Bitcoin Dominates Fortune’s Most Impressive, Young Superstars List



"For the first time ever," Fortune magazine announced, it "has assembled a supplementary honor roll of the most impressive, young superstars who are transforming business at the leading edge of finance and technology." They've selected forty representatives from all over fintech, and each is under forty years old. Among them are many cryptosphere leaders finally getting their due.

Fortune's Most Impressive, Young Superstars List: Crypto Leaders Shine
Bitcoin Dominates Fortune's New Ledger 40 Under 40 List
Traditionally, Fortune's lists comprise go-getters from all sectors of commerce, be they CEOs or Academy Award winners. Indeed, the magazine just came out with their annual 40 Under 40 list, and for sure cryptocurrency luminaries such as Vitalik Buterin and Brian Armstrong were among them. However, for the first time, this year Fortune supplemented their usual list with a special emphasis on financial technology leaders.

Jihan Wu, 32, made the list. The magazine describes him as "the undisputed king of cryptocurrency mining hardware and crypto mining pools." Beijing, China-based Bitmain recently reached a double digit valuation in the billions. He, of course, "has been known as a big proponent of Bitcoin Cash, a controversial fork of Bitcoin. Earlier this year, his company led a $110 million financing round for Circle, the crypto startup with the highest valuation in the U.S. Wu told Fortune earlier this year that he's interested in 'stablecoins,' virtual coins that have a fixed price, and that he plans to diversify Bitmain by developing AI chips."

Amber Baldet, 35, is that rare, new breed of CEO who can comfortably, seamlessly make her way between Wall Street and more radical elements of the ecosystem. She cut her teeth professionally at "JPMorgan Chase," the magazine notes. She would eventually leave "America's biggest bank this year to found a blockchain startup, Clovyr. While on Wall Street, she brought the hoodies (hacker-coders) and the suits (bankers) together, and she led the team that built Quorum, an Ethereum-adapted blockchain built for business. Earlier this month, Baldet, who is an alum of the flagship Fortune 40 Under 40 list, was appointed to the board of the Zcash Foundation, a non-profit group that governs the privacy-centric cryptocurrency Zcash."

Arthur Hayes actually asked his age not be documented. He's known for thinking a bit different than his peers. The online magazine insists before Chicago Merc and Cboe entered the futures market, Mr Hayes' "Bitmex, a crypto derivatives marketplace that allows for leveraged bets of up to 100 times the principal on digital assets from Bitcoin to Cardano," mapped out a space for itself. It wished to be "the most liquid crypto futures exchange," and by the end of last year, it "handled an average $2.1 billion in trades," the magazine insists. That's "far more than the $50 million that changed hands with the Cboe on its first day of launch." Curiously, Mr. Hayes routinely offers he does not own any bitcoin.

Of note as well is our own Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver, 39. As is the case with fellow Lister, Mr. Wu, Mr. Ver is "an outspoken evangelist for Bitcoin Cash. The controversial fork," the magazine details, "of the Bitcoin network represents the 'big-block' version of the original Bitcoin blockchain, meaning [it's] designed to handle greater transaction throughput. Fluent in Japanese, Ver runs Bitcoin.com from Tokyo and remains the epicenter of a large cryptocurrency community there."

Read the rest of the Ledger 40 Under 40 List here.

xchange Operator Pleads Guilty, Scammer Fined Over $1.9 Million



Jon E. Montroll, a 37-year-old from Texas which was arrested by the FBI for trying to cover up massive client losses after his exchange was hacked, pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud and one count of obstruction of justice on Monday. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. Montroll operated two bitcoin services, Weexchange which functioned as a bitcoin depository and currency exchange service, and Bitfunder which facilitated the purchase and trading of shares of businesses that listed on the platform. During the summer of 2013, hackers stole approximately 6,000 bitcoins from Weexchange, and, as a result, the two ventures lacked the bitcoin necessary to cover what was owed to users, which he tried to hide.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: "Montroll deceived his investors and then attempted to deceive the SEC. He repeatedly lied during sworn testimony and misled SEC staff to avoid taking responsibility for the loss of thousands of his customers' bitcoins."

Scammer Fined Over $1.9 Million
The Daily: Exchange Operator Pleads Guilty, Scammer Fined Over $1.9 MillionA federal court has ordered Dillon Michael Dean of Colorado, and his UK-registered company The Entrepreneurs Headquarters Limited (TEH), to pay over $1.9 million in civil monetary penalties and restitution. A judge found that Dean engaged in a fraudulent scheme to solicit bitcoin from the public, lied that customers' funds would be invested in products including binary options, and misappropriated clients' funds. He also failed to register with the CFTC as a Commodity Pool Operator.

According to the findings, from approximately April 2017 to January 18, 2018, Dean solicited at least $499,264.04 worth of bitcoin from at least 127 members of the public. He promised to convert this into fiat and invest it on customers' behalf in a pooled investment, including trading binary options on an online exchange. He lured victims by false claims of trading expertise and promises of high returns in Youtube videos and Facebook posts. But he never actually engaged in trading on behalf of customers, and his purported trading profits were fictitious.

Porn Ransomware?
The Daily: Exchange Operator Pleads Guilty, Scammer Fined Over $1.9 MillionThe Israeli police has announced that its cyber investigators have identified a new type of ransom attack targeting online porn viewers. The warning to the public explained that in recent weeks there have been a number of complaints about ransom demands via e-mail. The messages said that the recipient's computer had malware installed, which activated the camera to film when vising a site displaying sexual content. In order to avoid the distribution of the allegedly filmed videos to all his contacts, the recipient was required to pay a ransom in bitcoin. The message included the recipient's e-mail and password to give it credibility. However, the investigators found out that the threats were not really backed up by videos and that the e-mail addresses and passwords were taken from old sites that contained hacked e-mail addresses.

London Police's Crypto Course
The Daily: Exchange Operator Pleads Guilty, Scammer Fined Over $1.9 MillionA City of London Police spokeswoman has confirmed the launch of a new cryptocurrency course at their Economic Crime Academy. "It is designed to provide delegates with the skills and knowledge required to recognise and manage cryptocurrencies in an investigation. On successful completion of this course, participants will understand how to detect, seize and investigate the use of cryptocurrencies in an investigative context. It will be the first of its kind and has been developed in response to feedback from police officers nationally who felt there wasn't enough training available in this area." She also added that a pilot of the course was already conducted, and another is planned for August.

Token Assets Are Coming to Bitcoin Cash


Two more types of BCH tokenization projects have been announced on July 18, giving the BCH community a wider variety of different ideas that can bring forth the concept of representative tokens into reality on the Bitcoin Cash network.

Bitcoin Cash Community Greeted by Two More Token Creation Systems
No Matter How You Slice It — Token Assets Are Coming to Bitcoin CashThe Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network has seen a lot of development since the last hard fork which debuted the reenabled Satoshi OP_Codes and the upgraded default data-carrier-size. The BCH community and developers have been bolstering the idea of tokenization on the BCH chain. There's been a bunch of ideas so far with Andrew Stone's GROUP proposal and Joannes Vermorel's Tokeda paper. Then this week Bitmain developers revealed the Wormhole project that utilizes a fork of the Omni Layer. Then on Wednesday, two more token ideas have been introduced for the BCH chain — One concept from the Cryptonize.it developers, and another proposal written by a group of six developers including Jonald Fyookball, James Cramer, Unwriter, Mark B. Lundeberg, Calin Culianu, and Ryan X. Charles.

Colored Coins & Cryptonized Cash
No Matter How You Slice It — Token Assets Are Coming to Bitcoin CashThe creators of the platforms Cryptonize.it and the Cashpay wallet explained that they are bringing the Colored Coins protocol to the BCH network. The Colored Coins (CC) protocol debuted for the BTC back in 2013 network by adding specific metadata to the blockchain. This in turn created 'representative tokens' or 'colored coins' that can represent any physical or digital item like stocks, bonds, gold and silver backed coins. The Colored Coin protocol will allow Cryptonize.it the ability to create a currency called Cryptonized Cash (CC) that can be used with Cashpay for discounts and exclusive products.

"Further utility will be added as Cryptonize.it grows — There will be a total of 1 billion CC, without the ability to add more in the future," the developers emphasized on the social media platform Yours.org. "The tokens are always redeemable on Cryptonize.it — One of the most important questions to answer when proposing adoption of a certain framework is what are the use-cases?

Luckily with colored coins, the answer is endless. Colored coins can represent vouchers, coupons, tokens, altcoins or other assets. You can tokenize whatever you want. The first real-world use-case is Cryptonized Cash (CC), an incentive program on Cryptonize.it which is live right now.

The Simple Ledger Protocol
Following the Colored Coins concept, another paper was revealed to the public written by Ryan X. Charles, Mark B. Lundeberg, Calin Culianu, Jonald Fyookball, James Cramer, and the developer Unwriter. The paper called, "Simple Ledger Protocol: A token system for Bitcoin Cash," details a proposal for the BCH network that handles tradeable redeemable tokens without a consensus upgrade. Enhancement proposals such as GROUP have not been able to obtain consensus needed to change the base protocol, explains the group of developers. Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP) utilizes metadata in OP_Return transactions and the SLP creators believe consensus can be achieved by "token users and market participants adhering to a prescribed set of simple rules."

"Because SLP builds on the transaction chain of the existing Bitcoin framework, users can easily verify transactions with SPV/lite wallets within practical boundaries," the paper explains.   

Full validation of a transaction back to its token genesis is possible by supplementing existing transaction-retrieval infrastructure with the integration of SLP consensus rules.

The developers say that the SLP system will be permissionless, simple, robust, non-invasive, extensible, and an implementation plan for rapid ecosystem support. The 26-page paper is extremely detailed and it observes multiple subjects that need attention such as wallet implementations, token address format, proxies, utilizing the Bitdb network, economic implications, and more. The group of six developers revealed they were motivated to present their own token solution and the key to its success will be simplicity. "But will also depend on our taking action to foster the support of the ecosystem," the SLP programmers add.

Of course, the Bitcoin Cash community was pretty thrilled about two more tokenization projects using the BCH chain. One user on the Reddit forum r/btc who enjoyed the SLP paper notes that there has been quite a lot of these proposals lately, "I believe we're hitting some 'tokenization proposal fatigue." Nevertheless, enthusiasts dig the competition and the amount of development dedicated to bringing tokenized assets to the Bitcoin Cash network. The community may end up using a bunch of different color coin methods down the line or perhaps they may just use the superior tokenized system. Whatever the case may be, the race is on to get a system that creates representative tokens using the security of the BCH protocol.

Powerful Cryptocurrency Firms on the Road Towards Becoming Banks



When bitcoin came out, supporters believed that the decentralized cryptocurrency would decimate the banking industry. Years later, as digital currencies became more mainstream, these networks were suddenly commanding billion dollar valuations. Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchanges, brokerage services, and over-the-counter market makers have started to look into purchasing shares of banks and even becoming the banks themselves.

If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them
A lot has changed since the Bitcoin network was launched back in 2009 when the cryptocurrency was a tiny little network with just a few users. Now there are over 1600+ digital assets and the entire cryptocurrency market capitalization of all of them combined is valued at $294Bn USD. Back in the early days, incumbent financial institutions scoffed at cryptocurrencies but now it's pretty hard for them to ignore the massive economy growing around them.

These days some of the exchanges and market makers are becoming incredibly large and dealing with very large quantities of money. Moreover, a few businesses and cryptocurrency exchanges look like they are adopting a different kind of attitude — 'If you can't beat them, join them,' by either attempting to become banks or purchasing shares of these financial institutions.

The San Francisco Unicorn Coinbase Looks Into a Federal Banking Charter
Powerful Cryptocurrency Firms on the Road Towards Becoming BanksFor instance, the unicorn cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has been a digital asset heavyweight since the early days and the firm continues to make more money while expanding its services. There are those that believe Coinbase will someday become a fairly large sized 'bitcoin bank' with its 20Mn users that have traded $150Bn USD worth of digital assets since the company's inception. Back in May, the public found out that the San Francisco exchange was recently exploring a federal banking charter, other banking licenses, and had been meeting with U.S. regulators.

Reports had detailed that Coinbase had been visiting officials at the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in early 2018. The largest U.S. exchange by volume didn't comment on the firm's meeting with the OCC but made a general statement about dealing closely with government officials so they are sure they have the proper licenses. A federal banking charter would allow Coinbase to offer a plethora of banking features.

Binance to Launch a 'Decentralized Community Owned Bank'
Powerful Cryptocurrency Firms on the Road Towards Becoming BanksAnother extremely large international cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, has become one of the largest exchanges in the world and just recently the firm purchased a 5 percent stake in a financial institution called Founders Bank. Binance says the bank based in Malta will utilize cryptocurrency tokens and distributed ledger technology. The Office of the Prime Minister of Malta's junior minister for financial services, digital economy, and innovation, Silvio Schembri, stated during the bank announcement, "We are honored to be chosen as the location of the first global community-owned bank."

Binance and the Founders Bank are attempting to get a license in the EU so they can operate under the correct regulatory statutes. The firm explains that token investors will have ownership over the bank and Changpeng Zhao, Binance's CEO, believes Malta could wind up being a hotspot for this type of financial technology.

Malta is the fusion ground for traditional and blockchain finance now.  A lot can happen in 3 short months," Zhao explained to his Twitter followers.

Powerful Cryptocurrency Firms on the Road Towards Becoming Banks
Litecoin Foundation Acquires 10 Percent Stake in German Bank
A few days before the Binance announcement, the Litecoin Foundation revealed the organization and the firm Tokenpay had purchased 9.9 percent stake in WEG Bank AG. The goal is similar to the Binance – Founders Bank roadmap, as the German WEG Bank AG, the Litecoin Foundation, and Tokenpay will offer blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions to customers. The creator of the cryptocurrency litecoin (LTC) and the managing director of the Litecoin Foundation, Charlie Lee, explains LTC will be utilized in the deal. "I'm looking forward to integrating Litecoin with the WEG Bank AG and all the various services it has to offer, to make it simple for anyone to buy and use Litecoin," Lee stated on July 10.

Lee divulges further on July 17, on the Reddit forum r/litecoin:
People have brought up valid concerns that we still need to work with and be approved by players in the current financial systems like Visa and SWIFT, but we definitely have a much higher chance of succeeding now that we own a stake in a bank with bank licenses.

Is the Age of Cryptocurrency Banks Coming?  
There are many other firms who are growing exponentially in size due to the popularity of cryptocurrencies these days and many of these companies move a lot of money. The cryptocurrency firm Xapo is a good example as the company claims to store roughly $10Bn USD worth of digital assets across five different continents. Another unicorn cryptocurrency firm, Circle Internet Financial Ltd., also wants a federal charter so it can provide more types of banking services. The Boston-based firm is also working with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in order to sell tokens. With all the bank purchasing and federal charter attempts, the question remains — Will these cryptocurrency banks decimate the current financial incumbents or become them?

Indian Central Bank Responds About Crypto Restrictions

India's central bank has responded to a representation about its crypto banking ban. The Supreme Court gave the central bank seven days to reply following a hearing last week of the petition by the Internet & Mobile Association of India against the ban.



RBI's Response
Indian Central Bank Responds About Crypto RestrictionsIndia's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has responded to a representation submitted by the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), as directed by the country's Supreme Court.

Nischal Shetty, the CEO of crypto exchange Wazirx, told news.Bitcoin.com that the representation is "a detailed document explaining blockchain, cryptos and how they function," noting that it was "made with the belief that if the RBI gets a deep understanding of blockchain and crypto then they may go easy on the ban and think about regulations."

This representation was sent to the central bank on July 3 during the IAMAI petition hearing. The Court ordered the central bank to reply within seven days. On July 11, RBI finally sent its response to the association.

According to Sohail Merchant, the CEO of Indian crypto exchange Pocketbits, RBI's reply is a "2 page generic response." While stating that "as of now the response cannot be made public" but there is "not much to read though," he commented:

IAMAI received the response from RBI as directed by SC [Supreme Court], the response is generic with the same language as the public circulars. They have not even given deliberate thought to the points made by us, all the basis of their arguments is 'Investor Protection.'

Shetty reiterated, "RBI has responded to IAMAI…They aren't changing their stand."

Until Next Hearing on July 20
The central bank issued a circular on April 6 banning all financial institutions under its control from providing services to companies dealing in cryptocurrencies, including crypto exchanges.

RBI gave banks three months to sever their relationships with crypto businesses. As the ban went into effect on July 5, banks began closing accounts of crypto exchanges. One by one, the exchanges stopped supporting fiat deposits and withdrawals.

To bypass banking restrictions, a number of exchanges are launching peer-to-peer (P2P) trading services. Koinex and Coindelta are reportedly launching their P2P services on July 15. Wazirx, on the other hand, already launched its P2P service. The company wrote, "Wazirx P2P goes live today, 10th July at 3PM. With Wazirx P2P, a buyer and seller can buy and sell cryptos for INR directly with each other."

Meanwhile, industry participants and stakeholders are trying to get the RBI ban lifted by filing petitions with the Supreme Court, which will all be heard on July 20.

A BCH Fueled Version of Patreon is Coming This August




Just recently a team of programmers announced the creation of a 'Bitreon.cash,' a platform that aims to be similar to the popular membership application, Patreon. This particular platform, however, will be censorship resistant and powered by bitcoin cash (BCH) payments. In order to fund the protocol, two developers have raised 47 BCH so far out of their 100 BCH goal; the funds will be used for marketing Bitreon.

Bitreon.cash Aims to Launch a Patreon-Like Platform Powered by Bitcoin Cash
A BCH Fueled Version of Patreon is Coming This AugustPatreon is a platform designed by Jack Conte and Sam Yam in 2013, and the membership service provides users with business tools so creators can design a subscription content service. Over the years the service has become very popular and is used by podcasters, Youtubers, artists, musicians, and cryptocurrency luminaries like Andreas Antonopoulos use the service. However, Patreon has its downfalls because it's a centralized service and the web portal has censored things like adult content. Moreover, the protocol does not allow bitcoin payments for reasons tied to filing with the IRS, the Patreon Zendesk details.

So, two developers Jimmy Birer the creator of Cashflow.fm and the React wallet, alongside a front-end engineer named, Maciej Bowkorski, plan to launch a functional Bitreon.cash on August 1. The development team plans to deliver the complete Bitreon application on September 1. Bitreon.cash has also released the project white paper which details how the platform will function in a decentralized fashion and utilize BCH.           

"With Patreon disabling cryptocurrency payments, we see an opportunity to create a Bitcoin Cash membership platform that brings complete freedom and control to content creators and their subscribers," explain the developers of Bitreon. "The security of payments (no fear of chargebacks) alongside the anonymity and the privacy offered by bitcoin cash and the Bitreon platform will make it possible for creators to reach their maximum creative potential and the subscribers to enjoy the best their favorite creators can offer."

We're aiming to make Bitreon.cash the most popular content membership platform on the Internet, making bitcoin cash adoption skyrocket and enable people to earn all over the world.

Zero Censorship, Smart Contracts, Bitcoin Cash Payments and Free Speech
The Bitreon developers say there will be many benefits to using the decentralized application over a centralized service like Patreon. For instance, there will be an Electron Cash plugin so people can get recurring payments. Bitreon will also be smart contract based by utilizing Nchain's new SDK Nakasendo. Additionally, people can register anonymously and be paid without sharing identification.   

"We impose zero censorship and terms for the content you share and will always defend your right to free speech," explains the Bitreon developers.

With 47 BCH ($34,515 USD) the Bitreon team is well on its way to raising the 100 BCH ($72,922 USD) for marketing the project to new users. Once the functional Bitreon application is released into the wild this August, news.Bitcoin.com plans to review the platform after launch.

Malta Passes Blockchain Bills Into Law, ‘Confirming Malta as the Blockchain Island’



The Parliament of Malta has passed three bills into law that establish a regulatory framework for blockchain technology, local news outlet Malta Today reported July 4. The bills include the Malta Digital Innovation Authority Act, the Innovative Technological Arrangement and Services Act, and the Virtual Financial Asset Act.

Silvio Schembri, Junior Minister for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation within the Office of the Prime Minister of Malta, tweeted about the passing of the bills today, noting that the island nation is a pioneer in providing a solid legal framework for blockchain companies:

"The three Bills that will regulate distributed ledger technology (DLT) have been approved by Parliament and enacted into law. Malta , the first world jurisdiction to provide legal certainty to this space."

Schembri said that the move taken by the Parliament would put investors' minds to rest as companies now have the necessary legal tools to operate in a regulated environment. The Junior Minister also expressed his optimism about companies choosing Malta as their base of operations, saying that the republic now offers a stable system that will "result in further economic growth."

Dr. Jean-Philippe Chetcuti of Maltese law firm Chetcuti Cauchi Advocates, said the passage of the new legislation is "a momentous milestone for Malta as a forward-looking economy, truly confirming Malta as the 'blockchain island.'" Chetcuti noted that companies will feel more comfortable "committing to further investment, and setting up in Malta."

A multitude of blockchain and crypto business have already located to Malta, as the country's officials took regulatory steps to become the "blockchain island." Recently, several cryptocurrency exchanges, including OKex, Binance, and BitBay have set up operations in Malta due to the development of a blockchain and crypto-friendly space within the country. In May, the Transport Minister of Malta announced a partnership with U.K. middleware blockchain startup Omnitude to improve the Maltese Public Transport Service using distributed ledger technology.

Moreover, the Malta Gaming Authority issued a document with guidelines on blockchain and cryptocurrency applications in the gaming industry, aiming to apply standards to games that use cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Last year, the government of Malta also announced is was developing a project to test the feasibility of using blockchain for the recording of academic certificates.
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