4 Years Ago

Therefore, it is of no surprise that investors have shown considerable interest in owning Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and, indeed, have turned to use it in countries where there has been a loss in confidence in the economy, or the ruling government.

However, caution is required since there is a growing body of evidence that governments in many countries are suppressing and potentially shutting off the internet, including:

  • Egypt
  • China
  • Russia
  • Chad
  • Ethiopia
  • Kazakhstan
  • The Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • India
  •  Indonesia
  •  Sudan
  • Venezuela
Indeed, just this week Iran saw its government try and shut down the internet, to suppress its citizens who were rioting because of the recent 50% hike in petrol prices.







The ability to control and potentially shut down a country’s internet has to raise serious alarm bells if we are going to see further adoption of Blockchain technology.  For example, were a country to be using Blockchain technology and therefore reliant on the internet for medical records, financial services, transport and supply chains etc, then it would be, in effect, creating systemic risk for its economy. This vulnerability could be manifested by the government suppressing or, indeed, turning off the world wide web within its borders.

Blockchain technology is often cited as a way to be able to embrace the 1.7billion people in the world who are unbanked, as well as being able to provide provenance and traceability. However, many of these unbanked are citizens of countries which have a track record of manipulating the internet. Also, a significant number of goods that are imported from overseas markets into, typically, Europe and America emanate from several countries which exert undue influence over the unfettered use of the internet.

 

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5 Years Ago

The gift card market is reported to be going to grow by over 15% p.a. in the next four years from $585,311 million to over $1,591,461 million according to Allied Market Research.

As more retailers understand the benefits of such schemes, and as increasingly such schemes migrate to become digital using mobile phones. Given the growth in e-commerce and the demand for cashless payments, gift cards are increasingly being used. However, it is possible to convert gift cards into Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Given some gift cards have an expiry date, if you cannot make up your mind about what to buy, you may wish to consider converting your Gift card into Bitcoins. It is now possible to do so using companies like Paxful, who according to Trust pilot, is a credible firm, but as always, exercise caution as there may be people on their platform who could be up to nefarious activities! Allegedly, Paxful was the 4th busiest Bitcoin wallet in 2018, in terms of transactions, doing over 20,000 deals a day. It is possible to change your Crypto to a gift card and then buy an iTunes gift card and then use this to buy a new iPhone or MacBook.
There is no reason why you cannot also convert Cryptocurrencies into gift cards and so solve the dilemma that many merchants do not accept Cryptocurrencies as payment. For more information on you may want to read “How to convert your Amazon gift card to Bitcoin”.
It is also possible to convert you loyalty rewards - air miles or credit card loyalty scheme points into Digital Assets although there seem to be fewer organisations currently offering this option. Searching the internet you will come across “BitMiles” but it would seem that caution is needed, as it has had some poor reviews i.e. according to TopCoinList it could be a scam, so caution is required!
Alternatively, Loylogic, who were established in 2005, has a global network of more than 500 merchants and 2,000 online stores offering millions of products and services that operate loyalty reward schemes. Loylogic themselves, since 2017, offers loyalty rewards to Crypto conversion service.
However, why do merchants bother with loyalty schemes? Well, there is no doubt that being a “Farmer, not a Hunter” i.e. looking after your existing clients and encouraging them to do more business with you as opposed to searching for new customers, is financially a very sound business strategy. In an article in Outbound engine they stated the following:
·         Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer.
·         Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.
·         The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.
According to an analysis from Invespcro, existing customers are 51% more likely to try a new product and spend 31% more!
As we see more loyalty schemes digitising, we potentially will see more and more tokens/coins/reward points being given away to customers to attract their attention and build brand loyalty. However, there will be increasing pressure for these rewards to be interoperable i.e. exchangeable...


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The largest single owner of Bitcoin is believed to be Satoshi Nakmoto, who is thought to own over 980,000 Bitcoins, taking a Bitcoin value of $8,600 they would be worth approximately 8.4 billion.

He/she is credited to have been the person that originally created Bitcoin over 10 years ago.

Bitcoin miners, who are holding just over 1.6 million Bitcoins, worth approximately $13.7 billion according to Byte Tree, a company that has analysed the entire Bitcoin Blockchain history of transactions. Byte Tree claims that there are currently over 1.6 million Bitcoins that have been mined but are still residing in the initial wallets they were transferred to when they were created. Byte Tree monitors this number to study the correlation between Bitcoin’s price and the % of, in effect, “virgin Bitcoins” that are yet to be spent for the first time. It also has a running update which shows if miners have been net sellers or accumulators of Bitcoin on a rolling weekly basis. This could be interpreted as to whether miners anticipate if Bitcoin is likely to rise or fall in price in the short term - or maybe they are just selling Bitcoins to pay their electricity bills!

The Bulgarian government is reported to be holding enough Bitcoins to pay off 25% of the country’s national debt, as it holds over 200,000 Bitcoins, worth over $1.7 billion. These Bitcoins have been confiscated by the Bulgarian government, due to companies and individuals being accused of carrying out various nefarious activities. Interesting, that as yet the Government has not reduced its exposure and sold off the stash! Maybe the Bulgarians have decided they do not want to make the same mistake that the FBI made! The FBI seized over 144,000 Bitcoins, which would be currently worth $1.2 Billion, when it closed down the illegal Silk Road in 2013, which was a website selling sex, drug arms and all sorts of other illegal goods and services.

There are lots of sites that list the biggest Bitcoin owners, but the reality is it is very difficult to be sure who actually owns what, as understandably many prefer to keep their finances confidential. What is more interesting is we are seeing the volume of Bitcoin being traded and, indeed, other currencies gaining momentum as record volumes have been recorded on different exchanges around the world. This is leading to higher prices, so making those holding Bitcoin even wealthier!

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Microsoft had a stock market valuation of $1 trillion in April 2019, and for years has been a leader in software development, transforming the way organisations do business, having developed Windows, Excel, and Word.

Microsoft is embracing Blockchain and Digital Assets more and more, an example being how it is now looking to have a “Bitcoin icon” as a currency option as part of its latest version of Excel.

Microsoft was one of the first multinational companies to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment in 2014, so it is by no means a “newcomer” to using Digital Assets. It has also been using Blockchain technology internally to help speed up license and royalty payments for its Xbox video games. Microsoft claims that it has decreased the time it takes to get statements and information on payments from 45 days to just minutes. This could help Microsoft further target the global video games market which grew in 2018 by over 10% to $135+ billion, helping Microsoft to be more efficient and profitable.

Microsoft has also been rolling out it’s Azure cloud-based service, and by using its Blockchain expertise is now attracting attention from a wide range of different industries. Working with the luxury brand and goods manufacture, Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, Microsoft is creating a platform that will try and combat fraud in the luxury goods sector. Starbucks has also been using Microsoft’s Azure and Blockchain knowledge to help it have greater transparency over its supply chains. Starbucks’ customers will be able to download an App so they can see where Starbucks is sourcing its coffee beans from, and understanding how Starbucks is helping some of the 380,000 coffee farmers that it uses.

In the financial services sector, Microsoft is working with JP Morgan, as the bank will be using Microsoft’s Azure as it rolls out the JP Coin - a Digital Asset pegged to the US$. Microsoft is also working on a project to manage and verify identity, called Identity Overlay Network (ION). This enables your identity to be digitised, and then be shared, but only once you have given permission for others to have access. It would operate a little like Facebook Connect, whereby users can connect to over 15,000 websites based on details that they have initially entered onto their Facebook account. The big advantage that the Microsoft identity solution offers is that YOU, not Microsoft, control who and how your information is used.

Thus, one can see Microsoft is engaged with Blockchain and Digital Assets in many different ways, helping its clients develop new markets, such as ION, or bringing greater transparency to companies like Starbucks.

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WeChat, which has over one billion members, is owned by the huge Chinese tech company Tencent.

This is the 5th biggest company in the world and is helping China to rapidly replace cash and enable Chinese citizens to digitally pay for all their goods and services. Over $50 billions of transactions in 2018 was carried out on WeChat, with the app handling over 48 BILLION messages a day!

In a recent survey, WeChat and Alipay (owned by Alibaba) were found to be responsible for over 50% of transactions, while cash had slipped to only 21%.

The Chinese government has been watching the rise of Digital currencies, and the People’s Bank of China has been working on its own digital currency since 2014, according to Dovey Wan, an advisory of Coindesk https://www.chainnews.com, resulting in it filing over 70 patents to date.

Evidence of the People’s Bank of China’s interest in Digital currencies is supported by a recent announcement that the bank currently has three open positions – “looking for a blockchain development engineer, a blockchain architect, and a senior technical expert, who will be responsible for developing and optimizing a distributed network that will be capable of delivering “large scale transactions.”

There has been a massive expansion of M2 money supply in China, with M2 rising by nearly 18 times from December 1998 to March 2019. This has led to huge amounts of debt, with the Chinese government being concerned about the leverage in its economy. Commercial banks have lent money to businesses and real estate projects, and now the government wishes to find a way to be able to have greater control, seeing digital currencies as a possible solution. So, while we are seeing announcements from WeChat saying that they are going to ban Cryptocurrency trading (as these are not controlled by the Chinese government), the government itself is pressing on with plans to have its own digital currency on a Blockchain. It is thought that the Chinese government will wish to control the Blockchain nodes, cloud, database and any wallets that interact with the Chinese digital currency. This, in turn, will enable the government to track M2 more accurately and ensure it can collect taxes due, therefore having better control of the actual money circulating within its economy.

The creation of a Digital Renminbi is likely to further undermine the use of cash in the Chinese economy and possibly set a precedent for other countries to do the same. We have already seen countries like Japan, Singapore, Estonia, Senegal, and Russia all talking about creating their own Digital Currency. However, are there other reasons for a Digital Renminbi, as China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” extends towards Western Europe and Africa, which will physically link 60 countries (as this would clearly improve trade between them if they all used one currency)?

Furthermore, as China now accounts for 20% of the total debt owed by African countries, will the Chinese, in time, look to convert some of these debts to be denominated in Digital Renminbi and have the interest payments collected by “smart contracts”? This could be highly appealing...


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There has been a lot of discussion about the forthcoming launch of Facebook’s ‘Facecoin’ and what a huge fan Jack Dorsey (the founder of Twitter) is of Cryptocurrencies.

Once either of these social media giants launches their own token, it will no doubt help to further fuel interest and adoption of Digital Currencies. Indeed, if you take a closer look at Instagram, there are over 800 million Instagram users, of which 500 million are active EVERY DAY! It is not just ‘selfies and pictures of plates of food’ that are being shared on Instagram. According to an e-marketing specialist, The Drum, Instagram will generate over $10 billion of revenue for Facebook (its owner) in 2019. Online digital advertisers are increasingly looking at social media sites, such as Instagram, as part of their digital engagement with existing and prospective customers.

However, as the chart above shows, the total number of people on social media is a staggering 3.4 billion, and the vast majority are using mobile devices to get onto social media sites. It is not just large social media sites using Blockchain technology - there is a host of other lesser-known social media platforms that use Blockchain technology as well, and many are using tokens to reward and encourage active users.

Minds - similar to Twitter and Facebook, with approximately 2.7 million monthly visits. A ‘Free Speech Social Network’ which does not push particular content over any other and uses a selection of popular features from Facebook and Twitter.

Choon - similar to Spotify. Designed to help musicians ensure they are paid a fare-share for what they create, receiving a form of Crypto tokens as payment. Choon also pays listeners to curate playlists and listen to sponsored tracks in exchange for tokens.

Indorse - similar to LinkedIn. A platform for people looking for a job, by allowing them to post their CV, listing what projects they have worked on and then, anonymously, experts in that person’s professional network can ‘endorse’ them. The user and the endorsers are incentivised to use the platform by being paid ‘Indorse Bucks’, creating a more reliable and honest database of people’s experience and skill sets.

MeWe - similar to WhatsApp, but with a focus on privacy. This could be a better solution for people who use private Facebook groups (shared with close friends) using features such as disappearing messages.

Steepshot - similar to Instagram. This social media platform enables smartphone photographers and influencers to be paid for their content, by earning tokens as an award for their photos and the interest they generate.
So social media, which is now being used by over 3.2 billion people, is embracing Blockchain Technology and or Digital Assets (by giving way tokens to users) and, in many cases, without its users even being aware. Perhaps this is how this technology and this New Asset class will become mainstream. After all, do we really care, let alone think, about what operating 7system our smartphone uses? Or what the latency and cybersecurity challenges are of using a debit card as we pay for our weekly groceries?

The massive growth of social media has financed selling adverts based on users data. This...


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According to a report from South Africa, Bitcoin has little or no correlation with other asset classes, and it has had a far better risk-adjusted return - Sharpe ratio - compared to other asset classes.

Put simply, despite Bitcoin’s volatility, investors have had better performance and been more than compensated, even after allowing for the price has rises and falls.

There has been increasing interest in Digital Assets, illustrated by the number of Bitcoins being traded on Over The Counter (OTC) markets, and volumes for digital exchanges have been growing.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) recorded over $540 Million worth of Bitcoin trades on 4th April, an all-time high. This illustrates the institutional interest in Bitcoin, as CME is dominated by large fund managers and banks.

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https://www.ccn.com/cme-sees-meteroic-bitcoin-d...m-in-1-day
Established in 2006, and with over 500 Million accounts, VKontakte is the ninth most visited website in the world according to SimilarWeb.

Users of the Russian social media network, based on the amount of time they spend on the VKontakte’s platform, will receive tokens. Tokens earned this way could be transferred between users, to purchase goods and potentially be converted to cash via VK Pay. VK Pay is a money transfer service that lets VK users send money to each other in messages, using a credit or debit card. 

This format is similar to Facebook’s plans for Facecoin, which is reported to be launching later this year in India on WhatsApp, and follows Line, Japan’s largest social media platform, which is using Digital Assets.

VKontake’s co-founder Pavel Durov also founded Telegram, which raised over $1.8 Billion in 2018 and is reported to be worth over $2.7 Billion personally.

These massive social media firms in three different continents are all using a potent cocktail of gamification and loyalty programs to incentivise and reward their customers for spending more time on their platforms. They presumably will be collecting information on what the tokens are being used to purchase and sell this valuable consumer data to advertisers.

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https://www.cryptonewsz.com/russian-social-medi...ncy/13472/
London School of Economics (LSE) research associate Dr Garrick Hilemanbelieves that central banks stockpiling Bitcoin could result in the coin rising in value.

Given the low of volatility in Bitcoin prices currently, as seen below, and the fact that Bitcoin finally seems to be consolidating above $4,000, are we about to see the much-heralded next leg up in Bitcoin prices?


Source :
https://bitvol.info

There has been much talk of the next global recession being imminent. Which may explain why the  Russians, amongst others, are stockpiling gold thus resulting in
January 2019 seeing the net biggest monthly accumulation of gold for central banks since January 2002.

Further evidence of a potential recession has been the yield curve in the
US inverting i.e. short term interest rates are now higher than long term rates - historically a predictor of recessions.  Another indicator followed by many is the Shiller ratio, which seems to be showing that S&P 500 stocks are not cheap:

So where do central banks invest? Could Crypto Currencies like Bitcoin be seen as a hedge - an alternative asset for them to hold ahead of the next economic downturn?


Interestingly over th
e last four years, Bitcoin continues to have a better Sharpe ratio (adjusted return) than many other assets. A fact that will not have been lost on many!

As a sign that Bitcoin’s fortunes are beginning to improve, OKeX, a Maltese Digital Asset exchange, recently reported that it had turned over
$2.4 Billion in a day and over 56% of its traders are now long of Bitcoin!

If Central banks start accumulating Bitcoin and we see a rise in its price this will significantly help many of the 5,200+ Digital Assets which have been issued, as many of them were funded by investors using Bitcoin.


Therefore, a rise in the value of Bitcoin ought to inflate the price of many other Digital Assets and help improve their balance sheets...

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/billybambrough/201...03ad57380b
Sometimes when you look beyond a headline you discover some interesting relationships that may not be obvious initially.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, also co-founded Square who offer payment services for small businesses and mobile payments solutions. Square Payments in 2017 invested $25m into Eventbrite, which itself did an IPO last year. Square are now hiring crypto engineers. Jack Dorsey’s co-founder at Square is Jim McKelevy, who is, incidentally, an independent director of the St Louis Federal reserve.

Meanwhile,
Jack Dorsey is increasingly vocal about his support and interest in Digital Assets, admitting to buying $10,000 of Bitcoin a week, and believes that we are not far from seeing mass adoption of Cryptocurrencies by the public.
So it is not too big a leap to see Twitter and possibly Eventbrite in the not too distant future both licensing, using, being involved in Square’s Crypto payment offering - and follow Facebooks foray into Digital Assets?

More evidence of West Coast US firms looking to target the lucrative banking and financial services world that east coast American companies have dominated for decades?

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The Russian government has said , without notice, they intend to restrict Crypto exchanges and websites that focus on giving information on these assets.

This reversal of Russia's stance on Cryptos is surprising. It was less than a month ago that Russia announced they were looking at launching their own OIL back Digital Currency.

Meanwhile, the Republic of San Marino, have drawn up formal guidance on how they wish to regulate Digital Assets and have categorised tokens as either utility or investment tokens. Companies that want to issue tokens will need to publish a white paper as well as an executive summary in a non-technical language ensuring any advertising and information about the token is accurate and not misleading.

San Marino recognises that Initial Coin Offerings can help SMEs raise capital, and have proposed certain restrictions. For Non-Public offers they may only have a maximum of 150 investors, raise up to €8 million (same as existing European Crowdfunding regs) and the minimum investment per person is €100,000. Such a high minimum investment will restrict such offerings to only the very wealthy.

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https://blockchainflashnews.com/blockchain-decr...an-marino/
It was only at the beginning of March we bought your attention to a New York-based company called BlockFi who are offering 6.25% a year if you deposit your Bitcoins or Ether with them.

Before you ask who actually has control of the Cryptos, well it is Gemini Trust, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss who act as custodians, thus BlockFi does not have access.

While 6.25% looks attractive, you may want to read these thoughts on
Twitter who point out the potential concerns and risks you could be exposing yourself to...


There is an old expression - all that glitters is not gold. Innovation in the sector is welcomed, but Caveat Emptor – Buyer beware.


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https://www.cryptonewsz.com/blockfi-booms-as-in...eks/12075/
They say ‘there’s nothing new under the sun’... We’ve had gold-backed currencies for thousands of years.

The UK’s Royal Mint itself, a thousand years old, was by far first out of the blocks in the modern, digital, era, until RMG (Royal Mint Gold), until it was ‘paused’ at the last minute. This was followed in May 2017 by a firm in Dubai aiming to sell 12 million coins worth over $550million. However, Paxos, who claim to be the first new trust company in America created since the 2008 financial crisis, raised $65million in May 2017 and now run the fourth largest Stablecoin by market capitalization worth $113m.

Paxos is now using their experience to launch a Stablecoin, later this year, which will be backed by gold deposits held in a vault - allowing traders the ability to trade gold 24/7, currently not possible. Paxos also plans to expand the use of its service to tokenise and asset type, including stocks and bonds “to move assets and settle transactions more quickly and securely and with lower fees”.

In the same way, we have recently seen BitBond in German tokenise bonds and Nivaura and GlobalCap in London.

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http://fortune.com/2019/03/11/gold-cryptocurren...lockchain/
Back in 2014 Hip Hop a was one of the first artists to accept Bitcoin as payment for his music, followed by Björk who saw the potential that Crypto offered the music industry as she partnered with AudioCoin, and began accepting both Bitcoin and AudioCoin from fans.

Using Cryptocurrencies, it is possible to disintermediate banks, music-streaming giants, lawyers, and agents, so altering how consumers purchase music. While giving fans a more direct relationship with artists.

A recent report from Business Insider Intelligence outlined that a Blockchain based model could increase sales for artists by essentially turning their intellectual property (music) into a financial asset. Already major festivals around the world are using digital currency alternatives, removing the costs and potential theft challenges of handling cash. So how long before we see a Gagacoin or a SherinCoin, as musicians develop their very own currency and partnerships with major providers of Digital Assets? Having their own currency would not only cut out the middleman but could also lead to a closer more genuine engagement with fans.

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https://www.ccn.com/crypto-help-artists-survive-spotify
BlockFi, who raised over $54million last year has launched a high-interest account paying 6% p.a. if they hold your Bitcoin or Ethereum assets.

The reason they can pay such high-interest rates is because they lend out your Crypto to other institutions but more importantly, your Digital Assets are held by a custodian independent of BlockFi called Gemini Trust Company. Gemini was co-founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and is regulated by the New York Department of Financial Services.

This new way to hold Cryptocurrencies is another example of how the traditional and the Digital worlds are converging, as BlockFi are offering in effect an instant-access, high-interest account to depositors while providing institutional asset lending facilities. Because the transactions are stored on a Blockchain there are fewer intermediaries involved, it is secured using military-grade security and not reliant on one company’s server/computer as the records will be distributed thus reducing concerns over disaster recovery.

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https://www.newsbtc.com/2019/03/06/highest-yiel...-interest/
Mizuho Bank who are part of Mizuho Financial Group with 30,000 employees and $1.8 trillion of assets is following Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and launching a Stablecoin linked to the Japanese Yes in March 2019.


Mizuho will be launching the J-Coin in conjunction with 60 other Japanese institutions and say there will be no transaction charges between the banks and the J- Coin wallets. It plans to charge merchants/shops much less than the 2% to 5% transaction fees that credit cards currently charge in order to offer a competitive advantage and gain traction.

The Digital Asset market in Japan is well established with e-commerce giant
Rakuten, Japan’s equivalent of Amazon, and Line, a messaging App like WhatsApp, having launched their own Digital Assets already.

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https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/...1902211402
Musk this week while being interviewed claimed “Bitcoin’s structure is quite brilliant, but it would not be a good use of Tesla resources to get involved in crypto”

Musk knows a thing or two about money transfers, having been a leading light at PayPal, so he is better placed than most to understand the costs and limitations that traditional payments systems face. Musk also said, “Paper money is going away and crypto is a much better value for a transfer of value than pieces of paper, but, it's very energy intensive to create bitcoin at this point."

Elon Musk, while controversial, has a keen eye for disrupting industries: look at what he has done with solar power, launching satellites and of course electric cars, so it is unlikely to ignore Blockchain technology...

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKeK68wK0UQ
NASDAQ is the second largest stock market globally by market capitalization, is to start offering investors Bitcoin and Ethereum indices which are being seen by some as a sign to allow traditional investors to participate in Cryptocurrencies.

NASDAQ has announced that both indices are calculated using data from multiple cryptocurrency exchanges “to provide a single price point for BTC and ETH. The BLX is one of the most widely-referenced BTC indices among crypto traders and has been calculated back to 2010. Likewise, the ELX has been calculated back to 2014.” 

Nasdaq will be basing the prices from 50 bitcoin sources globally which are considerably higher than other exchanges like CBOE and CME Group.

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https://news.bitcoin.com/nasdaq-stock-exchange-...h-indices/
The internationally acclaimed author and historian who has written 14 best selling books recently said “Bitcoin itself is only money in a very limited sense, which I would define as follows: It is an option on digital gold.

By this, I mean that bitcoin’s role in the foreseeable future is as a liquid asset that is hard to confiscate, and thus serves as a type of insurance. You might hold your private keys the same way the European wealthy used to hold gold jewelry and precious stones. However, the experiment launched by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 is not yet finished. To own bitcoin today is to have an option on Satoshi’s experiment succeeding”.

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Digital Currency
https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/finance-author...ital-gold/
Bianace who are the worlds biggest crypto exchange platform will now be allowing its customers to use Visa and Mastercard cards to buy a range of Cryptocurrencies. 

Over time, as major crypto companies including Binance strengthen the infrastructure surrounding this asset class,  analysts expect the adoption of cryptocurrencies to increase. This is more evidence of how trading Cryptos is being made easier and more accessible for the general public which has to be welcomed provided it does not encourage unsophisticated investors into overtrading these assets.

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https://www.theblockcrypto.com/2019/01/31/binan...or-crypto/
Yet another organization to have its own cryptocurrency, expect to see many more global brands to do the same as they want to embrace this new method to digitally engage with people.

We have recently seen Facebook, Saudi Arabia/UAE, and the IMF say that there are 15 countries looking at some form of Digital Currency.

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https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/spains-city-of...tocurrency
The UK financial regulator is probing more than a dozen companies in connection with cryptocurrency transactions amid concerns about growing market risks.

The Financial Conduct Authority is investigating 18 businesses involved in the sale of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. The regulator has also issued alerts and warnings about dozens of companies suspected of cryptocurrency investment scams. Currently, the transfer, purchase , and sale of cryptocurrencies is not regulated in the UK. However, companies that sell regulated investments with an underlying cryptocurrency element, may need FCA authorizationto do so depending on their activities.

The UK government in December 2018 said it “stands ready” to give the FCA more power to oversee cryptocurrency assets after MPs urged increased regulation of a “ Wild West” market where investor losses and money laundering are deemed big risks.  


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https://www.ft.com/content/04e22444-0c32-11e9-a...9976f1533b