Bitcoin, Blockchain & Cryptocurrency News

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has forbidden the general public from investing in nine unregistered initial coin offerings (ICOs) and cryptocurrencies. The companies in question failed to duly register their business, despite the introduction of a framework to facilitate cryptocurrency investing, reported Bangkok Post on October 27, 2018. Nine ICOs Held An investigation by the SEC found out the…

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Vertcoin (VTC) is an older cryptocurrency project that has been around from a time when airdrops and ICOs were almost unheard of. Launched in 2014, Vertcoin was initially touted by many as a significant challenger to the dominance of bitcoin. Vertcoin discouraged centralized mining and thus makes it easier for individual miners and hobbyists to exert their influence on the…

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On October 26, 2018, crypto-finance company BitGo announced the launch of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), an ERC20-compliant token built on the Ethereum blockchain and collateralized on a one-to-one basis with bitcoin. “Power of Bitcoin” Described as the “Power of Bitcoin and the Flexibility of ERC20,” the token’s website notes a majority of bitcoin trading takes place on centralized exchanges, which causes…

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Britain’s Royal Mint, a wholly government-owned mint whose primary objective is to create gold and silver coins for the state, will not be launching its gold-backed cryptocurrency any time soon, as the U.K. authorities have kicked against it, reported Reuters on October 23, 2018. Royal Mint’s Digital Gold Ambition Sees Significant Setback As earlier reported by BTCManager in November 2016, Royal…

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On October 26, 2018, Interstellar, the product of Stellar’s acquisition of Chain, announced a new implementation called “Starlight” that allows for secure and private bidirectional payments on the Stellar protocol. Payment Channels The whole purpose of these payment channels is to allow different parties to privately and securely transact with zero fees and without having to trust the other party….

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With billions of people and devices connected to the internet at any given point of time, online security has perhaps never been this crucial. Despite all the vulnerabilities the approach implies, sensitive data – including personal identities and financial records – is still stored on centralized servers accessible via password authentication. While most companies do their best to curb cyber…

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Since the launch of the initial Trinity Wallet, IOTA has announced that its Trinity Wallet bug bounty program is now open to the general public following months of developer-focused bug hunting on Bugcrowd. In an announcement posted on its official blog on October 24, 2018, IOTA revealed that public users can now earn money for discovering bugs in the wallet,…

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Roger Ver has revealed a plans to launch an in-house exchange with bitcoin cash as the base currency. This move is another tool in the marketing tactics applied by Ver and other bitcoin cash proponents to increase BCH adoption and to position it as “the real bitcoin.” Bitcoin Cash Adoption is Low The Roger Ver-backed altcoin Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has…

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An arbitration body in China has ruled that despite the country’s central bank’s ban on cryptocurrency trading, bitcoin should still be legally protected as a property with economic values, Shenzhen Court announced on their official WeChat account on October 25, 2018. Chinese Court Confirms Bitcoin Protected by Law The Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration published a case analysis on October…

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Visa CEO Al Kelly doesn’t see cryptocurrencies posing a threat to Visa in the near future, and said that the financial services giant won’t get into the cryptocurrency business until they become more traditional payment instruments, CNBC reported on October 25, 2018. Visa Not Keen on Crypto Investments Just yet Despite Mastercard’s unexpected push for a patent outlining “fractional reserve…

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