Blockchain Daily
Deals, Investments & M&As
Blockchain Player Bancor Raises $153m In Largest Initial Coin Offer To Date
John Kennedy - Silicon Republic
Initial coin offering by Bancor sets a new industry record.
The Bancor token project has raised approximately $153m in an initial coin offering in ether, the native currency on the Ethereum blockchain.
FAO: WOW! $150 million in three hours.
PHILIPP SANDNER, Frankfurt School Blockchain Center: Despite this impressive funding, does a start-up need that much money? What will it do with it?
Diversified Cryptocurrency Fund Launching From Zug Valley
Jeremy Nation - ETH News
Crypto Fund AG announced it is launching the Cryptocurrency Fund, based on the Cryptocurrency Index, to be registered with FINMA (Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority).
The Cryptocurrency Index is calculated by an index provider known for investing in virtual currencies with significant market caps, including Ether, bitcoin, Ripple, and other cryptocurrencies. The index's diversification reduces volatility for investors reacting to the surge of emergent currencies in the marketplace, and its growth rate easily outpaces that of traditional equities and securities markets.
FAO: Cool! Keep the money moving.
Cryptocurrencies
Russian Central Bank Group Prepares 'Masterchain' Ethereum Fork For Testing
Pete Rizzo - CoinDesk
A group of Russian banks, payment firms and financial startups have completed an initial working version of their previously announced 'Masterchain' blockchain software.
Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, the Association of FinTech – a group formed in January under governance of the Central Bank of Russia – completed the work at the end of May. Built using a fork of the ethereum blockchain, the software is now ready to be used in ongoing proofs-of-concept, according to those close to the effort.
FAO: This is major. Remember Buterin’s meeting with Putin the other week…
Oh, Ethereum rally also covered in Vanity Fair….
A Mysterious New Cryptocurrency Is Surging After Being Endorsed By Putin
Maya Kosoff - Vanity Fair
After catching the eye of both the Singapore government and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ethereum—the second-biggest cryptocurrency in the world, after Bitcoin—continues to skyrocket. On Monday morning, the cryptocurrency was trading at a record-high level of $407.10, more than a 5,000 percent rise since the beginning of 2017, when it was trading at $7.98.
Exchanges & Trading Venues
Coinbase Exchange Has Outage Due To High Trading Volume
Reuters
Digital currency exchange Coinbase said on Monday it was experiencing an outage due to an increase in traffic and trading volume.
One of the world's largest digital currency companies with operations in 32 countries, Coinbase engineers and support teams have been working to keep up with the volume, the exchange said in a statement to Reuters.
Exchanges Kraken, Coinbase, Gdax And Poloniex Repeatedly Overloaded During Big Price Movements
Nigeria Today
After testing $3000 USD, bitcoin entered a sharp retracement which saw several major bitcoin exchanges experience significant technical difficulties.
FAO: The trading volumes are clearly rising bringing the need of improvement even for the main exchange players.
Chinese Exchanges To Lessen Bitcoin Fees By Building Lightning-Like Tech
Joseph Young - Inside Bitcoins
Chinese exchanges Huobi and OKCoin are working on building a Lightning Network-like channel, to lower transaction fee and alleviate congestion.
The utilization of private blockchain networks and off-chain solutions is not a new concept. Popular platforms such as Coinbase and many mobile applications such as BTCC’s Mobi have utilized private blockchains to increase the flexibility of their applications
FAO: Again, the Chinese are moving fast.
BitPeople
Apple Co-founder Wozniak Bought Bitcoin At $700 For Fun: 'Now I'm Way Up'
Todd Haselton - CNBC
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak revealed he bought bitcoin when it was at at $700 during an interview with CNBC at eMerge Miami on Monday.
FAO: I think it was fun indeed.
Latest Developments & Agreements
Blockchain Feasibility Test Successful: Calastone
Karren Vergara - Financial Standard
Financial technology company Calastone completed the first phase of its blockchain testing by analysing the trades and settlement of mutual funds.
This involved testing a large volume of trades across global markets to give a better understanding of how to best optimise distributed ledger technology, chief information officer Campbell Brierley said.
FAO: More on Calastone’s announcement yesterday.
‘We’re In Production’: Bank Execs On The State Of Play For Blockchain
Kristin Broughton - American Banker
Think of getting blockchain up and running in banking as a journey, not a destination.
That was the message Tuesday from leading voices on distributed ledger technology. As banks begin to explore the promises of the blockchain — from reducing operational costs to verifying digital identities — much of the industry is eagerly awaiting a flashy debut.
Analysis
Can Ripple Catch The Rally Of Bitcoin And Ethereum?
Elliott Wave - Investing.com
Ripple is the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after Bitcoin and Ethereum. It’s distributed financial technology allows banks to efficiently settle transactions in real time. An alternative to today’s global payment infrastructure, Ripple eliminates time delays and ensures certainty of settlement, resulting in lower transaction costs for banks and their customers and unlocking new revenue opportunities.
Other news
A Cryptocurrency For Weed Is Sending Dennis Rodman Back To North Korea
Amar Toor - The Verge
Former NBA star says he wants to do ‘something that’s pretty positive’ on PotCoin-sponsored trip.
Dennis Rodman is back in North Korea, the former NBA star announced this week, with help from a marijuana cryptocurrency startup. Rodman, who has made several controversial visits to North Korea, tweeted a photo of himself holding an airline ticket for the state-owned Air Koryo on Tuesday. In a subsequent tweet, he thanked PotCoin, a digital currency for buying and selling weed, “for sponsoring my mission.”
FAO: No comment.
Opinion
How Soon Blockchain Technology Will Change Currency As We Know It
Lisa Froelings (guest author) - The Cointelegraph
Cryptocurrency is transforming transactions. It’s set to expand its reach outside niche online transactions as it continues to highlight inefficiencies of traditional fiat currency. With Bitcoin, an open source, decentralized currency powered by Blockchain technology, we have the ability to exchange electronic cash in a peer-to-peer fashion.
Ethereum Worth Over $8 Million Apparently Stolen From Freewallet Users UPDATE
Avi Mizrahi - Finance Magnates
Freewallet users are reporting that cryptocurrency held at wallets from Freewallet – known for its mobile Bitcoin, Ethereum and Monero wallets – is disappearing. Using Ethereum Blockchain explorers, we can see that someone has redirected over 21,000 ETH (worth over $8 million) from random Freewallet wallets to a single address.
PHILIPP SANDNER, Frankfurt School Blockchain Center: Higher prices will provide additional incentive for hackers exploiting loop holes and code errors.
Read more by Soren K.Group
