Hugh Harsono is a former financial analyst currently serving as a U.S. Army Officer.

Digital currency prices have soared recently, with reports from the past few months showing enormous valuation increases for currencies across the board.

Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ethereum have all experienced exponential growth, with Bitcoin prices rising to $2,588, Ripple reaching a market cap of nearly $10 billion, and Ethereum growing to a total market cap of over $20 billion.

With supply and demand for digital currencies extremely high in both Japan and China, it is no surprise as to why these two countries are helping to fuel the rise in cryptocurrency prices.

Ability to Withdraw in China?

With access to cheap hardware and electricity, China is the prime breeding ground for mining cryptocurencies, with huge mining pools run by exchanges such as BTCC accounting for more than 60% of the bitcoin networks collective hashrate.

However, the beginning of 2017 saw a governmental crackdown of Chinese-based digital currency exchanges, causing a suspension in all withdrawals, causing the market to suffer heavily with China being one of the top bitcoin markets in terms of trading volume.

Recently, Caixin reported potential changes in the governmental regulatory framework to allow withdrawals last month, specifically mentioning top exchanges OKcoin, Huobi, and BTCC. This potential good news has increased consumer confidence in cryptocurrencies, contributing to their associated rise in value.

Japan: Stepping in to Fill the Chinese Void

With cryptocurrency liquidity in China experienced stagnation earlier this year, the Japanese bitcoin market exploded, with demand reaching new heights.

Previously, Japan represented barely 1% of total bitcoin trading volume, but in recent months estimates put this number as high as 6%, with Japan accounting for nearly 55% of total trade volume on some trading days. This increase in JPY bitcoin trading due to the Chinese inability to liquidate has fueled growth in the digital currency market globally.

Solid Alternative Compared to Government Policy

In China, the tightly-controlled yuan is another reason why cryptocurrency prices have experienced their unprecedented rise in value. The Chinese government has total control over the yuans valuation, traditionally devaluing the yuan to give itself an international trade advantage when the government saw fit.

With the growing amount of private independent wealth in China, cryptocurrency has become viable as an alternative asset class. And cryptocurrencies are being seen as more accessible, less volatile, and increasingly stable, contributing to their recent growth in value.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Japans policy of quantitative easing has resulted in very low, and sometimes even negative interest rates, also caused digital currency values to rise.

The Japanese governments QE policy, intended to spur economic growth, has resulted in significant deflation for the yen, causing a similar decrease in investor confidence in this currency. With no end in sight for this form of Japanese monetary policy, digital currencies have and are currently being used as an alternative asset class, driving their rise in value.

Virtual currencies are quickly being seen as a better asset class by local investors, who fear the volatility of government interference in their specific economies.

Institutional Acceptance of Digital Currency

The rise in digital currency values can also be attributed to institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies. The recent conclusion of the Global Blockchain Financial Summit in Hangzhou saw intense interest from reputable institutions like Peking University, which is creating an Ethereum center to work on direct application use and protocol improvements in China.

The Royal Chinese Mint, a downtrace unit of the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) dedicated to its electronic banking mission, has even actively promoted the application of blockchain technology, going as far as to allocate resources and developers in experimentation to digitize the yuan.

In Japan, multiple large institutions are now beginning to accept digital currency as a transactional entity, validating its use to the Japanese population as a whole. On the market front,bitFlyer, Japans largest exchange, is currently backed by all three of Japans megabanks: MUFJ, Mizuho, and SMBC.

On the consumer/retail side, influential electronics retailer Bic Camera has partnered with bitFlyer to begin acceptance of bitcoin at its retail locations. Additionally, Recruit Lifestyle, part of HR conglomerate Recruit Holdings, reported a new partnership with exchange Coincheck to use as part of a point-of-sale implementation program. The acceptance of digital currencies by these reputable groups have helped fuel confidence in digital currencies for daily transactions by the Japanese.

This institutional acceptance of digital currencies by powerful organizations in both China and Japan have allowed cryptocurrencies values to rise as a whole.

Governmental Acceptance of Cryptocurrency

It is no secret that the Chinese government has taken steps to regulate digital currency transactions, with their scrutiny and initiatives causing a drop in bitcoin prices to around $1,000 just several months ago.

However, the very fact that the PBoC is seeking to regulate this industry simply proves how viable it is as a legitimate transaction entity, with the Chinese government even taking steps to build their own digital currency.

With the announcement of potential withdrawals of bitcoin on the horizon, the PBoC have just completed a trial run of their own digital currency based on blockchain technology, with participation from major institutions such as the Bank of China and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, as well as Chinas first online bank WeBank.

The Japanese government has also taken huge steps in the acceptance of digital currencies as legal forms of tender, with Japan legally classifying bitcoin as a form of payment just on April 1st.

Ahead of China, Japan has already begun licensure procedures for digital currency exchanges, to be operated under the watchful eye of the governments Financial Services Agency, with market leaders such as bitFlyer already announcing plans to apply for said license, further driving investor confidence in the Japanese market and beyond.

Additionally, the Japanese government announced that the sale of virtual currency under the new Fund Settlement Law would be exempt from the Japanese Consumption Tax (8%), further driving bitcoin growth as an investment vehicle.

The acceptance of virtual currencies by both the Chinese and Japanese governments are driving cryptocurrency growth, with China on the cusp of establishing its own currency, and Japan regulating bitcoin as true legal payment.

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How two countries helped drive the recent rise in cryptocurrency prices - TechCrunch

With cryptocurrency ICOs taking center stage lately, there will be more attempts to scam people as well. It can be difficult to protect oneself against thesescams, butsome basic precautions will keep most people safe. This new digital craze will need to be regulatedsomehow, as the amount of scamscan get out of hand pretty quickly. Below are some basic tips to avoid getting scammed by a cryptocurrency ICO.

The first step investors always need to take is conducting due diligence on a project. Randomly investing in cryptocurrency ICOs can pay off in the long run, but it also greatly increases ones chances of investing in a bogus project. Any ICO that does not have a detailed whitepaper should be avoided, as that is a basic requirement for any serious project. If the company or project cannot convince you of its use cases, you should not give them your money.

Any project that does not want to make the names of its team members public should also raise red flags. If the names and identities are made public, do some research on the people involved in the project. Do not be fooled by big names working as an adviser for a project either. These roles often lack real influence over the direction and execution of projects. Fancy names mean nothing these days, as a lot of information found on the internet is either doctored or utterly fake.

On multiple occasions, we see people spreading fake Ethereum wallet addresses to participate in a specific cryptocurrency ICO. This mostly occurs on Telegram, butSlack can suffer from the same problem. Never trust an Ethereum wallet address given to you by strangers on the internet. Do not ask for these addresses either, as you are only asking to be scammed by doing so. Only use the information provided by the team itself and the address shown on the legitimate ICO website.

Perhaps the biggest threat to cryptocurrency ICOs and potential investors comes in the form of phishing sites. More often than not, we see clone websites for upcoming ICOs appear on the internet. This can affect both CIO and pre-ICO campaigns, which makes it very difficult for novice users to determine which site is legitimate and which one is not. The best course of action is to links spread on Telegram or Slack, other than the ones provided by the moderators and team members.

Since phishing sites look exactly like the real ICO site, investors would almost need to know the official site before it launches. That is very hard to achieve, as most ICO projects want to keep pre-ICO and ICO links undisclosed until the campaign starts. Keeping tabs on projects through platforms such as Tokenmarket will guarantee users will always find the correct URL for a cryptocurrency ICO. It is by far one of the most trusted ICO websites out there.

Even though TokenMarket does a good job to keep track of cryptocurrency ICOs, we will ultimately need a decentralized registry for these types of projects. Adecentralized registry can provide whitelist services to cull the phishing sites from the real platforms. Ensuring people provide the correct information in the first place can be a challenge, though. For some reason, virtually all cryptocurrency ICOs rely on centralized technology, which is problematic to any such efforts.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

See the rest here:
How to Avoid Being Scammed by a Cryptocurrency ICO - The Merkle

In the world of digital currencies, Bitcoin (BTC) paved the way. The original cryptocurrency has continued to dominate the field, with prices reaching up to $3000 or so per coin at its peak. And yet, Bitcoin is no longer as dominant over the rest of the field as it once was: while Bitcoin used to enjoy a share of the total industry market capitalization around 80-90%, it now represents less than half of the total market cap. Other currencies are racing to catch up with Bitcoin, with Ethereum's Ether token appearing to be the most likely to overtake Bitcoin in terms of market cap. And yet, regardless of whether Bitcoin remains on top or if another digital currency surpasses it, Bitcoin's influence on the industry, and on the world at large, cannot be overstated. The cryptocurrency world is continuing to grow: where will it end up?

Bitcoin's success has spawned over 800 other cryptocurrencies in the past decade. Now, the market for Bitcoins is worth about $40 billion, but the total value of the rest of those currencies is worth even more than that, whent hey are taken together. The next biggest players are Ethereum, occupying about $25.7 billion worth of the total market value share, and Ripple, with about $10.5 billion. Litecoin, Dash, NEM, and many others follow after that. The total value of the industry is hovering just under $100 billion at this point, which is roughly equivalent to the combined values of Weyerhaeuser (WY), Ford (F), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), three of the largest corporations in the United States, according to Business Insider.

One of the reasons that analysts see the cryptocurrency world continuing to grow into the future is Bitcoin's shifting role. For the first time since its founding more than a decade ago, Bitcoin now makes up a minority of the entire cryptocurrency market. For many years the original cryptocurrency completely dominated its competition, but in the past six months or so, Bitcoin has dropped to just 41.6% of the total market. Litecoin, which aims to process blocks at four times the speed of Bitcoin, has been in existence since 2011. Ethereum, launched only in 2015, has ascended through the ranks of digital currencies at lightning speed. And Ripple has made impressive gains thanks to its unique software, which has already been adopted by some of the largest banks in the world in order to increase global liquidity.

At this point, it seems likely that the cryptocurrency world will continue to expand, with more currencies, more customers, more miners, and new technology. Of course, there are also those who speculate that the rapid growth is a result of a bubble, but only time will tell if the digital currency world will come crashing down.

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How Much Will the Cryptocurrency World Keep Growing? (BTC) - Investopedia

News world

Japans end on consumption tax furthers the countrys overall agenda.

As of July 1, 2017, Japanese cryptocurrency holders are now exempt from the eight percent Japanese Consumption Tax (JCT). The exemption is the result of 2017 tax reform revisions which were proposed by the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito Party in December. As per the KPMG Japan Tax Newsletter from December 14, 2016:

It is proposed that transfers of virtual currencies will be treated as non-taxable transactions, since virtual currencies were officially defined as a means of payment by virtue of the amendment to the Payment Services Act which was passed in May this year. The document continues, This amendment will be applied to transactions carried out on or after 1 July 2017.

The proposed amendment was passed by the Japanese National Diet on March 27, 2017. Days later, Japans Financial Services Agency authorized cryptocurrencies to be used as a form of payment. As a result, the country has experienced increased cryptocurrency related activity. Further, the country has also taken steps to capitalize upon this action by securing likeminded partnerships with progressive countries like Australia.

The government of Australia also revealed in its 2018 Budget that cryptocurrencies will be exempt from double Goods and Services taxation after July 1, 2017.

On June 23, both countries announced the co-operative framework that would create opportunities and facilitate innovation within the financial service industries of both jurisdictions. The partnership encourages both parties to share with each other vital information on Innovation Functions like cryptocurrencies. As per The Financial Services Agency of Japan:

The Authorities share a mutual desire to promote innovation in financial services in their respective markets. Both Authorities have established Innovation Functions in order to do so. The Authorities believe that through co-operation with each other, they will be able to further the promotion of innovation in their respective markets.

Dan is a US Army veteran and Los Angeles-based writer passionate about science and technology, current events, human rights, economic impacts, and strategic calculus. Dan is a full time staff writer for ETHNews and holds value in Ether.

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Japan Ends Consumption Tax On Cryptocurrencies - ETHNews

Summary

Nicehash is an excellent platform for people looking for multipool mining or a way to buy and sell hashpower. The platform is very transparent about its business and has built up a solid reputation over the past three years.

It is not all that easy to find a legitimate cryptocurrency cloud mining service. Nicehash is one of the few companies people can trust these days. The platform specializes in cloud mining, hash rental services, and multipool mining. It is refreshing to see legitimate companies pop up now and the in the landscape filled with Ponzi Schemes. Now is a good time to look at what Nicehash offers to its customers and why they are so successful.

Most cryptocurrency cloud mining scams ask users to make a Bitcoin investment, so they can earn a passive income. Unfortunately, a lot of those are Ponzi schemes. However, Nicehash is doing things in a professional manner and without putting users at risk of losing any funds. In fact, they are one of a handful of legitimate companies in the world of cryptocurrency cloud mining.

Nicehash first came to the market in April of 2014 and has quickly grown to be one of the most reliable online mining hashrate marketplaces in the world. The company specializes in added-value services for miners, traders, and investors alike. Providing customer support services helped Nicehash achieve success. So far, the team is doing an outstanding job in this regard, as they have no negative reviews.

What makes NiceHash so unique is how they let users buy and sell hashing power on demand. Contracts can run for as little as one hour, and the maximum duration can be agreed upon by the buyer and seller. The platforms marketplace is filled with available orders, which can be filtered based on mining algorithm, and geographical locations. Reducing latency between the miner and the mining pool is of the utmost importance to maximize potential earnings.

It is worth mentioning Nicehash is not the only company providing a cryptocurrency mining hashrate marketplace. Mining Rig Rentals is one of their main competitors in this space, as they provide a powerful service as well. It is good to see competing peer-to-peer mining hashpower rental marketplaces. Competitionallows for far more flexibility than one would get through traditional cloud mining.

Nicehash also provides users with their own mining software clients, which is a nice addition. Plus, their own multipool servers allow miners to point their eligible hardware to the pool and earn mining revenue in the process. Nicehash supports a few dozen mining algorithms, including X11, Scrypt, Keccak, Decred, Cryptonight, and Pascal. Pointing aminer at this pool allows users to earn revenue without having to worry about anything, as earnings are calculated and paid out automatically.

The main question is whether or not miners should sell their hashpower or point it to the multipool. It heavily depends on how much risk one is willing to take. Using the multipool means investing in the mined coins, which can be a financial risk.One could always rent out the hashpower and keep mining the multipool as long as the contract is not picked up by a buyer. That way, users can get the best of both worlds.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

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Cryptocurrency Hash Rental Service Review Nicehash - The Merkle

It was announced recently from ElliottWaveTrader.net (EWT), a live Trading Room of market analysis, based on Elliott Wave principle, that due to high demand and many requests, they will start a cryptocurrency service based onElliott Wave analysis. To lead this new service, the firm has brought on Ryan Wilday.

Ryan has over 17 years experience trading equities, futures, and options. He was introduced to cryptocurrency in 2013 by a programmer friend and began mining and trading shortly thereafter.

The EWT team stated:

Though he read Prechters Elliott Wave Principle in the early 2000s, he didnt make practical use of the theory until joining EWT in 2015. Today he melds his deep knowledge of the cryptocurrency market with Elliott Wave theory and Fibonacci Pinball.

Ryans service will be opening in August of 2017, more information will be forthcoming on the launch.

ElliottWaveTrader benefits traders looking to anticipate the direction of U.S. & world equity indices, stocks, bonds, precious metals, energy & forex over a time horizon of several days to several months.

The site also features insights and interaction by its community of traders, many of them professionals, as members are encouraged to post questions and contribute their own analysis in the interactive room.

How the cryptocurrency market and certain assets within react to Elliot Wave analysis will be quite interesting to observe.

Read more here:
ElliottWaveTrader launching cryptocurrency service - CryptoNinjas - CryptoNinjas

News world

The South Korean government is expected to consider legislation that is intended to increase consumer trust in cryptocurrencies.

South Korean lawmakers will be presenting several bills that will affect the legal status of cryptocurrencies. According to the Korea Herald, Rep. Park Yong-jin of the Democratic Party stated on July 3, 2017 that he will introduce three revisions in July that will build a set of regulatory frameworks for digital currencies. According to Park, the legislation is intended to fill the void of a state-led protection that guarantees digital currencys value, and eradicate the possibility of wreaking havoc on national economy from digital currency bubble burst.

One bill aims to revise the Electronic Financial Transactions Act. If approved, the bill will require traders, brokers, and other businesses involved in cryptocurrency transactions to get regulatory approval from the Financial Services Commission, maintain data processing facilities, and have at least 500 million won ($436,300) in capital.

Tax laws will also be revised to allow Korean financial authorities to pursue tax evaders who do not pay income or corporate tax from digital currency transactions. According to Park and the Financial Supervisory Service, although virtual currency exchanges hold a large amount of market power in the countrys cryptocurrency space, there is no legal ground for their business.

The move for more robust regulation comes after a mishap with South Korean exchange Yapizon, when it fell victim to a massive bitcoin heist in April. In the incident, a hacker swiped four hot wallets and made off with 3831 bitcoin, which at the time totaled to about $5 million. To resolve the problem, Yapizon implemented a clever accounting scheme in which it essentially provided users with IOUs. At the time of the occurrence, the South Korean government authorities lacked regulation to handle such calamities. Parks proposals lookto fill this void and increase trust in one of South Koreas emerging markets.

Cryptocurrency investments have also been on the rise in East Asian markets. To promote growth and innovation in FinTech companies operating in foreign exchange markets, the South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance in May decided to revamp capital requirements, which will go into effect July 18.

Dan is a US Army veteran and Los Angeles-based writer passionate about science and technology, current events, human rights, economic impacts, and strategic calculus. Dan is a full time staff writer for ETHNews and holds value in Ether.

Original post:
South Korea Will Introduce Legislation To Legalize Cryptocurrencies - ETHNews

Cryptocurrency lending is about to boom. Today, crypto-currency lending is a field that does not have a plausible service provider due to the pseudo-anonymous nature of crypto-currency. The underlying issue with crypto-lending is the repayments of loans. How do people that do not know each other trust each other?

Trustless lending. ETHLend is a decentralized crypto-currency lending application that runs on Ethereum network, which is accessible through MetaMask, an Ethereum network browser. ETHLend solves the issue of trust by allowing the borrower to secure a crypto-loan with ERC-20 compatible Ethereum-based tokens. ERC-20 tokens can represent any value (such as shares or commodities). If the borrower does not repay the loan, the pledged tokens are transferred to the lender, who can sell the tokens on exchange to regain any losses.

Today, tokens are used mainly for fundraising. However, there are tokens that represent value from the real world, such as the DigixDAO token. Each DigixDAO token represents 1 gram of gold by tokenization. Even if tokens are associated with volatility, factually tokens are sufficient for securing a loan. First, the market price of tokens are usually available at different exchanges. Secondly, the volatility can be assessed and taken into account.

Alternatively, ETHLend provides another option, where the borrower can use Ethereum Name Service domain (ENS domain) as a collateral for the loan. ENS domains by design locks Ether (ETH) when the domain name is auctioned. Since ENS domains are transferrable, they can be easily used as a collateral against Ether loans. For example, borrower has ENS domain that has locked 10 ETH. The borrower cannot use this locked Ether. However, the borrower can pledge this domain for a loan to receive 10 ETH. If the borrower does not repay the loan back, the ENS domain is transferred to the lender (who can auction it to regain any losses).

Decentralized lending removes barriers and lowers costs on interest. ETHLend aims to provide a global liquidity pool between peers. The decentralized model and the use of crypto-currency is the proper solution to achieve ETHLends goal. Global liquidity pool means that a borrower in the US would not be limited solely to local lenders and US banks. Instead, the borrower can access funding from all parts of the world, such as Asia and Europe. Moreover, ETHLend wants to remind that there is 2 billion people without the access to any banking system. Lending crypto-currency would mean additionally access to finance for the unbanked.

Big plans for ETHLend. According to the white paper, there are lot of technical upgrades coming up for ETHLend, such as unsecured lending where borrower does not need a collateral to get a loan. Moreover, lending reputation system is about to be launched, where the borrower is rewarded with ETHLends native Credit Token (CRE), which can be used as a collateral by sparing other ERC-20 tokens.

We interviewed the Founder of ETHLend, a law student from Finland and a blockchain developer, to get more insights over the project.

Who are the people behind ETHLend?

We are a dedicated team of 14 people. We are working hard to provide blockchain technology for the mainstream. We want to democratize lending. This means that we want to remove interest rate differences between different countries and provide liquidity to lower interest rates in general. This would mean that borrowers would pay less in interest costs when there is more competition in a global scale. Moreover, we want to serve people that the banks are not serving due to the lack of banking infrastructure.

Is lending secure on ETHLend?

ETHLend is a decentralized application that runs on Ethereum blockchain network. We use Smart Contracts for the loan transactions. This means that each loan that is deployed on Ethereum blockchain cannot be changed, stopped or compromised by a third party (not even ETHLend).

Moreover, since all transactions are decentralized, we do not hold any assets or data. All assets such as ETH, ERC-20 tokens or ENS domains are held by the Smart Contracts. Any lender or borrower can explore loans on blockexplorer, therefore we are transparent by design.

What crypto-currencies can I borrow and lend?

Now, Ether (ETH) lending is available. We chose to use ETH since that is the native token of the Ethereum network that we have built our application on. We are planning to add other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and other altcoins. To get ETHLend to the mainstream, we think that Bitcoin is essential.

Why did you build on top of Ethereum network?

We decided to use Ethereum for three reasons. First, Ethereum has well established Smart Contracts, which allows to perform complex transactions such as lending and handling the collateral. Secondly, by using ETH, we do not have to communicate with two blockchains, which would not be ideal way to start a simple DAPP development. Lastly, even though ETH has a different purpose than Bitcoin, ETH is widely used as cryptocurrency.

How ETHLend differs from other blockchain projects?

We started by developing the application. We first created the decentralized application, instead of writing a white paper and opening a flashy website. I personally wanted to understand how decentralized lending would work in practice. As coming from a legal background and not from technical, I wanted to try it first and then write an analysis on my practical findings, the white paper.

Moreover, we have an amazing team working on ETHLend. I have never seen such extensive collaboration that we have at ETHLend. Practically we are all living in different parts of the world, but initially we have the same goal: to provide fair lending for all by using blockchain technology. We are also happy to have more people involved through our Slack.

What is your focus on the development?

Since we have an Ethereum-based application that runs stable, we are now focusing on adding more functionalities and user experience. Our goal here is to make decentralized lending as easy and accessible as possible. We want to keep the learning curve as low as possible. As a part of the user experience, we are adding more languages and ways to easily calculate the value of the collateral to avoid unnecessary loan requests.

Is there going to be an ICO?

We are going to have a token sale on early September. Our aim is to fund the further development of ETHLend and provide the largest lending market that works on a global scale. We want our future token holders to be part of it.

How the tokens are distributed?

We are distributing 1 billion Credit Tokens (CRE) for sale. There will be no follow up sales and all unsold CRE is burned. Additionally, 300 million CRE is allocated to the development fund as an incentive for our founders and developers to remain with the project. The development fund tokens will have a 24-month vesting model, which means that during this period, tokens are gradually released from lockup on each 6-months-period.

Getting ready for token sale. According to Stani, the ETHLend team is preparing for the upcoming token sale. The aim is to provide decentralized, secure, fair and democratic token sale. ETHLend is currently developing the Smart Contract for the token sale. However, the precise date of the token sale is not disclosed. ETHLend will inform the date of the token sale within couple of weeks.

Read more from the original source:
The Rise of Decentralized P2P Crypto-Currency Lending - NEWSBTC - newsBTC

On June 22, the FBI presented their annualInternet Crime Report, this one for 2016. By using the reports from the Internet Crime Complaint Center, they are able topublish the yearly document outlining trends and instances of Internet crimes. Still, these reports maynot be enough if they want to view the wholesituation since it is suspected that only 15% of victims actually report their situation.

Multiple hot topics fromthe last year were highlighted, including the massive BEC loss. BEC (Business Email Compromise) was an incident that ended with the loss of over $360 million. Currently, this is the largest known attackfrom last yearwith countlessvictims. BEC turned out to be a very sophisticated scam, and it only targeted foreign and international companies.

Another major point in the report is ransomware, which is growing more and more popular as an attack form. Ransomware works by locking the infected devices and holding documents for ransom. The criminals are able to use it to send messages to their victims, and those mostly include a ransom demand. More often than not, they would put a bitcoin price and a link to the bitcoin wallet. Over $2.4 million was lost to ransomware last year, and 2,673 reports were identified.

Othermajor attacksoutlined in the reportare tech support frauds. Tech fraudscammers managed to steal $7.8 million. The scam pretty much follows the same process every time. The scammer gets on the phone with their victims by various means. They then try to convince the victim that something is wrong with their device. The criminalstry to get control of the computer and then offer their services in dealing with the problem in return for money or gift cards.

Over 17,146 individual cases of extortion were recorded as well, and the total loss here is over $15 million, all of which happened online. FBIs report mostly points out physical threats that were made via the internet. Basically, criminals demand money or something valuable, or they will cause the victim physical injuries. There were also reports of threats like releasing sensitive data, and even sextortion.

Other forms of online crimes include DDoS attacks, schemes revolving around government impersonations, hitman schemes, as well as loan schemes, and even breaches of high-profile data. Criminals mostly demand payment in Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency. It is easier to move around, and also has more security layers which make it harder to trace.

Reportedonline crimes rose 3.7% in 2016. Apart from the US, the most infected foreign countries are Canada, India, UK, Australia, and France. When it comes to the individual states within the US, California suffered the most. It is followed by Texas and Florida which both had over 21,000 reports.

Another part of the report also included the affected age groups. According to the FBI, those above 60 had suffered the most and lost over $339 million last year. Next are those between the ages of 30 and 39, who lost around $190 million. Lastly, the younger users, mostly those around and under 20 years of age were much fewer in number. They also suffered less damage, which was only estimated to be around $6.7 million.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

Original post:
FBI Says Hackers Managed to Extort $28 Million in Cryptocurrencies - The Merkle

Ibrahim Mohammed is the founder and chief executive and OneGram, a new digital currency, at the company's offices in Emirates Financial Towers in the DIFC area of Dubai. OneGram is partnering with GoldGuard, a Dubai-based online gold trading platform to build one of worlds largest gold vaults inside the Dubai Airport Free Zone. Christopher Pike / The National

As the founder and chief executive of OneGram the Dubai-based technology company behind the first digital currency completely backed by gold - Ibrahim Mohammed is confident his cryptocurrency will be a success, even as competition in the digital currency sphere hots up.

He says with 100s of new coins releasing every day, it is OneGrams unique selling point - the fact that the currency is fully Sharia-compliant - that will set it apart.

The company has already launched an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) offering, which aims to raise more than US$500 million in capital; the tokens were launched on May 21 and will be available to buy until September 22.

OneGram has partnered with GoldGuard, a Dubai-based online gold trading platform, for the offering, with each token backed by one gram of gold, held in a vault at Dubai Airport Free Zone. Only 12.5 million tokens are available to buy in total.

The OneGram currency was created using blockchain technology, a digital method of recording data that underpins the digital currency bitcoin.

While one bitcoin today is currently worth about US$2,500 (or $2,438 at the time of writing), to buy a OneGramCoin would set you back $45 at current market prices.

Almost six weeks after the OneGram coin first went on sale, Mr Mohammed, a British Dubai resident with 10 years of experience running companies whose specialisms have included debt collection and business formation, explains how the new digital currency works and how investors can get on board:

Why did you set up OneGram?

Because of the ruling that happened in November 2016 from the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) with regards to the gold standard. It was the first time gold was deemed to be a sharia-compliant product and it got us thinking. It evolved into digitisation ofgold but then having bigger returns rather than just waiting for the market to go up - so we combined it with a digital currency.

How does OneGram work?

Its like bitcoin; its a digital currency but the major difference to any other crypto is that its backed with physical gold. Putting it very simply, if you have one bitcoin today thats worth about US$2,500 and if it crashes and went to zero youd lose all your money. With OneGram, if you buy today you pay about $45; $41 of that is in physical gold but $4 is in the coin, so if OneGram crashed you would potentially lose $4 and still have $41. Essentially its a digital token - a digital form of payment.

So how can you use this form of payment?

Globally, these kinds of tokens are mainly used in the crypto community by people that believe in [the concept] and are willing to hold it. What we are trying to develop over the next 12 months or so is a payment solution that retailers can adopt to accept payment. At this stage (until the OneGram coin is listed in September), its like holding stocks or shares. The demand is there and the prices are increasing; if you follow the crypto market at all it was worth $20 billion in 2016 and this year its worth $100bn as we speak. Most of that jump has happened in the last five months.

What is driving that?

People see the potential in it. Most governments now are talking about how to regulate the market and control it and bring it into mainstream. The growth is phenomenal. I dont think investors are risk takers because the model of crypto currencies has been proven. Japan has legalised bitcoin; its inevitable that others will follow suit.

How does OneGram work?

Register at GoldGuard.com and where you go to buy you will see the live spot price of gold and it will be a live spot buy. Underneath it you will see the coin value of $4 - thats 10 per cent of the actual transaction and thats the coin fee. You will see a total price of $45; its approximate on the site as its linked to the Allocated BullionExchange's live gold fee. You can transfer funds or buy through bitcoin but we wont accept bitcoin directly as we dont know the source of funds, so we use a company called BitPay in the United States. They do all the verifications, as they are regulated by the US government and they will accept the bitcoin and wire us US dollars.

Is the $4 a fee then?

Its a kind of administration fee because typically in crypto currencies you are paying the whole amount - so if we didnt have gold youd be paying $45 and wed have all money. But we only take 10 per cent which covers operations, staffing, support, marketing, development, blockchain etc. With typical cryptos, if they are selling at $45 they may pay 30 to 40 per cent commission on transactions and theyll sell out in a day or two. Weve adopted a real business model as opposed to a "lets loot type of crypto." So there is a 10 per cent mark up on the price to give our investors the best possible chance of higher returns and that 10 per cent will cover our costs to operate.

What happens when you list?

Then you will have your own wallet and you will hold it on your own iPad, phone or desktop. The coin will be listed on a few digital currency platforms, so any buying or selling happens through those platforms and it goes into the secondary market. In terms of where the price can be at launch and where it can be in 24 months is completely beyond our control. Some analysts have said OneGram is the closest coin that has ever come to knocking bitcoin off its pedestal.

Who are your investors?

As well as crypto tech investors, were getting people that have never invested in cryptoor digital currencies before but because of the gold aspect and the sharia regulatory aspect they are very comfortable. We get customers buying for $100 and in the same day someone will buy $200,000. There is massive interest from Africa and Pakistan, countries we never expected. We now have 4,000 to 5,000 registered users and the majority are non-Muslims;another surprise.

What happens if you dont sell all the 12.5 million coins?

Anything that is left will be burnt wiped away. If we dont sell all of them then it's likely the price will go up as there will be less in circulation. We left the first month open for anyone to buy. Now we have our affiliates, partners that will also sell the coin. The first affiliate is $100m, there are a couple more after that. We are not in any doubt that the coin will sell out.

How many have you sold so far?

Twenty-two per cent of the ICO has already been assigned thats about 2 million coins.

Once the coin is listed what happens to OneGram?

Our ongoing role is to maintain the blockchain and security of it so that the coins can trade. And we make 1 per cent of every trade, the typical fee within blockchain.

Who are you licensed by?

Cyptos are not licensed but the part that needs licensing is GoldGuard, which is a gold trading platform. That is licensed by Dubai Airport Free Zone so we are licensed to trade gold.

Can investors see the gold?

Our vaulting partner may have security issues with that but once we have our own vaulting systems we will be open to anyone that wants to inspect. For verification that the gold exists, our auditors PwC have to physically go and count the gold along with our sharia advisers so I think the investors can rest assured that the gold exists. We buy through ABX and within three days they physically store it for us.

How could it all go wrong?

Its very difficult to go wrong because the exposure is very limited its 90 per cent in gold, 10 per cent in the coin. The demand is there and the market is there so unless someone turns the internet off

Whats next?

Were in discussions about ATM machines. You could have an ATM machine in Dubai, Hong Kong or London where OneGram can be bought and sold across the globe.

ahaine@thenational.ae

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A golden crypto currency you can invest in for as little as $45 - Sun ... - The National