Day: July 12, 2018

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee will host a crypto hearing focused on its use as a form of money next week.

Bitcoin ETFs are often considered to be the holy grail of the cryptocurrency industry. Exposing more mainstream investors to cryptocurrencies could trigger a major influx of fresh capital. So far, the SEC has prevented such ETFs from launching. Its decision to accept public comments on the Cboe SolidX Bitcoin ETF proposal shows things may be changing for the better.

Another Bitcoin ETF Attempt

Over the past few years, there have been numerous discussions regarding exchange-traded funds – or ETFs – linked to Bitcoin. Although the volatile nature of the world’s leading cryptocurrency doesn’t necessarily lend itself to such a financial vehicle on paper, the demand for exposure has grown significantly since early 2017. Whether or not such an investment vehicle will ever come to market is a different matter.

Numerous companies have tried to launch Bitcoin ETFs in the past few months. None of those proposals have been approved by the SEC, as the regulatory agency considers Bitcoin’s price fluctuations to be a major hurdle. Additionally, the lack of official Bitcoin regulation also prevents such an ETF from being offered to the masses at this stage. Not much has changed in this regard lately, which means these ETFs will not be coming to market soon.

Even so, Cboe is looking to get in on this action. The company submitted a proposal to the SEC in June to begin trading SolidX Bitcoin shares as a Bitcoin ETF. It is a slightly different approach compared to how previous filings with the SEC have tried to explain the backing of their respective ETFs, although it may not necessarily result in a more favorable outcome.

The SEC has surprised almost everyone by opening up a comments page for this ETF proposal. Comments have already been submitted by various proponents and industry experts. This further confirms that there is a growing demand for a Bitcoin ETF in any shape or form, although it remains to be determined if this is a viable approach.

By tapping into this new and unexplored market, the United States could gain a major competitive edge over all other nations. That doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be any risks associated with such an investment vehicle, though, as an ETF would pose its own set of challenges from a regulatory point of view. Some of the comments posted on the aforementioned page touch upon these risks.

For the time being, it remains highly unlikely this Bitcoin ETF proposal will be approved by the SEC. The agency has rejected all previous proposals regardless of how well put together they were. It is evident something will need to change in this regard, although there are never any guarantees in the world of cryptocurrency. It’s natural to assume this proposal will be rejected, although the SEC may surprise everyone in the end.

Making an investment in cryptocurrencies is not as straightforward as most people think. There is a lot more to this industry than Bitcoin, and diversification of one’s portfolio is key. A new survey by Foley and Lardner indicates most people consider Ethereum to be a better investment than Bitcoin.

Cryptocurrency Investing Isn’t Easy

Despite the overall growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the investment options have not become more noob-friendly over the years. There are thousands of currencies to choose from, and most speculators want quick profits. Currencies with lower market caps tend to attract attention because of the potential short-term profits. Even so, there is still a vast demand for Bitcoin, as it remains the world’s leading cryptocurrency.

Although investing in Bitcoin makes perfect sense for most people, it may not necessarily be the smartest option. A new study conducted by Foley and Lardner, a renowned law firm, shows that cryptocurrency investors are showing increasing interest in Ethereum more so than Bitcoin. The difference is relatively small at this stage, yet it shows that the momentum may shift to the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency in the coming months.

The respondents all expressed their opinion on which cryptocurrency provides the best investment opportunity. The “none” category received 9% of votes, clearly indicating that there are still plenty of naysayers in this industry. Zcash and Monero received a combined 2% of the votes, and Dash received another 2%. That’s a bit disappointing for all those currencies, considering that they offer both privacy and anonymity to their users. Such qualities seem to be in far less demand than others, at least among Foley and Lardner’s survey respondents.

Ripple’s XRP is not all that popular either, for some reason. Just 5% of respondents consider it to be a worthwhile investment, even though this asset has exhibited a strong uptrend in 2017 and early 2018. Even so, it is not a traditional cryptocurrency by any means, and thus it shouldn’t even have been part of this survey. XRP will always spark debate in this regard.

Surprisingly, Bitcoin scored just 35% of the votes. Although that is a more than respectable figure, it is 3% lower than that of Ethereum. Even though Ethereum is a very different project from Bitcoin, it seems investors are banking big on the technical appeal of this ecosystem rather than Bitcoin’s focus on transactions.

This survey only represents one small group of people, of course. It doesn’t mean the entire world will suddenly lose faith in Bitcoin and switch to Ethereum from an investment perspective. Even so, this result is rather surprising and shows that the situation may change in more than one way. Diversifying one’s portfolio is always a smart idea, for rather obvious reasons.

A South Korean government-funded organization has submitted a blockchain-related patent application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) published a research paper on Tuesday, which analyzed the use of DLT in various stages of a security transaction, writes Coindesk.

The SSE is one of the two stock exchanges operating independently in the People’s Republic of China and is the world’s 3rd largest stock market by market capitalization. The other is the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The newly-released paper examined blockchain’s workability in security transactions, such as pre-trading customer registration, securities issuance and trading, and post-trading settlement.

The paper highlighted areas where DLT operating in the country’s financial system was successfully adding value. It praised its successes in replacing the T+1 model, under which a transaction can only be settled one business day after an order is executed.

The SSE research paper referred to former research conducted by stock exchanges regarding DLT operating in other financial markets including Australia and Hong Kong and suggested that two areas would be particularly beneficial in China. It stated:

“A general worldwide consensus is that DLT will be a new revolution for the financial industry. The first application use cases will be over-the-counter securities issuance and trading, as well as order book post-trading settlement.”

The paper went on to point out that any potential integration at the SSE would be subject to further regulation given that it conflicts with current regulatory systems, particularly as the use of DLT would eliminate the SSE system of using a third-party intermediary as custodian and for settling post-trading transactions.

This would require establishing a new legal framework issued by regulators and central government agencies. The SSE’s findings clarified this need for further laws to govern the development of DLT in its sector stating:

“Regulation should adapt to the evolving technology. We suggest regulators treat the topic of DLT as a crucial study area moving forward… in order to develop a solid regulatory framework for embracing the financial innovation.”

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CEO of decentralized data platform Dirt Protocol says its product will be “similar to Wikipedia,” but without curators

Japan has quickly risen to the top in terms of cryptocurrency activity. Ever since China’s PBoC officially banned fiat-based trading, Japan has taken its spot, alongside South Korea. Coinsquare, the Canadian exchange, is eyeing a Japanese expansion. It’s a surprising development, considering that Japanese regulators continue to scrutinize the cryptocurrency industry.  

Coinsquare Wants to Expand Overseas

Canada’s cryptocurrency ecosystem has undergone some big changes in recent years. The number of trading platforms previously decreased, but seems to be on the rise once again. For domestic companies, attracting new clients remains the number one priority. Coinsquare acknowledges this challenge, even though the company is looking well beyond Canada’s borders to achieve this goal.

More specifically, the company has set its sights on Japan. That’s a logical choice, considering that Japan is a place where cryptocurrency is genuinely taking off. It’s also one of the few countries where Bitcoin has officially been declared legal tender. For Japanese exchanges, this has caused a healthy influx of fresh capital, despite numerous platforms suffering from hacks and other security-related setbacks.

As such, the Japanese cryptocurrency ecosystem seems to be wide open to international competition. Canada’s Coinsquare is the first company to take the plunge in this regard, as it’s set to launch a new trading platform in Japan through a partnership with DLTa21. This platform will not be launched without issues, though, as Japan’s regulatory framework is quite strict.

Japanese regulators are actively cracking down on any and all cryptocurrency exchanges doing business in the country. The growing number of hacks and thefts affecting these companies has caused a lot of friction which will need to be addressed. Additionally, there are licensing requirements for every company getting involved in the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The new exchange will be launched under the DLa21X brand.

DLTa21 Executive Chairman Matthew Hornor noted:

In addition to fast-growing interest in Japan to develop world-class decentralized applications on the blockchain (dApps), Japan reportedly accounts for the majority of global Bitcoin trading. DLTa21 is committed to offering Japan’s 3.5 million plus cryptocurrency exchange traders truly world-class solutions and security.

With the official application under review, it will be interesting to see how this situation unfolds. If successful, Coinsquare will gain a foothold in one of the biggest cryptocurrency markets in the world. Combined with its focus on Canada, the company is keeping its fingers in different pies and is trying to offer cryptocurrency to the masses in a convenient manner. This is only the first stage in the company’s overseas expansion plan.

The California-based broker burst into the crypto scene in January, and has since set plans in place to help expand their influence in this industry, with these additions being no exception.

Commission-Free Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash Trading

Staying in line with its namesake, Robinhood has just announced support for commission-free Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash trading on their rapidly expanding ‘Crypto’ app.

For those who are unaware, Robinhood is a feeless financial services startup that is aiming to bring the financial world to as many people as possible. In January, Robinhood unexpectedly announced a cryptocurrency service, quickly drawing the interest of millions of consumers.

But upon the release of the platform, many were disappointed about the features it lacked, namely the lack of a built-in wallet and support for too few cryptos. However, Thursday’s announcement adds two new cryptos to the trading lineup, which now exactly mirrors the ‘Coinbase Four.’

Charlie Lee, the founder of Litecoin, took an interview with Cheddar on early Thursday morning to convey his thoughts on the addition. He said:

“My goal is to basically have Litecoin supported by all the exchanges, by all the companies. So, Robinhood is one… Robinhood makes it really easy for anyone to buy Litecoin and get into Litecoin.”

The post went on to note that the Robinhood team still intends on adding the eventual support for “coin offerings” and “coin transfers.”

Robinhood’s Rapidly Expanding Crypto Service

This announcement comes after Robinhood’s indications towards hiring a cryptocurrency wallet developer, as NewsBTC reported in late June.

In its current state, the Robinhood platform only allows for cryptocurrency trading, disallowing for any deposits or withdrawals to be made on the platform. This feature, or lack thereof, makes the platform nothing more than a price speculation platform, which irked more than a few customers.

However, in a secluded section of the Robinhood website, a job offer appeared, asking for “Crypto Engineers” for the development of “new functionality for our crypto product, such as adding new currencies or providing wallet functionality.” If the so-called “Crypto Engineers” can deliver, Robinhood Crypto may begin to support the transfer of cryptocurrencies from their personal wallets to the service, and vice-versa.

In the aforementioned blog, the financial services firm also added that it had now reached five million users across the Robinhood ecosystem. Business Insider pointed out that Robinhood’s customer base has grown by two million people since December 2017, with the five million figure now topping E*Trade’s clientele.

Venture capitalists seem to have picked up on Robinhood’s immense growth statistics, raising $363 million in May. Their Series D funding round valued the startup at an astonishing $5.6 billion, as firms like DST Global, Iconiq, Capital G and Sequoia Capital all made investments into the firm.

Robinhood noted that it has a plan with this supplementary influx of capital, stating:

“We’ll deploy the capital by accelerating our product expansion, even more, investing in our infrastructure and operations, and hiring more world-class talent to join us along the way.”

Cryptocurrency experts have begun to acknowledge Robinhood’s growing presence, with some noting that Coinbase should be wary of what Robinhood can bring to the table. Robinhood may still be a few years away from overtaking Coinbase, but many are rooting for the success of the fintech startup, as its success will only help to increase widespread cryptocurrency adoption.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

The post Robinhood Crypto Adds Two New Altcoins, Plans to Expand on Offerings appeared first on NewsBTC.

Tether, the company behind the dollar-tied USDT, has hired a chief compliance officer from the eighth-largest bank in North America.

The crypto platform from financial services app Robinhood now supports LTC and BCH

Last month, French architecture firm XTU Architects partnered with Systematic and an undisclosed Chinese developer to construct a blockchain-powered skyscraper.

The proposed building, New FrenchDreamTowers, is an eco-friendly project which promises to bring the best of culture, technology, and nature together under one roof.

Forbes writes, “For thousands of years, the banks of the West Lake of Hangzhou, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, have drawn poets, architects and artists alike. The grounds, dotted by pagodas, lily ponds, rockeries and wood causeways, have been said to represent the idealised fusion between humans and nature.”

The concept was influenced by Hangzhou’s architectural history of blending buildings into a natural landscape. The project would seek to continue the local tradition of harmonious urban integration with the landscape. If it materializes it would create four interconnected, energy efficient towers with an eco-friendly workable system of redirecting natural resources and cleaning polluted air.

The curved design of the four structures would reportedly redirect rain into basins located on both the roof and the floor which would then cultivate microalgae between the window panes. Flora in these areas would help to refresh the pollutants in the atmosphere.

Blockchain technology has been integrated by way of unitizing Hangzhou Gold Truffle Engineering Company’s blockchain-based network, which will reportedly manage the air quality, energy storage, and many other environmental systems that will interact between the four towers. Gold Truffle commented:

“This will be the first application of a massive internet-of-things superstructure designed to address the needs of future smart-cities.”

The building will not be simply limited to offering accommodation and is intended to create a vision of both Eastern and Western architecture, amalgamating both French and Chinese cultures, and offering the public dining, art galleries, and tech hubs in the process.

Those behind the concept see FrenchDreamTowers as a microcosm of two contrasting cultures coming together to represent something completely universal and symbolizing the breaking down of cultural barriers.

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In the last decade, the term “smart city” has evolved from a geeky name drop opportunity, evoking Venus Project-esque undertones, to the gold standard of serious urban planning.

With the world’s population scratching the 8 billion mark from below, and urbanization rates at all-time highs, it’s not hard to see why city planners are pinning their hopes on Silicon Valley-styled solutions when it comes to the future of development. As John Wilmoth, Director of UN DESA’s Population Division, puts it:

“Managing urban areas has become one of the most important development challenges of the 21st century. Our success or failure in building sustainable cities will be a major factor in the success of the post-2015 UN development agenda.”

Smart cities are all about much-needed optimization. The optimization of traffic flows, resource utilization, garbage disposal, energy consumption and generation, and anything else that might influence urban planning and management. What makes smart cities such a unique 21st-century phenomenon, however, is that the proposed optimization is primarily data-driven – based on myriad sensors, data centers, and big data processing algorithms. In a somewhat cynical mindset, one could describe a smart city as a technocrat’s wet dream of automated administration – a black box that consumes data at one end, and spits out municipal planning decisions at the other. A bit like how Facebook and Google decide what ad to show you, or whose post will appear in your news feed. These events are not based on decisions per se, but rather on an ever-evolving, data-driven and semi-automated optimization process.

However, moving urban planning decisions from the public domain toward a black box filled with magic algorithms is a dangerous undertaking. Four years ago we all learned how easy it was for Facebook to tamper with its users’ moods by gently tweaking the mechanics of its news feed. This, by the way, is also a form of “optimization”. It’s the kind of optimization skilled marketeers and politicians know all about, namely the kind designed to affect consumer and voter behavior.

If Mr. Zuckerberg and his social engineers can calm you down simply by changing the mix of disaster voyeurism and your granny’s weekly Macramé showoff on your feed, how complicated would it be to do the same, or worse, by messing around with traffic lights and garbage trucks? This doesn’t need to be invasive, or even felt. In fact, the subtler, the better. Increasing a general sense of apathy a week before election day could be enough. Rest assured that given enough time, data, and machine learning resources, this could be easily accomplished.

Nevertheless, these somewhat paranoid ruminations are by no means reason enough to propel smart cities back into the realm of science fiction. With 7.5 billion mouths to feed, we simply don’t have the privilege of discarding technological progress just because things may go wrong. They’re going wrong already, and after all, the hair-raising effects of big data-driven planning stem from its chilling efficiency. It’s a degree of efficiency we’re not used to coping with; however, with global urbanization rates projected to reach 60% by 2030, we’d better be prepared to take calculated risks and work to mitigate potential hazards instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

When it comes to smart cities, the bathwater consists mainly of the obscure silos in which public data might find itself stored, analyzed, and utilized. What scares us about data-hungry behemoths such as Facebook, Google, and possibly future renegade municipalities is not the amount of data they accumulate, but the fact that we – the subjects of this data – remain largely oblivious by design to the ways in which it is used to nudge us around, while hoping “do no evil” still applies.

Refreshingly, when it comes to best practices surrounding smart cities, the iron is still hot enough to be molded according to the liking of rightfully-paranoid transparency advocates. One technology that is often mentioned in this respect is the blockchain, or more generally, Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

Blockchains had their advent with cryptographic currency systems, most notably Bitcoin. However, when generalized, Distributed Ledgers constitute what is known as a “single source of truth”, meaning a record of events that is unforgeable and accessible to all. Essentially, more than anything else, blockchains are mechanisms to facilitate trust in open networks and an anti-hacking scheme, which has made them so successful in securing the honey pot which are decentralized digital cash systems.

In the realm of the Internet of Things (IoT), of which smart cities are essentially a subset, blockchains have long been considered the answer anytime security-sensitive simpletons like ourselves are concerned that our smart toaster might hijack the washing machine and demand a ransom. In fact, it seems that the blockchain industry adopted the IoT as its protégé a long time before it even had the chance to create the first homicide-by-smart-home grade security breach.

Deep-blockchain projects such as IOTA and IOTChain, as their names suggest, have built their entire business models around an IoT that has yet to come into existence. At this stage, securing safe and efficient micropayments, which are vital for a fully fledged Internet of Things, seems to be their main concern. Nevertheless, preventing smart appliances from being hacked and abused is getting more and more attention as the killer USP of these products.

However, in this family of use cases, blockchains are suggested as a means to safely control said toasters and washing machines, while preventing unsolicited access. When it comes to smart cities – which are essentially giant open-air smart homes – these concerns are of course valid as well, but as mentioned above, they are dwarfed by “Digital Good Governance” preoccupations.

This might come as a surprise to many, but the Mecca of the discussion around digital good governance for smart cities is the People’s Republic of China. The PRC might not be the first place that comes to mind when contemplating best practices, or how governments should treat their citizens’ data. Nonetheless, according to Deloitte, China is the world’s leader in smart city pilot projects. Over 1,000 smart city pilot projects are under construction worldwide, and China is home to about 500 of them. How to best manage and secure the petabytes of data running through these ambitious projects has become a practical problem for Chinese society, rather than a speculative thought experiment.

China is also home to one of the first projects successfully implementing blockchain technology for smart city safety and transparency. CyberVein, as it is called, is developing a blockchain-based database network that would allow the collection, processing, and storing of smart city data to occur on the blockchain itself, where it would remain accessible to public scrutiny.

Blockchains are notoriously hard to hack – some might even be bold enough to call them unhackable – which is obviously useful when it comes to the systems governing our public utilities. But more importantly, blockchains are also not controllable once up and running. Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous inventor of Bitcoin, couldn’t bring the network down or alter its behavior, even if they would make that their new life goal. In the same way, a blockchain-based database network, gathering and processing smart city data, would be extremely hard to weaponize against its denizens.

The solution proposed by CyberVein would also be ideal for the decentralization of the data collection and processing method itself. Instead of having a city government place all the sensors, collect all the data, and decide what to do with it, private and smaller public institutions would be monetarily incentivized to do their own collecting and processing and share their results on the public network.

This way, smart cities could develop more organically, as a cooperative effort of their residents to improve their lives with big data, AI, and machine learning technologies, rather than as a Facebook/Google-style scheme that offers its subjects amazing free products as long as they don’t get in the way.

Generally speaking, it would be fair to say that cities will become truly “smart” once the term “smart city” exits our vocabulary. We don’t call color TVs “color TVs” any longer for a reason. At some point, it will simply become obvious to use the enormous amount of data we have at hand to inform planning decisions and to optimize public utilities on the fly. The question is, will we make use of the data, or will the data make use of us?

Security experts at Kaspersky Lab report that online crypto scammers target those interested in ICOs, using phishing emails and fake Twitter giveaways to attract victims

In a report by an advisory firm on initial coin offering (ICO) investments, data shows close to 80% of all ICOs in 2017 were scams.