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Malta, Italy Issue Joint Warning Over Potential Unlicensed Cryptocurrency Exchange


Malta has warned citizens about an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange serving its domestic market. Regulators ordered the platform to stop operating in a notice 


The offending platform, OriginalCrypto, had first come to the attention of Italian officials concerned it may not have the required license to offer authorized “investment services and activities.”

The platform’s owner, SolutionsCM Ltd., has now come under scrutiny from both countries, with Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA) sharing the warning from Italy:

“The Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB) has ordered the following companies to cease infringement of art. 18 of the Italian Legislative Decree No. 58/1998, consisting of the provision of unauthorised investment services and activities to the Italian public performed by SolutionsCM Ltd. via the www.originalcrypto .com website.”

As Cointelegraph frequently reports, Malta has sought to become one of the world’s most permissive jurisdictions regarding both cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.
As part of its bid to transform into a so-called “Blockchain Island,” various regulatory overhauls have accompanied MFSA-endorsed deals with industry businesses, including major exchanges such as Binance and Huobi.

OriginalCrypto remains far from those legitimate activities, however, sources warning about the likely “scam” scheme earlier this year.

“Portraying their platform as a cryptocurrency financial brokerage, OriginalCrypto. com has engineered a clever marketing approach to promote their illicit investment services to consumers across the world,” monitoring site ScamBitcoin wrote in February.
According to the site’s investigations, OriginalCrypto had made dubious claims about its setup, including being operated by a Bulgarian-based parent company “Bali Limited Ltd.”
“We could find no evidence to support that Bali Limited Ltd was an actual corporation,” the site warned:
“Furthermore, the alleged corporate address provided for Bali Limited Ltd does not appear to be a factual physical address and computes to a variance of their disclosed address.”
Last week, the U.S. state of Ohio’s decision to accept cryptocurrency for tax payments drew the ire of the mainstream press after it emerged officials involved were unaware of the scams that had affected previous such efforts elsewhere.


​​Coinbase Policy Head Mike Lempres Leaves Company for VC Giant Andreessen Horowitz


The head of policy at Coinbase has left the U.S.’ largest exchange and wallet provider to work at investment giant Andreessen Horowitz, Bloomberg quotes a statement as confirming

Mike Lempres, who worked only briefly in the role after swapping over from being Coinbase’s legal head in September, had already decided to leave at the time, the publication says.

Like all exchanges serving the U.S. market, Coinbase continues to battle patchwork regulatory frameworks that vary state to state, as well as ongoing reviews of the status of certain types of cryptocurrencies.

While it remains unknown who will replace Lempres, head of legal at the company is currently Brian Brooks, who “took over most of his responsibilities.”

“As chief legal and risk officer during a time of tremendous growth for Coinbase, Mike was instrumental in building the company’s legal and compliance functions and driving our vision of trust through compliance,” the statement reads, adding:

“We wish him the best in his new position with Andreessen Horowitz.”

Coinbase previously received investment capital from the firm, which led its 2013 Series B funding round worth $25 million. Andreessen Horowitz also contributed to a major $300 million round for the exchange this October.

The exchange service encountered fresh legal woes this week after a previously-discarded user-filed lawsuit over alleged insider trading of Bitcoin Cash came back to life, with a hearing date set for January 2019.
In October, an executive revealed tentative plans to add up to 300 cryptocurrencies to its trading platform, while dispelling rumors the company would conduct an IPO.


​​Mining Giant Bitfury Raises $80 Million in Closed Funding Round as Mining Market ‘Matures’


Bitcoin mining infrastructure provider Bitfury has raised $80 million in a closed funding round, the company revealed in a press release shared with Cointelegraph Nov. 6.

The round, which comes weeks after rumors Bitfury was considering an IPO, was led by European venture capital fund Korelya Capital.

Other participants included South Korean internet giant Naver Group, Asian institutions Macquarie Capital and Dentsu Japan, as well as Michael Novogratz’sGalaxy Digital.

“This private placement will take our corporate governance to the next level, broaden our financial strategic options, and ideally position us for our next phase of growth as the market matures,” executive vice chairman George Kikvadze commented.

Despite the challenging market in 2018 taking its toll on mining manufacturers, Bitfury joins industry stalwart Bitmain in mulling an IPO, a trend which is also expanding to other business sectors within cryptocurrency.


Mastercard Awarded Patent for Partitioned, Multi-Currency Blockchain


Mastercard has been awarded a patent for a method to partition a blockchain, making it capable of storing multiple transaction types and formats. The patent filing was published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Oct. 9.

The document explains that in current blockchain systems, the transaction records stored in the different blocks that comprise a blockchain are “often required to be of the same format and include the same types, and sometimes even sizes, of data.”

This means that any entity that wants to use multiple types of blockchains — whether ones that support different cryptocurrencies, or ones with varying degrees of permissioned or open access — is forced to operate many different blockchains at once.

Mastercard notes that this consumes “significant” resources and computing processing power, which is the impetus for finding an alternative solution.

The patent proposes that using a “partitioned blockchain” could resolve this problem, outlining the particulars of how block-generation and transaction data storage would work in the prospective system. It coins the term “subnet” for the proposed partitions, which would be internally consistent but would interact in a wider, single system.

The patent continues to outline that “a partitioned blockchain may include transaction records for three different subnets, where the transaction records associated with each respective subnet may be formatted differently and may involve the transfer of a different cryptographic currency as associated with each subnet.”

As previously reported, Mastercard has filed a high number of blockchain-related patents. This summer, the company proposed a new method for linking assets between blockchain-based and fiat currency accounts, based on using a public (permissionless) blockchain. In the spring, it filed a patent for a system to speed up the activation of new nodes in a blockchain, as well as for a blockchain system to combat identity theft.


Have the DEXs Fallen before Regulators?

Centralized, decentralized, hybrid, and so on. The choice of crypto exchanges today is broad, but it is not simple. Traditionally, the most obvious difference between CEX and DEX was controllability of the regulator. Centralized sites sought to improve relations with the SEC, sacrificing user comfort, while decentralized defended privacy. A new player, however, the decentralized Everbloom exchange, which has already established relations with several financial regulators, wants to break this balance of forces.


Major altcoin Ethereum (ETH) is about to see a “trend reversal and rally strongly” up to $1,900 per token by the end of 2019, according to Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee, as Bloomberg reported September 27.

In a note to clients of Fundstrat Global Advisors, Lee noted the “overly negative” sentiment on the Ethereum market, which he says will be a basis for its strong rebound in the near future.

In his prediction, Lee has referenced the historical performance of Ethereum, citing that the times when the altcoin “underperformed peers by two standard deviations,” the price trend saw a subsequent reverse.

Lee concluded that Ethereum will reach $1,900 by the end of 2019 — a price point that is at least 40 percent higher than Ethereum’s all-time high of $1,349, recorded on January 13, 2018. The price of Ethereum is $230 at press time, meaning that the altcoin’s price will surge by 726 percent by the end of the year, according to Lee.

In July, Lee reiterated his bull position in regard to major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC), claiming that the cryptocurrency could trade between $22,000 and $25,000 by the end of the year. Most recently, the crypto analyst concluded that Bitcoin “could end the year explosively higher,” citing a correlation between BTC and emerging markets.

Launched on July 30, 2015, Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at press time. Ethereum provides an open-sourced blockchain that features smart contracts and a basis for emerging blockchain-powered applications in a number of industries.

After surging to above $1,300 in early 2018, Ethereum has seen a massive decline, with the current price amounting to just around 17 percent of the all-time high. Ripple (XRP) has twice overtaken Ethereum in terms of market capitalization in September.


Kenyan Distributed Ledgers and Artificial Intelligence task force chairman Bitange Ndemo has said that the government should tokenize the economy, local news outlet The Star reported September 25.

The taskforce was established in March by the government of the Republic of Kenya in order to evaluate proposals on how to deploy blockchain technology in the public sector. The working group consists of local blockchain startups, experts, researchers, regulatory bodies, lawyers and other associated parties.

Speaking at an Information and Communication Technology Ministry (ICT) stakeholders meeting with the private sector, Ndemo reportedly asserted that the government should consider tokenization of the economy in order to deal with “increasing” rates of corruption and uncertainties. This move, according to Ndemo, would have the government print less hard currency. The chairman said:

“We must begin to tokenize the economy by giving incentives to young people to do things which they are paid through tokens that can be converted to fiat currency.”

In addition, Ndemo stated that the adoption of tokens could reduce unemployment levels, outlining the necessity of issuing a digital currency equivalent to a fiat currency. The ICT Principal Secretary Jerome Ochieng said that the government will develop relevant policies to process the recommendations proposed by the taskforce.

Notably, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) issued a circular to all banks in the country in April, warning them against dealing with cryptocurrencies or engaging in transactions with crypto-related entities. CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge cited crypto’s prevalence in illegal activities, its anonymous nature, and its lack of centralized control as the impetus for the ban.

In June, decentralized liquidity network Bancor launched a network of blockchain-based community currencies to fight poverty in Kenya. The project seeks to stimulate local and regional commerce and peer-to-peer activity by enabling Kenyan communities to create and manage their own digital tokens.


Poland’s largest bank will launch a blockchain solution for its customer documents via a partnership with UK-based Coinform “in the coming days,” the parties confirmed in a press release Thursday, September 20.

Part of a drive to enhance security of customer data, PKO Bank Polski will use Coinform’s Trudatum to provide blockchain-issued paperwork to its some five million account holders.

“Blockchain offers huge potential to increase competitiveness of the Polish banking sector,” am Marciniak, vice president of the bank’s management board commented.

“This is a relatively new technology for which further applications are constantly being found worldwide.”

The plans had originally surfaced in March, with the first issuance set to involve documents relating to the European Union’s PSD2 privacy directive which came into force this year.

The move stands out in the Polish banking industry, which is only beginning to implement blockchain at a time when cryptocurrency businesses in the country continue to complain about hostile treatment from institutions.

“It shows that the Polish financial industry is still open to innovation and sets international trends,” Coinfirm CEO and cofounder Pawel Kuskowski continued.

In May PKO began recruiting startups for its fintech initiative dubbed “Let’s Fintech With PKO Bank Polski!” with the blockchain partnership arising from that initiative.

Executives “search for fintech companies that are ready to pilot their solution and scale their business in partnership with the Bank,” the program’s website explains.


What Is FPGA?

FPGA stands for Field-Programmable Gate Array. What differs it from ASIC is that the latter is a custom chip that cannot be reconfigured after it is manufactured. Once it is shipped and “in the field,” an ASIC’s function is fixed. FPGA gets its name because it can be “reprogrammed in the field,” after it has been shipped or seen use in the real world.

Miners actively used FPGA from 2010 (when regular CPUs became outdated) to 2012 (when the ASIC era began). In comparison with ASIC, FPGA is much less efficient and way slower due to its architecture.


Bitcoin vs. Sanctions: Will Cryptocurrencies Be Used to Counter the Economic Wars between Governments?

In recent times, the global political forces have been very unevenly distributed. Leading positions and relations between countries can change very rapidly. Economic wars unleashed by the opposing sides can lead to the significant degradation of the financial system of a state. This problem is especially relevant for countries with developing economies. Therefore, it is not by chance that many countries that are unstable from the financial point of view have expressed interest in cryptocurrencies.


What Is ECDSA?

ECDSA stands for Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm. Within the framework of this algorithm, a digital signature is used to operate two interconnected keys, the private and the public. The public key identifies the recipient and the sender, while the private key is used in conjunction with the public key to create an unsolicited signature for the transaction and is kept secret.


What Are Security Tokens?

A crypto token that passes the Howey test is deemed a security token. These usually derive their value from an external, tradable asset. Because the tokens are deemed a security, they are subject to federal securities laws and regulations. If the ICO doesn’t follow the regulations, it could be subject to penalties.


Yin and Yang: How Hodling and Mining Affect the Dynamics of Bitcoin Price

Experts of the crypto market still have no common opinion as to which factor has the greatest impact on the price of Bitcoin. Some researchers are sure that these factors are mining and hodling, which have the effect of the opposing "energies" yin and yang on Bitcoin. Why have experts come to this conclusion and where does PPR come in?


It Is Never Too Late: Why You Need to Study Cryptocurrencies at Retirement Age

The technology of blockchain is gradually penetrating into all social strata of the planet's population. There are specialists of different professions, political views, nationalities, gender, and, most importantly, different ages in the new industry. Teens are interested in blockchain, as there are examples of eleven-year-old programmers writing books about Bitcoin or mining on money saved from school meals. Things are a bit more complicated with a more mature generation because some people of retirement age do not want to learn even about the Internet. Still, there are those who see the future in cryptocurrencies. We talked with a delegator of the Minter network Alexander Pyzhov, who began to take an interest in the project upon entering retirement age.


Israel Considers Crypto Shekel: Will the New National Cryptocurrency Successfully Enter the Market?

It seems that not only the Venezuelan authorities are seriously aimed at creating their own national currency to solve the financial problems of the state. Israel has been considering a plan for introducing a digital currency supported by the state for quite some time. Since early 2018, the debate on this topic has reached a new level as the crypto industry in the country is on the rise. Now, this issue is being seriously considered by the Bank of Israel and the Ministry of Finance.


What’s the Difference between a Token and a Coin?

The two differ in the way they are created. Coins, such as Bitcoin and Ether, have their own blockchains (even if this blockchain is the fork of the first cryptocurrency; think of Litecoin). Tokens don’t have their own blockchain or wallet. They are created on the basis of the platforms that already exist—for example, Waves or Ethereum. Accordingly, coins can be mined, while tokens can’t.


The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with the Ministry of Information, Decenturion, will hold an online report on the development of international relations of the state of Decenturion.

August 27, 2018 - Today the citizens of the Decenturion will have the opportunity to participate in a webinar of the Minister of Foreign Affairs by Doctor of Juridical Science in International Law, Victoria Pirumova.

Ms. Pirumova took office as Minister on June 4, 2018, when she gave a presentation on the state of Decentuirion at the UN headquarters in New York.

The main goal of the webinar is to familiarize citizens of the state with the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and discuss the results of the Ministry's activities over the past 3 months. Ms. Pirumova will also talk about the plans of the Foreign Ministry for the coming month and answer the citizens’ questions.

In turn, the Minister of Information Nikolay Evdokomov will tell citizens about the results of the work of other ministries.


JP Morgan CIO Lori Beer said at a press conference in Buenos Aires that blockchain will “replace existing technology” in a few years, according to Argentinian website Cripto247 August 23.

“We will see a greater and wider use of blockchain [...] In a few years blockchain will replace the existing technology, today it only coexists with the current one,” Beer said.

Beer explained to Cripto247 that JP Morgan uses blockchain technology to “simplify the payment process and to store customers’ information related to KYC (Know Your Customer) policy.” She added that blockchain technology helps to prevent money laundering. Beer further explained the use of blockchain technology by the bank:

“We are currently following many paths. We invented a blockchain with an open code based on Ethereum. Actual blockchain technology has not yet resolved issues with privacy and scalability that we needed. We are connected to Hyperledger and Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. The application of this technology in business is more important to us than the technology itself. We are looking not only for cost reduction, but also for opportunities to develop new products.”

Beer was also asked about JP Morgan’s position on buying cryptocurrencies. She explained that the bank only supports what is regulated and has specialists who are “evaluating what is happening” with virtual currencies. When asked about the institutional position regarding Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), Beer preferred not to respond.

Earlier in August, Cointelegraph reported that JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon was optimistic about blockchain. “[JPMorgan] is testing [blockchain] and will use it for a whole lot of things,” he said.

In May, JP Morgan Chase filed a patent for a blockchain powered peer-to-peer payments network that could be used for intra- and inter-bank settlements. The patent application proposes using a distributed ledger to process payments in real-time, without having to rely on a trusted third party to hold the true "golden copy” of the audit trail.


The Rules of Cryptocurrency Trade in South Korea: What’s Happening and What to Expect in the Future

South Korea is one of the most developed countries in the world and a key Asian economy known for its technological business. Unsurprisingly, the country has become a pioneer in the blockchain industry. Following the technology of the distributed ledger, the trade of cryptocurrencies also came to South Korea, a business which quickly gained popularity among the inhabitants of the country. In particular, this applies to young Koreans, a fact which is confirmed by surveys.


44% of US executives consider the blockchain to be overpriced

Corporate executives come to the understanding that blockchain technology is not a magical extract extracted from digital currencies, which is capable of solving any company's problems in the shortest possible time.

Auditing company Deloitte conducted an international survey, which was attended by more than 1,000 executives focused on blockchain from Canada, Germany, Mexico, France, China, Britain and the United States. The study showed that 39% of respondents around the world believe that the potential of the blockchain is overvalued. In the US, the number of those who hold such an opinion is even higher and is 44%, while in 2016 this figure was 34%.

The main problem is that despite a large number of discussions about the blockchain, there are not so many real cases of using technology. According to the company Deloitte, "blockchain fatigue" begins to be traced among managers who believe that the potential of the technology is huge, but its real advantages remain elusive.

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