DeCenter – Blockchain and Bitcoin

2021-12-17 12:50:02 UK Watchdog Bans Coinbase, Papa John’s, eToro Crypto Ads

The United Kingdom’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned seven cryptocurrency-related promotions as part of a wider focus on potentially harmful crypto ads, per the BBC.

The ASA has targeted crypto promotions from Coinbase Europe, eToro, Papa John’s, Luno Money, Exmo Exchange, Payward, and Coinburp.

All seven ads were “banned for irresponsibly taking advantage of consumers’ inexperience and for failing to illustrate the risk of the investment,” the ASA said.

Papa John’s, a popular pizza chain, offered “free Bitcoin worth £10,” as well as telling customers that they would save £15 (~$19) if they spent £30 (~$39) or more on pizza.

The pizza chain also linked their Bitcoin promotion to “Bitcoin pizza day,” which marks the first time Bitcoin was ever used in a transaction—to buy a pizza in May 2010.

The ASA said this promotion “trivialized what was a serious and potentially costly financial decision, especially in the context of the intended audience who were likely to have limited knowledge of cryptocurrency.”

Though the Payward ad had a disclaimer, its cautions were unclear. Thus, the ASA said “consumers would ot have had the time to comprehend the relevant information in the disclaimer, if seen at all.”

This is not the first time the ASA has targeted the crypto industry.

The ASA targeted a Luno ad in May this year, which said “if you’re seeing Bitcoin on the Underground, it’s time to buy.” The ASA considered that ban to be irresponsible.

The watchdog has also taken aim at Floki Inu ads on the London Underground. In November, the advertising watchdog began investigating these ads. A spokesperson for the ASA said “I don’t think cryptocurrency ads should be on the transportation network. They’re unethical.”

Miles Lockwood, director of complaints and investigations at the ASA, is equally critical of misleading crypto ads.

“Consumers need to know about the risks of investing in crypto assets and companies should make sure that their ads aren’t misleading or socially irresponsible by taking advantage of consumers’ lack of awareness around these complex and volatile products,” said Lockwood.

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2021-12-16 23:50:08 Bitcoin Core developer Samuel Dobson decides it is ‘time to go’

Developer Samuel Dobson announced via a series of tweets on Thursday night that he is stepping down as a Bitcoin Core maintainer after three years as he “can no longer dedicate the time required, as I approach the end of my Ph.D.”

As a Bitcoin Core wallet maintainer, Dobson had direct access to the cryptocurrency's code on GitHub, with permissions to approve changes and make improvements to the Bitcoin software. He was also responsible for ensuring the security of the protocol.

When asked if there’s a chance that he will come back to BTC Core development one day, Dobson answered Cointelegraph that his Ph.D. is his primary focus at the moment. And even though he hasn’t decided what he will do upon graduation, he is not interested in the development of other cryptocurrencies.

Dobson stated that he is particularly grateful for the support of his “incredibly generous sponsor” John Pfeffer, without which he would not have been able to prioritize working on Bitcoin part-time.

Bitcoin has already lost two maintainers since October. With Dobson's departure, the number of developers with direct access to Bitcoin code has dropped to five, according to an updated list on the Bitcoin Forum.

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2021-12-14 17:00:00 Metaverse Company InfiniteWorld to Go Public in $700M SPAC Merger

Metaverse infrastructure platform Infinite Assets, also known as InfiniteWorld, will go public in a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Aries I Acquisition Corp.

The combined company will have a pro-forma equity value of $700 million and will trade on the Nasdaq under the “JPG” ticker, the companies said in a statement Monday. The deal is scheduled to close in the first half of next year.

InfiniteWorld helps brands create and monetize digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and engage with consumers and fans. The company says it has partnered with over 75 creators and brands. InfiniteWorld recently combined with strategic partner DreamView, which was founded by the team that pioneered computer-generated imagery (CGI) technologies at Lucasfilm and Disney.

“With up to $15 trillion of wealth expected to flow into digital assets over the next 10 years, we are witnessing the birth of a new global asset class and economic system,” Aries Chairman Thane Ritchie said in the statement. “InfiniteWorld’s unparalleled technology infrastructure underscores the transition of commerce to the digital world.”

The transaction will provide up to $171 million in funds, including the cash held by both companies and InfiniteWorld-owned cryptocurrencies valued at $93 million. InfiniteWorld stockholders will own approximately 75% of the combined company, and up to a maximum of 81% if certain share price milestones are achieved.

InfiniteWorld expects the deal to accelerate its platform development and expand brand partnerships.

The company will be led by CEO Yonathan Lapchik, a Deloitte Blockchain Lab veteran and co-creator of blockchain ecosystem SUKU. Nathaniel Hunter, the former CEO of DreamView, will become chief operating officer.

Previous investors in InfiniteWorld include investment firm Morgan Creek Digital, trading firm GSR and liquidity provider Wintermute.

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2021-12-14 12:55:00 Swissquote To Launch Crypto Exchange

Switzerland's largest online bank is riding the crypto wave. Swissquote's ambitions include setting up its own trading platform for digital currencies.

Other ambitions in the crypto space include becoming «the leading Swiss provider of digital assets.» To achieve this the broker aims to add more cryptocurrencies to its offering, in addition to stablecoins and staking services, which are currently in high demand.

Platform Surge
Swissquote's crypto exchange starts its operations as planned, there will be a sudden surge in trading platforms for digital assets in Switzerland.

In recent weeks, Swiss Stock Exchange SIX launched a fully licensed digital exchange, SDX. Just days later, Berner Kantonalbank launched SMEIX, a platform that lists tokenized small caps.

In September 2020, crypto bank Sygnum got the green light from regulators to launch its new trading system, which also acts as an exchange for crypto assets.

Last June, Deutsche Boerse bought Swiss fintech Crypto Finance; the acquisition gives Germany’s exchange a direct entry point for digital asset investments, including post-trade services.

«Almost overrun»
Swissquote has already bulked up its workforce in response to the surging demand for digital tokens and coins last spring and will continue hiring to fuel further expansion. «Our compliance and customer service teams were almost overrun by the crypto rush,» recalls De Schepper.

The hiring spree has paid off in reducing waiting times for clients calling in. «Now, we regularly manage to open a trading account on the same day,» De Schepper says. In exceptional cases when special clarification is needed, account opening can take up to a week, he says.

Net income from crypto investments increased by over 1000 percent to 63.2 million Swiss francs in the first half of 2021. At the end of 2021, Swissquote expects to double its pre-tax profit. However, expenses will also rise: Swissquote is investing heavily in infrastructure.

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2021-12-14 10:58:01 ‌‎ Cryppo NFT Launch is Coming

The Hyped Hippo collection is launching on the 21st of December, are you missing this?

What is incredible about Cryppo:
+90 special level characters;
3D Traits
Metaverse Ready!
Play to Earn

Visit The Site and Join The Waitlist Open / Comment

2021-12-14 10:48:39 Germany's trillion-euro savings banks mull crypto wallet

Germany's savings banks, a conservative bastion that holds more than 1 trillion euros for thrifty Germans, is looking into offering a wallet to trade cryptocurrency, a group of the banks said on Monday.

The project marks a potentially radical departure for the banks, whose customers still use cash and eschew risky investing or heavy borrowing.

Entrusted with the savings and investments of roughly 50 million customers, they make up Germany's biggest financial group.

"The interest in crypto assets is huge," a spokesman for the German Savings Banks Association said, with reference to the pilot project. He said no decision had been taken and that the savings banks group was currently sceptical.

The move comes against a backdrop of high inflation and penalty charges on banks and savers from negative interest rates, fuelling a heated debate in Germany about central bank money printing.

It has prompted Germans to invest more in property and elsewhere to avoid what some have dubbed the "expropriation" of their wealth.

Last month, Helmut Schleweis, the president of the German Savings Bank Association, called the combination of low interest rates and rising prices a "toxic mix," saying it had become harder to stop the erosion of wealth.

Bitcoin , the world's largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of roughly $1.2 trillion, has risen strongly, fuelled in part by fears of inflation, with its limited supply seen as offering protection.

Bitcoin also has dozens of smaller rivals, all vying for a share of the wider $2 trillion digital currency market.

Among the major "altcoins" - as all cryptocurrencies aside from bitcoin are known - some, such as ethereum, aspire to be the backbone of a future financial system. Others, like Dogecoin, are barely used in payments.

Retail punters are pouring money into them, despite their volatile track record, in hopes of a quick profit. Open / Comment

2021-12-12 15:32:18 Crypto exchange AscendEX hacked for $78m

https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1469915194004766722 Open / Comment

2021-12-11 10:07:30 @DeCenterOrg Open / Comment

2021-12-10 13:16:11 Vitalik Buterin outlines «Еndgame» roadmap for ETH 2.0
The Eth2 launch process began in November 2020. The network’s switch to proof-of-stake is expected to make ETH a deflationary asset.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined his vision for a “plausible roadmap” for Eth2, presenting a future where the largest smart-contract platform can increase its scalability while meeting high standards for trustlessness and censorship resistance.

In a Monday post titled «Endgame», Buterin presented a thought experiment for how the average big blockchain — defined by very high block frequency, high block size and thousands of transactions per second — can still be considered sufficiently trustless and censorship-resistant. The obvious trade-off for this level of scalability is the centralization of block production. Buterin’s solutions, as presented in the blog post, do not address the centralization issue, but still provide a roadmap for implementation.

With respect to the solutions, Buterin suggested “a second tier of staking, with low resource requirements,” to carry out distributed block validation; “introduce either fraud-proof or ZK-SNARKS to let users directly (and cheaply) check block validity” directly; and “introduce data availability sampling to let users check block availability [and] add secondary transaction channels to prevent censorship.”

With these updates, “We get a chain where block production is still centralized, but block validation is trustless and highly decentralized, and specialized anti-censorship magic prevents the block producers from censoring,” Buterin explained.

Buterin said block production would remain centralized even with the implementation of so-called “rollups,” which are layer-two solutions that execute transactions outside of the main Ethereum chain. (Interestingly, Buterin presented a rollup-centric roadmap for Ethereum in October 2020).

“No single rollup succeeds at holding anywhere close to the majority of Ethereum activity. Instead, they all top out at a few hundred transactions per second,” he said. While it may appear that rollups could contribute to distributed block production, decentralization may not last because of the possibility of cross-domain maximal extractable revenue, or MEV. As the name implies MEV refers to the maximum amount of value that can be earned from block production in excess of standard block rewards and gas fees.

The Ethereum co-founder concluded that there’s a high probability that block production will end up centralized regardless of the path to scalability that the network takes. The benefit of Ethereum’s rollup-centric roadmap is that it’s open to all futures, he said.

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2021-12-08 14:51:50 Crypto CEOs to testify before Congress, today 10 a.m. ET. Open / Comment