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The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will be holding consultations on a "potential prohibition" of cryptocurrency-based derivatives, in order to protect consumers from risks posed by digital assets. "[T]he FCA will consult on a prohibition of the sale to retail consumers of all derivatives referencing exchange tokens such as Bitcoin, including CFDs, futures, options and transferable securities," read the policy paper by the Cryptoassets Taskforce, which is composed of the FCA, HM Treasury, and the Bank of England. Not included under the proposed ban are cryptocurrencies classified as securities, which are then to be regulated by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). The paper noted that the FCA has already supported ESMA's restrictions on contracts for difference (CFDs) that reference cryptocurrencies, a measure that took effect last August 1. The report added that the FCA "will not authorize or approve the listing of a transferabl...

Digital payments is coming to India, a country considered to be one of the largest cash dependent nations in the world. This week, Hitachi Payments announced that it has entered into a joint venture with the State Bank of India (SBI) to establish "a state-of-the-art card acceptance and future ready digital payments platform for India." Under the deal, Hitachi Payments will invest 26% to SBI Payment Services Pvt. Ltd., and will also provide SBI with innovative solutions using its Internet of Things (IoT) platform Lumada. Hitachi has been SBI's technology provider for card and digital services since 2011. The new partnership between the two companies is going to oversee the development of a nationwide digital payments platform. The platform will be geared towards solutions for ecommerce and mass transit in India integrated with Point-of-Sale (POS) solutions. Bharat Kaushal, managing director of Hitachi India explains, "India is progressing towards becoming a knowledge ...

As the days draw closer to the scheduled Bitcoin Cash upgrade, affiliated organizations are preparing for the hard fork. Data websites like Coin Dance have added statistics for feature support, upgrade voting, and public opinion. Meanwhile, the Nchain-backed SV-Pool has officially announced that its pool is now open to public miners. SV-Pool Goes Public The Bitcoin Cash hard fork slated for Nov. 15 is getting closer and network participants are preparing for the upgrade in several ways. On Oct. 22, the mining initiative SV-Pool, supported by Nchain and the firm's chief scientist Craig Wright, announced the pool is now open to the public. This means that Bitcoin Cash miners can direct their hashrate towards the SV-Pool and get paid by an initial pay-per-last-n-shares (PPLNS) system. The pool details it plans to add more payment structures this November. At the time of writing, according to Coin Dance statistics, SV-Pool has been capturing around 2.6 percent of the global BCH hashrat...

When the August 2017 Bitcoin Cash hard fork took place, it did not really create a new coin. Instead, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was the rebirth of the original Bitcoin, designed to stay to true to the Satoshi Vision (SV). With Bitcoin BCH, the roadmap is for massive on-chain scaling by significantly increasing the block size, enabling fast transaction processing, and keeping transaction fees very low. The key BCH developer groups have had some differences about how quickly BCH should scale, and the dangers of developer groups constantly trying to experiment with proposed technical changes to the Bitcoin protocol. CoinGeek-sponsored Bitcoin BCH Miners Choice Summit happening in Hong Kong Now we have Bitcoin SV, the new full node implementation for Bitcoin BCH that will restore the original Satoshi protocol, keep it stable, enable it to massively scale, and allow major businesses to confidently build on top of BCH. By trusting the original design of Bitcoin rather than constantly changing it, B...

G4S (LSE: GFS), a security services provider with operations in more than 90 countries, guards everything from cash transfers to nuclear power plants and prisons. The London-headquartered company has now started to offer cryptocurrency protection, according to a recent report. Secure Vault Storage The company, which has more than 560,000 employees throughout the world, announced on Wednesday that it has developed a new service providing high-security offline cryptocurrency storage, to help to protect assets from criminals and hackers. And the company is already providing the service to an unnamed European exchange, according to the Financial Times. It charges clients based on the number of different offline storage devices they want to use to store their private keys, and reportedly uses its own existing vaults for the service, rather than newly built facilities. The company's press statement confirmed that cryptocurrency exchanges are already turning to them for help. Dominic MacI...

Bitmain's planned initial public offering (IPO) was already facing significant resistance due to the myriad of issues and controversies plaguing the company. However, the future now looks even less bright, thanks to President Donald Trump. The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China will undoubtedly impact cryptocurrency mining equipment. This past June, the U.S. changed the classification of the mining rigs from "data processing machines" to "electrical machinery." Electrical machinery is subject to an import tariff of 2.6%—not unreasonable for any product. However, because of the trade war, the tariff schedule has been updated significantly. Instead of 2.6%, mining equipment manufacturers are now looking at the possibility of paying 27.6%. Competition in the mining equipment manufacturing space is getting more serious. More than half of Bitmain's business relies on overseas sales. With the increased tariffs, the company will have a difficult, if not i...

Ten years after the financial crisis of 2008, an artist known as Nelson Saiers has placed his latest artwork across the street from the New York Federal Reserve building in the financial district. The piece is a giant sized and menacing-looking inflatable rat covered in Bitcoin code. The former Wall Street hedge fund manager and mathematician dedicates most of his time these days to his artisan loft where he produces visuals depicting the broken financial system. A Visual Perspective of Finance and Art Nelson Saiers giant-sized inflatable rat is covered in bitcoin code and is looking directly at the New York Federal Reserve. There's some new street art located across the street from the New York Federal Reserve building that's been causing some attention. A tall balloon-like white rat covered in bitcoin code is tied to the ground looking like it's about to attack the structure. Nelson Saiers devotes his energy to artistic pieces that shine a light on the traditional finance...

Russia-based cryptocurrency exchange YoBit has announced a scheduled pumping of coins selected at random. In its tweet, YoBit gave no specific reasons for its action, wherein "we will buy one random coin for 1 btc every 1-2 mins 10 times (total buy amount – 10 btc)." The exchange, which lists thousands of altcoins, also provided a timer 22 hours prior to the trades. As of this writing, there are six hours left before execution of the scheme. We can only wait to see the effect on whatever coins are selected, but the tweet is notable for its unusual nature. Usually, when an asset is bought in the hopes of spurring demand from other investors, it is done more discreetly, so as to sell at a peak. Last February, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which has classified cryptocurrencies as commodities under its jurisdiction, had already warned the public of pump-and-dump scams, saying, "As with many online frauds, this type of scam is not new-it simply deploys...

New Research Claims Most ICOs Have Profited Off Selling ETH Bitmex Research is back with another detailed report, this time into the ethereum holdings of ICOs. Ethereum's downward trajectory has been attributed in some quarters to ICOs offloading ETH to pay the bills. If so, data suggests that those projects have profited handsomely off their ETH holdings in USD terms, despite its falling price. Ethereum's tanking price, sliding from over $1,400 to below $200 in seven months, has alarmed many cryptocurrency investors. ETH is the backbone of the ICO economy, and its inability to sustain support levels against BTC has led to fears of there being a run on ethereum, akin to that which occurs when customers fear a bank lacks the funds to cover its liabilities. If Ethereum projects believe the cryptocurrency is likely to drop further, they will feel pressured to sell in order to maximize their capital, further accelerating the token's decline. Commenters have been in disagreement...

This time last week was a day Bitcoin Core developer Luke-jr would rather forget. It all started when the Core developer took note of a tweet by @TheCoinDad asking him "Why is your name popping up on Rogers screen at the WDMS?" This was of course, during a Roger Ver talk at the  World Digital Mining Summit  where we had the below image on display. The slide during Roger's presentation attributes the quote, "It is no longer possible to keep fees low," to none other than Luke. It's not the first time this quote has been used in a Roger Ver presentation, and there are interestingly numerous references scattered across the internet concerning it. It didn't stop Luke-jr however, from jumping into a tirade, where he tweeted " Roger Ver  is a scammer and tends to fabricate false quotes. This isn't the first time (and probably won't be the last) I've found out about things I've "said" through a third party…" While Luke's s...