Day: December 12, 2018

Allianz Global Investors CEO Says Crypto Assets Should Be ‘Outlawed’

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The CEO of Allianz Global Investors (GI), an investment management firm with €524 billion ($595 billion) in assets under management, has called for crypto assets to be “outlawed,” Reuters reported Dec. 11. Allianz GI CEO Andreas Utermann is said to have made his remarks during a panel in London on Tuesday, seated alongside the head of the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Andrew Bailey. In light of the recent crypto market crash, Utterman said he was “personally surprised that regulators haven’t stepped in harder,” urging them to “outlaw” the…

Shenzhen Special Economic Zone to Use Blockchain for Electronic Tax Invoices

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Shenzhen, a major city in the Guangdong Province and the first economic special zone in  China, will use blockchain technology for electronic tax invoices. This development was reported by the China Economic Net, а domestic news website focusing on economics, on Dec. 12. The Shenzhen Municipal Taxation Bureau and Chinese tech giant Tencent have “successfully connected the blockchain invoice system with the WeChat payment platform.” The article reports that WeChat, the 1 billion user social media platform operated by Tencent, has opened its payment platform for the blockchain invoice function.…

India’s Telecom Regulator Completes Mobile Blockchain Pilot with IBM

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The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has completed blockchain pilots with tech giant IBM to improve mobile data records. The trials were reported today, Dec. 12, by local English-language, Indian daily newspaper The Economic Times. The TRAI, India’s telecom regulator, along with major telecom providers, have completed tests with tech firms such as IBM in order to explore blockchain’s benefits in improving mobile network systems such as mobile number portability (MNP) and the Do Not Call Registry (DNC). Sriram Raghavan, vice president of IBM Research, claimed that the company…

Crypto Exchange Coincheck’s Owner Monex to Launch Crypto Trading in US starting Q1 2019

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Online broker Monex Group, known for buying hacked Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck in April, has announced it will launch cryptocurrency trading in the United States, Cointelegraph Japan reports Wednesday, Dec. 12. Monex held a conference in Tokyo, where John Bartleman — president of Monex’s U.S. subsidiary TradeStation Group, Inc. — took part. He announced that crypto trading will be available for U.S. customers starting Q1 2019. Moreover, Bartleman revealed that TradeStation is interested in crypto investments in general. The company has already joined the series B funding round of new…

Developers Test Cross-Blockchain Protocol for One-Way ERC20-Bitcoin LN Atomic Swaps

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An R&D lab at crypto startup TenX has tested the use of its cross-blockchain interoperability protocol to transfer ERC20 tokens for Bitcoin (BTC) using the Lightning Network (LN). The news was reported on R&D lab CoBlox’s blog today, Dec. 12, in reference to the demo on Dec. 7. As the blog post outlines, the technical challenge was to exchange ERC-20 tokens — which run on the Ethereum (ETH) platform but are not strictly “native” since they rely on invoking a smart contract to transfer ownership — for Bitcoin’s smallest transactable…

Financial Criminal Allegedly Revealed as Figure Behind ‘Blockchain Terminal’ ICO

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The man behind the “Blockchain Terminal” (BCT) Initial Coin Offering (ICO) has been ousted as a financial criminal who concealed his former identity from employees and investors alike. An investigation into the circumstances were published Dec. 11 on news outlet The Block Crypto The BCT project and its affiliated firm, CG Blockchain, are alleged to have raised as much as $31 million in an ICO to launch a crypto-focused version of the ubiquitous “Bloomberg Terminal” — a highly-successful financial data and trading tool for the traditional financial sector. According to…

‘The Power of 1,000 Whales in Your Wallet’ — Crypto Platform’s Promise to Newbie Traders

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A new crypto trading platform is enabling users to emulate key influencers in the marketplace through a service it says is akin to having “the power of 1,000 whales in your wallet.” Spiking describes itself as the “world’s first blockchain asset validation and AI-driven crypto trading infrastructure.” Through its platform, users can automatically follow the trades of whales who meet their goals, with “whales” defined as traders who hold large amounts of cryptocurrency — not to mention their ability to influence short-term trends in the market based on whether they…

Denmark Targets 2,700 Bitcoin Traders for Tax Payments After Tip-Off From Finland

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Denmark’s tax agency (Skattestyrelsen) has confirmed it is “identifying” 2,700 individuals it says owe taxes on Bitcoin (BTC) gains, according to a Dec. 12 press release. According to Skattestyrelsen, the Danish citizens bought and sold Bitcoin via an unnamed Finnish cryptocurrency exchange between 2015 and 2017, but did not declare any profits or losses on tax documents. Now, the agency will go after each individual with an eye to determining their payment obligations. “Right now we are identifying the individual citizens and keeping the new information up to those we…

UK Crypto Exchanges Pose ‘Low’ Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing Risk

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“The UK acknowledges the inherent vulnerabilities associated with the anonymity of VCs, and while the risk of ML/TF in this area is assessed as low, the UK acknowledges that there are intelligence gaps and VCs are being used in illicit activity (particularly in online marketplaces for the sale and purchase of illicit goods and services). As a result, the UK intends to regulate virtual currency exchange providers under its implementation of the EU’s fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.” The global watchdog awarded its highest rating to the UK for effectively managing…

UK Crypto Exchanges Pose ‘Low’ Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing Risk

boss

“The UK acknowledges the inherent vulnerabilities associated with the anonymity of VCs, and while the risk of ML/TF in this area is assessed as low, the UK acknowledges that there are intelligence gaps and VCs are being used in illicit activity (particularly in online marketplaces for the sale and purchase of illicit goods and services). As a result, the UK intends to regulate virtual currency exchange providers under its implementation of the EU’s fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive.” The global watchdog awarded its highest rating to the UK for effectively managing…