Day: August 9, 2018

Thai Police Arrest Suspect in $24 Million Bitcoin Scam

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Thai police have detained 27-year old actor Jiratpisit “Boom” Jaravijit in an alleged $24 million cryptocurrency scam, Bangkok Post reported August 9. Jiratpisit is reportedly one of the seven suspects in the alleged crime, including his older brother and sister. On July 26, the Criminal Court awarded a warrant for his arrest following a complaint from a Finnish man that he had fraudulently lured foreigners into investing 797 million baht (nearly $24 million) worth of cryptocurrencies. Jiratpisit has been detained on charges of money-laundering activity, which he denies. The alleged…

Gubernatorial Candidate Wants to Make Colorado a “Blockchain Hub”

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The Democratic candidate for governor of Colorado, U.S  Representative Jared Polis, has added a blockchain policy to the list of issues of his gubernatorial campaign this year, according to an announcement on Polis’ website. Having set a goal to establish Colorado as a “national hub for blockchain innovation in business and government,” Polis added a set of blockchain-related proposals to his gubernatorial platform on Wednesday, Aug. 8. In his campaign, Polis advocates for implementing five blockchain-related initiatives, such as developing cybersecurity infrastructure to ensure the integrity of elections, and building…

Barclays Sponsors Blockchain Hackathon to Explore Derivatives Contracts Processing

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British investment bank Barclays is sponsoring a hackathon to find the best blockchain solution to increase the efficiency of derivatives contracts processing, according to an announcement published August 9. Barclays is partnering with other market majors like Deloitte, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Thomson Reuters for the event. At the two-day DerivHack hackathon, participants will be given an opportunity to implement their ideas and apply the ISDA Common Domain Model (CDM) to distributed ledger technology. The final goal of the event is to find solutions to use…

Overstock Shares Surge Following tZERO Investment Announcement

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Overstock shares soared by 21 percent in after-hours trading following news that Hong Kong-based private equity firm GSR Capital will invest up to $270 million in tZERO, an Overstock blockchain subsidiary, CNBC reported Aug. 9. The two companies signed a deal wherein GSR Capital will invest up to $374.55 million in exchange for tZERO and Overstock shares. GSR will buy $30 million worth of tZERO tokens from the e-commerce retail giant and will аlso invest up to $270 million in the company at a valuation of $1.5 billion, giving the…

Litecoin, EOS, Stellar Lumens, Tron, IOTA Technical Analysis

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Though altcoins are finding reprieve following rapid depreciation mid this week, the fact that most are trading at new 2018 lows as IOTA, Litecoin while some as EOS and Stellar Lumens are retesting important support line means the market might add to their losses in coming days/weeks. However, there are potential upsides especially if the SEC comes up with favorable decision on VanEck SolidX Bitcoin ETF–the reason behind recent market fracture. EOS Technical Analysis EOS Daily Chart by Trading View Two days of high volume, high trade range trading days…

Blockchain Startup Enables Litecoin Transactions via Telegram Messenger

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Litecoin (LTC) transactions are now available via encrypted messenger app Telegram, Litecoin founder Charlie Lee tweeted today, Aug. 9. A bear market is the best time for people to work on adoption. Check out https://t.co/Ua8LQz9f4h. Send and recieve LTC on telegram. Eventually, it will support SMS also. Great work @ztxrepublic team! ? We build it and they will come. Adoption is key! — Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) August 9, 2018 The new Litecoin feature Lite.im was developed by blockchain startup Zulu Republic. Based in Zug, Switzerland, the firm develops decentralized…

Can Crypto Exchanges Be Trusted With Hard Forks?

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On July 31, a Chinese Bitcoin investor sued local crypto exchange OKCoin for allegedly blocking him from getting his Bitcoin Cash (BCH) after the Bitcoin fork.   While the case is new for China, compilations regarding hard forks and exchanges have been amassing since perhaps as early as the DAO incident in 2016. So what happens when you have a coin that is about to be split into two, but you’re holding it on an exchange’s hot wallet? What’s a hard fork? Essentially, a hard fork is a change to the…

Binance Releases Demo of Decentralized Exchange

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The CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Binance Changpeng Zhao announced a demo of the platform’s decentralized exchange in a tweet today, Aug. 9. In a six-minute video attached to the tweet, Zhao presented a “casual, early, pre-offer”  demo of the decentralized exchange. The CEO said not “to expect too much” for now, adding that it currently does not have a graphical user interface: A first (rough, pre-alpha) demo of the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX), showing issuing, listing and trading of tokens. All cli based, no GUI yet. A small step…

China’s IT Ministry Considering Strategy for Advancing Blockchain Development

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The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is reportedly considering ways to accelerate blockchain adoption, local news agency Xinhua reports Aug. 9. According to the report, the MIIT has proposed a number of measures to speed up the promotion of blockchain applications in the country in a move to provide a “healthy and orderly development of the industry.” The ministry stated that the blockchain tech ecosystem is currently in its initial stage. The MIIT intends to provide a gradual extension of blockchain applications from the financial sector to…