Day: March 1, 2018

This week local Japanese news outlets report that the exchange Coincheck, who suffered from a $530Mn USD loss of the cryptocurrency NEM, is facing a class action lawsuit. Reports detail that 132 Coincheck customers have banded together asking for a refund of 228 million yen ($2Mn).

Also read: Digital Currency Group Welcomes Bitcoin-Friendly Bank to the ‘DCG Family’

Coincheck Faces Another Class Action Lawsuit

132 investors have filed a lawsuit against Coincheck with the Tokyo District Court on February 27 according to the regional publication Sankei. Coincheck was hacked on January 26 for roughly $530Mn worth of digital assets. The exchange detailed it was making arrangements to pay the 260,000 customers back at 81 U.S. cents per token. Additionally, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the trading platform submitting its refund plan to the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA).

On February 15 a group of seven investors filed a class action suit asking “Coincheck pay annualized interest of 5 percent on the value of the digital coins from notification of the claim,” according to Reuters.

Class Action Plaintiff: ‘At the Very Least We Would Like to Sell and Withdraw’

Now 132 customers filed a new lawsuit yesterday seeking a quick restitution due to the fact they cannot withdraw their funds at this time, explains the Sankei report. The class action suit is asking for a mix of 13 types of cryptocurrencies and a portion of Japanese yen.

“At the very least we would like to sell the virtual currency and withdraw it in Japanese yen, but even that will not make it even, we complain because of our distrust of Coincheck,” a plaintiff in her twenties explained the lawsuit to a group of reporters that day.

A Coincheck spokesperson responded to questions about the lawsuit by stating:

We have not responded to the presence or absence of a trial or content.     

The official restitution plans sent to the FSA are still uncertain, but recently it was reported the platform was considering a ‘capital tie-up.’ The local news outlet Jiji Press said a person familiar with the matter told them that “several possible partners, including an investment fund” has emerged.

What do you think about Coincheck being sued by 132 investors? Let us know your thoughts on this story in the comments below.

Images via Pixabay, Associated Press, and the Nikkei Asian Review

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The post 132 Customers File Class Action Lawsuit Against Coincheck appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Banks have emerged as institutions that are ‘too big to fail’. The 2008 banking crisis taught us the lesson that many governments will bail out banks using public money to avoid unrest on the streets, as well as in their economy. However, we have to seriously ask if the financial crisis ever went away. The Gross Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) of Indian banks now comprise 22.39 percent of their total lending and has risen to INR 350.98 bln. While in China, spiraling lending is causing concern. New bank loans have reached CNY 2.8 tln; 43 percent higher compared with a year earlier.  The International Monetary Fund’s Working Paper, Credit Booms – Is China Different? By Sally Chen and Joong Shik Kang, puts the risk in plain and simple words, “Strong Chinese output growth after the Global Financial Crisis was supported by booming credit. This credit boom carries risks. International experience suggests that China’s credit growth is on a dangerous trajectory, with increasing risks of a disruptive adjustment and/or a marked growth slowdown.” China and India are both among the seven biggest world economies; any crisis caused by errant banks in either country could be disastrous for the entire world.

It is increasingly difficult to continue business as usual without seriously considering alternatives to the traditional banking system, whether talking about banking, governance or providing quality investment opportunities to the public. With the advent of the blockchain, new possibilities have emerged that offer real choice to the people. Bitcoin, which was one of the first on the scene, provided people with the opportunity to hold, spend and transmit digital funds. Ethereum added the capability to execute smart contracts, and now there is a currency that will provide bank-like benefits. Bitstrades Coin allows users to benefit by just holding the currency.

More than just a bank

Bitstrades is a platform that provides some services that traditional banks also provide. Investors can get benefits by holding the platform’s Bitstrades Coin, while the users of the platform can also benefit by taking loans from the lending platform that it will operate. A dashboard also gives access to the lending platform for potential investors, who can then use it to invest money in the lending platform and gain income based on the amount that they invest.

However, the platform is way more than just a bank; it also includes the BSS exchange where investors can change their Bitstrades Coins into other cryptocurrencies or Euro and can also buy Bitstrades Coins to either hold or invest in the lending platform. The platform also provides a news section which gives the latest information on price analysis of cryptocurrency as well as charts, guides, and listings, so that investors can benefit from movements in currencies and execute well informed financial decisions.

Why Bitstrades Coin?

Bitstrades Coin’s main attraction seems to be the fact that it provides investors with a chance to get daily profit from the coin by just holding it, in addition to normal revenue generation avenues, such as mining and trading on major exchanges. Bitstrades platform is a solution that provides a large number of opportunities to the average user, such as staking, investing, trading and mining. The platform is built on the peer-to-peer principle and has a very quick transaction time. As more users discover the Bitstrades platform for uses ranging from transactions to borrowing, there will be more use of the Bitstrades Coin which will in turn fuel demand, meaning the possibility of appreciation in the price of the coin itself.

Can Bitstrades create a new era in banking?

It is time that banking gets an independent mechanism which is above reproach. Bitstrades, with its investment capital managed by transactional bots and volatility software, is banking untouched by human hands. This is the chief characteristic of the platform that distinguishes it from traditional banking as it exists today. In fact, if the platform itself finds massive success, it has the potential to revolutionize banking itself and save the industry from imploding. The approach that Bitstrades has taken can help cut down the  Non-Performing Assets of the banking industry, give automatic returns to system users and help generate employment by getting loans to the people that truly deserve them. This approach can also bridge the gap between geographies and help poorer areas of the world get access to banking finance. The evolution of Bitstrades will be fascinating for anyone who wants to see a change in the banking system.

The post Banks Have the Potential to Evolve as a New Token Takes Centrestage appeared first on NewsBTC.

Hard forks in the crypto sphere are now commonplace, Bitcoin had countless blockchain splits over the past year. Just last month Litecoin forked amid a lot of controversy, much of which came from the founder of the original. Forks tend to draw in those looking for a quick buck on the price jump or some free coins from the airdrop that usually occurs after the split. The latest hark fork generating a buzz is the anonymous cryptocurrency Monero.

Monero’s XMR coin is widely regarded the hacker’s choice due to its anonymity. Virtually all stories about crypto mining malware have involved Monero and it remains the top crypto to acquire on the sly. This is largely a testament to its success as a private and untraceable digital asset. Monero has been one of the better performing altcoins in February climbing 20% during the month.

MoneroV Airdrop

Prices are likely to continue upwards as the hard fork approaches block 1529810 around March 14. From then on MoneroV will be born out of the blockchain and holders of XMR will get a ten times airdrop of XMV coins if they have them in a Monero wallet. Exchanges are unlikely to support the fork as was the case with Litecoin Cash. Also as with LCC there have been concerns about entering private keys into the new wallet that could potentially enable access to crypto stored in the original one.

According to the blurb on its website MoneroV ‘has limited supply of coins while Monero’s coin supply is infinite, and MoneroV will implement new protocols that will solve the scaling problems facing Monero and other cryptocurrencies.’

With a capped supply of 256 million XMV and a release of 158 million at the fork it is expected that prices will rise. However MoneroV is entering an increasingly crowded anonymous altcoin market that already includes Dash, Zcash, Zcoin, Pivx, Komodo, and Verge.

Centralized Mining Threat

The current concern with Monero is the possible centralization of mining operations using proof of work. If there is enough hashing power with a large enough network one group could theoretically control the entire network. One specific location or type of hardware for mining could also create centralization.

According to reports a hard fork will change Monero’s CryptoNight proof-of-work algorithm to prevent it from being effectively mined by application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) hardware. Too many ASIC miners could potentially centralize the network. The Monero team explained the threat of centralization in a lengthy blog post last month and warned against reuse of Monero keys for forked versions.

The post Monero to Hard Fork with MoneroV Coming in Mid-March appeared first on NewsBTC.

Credit Suisse and ING say they have successful sent securities worth €25 million ($30 million) over a system built with R3’s Corda.

Biotron.io has announced the launch of its public Initial Token Event (ITE) which will take place from the 20th of March 2018 (15:00 UTC) until the 29th of March 2018 (15:00 UTC) in order to fund Biotron.io. The distribution of the tokens will commence on the 2nd of April.

Biotron.io is a user permissioned and revenue sharing personal data warehouse. User data is collected and saved in a form of high-level analyses, which are then available for purchase by interested customers.

To realise its vision, Biotron.io is launching its own utility token – BTRN. The token facilitates the trade of data and payments between providers and customers. It is the only option for payments to access Biotron.io’s data analyses and to compensate data providers.

During the ITE, BTRN are created as ERC-20 cryptographic tokens on the Ethereum (ETH) protocol. After the ITE and once the Biotron Blockchain is launched, the ERC-20 based BTRN will be replaced by the final proprietary BTRN.

The public ITE will last 9 days, with each day representing one round. The round one value of 1 BTRN will be 0.10€ with an increase of 0.01€ per round. The final round value will be 0.18€ per 1 BTRN. The ETH-EUR exchange rate used for each round will be announced daily according to the Euro exchange rate. It will be calculated as 1-day (24h) moving average of the day before the round starts. The source of the exchange rate and its calculation will be announced in advance of the ITE.

A private ITE was launched on the 1st of February 2018 and will last until the 19th of March 2018. The minimum contribution is 200ETH. Contributions received during the private ITE will be recorded during the 1st round of the public ITE and distributed from the ITE token pool. Private ITE bonuses will be distributed individually from an allocated “Private ITE Bonus” token pool which is 10% of all the created BTRN tokens. Any tokens that were reserved for the ITE and Private ITE Bonus but remain undistributed will be allocated to the “User Acquisition” token pool.

The identification of contributors to the ITE will be based on their ETH wallet address and BTRN tokens are distributed to this address only. All BTRN wallet addresses for contributions will be made public prior to the ITE. There will be the KYC process to establish a contributor’s investment knowledge and financial position.

Summary

Role of Token: Enables trade of data between data customers and data providers
Symbol: BTRN
Maximum Supply: 1 000 000 000 tokens (no new tokens will be created)
Initial Token Event: 350 000 000 tokens (35% of all tokens)
Initial Token Value: €0.10 per 1 BTRN (Round 1)
Public ITE Period: 20.3.2018 15:00 UTC to 29.3.2018 15:00 UTC
Accepted currencies: BTC, ETH, LTC, EOS, OMG, BAT, SPHTX
Token Distribution Commencement: 2nd of April 2018 (48 hours)

Token allocation:

Graph Summary

• 35% of BTRN tokens will be allocated for ITE.
• 10% allocated for private ITE bonus scheme.
• 10% will be held for transaction validations in case Biotron.io decides to build their own blockchain/ledger. If an existing blockchain/ledger is used, these tokens will be used to cover transaction fees on that network.
• 25% of issued BTRN tokens will be allocated for user acquisition activities, business development, and market expansion.
• 15% of BTRN tokens will be allocated to cover ITE operation costs (marketing, legal, and development efforts) and to compensate ITE advisors, partners, and founders (vesting period up to 12 months).
• 5% will be held in a reserve by Biotron.io for future development with sales restrictions of 2 years.

The post BIOTRON.IO Initial Token Event (ITE) appeared first on NewsBTC.

The world of cryptocurrency is always full of surprises. Some of the market movements are not entirely surprising, although that doesn’t make them any less intriguing to keep an eye on. The Waltonchain price, for example, has seen a massive dip over the past 24 hours thanks to their social media campaign turning into a bit of a disaster.

Waltonchain Price Takes a Major Beating

Even though the start of 2018 was not all that terrible for WTC, things have taken a big turn for the worse. More specifically, in the first weeks of 2018, we have seen the Waltonchain price from $10 all the way to $40. Such spectacular gains are not uncommon in the world of cryptocurrency, even though this value is driven by speculation first and foremost.

In a way, it is not entirely surprising to see the Waltonchain price come down after that spectacular uptrend. With the value dropping from $40 to $20 in a matter of days, the speculators have cashed out their profits and flocked to a new currency altogether. Ever since that time, we have seen a few positive spikes for the Waltonchain price, but nothing that could effectively form a new support level. It now seems things will continue to go down from here, at least for the foreseeable future.

Thanks to the recent social media campaign blowing up in the team’s face, the Waltonchain price is now suffering from another 10% decline. This pushes the Waltocnhain price down to below $19.5, although it is expected this value will go a bit lower in the coming hours. It also represents an 11.15% decline in BTC value and an 11.06% loss over Ethereum. Not a positive trend for Waltonchain, but it is entirely justifiable at this time.

With just $32.58m in 24-hour trading volume, the demand for Waltonchain is not there either. In fact, one could argue things are not looking all that great for this particular altcoin as of right now, even though the opinions will certainly be divided on that front. With more and more people now doubting the honest intentions of this company and its staff members, it remains unclear whether or not the future Waltonchain price will improve or not. People tend to forget these sorts of setbacks rather quickly, though.

As of right now, Binance is the only cryptocurrency exchange generating any notable WTC trading volume. Their BTC and ETH pairs combine for over 93% of all trades, which is not entirely unexpected. Coinnest completes the top three, although their WTC/KRW pair isn’t even generating $1m in volume right now. Binance’s BNB pair is in fourth place, with Kucoin’s WTC/BTC market completing the top five. No non-KRW fiat currency pairs for Waltonchain can prove to be a big problem when looking toward the future, although it is unclear how things will evolve in the next few days and weeks.

The way things look right now, we will see a further Waltonchain price decline throughout most of the day. That doesn’t mean the market will not recover eventually, but for now, it may not make for the best of investments whatsoever. At the same time, every dip is an opportunity to buy in and score big profits when the market recovers eventually, Whether or not the Waltonchain price will ever return to $40 or more, remains impossible to predict as of right now.

The what, why and how of the decentralized banking. #EXPLAINED

Russia is reportedly hoping to pass long-discussed new cryptocurrency legislation by July 1, a report suggests.

A lot of things may happen in the Bitcoin world very soon. The controversial scaling solution known as SegWit is finally improving its market position. While this feature has been available for over a year, it is only now starting to make an impact.

An Increase in SegWit Adoption

Ever since SegWit was released on the Bitcoin network, there has been very little interest in it. More specifically, its usage has remained below or around 10% for several months. Things are finally coming to change in a positive manner. Bitcoin direly needs this scaling solution to kick in. Otherwise, users are at risk of dealing with major fees and transaction delays once again. Such issues always cause major friction among Bitcoin users, for obvious reasons.

With SegWit adoption now on the rise, things are looking good. There are multiple reasons as to why this is happening right now. Some of the key service providers have finalized their integration of this scaling solution. As such, we see a lot more native SegWit transactions on the network as a whole. With exchanges and wallet providers finally getting on board, this situation will continue to improve for some time to come.

The way things look right now, nearly 30% of all network transactions use Segregated Witness. That is a healthy increase, but it’s far from sufficient. In an ideal situation, this number needs to be at least above 65%. Whether or not that will effectively happen, remains to be seen. The new Bitcoin Core client makes it easier to send SegWit-capable transactions, which should help prop up the numbers moving forward.

Can SegWit Save Bitcoin?

Even though this positive trend is materializing, there are still some concerns over Bitcoin’s future. Even with SegWit adoption, a lot of damage to Bitcoin’s image has been done in recent months. Altcoins are cheaper to use, provide virtually the same advantages, and they have a lot of price growth potential for the future. At the same time, Bitcoin has successfully remained the world’s leading cryptocurrency despite serious market volatility.

Furthermore, one has to keep in mind SegWit is only the foundation for bigger and better things. With the Lightning Network inching closer to being finalized, micropayments will come to Bitcoin soon. When that happens, there will be dozens of new market opportunities involving the world’s leading cryptocurrency. All of this is assuming the LN will work as advertised. For now, it is still in beta testing as we speak. No one knows for sure if the Lightning Network will come to fruition this year or the next.

For the time being, we have to wait and see how the SegWit situation evolves. This current trend is extremely encouraging, but it’s only a fraction of what needs to happen. Until the majority of network transactions use this scaling solution, the lingering concerns will not go away anytime soon.

Some of the biggest companies are still on the fence about integrating SegWit as of right now. Moreover, one should not ignore Bitcoin Cash either. Despite its on-chain scaling solution, BCH seems to grow a very loyal following as well. The future looks pretty interesting for both of these currencies in many different ways.

The post Increased SegWit Adoption for Bitcoin, is Lightning Network Next? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin is stuck in $10,000 range and could witness a big move in either direction, technical charts indicate.

Singapore’s de facto central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, is looking at whether new regulations are needed to protect crypto investors.

Bitcoin still remains largely inaccessible to the majority of people. Anyone can sign up for an exchange, but few people feel comfortable sharing their identity and associated documents. Newsagents in Australia will try to address this problem moving forward. Bitcoin and Ethereum can be purchased in-store at over 1,200 locations.

Newsagents Back Bitcoin and Ethereum

This news comes a rather big surprise to everyone outside of Australia. The country is relatively quiet on the cryptocurrency front, for the most time. With newsagents now offering Bitcoin and Ethereum purchases in-store, things will head in a different direction. Purchasing Bitcoin or Ethereum this way is also a lot more convenient. With no verification procedures to account for, it is a matter of handing over cash and an email address.

For the interested users, this new service will go live as of today. There is a minimum purchase amount of AU$50 to take into account. Bitcoin.com.au is the company responsible for bringing this new service to 1,200 newsagents. The company has been working on making cryptocurrencies more accessible for a while now. Purchasing Bitcoin and Ethereum in-store seems to solve a lot of problems for most consumers.

Gaining trust is pretty difficult in the world of cryptocurrency. This is especially true when trying to sell the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum. An in-store presence seems to be an approach which instills this necessary confidence. Tapping newsagents to provide this invaluable service seems to be the most logical option on the table as of right now. Whether or not consumers will pay more attention to these currencies moving forward, remains to be seen.

Can Cryptocurrency Thrive in Australia?

There is a big market waiting to be tapped when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Most people who buy Bitcoin own Ethereum or vice versa. Attracting completely new users and investors is not all that easy as of right now. When newsagents sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly to customers, a new market is created. All users need is a mobile device with a compatible wallet to complete the purchase. The process is very simple and can be completed within mere minutes in general.

More importantly, Bitcoin.com.au waves all transaction fees for purchases made today. As of tomorrow, the transactions will carry a fee of five percent, which is only normal. It is a pretty intriguing development that will bring more positive attention to Australia as well. Although they were one of the first countries to ‘legalize’ Bitcoin through taxation, things have been quiet on the Australian front so far. Whether or not this situation can improve, remains to be determined.

A total of 1,200 newsagents will offer this service. It does not sound like an impressive number, but it is a good start. We may even see this feature roll out to other locations throughout Australia moving forward. A lot of people will enjoy the added benefit of buying Bitcoin or Ethereum where they also buy soft drinks and stationary. It may lead to some impulse purchases to help grow the cryptocurrency ecosystem altogether.

The post Australian Newsagents Now Offer In-Store Cryptocurrency Purchases appeared first on NewsBTC.