Industry veteran Jonathan Wilkins, a co-founder of bitcoin tech start-up Blockstream, is joining up-and-coming bitcoin brokerage River Financial as chief security officer (CSO). River is a bitcoin-only financial institution for buying and selling the digital currency (emphatically not an exchange; it says it’s “for the long-term investor”). Currently available only to testers who have received invites, the San Francisco-based outfit is working on an interface it hopes will be as slick as Jack Dorsey’s Square Cash, equipped with automatic recurring buys. Wilkins brings C-level gravitas and cypherpunk bona fides to…
Month: January 2020
Ripple’s XRP Falls 11% after Rising 45%; More Declines Coming?
XRP has plunged by circa 11 percent after registering superficial gains in the past 30 days. The Ripple’s native cryptocurrency established an intraday low of $0.224 on Monday as traders preferred to exit their long position on small profits. So it appears, the downside move was more a natural bearish correction, especially after XRP’s monstrous price rally that pushed investors’ gains up by 45 percent. The move led some analysts to preserve their bullish bias in the cryptocurrency. GalaxyBTC said in a tweet that he expects XRP to retest $0.3…
Blockstream Co-Founder Joins Bitcoin-Only Startup River Financial
Industry veteran Jonathan Wilkins, a co-founder of bitcoin tech startup Blockstream, is joining up-and-coming bitcoin brokerage River Financial as Chief Security Officer (CSO). River is a bitcoin-only financial institution for buying and selling the digital currency (emphatically not an exchange; it says it’s “for the long-term investor”). Currently available only to testers who have received invites, the San Francisco-based outfit is working on an interface it hopes will be as slick as Jack Dorsey’s Square Cash, equipped with automatic recurring buys. Wilkins brings c-level gravitas and cypherpunk bona fides to…
Indian IT Minister Requests Blockchain Solutions to Improve Government Schools
The Indian Telecoms and IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, has tasked the National Informatics Centre (NIC) with developing a blockchain-based solution for improving the quality of government schools. According to a Jan. 20 report by the Press Trust of India, the minister made the request at the inauguration of a blockchain technology center of excellence, set up by NIC in Bengaluru, on Jan. 18. Blockchain challenged to transform education The NIC and local state authorities should open their doors for startups working under defined norms, said Prasad. “I am very…
Palestinian Militant Group Has Received 3,370 Bitcoins in Donations Since 2015: Report
A Palestinian militant group took millions of dollars-worth of bitcoin donations to finance its operations, according to a new report. Obtained by the Jerusalem Post and reported Sunday, the report from the Israeli International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) found the al-Nasser Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), used bitcoin sent from overseas as a means to fund operations both in and out of the Gaza Strip. ICT researchers linked the group to the bitcoin wallet address, “1LaNXgq2ctDEa4fTha6PTo8sucqzieQctq,” which showed “an irregular increase in the scope of…
Raiz to Offer Bitcoin Fund to Australian Retail Investors in 2020
Australian micro-investment startup Raiz is set to bring Bitcoin (BTC) fund options to its users, Australian Financial Review (AFR) reports on Jan. 20. The firm cleared the last legal hurdle with the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC), the country’s financial watchdog agency. Raiz is a fintech startup offering micro-investment services to its 300,000 registered accounts. Like the United States-based Acorns and other worldwide startups, it “rounds up” the spare change from the users’ purchases to invest it in a set of investment products, generally comprising exchange traded funds (ETFs).…
Guide to WEF Davos 2020: Sustainability, Stablecoins and CBDCs
The annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is about to start. As usual, the forum will gather the world’s political and business elite, and will last from Jan. 21 to 24. Here’s everything there is to know ahead of time on how this meeting will be vital for the crypto and blockchain industry. WEF is modernizing its agenda This year’s theme is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World,” which could be seen as the WEF’s response to criticism surrounding the annual gatherings in the Alps. Over the past…
Binance P2P Crypto Trading Platform Supports Vietnam’s Fiat Currency
Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has launched peer-to-peer (P2P) trading for the Vietnamese dong (VND). Vietnam-based Binance users can now directly purchase and sell major cryptocurrencies using VND through the latest versions of the Binance P2P mobile app on iOS and Android. The four supported cryptocurrencies include Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), major stablecoin Tether (USDT) as well as Binance’s native cryptocurrency Binance Coin (BNB), the firm said in a press release shared with Cointelegraph on Jan. 20. Vietnamese dong is the second fiat currency on Binance’s P2P While Binance has been…
Binance CEO Suggests Crypto Exchanges Are Safer Than Keeping One’s Keys
Changpeng Zhao, the co-founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, suggested that for most, keeping crypto assets on an exchange is safer than keeping the keys themselves. Zhao gave his comments in a tweet on Jan. 19 after famous crypto skeptic and gold bug Peter Schiff complained that he lost access to his Bitcoin (BTC). Invoking the phrase “SAFU” — a slanger term in the crypto community for “safe,” Zhao said: “Many hardcore crypto [organizations] advocate storing your own keys. But the truth is, today most people are not able…
2 Genuine Reasons Why Bitcoin Will Hit $20,000 in 2020
Coming into the first quarter of 2020, offbeat asset bitcoin is already proving to be the year’s best investment. The benchmark cryptocurrency’s upside run has returned roughly twenty-fold returns in January. Its rate peaked at over $9,190 on Coinbase exchange on the 19th. In comparison, it was trading at a mere $6,300 on December 18th, 2019. Many in the finance industry believe that the ongoing bitcoin price rally is a farce – a classic speculative bubble that would sooner or later leave investors under sizable losses. That includes a famous…