Day: June 5, 2018

As long as central banks are doing their jobs, crypto won’t replace them anytime soon, said an executive at Swiss National Bank during Money20/20 today

In a massive deal worth $7.5 billion, Microsoft has acquired GitHub, the code repository and open-source hub for developers.

Microsoft and GitHub

According to Twitter, the move has some coders worried and may pose problems for privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies like Monero, which utilize the platform.

Microsoft is taking on a lot of responsibility in the acquisition, the company’s CEO, Satya Nadella, explained in blog post detailing the move. GitHub, the San Francisco-based company that allows developers to contribute and discover new code, is the go-to for coders across the globe. In fact, more than 28 million developers use GitHub as a repository. Microsoft wants this to continue, with plans to allow developers to collaborate on and deploy their code to the cloud, Nadella wrote.

Nadella added that GitHub will remain open and will operate independently, although not everyone is convinced.

Nat Friedman, co-founder of mobile-app development startup Xamarin – acquired by Microsoft in 2016 – will lead the business as CEO. GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath is staying with Microsoft as a technical fellow focused on currently unnamed strategic software initiatives.

Despite the reassurance from Nadella, since the deal was announced reports from tech blogs indicate that another code repository, GitLab, GitHub’s biggest competitor, has seen spikes in the use of its platform.

Monero

Monero (XMR) is a cryptocurrency that’s designed to be anonymous. With Monero, users don’t have to trust third-parties to keep their funds safe. Unlike some leading cryptocurrencies, the Monero blockchain obfuscates all receiving and sending addresses, and transaction amounts to provide additional privacy to its users. This way, no one can link the Monero blockchain to a particular user or make a real-world identity match.

This, and the fact that the coin can be mined at home without the need for specialized mining rigs, makes the coin increasingly popular. According to CoinMarketCap.com, Monero currently has a market capitalization of almost $2.7 billion.

Shortly after the acquisition was announced, a conversation was opened on Reddit with the question: “Microsoft is going to buy Github. Do you think Monero should stay on Github or leave?”

In response, a member of the XMR core team said that a migration to GitLab is possible if that’s what the coin’s developers want, writing: “If the dev group thinks it’s wise.”

The developer added that Monero already has a mirror code on GitLab, which would theoretically make the transition seamless. According to TechCrunch, the apprehension is likely because some people believe that Microsoft has a questionable history regarding other people’s products. Nadella, though, disagrees, writing in the official announcement:

“Microsoft is a developer-first company, and by joining forces with GitHub we strengthen our commitment to developer freedom, openness and innovation.”

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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A U.S district judge has reopened a case involving cryptocurrency startup Coinbase and the now-defunct exchange service Cryptsy. 

There have long been rumors that Microsoft would acquire renowned software repository giant GitHub. Today, Microsoft confirmed the acquisition.

As per the sources, Microsoft has acquired GitHub by issuing USD 7.5 billion in stock. The deal was announced and sealed sooner than most software developers and antagonists expected.

This step by Microsoft may be described by many as going back to its roots. Microsoft was co-founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to provide a platform where software products can be developed. Additionally, they aim to provide a path for programmers to program their projects.

Microsoft restricted its source code, but competition from open-source code providers like GitHub, and the resultant high-end open source projects have given Microsoft cause for concern. Skeptics have it that this is Microsoft’s smart strategy of monopolizing the coding market.

Satya Nadella, current Microsoft CEO, is credited with engineering the deal. Nadella has lately been mentioning the acquisition as a done deal in his speeches. Last year, he was quoted saying that the company wanted to bring on board something developers could use to bring impact to the society. He is noted for bringing on board coding initiatives since he took over in 2014.

Elsewhere, many developers of the open source coding community have reportedly opposed the acquisition, citing code decentralization as their next biggest impediment, having relied on the open source code for their projects. Some blockchain project developers who have been using GitHub appear to be unhappy with the acquisition and suggest that they may seek an alternative after the acquisition.

However, Satya Nadella has downplayed this emerging issue as the unintended consequences of acquiring GitHub. “We do not want to distract ourselves without meaning or purpose,” said the Microsoft CEO, who furthered his argument, citing Huxley’s words on the classic novel 1984.

Image Source: Flickr – othree

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A lawyer specialising in cryptocurrency hedge funds has said that some universities have been making small investments into digital assets. John Lore claims that crypto hedge funds are proving an attractive opportunity for academic institutions on the east coast of America.

Universities Are Some of the First Institutions Investing in Crypto Hedge Funds

For now, cryptocurrency investment seems to represent too much of a risk for most institutions. There’s still scant regulation over the industry and the lack of proven success of many of the existing funds in the space also puts them off. However, a lawyer at the Capital Fund Law Group, a New York-based law firm, claims that some universities are now starting to take up small positions.

John Lore spoke to Business Insider about the interest he’d noticed amongst certain academic institutions.

“I can’t say the names of [the academic institutions] because that’s attorney-client but we have people mostly on the East Coast that have begun doing investments in this space on a fairly modest basis.”

The Capital Fund Law Group are emerging as specialists for the cryptocurrency investment space. They’ve already advised around 30 digital currency hedge funds. The firm has helped potential providers navigate the space that still suffers from a lack of regulation. Lore commented that most of the investment that he’d seen in crypto hedge funds was coming from ‘high net worth individuals and, on a very limited basis, family offices.’

This corroborates the research conducted by the deVere Group recently. The global independent financial consultancy group surveyed their high net worth clients last month. They found that a massive 35% of them had already, or planned to invest in cryptocurrencies by the end of the year.

Lore went on to state that these individuals were still only prepared to risk a tiny fraction of their net worth on cryptocurrency hedge funds:

“Yes there are investors but at this point, investors are putting in very small percentages of their net worth as we would expect and as I believe is appropriate.”

He highlighted that the trend amongst the universities he’d worked with was something of an exception:

“We see academia as a tie between these somewhat young and enthusiastic fund managers and capital raising.”

It’s not just the investment side of cryptocurrency that interests universities, however. Here at NewsBTC, we’ve reported on several different higher educational institutions offering their own courses on the technology that underpins Bitcoin and other digital assets – the blockchain.

In addition, the Ripple Foundation have just donated $50 million to universities. This will help them further develop their own blockchain development courses. The University Blockchain Research Initiative will initially benefit 17 prestigious schools around the globe.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), has clarified that banks have the right to upgrade existing ATMs in the country to facilitate certain cryptocurrencies, according to Trustnodes.

The German FCA has announced that the country’s banks can take up the new option, but as yet none have responded to the opportunity to allow customers to exchange BTC or Ether for Euros using the machines.

Responding to a question by Thomas Lutze, representative of a left-wing party in Germany, BaFin stated:

“Each institute, which has permission for proprietary trading, also has the right to set up machines that allow the exchange of Bitcoin in euros and vice versa. So far it is not known that this was done.”

Its reported that the modification of the machines would offer QR code facilities to enable simple address scanning and modification.

Cryptocurrency ATMs are becoming far more commonplace around the globe, although Europe has a long way before it catches up with the US. Prague has recently seen the arrival of 10 new Bitcoin ATMs across the city’s subway routes, and London now has 74 positioned around the city, although 118 businesses also accept Bitcoin as payment.

However, London ranks 6th globally on the crypto convenience list, with the top five cities all located in North America. Los Angeles tops the list with 145 ATMs and over 850 firms accepting Bitcoin payments. Other cities with a healthy spread include Toronto, New York, and Atlanta. Argentina has expressed a desire to have a gargantuan total of 30,000 located across the nation and US capital Washington DC has recently doubled its ATM availability from 20 to 40 due to public demand.

There are reportedly six German banks currently trading cryptocurrency according to BaFin, although the banks haven’t as yet been named. It remains to be seen whether banks see enough customer demand to operate the service

However, German stock exchanges are seriously looking at cryptocurrency options for the future. Deutsche Boerse, the owner of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, is evaluating whether to offer cryptocurrency products, according to Bloomberg. If this is the case, this will be the second German stock exchange to make announcements this year regarding a move towards the adoption of cryptocurrency related products, after Boerse Stuttgart Digital Adventures announced the release of its Bison app in April.

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A bill introduced by New York Assemblyman Ron Kim would launch pilot programs testing cryptocurrencies as a community monetary system.

Binance will invest in blockchain-based esports voting platform chiliZ to promote “mainstream adoption” globally

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

The President of Uganda, Yoweria Kugata Museveni, made very positive statements regarding blockchain technology at the inaugural Africa Blockchain Conference held in Kampala, Uganda. The conference was organized by the Blockchain Association of Uganda and brought together industry leaders from over 20 countries.

President Museveni said he welcomed and embraced blockchain technology, since it provides full transparency through a public ledger; he said he was aware of how businesses were negatively impacted by “secrets and deceit”, and thought blockchain technology to be the solution. In an example he gave, he said if a farm wanted to sell 100 cows everyone involved could verify the transaction since the data was stored on a public ledger. Not only would the data be public, blockchain ledgers were immutable so they couldn’t be hacked or manipulated, reducing fraud.

The president believed blockchain technology would streamline the movement of goods and services throughout Uganda, but cautioned his citizens that it should not be a replacement, rather it will complement existing infrastructure.

The Governor of the Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Mutebile, was encouraged by President Museveni to explore blockchain technology. Mutebile said blockchain was technology that would change how people do business and manage data.

Chairman of the Blockchain Association of Uganda, Kwame Rugunda, sees the potential for blockchain to reduce fraud in the land trade. Forging land titles and illegal land grabbing is a problem in Uganda, and this could be solved if land titles are stored in an immutable blockchain ledger. Also, he says over 100 million Africans are negatively affected by counterfeit drugs. Conducting prescription drug transactions through blockchain would help stop the circulation of counterfeit drugs in Africa.

The positive perspective of the Ugandan Central Bank on blockchain technology is in stark contrast to Zimbabwe, which is located well to the south of Uganda on the African Continent. The Central Bank of Zimbabwe recently tried to ban all cryptocurrency activity.

Uganda is a country of roughly 42 million people with a gross domestic product of USD 27 billion. The Ugandan president’s views will help blockchain technology spread throughout the country, an important step towards global adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain.

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A Hong Kong-based cyptocurrency exchange briefly halted its services today due to a cyberattack, causing the platform to be under an extreme load.

DDoS Attack Targets Bitfinex

Bitfinex was the target of a DDoS, or distributed denial-of- service attack, earlier today. This occurs when a number of compromised computer servers attack a target by overwhelming a system. In the case of Bitfinex, it appears that the DDoS attack occurred after it relaunched the platform, according to its website.

It went on to explain that:

“The previous outage was caused by issues with one of our infrastructure providers. While the platform was recovering, the attack caused extreme load on the servers.”

Bitfinex is currently under extreme load. We are investigating the issue and will keep you all up to date as we learn more.

— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) June 5, 2018

The exchange announced just after 15:00 UTC that the site was returning to normal operations, but that it would be ‘monitoring the situation closely.’ A further update roughly around 16:42 UTC, the exchange said that it was up and running back to normal. As a result, Bitcoin saw its value drop to around $7,400 following the news, according to CoinMarketCap.

Founded in 2012 this isn’t the first time that the Hong Kong-based crypto exchange has been the target of a hack. Back in 2016 it was reported that Bitfinex lost nearly 120,000 units of Bitcoin, worth around $72 million at the time, to hackers. Last June, it was also announced that the cryptocurrency exchange was one of several targeted by cyberattacks.

Security, however, has been a major issue for crypto exchanges, highlighting the challenges that the growing industry still faces. This was demonstrated at the beginning of the year when Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck saw hackers siphoning off with around $530 million worth of NEM. Consequently, Japan’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Agency (FSA), has taken a proactive approach to other cryptocurrency exchanges in the country to determine the measures in place that will ensure customers’ assets are safe.

Also in December, Slovenia-based crypto exchange NiceHash was reported to have been hacked for over 4,700 Bitcoins, worth around $63 million at the time. South Korea’s Bitcoin exchange YouBit has also been a victim of hackers, with the exchange filing for bankruptcy following stolen funds amounting to 17 percent of its net value. The result of the hack led to speculation that North Korea may have been involved.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

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Users of the popular video game streaming application Twitch can now tip each other using a variety of cryptocurrencies. The integration is made possible by a firm called Streamlabs who have built a protocol that can send tips through a user’s Coinbase account.

Also Read: Decentralized Exchange Compendium ‘Index’ Lists Over 200 Dex Platforms

Twitch Users Can Now Tip Each Other With Four Different Cryptocurrencies

The well-known video game stream website Twitch is extremely popular, the page sees millions of visitors every month. Now users of the platform can tip each other with four cryptocurrencies including bitcoin cash (BCH), ethereum (ETH), litecoin (LTC), and bitcoin core (BTC). Essentially Twitch streamers can get a Streamlabs account tied to their Coinbase account which enables crypto-infused tips with no additional fees. Streamlabs representative Tom Maneri revealed the integration on Sunday, June 4.   

“It’s time to give one of your Lambos a wash, because all Streamlabs broadcasters can now accept cryptocurrency tips,” Maneri details.

Integrating Streamlabs With Coinbase to Tip Using Twitch

In order to integrate cryptocurrency tipping in Twitch users need to have a Coinbase account and head to the Streamlabs ‘donation settings page’ to select the ‘Coinbase option.’ From there you need to log in, and tether your Coinbase account to the Streamlabs platform. After that, a tip page will now show up for viewers, and, just like fiat, cryptocurrency tips work with your alerts as well so you can be notified when receiving a tip. Moreover, there are no fees involved with the process minus the network fee associated with the specific cryptocurrency chosen for tipping.

“Streamlabs does not charge a fee, but some network transaction fees may apply depending on the currency being used,” Maneri explains.

Cryptocurrency proponents are quite pleased with the tipping integration as Twitch is extremely popular gaming site that has millions of unique users and is one of the top 50 most trafficked websites in the world.

What do you think about being able to tip people with cryptocurrency using the streaming video game platform Twitch? Let us know your thoughts on this subject in the comment section below.

Images via Shutterstock, Streamlabs, and Twitch.

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