Blockchain Weekly | A week of financing 13 over 80 million US dollars, the public chain is favored by VC

Overview:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council support innovative applications such as digital currency research and mobile payment in Shenzhen; the New Zealand Taxation Office recognizes that Bitcoin income is legal and taxable; Bakkt plans to officially launch a physical settlement of bitcoin futures contracts on September 23; The decision proposed by the three Bitcoin ETFs was postponed until the end of September and mid-September; numerous exchanges suspected that KYC information was leaking.

According to PANews statistics, a total of 13 blockchain financings were announced last week, with a total amount of over US$80 million (excluding projects that have not disclosed specific investment and financing amounts), involving public links, exchanges, social media, content media, and payments. , hosting, infrastructure and many other areas.

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• The State Council supports Shenzhen to launch digital currency innovation applications; Bakkt officially launched Bitcoin futures in September

The central government supports Shenzhen to launch innovative applications such as digital currency research and mobile payment

On August 18, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council's "Opinions on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics" pointed out that improving the economic capabilities of financial services, researching and improving the GEM listing and listing, refinancing and mergers and acquisitions restructuring system, creating conditions Promote registration reform. Support innovative applications such as digital currency research and mobile payment in Shenzhen.

Further reading: PANews related article "Why is Shenzhen being supported to carry out digital currency research? 》

US FinCEN officials say casinos must set requirements for compliance policies related to encrypted assets

According to CoinDesk, at the Anti-Money Laundering Conference in Las Vegas on August 13, Kenneth Blanco, director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), said that when casinos encounter suspicious (renewable virtual currency) activities and influences, When promoting or conducting cyber incidents, they should submit a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). In addition, casinos must set up policies, procedures, internal controls, and risk assessments related to cryptographic assets.

The US Treasury Department’s Foreign Investment Control Office hinted that “regulating the cryptocurrency industry will be a top priority”

According to BTCManager's August 14 report, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) hinted that the regulation of the encryption industry will be their top priority. It is reported that OFAC has added a lot of bitcoin and altcoin addresses to its list of specially designated nationals and blocked persons (SDN). OFAC has indicated that encrypted market participants are within their purview by collecting information from several cryptocurrency exchanges to enable them to exclude individuals who trade with bad actors on the SDN list.

Similarly, OFAC can use the information it obtains to determine which exchanges do not comply with its policies by providing products and services to individuals on the blacklist. Although the main functions of OFAC's SDN list are still unclear, OFAC may share information with OCIE (Compliance Inspection and Inspection Office) and DOJ (Judicial Asset Recovery Department), so OFAC recommends that encryption enthusiasts comply with OFAC regulations. Encrypted exchanges conduct transactions, and on the other hand require exchanges to conduct due diligence such as anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC procedures.

New Zealand Revenue Agency recognizes that Bitcoin income is legal and taxable

According to Cointelegraph's August 12 report, the New Zealand tax authorities have ruled that the cryptocurrency income is legal and provides guidance on how taxes should be taxed. Specifically, the income tax treatment guidelines for encrypted assets apply to encrypted payments that form part of the employee's normal wages, and are fixed at a predetermined amount or interest rate, rather than payments that form part of the employee share plan. In addition, it applies only to salaries and wage earners, not to self-employed taxpayers, including service remuneration and bonuses, commissions and gratuities.

Further reading: According to CoinDesk, the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued a warning to cryptocurrency users on August 14 this time to taxpayers who are believed to have misreported foreign exchange earnings. The letter must be replied within 30 days. This is after the IRS sent three letters to the encrypted trader last month, telling the recipient that the tax may have been incorrectly submitted, and the IRS sent another letter telling some investors that they did misreport the encrypted transaction income.

FATF guides 15 countries to develop encryption monitoring systems or fake news

PANews August 13th, according to Finance Magnates, several media reports said that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is guiding up to 15 countries and plans to set up a global digital currency monitoring system. However, according to the Finance Magnates survey, the news was false news, and the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) did not form such a working group.

FATF Senior Policy Analyst Tom Neylan confirmed in a conference call with the media Finance Magnates that the Financial Action Task Force did not develop the system and would not accept the data. It emphasizes that the Financial Action Task Force is not a law enforcement agency or a technical solution, but an organization that specifies standards and promotes the effective implementation of standards by relevant agencies.

The person in charge of the virtual currency fund disk project BHB was arrested

According to the official WeChat public account of Qingshen County Public Security Bureau of Sichuan Province on August 12th, the fugitives suspected to organize the leadership of MLM activities have been arrested by the Qingshen County Public Security Bureau. It is reported that on January 6, 2019, Zou Mou, in the name of blockchain and virtual currency, publicized the fund project BHB in the WeChat group, raising funds by means of pulling people, and the amount involved was huge.

Singapore Monetary Authority warned that fraudulent websites fabricated Lee Hsien Lo’s speech to attract bitcoin investment

According to ChannelNewsAsia, the Singapore Monetary Authority (MAS) warned on August 16 that a fraudulent website has been using Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's fabricated comments to solicit bitcoin investment. MAS said, “The information on this website is highly deceptive and misleading. The so-called Prime Minister’s statement is entirely fictitious. The website attempts to provide users with credit card or bank account information. It also requires users to support Bitcoin The platform for the transaction pays, and the platform will automatically initiate a transaction on behalf of the customer."

US SEC's decision on three bitcoin ETF proposals is postponed until the end of September and mid-October

According to CoinDesk, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) decided on August 12 to postpone three proposals for Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs): the final decision of the Bitwise and VanEck/SolidX proposals is expected to be October 13 respectively. And made on the 18th; the next decision of the Wilshire Phoenix program will be made on September 29. The Bitcoin ETF was filed earlier this year by Bitwise Asset Management, VanEck/SolidX and Wilshire Phoenix, and has been filed on the New York Stock Exchange Arca and the Chicago Board Options Exchange BZX.

US SEC has now been granted a temporary restraining order to freeze VERI ICO organizers and their company assets

According to CoinDesk's August 13 report, the US SEC has now obtained a temporary restraining order to freeze the assets of Reggie Middleton and its company Veritaseum. The freeze covers assets from its traditional financial institutions (Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase), the cryptographic exchanges Gemini and Kraken, and the 15 addresses on the Ethereum blockchain. It is reported that Reggie Middleton is the organizer of Veritaseum (VERI) ICO worth $14.8 million, and the SEC accused him of fraudulent and unregistered ICO.

Bakkt plans to officially launch a physical settlement of Bitcoin futures contract on September 23

Bakkt official blog on August 16 announced that Bakkt has been approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and plans to partner with ICE Futures Exchange and ICE Clear US on September 23 to launch hosting and physical delivery. Daily and monthly Bitcoin futures contracts.

CoinDesk soon updated Twitter to say that Bakkt CEO Kelly Loeffler said that the bitcoin futures contract to be launched next month will provide margin trading.

Further reading: In response to this news, cryptocurrency analyst Joseph Young said, "Since Bakkt has decided to launch a physical settlement of the Bitcoin futures contract, after its launch, it will really show whether there is a huge demand in the market."

Dovey Wan, the founding partner of Primitive Ventures, explained on Weibo the four reasons why this news favors bitcoin: “1. Physical delivery requires continuous purchase of bitcoin from existing bitcoin circulation to complete delivery. 2. Bakkt designed a day of futures, basically close to the spot, delivery speed will be very fast, liquidity can be expected; 3. Bakkt can not print counterfeit currency, water injection, opponent disk, pin and other trading operations, so A normative role model for the entire industry; 4. The largest channel for compliance agencies to enter the market."

Encrypted trader Scott Melker said that Bakkt's news "can be said to be the most promising event in the history of bitcoin for institutional investors", these futures will require holders to "produce actual bitcoin or accept from exchanges" Delivery." The new contract will require the actual purchase of BTC, which is quite different from the model used by CME, which settles the fee in cash. This means that when investors want to participate in the Bakkt market, they will create buying pressure in the bitcoin spot market.

Binance Jersey says it will reward white hat hackers who invade their domain names and Twitter accounts

According to Binance Jersey official news, UTC time at 15:00 on August 16th, a white hat hacker obtained @BinanceJE (Binance Jersey) Twitter account access rights, and posted a few tweets on the Twitter account @BinanceJE, followed by Remove it. The currency said that the hacker "cooperated and opened up in the communication with the security team", "Binance Jersey will issue a security hole bounty and continue investigation with the service provider." In addition, Binance Jersey invited all interested white hat hackers to join the Binance Bug Bounty program to report product security vulnerabilities in the currency security ecosystem, claiming a maximum of $100,000 in rewards.

Further reading: According to Cointelegrah, August 14th, the currency of Euro and the British pound cryptocurrency exchange Binance Jersey has entered into a partnership with Caspian, an encryption investment services company that will provide trading, portfolio and risk management on its platform. service. It is said that this cooperation will increase the security of encrypted investors and reduce the barriers to entry in the password market.

Coin security or the launch of Binance.US soon, the specific time to be determined

According to Cheddar's August 16 report, Chan Chan CEO Zhao Changpeng said in an interview with Cryptocraze that “Coin is expected to be in the next one to two months” and will launch Binance.US in cooperation with a company called BAM Trading Services. It is reported that Binance.US will not be launched in New York initially because it has not yet obtained BitLicense (issued by the New York State Department of Financial Services), and BAM, which is regulated by the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), has not obtained BitLicense. The "Binance US" Twitter account forwarded Cheddar's post titled "The US version of the US dollar before November." However, according to CoinGape's August 17 report, Zhao Changpeng denied the media saying "Binance.US will be launched in November", but Zhao Changpeng's Twitter did not release relevant information.

Firecoin user information suspected to be sold on the dark network, many exchanges suspected KYC information leakage

PANews August 16th news, according to The Block news, there are hackers in the dark market market to sell cryptocurrency exchange fire currency user information, including phone numbers and text messages, etc., the single price is 0.3 US dollars.

It is reported that a seller who claims to be a hacker promises that these phone numbers are “absolutely true” and can generate a high rate of hits. In addition to fire coins, hackers also claim to have user information on other exchanges such as BIKI, Hetbi, and ZDCoin.

Ross Zhang, the head of merchandise marketing, believes that this information may be collected by hijacking third-party information providers, rather than the exchange's own security vulnerabilities. "At least one advertisement does not actually sell user data from the fire coin. After the comparison, the coin found that 'only a small number of phone numbers are associated with the fire money account'. We suspect that the hacker used the name of the fire coin for commercial gain."

Extended reading: Recently, the currency security has also encountered user information disclosure incidents. On August 7th, Telegram user Guardian M sent KYC data and photos of users suspected to have been leaked from the currency in the FIND YOUR BINANCE KYC live group. Coin Security responded that the incident stemmed from the threat of an unidentified person in the currency, asking the currency to use 300 bitcoin chips in exchange for the 10,000 KYC information he claimed to have about Binance. After not getting the blackmail immediately, the unidentified person began to disseminate relevant information to the public and the media.

On August 13th, the user named Guardian J, like the previous Guardian M, broadcasts a small amount of KYC data in the telegraph group. According to the screenshots of the complete dialogue between the hacker and the coin security staff, the dialogue time is earlier than the hacker Guardian M live currency KYC data, and it is also earlier than Coindesk's disclosure of "the hacker and the coin growth chief Lin Yixiang negotiations." At present, the official official said that the authenticity of the screenshot has yet to be verified.

On August 16, a Twitter account called Binatov Platon posted a summary of the Binance KYC information allegedly in its hands, and called it "Warming up" in the comments. Bnatov then released a number of screenshots of Telegram chats allegedly associated with members of the security team.

According to PANews statistics, a total of 13 blockchain financings were announced last week, with a total amount of over US$80 million (excluding projects that have not disclosed specific investment and financing amounts), involving public links, exchanges, social media, content media, and payments. , hosting, infrastructure and many other areas.

1 public chain Velas has completed 20 million US dollars financing, is expected to melt 30 million US dollars

PANews August 16th news, according to the official news of the Velas public chain, Velas has successfully completed 20 million US dollars of financing, including the CoinPayments, Alpina Capital and some high-net-worth individuals. It is reported that Velas is about to launch a multi-sign wallet, and at the same time launch its desktop and mobile, and then Velas's token VLX will also be on the well-known cryptocurrency exchange at the end of August.

2 NGC Ventures participates in a new round of financing for the decentralized video social media platform Vid

PANews August 16th news, recently, NGC announced a strategic investment in the innovative social media platform Vid, Vid has raised more than 20 million US dollars in the latest round of financing. NGC founding partner Tony Gu will also serve as a project consultant for Vid. It is reported that Vid was established in January 2017 as a social media application centered on video editing, designed to allow users to control data and to certify users' life records. The company's technology is now receiving two patents, and five patents are pending.

3 Continue Capital RChain's new round of investment, holding 5 million RHOC

The official website of the public chain RChain announced on August 13 that Continue Capital has increased its holding of 5 million RHOCs, and the latest round of investment has been awarded to the Capital Capital. RChain official said that this is related to the release of Testnet-2.

4 payment ecosystem xDai received $500,000 seed round financing, B-Tech led

Yahoo Finance AccessWire reported on August 16 that the payment ecosystem xDai has received $500,000 in seed round financing. This round of financing was led by B-Tech (BitMax.io and Focus Labs' investment department), blockchain venture capital firm Bixin Invest and NGC. The xDai Chain app provides fast transactions and extremely low gas prices for everyday users, and data and assets can be seamlessly transferred to the Ethereum main network, providing opportunities for back-end security and unlimited expansion.

5 Quantum Materials Corp acquires some assets of Capstan Platform, an enterprise blockchain technology developer

According to Globe NewsWire, August 15th, Quantum Materials Corp, a manufacturer of nanomaterials and cadmium-free quantum dots, announced that it has acquired some of the assets of Capstan Platform, Inc., which develops blockchain technology for companies. Capstan co-founder and CTO Jay M. Williams said that it will combine "blockchain-based enterprise trust platforms with Quantum Dots to combine physics and digital for the first step in real-world applications."

6 Coinbase acquires Xapo hosting business for $55 million

According to "Fortune" reported on August 15, cryptocurrency company Coinbase has paid Xapo $55 million for the acquisition of Xapo hosting business. It is reported that most of Xapo's largest customers have agreed to transfer their assets to Coinbase, giving the company more than 514,000 bitcoins of control. Xapo founder Wences Casares said he will continue to serve as CEO; Xapo will continue to retain ownership of the vault and use it to store bitcoin on behalf of its retail customers. Coinbase said that after the acquisition of Xapo, its hosting business now has more than 150 customers.

7 payment company Coil $ 4 million seed round financing, Ripple and investment

According to CoinDesk, Ripple's investment division, Xpring, announced on August 15 that it had invested $4 million in seed-based financing for the in-browser payment processing startup Coil, led by Ripple's former chief technology officer Stefan Thomas (this round of investment) Only Thomas and Ripple are included. Xpring also announced that it has provided Coil with 1 billion XRP (approximately $265 million) in funding to "help it build a community of creators, consumers and strategic partners."

8 encryption mining company Coinmine completed $2.5 million seed round financing, led by M13 Ventures

According to CoinDesk, Coinmine, a manufacturer of encryption mining hardware and software, announced on August 15 that it has completed a round of $2.5 million in seed round financing. Leading by M13 Ventures, Republic Labs, Gumi Crypto and Uber early investor Shervin Pishevar followed. Its CEO Farbood Nivi said, "The latest round of financing will help us accelerate the experience of more people to earn bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies."

9 blockchain infrastructure company StakeWith.Us completed $600,000 seed round financing

According to Tech In Asia's August 16 report, StakeWith.Us, a Singapore-based blockchain infrastructure company, completed a $600,000 seed round of financing. It is reported that this round of financing is led by Singapore government-backed investment institution SGInnovate and Golden Gate's investment fund LuneX Ventures, which focuses on the blockchain sector. StakeWith.Us is committed to providing infrastructure support for decentralized POS networks, and they plan to recruit members and expand their teams in Asia with the latest financing.

10 blockchain technology startup company TradeWindow wins ASB Bank investment

According to BTCManager's August 13 report, TradeWindow, a startup that provides distributed ledger technology (DLT) for the trading market, received investment funding from ASB Bank, a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. TradeWindow founder and CEO AJ Smith confirmed that the company has established two partnerships with New Zealand export-related companies Prodoc, Export Document Compliance and IVS (Independent Validation Services) to provide global assistance to New Zealand exporters. Market access is recognized for reliable and reliable product certification in the forestry, timber and horticultural industries. The TradeWindow solution has not been available in any commercial version, but due to the investment from ASB and the recent Callaghan Innovation grant, the company hopes to release its first version soon.

11 cryptocurrency exchange Blade received $4.3 million investment, Coinbase, SV Angel

Cointelegraph reported on August 13 that the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Blade raised $4.3 million from investors such as the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase and investment firm SV Angel. According to TechCrunch's previous report, Blade's goal is to provide trading for cryptocurrency-based permanent swap contracts through three new improvements. First, a permanent contract will be developed using a standard simple contract. Second, the permanent will use USDT for settlement and profit. Third, for cryptocurrency trading pairs, the leverage price of the transaction can be as much as 150 times its price.

12 cryptocurrency ATM company Bitcoin Depot announced the acquisition of DFW Bitcoin

According to The Daily Hodl on August 12th, cryptocurrency ATM company Bitcoin Depot announced the acquisition of rival DFW Bitcoin. The acquisition marks a strong growth in the industry. Bitcoin Depot CEO Brandon Mintz said the existing 10 DFW Bitcoin ATMs strengthen Bitcoin Depot's service network and Bitcoin Depot's market position.

13 Alpaca blockchain gains DFG strategic investment

On August 16th, the blockchain media alpaca blockchain announced that it has obtained DFG strategic investment. This round of financing is mainly used for the upgrading of alpaca blockchain content, official website construction, and branch expansion. Digital Finance Group (DFG) specializes in cryptocurrency, digital assets and blockchain technology, and has invested in blockchain projects such as Brave, Ledger X, and Circle.

PA Weekly 69th 8.12-8.18

Text | Cattle Editor | Tong Source | PANews

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