New York, NY, Jan. 09, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (via Blockchain Wire) Blockchain technology saw exponential growth in 2019, unprecedented adoption and interest by governments and institutions around the world validating its utility.

With core infrastructure being built out across the planet, enterprise investment and regulatory pathways being defined the stage is set for 2020 to be the year for mass adoption of blockchain technology.

Thomas Carter, digital securities pioneer, and CEO ofDealBox outlinestwo key trends that will bring about massive opportunities in the blockchain space in this new year.

Key 1 - The Fat Protocol & Next Generation Blockchains

Joel Monegros Fat Protocol thesis describes how the value of blockchain technology is based on an opposite paradigm to the way value was created via the internet over the past couple of decades.

The protocol layer of the internet (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc) which is the technology that provides the underlying mechanics for websites, file transfers, and email isnt where the value was created.

Instead, the apps that used the protocols (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc) were the winners. Thus, the thin protocol designation.

In the Blockchain ecosystem we see the inverse is true where value creation will be realized by the market cap of the underlying blockchain protocol as opposed to the apps being built on it.

In other words, the value in the Ethereum blockchain can be expected to be more than the dApps (decentralized apps) being built on it. Fat Protocol.

This thesis holds true only if the blockchain in question has solved the TPS (transactions per second) or throughput problem.

1st and 2nd generation blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on consensus mechanisms that put a huge drag on transaction speed making them unviable by enterprise adoption standards.

3rd generation blockchain is all about increasing transaction speed without compromising the security, immutability and distribution of the chain.

To solve the TPS problem, various new consensus mechanisms are being developed along with sidechain technology.

Sidechains are a separate and parallel data layer that off-loads some of the data from the mainchain thereby reducing the amount and frequency of needing to wait for consensus confirmation. Gorbyte, founded by Giuseppe Gori is one project in particular just coming out of stealth mode that has created an elegant solution to the problem of blockchain scalability.

Gorbytes GNodes system eliminates the need for miners which has been the traditional bottleneck for TPS. George Gilder is a legend in tech and economic circles. His book Wealth and Poverty was the guiding light for Regans economic policies which ignited the rise of the Dow Jones Industrial Average from roughly 800 in 1979 to where it is today.Gilder predicted much of the ubiquitous tech in use today years before it existed in his books: Microcosm, Telecosm, Life After Television, and The Silicon Eye.

In this latest book, Life After Google..Gilder coins the term The Cryptocosm, to describe the emerging wave of innovative blockchain-based technology companies who are not just bringing paradigm shifting solutions to the market -- but redefining the market itself.

Gilder recently had this to say about DealBox security token issuer Giuseppe Gori in thislatest newsletter

Giuseppe Gori is an internet legend..

On Giuseppes new book -

With Reinventing the Blockchain Gori becomes the reigning prophet of the next phase of the Cryptocosm, and Cryptocosmic investment

Gori is the tribune of a new generation of blockchain inventors and their companies.

Giuseppes company Gorbyte has built a blockchain that is faster and vastly more scalable than Bitcoin. Its easier and more affordable for running smart contract applications than Ethereum.

Key 2 - Usability Blockchain is different from the traditional internet in that it incorporates a shared data layer rather than data being siloed and monetized by companies like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc.,

For those companies, the better model would compensate the users for creating the content and empower them to take their content elsewhere if a better deal became available. With data decentralized, security would be much better and privacy would be better protected.

Thats exactly what a decentralized application built on an open data protocol would do. And the compensation of the users is what a native cryptocurrency token would satisfy in this new business model.

Why isnt this being done en masse? Bitcoin is now over a decade old. Bitcoin miners have been incentivized by receiving tokens and that is precisely why Bitcoin works as well as it does. The model is proven.

Actually, a number of entrepreneurs have tried. Steem is like a decentralized Reddit with a token incentive model and it has been chugging along for sometime.

There are 150 + decentralized apps in the Blockstack app store and a similar thriving ecosystem can be found on Ethereum.

We know that TPS/scalability has been a problem but there is a second key component and that is usability.

Usability for blockchain is in dire need of a refactoring. No matter how amazing a technology is if it is hard to use, people simply wont use it. More accurately, if they cant figure out how to use it - they cant use it.

We now have scalability solved with next generation blockchains like Gorbyte and a consortium of other ventures are now working together on a shared vision to improve blockchain usability called Make Crypto Easy.

Thomas Carter on the current situation:

"With blockchain tech and cryptocurrency, we aren't dealing with a typical market adoption learning curve. Bitcoin was born of iconoclastic ideals and philosophy. If you were a technologist and you resonated with the philosophy behind Bitcoin, then you would figure out how to use it. In other words, user-friendliness wasn't ever a consideration until now and that was mostly on purpose."

The Make Crypto Easy consortium venture members are focused on solving usability issues in 4 areas of user blockchain user-experience: Transactions, Identity, Education and Digital Banking.

To learn more about the ventures and groundbreaking technology spearheading this initiative please visit http://www.makecryptoeasy.io/

As blockchain technology and the verifiable distributed trust it confers continues to reshape the world of finance that directly impacts the fundamental ways we all transact online.

Addressing theTwo Key issues of scalability and usability will remove the final friction points to widespread user adoption.

With the pace of progress being made by the ventures mentioned above as well as by other projects in the crypto space, 2020 is likely to be the tipping point for massive disruption and opportunity.

Thomas Carter, founder and CEO ofDealBox, Inc; read about Thomas:This FinTech Veteran Is Making Cryptocurrency Startup Funding Legitimate; connect onLinkedInandInstagram.

Contact:

Shazir Mucklai

Imperium Group

shazirm@aol.com

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Digital Securities Guru Thomas Carter on The Two Keys That Will Unlock Mass Adoption of Cryptocurrency/Blockchain in 2020 - GlobeNewswire

Financial watchdogs formally put dodgy cryptocurrency entrepreneurs on high alert this year, dishing out fines and forcing startups into submission on the regular.

To some, the US Securities and Exchange Commissions hard-on for crypto-justice was telegraphed when it deemed Ethereums native cryptocurrency Ether not a security last year.

Simultaneously, the SEC hinted that tokens deployed on the network could very well be classified as such. In the movie business, they call that foreshadowing.

As it turns out, a slew of cryptocurrency startups didnt get the memo or if they did they simply didnt give a fuck. Heres a list of blockchain-themed lawsuithighlights for the year. A regulatory dunk reel, if you will.

In September, Block.one the firm that built the blockchain-powered cloud computing service EOS agreed to pay $24 million for violating US securities law with its year-long$4.1 billion ICO.

Many people in the industry felt this particular SEC action was long overdue, especially those who considered it obvious that selling 900 million tokenswithout any product backing them would eventually attract the attention of US regulators.

The SECs statement even reflected this sentiment. It clearly highlighted its very thorough investigation into autonomous blockchain firm The DAO, which established quite clearly how token sales(like the one conducted by Block.one) align with US securities law.

Either Block.one didnt read it, or (more likely) simply didnt care. In the end, Block.one neither agreed to or disputed the SECs claims, but still paid $24 million in fines. Definitely not enough, in my opinion.

Almost one year on from the launch of the EOS mainnet (which, again, cost $4.6 billion), not only is EOSstill suffering from major, crippling bottlenecks, but block producers have alleged that its actually being run by sock puppets owned by vote-buying cartels.

This case comes by way of the US Department of Justice (DoJ), which says Steven Nerayoff (the guy responsible for the legal architecture of Ethereum ICOs) as well as one of his buddies extorted a budding cryptocurrency business for millions of dollars worth of Ether.

In exchange for 22.5 percent of all funds raised, as well as 22.5 percent of the tokens issued, Nerayoffs company was to help an unnamed cryptocurrency startup launch a successful ICO.

Eventually, Nerayoff is said to have demanded that his share of the profits be increased from 13,000 ETH to 30,000 ETH (worth $8.75 million at the time), threatening to destroy the company if he didnt get his way. The firm paid, but Nerayoff and his company didnt give the startup any further assistance.

Nerayoff associate Michael Hlady did pretty much the same thing. After claiming to have worked for the NSA and the CIA, he demanded a $4.45 million Ether loan, or else hed destroy the companys community.

Both Nerayoff and Hlady were arrested on extortion charges in September, and both face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The SECaccused Reginald Middleton, a self-described financial guru, of misleading investors by touting outsized and fictitious demand for his crappy cryptocurrency VERI.

VERI was sold under the guise that one day it could be used as a utility token for Veritaseum, a platform that was meant to offer products ranging from self-custody escrowing, financial and data analytics, and the tokenization of assets.

Turns out (yet again), none of this ever fucking existed. Middleton still (allegedly) shilled VERI on unsuspecting investors by fraudulently claiming to have a blockchain product ready to generate millions of dollars worthof revenue.

The SEC also said that in one day, Middleton artificially boosted the price of VERI by 315 percent, presumably in a bid to lure even more buyers.

In total, Middleton and his associated companies raised $14.8 million, $8 million of which Middleton allegedly still holds. In August, Hard Fork reported that the SEC had pulled an emergency lawsuit on Middleton to prevent him from accessing those funds.

Yep, messaging app Telegram, which boasts over 200 million users, is being sued for allegedly raising a ball-twisting $1.7 billion by selling unregistered securities in the form of crypto tokens.

A US federal judge also ordered Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov to be deposed in early January, and its vice president has been urged to testify in London. An employee that was featured on the companys letters to investors has been requested to to do the same.

The SEC already put a stop to any further sales when it secured an emergency restraining order against the company in October, but the lawsuits are yet to be decided upon. Telegram began selling its tokensat the start of 2018.

Thing is, Telegrams token sale was ridiculously strange. The Telegram Open Network is supposedly a blockchain-based platform that would allow users to access payments services, decentralized apps, file storage, and even a browser.

As TechCrunch noted last year, the original TON whitepaper indicated the firm sought to raise $1.2 billion from invite-only private investors and the general public. That target was later extended to $1.7 billion, and presumably after raising enough money, the firm canceled the public token sale altogether.

In turn, a secondary market for TON was born, as early investors looked to offload their tokens to keen buyers locked out of the ICO process. In one instance, tokens bought for $0.37 were reportedly being sold for $1.30 a 350-percent increase for a token that was supposedly powering a blockchain platform that didnt yet exist.

Im sure many onlookers are keen to see how this one plays out. I for one am curious to see just how big (or small) any potential SEC fines may be.

Bitqyck was an allegedly fake cryptocurrency mining business that sold $13 million worth of tokens to more than 13,000 investors.

Their facility wassupposed to generate cryptocurrency using electricity it had secured at below-market rates. The SEC found, however, that Bitqyck had struck no deal at all.

In fact, the entire mining operation didnt even exist, and the company that sold the tokens was deemed an unregistered securities exchange.

Soon after the SEC made these allegations, its founders promptly agreed to return $13 million raised to 13,000 investors,with interest. They were also fined a collective $10 million in civil penalties.

Fake crypto mining aside, this is really on brand for the SEC, as this year has seen a swathe of other blockchain startups targeted for selling tokens without registering them as securities.

Crummy token peddlers, take note: you could be next.

Published January 6, 2020 13:32 UTC

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5 times regulators revealed their raging boners for crypto justice in 2019 - The Next Web

The term Cryptocurrency is in vogue these days. Most of the people are prejudiced about the know-how of Cryptocurrency.

However, Cryptocurrency is much more than what people know about this term. In this article, we would know how Cryptocurrency has changed the business world.

Cryptocurrency is an asset that is completely available online.

It is specially designed to work as a:

Cryptocurrency is a system that meets the following conditions and is capable of:

Now, after you have mug-up all the facts mentioned above about Cryptocurrency, its the time to know how can Cryptocurrency transformed the business world.

Following are the pointers that will give the true and fair picture to you about the transformations that have taken place after the arrival of Cryptocurrency-

The fact that some economies are already disturbed is not hidden from anyone. The reason is the rising issues against the central government.

However, at such a critical time, a currency in which people can put their trust as well as they know it will maintain its value can open new doors.

Many people expect that the economies will get stable by using Cryptocurrency against that untrusted local currency.

Of-course when Cryptocurrency has the potential to level up the economy, it has the capability to lower down the currency risk as well.

The users need not worry about their government is printing money or not; also, the fear of monetizing their debts will also be eliminated.

Further, great confidence could be seen in a user that their currency will have value in the future. Hence, the currency risk will be eliminated with the usage of Cryptocurrency.

We are pretty much aware of the fact that transferring money from one bank to another is a lengthy as well as a cumbersome process.

Even a couple of hours are wasted in confirming it via wire transfers. However, with the help of Cryptocurrency, the facility of quick, instant, and faster confirmations can be initiated.

The reason is that all the transactions are done on the digital platform, and the holder or user does not have to go anywhere personally.

When a real estate gets closed or is merged into some bigger entity, the money has to be transferred in order to make sure that the title is transferred.

Such ownership or title-ship transfers can be made easier with the help of Cryptocurrency whereby:

To bank something is to keep something valuable somewhere.

Banks were opened to facilitate a safekeeping of money, ornaments, and important documents of the people; however, we are listening to such news daily that banks are going bankrupt.

Hence they are not able to repay the principal amount to the user, what to talk of interest?

Likewise, it is expected that in the coming time, the necessity of keeping your money in the bank would no more remain a necessity.

A platform like Cryptocurrency provides us a completely digital way to keep our money safe and secure; also we can use it as and when we want and require.

Investment

In the investment world, a broker plays an important role and, a broker only helps you when you are paying handsome amounts to him to be your broker, whether it is an individual, an agency, a financial institution or a bank.

However, with the help of Cryptocurrency, the middleman gets removed as the parties can connect directly without the need of any broker.

Hence, you save a great sum that way as three things are important:

Cryptocurrency promises to flatten the investment procedure for buyers as well as sellers.

The Exchange agencies like money gram or western union money transfer offer the key feature in which the users can move ownership from one person to another. Here the parties generally do not know each other, but the payment is facilitated.

However, using a digital platform like Cryptocurrency is offering in investments. It eliminates the lengthy and cumbersome procedures out and clears the way for the users to execute what they want to easily.

This is not an overrated statement that 4/5 of the people use mobile phones and out of them at least half of the people shop online from a hairclip to a pair of shoes or sandals; from soap to a perfume; from a beautiful dress to a branded pair of jeans and what not?

When everything is available online, why would people waste their time, efforts, and energy in personal visiting and buying?

Cryptocurrency gives reasons to believe in this online system to the ones who are yet afraid of the online scams or any kind of insecurity while making online payments.

The reason is that it eliminates the risk of fraud for individuals as well as for business entrepreneurs.

Therefore, it is building a strong base and strengthening the e-commerce day by day. Moreover, it also allows users to shop online freely.

Hence, these were some of the highlighted benefits and core points about Cryptocurrency that will surely give you a boost to ponder about it.

We surely are entering into an exciting world where the fear will be eliminated, and confidence will be leveled up in every being. Cryptocurrency will have more dynamic effects than the ones mentioned here.

The one that can foresee the uncertain and un-happened can foretell that Cryptocurrency will bring great opportunities for the people as well as for the businesses in the upcoming time.

By Harikrishna Kundariya, who is a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies, an AngularJS Web Development Company. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT & Blockchain.

Website URL:- https://www.esparkinfo.com/

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Can Cryptocurrency Transform The Business World in 2020? - Irish Tech News

KEY POINTS

The recently released progress update by the IRS noted that the 2019 Tax Form 1040 includes inquiry about owning cryptocurrencies. Still, it only managed to offer additional questions to crypto holders since the federal agency for revenue service only provided moreclarity last month to the originalNotice 2014-21issued in 2014.

With the modified Form 1040, the IRS wants to know if taxpayers had acquired or disposed of any cryptocurrencies (or what they termed as "virtual currency") in 2019. Schedule 1 of form 1040 asks: "At anytime during 2019, did youreceive,sell,send,exchange, or otherwise acquire any financial interest in any virtual currency?"

The word "exchange" in this question is what caused some of the confusion in the crypto community as that would mean that transferring a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin (BTC)to another wallet will be taxable, as Daniel Roberts of Yahoo Finance points out.

The government agency's answer to this is, "No. If you transfer virtual currency from a wallet, address, or account belonging to you, to another wallet, address, or account that also belongs to you, then the transfer is a non-taxable event, even if you receive an information return from an exchange or platform as a result of the transfer."

Questions like this surface because of how the IRS defines cryptocurrencies, and it's not currencies but rather property, much like stocks where capital gains (or losses) should be reported. The 45-FAQspublished on the federal agency's website offer some elucidation, answering questions for instances whencryptocurrencies are received asgifts and or when it is exchanged for properties.

Another uncertainty that perhaps irked some crypto owners was brought about by Rev. Rul. 2019-24 which concerns hard forks. This additional guideline for cases where there's a split in the chain warrants the crypto user to pay taxes nonetheless -- even if the user has no intention of utilizing the forked coins.

Roberts notes that in the past, a different measure was taken by most cryptocurrency owners. Since disclosing crypto gains doesn't offer much incentive and risks getting an audit, crypto holders shun it aside as something that would go unnoticed. But the new steps by the IRS indicate that they're honing on cryptocurrency holders and they're more committed to taxing crypto transactions.

Litecoin, ripple and ethereum cryptocurrency 'altcoins' sit arranged for a photograph. Germany is investigating the use of blockchain, the tech that underpins cryptocurencies. Photo: Jack Taylor/Getty Images

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2019 Tax Form 1040 Adds Question On Cryptocurrency Transactions, Bitcoin Buying Now Taxable? - International Business Times

The Koreas|Economy|East Asia

After an early wave of public enthusiasm, South Koreas government is taking steps to regulate crypto assets.

South Korea is considering legislation to bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream and mulling whether to tax crypto assets.

When Bitcoin was created in 2009, the idea of a cryptocurrency was new and a largely unregulated field. As more cryptocurrencies have been developed there has been a growing push to regulate the industry internationally and in key markets such as South Korea.

South Korea first took steps to regulate cryptocurrency in 2017, when rising prices for Bitcoin and Ethereum raised concerns about disruptive financial speculation, along with growing concerns about fraud and illicit activities.

At the time, South Koreans were among the initial cryptocurrency enthusiasts, with one-in-three salaried workers investing in cryptocurrency and local exchanges Bithumb, Coinbit, and Upbit among the top exchanges by volume in the world. As recently as June of this year, the South Korean won was the third most used fiat currency to trade in Bitcoin, accounting for 6.5 percent of transactions.

To clamp down on speculation and improve security, South Korea moved toward requiring real name accounts and introducing a ban on initial coin offerings in 2017 that remains in place.

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Despite increasing regulation in recent years, South Korea continues to be an important market for cryptocurrency. Though Bithumb, Coinbit, and Upbit are no longer among the top exchanges by volume and South Korean blockchain startups are increasingly listing their cryptocurrencies abroad, the South Korean won remains the fifth most utilized national currency by cryptocurrency exchanges for Bitcoin and South Korea is among the top 10 countries for total exchanges.

However, in recent years there has been growing scrutiny of cryptocurrency internationally as well as domestically in South Korea.

In June, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) issued guidelines on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers relating to their obligations to take steps to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. These include enforcing the travel rule requiring financial institutions to provide customer information when transferring more than $1,000 to another financial institution. The FATFs guidelines help to create regulatory harmony across different financial jurisdictions and an auditable record for the enforcement of sanctions and investigations after terrorist attacks.

In response, the South Korean National Assembly is taking steps to provide a legal foundation for virtual assets. The legislation will require firms to register with South Koreas Financial Services Commissions Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which would also have regulatory authority for cryptocurrency exchanges. At the moment, the FIU only indirectly regulates cryptocurrency exchanges through its oversight of South Korean banks. The change would allow bring cryptocurrency exchanges into the financial regulatory framework and allow the FIU to directly develop new regulations for the exchanges.

The legislation would also help bring cryptocurrency exchanges in South Korea in line with the FATFs requirements to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing by setting ground rules for transactions and requiring firms to adopt greater accountability.

For the moment, South Korea is unable to tax crypto assets such as crypto currency. The Ministry of Finance and Economy (MOFE) has indicated that profits from cryptocurrency trades cannot be taxed under current law. Not all forms of capital gains are taxable in South Korea and there are currently no references to cryptocurrency in the current tax codes. In order for South Korea to tax crypto assets something government officials have expressed an interest in doing it will need to develop a definition of crypto assets, determine which type of assets should be taxed, and decide how crypto exchanges should report tax liabilities to the government.

If South Korea moves forward with revising its tax law to cover cryptocurrency, it will not be alone. The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia all tax cryptocurrency as an asset. There has been some concern expressed about South Koreas ability to define cryptocurrency, but if tax authorities decide to tax cryptocurrency as an asset it will have other models to look to for how to handle crypto transactions based on capital gains.

Get first-read access to major articles yet to be released, as well as links to thought-provoking commentaries and in-depth articles from our Asia-Pacific correspondents.

While cryptocurrency began as an effort to conduct financial transactions outside of the traditional financial system, if it is to grow to be more than a speculative asset there will need to be regulation to protect consumers, ensure transparency for tax purposes, and to protect against its illicit uses. If South Korea has seen a short-run decline in cryptocurrency transactions as a result of regulation, the focus on establishing a proper regulatory structure should place South Korea in position to benefit from new regulated markets in the long-run.

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South Korea Works to Bring Cryptocurrency Into the Mainstream - The Diplomat

Bitcoin Is Now 11 Years Old

Today is January 3rd, 2020. And if you know anything about the history of Bitcoin, you know that this means the worlds first cryptocurrency and its respective blockchain has turned 11 years ago, with this being the date that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous coder-hacker behind the project, mined the Genesis Block of Bitcoin.

In it, the creator encoded a headline regarding the Great Recession of 2008, cementing the idea that he launched the project to counteract banks and governments in the minds of many.

Since then, Bitcoin has seemingly been on an unstoppable rise, with the price of the asset, which many say is the best measure of its success, rising by literal millions of percent, making it the best-performing asset, well, ever. Thats not to mention that the cryptocurrency has accomplished this all in a decades time, effectively irrelevant on a macro scale.

The project has also been successful on a transactional basis. Cryptocurrency research firm TradeBlock found that the cryptocurrency has had a record 2019 with transaction count, transaction volume (USD equivalent basis), and hash rate reaching new all-time highs this past year.

All this has made some of the worlds most prominent people talk about it.

In February, Elon Musk co-founder of PayPal, chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, founder of the Boring Company, among other titles said in a podcast that the cryptocurrency has an underlying structure that is quite brilliant, adding that he thinks maybe Ethereum and maybe some of the others might have technological merit. The renowned technologist concluded by stating that he thinks without a doubt that crypto is a far better way to transfer value than pieces of paper.

While Bitcoin has done absolutely stellar in its 11-or-so years in existence as laid out earlier in this article, analysts and industry executives are optimistic that the following decade for the leading cryptocurrency and its ilk will just not good, if not better.

Andy Bromberg told Bloomberg that we are seeing a level of building that has happened in 2019 [which makes it feel like] were in the moment of everyone is putting on their jumpsuits, ready to take off. Bromberg added were seeing crypto-related innovation hasnt been seen since 2017, boding well for prices in the future.

And Changpeng CZ Zhao, the prominent chief executive behind cryptos top firm, Binance, was recently quoted as saying that he thinks that the long-term trajectory for the Bitcoin and crypto market remains decidedly positive:

Bitcoin is still a small market cap instrument so there will be high volatility in the short term. However, if you look at the fundamental technology, the longer-term view, about a 5-year or 10-year horizon, were very confident that bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are here to stay.

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Why Analysts Are Bullish On Cryptocurrency As Bitcoin Turns 11 - Ethereum World News

The next wave of cryptocurrency adopters wont care about the asset class, argues Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Theyll arrive because of new innovations from startup companies creating interesting applications. When developers design these platforms and services for crypto only, people will opt in.

Armstrong writes,

The next 100M people who get exposure to cryptocurrency will not come from them caring about cryptocurrency, but because they are trying to play some game, use a decentralized social network, or earn a living, and using cryptocurrency is the only way to use that particular application.

As a key driver of adoption, new crypto startups are poised to set off a decade where entrepreneurs use crypto to raise money on a global scale while issuing tokens to early adopters of new products, ramping to build global marketplaces that outperform the pace of traditional startups.

I believe that by the end of the 2020s almost every tech startup will have some sort of cryptocurrency component.

Rapid growth will create a snowball effect, enticing bigger and bigger players.

Eventually just about every financial institution will have some sort of cryptocurrency operation, and most funds will keep a portion of their assets in cryptocurrencies, partially due to its uncorrelated returns. Something like 90% of the money in the world is locked up in institutions, so this will likely drive a lot of demand for crypto assets.

The next decade will also be characterized by major strides in maturing market structure, central bank digital currencies such as the digital yuan, basket digital currencies backed by consortiums like Libra, Centre and possibly the International Monetary Fund, and scalability a critical catalyst.

Says Armstrong,

Once we see blockchains with several orders of magnitude scalability improvements, we will new applications start to develop more rapidly.

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Coinbase CEO Says 100 Million Newbies Will Interact With Cryptocurrency in Wave of Adoption - The Daily Hodl

As 2020 kicks off it seems likely that government owned crypto will become a mainstay of the sector. Both China and Russia have begun tests for integrating state controlled cryptocurrency into their respective markets. Other major legislative and technological shifts are also underway.

Get comprehensive access to global business, stock market, business news, and trending topics like Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Download the application for accurate and concise finance news, stock market intelligence alerts and everything you need to know about currencies, commodities, and futures.

China is ready to start testing the digital yuan, said Mu Changchun, Head of Payment and Settlement Solutions Division of the Peoples Bank of China. He noted that the payment system has already passed the functional research and debugging stage, and now there will be the launch of pilot programs.

On around January 1, 2020, the Ethereum network will host Muir Glacier hard fork. It will take place on block 9 200 000 with the goal of delaying the activation of the complexity bomb.

Digital rights (tokens) can be assessed as the subject of a bribe, explained the Supreme Court of Russia in addition to the resolution of the Supreme Court Plenum of July 9, 2013 on judicial practice in cases of bribery and other corruption-related crimes. At the same time, tokens should receive a monetary value on the evidence provided by the parties, and if necessary, a specialist or expert opinion will be required.

The number of open long positions on the Bitfinex exchange has set a new historic high, exceeding 47.5 thousand BTC. This may indicate that the cryptocurrency community is expecting Bitcoin value to rise over the coming weeks after recent troubles.

The Bank of Russia has started to test the stablecoins in the regulatory sandbox. The agency is studying the possibility of issuing a digital ruble and determining its advantages over a more traditional fast payment system.

Craig Wright, who calls himself the creator of Bitcoin, said that on January 1, 2020, he will have access to 1.1 million BTC. As evidence, he presented the court with an email allegedly signed in 2011 by Dave Kleiman, who is considered one of the early developers of the first cryptocurrency.

More than 204 thousand Ethereum came to the hot wallets of the leading trading platforms. 25 thousand ETH was transferred to Binance and about 100 thousand to Huobi. Another 89 thousand ETH was sent to Kraken, while all coins came from one purse. Its owner could be a member of the Ethereum development team or Vitalik Buterin himself.

Senegal, Venezuela, Uruguay, and Tunisia have already presented digital payment systems, and, at the end of December, the Bank of Russia, which is skeptical about the new type of assets, reported on the beginning of testing the stable coins.

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This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words believe, project, estimate, become, plan, will, and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.

First published in , a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

Although we made reasonable efforts to provide accurate translations, some parts may be incorrect. Born2Invest assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions or ambiguities in the translations provided on this website. Any person or entity relying on translated content does so at their own risk. Born2Invest is not responsible for losses caused by such reliance on the accuracy or reliability of translated information. If you wish to report an error or inaccuracy in the translation, we encourage you to contact us.

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China and Russia begin testing cryptocurrency - Born2Invest

Updated: May 25, 2018:

JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.

This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services"). By using our Website and registering for one of our Services, you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Please note that if you subscribe to one of our Services, you can make choices about how we collect, use and share your information through our Privacy Center under the "My Account" dashboard (available if you are logged into your JD Supra account).

Registration Information. When you register with JD Supra for our Website and Services, either as an author or as a subscriber, you will be asked to provide identifying information to create your JD Supra account ("Registration Data"), such as your:

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Your interactions with our Website and Services: As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically. This information includes IP addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp and clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends, to administer the Website and our Services, to improve the content and performance of our Website and Services, and to track users' movements around the site. We may also link this automatically-collected data to personal information, for example, to inform authors about who has read their articles. Some of this data is collected through information sent by your web browser. We also use cookies and other tracking technologies to collect this information. To learn more about cookies and other tracking technologies that JD Supra may use on our Website and Services please see our "Cookies Guide" page.

We use the information and data we collect principally in order to provide our Website and Services. More specifically, we may use your personal information to:

JD Supra takes reasonable and appropriate precautions to insure that user information is protected from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We restrict access to user information to those individuals who reasonably need access to perform their job functions, such as our third party email service, customer service personnel and technical staff. You should keep in mind that no Internet transmission is ever 100% secure or error-free. Where you use log-in credentials (usernames, passwords) on our Website, please remember that it is your responsibility to safeguard them. If you believe that your log-in credentials have been compromised, please contact us at privacy@jdsupra.com.

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Our Website and Services may contain links to other websites. The operators of such other websites may collect information about you, including through cookies or other technologies. If you are using our Website or Services and click a link to another site, you will leave our Website and this Policy will not apply to your use of and activity on those other sites. We encourage you to read the legal notices posted on those sites, including their privacy policies. We are not responsible for the data collection and use practices of such other sites. This Policy applies solely to the information collected in connection with your use of our Website and Services and does not apply to any practices conducted offline or in connection with any other websites.

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You can make a request to exercise any of these rights by emailing us at privacy@jdsupra.com or by writing to us at:

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We will make all practical efforts to respect your wishes. There may be times, however, where we are not able to fulfill your request, for example, if applicable law prohibits our compliance. Please note that JD Supra does not use "automatic decision making" or "profiling" as those terms are defined in the GDPR.

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, our customers who are California residents have the right to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

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Some browsers have incorporated a Do Not Track (DNT) feature. These features, when turned on, send a signal that you prefer that the website you are visiting not collect and use data regarding your online searching and browsing activities. As there is not yet a common understanding on how to interpret the DNT signal, we currently do not respond to DNT signals on our site.

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We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Please refer to the date at the top of this page to determine when this Policy was last revised. Any changes to our Privacy Policy will become effective upon posting of the revised policy on the Website. By continuing to use our Website and Services following such changes, you will be deemed to have agreed to such changes.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this site, your dealings with our Website or Services, or if you would like to change any of the information you have provided to us, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

As with many websites, JD Supra's website (located at http://www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") and our services (such as our email article digests)(our "Services") use a standard technology called a "cookie" and other similar technologies (such as, pixels and web beacons), which are small data files that are transferred to your computer when you use our Website and Services. These technologies automatically identify your browser whenever you interact with our Website and Services.

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There are different types of cookies and other technologies used our Website, notably:

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We may update this cookie policy and our Privacy Policy from time-to-time, particularly as technology changes. You can always check this page for the latest version. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies and other tracking technologies, please contact us at: privacy@jdsupra.com.

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Five Tips for Dealing with Cryptocurrency in Your Divorce - JD Supra

XRP was once the best-performing crypto assets of all-time, peaking near the $3 price point at the top of the previous bull market on the back of retail FOMO, perpetuated by those saying that the cryptocurrency was on the verge of being adopted by the worlds largest banks and financial institutions.

But since then, the price of the third-largest cryptocurrency has absolutely fallen off a cliff, collapsing from the heights above $3 to $0.192, where XRP sits as of the time of writing this.

Some say it is only a matter of time before the cryptocurrency rips higher to revisit its all-time highs.

Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, popular trader and long-termXRP bull Credible Crypto remarked in November that those getting impatient about the XRP price are missing the big picture, and will miss out on the gains that are sure to come. Elaborating on why this is, he noted that XRP only started running nearly 2 years after the BTC bear market low was put in in 14-15 and that too, only afterBTCbroke prior ATH.

The implication in this Twitter message, of course, being that theres a rather high likelihood the cryptocurrency will surge higher in a move that will bring it to orders of magnitudes above where it started.

Though a prominent and respected cryptocurrency analyst has branded XRP but a moonshot investment, meaning that it has dramatic upside potential, but a low likelihood of that potential being fulfilled.

Mati Greenspan, a former senior analyst at eToro and the founder of Quantum Economics, released his startups latest newsletter on Friday morning. In it, the prominent cryptocurrency analyst took a moment to touch on XRP, specifically in regards to the narrative spreading on Crypto Twitter that the cryptocurrency will be used as a bridge currency for the world.

Should XRP become the worlds bridge currency, meaning that it will effectively be used as a form of liquidity by all banking institutions, the price would likely go sky-high, surging past the previous all-time high in a short period of time.

While possible, Greenspan noticed that it does seem more likely that a coin created by banks, for banks, would be favorable to most large financial institutions, before adding that some competitor or central bank digital currencies may become widespread and efficient. This risk factor led him to the conclusion that XRP is just a moonshot investment in his eyes.

Read this article:
Top Analyst Brands XRP a Moonshot Investment; Heres Why - Ethereum World News