Yet another mobile payment app has embraced Bitcoin trading, signaling the growing acceptance for cryptocurrencies into the mainstream despite several concerns. Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies are unwelcome in India, the country's finance minister reiterated, but signaled favor for the blockchain at the same time.
Here is a wrap of the main news from the crypto space over the last 24 hours.
Square's Cash App Launches Cryptocurrency Trading
Square, the mobile payment company founded by Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, launched Bitcoin trading for most of its Cash App customers. "We support Bitcoin because we see it as a long-term path towards greater financial access for all. This is a small step," Dorsey said on Twitter. Buying and selling Bitcoin through the Cash App is currently available to all users except those located in New York, Georgia, Wyoming or Hawaii.
India To Mull Measures To Eliminate Cryptocurrency Use, But Welcome Blockchain
India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reiterated during his budget presentation on Thursday that cryptocurrencies are not considered as legal tender in the country. Further, the minister said the government will take all measures to eliminate the use of these crypto-assets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payment system. However, the government will explore the use of Bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology in its digitization efforts, the minister added.
Samsung Confirms Making Chips For Cryptocurrency Mining
Samsung Electronics has entered into the cryptocurrency world by making chips designed specifically for mining bitcoin and other digital currencies. The South Korean giant, which overtook Intel to become the biggest chipmaker, said in its fourth-quarter earnings release that it expects foundry business to benefit from cryptocurrency demand increase in the first quarter. Cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are mined by solving complex mathematical problems as a means to verify virtual currency transactions. The owners of the computers involved in mining will be rewarded with new digital tokens or coins. Read more...
Hyperledger Launches Blockchain Platform Sawtooth
Hyperledger, the open source blockchain project hosted by the Linux Foundation, released Hyperledger Sawtooth 1.0, a modular platform for building, deploying, and running distributed ledgers. Hyperledger Sawtooth is the second active Hyperledger project to reach 1.0, following Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 in July 2017. The features of Hyperledger Sawtooth includes On-chain governance, which allows users to utilize smart contracts to vote on blockchain configuration settings such as the allowed participants and smart contracts. It also supports Ethereum and has a broad language support, including Go, JavaScript, and Python. Read more...
Venezuela's Cryptocurrency 'Petro' For Sale From February 20
Venezuela's president has announced the pre-sale of the country's national cryptocurrency, the Petro, which he claims will help ease the economic crisis, and circumvent U.S.-led sanctions. At a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Nicolas Maduro said Petro will be available for sale from February 20. He also signed the official Petro white paper that details "the functions, vision, and conditions" of the Petro, and unveiled the Petro Container for mining the new digital currency. A number of "mining farms" are being developed at schools and universities, Maduro said. Read more...
Bitcoin's Price Changes With Major News Events: AIER Study
Bitcoin's largest price changes coincide with major news events about the cryptocurrency, according to a research brief published by the American Institute for Economic Research or AIER. The paper, published at AIER by Senior Research Fellow Max Gulker, takes into account the causes of Bitcoin's largest daily changes in price, with focus from the beginning of 2016 through the end of November 2017. The institute joined with Missouri University to examine the connection between major changes in bitcoin pricing and newsworthy events. Read more...
Europol, Interpol To Jointly Combat Crypto-linked Terrorism Funding, Crimes
Europol and Interpol have agreed upon a range of measures designed to ramp up efforts to combat the misuse of cryptocurrencies by criminals and terrorist financiers to launder money and support other criminal activities. A two-day international workshop involving financial investigators, lawyers, regulators and other specialists in anti-money laundering, cybercrime and financial intelligence was jointly organized by the Basel Institute on Governance, Europol and Interpol in Basel, Switzerland. Read more...
Innovation Shares Unveils Blockchain Investing ETF
Innovation Shares LLC has launched the Innovation Shares NextGen Protocol ETF (KOIN), which the company claims to be the first exchange-traded fund to use artificial intelligence to identify and invest in blockchain innovators and adopters. KOIN tracks an index designed to give investors exposure to global stocks that are participating in the growth of blockchain technology, which is being applied across a number of industries. The index underlying KOIN was constructed utilizing a natural language processing algorithm that screens for global stocks that are believed to have a current or future economic interest in blockchain technology. Read more...
Current Prices
As of 5.57 am ET on Thursday, Bitcoin was down 6.83 percent at $9,400 and Ethereum was lower by 0.85 percent at $1,078.97 on Coinbase.
by RTT Staff Writer
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