Tag: Cryptocurrency

More Universities Providing Courses on Crypto

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It has been a little less than a year since crypto exploded into mainstream awareness but it is already becoming the focus of a growing number of university courses and educational programs. A few of these courses are based on the actual coding, computer science, and cryptography that lie behind cryptocurrencies. However, more and more courses are being tailored with the idea of providing a detailed introduction to crypto in mind – the intention is to allow the more business-focused audiences to have a basis for deciding whether or not to adopt crypto and to what extent they should do this.

While this may seem like a profit-oriented venture by universities that have found ways to capitalize on the cryptocurrency frenzy, the students themselves have reported considerable satisfaction with the teaching that they have received so. Even though the courses simply focus on teaching how to conceptualize blockchain instead of how the technology is coded and created, the knowledge that is imparted is still vital enough to be a major driving force for crypto if it is to be adopted on a global scale.

In the United States, crypto is mostly taught in the context of business-related programs, with very few universities offering specific degrees in crypto or blockchain technology. As it stands, a decent number of high – profile MBA programs in the country have already included or are including crypto-based courses that enable the students to have a grasp on crypto.

Russian Universities Join the Bandwagon

Just like the United States and a few other parts of the world, more academic institutions in Russia are beginning to offer educational courses as well as postgraduate programs focused on crypto and blockchain.

The most recent entrants are three Russian universities who have recently announced new courses and majors all related to cryptocurrencies and associated crypto technologies. These programs will be offered immediately the next academic year kicks off this fall and they will cover a wide array of subjects that include digital economy, cryptography, blockchain, distributed ledger technologies and alternative payment systems among others.

The Voronezh State University (VSU), one of the three universities, has already formulated a bachelor’s degree program that is all about studying digital economy and blockchain technology. Referred to as the “Models and methods for analyzing the digital economy”, the new major will be offered by the university’s Department of Information Technologies and Mathematical Methods in Economics.

The Don State Technical University (DTSU), on the other hand, will be offering two master’s programs in blockchain technologies – these will be “Intellectual systems based on blockchain technologies” and “Digital accounting and management.”

“We offer graduate students [the opportunity] to study in depth the distributed ledger technology. Blockchain is a promising technology that is rapidly introduced in many areas of life. Demand for specialists in this field is growing every day,” said DSTU’s Vice-Rector Alexey Belskopilniy.

First All-Crypto Poker Tournament Headed for Atlantic City

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Atlantic City has been a haven for a number of big events in the past few months and it is about to get even better. The next big event will be the Blockchain World Conference (BWC) which will is scheduled for Harrah’s Resort between July 11 and July 13, but this is certainly not the biggest highlight of the event. The BWC also announced that it will be concluding the three-day conference with a bang by hosting the very first casino sanctioned all-crypto poker tournament.

The Blockchain World Conference is an event where blockchain and crypto experts meet to discuss the latest developments in the sector. Already, this year’s event is expected to be largest blockchain event in history with attendees ranging from celebrities to startups, ICOs, entrepreneurs, social media influencers, accredited investors, exchange facilitators, and developers. While these are certainly interesting aspects of the conference the crypto-poker tournament has been stealing the show ever since it was announced.

The 100-player event scheduled for July 14 will start at 11.00 AM is being hosted in conjunction with Blockparty, a blockchain-powered live event ticketing platform – the platform will be used by interested participants to buy-into games, betting as well as cashing out in digital currencies.

“What better way to end a three-day conference in Atlantic City than the world’s first crypto poker tournament? After three days of discussions about blockchain and cryptocurrency, this is a fun and unique way to bring our event to a close– highlighting a compelling real-world application of this technology, in true Atlantic City fashion. The Blockparty team are incredible leaders in blockchain-based live event ticketing and they were the perfect partners for us to work with for an event of this caliber,” Alex Falcone, the Blockchain World Conference COO said.

To guarantee a seat at the all-crypto poker tournament, the interested individuals must already be attendees of the Blockchain World Conference. They will also need to pay a $250 buy-in in cryptocurrency on Blockparty’s ticketing platform.

“As one of the first true real-world applications of blockchain and cryptocurrency, we’re excited to add another event category, like poker, to our ticketing repertoire. It’s a great testament to what we’ve built that the mainstream music scene and crypto enthusiasts alike are recognizing the ease and convenience of our platform and this is a great taste of what the future holds as mainstream adoption of blockchain only continues,” Blockparty CEO, Shiv Madan commented on the company’s partnership with BWC for the tournament.

The winner of the all crypto poker tournament will receive two VIP to the BWC South that is scheduled to take place in Hollywood, Florida, between December 3 and December 5. In addition to this, the winner will also be awarded a three-night stay at the Diplomat Beach Resort as well as a $10,000 cash prize. Blockparty has also promised to award any player that manages to knock out a pro, in addition to the competition it will be holding in order to find 10 people whose buy-in for the crypto poker tournament they will pay.

Bitcoin to Replace Traditional Currencies Within a Decade

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Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have long been touted as the logical “next steps” for money as they grow closer to being adopted as mainstream forms of payment. According to a recent study by researchers from Imperial College London in conjunction with trading platform eToro that assessed the fundamental roles of traditional currencies, digital currencies have three criteria to fill if they are to go mainstream. Among these criteria is the ability to act as a store of value which most of the cryptocurrencies have already managed to successfully fulfill.

The remaining criteria to be fulfilled are the abilities to act as a medium of exchange and as units of account. To fulfill these two, cryptocurrencies will first have to deal with certain setbacks that include regulation and scalability.

Since it came to light in 2009, bitcoin has been the subject of heated debates regarding whether digital assets have what it takes to replace fiat. Bitcoin remains at the center of many of these discussions despite the fact that over 1,600 digital currencies have emerged within past decade – the Imperial College London believe that the attention that bitcoin is receiving is not in vain since it is well on its way towards mainstream adoption and use within the next decade.

“The world of cryptocurrency is evolving as rapidly as the considerable collection of confusing terminology that accompanies it. In this context, we wanted to get back to basics: clarifying the nature of cryptocurrencies as a new kind of asset class, contrasting them with traditional forms of wealth, and classifying the main challenges that need to be overcome in order to drive their success forward. There’s a lot of skepticism over cryptocurrencies and how they could ever become a day-to-day payment system used by the man on the street. In this research, we show that cryptocurrencies have already made significant headway towards fulfilling the criteria for becoming a widely accepted method of payment,” William Knottenbelt, a professor from the Imperial College said.

The research paper that is titled “Cryptocurrencies: Overcoming Barriers to Trust and Adoption” argues that the evolution of traditional money is what will pave the way for the mainstream adoptions of digital currencies. This sentiment is shared by the UK managing director of eToro, Iqbal Gandham, who said that:

“The history of money is a history of evolution, of new technology replacing old to improve the transfer of value from one person to another. Cryptocurrencies represent the next step on this journey.”

Case in point, there has been a significant increase in the distribution and use of contactless and mobile payments – this is, in essence, the backbone of the technology behind cryptocurrency.

“Given the speed of adoption, we believe that we could see Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on the high street within the decade,” Mr. Gandham added.

John McAfee Fires Shots at the RBI over Cryptocurrency Ban

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Renowned cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee has recently called for a boycott of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the financial institutions dealing with it over a recent decision by the central bank that forces banks to cease and desist from dealing with cryptocurrency traders.

The move by the RBI has created a lot of chaos and panic especially because of India’s technology ecosystem that has been riding the cryptocurrency wave for quite some time now. Most of the reactions have cited concerns pertaining to how the country’s rapid movement towards development will be hindered from here on out.

It is important to note that the ban is not an all-inclusive decree that Indian cryptocurrency investors will be in violation of the law for dealing in crypto. In fact, there are many other options that digital currency traders can users and they include crypto-to-crypto, peer-to-peer, offshore exchanges as well as international bank accounts. As such, while the decree that financial institutions should stop offering services to crypto investors is indeed a setback, it does not mean that it will be the end of all cryptocurrency trading in India.

The Indian media is culpable for the panic, fear, uncertainty, and doubt that is now rife in the country – as expected, they erroneously reported that the RBI had imposed a country-wide ban on cryptocurrency trading among investors.

McAfee Is Not Amused

On July 6, John McAfee posted an intriguing tweet that fired off at the Reserve Bank of India and urged all financial institutions to dissociate themselves with the central bank. He further warned that he would call for a boycott against the financial institutions that steal deal with the RBI.

“The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiated this atrocity out of fear and won through the existing centralized power structure. I’m calling for a boycott of any financial institution that does business with RBI. We must stand together and act,” read McAfee’s tweet.

In his tweet which comes in the wake of the recent verdict by the Indian Supreme Court to uphold the RBI crypto ban, McAfee spoke out against these developments. Knowing McAfee, he will remain at the forefront of these protests, at least until the ban is either lifted or a reasonable consensus is reached.

From the looks of things, there are many ways this could play out but it will all depend on how both sides of the divide will play their cards. Recent reports revealed that prior to the ban, the RBI did not carefully and explicitly review the pro and cons of cryptocurrencies in the country. Already, the central bank’s officials have begun reviewing a draft that focuses on cryptocurrencies and associated regulations that would be required to ensure its survival. The said draft was prepared by the Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs, Subhash Chandra Garg. Maybe there is still hope for crypto in India after all.

Indian Supreme Court Upholds RBI’s Cryptocurrency Ban

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On April 5, India’ central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular that was addressed to all regulated financial institutions including banks prohibiting them from offering their services to crypto-related business. The policy further mandated the financial institutions to stop allowing their own retail clients from purchasing cryptocurrencies through their banking accounts. A three-month deadline was set for the policy and therefore the ban should effectively take effect as from Thursday, July 5.

As expected, the move by the RBI to ban cryptocurrencies has caused quite a stir across India’s nascent but rapidly growing cryptocurrency community with a number of crypto exchanges opting to take up the issue through the courts. The Supreme Court just happens to be one of the many courts where petitions challenging the ban were filed – most of the petitions cited the RBI’s policies as being “arbitrary, unfair and unconstitutional.”

The move was led by the Internet and Mobile Association of India which counts cryptocurrency exchanges as its members. The organization fast-tracked the legal challenge against the RBI ban and they finally got to be heard on the morning of June 3.

Unfortunately, the Indian Supreme Court led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra chose to side with the arguments of the RBI and therefore the cryptocurrency ban is still in effect and so is the July 5 deadline.

“This a win for the RBI and a big blow to virtual currency exchanges and traders. In our earlier request to the RBI as well, we had asked it to extend the deadline by a month after the July 20 hearing. However, now that the ban will continue, the banking route for the exchanges and its users will be completely choked,” said Rashmi Deshpande, an associate from legal firm Khaitan & Co who are involved in the petition.

Is This the End for Crypto Exchanges in India?

If you have been following the crypto industry in India, you may have noticed that it is quite likely that this might truly be the end of cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. There is all talk of total control of crypto being eventually handed to the RBI, something that, if goes through, will lead to the digital currencies being declared as completely illegal assets.

Furthermore, some top government officials have hinted at a number of regulatory or legal developments that are currently in the works and have the potential of turning everything around.

“We have prepared a draft (on virtual currencies) that entails what parts of this businesses should be banned and what should be preserved. This should be discussed by the first week of July and we should wrap this up within in the first fortnight of July,” Subnash Chandra Garg, the Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs said.

While we cannot be certain about what the future truly holds for crypto, the Supreme Court’s decision is most certainly bad news for the Indian crypto market especially considering how deep-rooted blockchain technology is in India.

South Korea Advances Its Cryptocurrency Regulations Further

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South Korea has been at the forefront of the crypto industry since the investor boom and cryptocurrency frenzy of 2017 and since then, the country has seen a number of gradual and significant changes in the way cryptocurrencies are perceived within its borders. Just recently, the country’s authorities announced that it was lifting the blanket ban on initial coin offerings (ICOs). Next on South Korea’s agenda are plans to lead what could be the fourth industrial revolution that they will be backed by blockchain initiatives.

Even as the country surges on towards delivering a blockchain-powered future, the authorities still understand the importance of regulation. According to the announcement which was made by the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), a set of new anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer rules for cryptocurrency exchanges will take effect on July 10, 2018, and will remain in effect for a year.

A Tougher Stand

The country’s new guidelines will make the current regulations on user and transaction monitoring even stricter than they were before. These stricter regulations are being put into place so as to prevent money laundering, fraud as well as money transfers between local and foreign exchanges.  The FSC also requested the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KFIU), the country’s financial supervisory organization to strengthen their control over digital currency transactions and user activity so as to provide cryptocurrency exchange investors with even greater security.

The advancement of the crypto regulations in South Korea was primarily based on the FSC’s recent inspection of Nonghyup Bank, KB Kookmin Bank, and KEB Hana Bank – the inspection revealed that some of the crypto exchanges had moved assets from their investors’ depositing accounts into their own operating accounts. This is a violation of the promise that cryptocurrency exchanges make to keep investors’ assets separate from their own.

“We plan to closely keep tabs on bank accounts used by cryptocurrency exchanges for parking their expenses,” the FSC noted after the findings.

The new regulations also require the crypto exchanges to conduct Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD). These are meant to ensure that foreigners are not trading digital assets through the South Korean crypto exchanges and, as mentioned earlier, to reduce the possibility of fraud, prevent money laundering and prevent personal data breaches.

While these regulations mostly seem to be restrictive in nature, the South Korean government’s initiative to control the crypto space is also a step forward towards the legitimization of the sector. In the next few months, the local authorities will be teaming up with local exchanges and banks in an effort to better structure the cryptocurrency market.

Facebook Reverses Ban on Crypto Ads for Approved Vendors

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Barely six months after a somewhat successful attempt at banning the proliferation of deceptive cryptocurrency advertising on the popular social media platform, Facebook has decided to lift some of these restrictions. The ban on cryptocurrency adverts by Facebook come officially on January 30 as part of a customer protection initiative that was meant specifically to keep naïve users of the platform from falling victim to crypto-related scams that have been rife in the online space.

 “We’ve created a new policy that prohibits ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, such as binary options, initial coin offerings, and cryptocurrency,” Facebook’s Product Management Director, Rob Leathern said at the time.

In the wake of Facebook’s crypto ad ban, other leading tech companies and advertisers such as Twitter, Google and Snapchat also joined in and implemented their own bans on cryptocurrency ads while citing the same reasons that Facebook did.

Did It Work?

Unfortunately, the ban did not turn out to be as effective as Facebook had hoped – crafty cryptocurrency advertisers were still able to sneak their promotions onto the social media platform by modifying or changing the spellings of common crypto-related keywords. However, it is worth mentioning that the ban did indeed see to a significant reduction in the number of crypto ads.

Unfortunately, again, while the ban helped in barring con artists from advertising, it also barred legitimate cryptocurrency business like Gemini and Coinbase from advertising their products. This is perhaps the main reason why Facebook has moved to loosen their restriction on cryptocurrency adverts albeit with a few conditions.

The Terms

In an official blog post on Tuesday, June 19, Facebook’s Rob Leather once again made the announcement that the social media platform has loosened the restriction they laid out earlier this year in January but they have also included measures to ensure the allowed ads are from legitimate crypto businesses.

“In the last few months, we’ve looked at the best way to refine this policy — to allow some ads while also working to ensure that they’re safe. So starting June 26, we’ll be updating our policy to allow ads that promote cryptocurrency and related content from pre-approved advertisers. But we’ll continue to prohibit ads that promote binary options and initial coin offerings,” the blog post reads.

Even though Facebook argues that it has loosened the ban to allow legitimate cryptocurrency business to keep advertising their services, there has been speculation stemming from rumors that the social media behemoth has been developing its own blockchain and could eventually launch its own digital currency.

In a way, this was confirmed by an announcement from Mark Zuckerberg which followed shortly after and stated that the company was looking into digital assets and the decentralized technologies behind them as a potential fix for some of Facebook’s problems.

Chinese Bitcoin Miner Manufacturer Seeking to Go Public

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Bitcoin recently slumped below $6,000 reaching its lowest value in a little over eight months. This has sparked a number of reactions as investors and other members of the digital coin’s community debate over allegations of price manipulation.

Bitcoin’s woes do not stop there though. The Chinese government also recently issued a blanket ban on cryptocurrency trading followed by a restriction on bitcoin miners. Is this enough to stop bitcoin’s rise?

Well, amid all the talk of bitcoin’s price drops, the blanket ban, and theories of its ultimate downfall, Ebang Communication, one of China’s largest bitcoin mining chip makers, has opted to ignore all the buzz as it seeks to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). According to a Reuters report, EBang Communications filed an application for an initial public offering (IPO) with the HKEX on June 25. However, the application is still a draft and thus the valuation of the Zheijang-based company is still definitively clear.

Even so, the application itself confirms a May report that claimed the company was working with advisors on Hong Kong float and aimed at raising as much as $1 billion to fund its growth. The filing also includes a financial statement that state that Ebang Communications earned 925 million yuan ($45 million) in revenue last year – 2017 was indeed a great year for the company as the revenue was nearly eighteen times as much as what they got in 2016.

In addition to the revenue statistics, the filing further suggested that the proportion of the bitcoin miner manufacturer’s revenue was generated solely from the sale of the bitcoin miners has also gone up significantly year-on-year. To put this into perspective, the revenue generated from the sale of bitcoin miners rose from 31 percent in 2015 to 42 percent in 2016 and then to a staggering 94.6 percent in 2017.

Founded in 2010, Ebang Communications kicked off its operations as a manufacturer of hardware products for the telecommunication industry. The company opted to enter the cryptocurrency mining in 2016 when they launched the Ebit miners, a product that was intended to compete directly with two other Chinese bitcoin mining market leaders, Cannan Creative and Bitmain.

The company’s IPO application also came with some exciting news for bitcoin miners. As it turns out, Ebang is on the verge of releasing its next generation of bitcoin miners that will be equipped with the latest 7nm semiconductor chips. These next-generation 7nm chip have been in development since 2017 and were just recently launched by GMO, a Japanese tech conglomerate.

Akon Launches Cryptocurrency to Power Youth Entrepreneurship

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Senegal-born platinum-selling singer and philanthropist Akon has recently announced plans to build his own city in Senegal with his recently launched digital currency, Akoin, being the main form of exchange. Cryptocurrencies have had their fair share of celebrity backers but most of the support has been at face value, that is, most of them are just ambassadors for digital currency outfits. As such, the move by Akon to venture into the crypto space is not only bold but also game-changing.

Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on June 18 on a panel titled “Branding Africa: Blockchain, Entrepreneurship and Empowering the Future,” the Grammy-nominated performer said blockchain technology and cryptocurrency could be “the savior for Africa in many ways” especially because of its high-security factor.

“I think that blockchain and crypto could be the savior for Africa in many ways because it brings the power back to the people and brings the security back into the currency system and also allows the people to utilize it in ways where they can advance themselves and not allow government to do those things that are keeping them down,” Akon said during the panel event, according to Page Six.

A Crypto City?

According to an initial blurb posted by ICO Impact Group, Akon and his team have a more ambitious plan in the works and it involves a 100 percent crypto-based city. As mentioned earlier at the beginning of this post, Akoin will be the center of the transactional life of the city that has been dubbed “Akon Crypto City.”

As it turns out, the development of the Akon Crypto City is already underway and it began with the 2,000 acres of land that the singer was gifted by the President of Senegal. The city is located within 5 minutes on Senegal’s new international airport, and a short drive from Dakar, Senegal’s capital city. It is also close to the coast, which in addition to all the factors make it a strategic location for such a venture.

At the moment, there are so many reasons to be skeptical about the plan especially because of the blithe overuse of “blockchain” as a buzzword and panacea to existing financial problems. To make it worse, Akon’s responses to the technical questions during the panel were not exactly heartening either – PageSix reports him saying, “I come with the concepts and let the geeks figure it out.” This is not exactly reassuring especially considering how shaky the crypto space is.

However, if we consider Akon’s Akon Lighting Africa charity project and how it effectively helped 17 countries in Africa to arrange for financing for solar panels and small-scale lighting projects, then this ambitious endeavor might just pay off, eventually.

Reserve Bank of India Reveals Its Crypto-Ban Was Uninformed

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The Reserve Banks of India (RBI), India’s central bank, has been warning the citizens of India against the dangers of investing in crypto since 2013. The central bank followed through with two more major warnings in 2017 before it finally came down hard on the cryptocurrency industry earlier this year.

An April 5 this year, the RBI issued a somewhat controversial decree that required all regulated financial institutions to quit providing services to business dealing in cryptocurrencies – this was accompanied by a three-month compliance deadline. According to the bank, the move was primarily motivated by the need to protect consumers and prevent money laundering. At the same time, the RBI also announced that it would be forming a workgroup that would be tasked with the study of the feasibility of issuing a state-backed cryptocurrency.

As expected, not everyone agreed with the RBI and its decision especially because of the concern that the bank did not conduct proper research prior to issuing the decree. This concern was confirmed this week when the RBI revealed that had made no serious efforts to effectively and explicitly study and understand various aspects of cryptocurrencies before issuing the ban. Furthermore, the bank did not form an internal committee to investigate the purported risks that it associated with cryptocurrencies.

“The RBI specifically mentions that it conducted no research or consultation before the implementation of restriction in April. The RBI also responded that no committee was ever formed for analyzing the concept of blockchain before the decision,” said Sethi, a lawyer and founder of blockchainlawyer.in.

The most affected parties, in this case, were the Indian cryptocurrency exchanges and individual traders, most of whom believe that even though they are opposed to it, they actually did expect something like that to come up. It is becoming more common for governments to make spontaneous decisions on crypto without studying it first. For instance, Japan and Russia have tried to ban crypto but have been forced to soften their stances on the issue owing to the backlash, and India is certainly headed in the same direction.

What Next?

Multiple lawsuits were filed against the RBI and some of them are already taking root into how the future of crypto in the country will play out.

“This RBI response has cemented our case ahead of the hearing in SC. The grounds on which our writ petition has been filed is that the RBI has not done enough research to ban a business completely,” Rashmi Deshpande, one of the lawyers fighting out the case in India’s Supreme Court told local news outlet.

According to June 13 report by the Economic Times, the RBI has already softened its position and therefore going to lift sanctions and the ban on crypto thus allowing trading once again. Some other reports have conflicting information but one thing that is clear is that there is a lot of effort being made toward making sure the decision is reversed.

“The foremost reason we are fighting is because we know that banning is next to impossible and it will make things worse for everyone – for the Reserve Bank, for the government, for the tax department, and for the user. In addition, it will push India back in reference to blockchain adoption across the world. We always have an option to relocate to other countries to carry our business, but that’s not the solution. If we cannot convince our own government, we cannot expect other governments to support us,” says Kunal Barchha, one of the founders of Coinrecoil.