Vietnamese PM Approves Plan to Authorize Bitcoin As Form of Payment
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has reportedly authorized a plan that could lead to the official recognition of digital currencies like Bitcoin as a form of payment in the country by 2018.
Based on a report by regional news services VNA, the prime minister has ordered the country’s central bank, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Public Safety to study and draft a legal framework to regulate virtual currencies.
The assessment process is due for completion in August 2018. The preparation of legal documents needed for the recognition of cryptocurrencies under a regulatory framework should also be finalized by the end of the year.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xpUwER
Source: CoinTelegraph
Monero Price Up 15% as World’s Largest Cryptocurrency Exchange Prepares Integration
For many years, Monero has been regarded as one of the few cryptocurrencies that is highly legitimate, backed by an experienced and talented development team. It had no pre-sales or controversial mining deals for its miners. The Monero development and community have shown unity since it forked off from Bytecoin, with almost all of its hard forks executed without any contention amongst developers, community members, industry and miners.
Yet, it has struggled to see an increase in its value. It was pushed out of its top 10 largest cryptocurrency spot and was overtaken by Dash, another anonymous cryptocurrency. A large factor of Monero’s struggle in obtaining an active consumer base and trading market has been the lack of support from large-scale trading platforms and wallets.
Dash for instance, despite its controversial pre-sale and negative reputation, was remained as the world’s seventh largest cryptocurrency for many months due to the support from Jaxx and leading exchanges.
This week, Bithumb, South Korea’s leading bitcoin exchange and the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is about to provide the push Monero has long needed. Bithumb is set to list Monero in its cryptocurrency trading platform tomorrow, on August 27. Because it handles around $700 million worth of trades on a daily basis, the integration of Monero by Bithumb is expected to be an immediate and drastic increase in liquidity for Monero traders, users and investors.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xpXRni
Source: NewsBTC
Bitfury Mines Segwit Block Larger Than 1MB as Bitcoiners Wait for Network Relief
Segregated Witness (Segwit) is now live on the bitcoin network. During the first 24-hours of activity, some individual bitcoiners and companies began testing Segwit transactions. On August 24 some businesses like Trezor, Ledger Wallet and Openbazaar announced their wallets were “Segwit ready.”
Then on August 25, software developer Justin Camarena, announced he crafted a transaction that led to a mined block over the 1MB block size limit. Block 481947 was 32KB larger than 1MB and confirmed 2164 transactions worth over $9M. Camarena works for the merchant Bitrefill and says the company sends these types of transactions all the time. He says if more businesses jumped on board with Segwit transactions people would see a difference.
“We’re a merchant, we have these [types of transactions] all the time,” explains Camarena. “Very similar to exchanges, except they have more outputs depending on how they do it. But yeah, if only a few more moved to segwit we’d get the ball rolling.”
"We received all those as incoming payments, and I aggregate them to another wallet in low fee periods. All further aggregations at Bitrefill.com will be with Segwit as will all incoming payments."
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xqaXRB
Source: Bitcoin News
Jihan Wu of Bitmain Confident that Bitcoin Will be Valued $100,000 in 5 years
A possible future global currency, Bitcoin has gained a lot of attention recently. Because of its exceptional price performance and the improving regulatory landscape, more high profile individuals and corporations are taking note.
Bitcoin is created by a process called mining. Miners attempt to solve complex math problems through brute-force guessing, and if successful, they earn the right to add a new block to the Bitcoin Blockchain. They also get paid 12.5 Bitcoin every time they successfully mine a block.
Mining Bitcoin can be quite profitable, particularly in areas with cheap energy and low-cost labor. Founded in 2013, Bitmain is one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the world. Bitmain uses ASIC chip technology to produce specialized Bitcoin mining computers.
The company started with a product called the Antminer S1 and now offers a line of more advanced miners. This is important, since as hardware improves, so does the difficulty of solving the mining puzzles. Miners must run more advanced mining ASICs in order to keep up. Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain, runs a mining pool called Antpool in addition to his hardware manufacturing operation. Antpool is currently the top mining pool in the world.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xpOX9a
Source: CoinTelegraph
South African Officials Consider National Cryptocurrencies “Too Risky”
During a recent keynote address at the 2017 Strate GIBS Fintech Innovation Conference, Deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Francois Grope, has describedthe possibility of developing a national cryptocurrency as “too risky”.
During his address, Grope acknowledged the immense disruptive potential of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and the transformations that contemporary fintech technologies are driving upon traditional banking processes. “We are witnessing the disruption of financial services”, Grope stated. “Over the past decade or so, fintech’s attention and publicity has continued to intensify and increase. It is continuing to usher in completely new ways of banking. Developments in the fintech space are part of an evolutionary process driven by innovations… Virtual currencies have the potential of becoming widely adopted. However, for the central bank to issue virtual currencies or crypto-currencies in an open system will be too risky for us. This is something that we really need to think about.”
The statements come at a time of increasing development of national cryptocurrencies and blockchains, particularly on the part of authoritarian governments. In recent months, Belarus, Singapore, Russia, and China have taken significant steps toward the development and issuance of state directed virtual currencies.
Last month, the central bank of Belarus announced the implementation of blockchain technology into its banking sector, and unveiled plans for future applications for blockchain in the nation’s financial system. Belarus’s central bank revealed that blockchain technology will initially be used as the basis of transnational information transfers. “The new mechanism of maintenance of the register of bank guarantees will ensure the mutual access of the economic entities of the states being members of the Eurasian Economic Union [Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia] to the procedures of the government procurements of goods (works, services).” From there, Belarus intends to utilize blockchain technology as the basis for the issuance of securities and the development of the centrally administered national smart contract network. Belarus’s central bank has explicitly stated that it does not intend to utilize the national blockchain for virtual currency transfers.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xpY9u8
Source: Bitcoin News
Bitcoin QA: Why developers are leaving banks
Banks are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the blockchain ecosystem, training tens of thousands of developers to build things that won't work. The future role of banks in the economy. Horse carriages in Central Park did not completely disappear because of cars. They will be used for legacy applications. "Centralised blockchains" are a contradiction in terms because the purpose of a blockchain is to allow for/ increase decentralisation. Banking as an institution is obsolete; it may take 20-30 years before you see that ripple through the world, but it will. I'm hoping the best of the best of these developers take a couple of years getting bored doing proof-of-concept on reinventing spreadsheets, and then use their Christmas bonus to fund a start-up that will compete against their former employer who taught them how to do this. I've talked to people from these banks who've done this. Competition will determine the outcome in the market, and if you continue to build horse buggies in the age of the automobile, you go out of business. The dinosaurs will survive but they will change and lose enough power until they become chickens. That's what happened to the dinosaurs, and we have their children for breakfast every morning.
Full story at http://bit.ly/2xpQYCr
Source: Steemit
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