Saturday, June 13, 2015
5 Reasons Why The Lower Price Has Been Great For Bitcoin (Op-Ed)
How to Make Bitcoin’s Block Size Limits Unnecessary
FinTech Digest: Crowdfunding Set to Surpass VC, ANZ Integrates Contactless Payment, Verifone Partners with Ericsson
Friday, June 12, 2015
Anonymous Casino – Provably Fair Bitcoin and Litecoin Gambling For Punters Worldwide
Bitcoin Press Release: Managed by Nabelse Holdings in Cyprus, Anonymous Casino offers industry standard provably fair Bitcoin and Litecoin gaming with instant registration and no personal details required.
Estabished in 2014, digital currency casino Anonymous Casino offers both Bitcoin and Litecoin bets, one click registration, a multi-language feature, provably fair games, and instant transactions. Anonymous Casino’s mission is to spread the advantages of Bitcoin and Litecoin gaming to gamblers worldwide.
The innovative gaming platform is proud of its user friendly and intuitive interface, where players can register automatically on Anonymous Casino with one click of their mouse. Players do not need to include their personal information in the registration process.
Anonymous Casino prides itself on accommodating two of the pioneering virtual currencies. Bitcoin and Litecoin gamblers are now welcome to wager on this cutting edge live Bitcoin casino. The acceptance of these two digital currencies adds more flair, giving players a free and boundless environment that complements their style of online gambling.
Anonymous Casino’s diversity is not just limited to its cryptocurrency acceptance. Anonymous Casino stands out by appealing to a broader market on a global level, particularly in Asia where Bitcoin is quickly gaining ground.
The Platform’s system is optimized for Chinese and Japanese languages: Chinese and Japanese players can also enjoy the hospitality, thrills, and excitement provided by Anonymous Casino.
Avid Bitcoin players are presented with an organized game library that groups similar games for easier navigation including Bitcoin Poker. In addition, user profiles are easy to understand, providing players with a more precise update of their status.
All transactions with Anonymous Casino only require a few clicks and are processed instantly.
Armed with a range of cutting edge features, Anonymous Casino’s flagship agenda to spread the wonders of Bitcoin through its website is a success and is continuously evolving as one of the leading next-generation Bitcoin casinos to date.
About Anonymous Casino
Anonymous Casino is managed by Cyprus based Nabelse Holdings Limited. Launched in 2014, Anonymous Casino is a cryptocurrency-based betting website that accepts Bitcoin and Litecoin as its primary mode of transaction.
Anonymous Casino has made a great impression in spite of its short duration in the industry with its user-friendly features and captivating games provided by Amatic and SoftSwiss. Anonymous Casino is also equipped with a provably fair feature that ensures the fairness of every game played on this website.
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Media contact
Name: Maria Ewing, Marketing Manager
Email: support@anonymous-casino.com
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HyperrinflationLeads the Number of Venezuelan Bitcoin Users to Double
UBS Bank Is Experimenting with ‘Smart-Bonds’ Using the Bitcoin Blockchain
During his talk at IDX Derivatives Expo in London, Alex Batlin, UBS Bank’s chief Information officer for innovation (CIOI) shed some light on what the financial institution has been working on in their innovation lab: smart-bonds on the Bitcoin blockchain.
International Financing Review Asia (IFR Asia) reported that the smart-bonds were described by Batlin as bonds where “risk-free interest rates and payment streams were fully automated, creating a self-paying instrument.”
“The key attraction is that there is no middle or back office, and no registry, so clearly a major impact on costs,” said Batlin.
The Innovation Lab
Smart-bonds are one of the first publicly confirmed technologies the Swiss banking giant is said to be exploring since the launch of The innovation Lab in April to explore how blockchain technologies could improve the banking sector. The creation of the lab came after the publishing of an extensive report about the benefits of the blockchain by the international bank.
When the report was published, UBS Group CIO Oliver Bussmann told the Wall Street Journal, “I believe – and this is my personal view – that blockchain technology will not only change the way we do payments, but it will change the whole trading and settlement topic.”
Since then, that hypothesis has begun to get some traction as the Nasdaq OMX Group began experimenting with a pilot of blockchain technology as a record-keeping ledger for the Nasdaq Private Market, a small market launched in 2014 to handle the trading of shares belonging to private companies.
Smart-bonds likely is just one of several technological applications of blockchains UBS’ lab is exploring. The lab, which is located in the London offices of European fintech startup accelerator Level39, is meant to spur new innovations that can bolster the bank’s long-term growth.
“Blockchain technologies can make banks more efficient – for example, through instantaneous settlement rather than the days it takes at present, lower costs and lower operational risk,” said Batlin during the IDX Derivatives Expo in London. “The simple lesson for banks is that if we don’t do it someone else will.”
Difficulties remain
Bitcoin’s proof-of-work mining algorithm is responsible for the digital currency’s unique characteristics of network security and decentralization, but as Batlin pointed out, it is also causes the system to be slow and expensive. Transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain often take a hour or move and require large amounts of electricity via miners who verify transactions. These hurdles eliminate the possibility of high-frequency or algorithmic trading, as least as it currently stands.
“All kinds of revenue opportunities can emerge,” said Batlin speaking of how these innovations could be monetized, “but it’s still more expensive, so there is a way to go.”
“UBS sign” by twicepix / CC BY-SA 2.0
Swiss Tax Authorities Confirm that Bitcoin is VAT-free in Switzerland
Bitcoin Association Switzerland reports that, according to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, no VAT applies to bitcoin in Switzerland. The transfer of bitcoin doesn’t constitute delivery of goods or services, and therefore it’s not subject to VAT.
“This is the most reasonable way to classify bitcoins in the context of VAT, and we are fortunate that the tax administration agrees with our view,” says Luzius Meisser, president of Bitcoin Association Switzerland. “Bitcoin is a currency, and thus should also be treated like a currency.”
In February 2014, a group of three Swiss Bitcoin organizations jointly wrote a formal inquiry to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration to clarify the legal situation of bitcoin with regards to VAT. The tax authority replied that bitcoin is to be treated just like any other payment option – trading bitcoin for Swiss francs is seen as similar to trading euros for Swiss francs. Furthermore, the transaction fees charged by bitcoin exchanges are VAT-free.
“This is excellent news for bitcoin in Switzerland as it provides the legal certainty we need to professionally operate our business,” says Niklas Nikolajsen, CEO of Swiss bitcoin exchange and service provider Bitcoin Suisse AG.
Other European nations have made similar decisions. Recently, the Spanish tax office confirmed that, under Spanish law, bitcoin has been recognized as a financial service, and therefore the cryptocurrency isn’t subject to the nation’s 21 percent VAT.
In the European Union, which Switzerland is not part of, there is not yet clarity on the VAT status of bitcoin. In June, however, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg is expected to hold a hearing on the matter, Handelszeitung reports.
“We hope that the Swiss decision can serve as an inspiration for Europe,” said Mathieu Buffenoir, vice-president of Bitcoin Association Switzerland.
Bitcoin is now confirmed to be exempt from VAT in Switzerland, but other regulations apply. Switzerland considers digital currencies such as bitcoin equivalent to any other foreign currency. This means that the professional operation of bitcoin trading platforms constitutes financial intermediation with the requirement to comply with both the Banking Act and the Anti Money Laundering (AML) Act. Recently ECUREX, a digital finance marketplace for professional traders and financial institutions headquartered in Zurich, announced that it has become the first digital currency exchange platform to be fully compliant with both.
Switzerland, a modern country in the middle in Europe with a world-class financial system, a stable regulatory environment, and a thriving economy unencumbered by the often lengthy and ineffectual bureaucratic procedures of the European Union, is emerging as a good location for bitcoin businesses.
In related news reported by Handelszeitung, preparations are under way for the establishment of the first bitcoin bank in Switzerland, according to multiple sources in the financial sector. The bitcoin bank would be set up as a normal commercial bank connected to the banking network and compliant with the Banking and AML Acts, and able to offer all standard banking services. Bitcoin Magazine is following the story and will report in detail once more information is available.
Photo by Antana / CC BY-SA 2.0
D-CENT to Launch Blockchain-Based Digital Social Currencies with €1.9 Million in Funding from the European Commission
D-CENT (Decentralized Citizens ENgagement Technologies) is a Europe-wide project to create digital tools for direct democracy and economic empowerment. The project, which received €1.9 million funding from the European Union under FP7, wants to create a decentralized social networking platform for large-scale collaboration and decision-making.
The project team includes companies, universities and high-profile organizations such as the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics (ERCIM), the French CNRS, and NESTA, a U.K. charity dedicated to foster socially relevant innovation with activities ranging from early stage investment to in-depth research and practical programs.
D-CENT announced that it will design structurally sustainable money systems via the creation of a digital ecosystem of blockchain-enabled complementary currencies to use in parallel with conventional ones. This “Monetary Ecology” will advance development in two domains of social innovation: complementary currencies governance systems and decentralized trust management systems.
The project will include Digital Social Currency pilot projects in communities that are already actively designing tools for collective decision-making in local economies:
- – Social Kronas, a blockchain-enabled municipal currency and reward system for political participation in Reykjavik (Iceland);
- – The evolution and decentralization of Eurocat, a complementary currency launched in Barcelona (Spain) in 2014;
- – A decentralized social remuneration system that can reward the contributions that members of the Helsinki Urban-Cooperative Farm (Finland) perform to the common interest of the cooperative. This model will be also piloted at a cultural center in Milan (Italy).
See the D-CENT document “Design of Social Digital Currency” for an overview of the Digital Social Currency pilot projects.
“The Digital Social Currency pilot projects will experiment and test a new notion of proof-of-work: the Social Proof-of-Work, which is roughly the proof that a member in the system is endowed with coins as a reward to an action in the real world while abiding to community rules and enhancing collective values,” states the NESTA website. “By linking democratic deliberation with currency creation through the Social Proof-of-Work, systems can be designed to enable a flexible currency supply set in real time at the light of users trust management dynamics. The basic tenet is to consider social currency as reputation management that can inform the money supply of a complementary currency in terms of tolerance to credit risk.”
According to the project team, most cryptocurrency design approaches tend to privilege the role of software and marginalize human contribution. D-CENT, instead, puts humans back at the center of the currency creation stage.
The project seems related to the concept of blockchain-enabled Local Exchange Trade System (LETS). A LETS establishes a complementary currency for local exchanges where offers, requests and IOUs are logged in a public accounting system visible to all members. In case of a default, the loss is absorbed equally by all members of a LETS, which makes it a mutual credit exchange.
D-CENT is also related to recent proposals of Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who wrote a blog post in February proposing a similar IOU-based currency, which he dubbed Future Tax Coin (FT-Coin). Varoufakis is persuaded that blockchain technology could be put to effective use in troubled economies like Greece’s.
D-CENT will develop and document a Freecoin Toolchain software kit based on Bitcoin Core 0.10 and capable of bootstrapping the genesis of new ad-hoc blockchains, integrating the work done in the e-democracy D-CENT pilots and the Social Proof-of-Work concept.
BitLicense Blowback No Surprise to NYDFS Officials
Just as it seemed like the dust was settling around the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) BitLicense regulations released last week, Erik Voorhees of ShapeShift.io raised new criticisms of the NYDFS, calling them “Orwellian” and making comparisons to North Korea.
NYDFS’s Matt Anderson was not surprised, telling Bitcoin Magazine: “We always recognized that there is going to be some part of this community that is against even pretty standard financial regulatory oversight measures, such as anti-money laundering controls and other consumer protections. That said, one digital currency company has already received a license from NYDFS and a number of others have stated they intend to seek BitLicenses shortly.”
Although ShapeShift.io is a Switzerland-based exchange, it has cut off service to it’s New York State customers who are redirected to its website PleaseProtectConsumers.org, with an explanation of why they are leaving New York and how bitcoin and blockchain technology can prevent fraud and identity theft.
The website calls on other digital currency companies to suspend service to their New York state customers and redirect its website to the PleaseProtectConsumers page.
Voorhees’ company ShapeShift.io, which provides exchange services without asking customers for identifying information, recently launched the first digital currency exchange app for iOS.
Lots of unhappy campers in the Bitcoin community
In the week since the final BitLicense regulations were released digital currency companies and organizations have been weighing in, and it hasn’t been a pretty sight.
There weren’t enough changes between the second and final drafts to satisfy most of the original criticisms – that changes in the company’s products will be held up by a lengthy approval process, that smaller startups won’t have the cash to apply and that customers’ private information should not end up in the hands of government bureaucrats.
In addition, several company executives noted that there should have been an exemption for multi-sig products in the final draft noting that these don’t involve the company having full custody of customers’ bitcoin.
Organizations such as the Coin Center are concerned that other states will follow suit and use the BitLicense program as a template. The nonprofit advocacy group Coin Center has launched a tracker that compares government policies about digital currencies between states.
The glass is half full
However, there was some recognition among bitcoiners such as Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire that the BitLicense program actually gives added credibility to digital currencies among the public and brings it inside the circle that includes governments.
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have been supportive of the BitLicense program and are waiting for their license to launch their NY Gemini exchange, saying “we feel like it’s weeks …”
Writing at Nasdaq.com, Martin Tillier says: “Some of the regulations are sensible and, by increasing public confidence in the currency, could give the growing industry a serious boost… There is no reason that Bitcoin-related businesses should be exempt from requirements that apply to other financial concerns, although it should be noted that they don’t stop criminal behavior. Bernie Madoff, et al, have proved that over the years. What they do, however, is increase consumer confidence, an important development if Bitcoin is to gain widespread acceptance.”
As NYDFS’s Matt Anderson notes: “Ultimately, we believe that prudent regulation will be important to building greater consumer confidence in digital currency and sparking wider adoption.”
Job creation by government
Meanwhile, enterprise compliance company Identity Mind is selling its services to company compliance officers and administrators offering assistance in complying with BitLicense rules.
And, not to miss an opportunity, the New Jersey legislature sees a chance to lure disaffected digital currency business from New York State by offering tax breaks to these companies.
Australia’s ‘Big Four’ Bank ANZ Integrates Contactless Payment Feature
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