Archive for  June 2018

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World’s largest crypto exchange has opened shop in Africa, called Binance Uganda, which offers support for Ugandan fiat currency Shilling. The new users can enjoy zero trading fees for the first month after the launch of trading and the first 20,000 newly registered users will receive with 0.5 binance coins (BNB), the eponymous utility token of the exchange operator.

According to USPTO, the transparency of current blockchain payments is an obstacle to the introduction of this technology into daily payments, for both businesses and private consumers. Besides, many companies do not wish that their competitors or third parties receive data on their transaction volumes. Thus, MasterCard found a solution to this issue. By using the new technology, after receiving information about the transaction from the company, the server hashes the transaction information and then combines them with a secret value from the profile. After that, the hash can be published in the block to prove the integrity of the transactions without revealing their specific details.

The price of BTC went to a yearly low today, trading at $5,800 this morning. Experts suggest there is a number of factors that may affect the falling price of major cryptocurrency. One of the factors is regulatory and hostile actions by governments and internal challenges with the platform. Also, a number of negative reports, such as hack on South Korean exchange and decree by the Reserve Bank of India prohibiting Indian banks from having any involvement with cryptocurrency, have created concerns for the investors. On the other hand, the experts presume that the price will recover and will move far above its all-time high of $20,000, but the price of BTC and other altcoins will always be determined by its use.

The Singapore-based subsidiary will start operating in July, but will not be available for Japanese and, initially, US traders. Bitbox exchange will support 30 cryptoassets, and will not provide fiat exchange functionality. The platform will be available in 15 languages, but Japanese will not be one of them.

The users took to Reddit to express their contempt of the recent news, suggesting that now the travel booking giant will lose a large part of its customers, as for example, that the majority of employees in the IT industry tend to get their salaries partly in crypto. Other suggested an alternative service – Expedia’s main competitor CheapAir, which started accepting Bitcoin for flights and hotel bookings in 2013.

A new platform, which will hold and distribute cryptocurrencies to people in need, has already received donations from Ripple and Zcash founders. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes the crypto ecosystem can impact the world more by pooling resources together so others can benefit from an “equitable and open global financial system.” The fund has secured $3.5 million so far and aims to raise $10 million for the first phase.

Federal regulations in the U.S. are beginning to classify ICOs as securities and treating them with equivalent scrutiny, thus Florida is taking action to oversee the cryptocurrency sector by creating the position of Crypto Chief. The new role has been created for the management and monitoring of emerging ICOs and digital asset activity within the state.

The third largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by 24-hour trading volume announced that it will remove the Japanese option from its homepage and suspends trading services from July 2. The reason for withdrawal from Japan-based services is that Huobi Pro is not registered with the Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan’s financial watchdog, as mandated under a money transaction law introduced in 2016.

The new product and services policy will now require advertisers of cryptocurrency products to first submit an application to let Facebook assess the eligibility. The applicants will have to submit all licenses they have, whether they are traded on a public stock exchange, and other relevant public background on their business. Thus, with new restrictions, “not everyone who wants to advertise will be able to do so.”

The Japanese government is considering to abandon the progressive tax rate for crypto traders. If this happens, the taxes will decrease from 55% to 20%, which will make the lives of crypto traders much easier. The country uses a single tax for trading in securities or shares, which is 20.315%, 15.325% of which goes to the country budget, and 5% – to the municipal budget. The decision on crypto tax has not been made yet, but the Japanese obviously hope for the best.