• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Idelto

Cryptocurrency news website

  • About
  • Monthly analysis
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
  • Bitcoin/Ethereum
  • How to invest in cryptocurrencies
  • News

Bitcoin

Yahoo! Finance Rolls Out Bitcoin Core, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading

31/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

Yahoo! Finance Rolls Out Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading

“The virus is spreading,” tweeted Morgan Creek Digital’s Founder & Partner Anthony Pompliano at the news Yahoo! Finance (YF) had integrated bitcoin core (BTC), ethereum (ETH), and litecoin (LTC) into their trading platform. He was one of many enthusiasts to insist the event was an important step in the quest for mass cryptocurrency adoption.

Also read: Venezuela Loves Dash: Altcoin Surges 30% on Adoption Push

Yahoo! Finance Integrates Bitcoin Core, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading

“You can now buy Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin on Yahoo Finance,” Mr. Pompliano announced through his popular Twitter account. YF’s embrace of cryptocurrency has many in the ecosystem excited about future prospects for more mainstream adoption. That indeed could be the case, or it might also be a deep wish as fans of digital assets slog through a brutal bear market.

YF is, of course, a subdivision of Yahoo!, one of the original web portals in the net’s early days. YF has been around for over two decades, a go-to source of information about stocks and financials. Bitcoiners of a certain age will remember YF as a first glimpse into the power of net information and aggregation.

Yahoo! Finance Rolls Out Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading

Why Litecoin Ahead of Others?

Nowadays, it is less viewed as innovator, and more as a melange, a giant salad of financial information through news, commentary, financial reports, assorted original content and a staple at conferences, along with the usual facilitation of press releases and housing of data. It is just as likely to be seen as a reliable source of financial reporting.

It was gobbled up last summer by Oath Inc, a subsidiary of Verizon. It now claims to be among the largest business news websites in the US. Hints of the broader company dabbling in crypto actually came a few months earlier, spring of this year, when its Japanese wing asserted it would purchase a healthy amount of crypto trading platform Bitarg Exchange Tokyo with hopes of launching its own exchange in the spring of 2019.

Yahoo! Finance Rolls Out Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading

Though its platform does track other cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin cash (BCH), YF has not made them available for trade to the public as of yet (a curiosity, as both, say, ripple and bitcoin cash outrank litecoin, for example, in market capitalization). YF’s crypto data is derived from Crypto Compare.

Is Yahoo! Finance’s crypto integration important? Let us know in the comments below. 


Images via Pixabay.


We’re celebrating Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer Jamie Redman’s work. Check out Jamie Redman’s author archives. It’s an encyclopedia, a living history of crypto. 

The post Yahoo! Finance Rolls Out Bitcoin Core, Ethereum, Litecoin Trading appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Filed Under: Anthony Pompliano, Bitarg, Bitcoin, Crypto Compare, English, Ethereum, Japan, Morgan Creek Digital, N-Featured, News Bitcoin, Oath Inc, Verizon, Yahoo, Yahoo! Finance

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With Crypto

31/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With Crypto

An eastern South Korean province plans to issue its own cryptocurrency to replace the local currencies of its nine cities, according to local media. An exchange will be established for the new crypto. The coins can be used for payments within the province and merchants can accept them using smartphone QR codes.

Also read: Yahoo! Japan Confirms Entrance Into the Crypto Space

Korean Province to Issue Own Crypto

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With Crypto
Gyeongsangbuk-do.

The South Korean province of Gyeongsangbuk-do has revealed that the effort to replace local currencies with a cryptocurrency has begun, Joongang Ilbo reported this week.

Also known as Gyeongbuk, the eastern South Korean province has been attempting to replace city-issued gift certificates with a cryptocurrency. Currently, nine cities of Gyeongsangbuk-do separately issue their own gift certificates, which are local currencies that can be used in selected areas of the province, the publication explained.

According to Naver, 60 municipalities nationwide, including nine cities in Gyeongsangbuk-do, currently use gift certificates as local currencies aimed at revitalizing local economies and preventing capital flight.

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With CryptoPohang, one of the largest cities in the province with over half a million inhabitants, is the nation’s largest issuer of these gift certificates, according to Kyongbuk daily newspaper. In May, the news outlet reported that the city had sold 100 billion won (~US$ 90 million) worth of the Pohang gift certificates since January last year.

According to Joongang Ilbo, the province’s Science and Technology Policy Department announced on August 27:

10 banks, mobile communication companies, a university research team and government officials of Gyeongsangbuk-do will gather for the first time for the issuance of the cryptocurrency.

Gyeongbuk Coin

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With CryptoThe tentative name of the cryptocurrency that Gyeongsangbuk-do is planning to issue is Gyeongbuk coin, the publication noted, adding that the first of the 100 billion won (~$90 million) annual issuance is expected in the first half of next year.

The province plans to create an exchange where Gyeongbuk coins can be purchased and sold. The coins can be used for payments and merchants can accept them using smartphone QR codes, the news outlet detailed.

Chung Sung-hyun, head of the province’s Science and Technology Policy Department, was quoted saying:

There are still many issues to be resolved…[such as] notifying merchants of the way they can use [the] coins, creating separate programs and issuing [the] coins (cryptocurrencies).

Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With Crypto
Canton of Zug, Switzerland.

Gyeongsangbuk-do recently sent a benchmarking team to the canton of Zug in Switzerland, which is home to many crypto startups such as Shapeshift, Xapo, and the Ethereum Foundation. The team, consisting of 10 members including some outside experts, met with a number of government officials and local businesses.

Following a series of meetings, a Gyeongsangbuk-do official was quoted by Sedaily saying “I think we can utilize the experience gained through benchmarking by making the identity cards for 5,000 Gyeongbuk provincial government employees like Zug as blockchain-based digital ID cards.”

What do you think of this Korean province planning to replace local currencies with its own crypto? Let us know in the comments section below.


Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Gyeonggi News Communication, Wikipedia, and Yonhap News Agency.


Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

The post Korean Province to Replace Local Currencies With Crypto appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Filed Under: Bitcoin, BTC, crypto, Cryptocurrencies, Digital Currency, English, Finance, gift certificates, Gyeongbuk coins, Gyeongsangbuk-do, korea, local currencies, local currency, Merchants, N-Economy, News Bitcoin, province, South Korea, Tokens, Virtual Currency

As Venezuela Takes Aim at Remittances, Bitcoiners Take Collateral Damage

31/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

As Venezuela Takes Aim at Remittances, Bitcoiners Take Collateral Damage

The Venezuelan government is cracking down on remittance payments with a new banking mandate, one that could put the country’s Bitcoin users on an even tighter leash.

In a letter “addressed to all banking institutions,” the government has ordered all domestic banks to disclose the IP addresses, financial details, transaction amounts and locations of all citizens who access their banking services from outside the country.

Per the measure, Venezuelans are expected to “notify [their] banking institution of [travel] instances prior to [departing], explicitly indicating their destination place(s)” and how long they’ll be out of country, the letter reads.

If a citizen fails to comply with the above stipulations, banks may “enact a special condition that restricts the ability of the client to make online transactions,” effectively locking them out of their bank accounts if they are caught accessing services outside of the county. The bank is then required to “report the policy holder’s name; identification of the resource/asset; date and place of provenance; date of imposed restriction and the IP address from which access was attempted” to the National Entity of Financial Intelligence.

“Lack of compliance with the above stated,” the letter concludes, “will result in the imposing of sanctions in accordance with the terms outlined by the legislative decree.”

An Attempt to Monopolize Money Transfers

The measure, self-described as a means to “preserve the interests of the users and of the general public,” is the government’s attempt to strongarm the community of Venezuelans who migrate to neighboring countries, such as Argentina, to send money home. Their own country’s economy ravaged by hyperinflation, these expats seek work abroad in hopes of earning a living wage to support themselves and their loved ones.

It’s these citizens funneling money back into the country that the government wants to police with its new order.

“A lot of people are sending money to their relatives in Venezuela and they want a cut of that,” Venezuelan Eduardo Gómez, head of support at Purse.io, told Bitcoin Magazine. This strategy, he continued to explain, is much like the Cuban government’s own monopoly over cross-border transaction clearing.

“If you look at what Cuba is doing … the biggest revenue source for Cuba is remittances; it’s all the Cubans living in Florida, in Miami, sending money home to their families. If you want to send money to Cuba, you have to go through the government to sell dollars for Cuban pesos.”

Venezuelan officials are reaching for the same control. In sanctioning state-approved trading houses, which as Gómez suggests are in the government’s back pocket, politicians are hoping to reroute all remittances through these institutions to take a cut of payments. The bank order is the means by which the government intends to coerce citizens to use these services.

And their IP addresses are the leverage. As the order indicates, if a client is caught accessing online banking services abroad, or she fails to report the required information to her bank, then that client could lose banking privileges.

Gómez told us that the government has already come down on citizens using middleman services who offer cheaper money transfer services in neighboring countries, citing his siblings’ use of such services in Uruguay.

This new measure will look to sweep up those they’ve missed, including users of well-known OTC Bitcoin exchange LocalBitcoins.

With Remittances in Sight, Bitcoin Users Caught in Crossfire

“Bitcoin is a threat to [the government] because people are using LocalBitcoins to trade money around,” Gómez said.

While Gómez admitted that there’s less volume on Latin America’s LocalBitcoins hubs compared to international exchange volumes, he did say that “volume is increasing,” as it has become a popular remittance option to circumvent government-sanctioned trading houses.

Expats will even use the service as an alternative to foreign currency transfer intermediaries. Many Venezuelans living and working in Argentina, for example, will convert their Argentinian pesos into bitcoin. Using LocalBitcoins, they’ll search for a Venezuelan trader who uses the same bank as them, something that can be tricky depending on rates, bitcoin-to-bolivar liquidity and transaction size. Once a user finds the right match, they’ll give the buyer their bank account number — or, in some situations, that of a relative — and settle the transaction.

Under the government’s new requirements, Venezuelans who deposit directly into their own bank accounts could be in trouble, Gómez said, as they could have their banking services shuttered on account of illegal use — with similar consequences for those buyers transferring the funds. If the measure takes its desired effect, Gómez believes that it could have damaging  ramifications on Bitcoin’s use and LocalBitcoins’s presence among Venezuelans.

“What this means for Bitcoin in the short term is that it could take some liquidity from LocalBitcoins because I have heard some rumors that a lot of Latin American traders for LocalBitcoins are Venezuelans living abroad. A lot of these guys left the country years ago, so what may happen is that a lot of those traders won’t be able to log into their bank accounts.”

Theoretically, this is easy to overcome. Instead of transferring funds into your own account, for instance, you could have them sent to a relative, instead. Gómez forecasts this as a likely outcome — one that, if it causes an uptick in LocalBitcoins’s popularity, could lead the government to shut down domestic access to the platform entirely.

“In the long term, the government may restrict LocalBitcoins via something like DNS blocking or IP blocking to restrict access to LocalBitcoins in Venezuela. If they see that a lot of people are using LocalBitcoins to circumvent this IP restriction, then they may see it as a threat.”

Still, this action would be a long time coming if it’s ever executed, Gómez predicts, for the same reason why LocalBitcoins is the only cryptocurrency exchange still active in the country: officials use it.

“A lot of people inside the government use LocalBitcoins to sell their bitcoins that they earn via mining because all of the government officials mine,” he said.

Even as the Venezuelan police raid local mining operations, government officials themselves mine with immunity, having bootstrapped their own rigs since the market’s 2017 bull run. Seeing as it’s so popular among officials, Gómez thinks the government will leave the exchange alone — for now, at least.

Bigger Than Bitcoin

In our talk, Gómez indicated that the government’s banking order will no doubt create headaches for Venezuelan Bitcoin users. But by and large, the order is about effecting greater control over all aspects of the economy. Wrangling in Bitcoin users, specifically those sending money across borders, is just one degree of this control.

“Ultimately, the government wants a cut of the pie for remittances,” Gómez said.

LocalBitcoins is certainly cutting into the government’s transaction processing profit, but it’s not only used for money transfers. Gómez also told Bitcoin Magazine that Venezuelans use the service to check the bolivar’s rate against the U.S. dollar, which has become a de facto trading standard for many in-country services.

Venezuelans used to reference DolarToday, a popular service for transparent bolivar-dollar rates. But ever since rumors began to spread that the Venezuelan government covertly purchased the domain to control the rates, “LocalBitcoins is becoming the market reference for the dollar,” Gómez said. Users will refer to the bitcoin-bolivar rate against the bitcoin-dollar rate to arrive at a reliable bolivar-dollar rate.

The government’s economic war, as Gómez indicated, is total — one that looks to tighten the noose around any service or tender that works around officially sanctioned services. Given LocalBitcoins is proving to be a multifaceted tool for those Venezuelans who use it, it’s reasonable to assume that, if its popularity continues to surge, the government may take action.

If it does, this could completely throttle the last access points Venezuelans have to cryptocurrency platforms and services. Gómez said that even though LocalBitcoins is the only operable exchange left in the country, “there’s [still] a lack of liquidity.”

In the event of this closing, Venezuelans will have yet another hurdle to jump when attempting to use crypto; this would neutralize one of the only economic safe havens citizens have left as the bolivar continues to hemorrhage value.

“Venezuelan salaries are so low that there’s not even a way for people to buy crypto. To put things into perspective, the average salary in Venezuela for one month of work is $1. Can you imagine that? Working a full month and only earning $1 at the end of it,” Gómez concluded in our talk.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin, English

Origin Protocol Launches Decentralized Messaging Platform

31/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

Origin Protocol Launches Decentralized Messaging Platform

Origin Protocol, one of the early initial token offerings listed on CoinList, has announced the launch of its new decentralized messaging service. Origin’s latest offering could challenge encrypted giant Telegram, which, while not decentralized, is widely used within the cryptocurrency community.

Decentralized Options for Origin Participants

Origin Messaging was designed to meet the need for a decentralized messaging system, not only for Origin, but for the entire ecosystem. The team believes this is a core service to their marketplace. In their words:

“Messaging is [a] critical component necessary to facilitate meaningful transactions [between users].”

Speaking with Bitcoin Magazine, Origin Co-founder Josh Fraser said the company is built on the belief that “buyers and sellers” should be able to “transact without rent-seeking middlemen.”

He continued, “When you cut out the middleman, you also remove their fees, and both the buyer and the seller are able to get a better price. We’re passionate about promoting free and transparent commerce and giving our community a stake in the network.”

The team has expressed confidence that a decentralized, encrypted, real-time service will best suit users. The Origin Messaging service was designed by leading research and development engineer Yu Pan, who is a co-founder of PayPal and a top engineer at YouTube.

Origin engineer Micah Alcorn outlined the features in Origin’s blog post. These include an open-source framework and secure, end-to-end encryption. According to him, user privacy is paramount, and no one — including Origin and the National Security Agency (NSA) — should have the ability to eavesdrop on user conversations.

The platform is also fully decentralized, built on top of OrbitDB, which is a serverless, distributed, peer-to-peer database that uses IPFS as its data storage and IPFS pubsub to automatically synchronize databases with peers. Furthermore, it is entirely free because though it leverages Ethereum’s infrastructure and signing capabilities, no messages are published to the Ethereum blockchain, which means there are no associated gas fees.

He also lists speed, auditability, ease of use and anonymity as useful features of the new platform. Interestingly, the Origin dApp is ERC-725 compatible, which means users can create non-fungible assets that are used to verify the authenticity of the message recipient’s identity.

According to Origin, “ERC-725 gives you a smart contract that you alone control. This smart contract represents your identity on the blockchain. You can attach as much identifying information to your identity smart contract as you want. You can also get attestations from other trusted third-parties like Origin that verify specific aspects of your identity and add those to your identity smart contract. You can see an example of this in action in the Origin dApp where Origin will verify information like your email address, phone number and Facebook account. After Origin verifies that you control those accounts, we will sign an attestation on your behalf that you can attach to your identity smart contract.”

Of course, users also have the option to include no identifying information at all and choose to be known as nothing but an Ethereum address.

Origin is not the first cryptocurrency project to pitch a decentralized messaging service. Obsidian, a fork of Stratis, for example, has launched its own decentralized messaging platform. Popular messaging app Telegram also had plans to decentralize its services by launching an ICO, though it took a step back from this plan in May of 2018 by canceling the public portion of its fundraising.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Filed Under: Bitcoin, English, Startups

Square’s Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Leap, and Lightning Plug

30/08/2018 by Idelto Editor

Square's Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Rise 6%, & Lightning Plug

Smartphone app payments company Square has had a pretty big week. It was revealed the company is further dipping its toes in the cryptosphere through a granted payments patent, and it’s causing quite a stir. Wall Street analysts have deemed the company a golden goose, thereby helping its stock price jump by 6%, and it’s finally getting an Apple-ready Lightning plug to ease users’ and merchants’ worries about design changes.

Also read: Venezuela Loves Dash: Altcoin Surges 30% on Adoption Push

Square Granted Patent for Crypto Payment Network

Merchants using the Square digital payments platform will soon be allowed to accept virtually any cryptocurrency, if the patent granted to the publicly traded company is to be believed. Ecosystem news outlet CCN appears first to have uploaded the 30-page approval document from the US Patent & Trademark Office. The company’s application was submitted Fall of last year, and the approval is dated from a few days ago.   

Converting from fiat currencies into crypto is something that has been done for years within the ecosystem by platforms such as Bitpay. The difference with Square is that it hits the crypto world already well established among millions of merchants. One of the most difficult aspects of spreading adoption among businesses is convincing them to also come along on other aspects of the infrastructure, from wallets to specialized point of sale systems. Square skips all of that, and thus its power.

Square's Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Rise 6%, & Lightning Plug

One immediate worry for any mainstream payments company dabbling in crypto is a possible slowdown in confirmations, as in the case of bitcoin core (BTC) during late 2017, impacting transaction times. According to the patent, Square has its own private blockchain, which could theoretically allow the company to monitor balances before final wiring/broadcasting. Double-spending is still possible, though difficult, but Square has smartly taken that burden off merchants and placed it on its own shoulders.

“The disclosed technology addresses the need in the art for a payment service capable of accepting a greater diversity of currencies,” the patent reads, “including virtual currencies including cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ether, etc.)…than a traditional payment system in a transaction between a customer and a merchant, and specifically for a payment service to solve or ameliorate problems germane to transactions with such currencies. Specifically, the payment service described herein can facilitate real-time (or substantially real-time) transactions, allowing a customer to pay in any currency of their choice, while the merchant can receive payment in a currency of their choice.”

Square Lauded, Jumps 6%

The most highly touted crypto patent by a publicly traded company has been Bank of America (BA) adding to its collection. To anyone’s knowledge, BA has yet to act on any of them. Some have suggested they were only used as ways to market the legacy bank more than anything else. Square might be different here, again, though it doesn’t have to be. Its CEO has more or less predicted bitcoin core (BTC) will be a world standard currency within the decade.

Whatever the actual case, it has been a good week, news-wise, for Square. On top of making the ecosystem buzz with a crypto payments patent, its shares rose by 6% after Guggenheim showered it with praise as a “best idea” within the financial technology space. It went further, suggesting Square is its “highest conviction name” in the sector, and raised its price call from $75 to $100.

Square's Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Rise 6%, & Lightning Plug

In 2018 alone, the company’s stock price has boomed by more than 130%, and Guggenheim’s Jeff Cantwell noted, “We expect a strong rate of revenue growth for SQ which should drive further share price appreciation.” Much of that optimism is based around the company’s application, Cash App.

It eerily apes what original cryptos like BTC were meant to do: borderless money transfers, be a staple of micro finance, and even act as way to get at the unbanked. Mr. Cantwell continued, “We think Cash App’s future revenue potential is underappreciated, we see it providing a key ‘services’ role for the underbanked.” In this year’s second quarter, Cash App users spent a quarter of a billion dollars with its linked debit card, Cash Card.

Lightning

If patents and stock prices booming were not enough, the iconic smartphone reader and payments platform has also finally received a Lightning plug to make up for Apple’s ditching of a listenable headphone jack.

For Apple it was a matter of phone aesthetics and space. For Square users and merchants, it was a matter of financial life and death. Without the square reading block, usually white, the entire project goes out the window.

Square's Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Rise 6%, & Lightning Plug
Left is the old, clunky setup. Right, Lightning.

Ultimately its users found workarounds and adapted. It was a stroke of genius to initially re-purpose the headphones’ auxiliary, but it also left them, at least momentarily, exposed should a design change happen. Square would give in and sell a clunky adapter, but that obviously lessened some of the get-it-and-go cache the product was built upon.   

Returning to their initial business model, Square announced recently it will now offer an answer to Apple’s Lightning opening – that slim, rectangular entrance every Apple user is familiar when charging their phone. The plug will make the device compatible from 2012 products to the present day. The company can stay small, agile, and refrain from forcing its users into adapters. 

Is Square becoming an important part of crypto? Let us know in the comments below. 


Images via Pixabay.


We’re celebrating Bitcoin Journalist Pioneer Jamie Redman’s work. Check out Jamie Redman’s author archives. It’s an encyclopedia, a living history of crypto. 

The post Square’s Big Week: Crypto Patent, Shares Leap, and Lightning Plug appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Filed Under: Apple, Bitcoin, Cash App, Cash Card, English, ether, Guggenheim, Jeff Cantwell, Lightning, N-Featured, News Bitcoin, Patent, Square, Technology & Security, US Patent & Trademark Office

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 216
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Archives

Recents articles

  • Bill Gates: Crypto Has No Valuable Output — It’s Not Adding to Society Like Other Investments
  • Rich Dad Poor Dad’s Robert Kiyosaki Thinks Bitcoin Could Bottom Out at $9K — Reveals Why He Remains Bullish
  • Kevin O’Leary Expects US Crypto Regulations to Come Out After Midterm Elections
  • ETH Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin Says The Merge Could Happen in August, There’s Also ‘Risk of Delay’
  • Draft Law About NFTs Submitted to Russian Parliament
  • Dubai Creates Committee to Help Cement Its Position as ‘Key City in the Metaverse’
  • Crypto’s Barren Wasteland: A Look at What’s Left of Terra’s Defi and Token Ruins
  • Celebrating Bitcoin Pizza Day With Knoxville Bitcoin Network

© 2022 · Idelto · Site design ONVA ONLINE

Posting....