The world's bigger maker of bitcoin-minig hardware wants to go public, but there are doubts over its profit

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.

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

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

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

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

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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