Winklevoss Brothers Score Another Crypto Investment Patent

Crypto Investment Patent. Crypto exchange Gemini founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have long sought the creation of a bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

And while that process remains in flux, a company tied to the brothers has won another U.S. patent related to the creation of exchange-traded products tied to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

The patent was awarded to a firm called Winklevoss IP LLP, and both Winklevoss brothers are included as the inventors along with Evan Louis Greebel, Kathleen Hill Moriarty and Gregory Elias Xethalis.

The patent, awarded on June 19, details a method "for providing an exchange-traded product holding digital math-based assets" as well as the issuance of shares tied to that ETP. It adds to the body of intellectual property the Winklevosses have sought to obtain, though it's not entirely clear when or how the concepts will be applied to real-world products.

An ETP, such as an exchange-traded fund (ETFs), is a type of security, the price of which is derived from other investment instruments - in this case, cryptocurrencies.

As CoinDesk previously reported, the Winklevoss brothers won a patent last month for a system that settles transactions for ETPs tied to cryptocurrencies. Like the other patent, this week's award names a variety of cryptocurrencies, from major ones like bitcoin and monero to more obscure ones like BBQcoin.

Publicly available data shows that this week's patent is the seventh crypto-related patent the Winklevoss brothers have received, with the first being awarded in December of last year.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) once denied a bid proposed by the Winklevoss brothers in March 2017 to list a bitcoin-tied exchange-traded fund (ETF), citing "the rules of a national securities exchange be designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices and to protect investors and the public.@BPI

Why South Korea still matters to crypto

South Korea and crypto. With China to its west and Japan to its east, South Korea is surrounded by economic giants, but nonetheless remains a pivotal influence on the global cryptocurrency markets — for reasons that are not immediately apparent to most external observers

Just as the industrial revolution centred on the cities of Northern England, and the digital revolution on the shores of Silicon Valley, blockchain development is beginning to concentrate in certain areas. One of these places is South Korea, where authorities have recently announced plans for “Crypto Beach” a major blockchain centre styled after Switzerland’s Crypto Valley. This development will be a focal point for a country that already has an outsized influence on the global cryptocurrency economy.

Sitting behind only Japan and the USA, South Korea is the world's third largest cryptocurrency market, and a staggering ~31% of the country's working population have invested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—bringing the blockchain far closer to the mainstream than most countries have managed.

A crypto society

Given it is a high-tech society that is well-adapted to new technology, such high rates of adoption might come as no surprise - but there is more to South Korea's crypto story than meets the eye. Despite having the 11th largest economy in the world, with high-tech products exported globally, Korean society faces certain social issues that have greatly increased the appeal of crypto.

High youth unemployment is one factor, which has hovered around 10 percent for the past few years, along with another 40% of youth that are thought to be underemployed—lacking enough hours of work to sustain independence. Even those in full-time work are still likely to find themselves priced out of the housing market, especially in Seoul where house prices have been found to be more expensive than both London and Los Angeles.

Combine these economic difficulties with the fastest internet speeds in the world, the highest percentage of smartphone ownership, and a national ban on gambling, and we have the perfect storm of opportunity for crypto.

On the global stage

When the China ban hit the markets in late August 2017, a vacuum opened up, ready to suck in the wealth generated by the yuan-bitcoin exchange markets, which are thought to have accounted for up to 80% of global volume. This gave neighbouring countries like South Korea, along with Japan and Hong Kong, the opportunity to occupy a more prominent position on the international scene.

While Japan is often dubbed as the most crypto-friendly of nations, recent events have drawn a shadow over the country—with authorities attempting to rein in the market, placing bans on privacy coins, and introducing strict auditing requirements for Japanese exchanges.

South Korea however, is pushing forward, and after flirting with the idea of a blanket ban, has adopted an arguably more progressive stance—announcing intentions to legalise ICOs in the country, and apply specific regulations to this type of fundraising.

The importance of appropriate regulation is clearly not underestimated by the Korean authorities, who after a foreboding statementfrom the Prime Minister, have introduced KYC regulations on exchanges that prevent foreigners and minors from registering in a bid to tackle money-laundering and “overheating” in the market.

This recognises the wave of desperation that hit the country following the market downturn, which caused not only a drop in trading volume in the country, but a rise in cases of a psychological malady termed the ‘bitcoin blues’, which is induced as dreams of prosperity are dashed by unpredictable markets.

Adoption

While trading volumes may have plummeted even further than the global market this year, South Korea is still arguably ahead of the curve when it comes to adoption. In a recent landmark case, a top South Korean court officially recognised cryptocurrency as an “asset with measurable value”, paving the way for future adoption.

Bithumb, South Korea’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, have recently made another move aimed to spread the use of cryptocurrency throughout the mainstream economy. Their partnership with Korea Pay aims to spread crypto payments to over 8,000 merchants across the country by the end of the year.

And which cryptocurrency will they be spending? While the most famous project to come out of Korea is ICON (ICX), dubbed South Korea's 'national blockchain', this is unlikely to be the chosen medium of exchange. Trading volumes on Bithumb show that the most popular cryptocurrencies in the country mirror those in the West, with Bitcoin, Ripple and EOS ruling the roost. ICON also has a lot to prove as it moved away from being an ERC 20 token to its own mainet on June 20th, at a time when the marketplace is particularly sensitive to mainet transition issues given the problems with EOS.  

However adoption progresses, events on the peninsular are likely to continue to have an outsized impact in the cryptoworld, as demonstrated most recently by the hacks of Korean exchanges Coinrail, which coincided with Bitcoin plummeting over 10% on June the 10th, quickly followed by a Bithumb on June 20th which saw BTC down 2.2% in 30 minutes@BPI

Almost 60% of Wealthy People Show Interest in Cryptocurrencies

Wealthy People Interest in Cryptocurrencies. According to the publication of the corporate consulting company Capgemini (headquartered in France), almost 60% of rich respondents showed interest in investing in the cryptocurrency market. This statistics was published in World Wealth Report 2018.

Based on the published data, about 29% of all respondents show a high interest in cryptocurrencies. While 26.9% of respondents are only interested in digital assets. The indicators of interest depend on the region. For example, for Latin America this sphere is most interesting, next is the Asia-Pacific region.

In the study conducted in the first quarter of 2018, 2,600 people from such regions as North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region took part. Almost 80% of all respondents control 1-5 million US dollars in the cryptocurrency. In turn, about 2% - already have 20 million US dollars in cryptocurrencies. All the rest control from 5 to 20 million dollars.

The potential of cryptocurrency as an investment and value is exactly what stimulates interest in this industry. Most often, people in the age of 40 are interested in the digital assets market.

The report notes:

"Given the context of regulatory mis-steps and reputational damage since the financial crisis, many wealth management firms are tending towards being conservative when it comes to cryptocurrencies, at least until they are better understood"

A separate report by Knight Frank specializing in real estate says that about 21% of respondents say about increasing their investments in cryptocurrencies last year. At the same time, even a year ago, the understanding of digital assets was not as extensive as it is now. That's why the situation is improving every day@BPI

Japan’s SBI Crypto Exchange Adds Two Major Cryptocurrencies

Japan’s SBI Crypto Exchange. Japan’s SBI Virtual Currencies has added support for two major cryptocurrencies in addition to the one trading pair that its crypto exchange service, Vctrade, launched with. Users who pre-registered prior to the launch can now trade BTC, BCH, and XRP against the Japanese yen.

SBI Virtual Currencies, the cryptocurrency exchange subsidiary of one of Japan’s largest financial services groups, has announced support for two major cryptocurrencies. Starting Monday, June 18, customers can start trading BTC/JPY using the exchange’s Vctrade service. This is in addition to the BCH/JPY trading pair which the exchange started offering on June 8.

Three Trading Pairs

Japan’s SBI Crypto Exchange Adds Two Major CryptocurrenciesSBI Virtual Currencies is one of the 16 government-approved crypto exchanges in Japan. The company launched the Vctrade crypto exchange service on June 4 with just the XRP/JPY trading pair. Currently, the service is only available to a limited number of users who pre-registered; the full launch is expected next month. With Monday’s announcement, the exchange now offers three trading pairs: BCH/JPY, BTC/JPY, and XRP/JPY.

For all three cryptocurrencies, customers can trade between 500 yen (~US$5.5) and 5 million yen (~$45,261). Alternatively, they can place their orders in cryptocurrencies of between 0.0001 and 40 BCH, 0.0001 and 5 BTC, or 10 and 70,000 XRP.

Japan’s SBI Crypto Exchange Adds Two Major CryptocurrenciesAccording to local media, SBI Group said at the company’s third-quarter earnings press conference that there is a possibility of adding ether (ETH) in the future. However, the company also indicated that it would not support smaller cryptocurrencies, Impress Corporation conveyed.

To gain market share in the crypto space, SBI Group plans to convert users from its existing securities business, which the group says is already the largest in Japan. SBI Securities “is number one in the share of individual stock trading value, number of accounts, deposits and profitability,” the group wrote. SBI Securities currently has approximately 4.17 million accounts@BPI

Piala Dunia FIFA 2018 Di Rusia Membuka Pintu Untuk Bitcoin

Bitcoin di FIFA World Cup Rusia. Bitcoin di FIFA World Cup 2018 tahun ini di Rusia dapat digunakan oleh ribuan penggemar sepak bola sebagai media pembayaran yang sah di acara tersebut.

Banyak bisnis dan hotel di lokasi stadion telah mengumumkan bahwa Bitcoin diterima secara luas untuk mem-bypass valuta asing pada tanggal 14 Juni 2018.

Rusia diperkirakan kedatangan setengah juta turis di turnamen Piala Dunia yang ke-21, dengan banyak pendukung datang dari Eropa dan Amerika Selatan. Banyak Hotel di lokasi termasuk Moskow, Kaliningrad dan St Petersburg telah menerima pemesanan dengan Bitcoin sejak bulan April dan hal ini telah terbukti menjadi cara terbaik bagi turis untuk menghindari bingungnya pertukaran mata uang.

Pemesanan maskapai penerbangan juga tersedia untuk pengguna kripto, dengan maskapai murah seperti CheapAir dan agen perjalanan Destinia yang menawarkan pemesanan dengan cryptocurrency. Bagi mereka yang ingin mengambil spekulasi dan bertaruh pada hasil pertandingan olahraga. Bitcoin, dianggap sebagai mata uang digital masa depan, yang memungkinkan pengguna kripto dari seluruh dunia, dapat menggunakannya tanpa batasan, untuk bisa berpartisipasi terlepas dari negara mana mereka berasal. Pengguna dapat melakukan penarikan dan setoran instan yang gratis kapan pun mereka mau.

Perusahaan AS Visa dan MasterCard telah memblokir layanan kartu kredit untuk beberapa pelanggan bank Rusia di masa lalu sebagai akibat dari sanksi AS yang telah berlaku sejak 2014. Karena hal ini mempengaruhi pembayaran digital. Meskipun, industri perhotelan Rusia telah menjadi semakin ramah terhadap mata uang digital dengan peningkatan lalu lintas pelanggan yang dibawanya sebagai hasil dari acara tersebut.

Keuntungan Bitcoin sebagai mata uang terdesentralisasi, bebas dari campur tangan politik, bahwa pengguna dapat melakukan pembayaran ke mana pun mereka pergi menggunakan internet. Dengan meningkatnya jumlah pedagang yang menerima bitcoin dan mata uang digital lainnya, turis ke Rusia dapat membayar sejumlah barang dan jasa menggunakan mata uang digital mereka tanpa terlalu banyak kesulitan@BPI

Hacker Serang Exchange Bithumb

Exchange Cryptocurrency Bithumb  dihack. Exchange Cryptocurrency Korea Selatan, Bithumb melalui twitternya mengumumkan bahwa mereka menangguhkan deposit dan withdraw setelah cryptocurrency senilai $ 30 juta diketahui lenyap, yang diperkirakan diserang oleh hacker.

Perusahaan yang berbasis di Seoul, yang pernah menjadi exchange cryptocurrency terbesar di dunia, pada hari Rabu waktu setempat mengumumkan bahwa cryptocurrency senilai $ 30 juta telah dicuri dari platform.

Tidak jelas kapan pencurian itu terjadi, tetapi Bithumb segera menangguhkan (membekukan) deposit pada  kisaran waktu 00:53 UTC dan segera mulai mentransfer semua asetnya ke Cold Wallet untuk mencegah kerugian lebih lanjut.

“Kami memeriksa bahwa sebagian cryptocurrency bernilai sekitar $ 30.000.000 dicuri,” kata Bithumb di Twitter. “Cryptocurrency yang dicuri itu akan ditanggung oleh Bithumb dan semua aset sedang ditransfer ke dalam Cold Wallet.” (dikutip dari twitter- Bithumb (@BithumbOfficial) 20 Juni 2018).

Pencurian cryptocurrency diduga dilakukan oleh hacker yang meretas ke dalam sistem bithumb, meskipun Bithumb sendiri belum menegaskan hal ini secara resmi. Mengingat ukuran pencurian yang relatif kecil, sepertinya peretas berhasil mendapatkan akses ke “Hot Wallet” yang terhubung dengan internet untuk beberapa aset yang diperdagangkan di platform.

Bithumb mengatakan bahwa perusahaan akan menanggung semua kerugian sehingga pengguna tidak akan mengalami kerugian, selain oleh ketidakmampuan sementara untuk memindahkan aset mereka. Setoran dan penarikan dihentikan sementara.

Bithumb saat ini menempati peringkat keenam terbesar dan sekaligus bertengger sebagai exchanger cryptocurrency terbesar kedua Korea Selatan, dengan volume perdagangan harian lebih dari $ 330 juta.

Insiden pencurian terhadap exchange cryptocurrency telah terjadi dua kali pada bulan ini. Sebelumnya, sekitar 2 minggu yang lalu, exchanger Coinrail kehilangan sekitar $32,7 juta Coin.

Harga bitcoin turun hampir $ 200 dalam satu jam setelah insiden ini diketahui, mengoreksi sebagian besar kenaikan harga pasar selama 48 jam sebelumnya@BPI

John McAfee Akan Menghentikan Jasa Promosi ICO Setelah Dapat Ancaman

John McAfee dan Jasa Promosi ICO. Pelopor cybersecurity dan advokat mata uang digital eksentrik John McAfee, yang telah lama menjadi promotor token digital telah mengungkapkan hari ini bahwa dia tidak akan mempromosikan ICO lagi karena “ancaman” yang dirasakan dari Securities and Exchange Commission. Mcafee mengungkapkan ini melalui media sosial di pegangan Twitter-nya.

Keputusan Terkini SEC tentang Cryptocurrency menempatkan pasar di bawah pengawasan lebih lanjut

Tokoh terkenal dalam ekosistem kripto, tweeted pagi ini untuk para pengikutnya (yang sekitar 828.000 jumlahnya) tentang keputusannya untuk berhenti mempromosikan ICO. Mcafee berkata: 

“Saya akan sepenuhnya mengendalikan rekomendasi dan promosi ICO saya.”

Sementara ahli crypto-advocate dan ahli keamanan cyber awalnya terkenal dengan desain perangkat lunak antivirusnya yang terkenal pada awal tahun 90-an, ia telah mengalihkan ambisinya ke berbagai pengejaran dan proyek. Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, Mcafee menjadi pendukung terkemuka cryptocurrency dan secara luas dianggap dalam komunitas Blockchain.

Biasanya antusias tentang penyebab mata uang digital yang lebih luas serta perannya dalam masa depan yang terdesentralisasi dan libertarian yang ia bayangkan, McAfee juga menawarkan rekomendasi reguler ICO. Pada Maret, dia men-tweet tautan yang menunjukkan bahwa dia dibayar 105.000 USD untuk mempromosikan ICO.

Sementara SEC menawarkan bantuan yang sangat dibutuhkan untuk industri cryptocurrency minggu lalu dengan komentarnya, komentar yang dibuat oleh komisi juga menempatkan pasar ICO di bawah pengawasan lebih lanjut. Dengan pengumuman ini ditambah jumlah penipuan ICO yang tampaknya tidak pernah berakhir bermunculan, peran promotor yang dibayar untuk mengiklankan cryptos tampaknya telah menjadi semakin genting. Beberapa bahkan menyarankan bahwa promotor mungkin beroperasi sebagai broker yang tidak terdaftar.

Meskipun McAfee menolak untuk menentukan secara pasti sifat “ancaman” dari SEC, langkah ini dari yang bisa dibilang salah satu individu paling terkenal di ruang mata uang digital akan dianggap oleh banyak orang sebagai indikasi arah yang tidak dapat diprediksi di mana penawaran koin awal pasar sedang menuju@BPI