Day: May 7, 2018

Looking to get involved in ‘the future of money,’ a former Fed governor, who was also a finalist to head the U.S. central bank, thinks the idea of a state bank-issued digital currency deserves serious consideration.

FedCoin: Just an Idea, for Now

Kevin Warsh was a Federal Reserve governor from 2006 to 2011 and a top contender to become the agency’s chairman last year. If he had returned to the Fed, Warsh said he would have appointed a team ‘to think about the Fed creating FedCoin, where we would bring legal activities into a digital coin.’

Warsh added that blockchain technology, which permits a reliable, decentralized record keeping of transactions, could be useful in the payment systems — which enable the transfer of trillions of dollars annually — operated by the Fed.

“It strikes me that a central bank digital currency might have a role to play there,” Warsh, who is now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, told reporters last Thursday.

Some central banks are already moving into the digital currency space, including financial authorities in Singapore and at the Bank of England. Jerome Powell, President Trump’s eventual appointee, also acknowledged the potential applications at his confirmation hearing for the Fed chairmanship this past November:

“We actually look at blockchain as something that may have significant applications in the wholesale payments part of the economy,” Powell said. “Not that it would supplant and replace cash, but it would be a pretty effective way when the next crisis happens for us to maybe conduct monetary policy.”

Banks and Cryptocurrencies

To many in the cryptosphere, it would be quite the twist if the technology — which is motivated for some by the distrust of central banks — were to become a key tool for those very institutions.

That said, such an application may address some of the concerns connected to cryptocurrencies today. For example, one problem currently faced is the volatility associated with the coins as a medium of exchange. This is something central banks could potentially help address, having spent hundreds of years learning how to keep the value of money stable.

Another worry is that Bitcoin and its peers can help facilitate tax evasion, money laundering, and fraud — and central banks are experts at building systems that allow the enforcement of those laws.

“Congress gave the Fed a monopoly over money,” Warsh said. “And if the next generation of cryptocurrencies look more like money and less like gold — and have less volatility associated with them so they would be not just a speculative asset but could be a reliable unit of account — as a purely defensive matter I wouldn’t want somebody to take that monopoly from me.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Researchers from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank believe that the launch of bitcoin futures played a role in bitcoin’s recent price slump.

President Moon Jae-in has sworn in a new governor to head South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) after he was nominated by the country’s Financial Sevices Commission last week, reports Cointelegraph.

The new governor, Yoon Suk-heun, has already made encouraging comments regarding the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the Asian country. At a press conference on 6 May, he suggested that cryptocurrencies have some “positive aspects”.

Since last September’s government ban, when South Korean regulators expressed “serious concern” about markets being pushed towards non-productive speculation, there have been numerous calls for the government to legalize ICOs. Since then, many South Korean companies have raised their funds through ICOs overseas.

Yoon officially begins working in his new role on 6 May and has promised that the FSS will be working on regulatory issues with other regulators, according to the Korea Times, saying “there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed and reviewed. We can figure them out but gradually”.

The new governor expressed a positive feeling that better regulations would create far more stability in the financial system, improving serviceability of both products and services. This could be achieved by adjusting current regulations to make them more effective.

Since the recent ban, trading has plummeted, with daily transactions of cryptocurrencies falling from a  figure of KRW 4 trillion (USD 3.7 billion) to KRW 400 billion (USD 371 million), according to Bithumb’s  Lee Jeong-ah. Crypto Exchange UpBit commented:

“But you can’t entirely kill the markets by simply imposing regulations. What the new FSS chief should think about is how the regulators should provide remedies to help crypto trading and blockchain technology get better.”

Bitcoin News reported that in recent days that Ruling Democratic Party member Hong Eui-rak and 10 other legislators joined together to draft a bill to lift the current ban, after a rumor that legislation was being eased earlier this year was later denied by the South Korean Government.

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The post New South Korean Regulator Positive on Crypto appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Zhao Changpeng, believes raising money through ICOs are 100 times easier than that through traditional VCs.

The container-shipping sector is estimated to account for 60 percent of all global seaborne trade. However, this huge industry has faced numerous challenges over the years. For instance, issues of low freight rates, overcapacity, security issues, and growing environmental regulation.

The Blockshipping Solution

The Scandinavian company Blockshipping is creating the blockchain based Global Shared Container Platform (GSCP). This will be the first real-time registry for the world’s approximately 27 million shipping containers. Furthermore, the GSCP will be a unified platform for all the players in the container shipping industry in order to increase the efficiency of handling various transactions related to shipping containers across the world.

The GSCP platform will be based on blockchain and modern sensor technology, and it has the potential to reduce costs for the global shipping industry to the tune of USD 5.7bn annually and reduce the global CO² emission by more than 4.6 million tons every year.

Blockshipping’s GSCP platform is already funded by private angels and The Danish Maritime Foundation. However, to accelerate the development, an ICO pre-sale was held from April 15, to be followed by a public ICO starting on May 14.

With the positive sentiments surrounding the Blockshipping and the GSCP platform since the crowd sale announcement, Blockshipping is anticipating a highly successful token sale. At the same time, the ICO offers a one-time opportunity for participants to involve themselves in a platform solving real-world problems within a crucial industry segment, making it potentially one of the best crypto-investments of the year.

Youtube video link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHaXrFvckTo

Global Media Attention

Since the project was announced, it has received a lot of positive media coverage. The awareness started in Denmark at the beginning of March and spread to rest of the world in no time. Well over 100 articles have been published on leading international media outlets so far.

Besides media attention, the project has managed to attract a huge community. For instance, there are over 10,000 Telegram members and almost 8,000 followers on Twitter. The pages on LinkedIn, Facebook and Medium have received thousands of views as well.

Great tracker list ratings:

Blockshipping has been reviewed by several leading ICO ranking sites, and the results clearly conclude that the Blockshipping ICO is in the top tier in terms of quality:

• TrackICO: 5/5
• Wiser ICO: 5/5
• ICO Calendar: 5/5
• ICO Street: 4.8/5
• Foundico: 7.8/10
• ICO Marks: 8.1/10
• ICO Stock24: 4.2/5 – “Best ICOs – category: Transport & Logistics”
• ICO Bench: 4/5
• ICO Token News: 4.5/5

Huge industry interest – announcing the first client:

The positive ratings and the overwhelming interest from both community and media have strongly supported Blockshipping’s firm belief in the great potential of the Global Shared Container Platform.

But even more important is the positive interest that Blockshipping is receiving from the shipping industry. Blockshipping’s CEO, Peter Ludvigsen, explains:

“Traditionally, the shipping industry has a reputation for being rather conservative, but what I have experienced since the announcement of our GSCP project is anything but the traditional pushback on new business ideas. It has been like one unbroken series of positive dialogues with key players of all areas in the container shipping industry.”

“I am extremely proud to say that a few days ago Blockshipping obtained confirmation from a global container carrier that they will join our GSCP platform as our first customer. This is a carrier in the 10-20 global ranking who has also confirmed that they will join our Customer advisory board.”

First ICO based on The ICO 2.0 Framework

Blockshipping’s ICO is not only the first Scandinavian shipping-related ICO. It is also the first ICO to be based on a new Danish framework called The ICO 2.0 Framework, which will be launched in the next two months.

The purpose of the upcoming ICO 2.0 Framework is to increase the quality standards for ICOs making sure that future Danish ICOs:

1. are 100% compliant with Danish law
2. aim at the highest standards in terms of security and quality of coding
3. promote openness, transparency, and honesty
4. follow a strict code of conduct when it comes to communications and relationship management with the ICO stakeholder groups.

How to participate in the public sale?

To participate in the Blockshipping public sale contributors will have to register on the Blockshipping sale portal and complete a KYC (Know Your Customer) check. This registration can be done prior to the opening of the public sale on May 14.

Learn more about the platform and token sale at https://www.blockshipping.io/

The post Blockshipping: The Future of Shipping Industry appeared first on NewsBTC.

There’s a strong sense of community in crypto, whether it’s troubleshooting wallet setup, collaborating on GitHub, or answering the questions of interested and skeptical friends. All of these daily interactions happen on a micro level and are mostly about making money. James Haft, co-founder of New York-based CryptoOracle, is a modern-day Rousseau, focused on blockchain technology’s role in reshaping economies and society. In this exclusive interview, we’ll get into the philosophical motivations behind decentralization and its impact.

The Merkle: Hi James, can you tell us a little bit about CryptoOracle?

James Haft: In October 2017, Lou Kerner and I formed CryptoOracle, building on our shared belief that crypto will have a huge impact on mankind. When I say crypto, I’m really talking about distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the decentralization of communications. The new crypto economy will change the world’s social and political landscape for the better.

CryptoOracle is a three-pronged business: fund management, community building, and strategic advisory. Our fund is raising $100 million to focus on the platforms, protocols and exchanges needed to support the decentralized economy. Communities are how we stay in touch with the best and brightest people, gain access to ideas and opportunities, drive interest in this fund, and promote learning. For example, we founded Crypto Mondays as a weekly Meetup event in NYC in the second week of 2018. Now, CryptoMondays has grown into a weekly event in 15+ cities around the world. We recently launched CryptoTuesdays for the Social Good, held on the first Tuesday of each month in NYC, and we’ve hosted conferences including BlockFin at LendIt to an audience of over 4,000 people in San Francisco this April. Lastly, we have a high-level advisory business for founders and stakeholders looking to leverage projects in the crypto economy. Many – not all – of these clients are doing ICOs, and we help them form the teams and communities necessary to execute their mission[s] on a large scale.

The Merkle: Your mission statement brings up “the largest accumulation and redistribution of wealth the world has ever seen.” Where do you see this wealth redistributing, and what do you think the effects will be?

James Haft: We see crypto as a political and social movement driving economic opportunity. While many people come to the space asking about bitcoin pricing and what cryptocurrencies to buy, to us that’s the tail of the dog.

Our society is overly centralized. Everything we do flows through third parties who are “trusted”. The government, banks, Facebook, Equifax, et cetera guard their own interests over the interests of paying consumers. We have become their product and do not have control over our own information.

The reality of our loss of control over our own data and identity affects the way we treat each other as human beings, and that’s evidenced by the political realm in the US and other countries. The people causing the divisiveness aren’t the problem, but rather a symptom.

The validity of media is now questionable, and it has become more apparent that politicians aren’t protecting our interests. There’s an obvious incongruity between what we’re being told and what must be true. The challenge here is to learn to discern the hidden agenda delivered as “facts” and to re-train ourselves to support systems which encourage veracity and accountability.

Media tell us information to affect the way we think rather than provid[e] facts to allow us to come to our own conclusion. The pendulum has shifted so far, we feel bombarded by a lack of truth and feel a need to protect ourselves. Once you realize information isn’t given to you as “facts” but as someone else’s purpose, it becomes obvious we need to learn and take action.

Decentralization, as represented by blockchain technology and the decentralized ledger, is all about the reversal of the pendulum, changing from a system where we have a “trusted party” in the middle treating us like products, to maintaining our own data and communication. What we need is a society where people can trust each other directly and no longer have to rely on middlemen who filter truth and knowledge through black box filters.

The community building around decentralization comes from our need as humans to return to peer-to-peer relationships. We are at an important crossroad. There’s never been an asset or accumulation of wealth that’s grown in 12 months at the rate or size that cryptocurrency represents. We have created over $400 billion in value, distributed globally over an 18 month period. This has never happened before in the history of mankind. It is not surprising that existing governments and economic institutions are not sure how to respond.

The Merkle: It sounds like some of your big goals around blockchain would lend themselves to a decentralized governance model. What do you think about those types of projects?

James Haft: I’m an advisor to democracy.earth, and I believe their vision will help decentralize and create peer-to-peer relationships. Having an “identity” is one concept needed in a decentralized economy as a way of having a voice and being counted in voting rather than surrendering it to a machine. I believe in the decentralization and democratization of the vote, and this is a big work in progress. Governments need to fulfill the needs of their population[s] over time, and blockchain gives the people a way [to] make their voices heard.

The Merkle: Despite crypto’s ability to unite people around the world, there’s still hacks, phishing scams, and massive amounts of energy waste as part of the blockchain ecosystem today. These problems put people’s livelihoods at risk as well as pollute. What do you say to this?

James Haft: I view the world as fractals; everything represents everything else. The crypto world is just like all the other marketplaces where we communicate and transact business. When you talk about fraud and bad actors, the common element between activities is that humans all participate and there will always be some people who cut corners or don’t respect the social contract. DLT may offer us a better platform for dealing with this by using open-source code and relying on the wisdom of the crowd.

We’ve been desensitized and taught that centralized methods are the only way to safely do things, and that banks, lawyers, and intermediate companies are protecting our best interests. The reality is these institutions have their own agendas and have been proven not to be trustworthy, either through fraud, intent, or just negligence. Historically, we deal one on one with these monoliths, and either sign their agreements or go away. Decentralization and open-source knowledge sharing allow for crowd-sourced intelligence to identify and correct bad actors and errors, putting the power back in our hands.

The Merkle: Sounds like you’re a big advocate for open source, but what about patented algorithms?

James Haft: I think right now there’s some need for all types of platforms. We are in a transitory period where we need some compromises as we move from centralized to decentralized platforms. In the long run, the open-sourced, crowd-sourced concept will pervade the market as people exercise their power to decide what platforms to use, and there will always be some niche need for patented and centralized platforms and protocols.

The Merkle: What advice do you have for early investors when considering ICOs and new crypto investments?

James Haft: First, buy a small position of something – start with an amount of money you’re willing to lose. Get a wallet and learn how to change fiat cash into cryptocurrency. You’re likely to start with some Bitcoin or Ether, and trade it into a token that’s interesting to you with social or political upside. By investing money, whether you make gains or losses, you’ll get your first taste of investing in crypto and can figure out from there if this environment suits you.

I advise everyone to go through this process, as a basis for gaining an understanding. Most of us don’t have time to manage crypto trades all day, so if you’re making a decision to invest a serious amount of money and will still have another occupation, I advise you [to] buy into an index fund of top coins. This gives direct exposure to the market and fund in equity and early stage opportunities, taking advantage of the structures coming to market that afford liquidity through tokenization.

The Merkle: In general, where do you see crypto evolving?

James Haft: I see the evolution both in terms of liquidity and technology. A big issue today is that the US government’s views and plans for cryptocurrencies is unclear. I see this market developing outside of the US, leaving us behind, if securities and liquidity regulations don’t get figured out. Our government needs to be true to their word and show us they want the capital here by clearly defining the rules and regulations they require and opening trading to maintain our leadership in the capital markets; otherwise, the innovation and growth will take place elsewhere. As of today, the higher-quality opportunities are being exclusively offered outside the US because of our regulations.  

The Merkle: What are some innovations in the space or projects you’re excited about?

James Haft: It’s still really early. As humans, we overestimate the short-run impact of technology and underestimate the long-run impact. This is known as Amara’s law. People think they missed the boat on Bitcoin or think crypto isn’t going to last because of the current volatility. Long-term, I think Bitcoin will be remembered as the first example of a distributed ledger which worked and gained critical mass, and, possibly, not something financially or technologically important. We need faster, more flexible forms of consensus building. Even Ethereum, [despite being] a brilliant step in the right direction, may still be just a footnote.

There’s already technologies that form consensus on smaller blocks of data with more reliability, and zero-knowledge proof platforms that allow consensus without sharing private information. I’m also interested in the concept of identity and personality for how we transact using decentralized modalities as an innovation that leads to opportunities.

The Merkle: How have the new SAFT frameworks affected your decision-making? What will their impact be on the industry over time?

James Haft: The SAFT is a temporary band-aid for an artificial problem that will go away within the next 12 months. The SEC is choked up about the differences between security and utility tokens and how to place and trade them. These issues are based upon the government’s paralysis in understanding how tokens actually work. We’re not big fans of SAFTs, but CryptoOracle is participating in some of these offerings, as it’s the only way we can participate in some of the new projects.

The Merkle: What’s the question you wish someone would ask you in an interview but hasn’t? What would your answer be?

James Haft: Actually you asked it, and you gave me the opportunity to cover what’s important to me. Can we discuss the questions I do not enjoy instead? “Is it a bubble?” “How much will Bitcoin or Ethereum be worth?” These questions confuse cause and effect and distract from the complex societal issues we need to discuss more openly, such as the causes of, and opportunities generated by, the political and social impact of decentralization.

*

PHOTO: CryptoOracle founders Lou Kerner (left) and James Haft (right).

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

The newly appointed Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Governor Yoon Suk-heun has stated that regulation should help the cryptocurrency market grow. He spoke during an address yesterday following the confirmation of his appointment by the nation’s president.

Clear Regulation Will Be Good For Cryptocurrency in Korea

Yoon believes that the market will stabilise following greater clarity in regulation. This stability will allow the industry to create more services and products. In turn, this will allow the entire market to expand. He stated:

“The FSS will collaborate with the FSC when an inspection on policies and financial institutions has different configurations associated with different scopes. FSC inspects policies, while the FSS examines and supervises financial institutions but with the oversight of the FSC.”

During his public address after he was officially appointed by President Moon Jae-in to the top position in the government agency, Yoon spoke of collaboration between the FSS and the Financial Services Commission. When questioned abut the details of forthcoming digital currency regulation, the new Governor declined to comment. Instead, he acknowledged that there were several areas that needed attention:

“There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed and reviewed. We can figure them out but gradually.”

Yoon will take up his new role officially on May 8th. He will then hold a press conference that will no doubt address cryptocurrency once again, as well as other financial matters facing the nation of Korea. Attending this conference will be local and foreign media.

The FSC and the FSS are both Korea’s financial watchdogs. The FSC takes the role of checking and monitoring policies implemented by the FSS. Earlier, these regulators banned Korean citizens from creating anonymous cryptocurrency trading accounts. This regulation also prohibited minors from using digital currency exchanges.

Meanwhile, Korean lawmakers are actively seeking a reversal of the ICO ban that was declared in September 2017. The rule stated that all initial coin offerings except those that met certain agreed upon conditions were to be outlawed. However, a new bill is being drafted that would legalise future ICOs, although it is believed that it could take several months to see a verdict on the proposed bill.

Despite the seemingly back-and-forth stance by Korean regulators, cryptocurrency trading remains a popular activity in the nation. At the exchange Bithumb, a total of $888,020,454 were traded over the last 24 hours (at the time of writing). Meanwhile, fellow Korean exchange Upbit facilitated almost $1 billion worth of trades over the same period. These figures come courtesy of Coinmarketcap.

The post South Korea to Ease Cryptocurrency Trading Regulation, Highly Optimistic appeared first on NewsBTC.

Based on the last year results, the International Association of Forex Traders (IAFT) has recognized NordFX as the “Best Broker to Work with Cryptocurrencies”. It was soon followed by another forex award that designated the platform as the “Best Crypto Broker Asia” for the past year. While these awards are just a tip of the iceberg, they go on to show that NordFX is highly appreciated in the cryptocurrency community.

So, what does the firm have to offer?

An Outstanding Reputation as a Provider of High Standard Brokerage Services.

NordFX is a renowned international Forex broker offering trading services to both individuals and institutional customers. Created in 2008, NordFX implements cutting-edge technologies and up-to-date trading platform as it regularly increases the range of supported currencies and financial instruments available for trade. The platform provides flawless integration capabilities with the renowned MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader Mobile applications, which makes it convenient for traders to place orders on the platform from anywhere in the world, over any device.

Cutting edge technology aside, NordFX has over the years built an outstanding reputation as a provider of high standard brokerage services and has since begun channeling the same level of professionalism on to cryptocurrency trading. Crypto-traders can open trading accounts on the NordFX trading platform, to trade major crypto-fiat pairs. Going a step further, they can also choose to deposit, make withdrawals or hold their account balances in cryptocurrencies instead of just fiat.

The trading platform at NordFX has been tailored to impact the way the crypto-user generates steady earnings through better decision making. There are two trading accounts options available to crypto-users.

The NordFX Pro account is ideal for traders. A minimum deposit of $50 or its crypto equivalent opens this account which has been designed to match their experience level, with features that enable the trader to transform data into decision making.

The NordFX Zero account can be opened with a minimum deposit of $100 or its cryptocurrency equivalent. In contrast to the Pro account, the Zero trading account owners are given access to interbank liquidity (ECN).

Traders can trade such popular cryptos as Bitcoin (BTC/USD), Litecoin (LTC/USD), Ethereum (ETH/USD), Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD), Dash (DSH/USD), and Ripple (XRP/USD) on both accounts. The leverage ratio is up to 1:1000. Users can maintain their account balances and carry out deposits and withdrawals in either USD, ETH, or BTC.

Even though there are various account types, users don’t have to create more than one account to trade different assets, especially cryptocurrencies. One single account, of any type, is enough to handle all supported crypto-assets, making it a one-stop trading and brokerage solution for cryptocurrencies in the market. The number of supported cryptocurrencies on the platform continues to grow as the platform keeps adding new trading pairs based on the market demand.

In addition to the convenience of using a single account for trading crypto as well as traditional assets, users of NordFX can further take advantage of the MetaTrader4 support. With MT4, users can make use of the widely used popular interface along with an extensive list of integrated trading tools: indicators and scripts that facilitate high-quality technical analysis, allowing traders to make informed decisions and execute profitable trades.

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