SEC Outlines Reasons for Reluctance to List Cryptocurrency ETFs
https://www.coindesk.com/sec-outlines-reasons-for-reluctance-to-list-cryptocurrency-etfs/
An SEC letter states there are "significant investor protection issues" to be examined before opening up crypto-ETFs to retail investors.
https://www.coindesk.com/sec-outlines-reasons-for-reluctance-to-list-cryptocurrency-etfs/
An SEC letter states there are "significant investor protection issues" to be examined before opening up crypto-ETFs to retail investors.
Global Securities Watchdog Warns Investors on ICO Risks
https://www.coindesk.com/global-securities-watchdog-warns-investors-on-ico-risks/
An organization of global securities regulators has issued a notice alerting investors to the perceived risks associated with initial coin offerings.
https://www.coindesk.com/global-securities-watchdog-warns-investors-on-ico-risks/
An organization of global securities regulators has issued a notice alerting investors to the perceived risks associated with initial coin offerings.
Stuck at $12K: Bitcoin Price Needs Quick Progress to Avert Further Losses
https://www.coindesk.com/stuck-at-12k-bitcoin-price-needs-quick-progress-to-avert-further-losses/
With its recovery stalled, bitcoin needs a quick break above $12,500 or the tide may turn in favor of the bears.
https://www.coindesk.com/stuck-at-12k-bitcoin-price-needs-quick-progress-to-avert-further-losses/
With its recovery stalled, bitcoin needs a quick break above $12,500 or the tide may turn in favor of the bears.
2018's Challenge: Promote Responsible Blockchain Innovation
https://www.coindesk.com/2018s-challenge-promote-responsible-blockchain-innovation/
The chief innovation officer at the U.S. regulator for national banks details the agency's efforts to support fintech while still mitigating risk.
https://www.coindesk.com/2018s-challenge-promote-responsible-blockchain-innovation/
The chief innovation officer at the U.S. regulator for national banks details the agency's efforts to support fintech while still mitigating risk.
Massachusetts Sues ICO Organizer for Alleged Securities Violations
https://www.coindesk.com/massachusetts-sues-ico-operator-for-alleged-securities-violations/
Massachusetts' securities enforcement office is suing a resident and his company for selling unregistered securities in a token sale.
https://www.coindesk.com/massachusetts-sues-ico-operator-for-alleged-securities-violations/
Massachusetts' securities enforcement office is suing a resident and his company for selling unregistered securities in a token sale.
PBoC Reportedly Orders Payment Services to Stop Serving Crypto Traders
https://www.coindesk.com/pboc-reportedly-orders-payment-services-to-stop-serving-crypto-traders/
The PBoC's Beijing division has reportedly issued a document requiring payment services to stop facilitating crypto trading activities.
https://www.coindesk.com/pboc-reportedly-orders-payment-services-to-stop-serving-crypto-traders/
The PBoC's Beijing division has reportedly issued a document requiring payment services to stop facilitating crypto trading activities.
CFTC Files Suits Against Crypto Investment Schemes for Alleged Fraud
https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-files-suits-against-crypto-investment-schemes-for-alleged-fraud/
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought two lawsuits against allegedly fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes yesterday.
https://www.coindesk.com/cftc-files-suits-against-crypto-investment-schemes-for-alleged-fraud/
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought two lawsuits against allegedly fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes yesterday.
Cornell IC3 Researchers Propose Solution to Bitcoin’s Multisig “Paralysis” Problem
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/cornell-ic3-researchers-propose-solution-bitcoins-multisig-paralysis-problem/
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/cornell-ic3-researchers-propose-solution-bitcoins-multisig-paralysis-problem/
Owning cryptocurrency comes with its own set of challenges. One of the biggest of those challenges is managing the private keys that enable you to spend funds. Lose your private keys, and your money is gone.
In a business environment, a common way to manage funds owned by multiple people is via what’s called a multisignature (multisig) address, a type of smart contract requiring two or more parties to sign off on a transaction to move the funds. This can be problematic, however. Let’s say you have a three-of-three multisig that requires you and two business partners to sign off on a transaction. If one person dies, disappears or becomes incapacitated, those assets become frozen — a risk some might feel uncomfortable with when dealing with tens of thousands of dollars or more. One way to ameliorate that risk might be to opt for a two-of-three multisig, where only two instead of all three individuals need to sign off on a transaction. But that’s not a complete solution either. Two players could conspire against the other one and run off with the money. What now? If your funds are on the Ethereum blockchain, you could write a smart contract that would allow you to free the funds if one person in your trio disappeared. However, Bitcoin with its limited scripting language makes things more difficult. “This seems like an unsolvable problem if you think about the traditional tools,” said Ari Juels, a professor at Cornell Tech and co-director of the Cornell Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3). Paralysis ProofsIn a paper titled “Paralysis Proofs: How to Prevent Your Bitcoin from Vanishing,” researchers Fan Zhang, Phil Daian, Iddo Bentov and Ari Juels from the IC3 outline how to deal with what happens when a party is unable, or unwilling, to sign off on a multisig transaction in Bitcoin. The solution involves a combination of blockchain technology and trusted hardware — Intel SGX, in this case. Trusted hardware allows you to run code inside a protected enclave. Even a computer’s own operating system is unable to access data inside an enclave, so if your computer were to be hacked, the code in the enclave would remain secure.IC3’s solution proposes replacing a trusted third party, such as a lawyer or a bank, who would put money in an escrow, with a trusted hardware solution that retains control of a master key to the funds. If one of the three people in the contract dies, the other two initiate a “paralysis proof.” That proof is based on a challenge sent to the missing third person. If the missing person responds to the challenge, the money stays put. If the missing person does not respond, the trusted hardware releases the funds to the remaining two players. Trusted hardware is only part of the solution, however. If the third person were to try and respond to the challenge request with an indication she is still alive, conceivably, the other players could intercept that message. To ensure that does not happen, the second half of IC3’s solution involves sending the message via the blockchain, which provides a tamper-proof and censorship-resistant medium. “By combining these two [methods], we can achieve the exact properties we’re after,” Juels explained to Bitcoin Magazine. “We can enable trusted hardware to determine whether or not somebody is alive, and there is no way to prevent a relevant message from getting transmitted if it is coming through the blockchain.” How It WorksPut simply, this is how to achieve a paralysis proof as outlined by the IC3 researchers:Two players suspect a third is dead, so they post a challenge on the blockchain. The challenge consists of a tiny “dust” UTXO that the third person must spend within a certain period of time, say 24 hours, to prove she is alive.The two players also get a “seize” transaction they may post to the blockchain later to collect the funds, if the third person does not respond to the challenge.If the third person sends back a response by spending the UTXO,
In a business environment, a common way to manage funds owned by multiple people is via what’s called a multisignature (multisig) address, a type of smart contract requiring two or more parties to sign off on a transaction to move the funds. This can be problematic, however. Let’s say you have a three-of-three multisig that requires you and two business partners to sign off on a transaction. If one person dies, disappears or becomes incapacitated, those assets become frozen — a risk some might feel uncomfortable with when dealing with tens of thousands of dollars or more. One way to ameliorate that risk might be to opt for a two-of-three multisig, where only two instead of all three individuals need to sign off on a transaction. But that’s not a complete solution either. Two players could conspire against the other one and run off with the money. What now? If your funds are on the Ethereum blockchain, you could write a smart contract that would allow you to free the funds if one person in your trio disappeared. However, Bitcoin with its limited scripting language makes things more difficult. “This seems like an unsolvable problem if you think about the traditional tools,” said Ari Juels, a professor at Cornell Tech and co-director of the Cornell Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3). Paralysis ProofsIn a paper titled “Paralysis Proofs: How to Prevent Your Bitcoin from Vanishing,” researchers Fan Zhang, Phil Daian, Iddo Bentov and Ari Juels from the IC3 outline how to deal with what happens when a party is unable, or unwilling, to sign off on a multisig transaction in Bitcoin. The solution involves a combination of blockchain technology and trusted hardware — Intel SGX, in this case. Trusted hardware allows you to run code inside a protected enclave. Even a computer’s own operating system is unable to access data inside an enclave, so if your computer were to be hacked, the code in the enclave would remain secure.IC3’s solution proposes replacing a trusted third party, such as a lawyer or a bank, who would put money in an escrow, with a trusted hardware solution that retains control of a master key to the funds. If one of the three people in the contract dies, the other two initiate a “paralysis proof.” That proof is based on a challenge sent to the missing third person. If the missing person responds to the challenge, the money stays put. If the missing person does not respond, the trusted hardware releases the funds to the remaining two players. Trusted hardware is only part of the solution, however. If the third person were to try and respond to the challenge request with an indication she is still alive, conceivably, the other players could intercept that message. To ensure that does not happen, the second half of IC3’s solution involves sending the message via the blockchain, which provides a tamper-proof and censorship-resistant medium. “By combining these two [methods], we can achieve the exact properties we’re after,” Juels explained to Bitcoin Magazine. “We can enable trusted hardware to determine whether or not somebody is alive, and there is no way to prevent a relevant message from getting transmitted if it is coming through the blockchain.” How It WorksPut simply, this is how to achieve a paralysis proof as outlined by the IC3 researchers:Two players suspect a third is dead, so they post a challenge on the blockchain. The challenge consists of a tiny “dust” UTXO that the third person must spend within a certain period of time, say 24 hours, to prove she is alive.The two players also get a “seize” transaction they may post to the blockchain later to collect the funds, if the third person does not respond to the challenge.If the third person sends back a response by spending the UTXO,
the game is over; the two others are not able to take control of the funds. Alternatively, if the third person does not return an “alive” signal by spending the UTXO before the time-out, then the two others can use the “seize” transaction to take control of the funds. This not the only use case for a paralysis-proof system. Juels thinks the solution would work well in any situation that called for a controlled access to private keys that could not otherwise be maintained on a blockchain. “It is actually a very general scheme you could use for lots of other purposes,” he said. For instance, a paralysis-proof system could be used as a dead man’s switch for control over the release (or decryption) of leaked information or a journalist’s raw materials. It could also be used in numerous ways to control daily spending limits from a common pool of money or as a conditioned expenditure based on an outside event (as reported by an oracle), like a student getting good grades or a salesperson meeting a sales quota. “Basically, you can a rich set of conditions around the expenditure of money using the fact that a trusted hardware kind of acts like a trusted third party,” said Juels.This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/).
By Shawn Gordon (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/authors/shawn-gordon/)What is Ripple? Technically speaking, is Ripple a cryptocurrency in the mold of Bitcoin? The short answer is probably “no,” but that doesn’t stop it from often being lumped into that same category.What is Ripple?Originally released in 2012 as a subsequent iteration of Ripplepay, Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system (RTGS), currency exchange and remittance network. Using a common ledger that is managed by a network of independently validating servers that constantly compare transaction records, Ripple doesn't rely on the energy and computing intensive proof-of-work used by Bitcoin. Ripple is based on a shared public database that makes use of a consensus process between those validating servers to ensure integrity. Those validating servers can belong to anyone, from individuals to banks. The Ripple protocol (token represented as XRP) is meant to enable the near instant and direct transfer of money between two parties. Any type of currency can be exchanged, from fiat currency to gold to even airline miles. They claim to avoid the fees and wait times of traditional banking and even cryptocurrency transactions through exchanges. How Is It Fundamentally Different From Bitcoin?It is the validating servers and consensus mechanism that tends to lead people to just assume that Ripple is a blockchain-based technology. While it is consensus oriented, Ripple is not a blockchain. Ripple uses a HashTree to summarize the data into a single value that is compared across its validating servers to provide consensus.Banks seem to like Ripple, and payment providers are coming on board more and more. It is built for enterprise and, while it can be used person to person, that really isn't its primary focus. The main purpose of the Ripple platform is to move lots of money around the world as rapidly as possible. Thus far, Ripple has been stable since its release with over 35 million transactions processed without issue. It is able to handle 1,500 transactions per second (tps) and has been updated to be able to scale to Visa levels of 50,000 transactions per second. By comparison, Bitcoin can handle 3-6 tps (not including scaling layers) and Ethereum 15 tps. Ripple’s token, XRP, isn't mined like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and many other cryptocurrencies. Instead, it was issued at its inception, similar in fashion to the way a company issues stocks when it incorporates: It essentially just picked a number (100 billion) and issued that many XRP coins. What is XRP and What’s It Used For?As a technology, the Ripple platform may have real value and real history that validate the claims they make for its efficacy. The XRP token itself, however, seems to have negligible use cases. In fact, Ripple had planned to phase it out — at least, until fevered interest in cryptocurrencies began to take off in 2016. Nevertheless, as CNBC noted today, if Ripple hits $6.57, its market capitalization will be bigger than Bitcoin’s. There are 100 billion XRP tokens that were issued by the Ripple company. At the moment, the company promises that this is the total number of XRP that there will ever be (though, technically, there is nothing to stop them from issuing more tokens in the future). Ripple’s hub-and-spoke design positions XRP in the middle as a tool that is fungible with any currency or digital asset, such as frequent flyer miles. Ripple can settle a payment in 3.5 seconds through XRP and have it available and spendable. The use of XRP is totally independent of the Ripple network in general; that is, banks don't actually need XRP to transfer dollars, euros, etcetera which is what many small investors might be missing when they are buying the token.What Is Ripple’s Value Proposition?The value here is the Ripple network itself and its ability to move assets around the world quickly, rather than in the XRP token. Banks are able to use the Ripple software to shift money between different
foreign currencies. Currently, this is typically accomplished using SWIFT, a system that is cumbersome and relies on the banks having separate accounts in every country they work in. Ripple says it has signed up more than 100 banks (compared to SWIFTs 11,000 financial institutions) including American Express.So Why All the Hype?While Bitcoin has seen a dramatic rise in price over the course of 2017, the end of the year saw the cryptocurrency almost breaking $20,000. As the price drove higher, we saw a massive increase in price for a large number of altcoins, with Litecoin jumping from $50 to nearly $400, Ethereum doubling, NEM and EOS going up by a factor of five, and the list goes on and on. The fear of missing out has driven many investors wild and “lower-priced” currencies are attractive to new investors who mistakenly think that the high price of an entire BTC puts the currency out of their reach.Add to all the hype the rumors that had been swirling on social media through December 2017, that Coinbase was going to list Ripple, which caused the price to surge, which in turn prompted Coinbase to address the rumors in a more generic fashion in this blog post on January 4, 2018:“As of the date of this statement, we have made no decision to add additional assets to either GDAX or Coinbase. Any statement to the contrary is untrue and not authorized by the company.”
The Coinbase announcement caused a big drop in Ripple, back to around the same levels as before the rumors began. SInce then, Ripple has both dipped dramatically and recovered, as have many other volatile cryptocurrencies. While Coinbase doesn’t support Ripple, there are a number of ways for people to acquire Ripple, should they still want to.Words of CautionThere has been a lot of ink used on criticizing Ripple as well. The complaint from Bitcoin and other blockchain enthusiasts is that Ripple’s centralized control is in direct contrast to the ideals and advantages of decentralized blockchains like Bitcoin.Ripple also maintains a trusted Unique Node List (UNL) that is meant to protect against potentially malicious or insecure validating servers. It is the UNL that controls the network rules, presenting a conundrum: On the one hand, it protects against problematic validators, but, in theory, a regulating body or government could come in and force a change that isn't necessarily desirable or is downright invasive. Furthermore, because of a FinCEN violation and fine in 2013, Ripple has updated its policies and will only recognize and recommend gateways that are in compliance with financial regulations.New York Times reporter Nathaniel Popper commented on Twitter (https://twitter.com/nathanielpopper/status/949081873405304832) that he has yet to find a bank that anticipates using the XRP token in any meaningful way. Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, has denied Popper’s claims stating, “Over the last few months I’ve spoken with ACTUAL banks and payment providers. They are indeed planning to use xRapid (our XRP liquidity product) in a serious way.” However, as Popper points out, even the banks that he contacted at Ripple’s suggestion were non-committal in their plans to implement Ripple anytime soon.According to the Financial Times (https://www.ft.com/content/f739f48e-f62a-11e7-8715-e94187b3017e?desktop=true&segmentId=d8d3e364-5197-20eb-17cf-2437841d178a), of the 18 banks and financial services companies publicly linked to Ripple, most of them stated that they “had not yet gone beyond testing” while a few had moved on to using Ripple’s systems “for moving real money.” However, not one of the 16 companies that responded had used the XRP token.
This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/).
This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/).
TEPCO Invests in Blockchain Startup in Bid to Decentralize Systems
https://www.coindesk.com/tepco-buys-stake-uk-blockchain-startup-bid-decentralized-systems/
The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings announced it had invested in blockchain startup Electron to develop an asset management platform.
https://www.coindesk.com/tepco-buys-stake-uk-blockchain-startup-bid-decentralized-systems/
The Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings announced it had invested in blockchain startup Electron to develop an asset management platform.
OKCoin Eyes Cryptocurrency Exchange Launch in South Korea
https://www.coindesk.com/okcoin-to-launch-cryptocurrency-exchange-service-in-south-korea/
Cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin is reportedly moving to launch in South Korea – possibly as soon as next month.
https://www.coindesk.com/okcoin-to-launch-cryptocurrency-exchange-service-in-south-korea/
Cryptocurrency exchange OKCoin is reportedly moving to launch in South Korea – possibly as soon as next month.
Bulgaria Joins 'International Operation' Against OneCoin
https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-joins-international-operation-onecoin/
Bulgaria's government has revealed it is part of an international crackdown of OneCoin.
https://www.coindesk.com/bulgarian-government-joins-international-operation-onecoin/
Bulgaria's government has revealed it is part of an international crackdown of OneCoin.
Report: India's Government Sends Tax Notices to Cryptocurrency Traders
https://www.coindesk.com/report-indias-government-sends-tax-notices-to-cryptocurrency-traders/
India has sent tax notices to tens of thousands of cryptocurrency owners within its borders.
https://www.coindesk.com/report-indias-government-sends-tax-notices-to-cryptocurrency-traders/
India has sent tax notices to tens of thousands of cryptocurrency owners within its borders.