Highlights: Sorry we're late! Indian RBI Supreme Court case starts, EOS has a software update, and mine crypto with your screensaver to support your favorite causes.
Source: BC Focus
A case before the Indian Supreme Court regarding a ban on fiat gateways in the country, imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), began today. There is not much yet to report; there have not yet been any arguments. The date of the verdict has been set for September 11, 2018.
Source: EU Parliament
A study into blockchain and cryptocurrencies requested by the European Parliament's Special Committee on Financial Crimes, Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance has been published. The study focuses on criminal activities enabled by the technology and the power of the EU’s existing legal framework to prevent, or at the very least punish, those activities.
The study is specifically concerned with crimes like tax evasion and money laundering. The report begins with an overview of blockchain technology and a discussion of various cryptocurrency classifications. It breaks down the EU’s existing four Anti Money Laundering Directives (AMLD) and talks about the upcoming AMLD 5. It provides a gap analysis of the language, pointing out where criminals would target loopholes in the existing regulatory codes. The study concludes that existing regulations are not capable of addressing the “key issue,” which they identify as the anonymous nature of digital currencies.
To address this issue, they acknowledge a few potential solutions. Their primary suggestion is to implement a government-administered registration database, through which crypto holders would have to disclose all digital currency wallets to the government to enable traceability. For privacy coins like Monero, the solution is to simply ban usage. These proposals give the government room to punish crime, but not prevent it.
One notably relevant point left out of the threat analysis of a privacy coin is Monero’s view keys. A coin like Monero offers social privacy to a user, something that Ethereum and Bitcoin do not. Mandating registration of a Monero view key would provide a regulatory body with the traceability it desires without compromising the privacy of its citizens in day-to-day life.
Those so inclined can read the full details of the study’s findings at the source linked above.
Source: BC Focus
The South Korean Financial Services Commissions (FSC) announced that it would be creating a new organization whose primary function will be to establish and clarify policies for cryptocurrency in the nation. The new division will be called the Financial Innovation Bureau.
Source: Twitter
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has levied a $3 million fine to two Irish prediction markets accused of violating commodities laws. The tweet linked above comes from a blockchain lawyer, who speculates that ‘derivative regulation’ will be the next legal target by the federal government.
Source: Medium
EOSIO has released version 1.1.0 of its software, designed to improve scalability efforts and ease-of-use for developers. The new release features a plugin for MongoDB, efficiency improvements, and a number of alpha features.
Source: Bitcoin Ops
The Bitcoin Operation Technology Group (Bitcoin Optech) announced themselves today. They are a group of entities, unaffiliated with Bitcoin, who will focus on scaling to more users and more use cases. In the immediate future they will focus on operational improvements like segwit, fee estimation, and coin selection. They plan to help companies adopt new technologies longer-term, but are primarily aiming to promote the use of tech that is available today, once it is mature.
Source: CoinDesk
POINTS, a startup looking to bring credit score/KYC solutions to the Ontology blockchain, has raised $8 million in funding to expand its development team. POINTS has also partnered with a Chinese IT firm “directly administered by the Ministry of Industrial and Information Technology,” giving them information of over 1 billion users.
Source: BC Focus
Accounting firm Ernest & Young has announced it will acquire Andy Crypto Asset Accounting and Tax (CAAT), a startup based in San Francisco. Ernest & Young, who have also announced an interest in using the blockchain for auditing, is interested in CAATs crypto tax software. the CAAT tool will be integrated into E&Ys existing blockchain implementations.
Source: AGI
The University of Cagliari in Italy will begin issuing degree certificates on the Ethereum blockchain, beginning today with the Computer Science program and later rolling out to all departments. MIT currently has a similar initiative on the Bitcoin blockchain.
SourcE: Coin Journal
Samsung is reportedly beginning to accept payments in crypto in three of the Baltic states through a new partnership with CopPay. Consumers can buy electronics using BTC, ETH, LTC, XRP, NEM, Dash, and STEEM. We’re wondering if Samsung sees this as more of an experiment - we’re not hearing anything from their side of the partnership yet,
Source: Huboi Global
Huobi has launched Huobi Cloud, a service allowing for the development of OTC and and digital asset exchanges on top of the Huobi platform. Partners can build their own exchange and leverage existing Huobi asset management and wallet solutions. Huobi Cloud reportedly has ten international partners currently signed up.
Source: Ethereum World News
The Coinbase Custody service has reportedly attracted a hedge fund worth $20 billion dollars. The source of the information was unnamed, as was the alleged hedgefund. Coinbase Custody, which launched earlier in July, has stated its intention to attract hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Source: BC Focus
MyEtherWallet has partnered with Simplex to provide users with a way to buy Ether with a credit card, without having to go through an exchange. A couple of notes: One, we tried it, and it didn’t work. Two, the source article above reports some high purchase fees.
Source: Mining Screensaver
Petition site Change.org has released a screensaver that mines cryptocurrency. Each time the screen saver runs, the computer mines and the coins are sent to the Change.org Foundation as a donation.
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