Off to a better February for crypto? #PRICE_ANALYSIS

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said his country isn’t planning on making changes to existing tax code to deal with cryptocurrencies. Rather, the main focus will continue to be on “making sure that we understand what’s going on underneath that market, to make sure that we aren’t introducing any risks into our economy, whether they be risks like money laundering or terrorist financing.”

In Canada, cryptocurrencies can essentially be treated as money, a commodity, or even income. This makes things quite difficult. According to Laura Gheorghiu, partner at law firm Gowling WLG,  current regulations are “not enough and people are struggling to figure out how they should be reporting these transactions.”

Gheorghiu said clients are still uncertain about certain aspects of holding cryptocurrencies, such as capital gains on swaps of different currencies and on the valuation of new forks, which leave people with coins on different networks. Canada also has special rules for assets held abroad exceeding $80,000, triggering a separate reporting requirement that, in the case of cryptocurrencies, raises the question of where exactly they are held. According to Gheorghiu: “These are all sort of very high-level tax policy questions that don’t have answers.”

In Canada, decade-old tax rules with no specific provisions for cryptocurrencies are being applied to a fast-changing online technology that presents its own complications. The existing system generally considers Bitcoin a commodity, and profits can be either a capital gain (half of which is taxed) or fully taxable income, like a salary. Really, it depends on the facts and circumstances of a particular taxpayer.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service treats Bitcoin as a property, and generally as a capital gain, but taxes it as income for Bitcoin miners. U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax bill also effectively closed a grey area by applying taxes when one cryptocurrency is swapped for another.

Despite the fact that some global policymakers are calling for swift global action on regulation — after Bitcoin’s meteoric 2017 rise, and subsequent slide this year — Morneau’s status-quo approach is one example of the challenges regulators face in responding to this new and growing technology.

The post Canadian Government More Concerned With Underground Economy, Not Tax appeared first on NewsBTC.

The World Economic Forum is working with the Canadian and Dutch governments to pilot a digital identity project that focuses in part on blockchain.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Highlights:

Price remains hovering without clear direction.

BTC:

Resistance: $12,200 & $13,000, support: $11,300 & $10,800.

Data feed from AICoin

Comments:

The correction represented by the short lower shadow this morning is basically within our expectation. This time, though the rally has continued for a little longer and BTC is away from the bottom, the lack of support from volumes makes it difficult for BTC to effectively remain above MA 20. Even though price still holds a chance to move upwards, breaking above the resistance at $13,000 remains difficult in the short term.

Suggestions:

Futures traders can try to play the segment between the support at $11,300 on MA 7 and the resistance at $12,200 on MA 20. Heavy positions are not recommended and positions can be reduced when price gets closer to either side. Stop loses when price breaks below $10,800.

BCH/USD:

Resistance: $1,800, support: $1,570 & $1,420.

Data feed from AICoin

Comments:

Further operations can be implemented after BCH stabilizes in price move.

Suggestions:

Hold on to your bullets.

ETH/USD:

Resistance: $1,280, support: $1,150 & $1,100.

Data feed from AICoin

Comments:

Price move reflects trend, which can be proved by the surge of ETH out of rigid demand yesterday. After reaching to the resistance as expected, price started a small-range correction and moved back to the 23.6% retracement level ($1,192.3) from $983 to $1,256.9. ETH still holds a chance to break upwards if BTC stabilizes its price move and tests upwards.

Suggestions:

Segment can also be played, but light positions are recommended.

ETC/USD:

Resistance: $32.5 & $34, support: $31.

Data feed from AICoin

Comments:

Following ETH, ETC also earned some gains yesterday. As price remains fluctuant, profits can be booked if there’re no cheap entry point.

Suggestions:

If you had bought ETC at a low level in advance, profits can be booked at high levels.

Original by Jerry Cheung from Hashpai, translated by AICoin Jami.

Disclaimer: The information contained herein is not guaranteed, and is strictly for information purposes only. It does not constitute any trading proposal and will not be liable for any loss based on the information herein.

The post 1-29 Price Analysis – Remain hovering without clear direction appeared first on NewsBTC.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Cryptocurrency hedge fund Polychain Capital has pushed back against a report that it is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in an IPO.

It is safe to say the cryptocurrency situation in South Korea is a lot more complex than most people think. A recent string of regulations has introduced some interesting albeit positive changes to this nascent industry. Moreover, the country’s National Pension Fund plays a surprisingly big role in the future of cryptocurrency.

South Korea Won’t Benefit From Strict Regulation

Looking at things from a distance, it is evident that the cryptocurrency hype is very real in South Korea right now. Market prices are still at least 10% higher compared to the rest of the world, and that situation will not change anytime soon. Moreover, the country’s government wants to protect consumers from speculation and financial losses first and foremost. That is much easier said than done, even though the recent regulation is relatively positive, all things considered.

There is another big factor making it virtually impossible that we will ever see a cryptocurrency ban in South Korea. There was once a very real chance that the government would ban all KRW-based trading, similar to how Chinese officials decided to take the fight to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Big was most people’s surprise when that didn’t happen a few weeks ago, and it’s all due to the country’s National Pension Fund.

The South Korean National Pension Fund is a major entity which shouldn’t be overlooked. Very few people seem to be aware that this institution has a major stake in all of the big South Korean cryptocurrency exchanges, having invested billions of won in companies which are now the largest Korean exchanges in the world. All of this was done through two different venture capital funds, but the end result is the same.

As such, it is not in the best interest of the South Korean National Pension Fund to see any restrictive regulation affect cryptocurrency exchanges. This means the South Korean government must tread carefully when it comes to regulating cryptocurrency-related activities in the country. So far, there have been no negative developments in this regard, but that doesn’t mean they won’t arrive in the coming months. It will be interesting to see how much sway the National Pension Fund has in this regard.

None of this means cryptocurrency will be left untouched moving forward. After all, the government wants to protect consumers and businesses alike, even though they seemingly have no intention whatsoever of banning any cryptocurrency-related activity. Such situations can always change in a heartbeat, but for now, it seems the major exchanges in South Korea will remain unharmed. The National Pension Fund has indirectly contributed to the likes of Korbit, Bithumb, Upbit, and Coinplug.

It is also worth pointing out that South Korea possesses by far one of the biggest hedge fund markets in the world today. With over 700 such investment funds in existence, very few of them wish to be involved with cryptocurrency right now. More specifically, less than three dozen of these hedge funds have shown any interest in cryptocurrencies or service providers involved in that industry. Whether or not that situation will improve over the coming years remains to be determined.

Gaming Industry has found a novel way to grow with the help of Game Machine, a crowdfunding platform presenting a huge analytics data and ratings from the participants. The token sale of the platform started on December 14, 2017 and is being almost completed – the ICO has only 2 days left.

The Background

Gaming industry showed remarkable growth, hitting $108.9 billion in 2017. The industry is further rising to new levels in view of increasing popularity of decentralized technologies. To exploit the growth potential and provide a novel crowdfunding platform for the gamers, developers and investors, Game Machine has come up with a blockchain based platform. It is a global, open ecosystem where gamers, developers, advertisers and hardware manufacturers work collaboratively towards the growth of the industry.

The Growing Market for Games is the Next Big Opportunity

A huge segment of gaming industry showing a dramatic growth since last few decades is based on PC games. The growing number of new titles, eSports, and digital distribution has brought new opportunities for gaming companies to capture global customers, comprising of gamers, internet users and tech lovers.

Colin Sebastian, senior research analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. says,

“More people are playing games every day and spending more money on games, unlike almost every other form of media, where there’s downward pressure. Games are still a growing industry and [they’re] becoming more dynamic… Video games should be near the top of the lists of investors”.

In the present scenario, the integration of blockchain technologies and gaming is the mainstream idea, and Game Machine is the first platform based on this concept. The transparent, decentralized ecosystem of Game Machine involves all industry players, providing in-game items to players, an opportunity to developers to pitch games to their audience, the space and tools to advertisers and a profitable, income-generating project to the investors.

Benefits for the Investors

The participating gamers on Game Machine’s crowdfunding platform gain an opportunity to securely contribute towards a profitable product. The ecosystem provides all the stats and users trends based on their interest in the ideas created by developers. Hence, users don’t need to have any advanced technical knowledge to use the project and earn an income out of it. Game Machine has also offered exclusive discounts and sales schemes for the investors. Top-tier investors can also buy a portion of the tokens, released by each project.

Game Machine- An already-working Project

The fact that Game Machine is already functional, differentiates it from other crypto-projects in the market. Just within a year, the team created an app based on the personal funding of $80,000. By now, the company has captured over 70,000 potential users on its Game Machine Client and pool over $2 500 000 on-going ICO.

Game Machine has already given over 40,000 in-game elements to the gamers within 2 months of the app launch, indicating a high interest among players. In addition, the miner also shows a great response as more than 500,000,000 tokens have already been obtained. So far, the experts give a high rating to the project and consider it the evolution of the global gaming industry.

About Token Sale

The Game Machine team is further developing the product, for which the token sale was launched. A video showing the concept has also been created by the team. The on-going token sale will end by January 31, 2018. The company has issued 140 million GMIT tokens, capped at 40,000 ETH. At the end of the token sale, the investors can sell tokens to developers and gamers for an enhanced value or invest them in Game Machine projects. Game Machine tokens GMIT will be listed soon on the three of most popular exchanges. So anyone can take a part in the token sale and become a lucky token holder, get a good profit and invest into reliable projects that will be on the Game Machine platform soon.

To know more about the platform and participate in ICO, please visit: gamemachine.io

The post Game Machine ICO Unleashes the Power of Blockchain appeared first on NewsBTC.

A Hong Kong-based Matrix AI Network is developing a prototype of a new hybrid PoS/PoW consensus algorithm #BLOCKSHOW

Criminals have paid attention to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for some time now. In most cases, they will take the digital route to obtain cryptocurrency through illicit means. Especially when it comes to hacking, fraud, and even scams, there are plenty of opportunities waiting to be explored. For the second time in over a week, however, criminals have attempted to rob people’s Bitcoin at gunpoint. After an incident in Canada, it now seems there’s been a nearly identical development in the UK.

Another Bitcoin-related Robbery

It is never fun to hear that other people have lost their Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. When it happens due to computer issues or electronic theft, there is always some hope of potentially reclaiming the funds. When faced with someone holding a gun to your head and demanding your Bitcoin, however, the situation is very different. One major UK trader received the visit of several assailants who forced him to transfer a significant amount of Bitcoin to their account. It is the first time we’ve seen such a situation in the UK, but it won’t be the last time.

This robbery occurred in Oxfordshire earlier this week. An undisclosed number of robbers entered the trader’s home, tied up his wife, and forced the man to give up his Bitcoin balance. It is uncanny how these people were able to identify this person as being a Bitcoin holder, but given the technology’s non-private nature, it’s not difficult to put one and one together. With privacy-oriented currencies, such as Monero, it is impossible to figure out who has what amount of coins unless they wish to make things public.

The robbery quickly attracted the attention of the police, who eagerly deployed a helicopter to track down the suspects. One eyewitness claims she saw four men in black tracksuits, although it is unclear if they were actually involved in this robbery. Moreover, the police have yet to release any official statement regarding this matter, as it is evident this theft attracted a lot of media attention rather quickly. It is important to get the information right before people start to speculate and point blame at innocent bystanders.

As of now, no one is sure how many bitcoins were stolen in this robbery. Considering that criminals physically entered someone’s personal home in search of cryptocurrency, the target must be a rather wealthy individual. Moreover, it seems these criminals are all too aware of what Bitcoin is and how it works. It’s not a currency suited for criminal activity, though, as all transactions can be followed on the public blockchain without specific tools.

The investigation is still in the early stages, but the police are hopeful that they will bring the culprits to justice sooner rather than later. No one has been arrested to date, and it doesn’t appear as if there are any persons of interest at this time. Based on eyewitness reports, the number of assailants was anywhere from three to four, but everyone seems to agree they wore tracksuits and kept their hoods down at all times. Based on that information, half of the UK would be a prime suspect, unfortunately.

The big question is whether or not this brazen attack will set a precedent for other criminals to follow. After all, it is the second time in a week that people have invaded a location in an attempt to steal Bitcoin using a gun. The first attempt took place in Canada, although those assailants had to flee before they could obtain any cryptocurrency. It is unclear how things unfolded in the UK, but rest assured we will see even more of these stories as time progresses.

Blockchain technology is still in its nascency.  Sure, Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin–and with it, the blockchain–in 2009, and cryptocurrencies have come a long way since.  But even amidst a sea of developing protocols, platforms, and programs, the crytpo world has plenty of rough waters ahead of it as it sails towards adoption.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

That’s why ArcBlock is here to help navigate these waters.  ArcBlock wants to build an ecosystem inside of which blockchain technologies can thrive in connection with each other, and it wants to give developers the opportunity to take advantage of this community.  With ArcBlock’s platform, protocols from all walks of technological life will be able to interact with each other.  Developers will be able to build decentralized applications on ArcBlock, as well as access cross-chain functionality in an unprecedented manner.

The Problems Facing Blockchain Today

Blockchain technology has a promising future, but a handful of obstacles currently stand in the way of its potential:

Poor performance: As they currently stand, blockchain programs are bogged-down with sluggish transaction times, network bloat, and high transaction fees.  Ethereum’s trouble with CryptoKitties, Ethercraft, and other applications expose blatant scalability issues, and Bitcoin’s own transaction troubles reveal the same issues.  If blockchain wants to see global adoption and support the number of decentralized applications currently in development, performance must be enhanced.

Usability: Blockchain technologies are currently geared towards a technologically literate niche.  From investing to application use, the learning curve is substantial, and involvement requires substantial time and resources.

Cost: In line with the previous point, costs are starting to add up for developers wishing to use any given blockchain.  In order to use a variety of applications/function, developers must access multiple programs and blockchains to do so.  The space needs a holistic, low-cost/free to use system for these applications if it wishes to see mass adoption.

Platform Lock-In: Developers usually have to choose which platform to run/support, as each platform comes with its own costs (see above) and special code to operate.  Without the ability to easily switch from one program to another, developers get  stuck choosing which to support, possibly to the detriment to their project(s).

Lack of Features: Most blockchain protocols lack tangible services or real features at this point in their development.  When you combine this with the three prior points, developers and community members have little incentive to contribute to the ecosystem, as it offers nothing substantial in return–nothing yet, that is.

Enter ArcBlock

ArcBlock wants to solve all of these issues with its innovative new design.  Through ArcBlock, services, systems, and networks will connect dynamically, seamlessly linking existing industries and blockchain protocols into a unified source.

ArcBlock can offer this technological  bridge because, unlike its predecessors, it’s a platform service–not a standalone software package or set of APIs.  It’s not creating a new blockchain.  Rather, it will cooperate with existing blockchains (e.g., Hyperledger, Ethereum, Cardano, etc.).  As such, ArcBlock will create a comprehensive solution for existing blockchains to run more efficiently using cloud computing.

Using its Open Chain Access Protocol, anyone can access inter-blockchain operability.  This will allow developers free and open connectability with any blockchain on ArcBlock’s platform, allowing them to switch freely between protocols and their applications.  Thus, the platform is blockchain agnostic, paving the way for a revolution in decentralized application development and adoption.

Blocklet, a key component of the ArcBlock infrastructure, will be integral to achieving the platform’s goals.  Blocklet can be implemented with any other platform or coding language, and as a result, it will allow for cross-chain connectivity.  Moreover, it can bridge on-chain and off-chain computing, providing blockchain technologies a much-needed bridge to existing data sources, APIs, and technological architecture.

ArcBlock’s Bright Future in Blockchain’s Brave New World

ArcBlock’s platform could open the door for a new era in blockchain development.  This era would set a new standard for the future of decentralized applications, allow developers to harness a revolutionary blockchain-agnostic platform, and blow open the doors for adoption.

And the ArcBlock team is already making steps towards this goal.  Lead by Ding Lei and Salman Dhanani, ArcBlock recently stacked their team with a fresh group of advisors.  They’ve also slotted some impressive partnerships, including IBM, Guojin Capital, Krypital Group, Roaming Capital, and more.

Registration for ArcBlock’s token sale ends January 28th, and the public sale goes live on February 3rd.  You can find more information on the project’s website.

Two former employees of distributed ledger startup Ripple are raising money for a new cryptocurrency hedge fund, public records show.