Indians Petition Government Demanding Legal Status for Cryptocurrencies

indians petition government demanding leagal status for cryptocurrencies

Indians Petition Government Demanding Legal Status for Cryptocurrencies

The Indian cryptocurrency ecosystem recently woke up to a shocking news on leading media outlets. It was reported that the use of Bitcoin in the country is illegal and could attract penalties under anti-money laundering laws. However, the report was not entirely accurate, and the news platforms were quoting a Member of Parliament seeking the implementation of cryptocurrency regulations by calling Bitcoin a “Ponzi scheme”.

While the confusion was eventually cleared, the incident has sown the seeds of mistrust about the government’s stance on the digital currency. Going by the example of few drastic decisions taken by the government in the past, they have come together to demand some clarity from the government regarding its stance on cryptocurrency. They have started an online signature campaign, petitioning the government to award a legal status for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the country.

The petition is probably the first strong public campaign organized by the recently formed Digital Asset and Blockchain Foundation of India. Addressed to Arun Jaitley — India’s Finance Minister, Urjit Patel – Governor of the Reserve Bank of India and S Selvakumar – the Joint Secretary of the Department of Economics Affairs Room, the petition makes a mention of various benefits offered by Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and how it can be used for the betterment of the country. Also, it asks the government to take steps towards stopping bad actors who misuse the cryptocurrency than banning the technology and its use.

The petition on Change.org also says,

“Cryptocurrencies will be available irrespective and the illegal users do not care about its legal status. Please do not take hasty steps and prevent innovation, economic activity and jobs. This will only stop good uses of cryptocurrencies.”

In a country which has a considerable percentage of the unbanked population and ranks at the top for receiving the highest remittance, Bitcoin can offer an efficient and inexpensive solution. The use of cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology will not only speed up the financial services sector but also a range of other industries. With the adoption of distributed ledger technology, the government can also combat rampant corruption and red tape. But strict cryptocurrency regulations will stifle progress in this regard, preventing the country from keeping up with the global trend.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Author: Gautham

David

Is ItToo late to buy top Chryptocurrencies

Is vit too late to buy top chrptocurrencies

Is It Too Late to Buy the Top Cryptocurrencies

While the majority perceives digital currencies including Bitcoin, Monero, Dash and Ether as either a means of payment or a token for development, there still exists a relatively large group of users who consider these digital currencies as short and mid-term investments.

Many investors within the digital currency exchange market still inquire about the timing of their investment. For short and mid-term investment, is it too late to buy the mentioned digital currencies?

Issuance rate

Dash and Ether are different from most digital currencies such as Bitcoin or Monero in the sense that they have unique monetary policies.

Ethereum, for instance, is actually an inflationary token because it operates on top of a concept called the “Issuance Rate.” The Issuance Rate represents the number of Ethereum tokens or Ether that will be created within a year. In 2017, the issuance rate of Ether is 14.75 percent.

Making the creator rich

Dash is a controversial cryptocurrency because over two mln Dash – previously known as Darkcoin – was instantaneously mined in the first 30 hours of launch. Homero, a Bitcoin trader and cryptocurrency trader, wrote:

“During the first day 2M coins were mined, and as of today, less than 3k are mined daily. Even if there were no features/community at the time, he didn’t relaunch and decided to keep his instamine, claiming that the community told him to do so. Having a fair launch is very trivial for the future of a coin, because a premined coin has only one future : to make the creator rich.”

Bitcoin and Monero, on the other hand, were launched and mined with complete transparency and legitimacy and because of their open processes. They continue to be two of the most respected and appreciated cryptocurrencies currently in existence.

Trading and price

Since Bitcoin and Monero are based on a fixed supply of coins, it is quite evident that the value of the two coins will continue to rise until their supplies are maximized. In other words, Bitcoin price will continue to increase until it hits its 21 mln supply cap. Even when the supply cap is reached, if the demand of the currencies continues to increase, its price will maintain an upward trend.

For Ethereum and Dash, the second and third largest cryptocurrencies in the world, it is difficult to predict their price trends due to their unique monetary policies.

Furthermore, Ether is considered as an alt-asset instead of a digital currency because the Ethereum network uses gas or Ether to power decentralized applications, hence the necessity of an inflationary monetary supply.

Betting on usability

In general, cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Monero, Dash and Ethereum are all at their early stages. For both short and mid-term investors, it is important to recognize and evaluate the technical backgrounds and usability of these cryptocurrencies.

Ethereum developers or users will argue that the price of Ether will continue to increase so long as the development community remains active.

Conclusively, it is not too late to invest in cryptocurrencies that have potential to grow and evolve.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Source : TheCoinTelegraph

David

Basic Rules for Beginners in bitcoin Trading

Basic Rules for Beginners in Bitcoin Trading

basic rules for trading

There has been a protracted debate on the actual identity of Bitcoin, whether it should be regarded as a currency or a commodity.

With reasonable support on each side of the debate based on its inherent characteristics, a huge segment of the ecosystem is of the opinion that Bitcoin can, and should be regarded as both a currency and a commodity.

Whatever definition attached to Bitcoin, the constant variation in price offers an opportunity for investors to make a profit by trading the cryptocurrency, either as a long term investment or in a speculative short term pattern.

What is Bitcoin trading?

Bashir Aminu, Bitcoin trader and convener of online crypto group Cryptogene, explains the basic Bitcoin trading process as follows:

“If you buy Bitcoins at one price and then sell them for a higher price, you make a profit of the difference between those two prices, less any commission that you paid. However, if the price goes down, you will be in the uncomfortable position of having to either sell them at a loss or hold and hope the price goes back up while risking higher and higher losses if the price continues to drop.”

There are two major types of traders in the Bitcoin market, they are ‘long term’ traders and ‘short term’ traders. Each of these group of traders are classified by how long they may wish to hold onto a given position of trade.

Long term traders are usually involved in studying price trends over long periods of time. This informs their decision to buy and hold Bitcoin also over long periods with the hope of taking profit at a price higher than their original entry point. With Bitcoin still in its developmental stages, a lot of users suggest that this is a good time to buy.

This suggestion is based on the assumption that with increasing use case scenario and more adoption, demand for Bitcoin and its associated technology will increase, thereby creating more demand for the cryptocurrency which will automatically cause an eventual increase in value. Glimpses of this have been observed with the surge in Bitcoin price which coincides with a boost in its market capitalization and volume of trade.

On the other hand, short-term traders analyze the intraday behavior of Bitcoin price and seek to take advantage of the swings in price. These traders thrive in market volatility, a factor that is presently characteristic of Bitcoin.

In its early stages, the swings in Bitcoin price was usually so huge as every little event within the crypto space had very serious impact on the price of the cryptocurrency. As adoption grows and Bitcoin becomes more stable, price volatility has reduced considerably and experts think it is a better time to trade the cryptocurrency, compared to an earlier time.

“Bitcoin is certainly safer to invest in now than it was a couple of years ago”, says Aminu.

Trading rules

Aminu describes Bitcoin trading as extremely profitable if you play your cards well. According to him, it all depends on the market movement pattern. He tells Cointelegraph that Bitcoin value rises and falls dramatically throughout each trading day, jumping in whole dollar amounts. A phenomenon which he identifies as very risky when misjudged.

Based on his trading experience, Aminu outlines a set of rules for newcomers who may wish to profit from the Bitcoin market as follows:

Never put all your eggs in one basket. Your capital should be broken into smaller lots for multiple positions at different price levels.

Do not invest your life savings or money that may change your life drastically in the event of a loss. This rule is important mainly due to the existing level of uncertainty that still exists within the Bitcoin market.

Take full advantage of available technology in order to gain maximum profit

Understanding the market is a continuous process and requires a lot of time, concentration and effort. It is very crucial to do research and be up to date with current trends.

Know when to cash in. It is important to stay focused, unemotional and professional.

Traders should keep in mind that losing, just as much as winning, is an integral part of trading. It is the cumulative gains that count.

If this sounds to complicated there is a proven way of automated trading in the top 10 Cryptocurrencies by joining Trade Coin Club who do the hard work for you allowing you to share in the profit at three levels of risk. This frees you from having to follow the markets, minute by minute or hour by hour.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

By Iyke Aru

David

Ethereum style smart contracts for Bitcoin in June

Ethereum has gained a lot of attention over the past year or two as it became the second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap. The platform enables the execution of smart contracts, a feature coming to Bitcoin in the form of RSK.

On a recent episode of Coin Interview, RSK’s co-founder, Gabriel Kurman, claimed that RSK’s private testnet will turn into a public testnet on May 22nd at the 2017 Consensus conference. RSK will then be launched on Bitcoin’s mainnet approximately a month later.

“RSK goal is to add value and functionality to the Bitcoin ecosystem by enabling smart-contracts, near instant payments and higher-scalability.”

A smart contract is simply a computerized transaction protocol that executes the terms of a contract. According to the Elements Project, smart contracting platforms with more expressive scripting systems, such as Ethereum and RSK, are attractive to developers as Bitcoin’s scripting system is limited by design for security reasons.

Ethereum is in essence a programmable blockchain. Rather than giving users a set of predefined operations, such as bitcoin transactions, the platform allows users to create their own operations, of any complexity. In this way, it serves as a platform for many different types of decentralized blockchain applications, including but not limited to cryptocurrencies. “Ethereum allows us to move much faster than building on Bitcoin due to its turing complete script,” explains Augur co-founder Joey Krug.

The team behind RSK has done everything they can to make it easy for Ethereum developers to move to their platform. According to the original RSK white paper, the platforms virtual machine is backwards compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM), which “gives the opportunity to developers working on Ethereum to benefit from the robustness of the BItcoin blockchain.” The EVM allows developers to create applications using programming languages modelled on existing languages like JavaScript and Python.

Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson has hypothesized that the smart contracts written on top of these kinds of systems will be released on multiple platforms. The process would look similar to releasing mobile applications for both iOS and Android, developers may decide to release their applications on Ethereum, RSK, and Ethereum Classic.

In addition to RSK’s advanced smart contract capabilities, the sidechain also has the potential to decrease the transaction burden on the main Bitcoin blockchain. “We have the Lumino Transaction Compression Protocol (LTCP), which allows 2,000 transactions per second on chain and the Lumino Network which will allow up to 20,000 transactions per second off chain,” said Kurman. “Every single developer is going to be able to plug in, and run their contracts. It’s going to operate against the Bitcoin testnet for a month approximately, and then we’re going to apply [it] to the Bitcoin mainnet.”

“We expect RSK to be multiple times more secure than other platforms because it has Bitcoin’s hashing power behind it, and it's fuel should cost 1/10th of that of Ethereum. RSK is subsidized by Bitcoin, plus its virtual machine is six times faster than Ethereum’s given Sergio Lerner's improvements.” – Gabriel Kurman RSK co-founder

The initial version of the RSK sidechain will not require any changes to the underlying Bitcoin protocol to implement the necessary 2-way peg (2WP) to work with Bitcoin. The 2WP allows the transfer of bitcoins from the Bitcoin blockchain to a secondary blockchain and vice-versa. The “transfer” is in fact an illusion: bitcoins are not transferred, but temporarily locked on the Bitcoin blockchain while the same amount of equivalent tokens are unlocked in a secondary blockchain. The original bitcoins can be unlocked when the equivalent amount of tokens on the second blockchain are locked again in the secondary blockchain.

In the short term a federation will manage the multisign keys to release the bitcoin on the way back from the peg, Kurman explains. According to the RSK website, well-known Bitcoin companies, such as Xapo and Bitpay, have signed up to be notaries for the sidechain. According to Kurman, these notaries will participate in the governance of the federation, and provide more services to RSK. “The federation will provide multiple services in the future on top of the peg such as security checkpoints in each block, oracle services, and providing liquidity,” he said.

According to Kurman, miners already have the ability to merge mine the private RSK testnet. “Bitcoin India is already merge-mining with 100% of it's hashing power. Most other major pools are testing the plugin,” said Kurman. “Once a separate soft fork is implemented in Bitcoin, the release [of bitcoins on the sidechain] will be done by a combination of miners and federation — hence a hybrid 2-way peg.”

RSK currently has 30 partners building on the platform from multiple different industries. “Once the source code becomes public and the platform open on May 22, we expect a lot of use cases being ported to RSK given its full compatibility with Ethereum,” Kurman stated.

David Ogden
Entrepeneur

Kyle Torpey, – Author

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Bitcoin wobbles as traders turn to other cryptocurrencies

It's been a volatile period for Bitcoin investors, as holders of the cryptocurrency prepare for a potential 'fork' in the blockchain.

From Friday morning until Monday afternoon, Bitcoin was trading under the $1,000 level, and even fell beneath $900 on Saturday. This is significant as, barring the weekend of March 18 and 19, Bitcoin has traded above $1,000 since early February and hit a fresh all-time high of around $1,325 on March 10.

Bitcoin is currently back above the $1,000 handle, but is well off these recent highs, wiping billions off of its market cap value.

There are several causes for the recent volatility: Chinese regulators cracked down on Bitcoin exchanges, while U.S. authorities rejected a proposal for a Bitcoin-backed exchange-traded fund (ETF). The current concern is over the future of the Bitcoin technology.

Bitcoin faces a scaling issue, where the number of Bitcoin transactions that can happen on the blockchain at any one time is limited. This is creating a backlog of transactions that are needed to be processed and slowing down the system.

A group called Bitcoin Unlimited advocates for increasing the size of the blocks on the blockchain in order to process more transactions, but this has split the community. To increase the block size would involve splitting the blockchain, causing a fork and creating two major blockchains. This would effectively create two different coins and it's not clear which would become dominant.

As a result, investors are hedging their bets or selling out of Bitcoin, waiting to see whether or not the fork will happen, and if so, which blockchain will be favored by the market.

Data from Bitfinex indicates around 49 million more coins have been sold than bought, or roughly 5 percent of total coins traded, in the last 30 days. Through March, the number of long Bitcoin positions held by investors has decreased from 26,858 to above 23,142, while the number of short positions has increased from 9,820 to 14,731.

Meanwhile, the market cap of blockchain assets other than Bitcoin, such as ether, dash and monero, has more than doubled since March 10 from $3.5 billion to more than $7 billion, according to Chris Burniske, blockchain products lead analyst at ARK Invest.

"At the same time, Bitcoin's market cap has gone from $19 billion to $16 billion. Hence, Bitcoin's market cap has lost $3 billion in value while the combined market cap of all other blockchain assets has added more than $3 billion," he told CNBC via email.

"Given these market indicators, it would appear investors are diversifying their blockchain asset holdings, positioning themselves for a generally rising tide in this emerging asset class."

Whether or not the fork happens is hard to tell, but it may harm Bitcoin's brand, according to Jani Valjavec, co-founder of ICONOMI, a digital asset management platform for cryptocurrencies. Valjavec argues the brand is the main thing behind Bitcoin's value.

"It has wide acceptance now, real world use cases, it can be a great store of value, and it is currently trusted by the community. Our understanding is that a hard fork, instigated by two parties with very competing interests, will primarily weaken the brand," he told CNBC via email.

"The next biggest brand in the distributed economy is Ethereum, and that's why we believe it will benefit the most."

However, Fran Strajnar, co-founder & CEO of data and research company Brave New Coin, says the market is still within the parameters of a Bitcoin bull cycle.

"The proposed contentious fork is unlikely but better to happen now than in the distant future. We would end up with the original Bitcoin and remaining miners activating segwit (a well-designed package of system upgrades) and a new, much smaller, privatized alternative version of Bitcoin," he told CNBC via email.

"The sum result of all the network fork (fear, uncertainty and doubt) is we are seeing investors hedge by buying into ether. We expect a price drop if there is a fork but a similar outcome to Ethereum, where the long term market capitalization increases for both assets."

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Luke Graham

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Will The Bitcoin System Change Drastically in 2017

Bitcoin continues to be as popular as it is volatile. Prices have been fluctuating since the beginning of the year, hitting an all-time high at more than $1,300 per unit a couple of weeks ago. Nevertheless, value has yet to stabilize for a number of factors.

The cryptocurrency market has more competitors entering the game every day, with alternatives like Ethereum and Litecoin gaining more ground in the digital world. Still, they all suffer similar setbacks when it comes to prices.

Below, we take a look at the seemingly unusual phenomenon that has been affecting Bitcoin value over the last couple of months. Cryptocurrency still has to pass some big hurdles if it ever wants to stabilize as a trustworthy option to gold and bonds.

The market is small and it moves fast

When compared to precious metal markets like gold and silver, the market size of Bitcoin is so small that it makes it too easy for someone to come one day and make a major investment that would significantly impact currency movements.

Forbes estimates that with just a $50 million buyout of Bitcoin in one day, the market would flip causing volatile price hikes and plunges across the world.

Doing this, of course, is not as easy as it sounds, but it remains a possibility that fuels distrust among traditional investors in safer value-preservation assets.

Is Bitcoin as good as Gold or bonds?

While Bitcoin has been gaining many supporters and endorsements that legitimize it as a real-world currency, it still doesn’t have as much credibility as more traditional methods such as stock shares and precious metals.

The inherent issues of Bitcoin trading make it a hard sell to most people not well-versed in next-generation finances and transactions, and particularly cryptocurrency.

Moreover, there is no regulatory body creates rules for the Bitcoin market which is why is so appealing to certain groups on the Internet. However, economists have been increasingly talking about digital money could end up in its adoption and regulation.

There is a hard fork in the Bitcoin horizon

There is an unresolved paradigm that deals with how the Bitcoin transaction system works at its core, but that issue is coming to an end in what many predict will split the virtual currency in two.

Essentially, the Bitcoin transaction process deals with exchanges through a network that can no longer support the high-demand of users, miners, developers, and others that use it every day, thus slowing and halting its growth both in price and adoption.

Two potential solutions have come up, but only one of them will be implemented by developers of the Bitcoin network once community consensus reaches 95% for either option.

The first, Bitcoin Unlimited, would grant greater power over the network to miners, who would decide to “increase” its capacity if and when needed. This option has faced some technical difficulties in the past during its development phase.

Segregated Witness, on the other hand, would “double” the capacity of the network and allow a greater influx of transactions while also retaining decentralized control over it. This, however, is not the greatest long-term solution since it is still limited.

Pressure from third parties to implement such a framework that would enhance transaction volumes in the Bitcoin network. The impending possibility of change has the market on its toes which also explains the radical price changes.

Either choice will have a permanent impact in Bitcoin as we know it, effectively splitting the cryptocurrency into two parallel systems that will compete and affect each other’s price with a high projected correlation.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

Source: Coinbase

David

Bitcoin slumps as traders’ fears of a hard fork

Bitcoin slumps as traders' fears of a "hard fork"

Just this month the currency swelled to an intraday high of more than $1,350, but it's come crashing back down as a dispute over the underlying technology threatens to break it into two separate currencies: bitcoin and bitcoin unlimited.

Bitcoin transactions are gathered into so-called "blocks", and developers have been embroiled in a long-running debate over the size limit of a block.

Currently, there is a one-megabyte maximum on processing batches of transactions, but some in the industry want to increase the size as the network capacity increases. Others say increasing the block size would be unsafe.

The rift could cause a split, or hard fork, in the currency. If bitcoin unlimited gained enough support, it could have an impact on the underlying blockchain technology that supports bitcoin.

David Ogden
Entrepeneur

Courtney Goldsmith
City A.M.

David

A Regulated Cryptocurrency

A Regulated Taxable Cryptocurrency

A regulated Chrypto currency

Regulatory compliance and cryptocurrency are unlikely bedfellows; paying tax on crypto transactions isn't even in the room.

But times are changing. We are seeing a crop of services doing just those sorts of things, leveraging the transparent, immutable nature of distributed ledgers to track and trace cryptocurrencies.

Recently the IRS has been rattling sabres at Coinbase in a move to get cryptocurrency holders to pay tax on transactions. According to court filings, less than 1000 people have registered to pay tax on Bitcoin transactions in the last three years.

Enter Node40, a blockchain accounting system which has grown out of a business hosting Dash masternodes.

Node40 co-founder Perry Woodin explained the company was being paid mostly in Dash for its infrastructure services and had to report US taxes.

"We asked our accountant how to do that and he wasn't sure. Most accountants look at capital gains for gains and losses; they look at first in, first out.

"That strategy doesn't work for digital currencies because of the way transactions are built with multiple inputs and all these inputs have potential gains and losses and various days carried."

Sean Ryan, co-founder Node40, wrote a program to figure out gains and losses. Users import transactions from their Dash wallet and these are analysed against the blockchain to work out the average US dollar value for every single transaction.

Ryan said: "You upload your list of transactions and you get the final number. We don't actually calculate any percentages for taxes – so, for example, your jurisdiction would say that if you made this much income, we are going to tax you at say 22%.

"What we do is present numbers that you would be obligated to pay taxes on. There are levels that allow you to get to those answers, all the way down to the individual components that make up an individual transaction.

"Because these ledgers/blockchains are open they are mathematically sound, all you need to do from an engineering perspective is extract the pieces of data from the blockchain that are most relevant to specific transactions."

The user can then annotate transactions using Node40, like they might with QuickBooks or TurboTax: who they sent the funds to, who they received them from, marking certain things as tax exempt in the case of assets purchased rather than income received.

"There are some additional nice things like being able to set custom values on what your incoming purchase was. If the market value says one Dash is worth $100 but you bought it from somebody who was willing to sell it to you for $90, we allow people to override that initial value," said Woodin.

"Once people have gone in and started annotating transactions, we produce nice reports that show then their performance of their asset with their portfolio. Then as a last step they are able to generate their IRS documents, and that's a capital gains document – form 8949."

The recent surge in cryptocurrency values, not least Dash which has shot up in price, is probably also garnering attention. But Woodin pointed out that holding crypto that goes up in value does not constitute a taxable event.

"If you are just buying something and holding it, there is no taxation even though there's an increase. If you received it as income or if you are exchanging it for some other asset like dollars, euros then that's a taxable event."

Woodin said the ongoing IRS Coinbase scenario has definitely got people edgy and this may be the year people begin to start paying their taxes on crypto.

"I think by next year it's just going to be assumed that if you are transacting in digital currency, you are going to be paying taxes. It's that conversion from digital currency to fiat where the government is going to say: why do you have a deposit in your bank account with no record of income?"

Node40 Balance is now live to use with Dash and will be ready for Bitcoin later in the year.

"There are certain exemption limits and thresholds that we observe. We have four different KYC levels that we enforce. Up to €150 we just need to know the shopping cart details from the merchant which includes the name of the consumer and the email address," said Kaufmann.

"If it goes higher there is another flag at €800, then at €4000 and every time the consumer has to provide more information."

So rather like transaction reporting as it exists today. Kaufmann added that a large transaction – say €25,000 to buy a load of servers – would merit closer scrutiny.

"We have the capability of doing an online verification where people can jump on Skype with our customer support. We will take a picture of their passport number using machine readable zones that are scanned into the system and then we verify it and run it against a sanctions list.

"There is some very profound filtering going on. We do have tools that allow us to look back at the history of Bitcoin transactions. We are careful to follow Swiss data privacy laws and have the support of a fintech-friendly regulatory regime," he said.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

By Ian Allison

David

Bitcoin Can Allow Mobile Payment System

Bitcoin Can provide mobile payment system

What Bitcoin solves…

The essence of mobile payment systems is to make the life of individuals comfortable. Mobile payments are supposed to offer clients a convenient method of paying for goods and services while on the go. Since mobile payment solutions were introduced, experts have been saying that mobile payment is the biggest innovation in this age and that it is set to change the lives of individuals and businesses alike.

The beauty of mobile payments is that individuals do not have to carry cash whenever they are traveling. As long as people have their smart phones, they can successfully make purchases and pay for services using special applications on their mobile phones.

However, it is instructive to note that the manner in which experts envisioned mobile payment services had not been proven to be accurate. Initially, two giants, Apple and Samsung, were touted as the potential leaders in mobile payments.

Apple introduced its solution, Apple Pay that is based on its proprietary operating system. Samsung, banking on the open Android platform, was keen enough to develop its solution, Samsung Pay. A third competitor, Square, also emerged. Therefore, at first, the mobile payment market was set to be dominated by these three giants: Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Square.

But the response of the market has not been favorable to the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. So far, consumers have not embraced these two major mobile payment solutions in a manner that is similar to the way they have embraced their mobile devices. For example, Apple Pay has failed to break into the market and reach its projected rates of growth.

Similarly, Samsung Pay is still struggling to hit its projected numbers. Interestingly, the story is not different when you consider Square. Therefore, all these three major global mobile payment services have failed to create the buzz and excitement that they expected to create in the market.

Cryptocurrencies in general, and Bitcoin, in particular, may be the perfect solution to the problems that consumers experience when they are using the likes of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. No one can deny that the use of Bitcoin has been growing steadily over the years. To many, Bitcoin is the perfect solution to the problems that they encounter when they would like to pay for goods and services without using cash.

For example, the use of Bitcoin does not involve intermediaries as it is the case with the conventional methods. Besides, individuals can send and receive Bitcoins at the convenience of their homes or anywhere else. Moreover, many people find that using Bitcoins costs much less than what they may have to pay concerning transaction fees when using the conventional mobile payment methods.

Moreover, you do not need to have a bank account to use Bitcoin. In fact, Bitcoin helps you to make and receive payments as an unknown entity. The element of anonymity when using Bitcoin is very attractive to many people who do not like the current model used by global mobile payment services.

Therefore, it is highly likely that Bitcoin is going to be the future of global mobile payments. The anonymity aspect of the payment method, its low transaction fees, and convenience are some of the attributes that make it better than the conventional methods.

David Ogden
Entrepeneur

Artical By AliRaza

David

UK Banks Shun Bitcoin !

Banks in the United Kingdom are turning a deaf ear to bitcoin exchanges, despite the government’s pro-blockchain position, according to financial writer Roger Aitken, writing in Forbes. Unless the situation changes, the banks will undermine bitcoin’s progress and drive Cryptocurrency entrepreneurs out of the banking system.

This fact together with the uncertainty surrounding the pound due to Brexit could be a disaster for those who live in the UK, the banks are feeling under threat. Hopefully the government will step in and tell them not to be so stupid.

Cryptopay, a bitcoin brokerage, recently informed customers that it will no longer support British Pound deposits and withdrawals on account of new bank policies. Such incidents have increased as bitcoin has gained popularity.

Cancellation of GBP deposit and withdrawal facilities limits people to Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) transfers, making Cryptopay’s buying and selling useless to most British customers.

U.K. Banks Shun Bitcoin

A dozen or more U.K. brokerages and bitcoin exchanges have suffered over the past three to four years as banking facilities have become unavailable. Some have closed or resorted to awkward arrangements.

Britcoin, which became rebranded as Intersango, started in 2011. It faced problems with U.K. bank transfers before eventually closing. An August 2012 update noted that bridging the gap between bitcoin and the conventional banking system was costly on account of technical issues, missing transfers, and accounts frozen and closed without warning.

In 2014, Bit121 had a promising start, but banks withdrew their support and the exchange closed.

In Bitcoin We Trust suffered the same fate. It resorted to using postal orders before giving up.

Coinfloor, one of the only U.K. exchanges still operating, uses SWIFT transfers, which incur hefty costs and delays. The minimum transfer is £1,000 (c.$1,250).

Banks Pour On The Pressure

CoinJournal, a bitcoin publication, saw its banking services come to an abrupt end after its U.K. banking provider Barclays terminated its business account. CoinJournal received no official warnings prior to its account closure. Even more alarmingly, Barclays still hasn’t given a reason for the extreme action.

CoinJournal believes the decision taken by Barclays to close its business account was an “automated” call, after seeing a pattern of banking transactions involving prominent bitcoin exchange and service provider Circle.

The decision was likely “a result of us using Circle to transfer fiat from ad revenue into bitcoin to pay our writers and some overheads,” a representative for the publication told CCN.

Similar scenarios have played out in Australia and New Zealand.

BitNZ, a New Zealand bitcoin exchange, has announced it is closing due to the refusal of New Zealand banks to allow bank accounts to trade bitcoins, and has advised customers to withdraw all funds before April 15, 2017.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is scrutinizing attempts by Australia’s biggest banks to swallow fintech companies developing technologies like blockchain solutions in the financial sector.

P2P Services Fill The Void

Peer-to-peer services match individual buyers and sellers in the U.K. in lieu of traditional exchanges. Trust is established by reputation.

Once a buyer has paid, usually with a bank transfer the seller sends the bitcoins.

As for other nations, Russia recently relaxed its regulatory position and taken a “wait and see” approach. It has effectively legalized bitcoin and allowed for exchanges to operate.
Switzerland is a more progressive country. It is easy to buy bitcoins through a network of ATMs on the rail system.

In Japan, it is possible to pay electric bills with bitcoin.

The United States has a more complex regulatory framework. But progress is on the horizon since the New York BitLicense took effect in 2015, with other state’s following a similar approach.

Bitcoin is legal in China, although the central bank recently stopped highly leveraged trading.

U.K. Banks At Odds With Government

The banking sector is clearly at odds with the U.K. government, which is openly pro-blockchain. The situation is peculiar, with the government saying the country is open to bitcoin but the banking sector standing in the way.

Since the financial crisis, the taxpayer has become the majority shareholder in the Royal Bank of Scotland, holding at around 82% of the bank. This would normally translate into a certain amount of leverage by the taxpayer.

The U.K. also has a reputation for being a fintech hub, to which the banking sector seems to have taken exception.

For whatever reason, the banks have closed ranks and chosen not to work with bitcoin.

The fact that bitcoin is decentralised and fiat currency is centralised could be at the root of the conflict.

Also read: Blockchain platform Waves raises more than $2m at the start of the crowdsale campaign

What’s To Be Done?

Money cannot flow easily from the blockchain economy to the traditional financial sector and vice versa without banks’ cooperation. The bitcoin sector is not large enough to offer all the goods and services needed to make bitcoin a sufficiently broad means of payment.

Bitcoin’s volatility also makes it an unsuitable unit of account or store of value. While it’s a great transfer medium, its price against fiat fluctuates too much for most people.

The bitcoin economy won’t expand until bitcoin is better suited as a means of payment. But it won’t be better suited without more growth and stability.

Waves, a custom blockchain tokens platform, offers a solution – fiat-backed blockchain tokens. It raised $16 million last summer through crowdfunding. Waves can act as a gateway between the blockchain and the fiat world.

Customers pay money into the gateway using a bank transfer or another suitable means, and the gateway issues them the same sum in blockchain tokens

The same exchange occurs in reverse when customers cash out their Waves GBP and have them sent as “real” GBP to their bank account. Waves essentially serves as a toolkit.

Sasha Ivanov, CEO and founder of Waves, noted that Waves can make money more efficient. By putting fiat money on the blockchain, Waves can make it more transparent and faster, and it can reduce the cost of sending it abroad.

Ivanov thinks Waves can introduce competition and encourage banks to become more accountable. If banks in one sector in one country won’t work with Waves, it will work with those in another jurisdiction.

Waves does not immediately solve the problem of U.K. banks’ hostility to bitcoin, but it suggests the roadblocks are not insurmountable. The answer may be to work around them rather than with them.

David Ogden
Entrepreneur

David