Top UK Judge wants to update the law to deal with blockchain and smart contracts

A top judge in the United Kingdom says that without a doubt there should be an update to the current legislation so that blockchain and smart contracts are included.

Crypto-currencies are on the rise in the online world and seeing this, many lawmakers including the judge have realised that there should be a law for them as current rules and regulations don’t cover the new technology.

The Lord Chief Justice for England and Wales, John Thomas is the highest senior judge in the UK who declared the importance of making such changes.

At the end of last month, the top judge spoke during an event that is held twice every year by the UK Law commission, which is the government’s authority in looking after different legal developments in the country.
John Thomas’s speech mentioned strict reforms regarding the digital currency especially in the light of events and their effect on the global economy. He further mentioned how imperative it is for the British Government to keep abreast of the digital economy. He also commented on the steps taken by the European Commission to be up to date with the digital currencies such as Bitcoin. He said that the European Commission’s efforts to progress itself towards a digital economy is something what the UK government should also aim for.

In his own words he said:

“Certainly, the European Commission takes the view that legislative change will be needed to deal with new forms of contract such as the block-chain and smart contracts. I have no doubt that we must consider whether our law (as it will then be) will need similar legislative updating.”

While this statement of his doesn’t show an active pursuit in digital currency reforms, it certainly is a way towards progress and a new way of carrying out transactions online to become normalised.

Why does crypto-currency matter?

Countries like the USA, Japan and some countries Europe are legalising smart contracts and crypto currencies. This however, has only happened in a few states such as Vermont, Arizona and Delaware. This indicated that block-chain based signatures getting accepted by many places and merchants are looking towards a more digitised form of currency as well, be it in Europe or in the Americas.

Although Judge Thomas isn’t actively pursuing this method of transaction, his approval and acceptance of such payment modalities signifies something like this in the near future, especially given his designation at such a high place.

ICO Ziber – What’s worth special attention?!

From a bunch of knowledge and information that we get every day, it is difficult to single out something useful. Why is this happening? Because the most of ICO conducted today is a pure fraudulence. And most investors understand it perfectly well. The investment approaches of Warren Buffett or Paul Graham don’t work here.

First of all, these gurus considered the profit that the business can give and tried to buy such a business at an easy rate. With ICO it’s useless to search for profit, in most cases it simply does not exist. This is not about a cheap price. Most of distributions are simply filled with investors’ money. Why are they doing that? Everyone is waiting for a sharp increase in the cost of tokens after posting on the exchanges. And, it is true that most investors are still right, which is almost impossible on the usual stock exchanges.

What is the problem? The problem is only one – another bubble inflates more and more. Everyone gets that it will burst, but no one knows when it will be. It can happen tomorrow, maybe in 3-4 years. Let’s see what happens at the time of this burst. Most companies that don’t really produce anything else and don’t generate additional profit can break up tens of times … more truly, the cost of tokes will be reduced.

Who will survive? Only those companies who bring real profit that you can feel your hands. Are there such companies and such ICO? Yes, there are. They are a few ones, but, in theory, “classical investors” should be on a manhunt for these companies. One of such companies is Ziber. The presentation will be held in a few days on July 15.

What does Ziber do? The project team combined the blockchain technology and IP telephony. If the technological problem is solved (the Ziber representatives stated it), the service will be a killer of Skype, Viber and hundreds of IP-telephony companies. The cost call will make up 0.5-2 cents, where for most countries it seems completely insignificant actual earnings. But it just so seems to you, if you don’t know real numbers. And the numbers tell the stories best. The market is approaching a turnover of $100 billion annually.

Once again! It’s about a new company that has made a technological breakthrough on the market with a turnover of $100 billion! Even if it gets net profit in the amount of $5 billion you will baulk at the idea of its future value on the basis of P/E within 2-3 years. Moreover, Ziber will generate real profit, but not virtual one.

By the way, let’s get back to Buffett, who also likes investing in the team. Ziber doesn’t have any problems with it! That only decision to distribute 10% of free tokens to all owners of Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets. A brilliant marketing trick that gives us a hope that will be ahead of the game.

Ziber ICO: https://ziber.io/#ico

Blockchain storage provider SIA scoops $400k grant

Nebulous the firm behind Sia has been awarded a $400,00 grant from China-based investment firm INBlockchain.

In a press release the company stated that the funds will be used to aid further development of the SIA platform, which has been rumoured to be struggling with funds over the last few months.

“We are thrilled to receive INBlockchain’s generous grant and look forward to continuing Sia development,” said David Vorick, cofounder and CEO of Nebulous.

“This grant means Sia does not need to focus on fundraising, and can focus entirely on delivering strong technology.”

Sia’s technology is based around decentralising file hosting through the company’s own Blockchain which manages smart-contracts for the renters looking to host files and the hosters who provide storage space at a flexible cost.

The company aims to be the backbone storage layer of the internet.

At the time of writing Siacoin is priced at $0.007479 with a 24 hour trading volume of $10,923,300, although the price is around 40% down over the last 7 days.

Thousands of Austrian post offices will soon sell Bitcoin

Nearly 2,000 post offices across Austria are planning to facilitate the easy purchase of Bitcoin and other digital currencies for customers.

The partnership between Austrian-based digital currency platform Bit Panda and the national post office Österreichische Post AG will bring cryptocurrencies to the masses, taking away the complex process of buying them.

Cash amounts of 50, 100 and 500 Euro can be exchanged for the required cryptocurrency at participating Post Offices, customers will then receive a digital code to access their wallet at Bit Panda.

Bitpanda is considered to be one of the largest Bitcoin platforms. It was founded in Vienna in 2014 and currently has over 300,000 users.

Bitpanda is hoping – also thanks to the post-cooperation – to grow to a transaction volume of 200 million euros.

“Digital currencies will become central points in our daily lives, but they are not in conflict with classical currencies,” says Bitpanda co-founder Eric Demuth in a press release.

Billions stolen from South Korean Bitcoin exchange

Bithumb, the fourth largest Bitcoin exchange in the world was recently hacked resulting in Billions of Won being stolen.

According to the Korean Internet & Security Agency (KISA), earlier this year personal computers owned by staff at the exchange were infiltrated by an unknown 3rd party. Personal information was exploited by the hackers to obtain access to more than 3,000 individual accounts. Servers located at Bithumb’s headquarters were not comprised.

“It is an accident caused by an external infringement on the personal computer of the employee who is not related to the server of the head office.” “Some users Personal information leaked, he explained. However, some customers were found to have been stolen because of the disposable password (OPT) used in electronic financial transactions.” said Dr. Bitsum

Bithumb is South Korea’s largest virtual currency exchange, with annual transactions worth hundreds of billions of won. The cumulative amount of Bitcoin traded at Bithumb last year reached over 2 trillion won.

Bithumb’s 24 hour trading volume on the 4th of July exceeded 100,000 Bitcoin.

https://www.bithumb.com/

On June 29th 2017 Bithumb was made aware of the hack and subsequently reported it to the authorities a day later. At the time of writing hundreds of Bithumb customers no longer have access to their funds and have filed a complaint with the National Police Agency’s cybercrime report center.

Bithumb have promised to compensate its users for loss of personal information amounting to $870 per user (despite losses exceeding this amount), although the company is still investigating and has also hinted at further damages being announced.

Once made aware of the issue the exchange acted quickly in reporting to three government and state agencies. It is still unclear how widespread the damage is.

Due to the laws surrounding Bitcoin and digital currencies in the country it is not yet known if Bithumb will be facing any criminal charges.

XBT Provider announces agreement with Bitcoin firm Xapo

XBT Provider AB has announced a custodial partnership with Xapo, a firm well know across the cryptocurrency industry revolutionising the possibility of spending cryptocurrency via traditional debit cards.

Bitcoin held in cold storage on behalf of investors in XBT Provider’s ETN will now be secured by Xapo.

XBT Provider has surpassed $100 million in assets under management.

“The team of professionals at XBT Provider has deep expertise in digital currency and extensive experience in financial services. We are excited to partner with them as they make bitcoin broadly available to investors outside of the U.S.,” said Wences Casares, CEO of Xapo.

XBT Provider recently announced their fund on the UK’s largest stock exchange Hargreaves Lansdown, giving investors the ability to purchase Bitcoin as an ETN.

UK’s largest broker offers Bitcoin investment without the fuss

Hargreaves Lansdown the UK’s biggest investment website allows anyone to invest in Bitcoin

The UK’s biggest financial investing website is now offering the non technical savvy the opportunity to invest in Bitcoin.

Customers who have a general trading or self-invested pension fund with Hargreaves Lansdown can now buy into a tracker that follows Bitcoin without the fuss.

ETNs are funds listed on the stock exchange, so they can be bought and sold like shares. They are denominated in Swedish krona and investors should be aware of the currency risks, as well as those attached to bitcoin itself.

“By adding self-service, online dealing, the team at Hargreaves Lansdown is providing UK investors with professional and quick access to the bitcoin space in the UK and greater Europe. This is very exciting for any investors who have been thinking about buying bitcoin but did not want the hassle of security and regulation involved in buying bitcoin directly from exchanges. Now investors can quickly add bitcoin exposure to their portfolio via their brokerage account.” says Ryan Radloff, Head of Investor Relations for XBT Provider, AB.

At the time of writing the price of Bitcoin currently stands at $2,443 / £1,895 / €2177 / 21247 SEK

ARK CryptoCurrency unveils new Testnet with mobile and desktop clients.

Ark CryptoCurrency unveils their public Testnet along with both mobile and desktop clients – setting another first in the industry, after already releasing the ARK code to github, all while their TEC (Token Exchange Campaign) is still running.

The ARK Crew, the development team behind the ARK Ecosystem, has announced the release of their first publically available test network. The ARK testnet will be an alpha release featuring custom, open source mobile and desktop clients, as well as many updates to the core voting mechanism and network technology behind their dpos algorithm.

Read more: http://www.pressat.co.uk/releases/ark-cryptocurrency-unveils-new-testnet-with-mobile-and-desktop-clients-1b3460a6389966f59731aed27c51185c/

Tonybet Leads The Gaming Market By Accepting Bitcoin Allows Deposits In Bitcoin While Playing In Regular Currencies

With Bitcoin establishing its presence in the online gaming market, Tonybet.com started accepting deposits in digital currency.

An all-around online gaming site has announced it has partnered up with the SpectroCoin e-wallet to become one of the first recognised and well established gaming sites to accept Bitcoin. The site will allow its players to deposit and withdraw funds in Bitcoin, but will convert them to regular currencies while in-play – a feature absent from most sites accepting digital currencies.

The site officials said their intension was to make Tonybet more accessible to a wider range of potential players. However, the introduction of the new payment method had a bigger impact than they anticipated as a number or new signups went up.

Tonybet.com spokesman Warren Lush said: “We’re always keeping up with the latest digital innovations in order to adapt them to our online gaming platform. With the introduction of Bitcoin deposits we saw a dramatic increase in recreational punters and poker players especially from the Asian countries who have been struggling to transfer their funds before.”

“Another advantage of using Bitcoin for online gaming is that users can also speculate the exchange rates and earn extra. The fast and easy deposit and withdrawal process makes this an even more attractive feature. What’s more is that partnering up with SpectroCoin we not only opened our online sportsbook, casino and poker site to those who wanted to use their digital currency for online gambling, but also encouraged customers to exploit the advantages of using Bitcoin.”

About TonyBet.com

TonyBet.com was founded in 2009 by world famous poker pro, businessman and politician Tony G. The company is now one of the fastest growing betting and online gaming companies in the world. For more information see Tonybet.com

About Spectrocoin

SpectroCoin is an all-in-one solution for Bitcoin. Services offered include a wide range of Bitcoin solutions, from exchange to Bitcoin e-wallet. SpectroCoin builds its business policy on Bitcoin’s philosophy of making financing quicker, frictionless and flexible. The service provides a solution for each client’s needs instead of asking them to adapt to us. That includes every aspect of services, starting from the number of payout methods to the range of support languages available. For more information see Spectrocoin.com

Britain’s welfare Blockchain sparks privacy concerns

A trial to pay Britain’s welfare claimants using blockchain technology has come under fire by the Open Data Institute.

The Department for Work and Pensions also know as DWP initiated initiated trials with GovCoin Systems earlier in June to pay benefits directly to claimants using a Blockchain system, the same technology behind the decentralised currency Bitcoin.

The Open Data Institute founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt said the system was ‘very concerning’.

The Blockchain provides both complete transparency and security of transactions but also opens up the ‘Big Brother’ discussion as it would allow the DWP to monitor every penny spent by claimants.