 in terms of market cap, it is evident HYCM wants to focus on the top currencies first and foremost. Both XRP and BCH have become significantly popular over the past few months, and it seems that situation will only improve from here on out. With its current lineup, HYCM now offers CFDs for five of the top 7 currencies ranked by market cap. The only two missing are Cardano and Stellar.

With cryptocurrencies taking the financial world by storm, it seems evident that we will see more of these CFDs in the near future. No one expected this growth to occur so quickly, and this may very well just be the beginning. With all of these currencies appreciating in value as quickly as they have, it is only normal that investors want some sort of exposure to these markets without buying the currencies directly. CFDs seem to be the way forward in this regard, as they allow for convenient access to various currencies without unnecessary friction.

HYCM’s CEO, Stavros Lambouris, commented:

There is no doubt that cryptocurrencies play a key role in forex trading as well as in the industry as a whole. We are expanding our offerings to help our clients diversify in cryptocurrencies in the same way as they do in traditional instruments. By adding Ripple and Bitcoin Cash to our platform, HYCM is making it easier and more accessible for investors seeking opportunities to capitalize on the performance of even more of the most in-demand cryptocurrencies.

HYCM is one of the oldest brokers out there when it comes to cryptocurrencies. They began offering cryptocurrency CFD trading several years ago. Moreover, the company has been involved in online FX and CFD trading for nearly 40 years. Having such an established entity pay attention to cryptocurrencies is a major feather in the cap of all supported currencies. The company wants to reinforce its position in the market, which means they will need to keep adding other cryptocurrency CFDs moving forward. It is unclear if and when that will happen.

Venture capitalists are not too certain that the Bitcoin price will be able to maintain its momentum. That is only to be expected after the major correction we recently went through. Jason Calacanis is concerned about the future and predicts there’s a one-in-three chance that Bitcoin’s price will go to zero. Although it seems highly unlikely things will get out of hand so quickly, there is always a chance something like this might happen.

Can the Bitcoin Price Stay in the Green?

Even though 2017 was a spectacular year for cryptocurrencies in general, it is safe to say that things will not necessarily remain so positive in 2018. In fact, early 2018 resulted in a major Bitcoin price correction which very few people had expected. Even though such things can always happen – and usually tend to occur in January – the latest correction has some venture capitalists concerned right now.

Jason Calacanis is very concerned about the current Bitcoin price and has made a rather grim prediction. More specifically, he claims there is a 33% chance that the Bitcoin price will go to zero in the very near future. It’s not a statement a lot of people will agree with, even though no one can deny the possibility is very real at this point. With Bitcoin struggling to maintain a price of US$12,000, it is only normal to see some people express their concerns over what the future may hold for the world’s leading cryptocurrency.

It is worth mentioning Calacanis doesn’t deny that Bitcoin is a real technology and that it has the potential to change the world. It can certainly do amazing things in the future, but the lack of proper regulation, abundance of manipulation, and sheer volatility are all factors which make Bitcoin unfavorable as a currency. The current price is merely based on hype and speculation, as most people are starting to consider Bitcoin a store of value rather than an actual currency.

According to Calacanis, it seems only a matter of time until casual investors realize that they have been buying into a “huge fraud“. That statement in particular will certainly spark a lot of debates among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It is not the first time we’ve heard people call Bitcoin a fraud, even though there has not been any solid evidence to support such statements so far. It is unclear how many people think Bitcoin is a fraud without any evidence to back up such wild claims.

Additionally, Calacanis is also convinced that the current trend of investing in Bitcoin is “extremely dangerous”. Investing in any vehicle, asset, or product is always a risk, as there is no guarantee that anyone will ever make money from doing so. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are no exception in this regard, but they don’t pose any additional risks either. One could easily argue the current Apple stock price is also based on hype and excitement first and foremost.

One thing people need to keep in mind is that Calacanis is a rather interesting individual with some conflicting opinions. For instance, he doesn’t want companies such as Facebook to be regulated too tightly. That in itself is somewhat understandable, yet it also shows that the interests of this VC easily warrant an anti-Bitcoin stance as well. There are always conflicting opinions when it comes to technology and cryptocurrency, of course. That won’t be changing anytime soon.

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Japan has fallen victim to hackers thanks to their negligent storage practices. Coincheck Inc., have announced today that around half a billion dollars worth of the digital currency NEM have been transferred without permission from the company’s hot storage wallet. The news broke late last night at a press conference held at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Officials from Coincheck Inc. spoke of some 500 million XEM tokens going missing but of little else. This has resulted in many investors losing faith in the space.

Following the news, a series of security steps were taken by Coincheck Inc. The first of these was to advise customers not to deposit in NEM. This was followed up by a suspension of all trading of NEM, before the decision was also made to suspend withdrawals of the affected cryptocurrency. Finally, around three and a half hour later, the exchange took the drastic step to suspend all withdrawals of any kind. This includes fiat currency. Later today, additional security steps were taken. For now, only trading in BTC is permitted at Coincheck Inc. and payments by the credit card company Payee have been halted.

Naturally, such a development has spooked investors in one of the planet’s most receptive markets to cryptocurrency. Many still remember the infamous Mt. Gox hack of 2013. The markets responded accordingly with several of the top digital currencies taking a hit in their price.

Worst affected, of course, was NEM. According to Coinmarketcap, NEM is the tenth largest cryptocurrency. Since the news broke, the industry price website has posted a drop from just over $1 per unit to around 77c. In terms of its decline, it appears to be over the worst effects of such negative news. It has since recovered to around 86c at the time of writing.

The market’s response is hardly surprising. The slightest hint of a security breach for a digital currency is enough to panic many investors who are not overly familiar with the nuances of cryptocurrency storage. However, such a sell off is completely irrational. Cryptocurrency by definition is opposed to centralisation. All today’s hack highlights is the dangers of storing such value on central servers. Coincheck Inc. have admitted that they were using a hot wallet to keep such a huge quantity of NEM. In a surprisingly flippant response to such a breach of customers’ trust, Fortune report the exchange stating:

It was hard for us to manage cold wallet.

Whilst using a hot wallet may have been convenient for Coincheck Inc. to run a company using, it highlights gross negligence on the part of the exchange when it comes to their customers’ funds. It also shows with startling efficacy the dangers of storing funds on exchanges. Those who trusted Coincheck Inc., or any other crypto exchange with their cryptocurrency have already breached the cardinal rule of the technology.

If you don’t possess your own private keys, you don’t own your cryptocurrency.

Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin’s anonymous inventor, designed blockchain-based currencies as a trust-less way of exchanging value. For people to just blindly go and trust an entity such as Coincheck Inc. with their funds is at odds with the very raison d’être of cryptocurrency.

Such security breaches highlight problems with using centralised exchanges, not cryptocurrency. They show how easy it is to access a wallet that is not properly secured. Even a simple multi-signature wallet could have prevented such an occurrence and prevented the unwarranted loss in confidence in digital currency that has followed. However, according to various reports, it was only the NEM hot wallet for Coincheck Inc. that has been compromised. This was partially confirmed by Warren Paul Andereson, Product Manager at cryptocurrency Ripple in a Tweet today:

The @coincheckjp team has reached out to @Ripple to confirm that all $XRP is safe. We wish them well in their recovery effort.

— Warren Paul Anderson (@warpaul) January 26, 2018

Image: PixaBay

The post $530 Million Hack of a Cryptocurrency Exchange: Security Flaws appeared first on NewsBTC.

The influential economist has made harsh public remarks about bitcoin before, but his latest piece broadens the attack to include the underlying tech.

Criminals have taken a major liking to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. In most cases, their attempts to illegally obtain such currencies are linked to online activity. Ransomware, hacking, and data breaches are just a few examples of Bitcoin-related criminal activity. In Ottawa, however, things recently went a bit differently. Three individuals there attempted to rob a Bitcoin financial institution earlier this week. It is a very disturbing development, even though the perpetrators left empty-handed in the end.

Bitcoin Robbery at Gunpoint

In a way, no one should be surprised to learn that criminals are becoming more brazen when it comes to stealing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is especially true when it comes to cybercrime, but it seems we also have a trickle-down effect in the real world right now. In Ottawa, three individuals attempted to rob a Bitcoin financial institution in broad daylight. Four employees of the company were held at gunpoint, while a fifth was able to alert the police.

It is unclear who the three individuals are exactly, even though one suspect has already been arrested. There is a photo on Twitter taken from a passing vehicle that shows the ongoing manhunt. It’s good to see law enforcement authorities immediately jump on this case, as a robbery at gunpoint should never be taken lightly. It is unclear which Canadian firm was affected, though.

Surprisingly, the one suspect in custody is only 19 years old. The police quickly slapped several charges on this individual, including robbery with a firearm, wearing a disguise, and forcible confinement. If all of these charges stick, the individual could face a very long period in jail. It is unclear what drives people at such a young age to attempt to rob a Bitcoin institution in broad daylight and hold people at gunpoint. It also seems one of the company’s employees was hit in the head but did not sustain any major injuries.

Even though this robbery took place on Tuesday, there was a large police presence near the scene of the incident on Wednesday as well. A lot of local businesses and startups are extremely worried to see events like this one transpire, especially when taking the gunpoint aspect into account. This shows how bold some criminals become when it comes to obtaining money, and it also sets a very dangerous precedent for any companies involved in crypto.

For the time being, the manhunt for the other two suspects is ongoing, and local police plan to speak to a person of interest in the coming days. That particular individual was inside the firm’s Bitcoin operations building when the three suspects arrived. Whether or not he or she played a role in this robbery remains unclear at this point in time. Additional evidence was collected from the scene on Wednesday, but it remains unknown if that turned up any solid leads.

We can only hope this is the first and last time such a Bitcoin-related armed heist occurs. Although the culprits were unsuccessful in their attempt to obtain money, it is not unlikely we will see similar incidents in the future. It will be interesting to see what this investigation turns up in the coming days and weeks. These culprits need to be brought to justice in one way or another, as this type of activity is absolutely unacceptable. No one got hurt this time, but there’s no guarantee that future incidents will end the same way.

Coincheck press conference: the company explains $534 mln in NEM were stored on a hot wallet, hackers have stolen private keys. Company expresses regret to customers, plans to try to refund the lost money. #NEWS

The Philippines Securities and Exchange Commission hit KropCoin with a cease-and-desist order, on the grounds it was offering unregistered securities.