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📝 Welcome to the Crypto Yoda. A journal on cryptocurrency highlighting blockchain technologies and startups. Proposals, messages, commercial offers to 👉 @matteoek
⛔️We suspend the work of this channel due to the market downfall.
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➡️Digital Asset Trader AlphaPoint Upgrades Security Token Services for Institutions
Digital asset exchange AlphaPoint has upgraded its security token service designed for institutional clients, according to a press release obtained by Cointelegraph Thursday, March 28.
The company that provides services to private equity, real estate, funds, and other institutional investors is now offering to issue asset-backed security tokens for its clients. AlphaPoint believes that tokenization will increase liquidity for high value asset classes.
As per the announcement, the updated service will allow institutions to create and trade tokens securely and privately.
AlphaPoint said that its new security token service is already used by a real-estate private equity firm Muirfield Investment Partners and an asset management firm Laureate Digital Securities Ltd. While the first is going to issue its own tokens to create a private equity investment structure, the second hopes to reduce the amount of time it takes to onboard customers.
➡️Swiss Mortgage Bank Hypi Lenzburg Partners With Crypto Asset Manager TokenSuisse
Swiss mortgage bank Hypothekarbank (“Hypi”) Lenzburg has partnered with Swiss crypto asset manager TokenSuisse to expand the bank’s service offerings for crypto and blockchain firms. The development was announced on the bank’s official Twitter and in a TokenSuisse press release on March 25.
Hypi Lenzburg is headed by CEO Marianne Wildi, reportedly a former programmer, who first launched the bank’s lending services support for crypto and blockchain firms in June of last year — a notable move in a national context where banking support for the emerging industry is a fraught issue.
TokenSuisse AG is a Zug-based crypto asset and blockchain investment advisory firm and an official partner of crypto-fiat payments firm TokenPay. The firm, as financial media news agency FinNews reported, claims to have launched the world’s first global multi-crypto asset certificate, followed by a privacy coin certificate this February.
➡️Gang demanding ransom in bitcoin busted
Police claim to have unearthed a racket in which the suspects demanded ransom money in bitcoin for the release of a kidnapped person. Bitcoin is a crypto-currency, a form of electronic ‘cash’.
Surprisingly, the plot was hatched in the office of Lahore’s deputy commissioner (DC).
A police report revealed that DC’s phone operator Mazhar Abbas was part of the seven-member gang. Police arrested him on March 23 at an official ceremony when he was with the DC.
According to the report, police Constables Mohsin Abbas and Mohammad Arif, who were also involved in the crime, were the official guards of a high court judge. Mohammad Tahir of Lahore and Sheikh Abdul Rauf of Faisalabad were money exchange / bitcoin dealers.
➡️Russian State Duma Defers Consideration of Bill on Digital Financial Assets
The State Duma of the Russian Federation has deferred consideration of the bill “On Digital Financial Assets” to April 2019, local media outlet TASS reported on March 20.
The second reading of the draft federal law “On Digital Financial Assets” has reportedly been rescheduled for April, following a decision made at the morning voting on the agenda of the plenary session. The initiative was taken by the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Market, Anatoly Aksakov, although he did not explain his motives.
The bill “On Digital Financial Assets” aims to formulate national cryptocurrency legislation, and was adopted by Russia’s parliament in the second reading earlier in March. Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the State Duma and coauthor of the draft bill, stressed then that the adopted amendments are aimed at fixing the difficulties related to the concept of digital rights.
➡️Streaming Service Twitch Removes Crypto Payment Options, Reddit User Reports
Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch has evidently removed Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as payment options for subscriptions. The change was reported by a Reddit user on March 23.
The user noted that Twitch had offered an option to pay with BTC and BCH employing BitPay as a payment processor, but has since “removed it in the last couple of weeks as a payment method for all countries.” One user, seemingly outraged, noted that they canceled all of their Twitch subscriptions and sent an assistance ticket to the company.
On March 20, another Reddit user claimed that Streamlabs — a popular streaming software widely used by Twitch users to receive tips — also removed support for cryptocurrency. According to the user, a new version of the software that has been recently released no longer contains support for crypto donations.
➡️Lightning Introduces “Loop” To Keep Its Payment Channels Open
The Lightning Network is well known as an off-chain Bitcoin payment protocol that offers faster and cheaper transactions. Now, it has announced a related service called Loop, which will make it easier for users to receive a continuous flow of funds. This will also ensure that payment channels stay open. Lightning explains the current situation:
“Lightning channels are like tubes of money: the more you send the more you can receive, and the other way around. Money moves around in the tube, but the total amount of funds remains constant … Lightning requires ‘inbound capacity’ in order to receive funds.”
Right now, users are responsible for ensuring that their channels have a large enough capacity to handle incoming payments. Often, that involves opening a new channel when a previous channel reaches its capacity. It is possible to refill and rebalance channels, but this is not straightforward. Loop will make things easier.
➡️Brookings institute says the sec should regulate crypto-assets
A report from the Economic Studies program of US think tank, Brookings, claims better regulation will benefit the crypto industry. It states that crypto-assets currently fall into a jurisdictional gap, and that the SEC should fill that role.
The report immediately scores an own goal with the choice of title – “It’s time to strengthen the regulation of crypto-assets.”
This suggests that cryptocurrency itself is inherently insecure or in need of regulation, which is clearly not the case. The report actually discusses the regulation of cryptocurrency intermediaries, which, as recently noted by the Winklevii, is an altogether different thing.
➡️Cryptopia Crypto Exchange Resumes Trading on 40 Crypto Pairs
New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia has resumed trading on 40 trade pairs, according to a tweet from the firm on March 18.
In the tweet, the company announces that it has “resumed trading on 40 trade pairs that we have quantified as secure. We will continue to expand this list as we clear more coins.” The update follows the exchange’s recent announcement of the plans to reopen trading on its platform by the end of March, following a New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia has resumed trading on 40 trade pairs, according to a tweet from the firm on March 18.
In the tweet, the company announces that it has “resumed trading on 40 trade pairs that we have quantified as secure. We will continue to expand this list as we clear more coins.” The update follows the exchange’s recent announcement of the plans to reopen trading on its platform by the end of March, following a $16 million hack in mid-January.
In January, Cryptopia suspended services after detecting a major hack that reportedly “resulted in significant losses.” The platform had initially informed the public it was undergoing unscheduled maintenance, issuing several updates before officially disclosing the breach.
After the initial reports of the hack, further evidence reportedly surfaced that hackers were siphoning crypto out of the exchange as late as two weeks later.
💥💥💥Waves Platform has announced the details of the second investment round for the Vostok project
✔️The second round will close on May 31, 2019.
✔️The plan is to sell 100 million VST at an estimated price of $1.20
✔️Up to $120 million will be raised.
🔎The Vostok project was developed for large enterprises and public institutions, to enable them to build the foundation of a next-generation digital infrastructure.
➡️The private blockchain platform Vostok will combine technological developments and innovations we tested when building the international Waves platform, with the advantages of other end-to-end digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data analytics and the industrial Internet of Things.
-Sasha Ivanov, founder and CEO of Waves Platform
Website
➡️Coinbase Pro Increases Fees, Updates Market Structure ‘to Increase Liquidity’
Major United States-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced a new market structure for its professional trading platform, Coinbase Pro, in a blog post published on March 15.
Per the announcement, the changes aim to increase liquidity, enhance price discovery and ensure smoother price movements. The changes include a new fee structure, reportedly designed to increase liquidity, updated order maximums, new order increment sizes, the turning off of stop market orders and added market order protection points.
According to the post, Coinbase Pro and Coinbase Prime — the firm’s institutional trading platform — will cease their support for stop market orders. The announcement further explains that all stop orders must now be submitted as limit orders and include a limit price.
On the other hand, the market protection points that will be introduced both to Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Pro users will amount to 10 percent for all market orders. The statement explains that market orders that move the price more than 10 percent will stop executing and return a partial fill.
Lastly, the post warns the exchange’s user base that the platform will be offline on March 22 from 6:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. PDT.
➡️Late Quadrigacx CEO Used Personal Funds to Fulfill Withdrawals
Jennifer Robertson, the widow of late Quadrigacx chief executive officer Gerry Cotten, has revealed that customer withdrawals were processed using personal funds in a statement published yesterday. The document also indicates that law firm Stewart McKelvey has withdrawn from representing Quadrigacx during the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act process due to “potential” conflicts of interest.
The widow of Quadrigacx’s late CEO published a statement on March 13 that provides an update on the legal proceedings surrounding the exchange.
The statement reveals that Gerry Cotten was using personal funds to fulfill customer withdrawals during 2018 while the exchange’s funds held with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce continued to be frozen.
➡️Token Launchpads Are the New Stablecoins
A few months ago, everyone was launching their own stablecoin. Now it’s exchange-integrated ICO launchpads. Following on from the success of Binance Launchpad, whose featured token sales have been significantly oversubscribed, a handful of other exchanges have followed suit. Bittrex IEO launches on March 15, Bitmax Launchpad is already operational and Huobi Prime, Kucoin Spotlight and Okex IEO are all on their way.
Exchanges seem to have spotted a new revenue stream that’s popular with traders, who in turn relish the ease of participation and the potential for a quick flip, given that new tokens are guaranteed to be exchange listed. It remains to be seen whether there is sufficient demand to sustain six exchange-integrated token launchpads, with Crypto Narnia best capturing the sense that some of these new platforms may be little more than a poor man’s Binance.
➡️Bancor Launches Wallet for On-Chain Conversions Between ETH and EOS Tokens
Decentralized liquidity network Bancor has launched a wallet for on-chain conversions between Ethereum (ETH) and Eos (EOS) tokens, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on March 12.
The new product, Bancor Wallet, is a non-custodial crypto wallet that is designed to enable on-chain crypto conversions between Ethereum and Eos-based tokens “in a single action,” the press release reports.
The new wallet is based on Bancor’s recently launched cross-chain protocol BancorX, which allows users to convert between Ethereum and EOS-based tokens without exchanges.
Nate Hindman, Bancor's director of communications, told Cointelegraph in a statement that the release of Bancor’s unified wallet is expected to pave the way for the integration of other blockchains, giving Bitcoin (BTC) and Tron (TRON) as examples.
➡️Monero Undergoes Protocol Upgrade
The Monero development team has confirmed that its scheduled protocol upgrade was completed successfully. The hard fork introduced four main changes to the privacy-focused altcoin including an improvement to the dynamic block size algorithm, an introduction of dummy encrypted payment IDs as well as shrinking of the size of amount encodings and using deterministic masks.
The most important update involved making the cryptocurrency more resistant to ASIC (application-specific integrated circuits) miners. A recent report showed that more than 85 percent of the Monero network was dominated by ASIC miners. The newly implemented Cryptonight-R algorithm is meant to tweak the proof-of-work mechanism used by XMR miners to deter using ASIC rigs, at least for a while.
➡️India to Use Blockchain to Improve Coffee Supply Chain
The Coffee Board of India has launched a pilot blockchain-based e-marketplace in order to integrate coffee farmers with markets. The development was announced by Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MCI) on March 28.
The Coffee Board — an organization backed by the MCI to promote coffee production in India — has rolled out an e-marketplace for coffee producers in order to reduce the number of intermediaries between coffee growers and buyers.
The product will reportedly be delivered in the form of an application and aims to improve transparency and traceability of coffee produced in India “from bean to cup.” To implement the project, the Coffee Board collaborated with M/s Eka Plus, а digital commodity management platforms for аgriculture.
➡️Pantera Capital Nears $175 Million Target for Third Venture Fund
Cryptocurrency hedge fund Pantera Capital is close to completing funding for its third venture fund, already raising $160 million, the company announced in a blog post оn March 27.
Pantera, which debuted its first fund in 2013, has since risen to become a conspicuous player in the crypto startup industry. Its latest project, dubbed Venture Fund III, has a fundraising target of $175 million.
“We project making a total of 35 investments, with an average deal size of $3.5 million, and an 11% target average equity stake,” the blog post revealed.
Activity among entities building out the cryptocurrency-related ecosystem has remained brisk despite the ongoing market downturn.
To date, Pantera says, Venture Fund III has already injected $38 million of capital in 11 portfolio companies, leading five of those rounds itself.
➡️Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior Owner Develops DLT Project With ConsenSys and Azure
French luxury goods giant Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH) is reportedly working with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform for tracking its products, crypto media agency CoinDesk reports on March 26.
Dubbed AURA, the blockchain-powered platform is reportedly scheduled to go live in May or June 2019 with two major LVMH subsidiaries: Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior.
According to the report, the AURA platform is based on JPMorgan’s Quorum blockchain platform, which is running on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
When reached by Cointelegraph, a ConsenSys spokesperson declined to comment on the alleged cooperation within the initiative.
➡️Fintech Firm trueDigital Expands Over-the-Counter BTC, ETH Reference Rate Distribution
New York-based fintech infrastructure provider trueDigital Holdings (TDH) is partnering with crypto data firm Kaiko and digital assets analytics company Inca Digital Securities to widen the distribution of its over-the-counter (OTC) reference rates for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The development was shared with Cointelegraph in a press release on March 25.
As reported last year, TrueEX created TDH as an affiliate in March 2018, immediately announcing a TDH partnership with prominent blockchain tech firm ConsenSys (created by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin) to create a benchmark rate for the price of Ethereum.
The newly forged strategic partnership deal will see Kaiko and Inca distribute trueDitigal’s reference rates to their clients, including asset managers and institutions. Inca will further reportedly use the OTC reference rates as the basis for new analytics.
➡️E-Commerce Firm Rakuten Readies Cryptocurrency Exchange for April Launch After Name Change
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten has completed registration of its cryptocurrency exchange Rakuten Wallet, which will go live next month, the company confirmed in a press release on March 25.
Rakuten, which follows several major Japanese tech players in entering the crypto exchange market, renamed its product from Everybody’s Bitcoin earlier this month.
The company had acquired the exchange under the former name in August last year for 265 million yen (at the time $2.4 million).
Following a consolidation period during which Rakuten made changes to its structure, executives have now confirmed that Everybody’s Bitcoin in its current guise will cease operations at the end of March.
➡️Overstock’s tZERO Exchange to Launch Bitcoin Trading App This June
Overstock’s security token platform tZERO is going full crypto.
Until now, security tokens had been the startup’s priority, but this summer, tZERO plans to launch its own mobile trading app for buying and selling bitcoin and, possibly, ether, CEO Saum Noursalehi told CoinDesk Thursday.
The app for IOS and Android devices is scheduled to launch in June and is being developed by Bitsy — a crypto startup in the portfolio of Overstock’s venture arm Medici Ventures.
“That’s part of the reason we acquired Bitsy — to accelerate time to market for our mobile app,” Noursalehi told CoinDesk, adding:
“They have an app for trading crypto, primarily bitcoin, in a beta-phase, they built a wallet and key recovery mechanism, and this will be the foundation of the mobile app for tZERO. They are also working on some cool stuff like biometric login.”
➡️Casa-Branded Case Brings Military Tech to Bitcoin Wallet Protection
Bitcoin management startup Casa now offers a full suite of cypherpunk devices.
Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, Casa just rolled out “Faraday bags” for hardware cryptocurrency wallets – protective cases made to block electronic signals often associated with remote wiping or alteration of the data stored on hardware devices.
“We didn’t see anyone else providing a good enough case. So we went to the extreme and found a pro in the market and designed this together,” Casa CEO Jeremy Welch told CoinDesk via email.
➡️Kakao Affiliate Dunamu Launches Blockchain Service Platform
Dunamu, the fintech arm of South Korea’s largest Internet corporation Kakao, is reportedly launching a blockchain service platform designed to help companies start businesses using blockchain. Korea’s JoongAng Daily reported the news on March 19.
The platform, which is called Luniverse and supervised by blockchain technology research lab Lambda256, is geared to help IT startups develop blockchain-based services. The platform reportedly has a high level of security and an automated scaling function, that can adjust blockchain sizes in accordance with the amount of data stored on it.
To implement the service, Dunamu reportedly collaborated with blockchain companies that provided various blockchain apps and products following clients’ business fields. Park Jae-hyun, CEO and former research head of Lambda256 said that “in the past, a lot of companies built their own blockchain, but an alternative is outsourcing the establishment of a blockchain in the form of a service offered on cloud systems.”
Yesterday, Kakao announced the integration of its cryptocurrency wallet in its messaging app KakaoTalk, which will purportedly enable more than 44 million South Korean KakaoTalk users to send peer-to-peer transactions using Kakao’s crypto-powered wallet.
➡️CNY Inflows Into Crypto Markets Surge After Shanghai Composite Spike
Back in January 2017, China’s financial authorities initiated their first crackdowns against domestic bitcoin exchanges, with a ban on mainland exchanges cryptocurrencies against the yuan coming shortly thereafter. Now, close to two years and three months later, a surge of CNY has been flowing back into the digital currency economy after the Shanghai Composite posting a 24 percent gain this week.
Since the increase in cryptocurrency volumes and some solid gains across the board, digital currency supporters have noticed a resurgence of Chinese yuan (CNY) pour into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. On March 17, the avid BTC trader Anton Pagi tweeted to his followers that the latest rally has been fueled by CNY. “Something to watch during this bull run, Chinese profits from their roaring stock market in recent weeks flowing into bitcoin,” Pagi detailed while explaining that exchanges dealing with CNY have “more than doubled in volume in the past week.” Moreover, the Shanghai Composite has spiked more than 24 percent and speculators believe investors are moving into alternative markets.
➡️Real Estate Giant Holding Live Luxury Home Auction for Bitcoin
A major Australian real estate group is holding a luxury home auction that can be paid for with two cryptocurrencies. There will be a live auctioneer who will call out bids in BTC. The property owner says he wants to keep as many coins as possible.
One of Australia’s largest real estate groups, LJ Hooker, is preparing a live luxury real estate auction for cryptocurrencies with a live auctioneer. The company is working with James Pratt Auctions and blockchain company Nuyen, which will facilitate online bidding for the five-bedroom house in New South Wales, Australia. Micky media outlet reported Monday:
The auctioneer will call bids in cryptocurrency, with the price to be converted and displayed in AUD and USD on a live screen. Payments can be made in both bitcoin (BTC) and binance coin (BNB).
The owner of the property and president of Nuyen, Greg Costello, told news.Bitcoin.com that, in addition to the two cryptocurrencies, AUD will also be accepted.
➡️Chinese Insurance Giant Ping An Partners With Decentralized AI Startup SingularityNET
Chinese insurance giant Ping An has partnered with Ethereum (ETH)-based decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) startup SingularityNET. The latter company announced the collaboration in a press release published on Medium on March 14.
Per the release, the collaboration will at first focus on Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Computer Vision (CV) and model training. SingularityNET notes that the scope of the partnership is expected to expand to multiple industries and initiatives in the future.
The announcement has been made shortly after SingularityNET officially launched a beta version of its Ethereum-based decentralized marketplace on Thursday, Feb. 28. In January last year, the company also announced a partnership with agriculture-focused blockchain startup Hara at the World Web Forum.
Ping An is reportedly the world’s most valuable insurance company, it serves 170 million customers, and ranked tenth in the Forbes Global 2000 list of world’s largest public companies. As Cointelegraph reported in November last year, Ping An and the Sanya municipal government also signed a strategic cooperation agreement for “Smart City” construction involving blockchain.
➡️Chinese Government Officials Face Ransomware Attack
A statement issued by the People’s Government of Yiling District, Yichang has revealed that Chinese officials have been the target of a ransomware email attack in recent days.
A statement issued by a Chinese provincial government website has announced that the National Network and Information Security Information Center has identified overseas hackers targeting the websites of government departments with emails containing ransomware.
The ransomware was delivered via an email containing the subject line: “You must report to the police at 3:00 pm on March 11!” The emails contain version 5.2 of the Gandcrab malware, which is concealed in an attachment named “03-11-19.rar.”
➡️Faireum Enters the Provably Fair Betting Game
Provably fair betting and cryptocurrency were made for one another. Last week, news.Bitcoin.com reported on Nakamoto Game which operates on the Bitcoin Cash network. Now, Faireum is preparing to go one step further by launching an entire blockchain dedicated to online gambling. The Faireum iGaming platform, which is currently in beta, features thousands of casino games including slots and card games, with a provably fair model enabling punters to ensure verify the outcome of events.
The project claims to overcome the problems associated with Random Number Generators (RNG) used in conventional online casinos, which can be skewed by unscrupulous operators through modifying certain parameters. To combat this, Faireum combines the block hash with a zero-knowledge proof to create a RNG that cannot be deduced.
➡️Binance-Backed OTC Firm Releases Anti-Money Laundering Compliance-as-a-Service Product
Binance-backed over-the-counter (OTC) desk Koi Trading has partnered with IdentityMind, a platform for online risk management, to develop an Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance-as-a-service product. The development was announced in a press release published on March 12.
The parties have reportedly released an AML compliance-as-a-service product dubbed “Koi Compliance,” supporting digital currency and targeting money services businesses. The new platform will purportedly enable companies to focus on conducting their business, letting Koi Compliance to perform Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures, monitor transactions, conduct sanctions screening, and keep records.
Last November, Koi Trading received $3 million in investment from Binance Labs, an incubator arm of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange (as of press time) Binance. The move was purportedly taken to enable Binance Labs to utilize Koi’s quantitative research, data science, and compliance consulting services.
➡️Online Bank Swissquote to Add Crypto Custodial Service
Lack of access to custodians that institutional investors know and trust is seen as a major hurdle for growing the sector. Thankfully, the demand has caused a flurry of companies to enter the business, with the latest being online bank Swissquote.
Swissquote, a provider of online financial and trading services from Switzerland, announced its yearly results for 2018 on Friday. The report included an update about an upcoming expansion of the bank’s crypto services. Starting March 21, it will be possible to transfer cryptocurrencies from external wallets to a Swissquote account and vice-versa. “Swissquote will therefore become a secure and technologically fully integrated cryptocurrency trading platform and depositary for private and institutional clients alike,” the company explained.
