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Organised
as a weekly newsletter, it presents an overview of the current
international blockchain debate. You may find below a selection of the
best ideas from the most influential media.
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The world's biggest maker of Bitcoin-mining hardware wants to go public, but there are doubts over its profits
Bitmain Technologies, the Beijing-based company which makes machines used to mine Bitcoin, wants to go public.
The company filed to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange at the end of
September and aims to raise around $US500 million, the Financial Times
reports.
If Bitmain raises the full amount, it would give the company an indicative valuation of $US18 billion.
That would represent a significant premium to September 2017, when
Bitmain sold 5% of its equity for $US50 million in a Series A funding
round, at an implied valuation of $US1 billion.
And according to documents seen by the FT, there are some discrepancies
in the profit figures released by Bitmain in connection with recent
capital raisings.
The IPO prospectus states that Bitmain's net profit in 2017 was $US701.4 million.
But just a month earlier in August, the company released documents ahead
of a pre-IPO funding round which said its 2017 profits were $US1.1
billion.
And in June this year, Bitmain reportedly closed a $US400 million Series
B funding round. Documents circulated in connection with that capital
raising said 2017 profits were $US1.25 billion.
Bitmain is the world's largest manufacturer of ASIC
(application-specific integrated circuit) chips used in the machines
that mine Bitcoin.
November 13, 2018 by Sam Jacobs
READ FULL ARTICLE
https://www.businessinsider.com/bitmain-initial-public-offering-profits-2018-11?IR=T
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When the Fork Forks: What You Need to Know as Bitcoin Cash Goes to War
Around 16:40
UTC tomorrow, November 15, 2018, the Bitcoin Cash network is set to
undergo another hard fork upgrade. But contention about this upgrade has
left the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem divided, which could once again lead to
a split into multiple projects and coins. Here’s what you need to know
to get up to speed.
As a quick reminder, what is Bitcoin Cash again?
Bitcoin
Cash (sometimes referred to as “Bcash” or “BCH”) is a cryptocurrency
that split off from the main Bitcoin blockchain in August 2017.
Culminating from Bitcoin’s years-long scaling dispute, the spinoff
project most notably increased its block size limit through a
contentious hard fork upgrade, “forking off” to become its own coin —
though some of its proponents see it as the “real Bitcoin.” While
currently trading at a fraction of bitcoin’s value — around $480 at the
time of writing — Bitcoin Cash is the fourth biggest cryptocurrency by
market cap and has garnered support from big names in the cryptocurrency
space like bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver and Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu.
What is this dispute about?
The Bitcoin Cash dispute is really between two competing factions, represented by their respective software implementations.
In one corner stands Bitcoin ABC, the “original” Bitcoin Cash client
that caused the split away from the Bitcoin blockchain a little over a
year ago. Led by Amaury Séchet, and with close (though unofficial) ties
to major mining hardware producer Bitmain, Bitcoin ABC has a policy of
hard forking about once every six months to upgrade the protocol.
This time, Bitcoin ABC will introduce several changes. The first and
probably main one is called “Canonical Transaction Ordering” (CTOR).
While transactions can currently be included in a block in almost any
order, under CTOR, transactions must be included in a specific order.
The Bitcoin ABC development team believes this offersa couple of
technical benefits, in part related to (future) scaling improvements.
A second change is a new piece of script (an “OP code”) called
OP_CHECKDATASIG (DSV). This extends Bitcoin Cash’s features, most
notably by enabling oracles (which allow for a class of smart
contracts). Bitcoin ABC also introduced some smaller technical fixes,
like a minimum size for transactions.
November 14, 2018 by Aaron van Wirdum
READ FULL ARTICLE
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/when-fork-forks-what-you-need-know-bitcoin-cash-goes-war
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Floor Found? Bitcoin Price Bounces
As Sell-Off Slows
Bitcoin has
recovered some of its losses in the last couple of hours, adding some
$300 to the price of one bitcoin and taking it to $4,700 after 36-hour
sell-off that wiped billions from the cryptocurrency market.
The bitcoin price sell-off began last week as fears around a so-called
hard in the bitcoin cash network, itself a fork of bitcoin, gripped the
market amid threats to the sector from bitcoin cash's two warring
factions.
The bitcoin market then went into meltdown yesterday as investors
processed reports some exchanges were altering futures contracts amid
the battle for control of the bitcoin cash network.
Bitcoin yesterday crashed under $5,000 for the first time this year,
down an eye-watering 25% in two days, fuelling fears the cryptocurrency
market is heading for collapse. Bitcoin today briefly fell to $4,237,
according to the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, before climbing
back to over $4,700 over the last couple of hours.
Bitcoin's market capitalization has now fallen to $82 billion, down from more than $110 billion just two weeks ago.
Other major coins, including Ripple's XRP and Ethereum's ether, the
second and third-largest coins, both also rebounded somewhat from losses
of around 15% over the last 24 hours.
High profile bitcoin and cryptocurrency investors and traders have today
come out in defense of the sector, appealing to panicked potential
sellers not to bail out of the market, pointing to bitcoin's turbulent
past and repeated recoveries.
November 20, 2018 by Billy Bambrough
READ FULL ARTICLE
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/2018/11/20/floor-found-bitcoin-price-bounces-as-sell-off-slows
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Fintech firm Revolut gets green light to expand to Japan and Singapore
British mobile bank Revolut has obtained licenses to operate in Japan and Singapore as it readies an expansion into Asia.
The London-based financial technology firm said Thursday that it had
acquired a remittance license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore
and full authorization from Japan's Financial Services Agency.
Revolut offers users a prepaid debit card and a current account, as well
as premium features like cryptocurrency trading and free unlimited
foreign exchange.
It said Thursday that it intends to launch its platform in the
Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in the first quarter of 2019, and is looking
to select Singapore to host its APAC headquarters.
Revolut also has plans to eventually release its app in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
"We have confidence that Revolut will continue to be a driving force as
we expand globally, developing a range of exciting new services for
increasingly connected consumers in APAC," Revolut Chief Executive
Nikolay Storonsky said in a statement Thursday.
"It's a huge market and we're already seeing an incredible amount of people demanding our product."
More than 50,000 people in the APAC region have signed up to a waiting list to create an account with Revolut, the firm said.
Revolut added that it is working with Singapore's central bank to advise
on legislation being tabled in the country's parliament and aimed at
streamlining payments regulation under one single piece of legislation.
It has also partnered with Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten, property insurer Sompo Japan Insurance and printing firm Toppan.
November 29, 2018 by Ryan Browne
READ FULL ARTICLE
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/29/uk-fintech-firm-revolut-gets-license-to-expand-to-japan-and-singapore.html
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Genesis hack: World’s biggest blockchain hackathon launched
BENGALURU: IBC
media, the creators of the International Blockchain Congress announced
the launch of Genesis hack - the world’s biggest blockchain hackathon -
at the 10K NASSCOM Start-up Warehouse in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Genesis Hack aims to promote and grow the number of blockchain
developers in India. Over 65,000 developers are expected to compete
against each other for a cash prize of over Rs 1 crore.
Participants will be tested through three major tracks that involve
building a blockchain protocol, dApps, and building security solutions
for blockchain infrastructures.
The event organisers believe that the present state of affairs in India
is favouring the adoption of blockchain technology at industrial and
government capacities. However, the lack of blockchain developers will
set back the intended progress that needs to be made in order to make
India block-chain-ready.
“But to scale up, we need engineering talent to build and maintain
blockchain infrastructures. An event like Genesis Hackathon can help
promote the need for more blockchain developers,” Abhishek Pitti, CEO of
Nucleus Vision who was present at the announcement to launch the
hackathon.
Presently, India has about six million engineers who are capable of
delivering a solid throughput for the blockchain industry. “As a
large-scale event that brings together developers from all over India,
Genesis Hack will set the precedent to enable India to solve the biggest
blockchain problems in the world with a well-equipped workforce,” said
Rama Iyer, President of Elev-en01.
November 22, 2018 by Akshatha M,
READ FULL ARTICLE
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/genesis-hack-worlds-biggest-blockchain-hackathon-launched/articleshow/66749166.cms
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