Singapore has started distributing Bluetooth contact-tracing tokens to its five million residents to help contain the spread of Covid-19.

The tokens, which can be worn on a lanyard or carried, are a hardware version of its existing contact-tracing app which was rolled out in March.Like the app, they use Bluetooth to look for other users' devices and then log any contact with those devices.

They could be popular with older people who do not use smart phones.The government also hopes the tokens will help to further reopen the economy, by enabling conferences to restart and providing better tracing in higher risk settings, such as busy hotels, cinemas and gyms.

The initial rollout is happening in areas with a greater concentration of elderly people, who are both at a greater health risk from Covid-19 and less likely to own a smart phone.But the token will be available to all citizens, including foreign residents.

Singapore residents currently check-in to shops and office buildings using a separate SafeEntry system, that makes use of QR codes to log users' presence.For some higher-risk activities, SafeEntry will now also require the app or token to check in.

Better for privacy?

A consultant tapped by the government's technology agency to provide feedback on the token said it's a better option for anyone concerned about privacy."I would prefer to use the token over the app," said Bunnie Huang, who lined up for a token on the first day it was available.

Like app, information is stored on the token, purged regularly and is only uploaded - or in the case of the token physically handed over - to the Ministry of Health if the user tests positive.

The tokens can be carried on a lanyard or in a bag, and don't require a smart phone to run.

• Coronavirus: England and Wales' contact-tracing app gets launch date
• TraceTogether: Singapore turns to wearable contact-tracing Covid tech

The advantage to a hardware-only version, said Mr Huang, is that it makes it impossible for a software update to surreptitiously turn on location data or other sensors without the user noticing.

"With the token, if I want it off, I know how to destroy it," he said.The token will also help to cover people without a smart phone, and those who have encountered functionality problems with the app, he said.



Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES

Apps around the world

Singapore was the first government to introduce a contact tracing app nationally in March.Since then, about 2.4 million people have downloaded the app, with about 1.4 million using it in August.

Singapore government figures have long acknowledged that those numbers need to increase to make the app and the token effective.

But the Ministry of Health said the program has helped to reduce the time it takes to identify and quarantine close contacts of Covid-19 cases from four days to two.

The city-state has been more enthusiastic about contact tracing apps than many other countries, which have been slower to introduce apps or have struggled to make good use of them.

England and Wales, for example, won't introduce their app until later this month, while Australia has struggled to get any information from the app that it didn't get by regular contact tracing.

There are exciting ways to make extra income from engaging in the DeFI market and locking assets in decentralized protocols.
It is no longer news that decentralized finance provides crypto holders with a myriad of opportunities to earn passive income. While this is a known fact, I believe that it does not tell the whole story.

Although DeFi’s narrative has successfully captured the attention of crypto investors, there are not enough educational materials out there that encapsulate the workings of the growing horde of protocols responsible for DeFi’s astronomical rise as the new “poster child” of the crypto market.

Some argue that the fast-paced nature of this emerging sector makes it almost impossible to identify and track income-generating opportunities.

Conversely, others blame the intricate concepts associated with DeFi.I recently had the opportunity to talk to Viktor Radchenko, founder of Binance’s Trust Wallet, and while exploring the intricacies of some of the quality protocols in this sphere, he agreed that DeFi offers unique profit-generating capabilities.

According to Radchenko, the simplest way to identify the market dynamics of protocols with the potential of generating passive income is to track metrics on DeFi Pulse.

As a result of DeFi’s landscape evolution and changes, there’s no one way to quantify the rate at which the technology is altering conventional financial services.

However, the most lucrative DeFi-optimized sectors at the moment are decentralized exchanges, lending and borrowing, derivatives, and assets.

Uniswap, which falls under the decentralized exchange category, enables relatively cheap, flexible trades by providing liquidity pools for various crypto pairs.

Since the protocol is fully decentralized, users are also tasked with the responsibility of providing liquidity. In turn, they automatically receive a share of the transaction fees generated from such liquidity pools. As Radchenko explained:

“So, what happens once you have staked these funds is that you will receive LP tokens, which allows you to have a share of the pool, and this is kind of how you get all the rewards based on how much trading happens.”

Just like Uniswap, protocols targeting the lending sector such as MakerDAO, Kava, Curve, Aave and Compound have developed unique models that let users earn rewards.

The core principle of these platforms is to allow borrowers to collateralize digital assets and take out loans in other cryptocurrencies at better rates when compared with the yields from traditional lending services and banks.

Decentralized derivatives systems create virtual assets that can represent the value of real-word financial assets.

The goal here is to expose crypto holders to a wide range of markets. When asked how plausible it is to trade Tesla on decentralized derivatives protocols in the near future, Radchenko responded that he believes this will happen sooner rather than later. He stated:

“Yes, you can. Maybe in the future. I think we are really close to making it happen, even though you won’t be able to trade the stock or the short of Tesla itself. But you will be able to speculate on the price of the Tesla stock.”

Lastly, Yearn.finance is another good addition to the DeFi landscape, as it boosts the earnings of participants. Instead of undergoing a plethora of processes to engage in more than one yield farming or other income-generating opportunity, you can optimize your earnings with the less cumbersome Yearn.finance protocol.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Sarah Austin is head of content for Kava Labs, a DeFi-for-crypto startup company based in Silicon Valley. Sarah is the host of the web show Decentralized Finance.

She is an entrepreneur, author and TV personality who has formerly worked with Forbes, MTV and Bravo and was marketing manager for Oracle, SAP and HP.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Nigeria has issued regulatory guidelines for digital currencies and crypto-based companies or startups.

The aim, according to Nigeria’s capital market and investment regulator, is to protect investors and create standards for ethical practices.

Also, the Commission will regulate all Digital Assets Token Offerings (DATO), Initial Coin Offerings, Security Token ICOs , and other Blockchain-based offers within Nigeria by Nigerian issuers or by foreign issuers targeting Nigerian investors.

According to a statement released today, September 14, 2020, the SEC will be taking a three-pronged approach to regulate innovation in the crypto sector; these are: safety, market deepening, and providing solutions to problems.

The Commission states that it will regulate crypto-token or crypto-coin investments when the character of the investments qualifies as securities transactions.

Every crypto asset in Nigeria will be treated as securities, unless the company or startup proves otherwise. If the SEC determines that a digital asset is not a security, it will not regulate it.

Digital assets are to be registered

According to the Commission, crypto issuers or sponsors will be required to register their digital assets with the Commission.First, they are to make an initial assessment filing with the Commission to prove that the assets they issue are securities.

Then, there will be a filing for registration proper.

Those that have already issued assets or engaged in ICOs will be given three months to comply with the stated registration requirements.

Consequently, every individual or corporate organisation that engages in any aspect of Blockchain-related and digital asset services must register with the SEC and follow its regulatory guidelines.

“Such services include, but are not limited to reception, transmission and execution of orders on behalf of other persons, dealers on own account, portfolio management, investment advice, custodian or nominee services,” the SEC states.

While this seems to apply to crypto exchanges, crypto-based startups, and even individuals running their own exchange service within Nigeria, the Commission states that it might require foreign or non-resident startups or companies to establish a branch in Nigeria.

Foreign companies will be recognised if they belong to a country that either has a reciprocal agreement with Nigeria or is a member of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Why this is relevant

Image by Daniel Bone from PixabayIn recent times, Nigeria has been among the leading countries for crypto adoption globally.

In Q1 2020, Nigerian youth led the rest of the world in crypto adoption, and according to a report by Chainalysis, Nigeria was eight overall in crypto adoption in Q2 2020.

This rapid adoption and apparent absence of a definite regulation has seen the entry of several crypto-based startups into the Nigerian market.

All looking to grab a share of the spoils from Africa’s most populous nation.The introduction of specific guidelines for the crypto space becomes relevant in order to improve safety for crypto users in Nigeria.

Hanu Fejiro Agbodje, CEO of  Patricia, made this point very clear during the session on Securing Africa’s Future with Digital Currencies at the recently concluded Techpoint Build 2020.

According to him, these regulations should be made with the aim of bringing sanity to a space that is rapidly proliferating, rather than stifling or restricting their activities. This, he says, will help people know who to trust.

Though the SEC states that it doesn’t want to stifle innovation, its previous guidelines for crowdfunding startups in Nigeria featured very high entry requirements, which it has later reviewed.

While the present regulations do not seem to have any strict entry requirements, the specific details are not yet made public.

Recall that, in 2019, the Commission released a draft document to regulate digital assets, but some industry players insisted that while it was a good move, it was much too early for a regulation.

Despite the supposed adoption, the major use of crypto in Nigeria is mainly for P2P exchanges, and not much infrastructure has been developed for crypto in Nigeria.

As earlier explained, there is no meaningful mining activity, and it still has the lowest number of merchants that accept cryptos as a means of payment.

As an expert explained in a previous piece, the government needs to contribute to the development of Blockchain technology before trying to regulate its use.

However, for activities like ICOs in Nigeria, that sometimes tethers towards fraud, this could  be a welcome development.

For now, the SEC looks to regulate a part of the digital currency space currently gaining traction in Nigeria.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong criticized Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) on Saturday, saying the latter was stymying its efforts to let its app users earn money using cryptocurrency.

What Happened: Armstrong said the Cupertino, California-based technology giant was restricting the cryptocurrency exchange desk from adding new types of services to its app.

“Why would Apple want to prevent people from earning money during a recession? They seem to not be ok with it, if it uses cryptocurrency. I'm not sure why,” Armstrong wrote, alluding to the functionality of their Coinbase Earn product.

“We sometimes end up in bizarre negotiations with them, modifying the product, and asking users to jump through hoops (do a task on mobile, then move to the web to claim your reward!) to comply with their guidelines,” the Coinbase CEO added.

Why It Matters: The San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange desk and Apple have a prior history of app-related issues. The exchange’s iOS app was removed from the App Store a month after its launch in 2013, according to Coindesk. 

Armstrong accused the Tim Cook-led company of coming in the way of decentralized apps and behaving like how Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) did when it bundled Internet Explorer with Windows “back in the day.

”Apple is also facing flak from other tech rivals such as Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) and Microsoft over its App Store policies.

The iPhone maker is also in litigation with Epic Games over removal of “Fortnite” from its marketplace after the game maker tried to offer an alternative in-app payments mechanism.

Price Action: Apple shares closed nearly 1.3% lower at $112 on Friday.

Our mission to help you navigate the new normal is fueled by subscribers. To enjoy unlimited access to our journalism, subscribe today.

New data provided to Fortune by the cryptocurrency research firm Chainalysis finds that Ukraine and Russia rank first and second, respectively, in the adoption of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

But while the vast majority of this activity is legitimate, Eastern Europe also leads the world in the illicit use of cryptocurrency on darknet marketplaces and in ransomware schemes.

Ukraine ranked first worldwide on Chainalysis’s Global Crypto Adoption Index, which includes measures of cryptocurrency value received, exchanged, and deposited.

Over a 12-month period from July 2019 to June 2020, Ukraine sent $8.2 billion worth of cryptocurrency and received $8 billion worth. Russia ranked second on a population-adjusted basis, sending $16.8 billion and receiving $16.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency.

Overall, Eastern Europe accounted for 12% of global cryptocurrency activity in the period. The study tallied activity in more than a dozen different cryptocurrencies.

According to Roman Sannikov, a Russia specialist with cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, the high volume of legitimate cryptocurrency use in Eastern Europe is a legacy of the Soviet Union and its collapse.

For roughly a decade beginning in the early 1990s, he says, former Soviet citizens didn’t have good access to the global banking system.

They became used to alternative ways of sending money internationally, including cryptocurrency precursors such as e-gold, even for mundane uses like eBay purchases.

People in Eastern Europe are also generally very tech-savvy, Sannikov says, while the Russian ruble has been unstable in recent years, adding to the popularity of cryptocurrency there.But not all cryptocurrency users in the region are above-board.

Chainalysis found that Eastern Europe was the only part of the world where a darknet marketplace, a hidden website offering illegal goods such as drugs for purchase with cryptocurrency, ranked among the top 10 highest-volume cryptocurrency services.

The Russian darknet market Hydra ranked as the sixth-highest volume cryptocurrency service in the region, outranking popular (and legal) cryptocurrency exchanges including Kraken and BitMEX. Chainalysis concludes that Eastern Europe accounts for more overall darknet market-related cryptocurrency activity than any other region.

Eastern Europe also leads the world in ransomware payments. In ransomware schemes, hackers lock victims’ files or computers and demand payment—usually in cryptocurrency—to unlock them.

Chainalysis found that 23% of all funds sent from ransomware addresses were funneled to Eastern Europe, indicating that the region is the home to the world’s highest-earning ransomware operations.

Criminal applications, however, made up less than 2% of the activity Chainalysis tracked in Eastern Europe.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

If you ask people what they know about cryptocurrency, chances are you’ll hear the words Bitcoin (BTC) or blockchain — or even both. However, what many individuals aren’t aware of is that over 5,000 cryptocurrencies exist in the market today.

This huge number makes things a little confusing for investors.With so many options to choose from, the task of choosing one to invest in can be challenging.

At the same time, though, there are several potential opportunities for people to get scammed in the crypto space.

You see, some bad actors have designed tokens in a bid to scam people out of their hard-earned money. Whether you choose to move funds transparently or privately, your first priority should be to find authentic crypto assets to invest in.In this article, we’ve compiled a list of a few precautionary techniques that can help you analyze crypto tokens — whether a utility token or asset token — properly to make a safe choice.

Carefully going through the token’s white paper

A cryptocurrency or initial coin offering’s white paper mentions the background, strategy, goals, concerns and timeline of the blockchain-related project for successful implementation. Since white papers are supposed to be detailed, they can be very revealing.

The biggest advantage here is that you can find out whether or not a company has a carefully conceived implementation plan of a company in place — something that can be very helpful for a token analysis.

Hence, going through white papers can be very useful.Here’s what a white paper should answer:

• What is the unique selling proposition of the project, especially when compared to its competitors?
• What is the vision and methodology of the project leaders, and how do they plan on being successful?
• What measures will the company take to achieve its goals?
• What are the token’s use cases?

Start any crypto or blockchain investment decision by reading the white paper thoroughly, and check if it has any complimentary resources. This can include financial models, SWOT analysis, legal concerns as well as a roadmap for implementation.

You’ll also be able to determine the suitability for mass-standardized trading of the tokens.If a company doesn’t offer a white paper, treat it as a red flag and move on to another one.

At the same time, keep in mind that white papers shouldn’t be taken as the holy grail of authenticity either — it’s wholly possible for a fraudulent company to create a convincing white paper.

For instance, PlexCoin managed to raise over $15 million with the help of its noteworthy white paper before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shut it down.

Find out more about the team leaders

The developers and administrative team are a crucial part of the success of any tokens project, which is why you should have an idea about the people who are backing the project. Find out whether anyone has worked on reputable projects before, or are notable members of the blockchain landscape.

In addition to this, their qualifications and experience should also be important considerations.Make sure the token is backed by people who know what they are doing.

This will help you move away from companies that prioritize personal profit over ethics.Seeing this loophole, scammers have started inventing fake founders and biographies for their projects.

Sometimes, they may even exploit the personal identities of unaware victims for their benefit as well.Hence, the best protection against this fraudulent tactic is to do your research, and do it well.

Skip tokens whose developers or founders you’re unable to find information about.

Even if you do find profiles, check to see whether the activities match up with the number of followers and likes, and be attentive to other similar nuances.

Determine the probability of any legal issues

Finding a great token’s ICO for investment isn’t enough. Sometimes, you may not be allowed to participate because of your jurisdiction. If you do decide to go ahead in such cases, you might end up breaking the law.

To avoid this, you need to make sure that regulators in your country haven’t restricted participation in such tokens.

Despite the fact that ICOs are still unregulated, the good news here is that regulators are working on making friendlier rules that can lift most of these restrictions in a good number of regions.

Verify whether the token’s project is solving a specific problem

Ask yourself this question before investing in a token: What problem is this token solving, and how is it unique? 

Verification is crucial when it comes to token analysis, especially if you want to safeguard the security of your investment.

People are becoming more aware of the looming online threats in cybersecurity, with the average cost of a data breach currently sitting at around $3.92 million. It’s the same caution that needs to be practiced when determining the utility of a token’s market value.

Plus, investing in blockchain projects that solve a unique problem will also see a higher demand surge, which, in turn, will boost the tradable value of its token. So, if you invest in the ICO of such projects, you’ll be more likely to score a more secure and profitable investment.

Observe the token sale process

All ICOs are dependent on a token or currency system when it comes to crowdfunding facilitation. You should always take a look for token sales figures while the ICO is on, keeping a watch on its progress over time.

In fact, companies and other endeavors consciously make it easy for potential investors to take a look at their system and token sale progress to establish legitimacy.

Nowadays, with the growing popularity of cloud-based infrastructure business models, blockchain-as-a-service is also becoming prevalent, which should make transparency even easier.

In other words, there is no reason why a company shouldn’t show you its token sales progress.

A company that makes it difficult for anyone to view the progress of its ICO is highly likely to be a scam. Try to avoid such companies at all costs.

Stick to people you can trust

Cryptocurrency has shown considerable maturity in terms of providing resilient custodial and noncustodial wallet solutions, but security is still a concern in the space. This is why we recommend working with trusted people whenever possible.

You see, it isn’t possible to scrutinize every project thoroughly. So when you work with and follow trusted people in the cryptocurrency landscape, you can have greater peace of mind.

These industry professionals have good knowledge about the blockchain ecosystem and can deliver sound advice as well.

The bottom line

Cryptocurrency and ICO spaces can offer multiple opportunities for investment. The only catch is to have the ability to make sound investment decisions and have done their homework.

At the same time, these spaces also have their own share of pitfalls, exposing people to scams and fraud, while even legitimate businesses with poor implementation strategies can cause severe financial loss. Try to stay away from low-liquidity instruments too.

There is, of course, no guarantee that a cryptocurrency or blockchain-related startup will be successful or legitimate, but following our above guidelines can certainly help you reduce the likelihood of getting scammed.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations.

Every investment and trading move involves risk, readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Sam Bocetta is a freelance journalist specializing in United States diplomacy and national security with an emphasis on technology trends in cyberwarfare, cyberdefense and cryptography.

Previously, Sam was a contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, working in partnership with architects and developers to mitigate controls for vulnerabilities identified across applications.

Singapore Exchange (SGX), a major investment holding company in Singapore, has issued its first digital bond powered by blockchain technology.

As officially announced on Sept. 1, SGX deployed its digital asset issuance platform to conduct a 400 million Singapore dollar ($294 million) 5.5-year public bond issuance for major local food and agri-business company, Olam International. 

Focused on Asia bond markets, the new digital bond was enabled by cooperation with SGX’s established blockchain partners like HSBC Singapore and investment firm Temasek.

As part of the joint initiative, HSBC provided its on-chain payments solution allowing instant settlement in multiple currencies to handle proceeds between the issuer, arranger and investor custodian.In order to issue the bond, SGX implemented DAML, a major smart contact language developed by American blockchain startup Digital Asset.

As SGX’s digital asset issuance platform is based on smart contracts, DAML enabled the company to model the bond and its distributed workflows for issuance and asset servicing over the bond’s lifecycle.

Smart contracts enable the platform to capture the rights and obligations of parties involved in issuance and asset servicing, including arrangers, depository agents, legal counsel and custodians.

According to SGX, the latest pilot of the new blockchain-enabled platform demonstrated major efficiencies like the elimination of settlement risks and reduction of settlement time from five days to two days.

The latest bond pilot comes after SGX partnered with HSBC Singapore and Temasek to explore the use of DLT for bond issuance in November 2019.

A number of companies around the world are trying to implement blockchain tech to bring more benefits to the global bond market. In July 2020, the Philippine Bureau of the Treasury launched a blockchain application for distributing government-issued treasury bonds.

Authorities in South Korea and Thailand are also exploring the potential benefits of blockchain in the bond market.

"DeFi," an acronym for Decentralized Finance, is the latest craze in the cryptocurrency community.Bitcoin (BTC) set out to provide a decentralized alternative to the world's currencies in early 2009.

Now, the DeFi promoters say every aspect of finance, including loans, insurance, and trading platforms, should be built over decentralized ledgers.

What Happened: One such DeFi protocol set out to revolutionize the finance world is SushiSwap, with its associated governance token "SUSHI."The governance token launched on Aug. 28, opening for trading at $2.59, according to data from CoinGecko.

As of Sept. 1, the cryptocurrency surged 331.3% at $11.17 in intra-day trading, and the protocol amassed more than billion in total locked value.

Why It Matters: This weekend, on Sept. 5 11:57 AM UTC, the protocol's pseudonymous founder Chef Nomi liquidated 2.5 million of their SUSHI tokens, worth about $6 million, to the more established cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH), as earlier reported by Decrypt.

Chef Nomi further removed 20,000 ETH, worth about $7 million at the time, from the pool.The founder of the project cashing out the asset sent SUSHI's market price tumbling, as Chef Nomi faced accusations of "exit scamming.

"Exit scams in the industry refer to founders of a cryptocurrency project disappearing with investor funds, or exiting a project after liquidating their own assets followed by a surge in the value of the said cryptocurrency.

SUSHI tanked to as much as $1.2 after the founder cashed out the assets, eroding up to 89.2% of the value from the record height hit a few days earlier. The trading price represented a wipe out of 53.67% value from the launch price.What's Next: Nevertheless, Chef Nomi didn't go anywhere.

"The fact that I sold some [SUSHI] devshare does not make Sushi more scam or less scam," they said. "The fact is on the code.""I'm not sure why everyone thinks I am a scammer now. I did not steal anyone's money," Chef Nomi added.

The backlash from other Sushiswap backers didn't stop with Chef Nomi's explanation, who said the founder hurt the project with his actions.

To rebuild that trust in the project, Chef Nomi said he was transferring the control over the project to FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who in turn claimed, Sushiswap will finally be under community control.As of press time, Sushi is back up 3.3%, trading at $2.85.

Estonian startup Mercuryo.io has raised €2.5 million in seed funding with hopes of becoming the Stripe for cryptocurrency payments. The investment was led by Berlin-based Target Global and will fuel an ambition plan to scale across Europe, Africa and Latin America.

In addition to offering a multicurrency crypto wallet for everyday consumers, the company has built a B2B payments infrastructure. The technology offers solutions for cross-border payments, virtual accounts, business payments, remittance processing and mass payouts. 

As a crypto-fiat gateway, Mercuryo partners with several other European fintech businesses and integrates with cryptocurrency enterprises such as Bitfinex, BitForex, BTC-Alpha, OKEx. In a press release, the team claims it achieved 20x volume growth in the last six months, surpassing 200,000 users.

Founded in Tallinn in 2018, the Baltic fintech startup also has an office in London. Its website says that cryptocurrency cards, the old-school plastic kind that can live in a physical wallet, are on their way, too.

The state of California has long played with the idea of leaving the union and becoming its own region. In other words, it would look to stand alone and sever any ties to the United States.

California Looks to Become an “Island”

Known as “Calexit” (similar with “Brexit” in the United Kingdom), the state of California would not be governed by U.S. federal regulators and look to potentially govern itself.

One of the biggest steps in the movement to break California’s attachment to the American states is that it would implement several cryptocurrency regulations that would permit a universal basic income for all residents via digital currency.

In addition, the region would grant citizens free healthcare.Ziyen energy head Alasdair Caithness explained in an interview:

The policy will involve developing a blockchain-backed cryptocurrency. This will democratize ownership of the California government’s land, resources and assets through tokenization into a usable currency. It is the intention for it to be used to finance a level of free healthcare, free education and a form of basic income for all California citizens who have struggled to achieve economic liberty under the current U.S. federal government system.

While it may sound nice at first, there are several problems with this movement. For one thing, the ideas of basic income and universal healthcare are purely socialist. This means that while everyone is getting resources, taxes would likely have to be raised to extremely high levels to pay for such elements.

A basic income for everyone and free healthcare for millions of people a year are rather costly ventures, and the only way to incorporate such items into our government’s offerings is through tax hikes.

This was the main problem with Medicare for All. Initially promoted by democratic senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders, the idea of Medicare for All seems sweet at innocent at first glance until one considers the expenses behind such a maneuver, and that people like Sanders initially think that massive tax shoves on the rich are going to do the trick.

This Would Be Very Expensive

However, there’s one thing that a lot of people forget, and that is that uber rich people often keep their money in stocks and other markets that cannot be touched by taxmen unless shares are sold.

In addition, by incorporating themselves, members of the rich community can remain shielded from many of the tax implications that average employees cannot escape.

Interestingly, it appears most Californians see through the fine print of the plan, with a 2017 poll showing that nearly 70 percent of the state’s 40 million residents prefer to remain part of the United States, and just over 30 percent are leaning towards Calexit.

In addition, California currently boasts one of the world’s top five economies, and socialist practices such as these would ultimately break that up, resulting in a loss of financial status for the Golden State.

In its August 2020 volatility report, U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has predicted that September will bring excessively negative returns for Bitcoin (BTC).

The report notes that historically, September is Bitcoin’s worst-performing month, with an average return of -7%. It points out that as Bitcoin has underperformed its average returns for most months of 2020, this month’s performance was likely to be even worse than usual.

Despite the bearish outlook for the short-term, the report identifies some glimmers of hope, including that a record share of Bitcoin’s supply has not moved in more than 12 months — with Kraken noting that “historically, this dynamic has foreshadowed a new bull market.

”The report adds that Bitcoin is likely to see aggressive fluctuations as the markets move further away from July’s local low or “suppressed pocket” for volatility:

Twelve times in the past, Bitcoin’s annualized volatility bottomed between 15% and 30% before climbing, on average, to 140% and returning +196% over 94 days. As of the end of August, 38 days have passed since the volatility low of 23% set on July 24, with volatility rising to 44% and price gaining +25%

“So, history indicates that we may have ample room for higher volatility and gains in the months ahead,” the report explains.

Kraken also notes that September has historically produced the weakest volatility on average, suggesting BTC may not see accelerated volatility until at least the fourth-quarter of 2020.

However, Kraken’s crystal ball is not necessarily a reliable guide to future events, with the exchange recently predicting that a BTC rally of between 50% and 200% was imminent on August 10 — when Bitcoin was trading for between $11,500 and $12,000, just $500 from the local top that precipitated the recent 20% retracement.

The report notes that August also saw Bitcoin’s correlation with gold push into a new all-time high of 0.97, before sharply falling back to 0.25.

Bitcoin similarly produced high correlation with the S&P 500 throughout most of August. After posting a local top of 0.84, correlation between BTC and the S&P 500 crashed down to minus 0.02, suggesting that Bitcoin may be breaking away from the meta-trend of the legacy markets.

Risk is running rampant in financial markets. Stocks trade at dot-com-era valuations, the IPO pipeline is full, SPACs are back, Bitcoin’s headed toward a record. And right on cue, here come the crypto opportunists.

Fueled by a spike in speculative appetite, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs are offering new digital coins at a torrid pace reminiscent of the Bitcoin boom three years ago. Among the freshly listed: Porkchop, Davecoin, Spaghetti, Newtonium and Whale.

Many have no obvious utility, but investors have poured billions into them up in hopes of riding one to an easy profit.

The world of crypto has always attracted peddlers of get-rich-quick products when fans of rewiring the global financial system start buying into a new idea. In 2017, it was Bitcoin and the end of fiat currency.

This time, buzz is growing over decentralized finance applications that seek to cut out institutions from things like lending. Back then, tax cuts had juiced the global stock market. Now, central banks are plowing trillions into the system, depressing bond yields and sparking a rush into alternative assets.

“I lived through and profited through the 2017 crypto bubble and this feels somewhat reminiscent to it,” Michael Novogratz, founder and chief executive officer of Galaxy Investment Partners, said in an interview on BNN Bloomberg Television.

“It was the ICOs back then. A new ICO every day and the herd would swim to that ICO and jam the price up and there’d be a frenzy of liquidity and price and then it would collapse and they’d move on to the next thing. And it feels a little bit like that.”

More than 500 coins have been listed in the past month, according to CoinMarketCap.com. While exact figures for comparison are hard to come by, the boom hearkens back to when the blockchain frenzy saw iced tea makers, office-product resellers and even Kodak among those issuing thousands of coins with the promise of decentralized wealth.

Those took in billions before a crackdown by regulators revealed almost all were nothing more than marketing proposals. There’s little reason to expect that investors will fare better this time.

Perhaps memories are short in the world of crypto, or maybe it’s a new generation of coin fans driving the latest surge in demand.

Either way, it’s of a piece with the explosion of account openings at retail brokerages, where newbie traders piled into bankrupt companies and chased rallies in little-known stocks that barely have revenue.

The same forces are at work in the world of speculative asset companies, where investors buy into a publicly traded shell that aims to find a private gem to acquire.

As is often the case, crypto proponents are promising this time is different. Many of the new coins are related to projects that have actually launched and are structured in a manner to avoid some of the regulatory hurdles that tripped up a lot of ICOs. And some apps for decentralized finance -- known as DeFi to the crypto crowd -- have shown some promise.

QuickTake: Why ‘DeFi’ Utopia Would Be Finance Without FinanciersBut coins like Porkchop and Davecoin don’t feel different from 2018. They have none of the DeFi veneer, essentially providing investors a way to gamble.

Porkchop calls itself a game, in which total coin supply is reduced with each coin purchased, thus encouraging investors “it’ll pay to stay.”

Supporters of Davecoin, dubbed “a crypto awareness project,” get coins for certain tweets promoting it, with the promise of a windfall if the president or famous crypto investors such as the Winklevoss brothers retweet them.

It recently jumped 50% in 24 hours when stock trader Dave Portnoy, who inspired but isn’t affiliated with the coin, jumped into crypto before falling when he sold his holdings.

Other coins launched in recent months, like Compound, have become a favorite of speculators seeking triple-digit returns through strategies like yield-harvesting, in which users try to obtain as many tokens as possible and drive up the coins’ prices.

Even among DeFi apps that work to let people dis-intermediate banks, coins are popping up as extra incentives. “It sure appears as a speculative pump and dump,” said Mike McGlone, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

“This to me is part of the problem for the broad crypto market advancement -- just too much supply, competition and ease of entry.

”The surge of coins seeking to cash in on DeFi’s rise has come to dwarf the movement itself.While users have poured in more than $7.75 billion into all DeFi applications, valuations of all related coins easily top that. Chainlink alone -- which makes a technology that serves data feeds like coin prices into DeFi apps -- has a coin with a market capitalization of nearly $5.77 billion.

For veterans of the effort to upend the global financial market, the wild speculation is part of the natural way new markets develop and doesn’t diminish from the core view of how finance should be transacted.

These “are significant improvements over the last cycle’s model of raising an insane amount of money promising to decentralize everything and then failing to ship anything useful,” said Jack Purdy, an analyst at researcher Messari. “I don’t think this will end as badly.

”Still, some of the newly launched DeFi apps haven’t had their code audited, which leaves them vulnerable to losses through buggy code or hacks.

Project Yam Finance amassed $750 million recently -- then crashed within days, when a bug made it impossible for the app to function properly.

Many new DeFi tokens are listing on the dozens of new decentralized exchanges, where anyone can put a token up for free versus spending millions in fees at mainstream crypto exchanges.

Instead of waiting for weeks to get approved, tokens can get listed on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap and Balancer much faster, and in some cases almost instantly.

“The ease of manipulation and the ability to pump and dump with little legal recourse makes the space ideal for rampant speculation,” McGlone said. And that means open season for Porkchop and Davecoin.— With assistance by Vildana Hajric

Traders were aware of the risks of investing in DeFi, or decentralized finance, this summer's money printing bonanza that made people rich from so-called "yield farming," where investors in non-custodial lending protocols and liquidity pools earned extra tokens, netting annual yields of more than 1000%.

They just never hoped they'd have to face those risks. That day came today, when several of the coins powering the largest DeFi protocols crashed hard into the floor.

The top 5 crypto news & features in your inbox each day.

$SUSHI, the coin that powers SushiSwap, a kind of yield farming version of decentralized exchange Uniswap, fell by 53% in the past 24 hours alone. Perhaps related: The so-called Chef Nomi, the creator of Sushiwap, cashed out today.

With a market cap of $134 million, $SUSHI is still the latest crazy success story in the already-nuts DeFi world; on Wednesday, SushiSwap accrued over a billion dollars of value in its smart contracts.

Even crazier: it only launched on August 26.YFI, the coin that powers yEarn, the yield aggregator protocol masterminded by DeFi hotshot Andre Cronje, dropped by 31% in the past 24 hours, to $19,582. Zoom out a little and it gets even worse: The price of a single YFI coin hit $39,306 on Monday.

But YFI is still impressive. At $19,582, the cost of a YFI is about the same price as Bitcoin's all-time high back in 2017. (Granted, YFI's token supply is 30,000 to Bitcoin's 18 million).So why have the prices of the major DeFi coins crashed?

It could be the case that the prices of DeFi coins are correlated with the rest of the crypto market. All of the major DeFi protocols live on the Ethereum blockchain, meaning that ETH, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is something of a common currency on these protocols.


ETH-18.18%$323.2524H7D1M1YMax

Aug 6Aug 10Aug 14Aug 18Aug 22Aug 26Aug 30Sep 3300350400450500ETH Price 

ETH crashed by 12% in the past 24 hours alone, and Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has lost about $2,000 of worth this week, falling from about $12,000 to roughly $10,000.

DISCLAIMER

THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND DO NOT CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL, INVESTMENT, OR OTHER ADVICE.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors have taken a beating this week, with $50 billion wiped from the combined value of the world's cryptocurrencies.

The bitcoin price, which touched $12,000 per bitcoin earlier this week, dropped to just under $10,000 before rebounding to around $10,500, mirroring the ups and downs of the U.S. stock market.

Ahead of bitcoin's wild price swings, former hedge fund billionaire-turned crypto investor, Michael Novogratz, warned crypto's "speculative frenzy" was getting carried away.

MORE FROM FORBESNew Binance Exclusive Reveals The Bitcoin Exchange Might Have A Serious ProblemBy Billy Bambrough




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"I'm trying to stay as optimistic and bullish as I can on crypto, because it's really early in the cycle, but give the warning that there are other things in the markets that have me worried," Novogratz told financial newswire Bloomberg earlier this week, pointing to "too many markings of what a top looks like.

"Novogratz, the founder and chief executive of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital, named electric car-maker Tesla TSLA +2.8%, which has led the stock market higher in recent weeks, as a cause for concern and branded Tesla's soaring stock price "a bubble."


Alongside Tesla's stimulus-fueled rally, plucky investors have poured billions of dollars into new cryptocurrency projects in recent months, with many decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens promising sky-high rewards.

Many tokens tied to DeFi platforms crashed over the last couple of days, with the flavor-of-the-week, Sushiswap, losing more than half its value.

"High-flying DeFi coins took the biggest hit during yesterday’s sell-off with many being down 20% or more versus bitcoin over the 24-hour period," Tim Plakas of Galaxy Digital Trading said via email.

"It was almost a mirror image of what we witnessed in the equity markets yesterday, with many popular tech names getting hit hard as sentiment shifted.

"MORE FROM FORBES If Bitcoin Crashes Below $10,000 It's All Over-Here's WhyBy Billy Bambrough




The bitcoin price has bounced wildly this week as stocks retreated from all-time highs, led lower by ... [+] COINBASEDespite what he calls a "speculative frenzy" emerging over recent months, Novogratz is still bullish on bitcoin in the long-term.

"I'm positive that in ten years, the ecosystem around bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, the whole space, is going to be multiple times bigger than it is today," said Novogratz, who describes the emerging crypto space as "a sandbox" that should be put in the "broad venture capital bucket.

""Cryptocurrency is here for good," he added. "I couldn’t say that in 2017, or 2018, but that sentence comes with an exclamation point starting this year."Follow me on Twitter. 





Billy BambroughI am a journalist with significant experience covering technology, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the founding editor of Verdict.co.uk I reported… Read More

Bitcoin (BTC) may be testing $10,000 but further losses would not be unusual, says an asset manager on the 90th anniversary of the Wall St. Crash.In a tweet on Sep. 4, Raoul Pal said that the past 24 hours’ BTC price declines were nothing out of the ordinary.

Pal eyes Bitcoin buying opportunity

“In the post-Halving bull cycles, bitcoin can often correct 25% (even 40% + in 2017), throwing off the short-term traders (or giving swing traders a shot at the short side),” he wrote. 

“Each of those was a buying opportunity.  DCA opportunity ahead?”

Pal was referring to dollar-cost averaging investing, which involves buying a set amount of Bitcoin at regular intervals to slowly build up a portfolio. 

As Cointelegraph noted, the practice has seen proven profitability for BTC, and payment network Square rolled it out as a consumer feature this year.Comparing Thursday’s losses even to recent drawdowns from local highs, Bitcoin has fared less badly in context than price indices would suggest.




Bitcoin price drawdowns comparison. Source: ChartsBTC/ TwitterA knock-effect of the losses was nonetheless a dramatic shift in investor sentiment, according to the Crypto Fear & Greed Index. The Index, just days ago firmly in its “greed” zone, fell by more than 30 points out of 100 on Friday to stand at 40 or “fear” for the first time since July.


Crypto Fear & Greed Index as of Sept. 4, 2020. Source: Alternative.me

Markets hit Great Crash of 1929 anniversary

While analysts continue to eye the potential for BTC/USD to drop to fill a futures gap at $9,700, across macro markets, eerie historical signs are appearing.As noted by commentator Holger Zschaepitz on Friday, Sept. 4 marks 91 years to the day that markets began their rapid descent during the Wall. St. Crash.

“Just to put things into perspective:

After the fabulous gains on the stock market in the 1920s, the crash began just on Sep4th, 1929!” he tweeted.Just like 2020, the event followed several months of recovery in equities, with economist Irving Fisher infamously saying just beforehand that stocks had “reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.

”Zschaepitz’s words come as others warn about the health of gold, silver and the U.S. dollar currency index. In the case of the latter, after days of gains which coincided with Bitcoin price selling pressure, resistance is incoming, Cointelegraph Markets analyst filbfilb says.“Careful with this dump, he cautioned subscribers of his Telegram trading channel.  

“The other markets are on their last legs. If they survive then we probably do OK here. If they mega dump; you do not want to be heavily leveraged to the longside.”

U.S. dollar currency index daily chart. Source: TradingViewAt publication time, Bitcoin traded at around $10,400 after a modest rebound from lows of $10,090, with daily losses still at almost 9%.

Bitcoin prices tumbled 6.2% Thursday, falling below $11,000 for the first time in a month.

The price drop trimmed the largest cryptocurrency’s 2020 rally to 50% and sent digital-asset market traders and analysts scrambling to explain the sell-off.Here are three reasons cited by analysts:

1. Bitcoin slid in sync with traditional markets

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of large U.S. stocks retreated Thursday after climbing to a new record high earlier in the week. A report showing new U.S. jobless claims at 881,000 in the final week of August was better than feared – and the lowest since the pandemic hit earlier this year – but still well above the 665,000 level that marked the high point of the last recession in early 2009.

Pantheon Macroeconomics called the figure “still grim,” while Navy Federal Credit Union economist Robert Frick said the labor market was “continuing to struggle, and not showing improvement despite COVID-19 levels that declined in August.

John Todaro, director of institutional research at the cryptocurrency analysis firm TradeBlock, said:

“There could be an overlap between equity sellers and digital currency sellers.

The largest equity market decliners this morning are tech stocks, including retail trading darlings, Tesla and the FAANG names [Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet, once Google]. It is unclear if this will push into a continued broader crash in equity markets, which could put more pressure on digital currencies, or if it is just a short-term correction.” 



Weekly U.S. jobless claims fell to the lowest since the pandemic hit earlier this year, but were "still grim," economists said.Source: Labor Department, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

2. Bitcoin got pulled down because of DeFi unwinding

Traders have been getting out of the recent speculative fervor in decentralized finance, or DeFi, much of which takes place on Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain. Prices for ether, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain, tumbled 8.3% on Thursday after a 7.6% drop the prior day.

Yet those price drops followed gains of 54% in July and 25% in August amid reports of eye-popping dollar amounts flowing into DeFi – especially with recently-launched projects like Compound, Yearn.

Finance and SushiSwap – attracting attention from traders to the fast-growing and lucrative-but-risky pursuit of “yield farming.” Total value locked in DeFi more than doubled in August to $9.5 billion, but in the past few days the amount has shrunk to $9.1 billion, according to the website DeFi Pulse.

Denis Vinokourov, head of research at the crypto prime broker BeQuant, told CoinDesk in an email:

“The explosive growth that decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and all things DeFi has finally reached levels that begin to impact on the sentiment across its centralized exchange (CEX) counterparts, with the sell-off triggered by a combination of stratospheric Ethereum fees.

Also, an aggressive unwind of the very crowded trade across Uniswap token related positions in the wake of a number of tokens, namely PIZZA and HOTDOG, dramatically collapsed from $6,000 to $1 in a mere few hours.

This is likely because the same assets (bitcoin, ether and others) are used aggressively to structure collateralized positions.

Similarly to another DeFi heartthrob SushiSwap, these offerings were also Uniswap clones. DEX and DeFi trading is no longer a hobbyist activity and a number of firms that dominated CEX space have recently ventured out into DeFi to generate alpha. As such the Chinese wall that once separated markets is no longer in place and sentiment from one market will flow into another, and vice versa.”




Total value locked in DeFi more than doubled in August to $9.5 billion but has retreated to about $9.1 billion in the past few days.Source: DeFi Pulse

3. Miners sold some of their bitcoin

Bitcoin miners and possibly traders decided to take risk off the table by trading in some of their cryptocurrency, which they receive as rewards for helping to maintain the security of the blockchain network.

CoinDesk reported prior to Thursday’s sell-off that blockchain data were showing elevated transfers of bitcoin to exchange wallets, typically seen as a precursor of heightened selling pressure.

According to CryptoQuant, a blockchain-data analysis firm, tracking of major bitcoin-mining pools showed an increase in bitcoin being transferred out – ostensibly also to exchanges for a possible sale.

Ki Young Yu, founder of CryptoQuant, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat: “Miners are good traders. I think they are just looking for selling opportunities, not capitulation. I think it’s going to be the war of miners between those who want a bitcoin price rally and those who don’t.

Some Chinese miners already realize their mining profitability (ROI), and they might not want new mining competitors joining the industry because of the bull market.”




Outflows of bitcoin from major mining pools.Source: CryptoQuant

Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei has set up a blockchain-based platform for the Beijing government to better track and manage its citizens’ data in everything from medical records and property registration to real-time vehicle parking status.

• Huawei’s cloud services branch has enabled the project with blockchain technology such as smart contract and distributed ledgers, according to a report by state media People’s Daily on Monday.
• The Beijing government project is part of China's “New Infrastructure Initiative” to transform digital governance with blockchain so data can be immutable and shared among different government agencies. 
• The Beijing government project aims to leverage the blockchain platform to make data shareable among more than 50 agencies within the municipality.
• The new platform will help the government monitor coronavirus cases, streamline the process for people to register their real estate and find parking spots for local citizens in real time. 
• Huawei, as the poster child of Chinese tech, has met with heavy scrutiny and political resistance from the western world.
• The U.S. has barred Huawei’s major semiconductor suppliers from selling chips to the company, while both the U.S. and U.K. have banned local telecom companies from using Huawei’s 5G devices and technology for national security reasons. 
• The move also echoes the Chinese central government’s shift toward boosting domestic demand for emerging technology and services as techno-nationalism rises and the global market weakens.

Will Martino, the former lead engineer for JPMorgan's first blockchain Juno, shared insights into the project's acquisition by ConsenSys with Cointelegraph. He believes that while the technology was good for its time, it inherited fundamental flaws from Ethereum (ETH).

Since leaving JPMorgan, he has gone on to found Kadena, a proof-of-work blockchain that employs sharding to achieve scalability.While details regarding ConsenSys' recent acquisition of Quorum are sparse, it was noted that while divesting Quorum, JPMorgan was making an investment in ConsenSys.

Martino believes that the investment that the bank made was higher than the price tag of Quorum. He suggests that this might have been an easy way for JPMorgan to get rid of a business unit that was not going anywhere:

"Quorum was a real attempt at making Ethereum technology stick in an industrial setting. But it's being re-homed and I really don't think there's going to be a lot of progress down the line from ConsenSys.

From my point of view, I think they're mostly buying the brand and being able to just use the Quorum trademark and intellectual assets from that point of view for marketing."Martino says that the real issue with Quorum is that it just does not scale.

This may come as a surprise considering that it is built as a private fork of Ethereum and as such, does not involve mining. However, according to Martino, the issue lies deeper, stemming from the Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM:

"So when you take something like the EVM, which was never the bottleneck on a public blockchain and you put it onto a private chain, all of a sudden, it can very easily become the bottleneck. And that is one of the reasons that Quorum had a lot of trouble just performing more than (the numbers I have heard) between two hundred and thousand transactions per second."

Martino says his skepticism about Ethereum and its derivative technologies comes from both personal experience and talking to a lot of people in the enterprise space who have experimented with it:

"If JPMorgan, one of the biggest companies ever, can't drive adoption, even when they have a great internal use case, you have to ask yourself 'why'? And my answer to that is the technology is just fundamentally limited. And if you go and talk to other large system integrators, large consultancies, you'll hear very, very similar things. So long as you don't have someone who holds a lot of the Ethereum tokens as the head of Blockchain for the company, you're going to find that people say: 'We have tried using Ethereum, it just doesn't work'."

It is unclear whether JPMorgan has lost interest in blockchain technology altogether or just in this specific in-house experiment. Martino does not believe that the bank will switch to Hyperledger's Fabric; a popular solution for enterprise companies.

In his opinion, it is even worse than Quorum, which he referred to as being "best in class" at one point. Besides Kadena, Martino says that Near could also be a viable option.

Yet he believes that the pandemic has slowed enterprise blockchain adoption. He noted that we may not see another major push until 2021-2022.

Chainlink has acquired Cornell University’s privacy oracle solution DECO for an undisclosed amount. This is Chainlink’s second acquisition to date, according to an announcement made by the firm on Saturday.

DECO was co-created by Ari Juels, former chief scientist at digital security firm RSA. He will also join Chainlink Labs under the same title.

Moreover, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov and Juels have begun drafting a second Chainlink white paper, according to a phone interview with the pair. The duo authored the original Chainlink white paper with CTO Steve Ellis in 2017.

Chainlink’s oracle solution ports data from off-chain locations into blockchain smart contracts. For example, Chainlink provides data information for most decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, such as dYdX’s crypto derivative products. 

Read more: Money Legos Turn ‘Exuberant’ as Chainlink Stripped of ‘DeFi’DECO claims to leverage how HTTPS/TLS information is transmitted for more secure web practices, according to a release from the firm.

“DECO is also useful for users who want to monetize their own data (and therefore prove that they are indeed providing correct data) without giving away anything but the data that they are selling,” DECO’s website reads.

Decentralized credit

Nazarov said DECO can be used as a foundation for a few crypto wish list items, such as permissionless credit or decentralized identification.For example, he said DECO can prove a person is over 18 by pulling data from a DMV while hiding the individual’s birth date.

This could be further applied to the golden apple of decentralized finance, permissionless credit systems. Nazarov said an oracle like DECO could one day allow a smart contract to query off-chain credit information such as banking records without overreaching into personal data.

Read more: Chainlink to Provide Data for Farming Insurance Startup Arbol“DECO is the way a lot of collateral will make its way to DeFi,” Nazarov said.Juels told CoinDesk this privacy is possible through DECO’s incorporation of zero-knowledge proofs, popularized in cryptocurrency circles by the privacy coin zcash (ZEC).

In brief

• The IRS has a new draft tax form.
• A question on that form makes it clear the agency wants to know about American taxpayers' cryptocurrency activity.
• Tax filers must answer the question.

The US’s tax office, the Internal Revenue Service, has put cryptocurrency front and center in a draft of its new tax return form. This means that everyone filling it out must state whether or not they have acquired or traded cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. 

Here’s the question on the new form: “At any time during 2020, did you receive, sell, send, exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?” The IRS asked taxpayers the same thing last year, but the question appeared on a Schedule 1 form, which taxpayers had to specifically request.

This time, the question appears on the first page of the IRS’s mandatory tax form. 

IRS puts cryptocurrency front and center of 2020 tax return

The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) isn’t messing around when it comes to cryptocurrency. It first became part of the wider 1040 individual tax return form for 2019, but those pul...NewsBusinessAndrew HaywardAug 22, 20203 min read 

So, what does this mean for US taxpayers? As Chandan Lodha, co-founder of crypto tax software company CoinTracker, told Decrypt:

“The implication for users is pretty clear—if you want to stay out of the IRS' crosshairs, make sure you are staying compliant with the cryptocurrency tax rules.

”With the new form, “answering this question becomes compulsory,” Shehan Chandrasekera, CoinTracker’s head of tax strategy, told Decrypt. “You can not falsely say ‘no’ to this question if you trade crypto because you are signing the tax return under penalty of perjury.

”Failing to fill in the form correctly is “really setting an intent that you didn't want to comply,” Roger Brown, Head of Tax and Regulatory Affairs at Lukka, told Decrypt.

Then, he said, “Penalties around potential non-compliance get scaled up, from a monetary penalty to maybe even criminal investigators getting involved.” Brown’s point is that it’s difficult to plead ignorance, which may have flown last year. “Now,” he said, “because it’s on page one, it’s hard to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know.’” It’s possible that the IRS already knows that you hold cryptocurrency.

This month, the IRS sent out another batch of letters warning taxpayers suspected of owning cryptocurrency to file their taxes correctly and cough up taxes for previous years. 

IRS Sends Warning Letters to Suspected Crypto Tax Evaders

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It’s likely that the IRS worked this out by subpoenaing cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase and Bitstamp, for data about their US users, and by using blockchain analytics tools produced by Chainalysis, Coinbase, and Palantir.So, you have to answer the question. But “answering ‘yes’ does not mean you have to pay taxes,” said Chandrasekera.

“In some cases, you can write off crypto losses to reduce your taxes. Or if you receive a gift, you would check ‘yes’ but you won't have anything to report on your taxes.”CPA Ani Galyan, Esq. of Galyan Law, a member of the California Society of CPAs, told Decrypt, “Taxpayers who have any transactions with virtual currency should consult with a tax advisor before marking ‘no’ on this question because marking ‘no’ may result in a false statement to the IRS, a crime [in] itself.” 

Filing crypto taxes, however, is quite the affair. It’s necessary to calculate the capital gains tax of each cryptocurrency transaction.  “When you deal with multiple exchanges, wallets and DeFi platforms, calculating your capital gains and losses manually is virtually impossible,” said Chandrasekera. Crypto tax software, like those produced by LukkaTax, CoinTracker, and Recap, can be helpful here.

The form is still but a draft, and there’s a slight possibility that the question may be moved or erased. Brown, who used to work at the IRS, said the agency will likely print the forms in the next two months. But there’s a reason the IRS put it there, he said: “I’d be surprised if it didn’t remain.”

Over the past couple months — and one might argue far longer, with the elections of politicians the likes of Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump being indicative of and engendering growing political polarization across the world — anti-government sentiment has been on the rise on a global level.

Over this summer, Black Lives Matter protests have been racking many Western countries, most notably in major cities in the U.S.

In Hong Kong, anti-government protests broke out again when the territory temporarily recovered from Covid before enactment of the new National Security Law curbed further demonstrations.

In the Philippines, protests broke out over President Rodrigo Duterte’s Anti-Terrorism Act. That is not even to speak of the wider protests that rippled across South America and the rest of the world before the coronavirus pandemic necessitated their suspension. 

These anti-government trends and demonstrations are nothing new. Throughout history, protests have been a part of many countries’ political development regardless of system of governance.

But what sets the current waves of unrest and civil disobedience apart from its iterations in the past is the increasingly centrality of technology. In today’s world, social media and emerging technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence are playing a growing and perhaps already indispensable role for both the restive masses as well as governments trying to quell them.
 Mobilizing against the other through social media and AI
The most prominent role of technology in recent protests is its amplifying effect. Social media has allowed news and calls for action from the grassroots to reach large audiences instantaneously.

A single social media account holder, even if the individual has never held a leadership position before, can launch, facilitate and organize protests of enormous size and unprecedented scale.

Yet while technological advances have certainly contributed to the proliferation of social movements, they have also increasingly been a tool of centralized administrations to track, if not stifle, anti-establishment demonstrations. 

Nowhere is this more apparent than China, the nation with one of the world’s most digitally sophisticated populations but whose government has also been using technology in explicit ways to monitor and control its people. 

An employee at a subsidiary of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China told Forkast.

News that the use of artificial intelligence through facial and speech recognition technology “powered by the Aliyun Machine Learning platform and proprietary in-house AI… are used for identity management” in his office in Shenzhen.

The employee, who asked not to be identified, suggested the same technology is being deployed in Hong Kong without providing more specifics. 




The National Security Law in Hong Kong has spurred protests. Photo: Studio Incendo

See related article: Covid-19 intensifies AI rivalry between China and US—at what cost to civil liberties?

Regardless of the extent of actual state surveillance in Hong Kong, protestors certainly believe the threat of facial recognition technology is already real, pulling down street lamp posts suspected to be installed with it and, long before the first coronavirus outbreak, wearing face masks to avoid detection. 

The Ministry of Education employee, who has Hong Kong roots and has attended pro-democracy protests, asserts that “facial recognition enables totalitarianism” and points out that even on the mainland, “before, you could get away with the occasional quip [against] the government.

With increasing surveillance tech, it’s impossible.” In mainland China, where facial recognition technology is already in wide use, some police have been given facial recognition glasses to help identify lawbreakers.

Fears of Chinese retribution over anti-government protests have heightened in the days leading up to and following the recent implementation of the National Security Law.

Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the widespread deletions and purges on social media on by protesters themselves, as they scrambled to erase any digital evidence of their past participation in and support of anti-government movements.

As a major figure of a popular pro-democracy political party that has since disbanded in the wake of the law’s enactment explained: “the law purports to not be retroactively applicable, but I don’t trust the Chinese Communist Party to abide by the fine print. I don’t want to give them an excuse to arrest me.

” To a lesser extent, similar fears exist across the Pacific, where Black Lives Matters protesters urge people to refrain from using social media to document unauthorized protests, or at least to blur the faces of protesters who might be at risk of being arrested later on for unlawful actions.

Though the American government may be less explicitly engaged in or capable of monitoring its people, distrust of intelligence agencies such as the CIA and FBI runs high.

Though protesters recently pressured big tech into suspending police use of their facial recognition technology, concerns over whether or not attending a protest might result in being somehow marked or “put into a database” still abound. 

As a result, anti-government protests around the world are now trying to stay a step ahead of government use of surveillance technology. Advice is being shared from Hong Kong to the U.S. on ways to avoid being identified at a protest.

Pro tips include buying burner phones, using prepaid SIM cards, wearing mirrored sunglasses to deflect the infrared light that powers facial recognition, and leaving one’s credit cards and other forms of identification at home.  

Protestors are also using social media and messaging apps such as Telegram and Signal that cannot be traced back to the individual. As law enforcement use technology as swords to penetrate and cut down on the protests, protestors are now using it in turn as shields.

As one Hong Kong protestor who did not wish to be identified stated: “technology is a double-edged sword.

” When asked if technological advances as a whole had helped or hurt the cause of the individual against the government, the protestor replied, “it’s a net negative; individuals have access to the technology, but don’t have the resources (nor the political power) to back it up.” 



Facial recognition technology is being used in a variety of countries, including the U.S. Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Blockchain art and voting by cryptocurrency
Yet while it might be true, with traditional tech, that individuals don’t have the resources that governments do, blockchain may upend this presumption. Blockchain’s key characteristics are decentralization, transparency, efficiency and trustlessness — some of the cornerstones of populist movements today. 

Black Lives Matters activists have already picked up on these qualities and leveraged blockchain technology for protest purposes.

The project No Justice, No Peace is an artistic effort to call attention to 30 officer-involved killings and memorialize the names of victims “immutably on the blockchain.

”To spread information about each case into perpetuity, according to the project, “a wallet has been created in the name of each victim. Each wallet holds a token with the image of their killers.

The private keys of the wallets that control these tokens have been destroyed. No one controls these tokens. These tokens can’t be censored, modified, or taken down.

” This BLM art project — a collaboration between DADA Art Collective , non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Mintbase and blockchain-powered file storage company Arweave — speaks to the protesters’ distrust of traditional institutions to keep the public records on these officer-involved killings intact, and greater faith in blockchain.

Cryptocurrency, too, has been co-opted by some within the BLM cause, with speakers at rallies urging investment in bitcoin as a form of protest against the financial systems that historically have underserved Blacks, indigenous people and other communities of color.

Across the Pacific, a report by Amun, digital asset token company, asserts that “cryptoassets, chiefly USD-pegged stablecoins, [are] a major investment vehicle for promptly fleeing capital controls” of rich families trying to move their money out of China.

Hong Kong-based investors, according to Amun, also have been “fleeing to Singapore and trading stablecoins… in an attempt to preserve their wealth.

” Others are confirming these trends. While not overtly protesting, moving a significant amount of money and other assets from one country to another is still a form of registering dissatisfaction with the government-in-charge and voting with your feet.

Finance broadcaster Max Keiser quipped that bitcoin prices soaring to new heights this year could be attributed to “capital flight out of Asia taking the Bitcoin express… as tensions rise.

”Less affluent individuals have also turned to cryptocurrencies not as a way to preserve their own wealth, but to discreetly support political causes. In Hong Kong, the “yellow circle economy,” a network of pro-democracy businesses supported by protestors, has been fielding calls to more widely accept cryptocurrency for the sake of anonymity. 

Over-the-counter demand for bitcoin accordingly surged, coming in at US$2.4 million in the first week of this month alone in comparison to US$1.5 million in the entirety of June and July each.

There have also been proposals to establish a purpose-driven cryptocurrency for Hong Kong pro-democracy supporters.

One such thought experiment would create a dedicated blockchain called ROOT (“revolution of our times,” a popular pro-democracy slogan) with its own token, to be used in “yellow” establishments with the (incredibly aspirational) goal of it becoming Hong Kong’s sovereign currency.

Similar talk abounds among the pro-democracy groups on Telegram, largely concerned with the questionable data privacy practices of traditional financial institutions as well as payment systems such as Alipay. 

Telegram itself demonstrated interest in the crypto space. It garnered US$1.7 billion in an ICO for Telegram Open Network (TON), its blockchain platform, and Gram, its prospective cryptocurrency.

The project continued for 2.5 years before succumbing to SEC pressure. In October of 2019, the agency sued Telegram, deeming its gram tokens unregistered securities.

Telegram protested, arguing that its cryptocurrency was instead a commodity. Earlier this year however, a U.S. District Court issued a preliminary injunction barring the delivery of Grams.

The court also found that the SEC had shown “a substantial likelihood of proving that Telegram’s sales were part of a larger scheme to unlawfully distribute the Grams to the secondary public market.

” In the announcement of TON’s demise, Telegram founder Pavel Durov said: “today, we are in a vicious circle: you can’t bring more balance to an overly centralized world exactly because it’s so centralized.

We did try though.”“We’re leaving it to the next generations of entrepreneurs and developers to pick up the banner and learn from our mistakes,” Durov added.

“To all those striving for decentralization, balance and equality in the world[, y]ou are fighting the right battle. This battle may well be the most important battle of our generation. We hope that you succeed where we have failed.”Sign up to The Current Forkast – our newsletter + podcast combofor the latest weekly insights on emerging tech in Asia

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Kristie Chan

Kristie Chan is part of the Forkast.News editorial team.

• Over $50 billion of cryptocurrency moved from China-based digital wallets to other parts of the world in the last year, according to a report by Chainalysis.
• Chinese citizens are only allowed to buy up to $50,000 of foreign currency a year at a financial institution.
• The report said this could point towards the possibility of Chinese citizens using cryptocurrency to move their money out of the country. 

A photo illustration of the digital Cryptocurrency, Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) are seen on September 13 2018 in Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Yu Chun Christopher Wong | S3studio | Getty Images

Over $50 billion of cryptocurrency moved from China-based digital wallets to other parts of the world in the last year, pointing to possibilities that Chinese investors are transferring more money than allowed out of the country, a new report claims.

Chinese citizens are only allowed to buy up to $50,000 of foreign currency a year at a financial institution. In the past, wealthy citizens have circumvented the limit through foreign investments in real estate and other assets.

But the government has cracked down on these methods, according to a report by Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics firm.

“Cryptocurrency could be picking up some of the slack though,” the report said. 

“Over the last twelve months, with China’s economy suffering due to trade wars and devaluation of the yuan at different points, we’ve seen over $50 billion worth of cryptocurrency move from China-based addresses to overseas addresses,” Chainalysis said.

Chainalysis sells compliance and investigation software to businesses and governments. “Obviously, not all of this is capital flight, but we can think of $50 billion as the absolute ceiling for capital flight via cryptocurrency from East Asia to other regions,” the report added.

Digital assets like Bitcoin are only ‘getting stronger’, expert saysCryptocurrency holders are using controversial stablecoin Tether to move their money.

A stablecoin is a digital currency that is usually backed by another asset or group of assets in efforts to stabilize its value and limit volatility. Tether claims to be pegged to the U.S. dollar. 

Stablecoins are useful for transferring large amounts of cryptocurrency because, in theory, the value of the cryptocurrency a person is moving should not see wild swings.“In total, over $18 billion worth of Tether has moved from East Asia addresses to those based in other regions over the last 12 months.

Again, it’s highly unlikely that all of this is capital flight,” Chainalysis said in its report. 

Part of this activity can be explained by China-based miners converting their newly-minted coins into Tether and sending them to exchanges abroad, Chainalysis said. 

Miners are people with specialized computers solving complex math problems to mint new cryptocurrency. When they solve this complex problem, miners are rewarded in cryptocurrency. 

But the report also found significant spikes in Tether movement on certain news events. Firstly, in October, Chinese President Xi Jinping threw his backing behind blockchain, the technology that underpins many digital coins. 

Secondly, after a massive sell-off in mid-March, the price of bitcoin began to recover. 

“Equities in both the U.S. and China were still losing value at this time, as was the yuan itself. It’s possible that the economic tumult may have prompted some capital flight from China, though much of the Tether movement could have been East Asia-based cryptocurrency traders moving their holdings to international exchanges in order to trade at a time when cryptocurrency price volatility was high,” Chainalysis said.

Here’s why investors should avoid investing in Bitcoin during the coronavirusTether itself has been mired in controversy. In April 2019, the New York attorney general accused bitcoin exchange operator Bitfinex and tether issuer Tether Limited of hiding an $850 million loss.

Both companies have denied wrongdoing.China has previously taken a hard stance on cryptocurrencies.

In 2017, Beijing banned fundraising via cryptocurrencies known as initial coin offerings or ICOs and local exchanges. However, Xi has backed the underlying technology known as blockchain.

Meanwhile, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, is developing its own digital currency. 

Quorum, the enterprise blockchain platform developed by mega-bank JPMorgan Chase, is being acquired by ConsenSys, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Ethereum venture studio.

Additionally, JPMorgan has made an undisclosed strategic investment in ConsenSys, the companies said in a statement. Neither ConsenSys nor JPMorgan would confirm the size of the investment made by the bank.ConsenSys did confirm it was in the process of raising funds and has a range of additional investors joining JPMorgan. 

In terms of how the acquisition will be integrated into the Ethereum conglomerate, from now on, JPMorgan will be a customer of ConsenSys, which is offering software support and services to projects deployed on Quorum. 

All enterprise work being done at ConsenSys will now fall under the new “ConsenSys Quorum” brand, and ConsenSys plans to merge its existing protocol engineering roadmap with Quorum, leveraging the best of both codebases.

“One of the parts of taking over this technology is that we’ll be supporting JPMorgan in [its] blockchain efforts,” ConsenSys engineering manager Daniel Heyman said in an interview.

“Then we’ll be able to leverage a lot of the work that JPMorgan has done that’s been internal for a long time, and support the ecosystem as other people want to use that technology.”

Victim of success

As more projects began building on Quorum, a privacy-centric fork of Ethereum, it became obvious to many in the blockchain world that a bank isn’t the right place to maintain a large scale open-source software project. It was first rumored that Quorum could be heading to Brooklyn in February of this year. 

JPMorgan and CEO Jamie Dimon received a lot of press for the “JPM Coin” project, which is tokenized cash on the Quorum ledger. Other high-profile initiatives within the bank include the Interbank Information Network, which has over 200 other banks as members, and Dromaius, a debt issuance platform on Quorum.  

“As of today, JPM Coin will be built on top of ConsenSys Quorum,” said Heyman.

“So while JPM Coin is 100% JPMorgan’s, we’re very excited that we’ll be supporting it as a software vendor and helping make them successful, as well as other projects like the Interbank Information Network.”

Other projects on Quorum – such as tokenized loans being done by IHS Markit or AURA, the track-and-trace system being built by LVMH – will not receive any funding from ConsenSys, Heyman said, but they will be in line for other benefits. 

“Anyone building on Quorum will get a proper software vendor behind their technology,” said Heyman. “They’ll get a roadmap that’s very explicit publicly maintained that they can build against and move towards, and a suite of features and functionality they can now purchase to accelerate their time to market.”The new branding for ConsenSys QuorumSource: ConsenSys

Interoperability play 

Another important factor for ConsenSys is locking down interoperability between Quorum and Hyperlegder Besu. The latter is an enterprise Ethereum client built by ConsenSys engineers from the ground up to be compatible with the Ethereum public mainnet.

The main elements to be aligned to make Besu and Quorum talk to each other include the consensus mechanisms, API interfaces and privacy tools, said Heyman.

“Besu will continue exactly as it is, which is part of the Hyperlegder community and not ours to control. Obviously we’re heavily invested in moving it forward,” Heyman said.

“When we sell an enterprise Ethereum stack, we’re going to be calling it ConsenSys Quorum, and it will have two options: the Go Quorum–based version, or the Hyperledger Besu–based version.”

The JPMorgan news was welcomed by Brian Behlendorf, executive director of Hyperledger, who said it was exciting and positive for the enterprise blockchain community.

“It answers concerns about commercial support for enterprises [that] have deployed Quorum and, more importantly, it helps efforts to bring greater interoperability and code re-use between Quorum and Hyperledger Besu,” Behlendorf said in an email to CoinDesk.

Behlendorf, a respected figure in the open-source software world, said the acquisition should make it easy for enterprises that prefer Java, or prefer the Apache 2.0 license, or even prefer to work with other Besu-based vendors, to join the various Quorum-based networks that have emerged. 

“This is textbook open-source ‘co-opetition’ at its finest, where competitors can realize they’re actually stronger working together than trying to divide a market,” said Behlendorf. “We look forward to helping ConsenSys and JPMorgan (who are both Hyperledger Premier Members) and other ecosystem members drive adoption.”

In terms of whether Quorum engineers previously employed at the mega-bank would be making the trip to Brooklyn and joining ConsenSys, Heyman said: 

“Yeah, absolutely. We’ll be working closely with the JPM engineers on this and we’re going to be building out our own team dedicated towards Quorum on the protocol group.”

The following is a contributed article from a content partner of BenzingaOver the last five months, the cryptocurrency market has experienced a dramatic recovery, catapulting most cryptocurrencies to their highest value so far in 2020.

During this time, a number of online payment behemoths have been ramping up their presence in the space, helping to make cryptocurrency investments more accessible than ever before.

Among these, Alphabet Inc.GOOG 1.26% GOOGL 1.31% subsidiary Google is arguably the biggest player to enter the mix, after recently partnering with multiple prominent blockchain companies to add Google Pay as a payment method for cryptocurrency purchases. 

Google’s Crypto Ambitions

Despite being arguably one of the most innovative companies today — with a large number of ultra-ambitious projects like Project Loon Waymo being developed by X, a subsidiary of Google that is widely billed as "The Moonshot Factory" — Google has largely kept its distance from the innovative field of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

However, as a result of rapidly increasing demand for cryptocurrencies among retail investors, the need for trustworthy, well-recognized fiat on-ramps that make investment both safe and simple has become a major focus point for blockchain companies looking to make their services and products more accessible.

Likewise, Google has stepped in to meet this demand by now allowing crypto firms to offer Google Pay as a payment method.Peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange platform Paxful became the first crypto company to facilitate Google Pay transactions, allowing users in dozens of countries to purchase Bitcoin from vendors using Google’s payment solution.

Coinbase also partnered with Google Pay back in March to allow users of its crypto-powered Visa debit card to make payments using their cryptocurrency balance by adding their Coinbase Card to Google Pay.

Most recently, cryptocurrency trading analytics and education platform NewsCrypto became the first platform to offer direct cryptocurrency purchases using Google Pay. Customers using the platform can now purchase the NewsCrypto Coin (NWC) directly using Google Pay, in addition to PayPal, Visa, and more.

These tokens can be used to unlock more advanced trading tools or can be staked to earn 30% APR.With more than 67 million users, Google Pay’s entry into the cryptocurrency space could pave the way for mass adoption, by ensuring practically anybody with a smartphone can easily and securely buy and use cryptocurrencies. 

PayPal And Visa Recently Joined The Mix

Google isn’t the only online payment giant that has begun growing its presence in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Both PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL 1.4% and Visa, Inc. V 0.82% have also formed a large number of new arrangements with blockchain and cryptocurrency firms in recent months.

Back in June, PayPal revealed it was planning to launch its own cryptocurrency trading and direct purchase solution through a partnership with Paxos.

It was later found that PayPal had originally outlined these plans back in March in a letter to the European Commission, where the California-based payment firm describes its intent to “achieve greater financial inclusion and help reduce/eliminate some of the pain points that exist today in financial services.

” PayPal already works hand-in-hand with a small number of cryptocurrency brokerage platforms, including Coinbase, Coinmama, and CEX.io, as well as a handful of trading platforms, but it is clear from recent leaks that it has much larger ambitions in the cryptocurrency space. 

Visa also changed its tune on cryptocurrency this year, filing a patent for a cryptocurrency system that could be positioned to replace physical currencies.

The patent, titled “digital fiat currency,” was filed by Visa International Service Association late last year, but was published back in May. 

The payment firm has also made strategic investments in crypto firms like Anchorage, and recently welcomed Coinbase onboard as a principal member, allowing it to issue debit cards without relying on a third-party provider. In a recent blog post titled “Advancing Our Approach to Digital Currency,” Visa highlighted its plans to develop its digital currency services by supporting the digital currencies their clients demand and pursuing projects that benefit their clients and partners.

Both Visa and PayPal were originally poised to form founding members of The Libra Association — a consortium of companies tasked with governing Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrencies — but pulled out after the project encountered significantly regulatory push back. 

This week the price of Bitcoin (BTC) moved sharply up and surpassed the $12,000 mark to hit a high shortly above it. The price has since declined to a weekly low at $11,500, before recovering to $11,750, according to data from CrpytoCompare.

Ether (ETH), the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, started the week at $425 but quickly moved up to $440, accompanying BTC’s move up. ETH then entered a steady downtrend to $380, a point from which it bounced back to $405 at press time.

This week cryptocurrency headlines were dominated by security-related advancements, as the Tokyo District Court ordered the first cryptocurrency seizure in the country, seizing cryptoassets associated with the 2018 Coincheck hack.

Coincheck is a Japanese cryptocurrency exchange that suffered the biggest hack in the history of the space two years ago, seeing hackers steal around $530 million worth of NEM (NEM) from its wallets in the breach.

While the funds were quickly moved and spread across the blockchain, the Tokyo District Court ordered the seizure of 48 million yen (about $45,000) in BTC and XEM associated with the hack.

The funds were seized from a 30-year old doctor who had been arrested in March together with an accomplice for allegedly buying cryptocurrency linked to the hack, violating laws against participating in organized crime in the process.

After the hack, Coincheck struggled but was soon after acquired by online brokerage group Monex for “several billion yen.” It has since made several improvements to its system and was approved for an operating license.

It suffered a data breach earlier this year.Another cryptocurrency exchange was in the news this week as leading trading platform Binance unveiled, through a joint press release with the Cyber Police of Ukraine, that it had helped take down a large-scale money laundering network on the darknet using cryptocurrencies.

The press release details the cybercriminal group distributed ransomware and washed hacker funds to the tune of $42 million over two years. Authorities seized $200,000 in computer equipment, weapons, ammunition, cash and “digital evidence” linking three arrested suspects to the operation.

While these were advances when it comes to the cryptocurrency space’s security Thomas Silkjær, founder of a “community-driven” XRP data aggregator, found that scammers on the Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube have stolen over 940,000 XRP tokens from users of crypto exchange Coinbase alone.

Silkjær released the figures on social media and added the scammers also received funds from exchanges like Crypto.com, Kraken, and Uphold. Xrplorer called on Coinbase to start proactively blocking addresses from these scams.

YouTube has been sued by Ripple, its co-founder Brad Garlinghouse, and by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak over its failure to stop scammers from impersonating celebrities to promote fake giveaways.

YouTube itself denies liability for these cryptocurrency scams, on the grounds of  Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which serves to protect platform publishers from being liable for third parties. It argues the scammers and impersonators are third parties creating content.

Decentralized Finance Near $7 Billion in Value Locked

Meanwhile, the decentralized finance (DeFi) space has continued to grow, as more and more users take advantage of lending and borrowing protocols to both earn interest on their cryptocurrency holdings, and to be rewarded in platforms’ native governance tokens.

At press time, DeFiPulse shows there are $6.87 billion locked in DeFi protocols, with three projects having over $1 billion locked in them: Maker, Aave, and Curve Finance.

Maker is the project behind a cryptocurrency-backed stablecoin named DAI, while Aave is a lending and borrowing protocol. Curve Finance is a decentralized exchange.




In other news, the first cryptocurrency-backed loan issued in Russia has been issued, using the Waves (WAVES) token as collateral. Local reports detailed the loan was issued by commercial bank Expobank to local entrepreneur Mikhail Uspensky, who is committed to holding onto the WAVES tokens.

While some legal experts revealed they were not too confident in the cryptocurrency-backed loan being legal under Russian loan, others argued in favour of it, saying there are “no restrictions on the circulation of non-payment tokens in our country.

Crypto AM: Market View in association with Ziglu

Cryptocurrencies are largely considered to be the next step in online finance, helping those without access to traditional financial infrastructure manage their money, send payments, and make investments without relying on banks and centralized payment processors. 

It's no wonder then, why some of the world's most successful online payment platforms have begun experimenting with the technology and are now looking for ways to facilitate cryptocurrency transactions directly or allow retail investors to get involved in the blossoming new crypto economy. 

Google Joins the Mix

American multinational technology company Google is one of the larger firms to display an interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency. The technology giant recently opened the keys to the crypto kingdom by working together with Coinbase to bring cryptocurrency-powered payments to the masses through its mobile payment app-Google Pay. As of March 2020, Google Pay users can now add their Coinbase Card, a visa debit card that allows users to spend cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and others directly from their Coinbase account balance. Though there are numerous similar offerings to the Coinbase Card, none have yet managed to pass the strict Google Pay approval process. 

Beyond this, Google Pay is increasingly cropping up as a payment method at many blockchain and cryptocurrency service providers. Earlier this month, blockchain trading education and market analytics platform NewsCrypto joined the growing number of crypto platforms to support Google Pay payments.

 Now, customers are able to use Google Pay to purchase NewsCrypto Coin (NWC) tokens, which can be staked or used to unlock additional tracking tools. This makes NewsCrypto one of the first platforms to offer direct cryptocurrency purchases with Google Pay. 



These tentative first steps indicate Google may be changing its tune on cryptocurrencies. Back in 2018, the online search giant blocked advertisements for cryptocurrency exchanges, wallets, and certain other crypto-related advertising-and described cryptocurrencies as "speculative financial products".

 However, Google partially backpedaled on the ban just months later and is now letting an increasing number of crypto firms advertise on the search engine. 

PayPal and Amazon Are Also Making Moves

Though Google has recently begun making waves in the cryptocurrency payment space, it wasn't the first to move. 

PayPal, a popular online payment platform, has been ramping up its presence in the cryptocurrency space for some time now, and can already be used to pay for cryptocurrencies on a variety of platforms, including Coinbase, Local Bitcoins, and Paxful-and can also be used as a deposit method for several cryptocurrency CFD trading platforms, like eToro. 

Until this year, PayPal's involvement in the cryptocurrency industry has been restricted to third-party integrations, which allow a variety of blockchain and crypto companies to accept PayPal for their goods and services.

But recently, recent leaks indicate that PayPal is looking to launch its own cryptocurrency trading service, through a partnership with Paxos, a platform that offers plug and play cryptocurrency brokerage services.

Although the details are still scant at the moment, a recent letter the company sent to the European Commission suggests PayPal is looking to ramp up its presence in the crypto-asset industry and assist with laying down the appropriate regulatory framework to help "achieve greater financial inclusion and help reduce/eliminate some of the pain points that exist today in financial services.

"Likewise, one of the biggest competitors to Google Pay and PayPal has also shown strong interest in launching a product in the cryptocurrency. This is, of course, none other than Amazon, the e-commerce titan, and firm behind the massively popular Amazon Pay payment processing service.



(Photo : A schematic for Amazon's QLDB blockchain service. (Image: Amazon))

Amazon already has its own fully-managed blockchain service known as Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB) and recently patented a new type of cryptographic system based on the Proof of Work (PoW) consensus algorithm and Merkle trees. 

This, in combination with the fact that the firm now controls several cryptocurrency-related domains, including amazonbitcoin.com and amazoncryptocurrency.com, it appears to be just a matter of time before Amazon makes a break in the cryptocurrency space in a big way-perhaps by launching its own cryptocurrency or accepting direct crypto payments for its products and services. 

I run an online platform that helps people buy and sell digital assets (like Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies). In 2016, I knew little about the industry, and today I lead one of the foremost digital asset marketplaces in the U.S.

I’m evidence that anyone can learn about crypto. 

For the most part, the world of crypto has operated in a strange lane all by itself, confined to Twitter and Telegram private chats. But in 2020—amid the coronavirus pandemic—interest in crypto has boomed.

Whether it's been TikTok cheering on DogeCoin or a twenty-something hacking into high-profile Twitter accounts and asking for Bitcoin, 2020 might just be the year everyone from teens to nonagenarians learns about cryptocurrencies and digital money. 

There are a few factors contributing to this change, and they are important enough that Americans should be paying attention. First, government payments to individuals and businesses alike are weakening the U.S. fiat (physical cash) system.

Second, large banking institutions like JPMorgan Chase are condoning and even welcoming digital currencies onto their platforms. And third, more Americans are home, witnessing the discrepancy in the market’s growth and the nation’s unemployment rate. 

The weakening dollar

With numerous sports and large events canceled, and many Americans receiving government aid, the U.S. has a captive audience for financial change. While most things we took for granted have halted, two things have stayed the same: the Internet and the exchange of money. 

What has changed notably is the value of money, in particular the U.S. dollar. As Americans continue to receive public financial assistance and businesses utilize Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans, the inherent value of the dollar is dropping.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Dollar Index reported that the value of the dollar dropped to its lowest level since May 2018.

What does this mean? More people will hedge their bets on currencies that act outside the confines of the dollar and buy other fiat currencies. However, we are also seeing more people invest in cryptocurrencies:

Some even had an influx of exact deposits of $1,200 in the weeks after initial stimulus checks were received.

Bank momentum

The best performing asset of the last decade was not Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, real estate investment trusts (REIT), or real estate—it was Bitcoin.

When the best performing asset doesn’t even exist in traditional banking models, banks get interested. 

In May, the largest retail bank in America, JPMorgan, which has historically been a staunch opponent of Bitcoin, announced it is already processing crypto transactions on its platforms, and has plans to create JPM Coin, a digital currency tied to the dollar, that would expedite global payment transfers.

In June, CoinDesk reported that PayPal and Venmo might be joining the crypto community by offering direct sales of cryptocurrencies. Earlier in August, we saw Goldman Sachs bring in a new head of digital assets to scale up its crypto operations.  

Crypto—once reserved for the gamers, coders, and early tech millionaires—is now a place where more people have the opportunity to participate in an alternative system where they can have more control over their wealth.

Anyone with a smartphone can access crypto without waiting for banks to open up or for a debit card to be mailed to them. What's more, because crypto is decentralized and uses a public ledger to notate payments, there is an opportunity for a level of transparency government assistance programs do not provide.

Disconnect between actual wealth and the stock market

Many Americans remain unemployed and feel the disconnect between the stock market’s success and the financial reality of their lives. New personalities entering the crypto world—from Paul Tudor Jones to William Shatner to Olympian Christie Rampone—are helping initiate an honest conversation about whether our financial systems are helping or hurting us all.

These names are also an important part of showing everyone that cryptocurrencies and digital currencies are real.

Although there may not be a Tom Brady of crypto due to the fact that the originator of Bitcoin is anonymous, everyone who talks about cryptocurrencies and digital assets helps validate the industry.

Because crypto and Bitcoin were built to be decentralized and without one governing body, there are impassioned contributors across the globe who work constantly to improve access to digital assets.

I expect that soon there will be more who come forward to provide credibility to crypto and digital assets, as their relevance and benefits are unavoidable. 

The future of Bitcoin

Whether or not you’ve heard of Bitcoin, it's a word and a concept that is not going anywhere.

There is a reason why the most prestigious university endowments, such as those affiliated with Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, all invest in crypto funds. 

Crypto is building in credibility. If for no other reason than curiosity, investigate Bitcoin and digital assets and see what everyone is talking about.

After all, crypto will keep going while we are locked in our homes—a surefire sign that, pandemic or not, crypto is a huge part of our future. Catherine Coley is CEO of Binance.US.

Archax, the highly anticipated digital securities exchange, has just announced its successful bid to become a fully regulated Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP), digital securities custodian, and digital securities exchange.

These designations, which are issued by the Financial Conduct Authority of the UK, represent huge milestones on the company’s path to launching its secondary marketplace.

Authorisation

It was initially expected that Archax would launch its exchange in the latter half of 2019.  This was delayed, as the company waited for authorisation by the FCA.

The wait appears to be coming to an end though.  In this positive announcement, Archax indicates that it is now regulated as an SME Growth Market, and Secondary Market for Digital Instruments to Trade.  This means that, under the watch of the FCA, Archax can now offer the following services:

• Multilateral Trading Facility
• Custodial Solutions
• Brokerage Services

Archax CEO, Graham Rodford, touched on the authorisation process, and its importance, stating, “We have been talking to the FCA for a while and the application process has been a tough journey, but we are pleased to have now achieved our first significant milestone as we prepare to launch the UK’s first FCA regulated digital securities exchange later this year.

”In addition to achieving these authorisations by the FCA, Archax has also successfully completed its registration as a VASP.  This designation is a newly mandatory requirement in the United Kingdom, which was imposed in early 2020. 

The purpose of this registration is to allow sufficient oversight of companies dealing with digital assets, such as security tokens, as the FCA does its part to eliminate money-laundering and nefarious activity.

Secondary Markets

A secondary market refers to a trading platform for previously owned securities – meaning trades occur between investors, rather than with a security’s initial issuer.  These platforms are essential for the health of securities, as they provide investors with access to liquidity in their holdings.

While Archax will offer a variety of services, it is arguably its secondary marketplace which is the most anticipated.  Currently, there are very few companies that offer such services – partly because there simply have not been enough digital securities issued to warrant them. 

This is changing, however, making these trading hubs pivotal for the continued adoption of this promising sector.Currently, the most well-known secondary market to support digital securities is OpenFinanceNetwork (OFN). 

Unfortunately, due to the slow-moving development of the digital securities sector, OFN has recently had financial issues, prompting a change in tactics.

David Lester, Advisor to Archax, and former CSO of the London Stock Exchange, touched on the importance of blockchain and what Archax is trying to achieve, stating,“In the current global economic climate, providing new, efficient ways for small and medium sized businesses to access capital is key.

Blockchain and tokenisation are innovations that can empower more frictionless and transparent markets which, combined with an FCA regulated exchange like Archax, can deliver what capital providers, business leaders and founders now really need.

The launch of the Archax exchange will help bring the institutional and digital asset communities closer together, and open up a new era for the global financial markets space.”

Steady Stream of Collaborators

While the launch of Archax’s marketplace has taken longer than originally intended, the company has not been sitting idly by, as it waits for the necessary licensure.

Over the past year, Archax has managed to establish various partnerships.  Some of these tap into services offered by Archax, while others will act as service providers themselves, helping Archax round out its comprehensive offering. 

The following are a few of these companies which have seen the promise in Archax, and decided to work together.

Polymath

It was recently announced that upon launch, Archax will provide full support for the bevy of digital securities generated by Polymath.

Unbound Tech

Part of offering a comprehensive suite of services for digital securities involves addressing custody solutions. For Archax, this was done through a collaboration with Unbound Tech – a New York based company specializing in custodial capabilities.

Globacap

Similar to its partnership with Polymath, Archax will provide support for digital securities issued through Globacap and its DSO services.

Smartlands

Making waves in the UK through its tokenization of real estate, Smartlands will soon benefit from the launch of Archax’s marketplace, as it will act as a home and trading platform for such assets.

Tokeny

In this collaboration, Archax’s forthcoming marketplace will support the trading of digital securities issued through Tokeny – Much like the aforementioned agreements with Polymath, Smartlands, and Globacap.

Clearbank

Operating a comprehensive marketplace for digital securities is a complex endeavour, requiring various payments solutions, API services, and more. To address this, Archax has collaborated with Clearbank, which will provide access to these needs.

If one thing is made clear from these various collaborations, it is that users of the upcoming marketplace will have no dearth of assets to trade and gain exposure to.

Archax CEO, Graham Rodford, recently commented on these partnerships, stating,“Our technology partners are second to none, we have a pipeline of 35 digital issuances in place, and we are signing up global brokers and market makers ready for go-live.”

Speaking with Graham

In our on-going interview series here at securities.io, we have been fortunate to have completed an exclusive discussion with Archax CEO, Graham Rodford.In this discussion, we learn more about what the company’s goals are, how they plan to achieve them, and what sets it apart from the competition. 

Make sure to peruse the discussion HERE to learn more about this promising company.

Archax

Founded in 2018, Archax maintain operations in London, United Kingdom.  Above all, Archax hopes to serve both professional and institutional investors through the imminent launch of its digital securities marketplace.

CEO, Graham Rodford, currently oversees company operations.

Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

Founded in 2013, the FCA is a financial services regulator within the United Kingdom.  The goal of this regulator is to ensure fair and transparent markets for all participants.Chief Executive, Nikhil Rathi, currently oversees operations at the FCA.

In Other News

One of the reasons that Archax has found itself on the cusp of its product launch, is the support of early investors.  One such investor recently caught our attention, as it has also taken steps forward. 

This would be SPiCE VC, and its newly formed collaboration with Coinbase Custody.

Click HERE to learn more about how SPICE tokens have found a new safe haven through Coinbase’s custodial services.Spread the love

Ethereum (ETH) creator Vitalik Buterin acknowledged that he both sold and donated away his Ether holdings for fiat when the price was $700.

While he did not specify, it seems unlikely that he sold his entire ETH stake — though how much ETH he owns today is currently unknown. Buterin also said that he had not bought any Bitcoin (BTC) since before 2017.





Source: Twitter.He mentioned that under his advice, the Ethereum Foundation had also sold its holdings close to the asset’s all-time-high of $1,200. On a previous podcast with Eric Weinstein, he specified that the Foundation had liquidated 70,000 ETH at this price.






Ether price. Source: Glassnode.While the correlation is unclear, it is possible that the Foundation’s liquidation of its holdings precipitated Ether’s 2017 crash.In recent weeks, the Ethereum co-founder has come under scrutiny from some members of the Blockchain community.

In one instance, Hashcash creator and Bitcoin maximalist, Adam Back, even called Ethereum a ponzi scheme.Cointelegraph reached out to Vitalik Buterin, but he has not responded in time for publication.

Michael Novogratz is a veteran Wall Street fund manager and cryptocurrency maven who readily acknowledges when he earns a “black eye,” while Dave Portnoy is the brash founder of a media empire who only recently began touting stocks and has disparaged Warren Buffett.

Their backgrounds and personalities may be vastly different, but both are now offering the same investment recommendation: Bitcoin is a better long-term bet than gold.

In an appearance on Bloomberg Television, Novogratz — founder of Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd. — said that although he sees gold climbing above its record highs, Bitcoin is still the more worthy investment because it’s “harder to buy” than the traditional haven. He said about 25% of his net worth is tied up in the cryptocurrency.

“It’s only got a $20 billion market cap, while gold is over $10 trillion,” Novogratz said of Bitcoin. “So it’s got a long way to go to catch gold in terms of just adoption.” Still, he doesn’t recommend beginners put in more than 1-2% of their money into the digital currency.

Novogratz said Bitcoin had “crossed the Rubicon” on the question of whether it’s a good store of value. Now, more institutions and banks are considering how to get into the cryptocurrency, compared with a few years earlier when they viewed it more skeptically, he said. 

Barstool Sports founder Portnoy, meanwhile, was sold on the cryptocurrency after being pitched by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. In a video posted on Portnoy’s Twitter feed, the twin brothers — who founded crypto exchange Gemini Trust — say Bitcoin has the potential to replace gold as a store of value.

Their reasoning? They claim that Elon Musk has plans to mine gold from asteroids.

In a tweet after his interview with the Winklevoss twins, Portnoy suggested he has bought $1 million worth of Bitcoin.Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, has been on a roller coaster in 2020.

After sliding below $4,000, it’s zoomed up and is around $11,800. It’s seen further acceptance in the mainstream investment community, experienced a “halving” where the rate of Bitcoin created dropped by 50% as of May, and seen correlations with gold rise to records.

In the case of bullion, prices have been on a tear this year as central banks worldwide took steps to shore up ailing economies in the wake of the coronavirus crisis and investors sought a haven from the turmoil.

The precious metal is up 28% this year to about $1,945, with Credit Suisse Group raising its bullion forecast for next year to $2,500 due to a “perfect storm” of factors.

— With assistance by Sonali Basak