CoinSpectator Blog

The Central Bank of Malaysia has issued a warning to the public after a bogus university certificate sporting official stamps was found to be in circulation.

The certificate, which “certifies” that the holder has been awarded a degree as a “Certified Crypto Asset Consultant”, is stamped with both the Central Bank of Malaysia and University of Malaya logos, in what appears to be an attempt at fooling interested businesses or employers seeking an expert in such services.

“BNM does not recognise these certificate holders who use such documentation in offering consultation services. Members of the public are advised to verify the validity of any certification programme before registering” said the Central Bank of Malaysia earlier in the week.

The bank has insisted that members of the public who have been presented with such certificates should verify the authenticity before entering into a relationship.

Two South Korean firms, Bithumb and Pay’s have announced a partnership that will enable 6,000 stores throughout the country to open up goods purchases with cryptocurrency.

Customers who hold their digital currencies on the Bithumb exchange will be able to quickly and easily pay for a coffee in stores such as Starbucks, Outback etc.

Bithumb will integrate with Pay’s already established payment terminals which process payments for gift certificates in 6,000 stores, these include 400 domestic and 200 franchise partners among others.

Customers will use barcodes generated within their mobile app to make payments at their desired shop, adoption will increase to 8,000 by the end of 2018.

Bithumb, often unknown to cryptoethusiasts in the west is one of South Korea’s largest exchanges, in-fact it ranks second for trading volume amassing nearly half a billion dollars each day.

The news follows Bithumb’s recent collaboration with Innovation Corp which seen 50,000 accommodation options allowing customers to rent with cryptocurrencies.

Many companies are integrating with cryptocurrencies to bridge the gap between traditional payments thus opening the space up for more user friendly and transparent alternatives that no longer rely on slow and cumbersome fiat methods.

Gibraltar has been in the spotlight in recent months following the jurisdiction’s milestone DLT regulations. The DLT regulations, which came into force on 1st January 2018, received a warm reception by many in the FinTech space. Other jurisdictions are now keen to address the blockchain technology that is disrupting traditional industries and businesses. They, too, see they need for regulation, and are looking to Gibraltar for inspiration.

In a speech on Friday 2nd March 2018, The Bank of England’s Governor, Mark Carney, stated it was time to “regulate elements of the crypto-asset ecosystem to combat illicit activities”. Gibraltar’s proactive approach has clearly placed the jurisdiction in a unique position as one of only a few jurisdictions to have some form of regulation for this growing industry.

It looks as though Gibraltar will continue to remain in the spotlight as the jurisdiction looks to address concerns surrounding the increasing number of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) that are funding blockchain based startups. It has been widely reported in recent weeks that Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission (GFSC) are preparing to release a draft of the world’s first token regulations.

During a presentation at the Gibraltar International FinTech Forum 2018, otherwise known as the Gibfin conference, which took place between 28th February and 1st May 2018, the GFSC provided attendees with more information about the activities that the forthcoming token regulations aim to regulate. The token regulations will regulate the following activities conducted in or from Gibraltar:

1. the promotion, sale and distribution of digital tokens;
2. the operation of secondary market platforms trading in tokens; and
3. the provision of investment advice and ancillary services relating to tokens.

Promotion, sale and distribution of digital tokens

Tokens that are not considered securities, such as utility and access tokens, will be caught by the new token regulations but gifts, donations, virtual currencies (i.e. Bitcoin) and central-bank digital currencies will not.

The FSC clarified that they will not expand the interpretation of what is considered a security in Gibraltar and also have no intention of defining token categories, or the functionality of tokens, either pre or post ICOs. The intention is to ensure that token sale participants’ are presented, in advance, with all relevant information to enable them to make an informed decision.

To be captured by these regulations, the activities will need to be carried out in or from Gibraltar and will include activities:

• which purport to be or imply that they are made from Gibraltar;
• are intended to come to the attention of, or be accessed by, any person in Gibraltar;
• are conducted by overseas subsidiaries of Gibraltar-registered legal persons (in such cases, the Gibraltar person will be liable); or

are conducted by overseas agents and proxies acting on behalf of Gibraltar-registered legal persons, or on behalf of natural persons ordinarily resident in Gibraltar (in such cases, the Gibraltar person will be liable).

It is anticipated that Gibraltar-based token issuing companies will be required to comply with some form of disclosure rules that are yet to be announced. It is expected that the proposed regulations will require adequate, accurate and balanced disclosure of the relevant information to enable potential token sale participants to make an informed decision.

Additionally, token issuing companies will be obliged to collect know-your-customer (KYC) information on their token sale participants in order to comply with financial crime provisions in Gibraltar.

Additionally, entities that wish to conduct an ICO from Gibraltar will need to be sponsored by firms that the GFSC has authorised to perform such a function. Authorised sponsors will possess the appropriate knowledge and experience and will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the part of the regulations. Authorised sponsors will be regulated by the GFSC.

In order to encourage best practice for token sales conducted in or from Gibraltar, authorised sponsors will be required to have codes of practice in place that token sale entities will be required to comply with. Codes of practice may set out such matters as the method for storing, applying and distributing sale proceeds. Codes of practice will require approval from the GFSC and the regulator will establish and maintain a public register of authorised sponsors and their respective past and present codes of practice.

The GFSC will not however regulate:

• Technology;
• Tokens, smart contracts, or their functionality;
• Individual public token offerings; or
• Persons involved in the promotion, sale or distribution of tokens.

Secondary market conduct

Secondary market platforms, operated in or from Gibraltar, dealing in tokenised assets (including virtual currencies) and their derivatives will be caught by the token regulations. The GFSC aims to:

• ensure organised trading takes place on regulated platforms;
• establish transparency and oversight of secondary markets;
• enhance investor protection;
• impose conduct of business standards; and
• encourage competition.

The proposed regulations will set out requirements for:

• disclosure to the public of data on trading activity;
• disclosure of transaction data to GFSC; and
• specific supervisory actions concerning tokens and positions on token derivatives.

This second area of focus will be modelled, so far as is appropriate, proportionate and relevant, on market platform provisions under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II and Markets in Financial Instruments and Amending Regulation, otherwise known as MiFID II and MiFIR, which came into effect in January 2018.

It is proposed that the GFSC will authorise and supervise secondary token market operators, and establish and maintain a public register of such operators.

Investment Advice

The provision of advice on investments in tokens, virtual currencies and central bank-issued digital currencies will be covered by the token regulations, including:

generic advice (setting out fairly and in a neutral manner the facts relating to token investments and services);
product-related advice (setting out in a selective and judgmental manner the advantages and disadvantages of a particular token investment and service); and
personal recommendation (based on the particular needs and circumstances of the individual investor).

The regulations will seek to ensure that such advice is fair, transparent and professional. This third area of focus will be similar to the investment advice provisions in MiFID II.

It is proposed that GFSC will authorise and supervise token investment service providers, and establish and maintain a public register of such providers

Watch this space

We are expecting to receive a draft of the much anticipated token regulations in the coming weeks. However, we understand that the draft will only likely include the first area of focus concerning the promotion, sale and distribution of digital tokens with the remaining two elements of the token regulations to follow later this year.

While we are eagerly anticipating the release of the draft regulations, which will mark another significant milestone for Gibraltar, the jurisdiction is not resting on its laurels. Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar has presented a progressive bill before its parliament to amend the scope of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2015, the jurisdiction’s main legislative instrument concerning anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing provisions. The intention is to bring:

“undertakings that receive, whether on their own account or on behalf of another person, proceeds in any form from the sale of tokenised digital assets involving the use of distributed ledger technology or a similar means of recording a digital representation of an asset.”

within the scope of anti-money lauding and counter-terrorist financing provisions.

These developments are further evidence of Gibraltar’s continued effort to make the jurisdiction crypto friendly and provide safe environment for both business and consumers.

 

Hassans International Law Firm is the largest law firm in Gibraltar and a driving force behind Gibraltar’s crypto boom. It enjoys consistently high rankings in leading legal directories and this year has once again been ranked Band 1 by Chambers & Partners. The Hassans’ FinTech team consists of 12 experienced practitioners co-led by partners Anthony Provasoli and Vikram Nagrani.

 

300cubits, a blockchain-powered ecosystem to secure shipment booking is set to launch their ICO on 12^thApril, 2018. This month long campaign will offer 18,000,000 TEU tokens—the proprietary medium of transaction on the 300cubits platform. TEU tokens have been rated 4.6 out of 5 from ICObench.

24^th March, 2018

The 300cubits team and its advisory group comprise of renowned industry veterans, usually unseen in most of the ICOs. One of the Co-Founders, Johnson Leung, has twenty years of relevant industry experience; particularly in the shipment booking process. The advisory board has Thomas Eskesen and John Urban, two noted experts that have founded INTTRA and GT Nexus, portals like booking.com for booking ideal accommodation. Around 30% of the global shipment bookings go through these two portals. The team is also pleased to have Charlie Wellins, a highly respected C-level executive in the container shipping industry and Hua Joo Tan, a KOL / influencer where his weekly newsletter was read by thousands of key industry professionals.

Following a successful trial shipment, 300cubits is pleased to announce that their ICO public sale will start on April 12, 2018. Meanwhile, the company also informs that the ongoing private placement for contribution at or above 20ETH will continue until April 12, 2018. The upcoming ICO will continue for a month, during which the early adopters to this blockchain-based container shipping platform will gain access to 18,000,000 of a total supply of 100,000,000 TEU tokens. 2% of the TEU tokens have already been successfully sold for 1588 ethers, while the team is selling another 18mn TEU tokens in the Private Placement and ICO.

 

300cubits’ TEU tokens and ecosystem are designed to tackle the $23bn “No Show” pain point in the container shipping industry.  The container liners have been incurring chronic losses over the past decade, which has led to some of the largest bankruptcies the industry has witnessed. 300cubits strongly believes that this sorry state of the industry is due to its inability to execute agreements in its daily operations.

“No Show” is a glaring problem faced by the industry, and it refers to a situation where a customer books a shipping slot but does not turn up with the cargo. Plagued by a “No Show” probability of around 30%, the industry has long been trying to implement booking deposits. However, the customers have vehemently resisted the idea of placing their cash up front. On the other hand, the crypto world wants a token that is accepted by the real world. The 300cubits team is looking to connect the two worlds by offering some tokens to the industry for free, on the condition that the industry will use these tokens to ensure wide acceptance of TEU tokens in the shipping industry.

300cubits is confident about eliminating the shortcomings of the container shipping industry by issuing ERC20 compliant TEU tokens in the Ethereum network, and promoting them as the cryptocurrency for the container shipping industry.  The smart contracts governing the transactions of the TEU tokens are coded with a set of immutable conditions, and neither of the parties will be able to alter what has been agreed upon. The TEU tokens have already received the rating of 4.6 out of 5 from ICObench, a popular rating platform and a blockchain community supported by a wide range of experts.

“Both the container liners and their customers will be given valuable TEU tokens that will be held as deposits with conditions, and paid out later upon the execution of the shipment booking,” explains a senior member of the team 300cubits. “The container liners will be compensated with the TEU tokens if the customers do not turn up with cargoes. Likewise, the customers will be compensated with the TEU tokens if their cargoes are rolled.”

 

The production system of the project is expected to go live on June 15, 2018. A system prototype has been successfully tested by most of the major industry participants, while over eighty shippers have already signed up to use the TEU tokens. The first live trial on two 40-feet high cube containers out of Malaysia has been successfully completed with the participation from a major container liner, Malaysia’s West Port and LPR, a large Brazilian textile importer.

About the Company: 300cubits provides a blockchain solution, tackling industry pain points such as “No Show” by creating TEU tokens, a digital currency, as booking deposit and an ecosystem to facilitate the use of the digital currency. To participate in 300cubits’ ICO, please sign up for the waitlist here or join the company’s telegram group here.

Contacts: Jonathan Lee

Website: www.300cubits.tech

Email: info@300cubits.tech

As the practice of the last few years has shown, the powerful potential that the crypto currencies are endowed with, allows us to ensure decentralization and security of money operations in the modern world. But nowadays there is still no single currency that could be considered universal in the mass market and unite a multi-million audience in the global community.

2018 can be significant in this respect. The world will see a project called the Telegram Open Network (TON). Its key idea is to develop and implement a new crypto currency and the multi-block system Proof-of-Stake – TON will be the basis for it. After 2021, the name of the Telegram Open Network will be changed to The Open Network.

 

At this stage, the collection of funds from individuals in the crypto currency will start to set a minimum threshold for participation in ICO Telegram TON of $20M.

What are the advantages of TON?

Thanks to integration into this system, millions of people will have free access to the crypto currency. Among the main advantages of TON is:

• the work through mobile devices: you don’t have to carry large amounts of money with you, as many goods and services can be paid using crypto currency;
• a high level of security: TON will ensure the safe storage of financial resources of each person in the detachment, since the cipher will be known only to the owner of the wallet;
• simplicity of purchasing TON coins.

The Telegram messenger can become an excellent launching pad for the initial implementation of the project, as it is now connected by a large number of public chats, groups and channels with a multi-million base of subscribers. And it is the ready audience for the acquisition of digital content and physical goods. After 2021, it is planned to launch its own element called Telegram.

We aren’t employees of Telegram and don’t conduct a primary sale (ICO) on behalf of Telegram and its founders. Our platform is a pad designed to pool investors into pools for the purpose of participating in ICO projects that can bring good profit to each investor on the most favorable terms at the earliest stages of the initial offer.

Timeframe of ICO

Fundraising will start on March 1, 2018. An approximate end date is April 1, 2018.

Softkap (it is the minimum amount of funds that must be collected to run the project) is $20 000 000.

The project’s founders are fully responsible for the use of the received funds. As part of the implementation and development of the project, these responsibilities will be transferred to a non-profit organization – the TON Foundation.

Each investment made in the crypto currency is transferred weekly to the escrow account. And if until the end of the initial offer the softcap will not be assembled, we organize a refund of funds to all investors.

TON Pool ICO project official website poolico-platform.com

Five students from the University of Manchester indulged in a luxurious lifestyle funded by selling hard drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and ketamine on the dark web.

The gang had a taste for the ‘high life’, boasting of their fondness for expensive champagne while partying in the Caribbean and Amsterdam before the FBI cracked down on the drugs ring.

When police arrested the gang in 2013, they were able to trace £812,000 worth of sales that flowed through the gang’s Silk Road account in bitcoin. This amounted to roughly 8000 bitcoins, which were worth around £90 each at the time. Today this equates to a staggering amount of money due to bitcoin’s rise.

Police have so far been unable to trace the bitcoins, but one gang member did pay off his student loan and buy an apartment in the city of Manchester.

Basil Assaf (26), the proclaimed ringleader, was sentenced to 15 years and three months in prison, James Roden (25) was sentenced to 12 years, Jaikishen Patel ([[[age?]]]) received 11 years and two months, Elliot Hyams (26) was jailed for 11 years and three months and Joshua Morgan (28) received seven years, all for playing their part in the drugs operation.

From May 2011 to October 2013, the gang sold 16.7 kg of ecstasy worth $750,000 as well as 1.23 kg of 2CB, a psychedelic drug more potent than ecstasy, and 1.46 kg of ketamine.

The gang were caught due to information leaked when the FBI busted drugs marketplace Silk Road in 2013. The British police raided Assaf and Roden’s flat on the same day, finding laptops used to access the accounts on the drugs marketplace alongside thousands of pounds in cash.

The gang compared themselves to Walter White from hit TV series Breaking Bad. The court was told this was a running joke among the five students.

A blockchain-powered daily fantasy sports platform, MyDFS promises to improve the gaming experience for uncountable amount of fantasy sports enthusiasts around the world by delivering better speed, ease-of-use, transparency, governance and accountability. This mobile based fantasy sports ecosystem has been created by the founders of uTrener and KHL Fantasy, two of European earliest and most popular daily fantasy sports platforms.

London, UK March 21, 2018

MyDFS, a blockchain-powered daily fantasy sports platform, is all set to redefine the industry by connecting the sports fans around the world to an ecosystem that is transparent, easy-to-use, and token buyers friendly. Built on smart contracts, MyDFS runs on mobile devices to address a number of issues that have plagued the fantasy sports industry. The ultimate goal of this project is to simplify the user experience to make the games enjoyable for all types of players.

The global fantasy sports industry has experienced phenomenal growth over the last few decades. Only in the US and Canada, this market was worth $7 billion in 2017. However, an extremely high growth rate has led the industry to an immature state where outdated business practices are commonplace. As a result, this highly promising industry has been struggling with several shortcomings including uncertain legal status, complicated gaming experience, complex verification procedures, deposit and withdrawal related issues, and lack of transparency.

MyDFS was designed as a transparent and worry-free fantasy sports platform that will be capable of overcoming all the existing challenges, leveraging modern technology and contemporary business approaches. The platform addresses the industry’s legal issues by introducing cryptocurrency tokens to be used throughout the platform. Limitations such as insider gaming, bots, and other cases of unfair play have been eliminated with the application of blockchain and smart contract technology. Some other benefits for the fans include

• Streamlined user experience
• Fast user verification
• Fast and worry-free transactions
• Transparent gaming and fair play
• Get profits from winnings in tokens.

The MyDFS team comprises of industry professionals with a wealth of experience in the fields of fantasy sports and large-audience applications. In 2016, this team hit the headlines by developing and launching uTrener. This was one of the earliest platforms on the European market to offer a refined, user-friendly and seamless DFS gaming experience on iOS, Android, and the web. They have also launched KHL Fantasy (later KHL Haier Fantasy), a white label app for top European ice hockey league KHL. KHL Fantasy won MarSpo 2017 as the best sport app and was featured by App Store several times. At the same time MyDFS team received UK Gambling Commission License to legitimately operate fantasy sports in Europe.

“MyDFS presents a fantasy sports solution with clean, midcore gameplay that supports multiple popular sports and allows people to invest and capitalize not just on the game itself, but also by investing in other pro players (earning a share of their winnings), or holding or selling game tokens,” says Viktor Mangazeev, the CEO of MyDFS. “Our platform embraces transparency and fair play. Our cryptocurrency tokens eliminate the need for fiat currency. The accuracy of our fantasy results is backed up by smart contract technology. The real-world game data that determines how players on our platform do, along with players, teams and statistics, are completely publicly accessible.”

MyDFS currently supports soccer, hockey, basketball, cricket, and football, and is capable of integrating more popular sports in the future. It works on all contemporary smartphones, tablets, and the web. MyDFS token, an Ethereum-based token, will be used for all value transactions within the MyDFS ecosystem. These tokens can be used to play, win, and exchange it for other cryptocurrency or fiat money. The users can also hold and trade their tokens, maximizing their earning potential as the demand increases for the MyDFS tokens. Moreover, MyDFS is pioneering player brokerage to let casual users to share their prize pool with a pro-players.

MyDFS app is expected to be released before the FIFA World Cup 2018 to be held this summer in Russia. The company has recently started its pre-ICO campaign, offering a total of 50 million tokens with a hard cap set at $40 million. Attractive bonuses are available for the early token buyers.

To find out more, please visit https://www.mydfs.net/

About MyDFS: MyDFS is a blockchain-powered daily fantasy sports platform from uTrener and KHL Fantasy apps creators. It runs on mobile devices and connects sports fans around the world in a transparent, easy-to-use manner. The platform simplifies the user experience to make the game enjoyable for players of all types. MyDFS is also pioneering player brokerage to let casual users to share their prize pool with a pro.

Contact: Anastasia Shvetsova

Website: https://www.mydfs.net/

Email: shvetsova.pr@gmail.com