The three largest Chinese bitcoin exchanges, BTCChina, Huobi, and OKCoin, have reportedly all started to resume withdrawals after updating their KYC and anti-money laundering policies to comply with the Chinese regulator’s demands.
After around four months of withdrawal halts, Chinese bitcoin traders are now able to withdraw their investment and turn them into fiat currency again. On June 1, Reuters reported that OKCoin had began to allow withdrawals, as the People’s Bank of China signaled it was not forbidden and that a maximum of 10 bitcoins per day were allowed for BTCC and OKCoin exchange customers.
This has boded well for the price of bitcoin, which continued its bullish moment after last week’s correct to rally from $2,270 on the morning of May 29 to just below $2,700 on June 5 on the Bitstamp exchange. At the time of writing, BTC-USD is within $20 of the all-time high at $2760.10.
This week’s review is compiled from contributions by Alex Lielacher, Christoph Bergmann, Evan Sixtin, Jamie Holmes, Joseph Young, and Michael Scott.
$36 Million in 24 Seconds
On May 31, Brave made a new ICO record with its Basic Attention Token (BAT); it sold 1.5 billion tokens for roughly $36 million – in just 24 seconds. With this, the browser has enough money to realize its vision of a better digital advertising industry. The real currency of the Internet is not bitcoin nor ether. It is attention. Clicks, visits, page views and so on. The advertising industry, the real kingpin of the Internet, tries with sophisticated algorithms and cookies to define, capture and trade this currency.
The browser Brave, the brainchild of JavaScript creator Brendan Eich, wants to change this with its Basic Attention Token (BAT). To do so, the browser integrated an adblocker to shut down ads and trackers. Then it tracks the user’s attention itself and pays with BAT both websites and the users. The BAT is run on Ethereum’s blockchain as an ERC20 token and are connected to the attention tracking. With them, you can buy a variety of advertising tools and premium services on the Brave platform, which are all nominated in the user’s attention – in BAT.
U.K. Broker Hargreaves Lansdown to Offer Bitcoin Investment to its Customers
Britain’s largest brokerage firm, Hargreaves Lansdown, announced that it would provide its clients with the opportunity to invest in bitcoin by listing XBT Provider’s Bitcoin ETN (exchange traded note) on its online trading platform. The idea to provide its customers with the opportunity to gain investment exposure to the digital currency bitcoin sprung out of investor interest.
The bitcoin ETN provided by Sweden-based XBT Provider is listed on the Nasdaq Nordic exchange in Stockholm and comes in two formats; the Bitcoin Tracker One (COINXBT SS), and the Bitcoin Tracker Euro (COINXBE SS), which are denominated in Swedish krona and euros respectively.
Coins.ph, Southeast Asia’s Leading Blockchain Financial Services Platform, Gets $5 Million from Naspers
Coins.ph, a mobile bitcoin-based financial services platform operating in the Philippines and Thailand, has raised $5 million in a Series A extension led by Naspers Ventures, a division of Naspers Group, one of the largest technology investors in the world.
Coins.ph’s previous Series A funding round, which took place in October 2016, also raised $5 million and was led by the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, the first global fintech fund for the underserved, sponsored by Accion, a pioneer in global financial inclusion. Coins.ph have raised a total of $10 million from ten investors in its Series A to date, including well-known investors like Digital Currency Group and Pantera Capital.
Ross Ulbricht’s Appeal Rejected, Judges Blast Drug Policy
US Judges uphold Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence reported on May 31, as the self-confessed mastermind of the infamous Silk Road deep web marketplace lost an appeal to overturn his conviction.
On May 31, 2017, the Court of Appeals in New York rejected the appeal, where Ulbricht’s lawyers argued that their client was not given a fair trial due to the failure consider evidence of corruption by two federal agents involved in the Silk Road investigation, both of whom seem to have been treated in parallel to Ulbricht’s case.
Singaporean Polytechnic to Issue Diplomas on the Blockchain
Singapore-based Ngee Ann Polytechnic announced that it is trialing the issuance of diplomas using distributed ledger technology in co-operation with blockchain startup Attores.
The Ngee Ann Polytechnic is, therefore, the first higher education institute in Singapore to embrace blockchain technology in this way. The blockchain pilot is part of the institute’s smart initiatives, which are the educational facility’s contribution to the country’s Smart Nation agenda.
According to a statement by the Polytechnic, should the pilot project turn out to be a success, it plans to issue all of its future diploma certificates as e-certs using an online blockchain browser.
Papua New Guinea’s Central Bank Investigate Into Blockchain to Improve Financial Inclusion
The Australian government and its financial contractors have allocated $200,000 for the development of blockchain technology to develop an alternative banking system for Papua New Guinea. Considering that only around 15 percent of the country’s citizens and residents have access to proper banking and financial services, both the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments recognized the importance of providing an easily accessible platform for Papua New Guineans.
A “Kik” Forward in the Decentralized Chat World
Globally, chat continues to soar in popularity as a means of communication. Founded in 2009, Ontario, Canada based Kik Interactive, Inc., is one of many firms offering a connection to this world. The company is creator of Kik, a platform popular with U.S. teens where individuals can chat with friends and engage with chat-based services. Recently the company announced the launch of Kin, a cryptocurrency that will serve as a foundation for a decentralized ecosystem of digital services. Kin will be curated as an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain and will be used on Kik as the primary transaction currency.
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