Day: May 9, 2018

Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, has been found to have unlawfully blocked a money transfer of USD 195,00 coming from a European cryptocurrency exchange platform, citing unsubstantiated claims of suspected money laundering and terrorist financing.

The case was presided over by Judge Limor Bibi, who concluded that Bank Hapoalim did not have any substantial evidence to back up their accusations of the exchange platform, as reported by Coingeek. Furthermore, the client in question had even provided documents showing both evidence of the source of the funds and details of the transactions having been filed with the Israel Tax Authority.

Upon proof that the funds were AML compliant, Bank Hapoalim was obliged to facilitate the transaction. Although the bank requested a gag order to protect the bank from bad publicity, the court declined this appeal.

In a comment made by the complainant’s law firm, Doron, Tikotzky, Kantor, Gutman & Amit Gross, the growing friction between financial institutions and clients was noted. This can be attributed to the refusal of Israeli banks to cooperate professionally with clients dealing in cryptocurrencies.

The firm spoke out, saying: “Recently, we have witnessed an extreme escalation in the banks’ fight against Bitcoin and the other virtual currencies. In what appears to be a planned policy of targeted assassination, the banks are preventing their customers from returning foreign money originating in virtual currencies to their Israeli accounts, even though the clients wish to declare the movement of the funds and pay their taxes according to the law.”

The statement detailed the importance of setting a precedent that necessitates a policy of cooperating with virtual currency transactions that are AML compliant.

Bits of Gold v. Leumi Bank

Israel’s Supreme Court was forced to step in earlier this year in the case of cryptocurrency exchange Bits of Gold v. Leumi Bank. The court decision ruled in favor of Bits of Gold, declaring there was no solid ground for the bank to suspend the account in question. An order from the court was issued, temporarily prohibiting the bank from restricting the exchange’s banking services.

At the time of ruling it was appreciated as a landmark win for cryptocurrencies in the country, setting a precedent that prohibits banks from refusing services that are involved in crypto without cause. It appears, however, that the challenge from banks in Israel is far from over.

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Bloomberg announced the launch of a crypto benchmark index with Mike Novogratz’s crypto merchant bank

According to a new research report by Global Market Insights, the commercial Drone/UAV Market is expected to reach USD 17 billion by 2024. This is quite impressive when you consider that in 2016, the commercial drone/UAV market saw 100,000 units sold, worth $2 billion.

While this growth is impressive, it will not come without challenges. The most significant challenge will be how to manage not only all the drones in the sky, but how they interact with manned aircraft. This is a critical problem that currently lacks a solution.

One company that aims to solve this problem is DEEP AERO.

DEEP AERO is building a harmonized framework for air traffic management (ATM) and Drone/UAS traffic management (UTM). DEEP AERO’s autonomous, self-governing, intelligent Drone/Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) will ensure safe flights of manned and unmanned aircrafts in the shared space. DEEP AERO CEO Gurmeet Singh said:

“The use of unmanned aerial vehicles is increasing exponentially. We’re heading towards a future in which millions of drones will fly billions of flights. At some point in the not-too-distant future, fleets of commercial drones are expected to swarm across the skies. Current airspace management and air traffic flow management systems don’t have the capabilities to handle the type of operations relevant to drones. In addition, the anticipated traffic density of drones is far beyond the capabilities of current air traffic management systems.”

DEEP AERO is researching prototype technologies such as airspace design, dynamic geofencing, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning, rerouting, separation management, sequencing and spacing, and contingency management for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that will develop airspace integration requirements for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude operations of drones. DEEP UTM includes things like universal drone registration standards, open identification standards, open identification systems, tamper-proof flight data recorders, accurate and trustworthy 3D mapping data, dynamic weather information, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication.

For individual passengers and within this system, there’s the need for small, electric aircraft that can take off and land vertically, which are called Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. VTOL aircraft will eliminate the millions of hours that are wasted on roads worldwide due to traffic and congestion. DEEP AERO envisions a network of self-flying autonomous drones, or passenger ferries, that are big enough to ferry individual passengers. This will shrink commute times from hours to minutes. The end result is that urban air transportation will use three-dimensional air space to reduce transportation congestion on the ground, just as skyscrapers allow cities to use limited land more efficiently.

DEEP AERO will work closely with leading passenger drone manufacturers like Volocopter, eHANG, Autonomous Passenger Drone and Workhorse to launch Drone Taxi Service on its marketplace. Passengers will be able to book drone taxis on the app and drone taxi fleet owners will be able to deploy their drone taxi fleets on the marketplace.

There’s also a strong need for commercial drones that can deliver packages quicker and cheaper. Drones can bypass traffic, rough terrain, water and make package delivery much faster than by a car or truck.

Amazon.com is already pursuing drone delivery with its Amazon Prime Air. Prime Air is designed by Amazon to delivery packages to its customers in 30 minutes or less from the nearest Amazon distribution center.

To facilitate users within the drone ecosystem, there’s the DRONE-MP Marketplace. This will be the biggest marketplace for any product or service related to drones. The DRONE-MP Marketplace will connect buyers and sellers of drone products seamlessly. Buyers will be able to purchase and rent drones, hire drone operators for their projects, buy drone spare parts, rent drone charging pads, book drone taxis and book drone cargo/cargo package delivery using this marketplace.

The entire DEEP AERO ecosystem will be powered by DRONE tokens. The token distribution is as follows:

Total Token Supply: 5,000,000,000

Founders: 1,250,000,000 25% and locked for 24 months

Advisors: 500,000,000 10%

Pre-Sale: 500,000,000 10%

ICO: 2,500,000,000 50%

Marketing: 250,000,000 5%

The DRONE token price is $0.05 and buyers are rewarded with different bonus levels at different stages of the ICO.

DEEP AERO is also conducting a contest whereby it will give 1 passenger drone (worth $450,000) and 300 DJI PHANTOM 4 PRO drones (worth $1,500) as reward to lucky winners from the pool of all contributors who contribute 1 ETH or more to its ICO campaign, subject to the ICO campaign getting fully subscribed.

DEEP AERO will be integrating with the Bancor Protocol to provide continuous liquidity for its DRONE tokens. By integrating the Bancor Protocol, DRONE token holders will gain access to continuous liquidity regardless of trade volume or exchange listings, through the Bancor Network, where any integrated token can be automatically converted to any other directly from the Bancor Wallet or any Web3 wallet, such as MetaMask.

Overall, we see enormous potential for the drone industry, but in order for it to succeed, the drone industry needs DEEP AERO. Of all the projects that we have looked at, DEEP AERO is one of the most disruptive technologies we have seen. For a closer look at DRONE tokens, check out the DEEP AERO website, white paper, and Telegram channel.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post DEEP AERO: An AI Blockchain Solution for The Drone Industry appeared first on NewsBTC.

Blockchain was originally seen as an alternative to traditional banking, where the system offered smoother and quicker service experience. This led to natural hostility towards the technology by the financial institutions from around the world. Today, however, there are banks that understand the power of blockchain and that the future lies not in aversion, but integration of the technology in their systems.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

VeriME And Maritime Bank

VeriMe is a Singaporean blockchain based verification-as-a-service platform that facilitates other organizations in easy and fast user authentication. The platform relies on the secure, high speed working of blockchain to give its clients a cheaper and unparalleled service, allowing them to concentrate on their core services and let VeriMe take care of the working behind the verification of customers or other services.

VeriME offers two types of services, namely D-KYC and D-Secure. D-KYC is a digital identity verification system that performs Know Your Customer background checks for institutions, requiring no hectic and tedious form filling and document submission. D-Secure is a payment authentication service designed form merchants and banks, allowing them to process customer requests with ease. D-Secure, like the KYC counterpart, does not require face to face meetings or heavy document filing.

Maritime Bank, as one of the largest banks in Vietnam, has a broad base of clients and handles a lot of transactions and new customers in a day. By partnering up with VeriMe, the bank’s user and payment verification system load is transferred to VeriMe. The quick services of VeriMe ensure that no matter how much the processing load from Maritime is, it can deliver the quickest of verification services. Maritime benefits a lot as verification time for its services will drop significantly.

Maritime Bank is not the first Vietnamese bank that has partnered with VeriMe. Previous partnerships with Military Bank and CFC exist, giving their combines 5,000,000 plus users an easy way to verify themselves and the online purchasing done by them.

Why VeriMe?

VeriMe, as a blockchain platform, offers a many-fold increase in speed of verification of individuals and payment services by providing a cost effective, high level of data protection, document free and third party free system. Traditional procedures are slow and tedious, involving a lot of paperwork, inflexible rules, unsecure and money intensive. VeriMe does away with all the clutter and smoothes the experience.

VeriMe has already partnered with more than 30 organization around the world, providing services to more than 300,000 merchants and their respective consumers. The platform is in talks with ASEAN member country partners for expanding in other geographical locations.

VeriMe’s VME

The authentication and the verification process of the VeriMe platform is paid for through its its internal token, the VME. It has recently completed a successful token generation event with more than 106,500,000 VME grabbed by early investors. The event saw 1 ETH being traded for 3000 VME.

For more information about the Verification as a Service platform, visit their website: https://www.verime.mobi/home

Bitcoin markets remained under pressure through the day. While trading volumes continue being on the upside, this time traders aren’t keeping up any positivity. Prices kept going down from USD 9,400 levels and even briefly dipped to USD 9,000 levels through the course of the trading session.

The day’s signals

1. Bitcoin traders embraced the bearish market sentiment that took on BTC/USD markets lately.
2. Selling pressure is responsible for the greater part of the day’s volumes. Prices kept falling and ultimately reached a dip below USD 9,000 levels.
3. An ongoing recovery now has BTC/USD trading at around USD 9,250 levels.

GDAX BTC/USD charts show how prices were led to USD 9,000 levels through the course of the day. The lack of apparent support might be something that puts the market’s mood in a worse position than it already was in. Traders most likely are now starting to sense that there’s further pressure for Bitcoin prices even after the market’s failure to reach the price point of USD 10,000.

OKEX BTC/USD weekly futures charts are displaying the way futures traders are taking to today’s bearish market sentiment. The positive difference that was observed between futures markets and live Bitcoin prices has now shrunk considerably. Futures traders responded to the fall of Bitcoin prices with a slight exaggeration in the extent of the dip. It appears as though traders in futures markets are now also more cautious amid the current market sentiment.

All in all, the day’s course in Bitcoin markets proved to hold a worsening outlook for markets. A breach of USD 9,000 levels has not been observed to a larger extent. However, under current market conditions, it wouldn’t seem unlikely. Traders are currently taking consideration of the day’s dip. A decisive move could be observed in the following hours if support is not maintained.

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Airdrops are becoming the new normal in the world of cryptocurrency. Owners of popular cryptocurrencies will regularly see some free tokens show up in their wallet, assuming they have control over that wallet at all times. The Tron team, for example, recently completed a 30 million TRX airdrop to the Ethereum community.

Another Milestone for Tron

The year 2018 will prove to be rather interesting for Tron if all things go according to plan. Earlier this year, the project launched its testnet to bring their technology to the masses. Although this is not the same as a live network for building real-world applications or conducting real transactions, it is still an important milestone in the history of this particular altcoin. Developments on this scale always generate a lot of initial interest.

Additionally, it seems the Tron token will undergo some interesting changes as well. With the mainnet launching pretty soon, Tron can move away from the Ethereum blockchain, which currently hosts its TRX token. More specifically, TRX was initially introduced as an ERC20 token, which allowed the team to create a convenient initial coin offering some time ago. It was never a permanent plan of action to remain part of the Ethereum network, though.

With the team preparing to ditch the Ethereum network in the future, the time was right to conduct an official airdrop. More specifically, a total of 30 million TRX were sent out to Ethereum holders with at least 1 ETH in their wallet at the time of the airdrop. As such, one would expect there to be more Tron holders by now, even though the tokens were distributed to ‘just’ 602,881 addresses.

Quick math shows that every eligible address received around 49.76 TRX, worth just under $4 at current prices. It was not the most profitable airdrop in the world of cryptocurrency, though distributing $1.7 million worth of TRX tokens to Ethereum users shouldn’t be overlooked or underestimated by any means.

Considering that TRX is still an ERC20 token at this stage, users will not have to undertake any special action to claim their tokens. Popular wallets which support ERC20 tokens should reflect the new balance automatically. For those users who do not use a compatible wallet, running the wallet address through Ethplorer should show the tokens associated with a given address. Claiming one’s tokens can be done through a compatible wallet or online solution such as MyEtherWallet.

By distributing the TRX tokens held by the Tron Foundation, this altcoin is entering the next stage of development. Getting altcoins into the hands of more people has never been easy, but airdrops like this one seemingly make it a lot easier. Whether or not Ethereum holders will keep these tokens or sell them on exchanges immediately remains to be seen.

Even with their high level of volatility, bitcoin and cryptos are still poised to “fuel a potential new internet,” said Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.

The founder of Galaxy Digital Capital Management LP is joining forces with Bloomberg LP to start an index for the cryptocurrency industry, according to a statement from the two companies.

Michael Novogratz, ex-hedge fund manager of the Fortress Investment Group, today launched the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index (BGCI). According to the statement, the index is designed to track the performance of the largest, most liquid portion of the cryptocurrency market, which is made up of 10 digital currencies.

The ones currently listed are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, Ethereum Classic, and Zcash.

The index will be rebalanced monthly, with coins capped at 30 percent of their total, and can’t be less than one percent. At the time of publishing, Bitcoin and Ethereum both make up 30 percent, with Ripple at 14 percent. Ethereum Classic and Zcash are both listed at one percent.

Novogratz, a prominent bitcoin advocate, said:

“We wanted an institutional player for the whole ecosystem, and I think it’s important for the crypto ecosystem. You’re starting to see more institutional participation and what they’re looking for is this architecture. Here’s an index that will feel like the S&P 500 in a few months, that people can benchmark themselves against.”

The creation of the cryptocurrency index signals an important step in the growth of the digital currency space. In the early days of bitcoin’s existence this type of movement may not have seemed possible; however, the launch of the BGCI highlights the mainstream direction it’s heading. The BGCI utilizes a rules-based methodology and data from sources that have passed both Bloomberg and Galaxy Digital Capital Management’s due diligence processes.

“Today’s launch of the Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index reflects our clients’ growing interest in cryptocurrencies,” said Alan Campbell, Global Product Manager for Bloomberg Indices. “The index brings our rigorous approach to index construction to cryptos and will provide investors with a transparent benchmark to gauge the performance of the broader market.”

This latest move from Novogratz comes as market conditions rally after a slump in industry prices. Last December, Novogratz was forced to halt plans to launch his cryptocurrency hedge fund with outside investors due to volatility in market prices.

In 2017, Novogratz founded Galaxy Digital LP, the parent company, as a merchant bank with asset management, trading, and principal investing businesses. Unlike many who have commented negatively on the market, the former hedge fund manager is of the opinion that regulatory crackdowns won’t stop the continued spread of the industry.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post Mike Novogratz Partners With Bloomberg to Launch Cryptocurrency Index appeared first on NewsBTC.

Smart Manufacturing (or Industry 4.0) is a term that was coined to describe the symbiosis between advancements in communications technology with various aspects of the industrial supply chain.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

If the verdicts of researchers, pundits and governmental authorities are to be believed, then smart manufacturing is a key contributing factor to the disarray that defines the current state of these sectors.

Disparity and a desperate situation

As with many industries, the growth of disruptive innovations such as big data, self-learning machines, and cloud computing have changed the face of production irreversibly. Unlike some, though, this area of industry has unfortunately struggled to fully capitalize on these new tools.

Due to the lack of an established universal standard, according to a recent study, many companies are spending large amounts of resources on creating competing solutions. They often possess the same overall goals, which means that their respective expenditure of finances and manpower are essentially wasteful as a result.

Standardizing the status quo

One of the most promising initiatives proposed to date has been dubbed “the Productivist Blockchain project”. As its name implies, it is a decentralized Blockchain-based innovation that comes from the minds behind ‘Freelabster’, a 3D printing and modeling collaborative platform.

By decentralizing the production market, Productivist plans on defining and implementing a universal Blockchain-based standard with the hope of unifying the current disparate Smart Manufacturing efforts.

This standard will help to enforce quality controls and improve data processing efficiency as well as the security of transactions. It will also facilitate the maintenance of immutable public-key encrypted data records.

The present and future of Productivist

The platform is to be supported by a proprietary token-based economy (‘Productoken’ / ticker: ‘PROD’) which will be used for payments between participating businesses. It will also allow for the settling of related service fees and other costs.

Beyond enabling instantaneous international and local financial transfers, this Ethereum-backed ERC20-compliant Productoken will play a significant role in incentivization and reward schemes which will further encourage third party participation in the short and long term.

You can check out the organization’s proposed roadmap in their whitepaper hosted on their official website.

After their imminent pre-ICO sale, which begins on May 1, 2018, Productivist hopes to prove the full extent of their solution by integrating their existing ‘Freelabster’ services onto the platform and Blockchain.

For the latest news, check out Productivist’s Twitter, Facebook, Telegram or Medium pages. Their trading expectations are as follows…

Smart-manufacturing market value by 2025: €321 bln (Source: Grand View Research, Inc)

Market share objective: 0.88%

Annual volume: €2.84 bln

Daily volume: €7.78 mln

Estimated yearly trading volume for each PROD based on released token supply: €11.93 per PROD.

It was reported on April 25, 2018, that the Philippines is going to create a special economic zone for cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. This special economic zone will help to stimulate operations and growth for blockchain companies in a regulatory favorable and low tax environment.

The move was reminiscent of Belarus’ actions in the past few months, the country legalized cryptocurrencies and enabled tax-free policies for companies in the blockchain space for the next five years.

The news from Philippines and Belarus comes as a breath of fresh air in the global climate for cryptocurrencies, where China clamped down on its local cryptocurrency industry, and U.S. regulatory authorities are currently looking to impose stringent regulations and taxes on this new industry.

Yet, despite this mixed array of approaches to the cryptocurrency industry, governments who are in favor of cryptocurrencies could do more to facilitate growth.

Where countries do look toward adopting cryptocurrencies, their efforts focus primarily on cryptocurrency mining and exchanges rather than the complete technological integration of these digital assets.

These efforts are likely short-sighted.

Why Focusing on Cryptocurrency Mining and Exchanges Is Not the Answer

Cryptocurrency mining is popular at the current moment but might be on its way out. Issues such as excess energy consumption (upsetting local citizens) and lack of scalability in the (PoW) algorithm will pave the way for more efficient processes such as proof of stake (PoS).

Focusing on initial or transitory aspects of mining and setting up exchanges will not necessarily net the economic growth, revenues and surpluses that governments seek.

A unique strategy would be that of incentivizing full cryptocurrency and blockchain integration.

Why Integrating Cryptocurrency and Blockchain is Essential

In simple terms, both blockchain and the cryptocurrency industry offer more than just cryptocurrency mining; interested countries just have to incentivize business and general society to explore the possibilities in a friendly environment, blazing a path into the future.

By integrating blockchain and incentivizing cryptocurrency use, countries and territories can automate their day to day operations, government audits, and even special procedures such as voting. They can even have smart contracts set up to tie-in with cryptocurrencies, which could allow citizens to pay their taxes digitally.

There are immense cost savings to be seen but that’s not all; there’s significant potential to tap into a growing pool of wealth as well.

At the time of this writing, the market cap of just cryptocurrencies alone stands at $415 billion (not counting the infrastructure or physical assets that supplement the industry).

OPEN & Integration

OPEN understands that an easy-to-implement infrastructure for applications that facilitates cryptocurrency integration is where the long real long-term value lies.

What is the OPEN PLATFORM?

The OPEN PLATFORM is a blockchain based payment infrastructure that is developer focused.

Why is OPEN PLATFORM important?

OPEN makes it simple for mainstream application developers to embrace decentralized technologies. It gives developers the ability to process payments on blockchains, accepting a variety of cryptocurrencies.

OPEN simplifies the process of accepting cryptocurrencies across both new and existing applications, DApp or otherwise.

Tapping into massive existing mobile app market in countries like South Korea and Japan where crypto use is embraced will provide a vast trove of possibility for developers. Developers with their existing library of apps can begin to accept cryptocurrencies by simply integrating the OPEN API.

Check out our website, telegram, discord and see how OPEN can provide crypto access to applications around the world.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post Why Governments Should be Promoting Integration Over Mining appeared first on NewsBTC.

In the world of cryptocurrency, exchanges and trading platforms need to adhere to some very strict guidelines and rules. DMG Blockchain Solutions recently introduced BitScore, which serves as a cryptocurrency deposit and withdrawal risk-scoring web API for AML and anti-fraud compliance.

BitScore can Make a Positive Impact

Trading platforms and exchanges dealing in cryptocurrency face a lot of scrutiny from regulators and governments these days. It is paramount that these companies pay close attention to developments in this industry and improve their protocols on a regular basis. Addressing any money laundering and fraud concerns must be a top priority.

Finding the right solutions to address those concerns is not easy by any means. DMG Blockchain Solutions may have come up with a tool that can help a lot of trading platforms out in this regard. Their new BitScore feature will make AML and anti-fraud compliance a lot easier to perform. Because this is a web API for cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals, any suspicious activity should be flagged almost immediately.

This cloud-based API risk-scoring technology quantifies and manages the risk of legal non-compliance. Under the hood, BitScore uses an AI and machine learning model to examine the flow of cryptocurrency through the blockchain. It is an effective blockchain analysis solution which can make it easier for various trading platforms to adhere to compliance standards without needing to make major investments.

DMG Blockchain Solutions’ CTO, Danny Yang, commented:

Understanding the provenance of source and destination addresses is imperative for any exchange or payment platform sensitive to regulatory compliance. Allowing an address that accepts deposits from, or makes payments or deposits to, disreputable networks is potentially abetting their activity, which creates legal liability for banks, exchanges and traders.

As one would expect, BitScore takes many factors into consideration at all times. It even detects hops between transactions to determine the true origin of funds. It also applies a weighting function to identify potentially suspicious transactions along the way. It supports Bitcoin as of right now, but support for Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and ERC20 tokens will be introduced later on. All of these blockchains are fully transparent, which makes it a lot easier to identify transactions.

To make use of this API, users submit a cryptocurrency source or destination address. The system will subsequently determine the associated risk score and report it back. Considering that this solution analyzes the origin and destination of funds regardless of hops, BitScore makes it a lot easier to prevent suspicious transactions.

A cryptocurrency that boasts sharding has broken a key threshold.