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22 Global Banks Will Test SWIFT’s Cross-Border Payments Blockchain

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SWIFT, the operator of the platform used by the global banking system, has added 22 new banks to its ongoing blockchain proof-of-concept (PoC), deemed by SWIFT as ‘the new standard for cross-border payments.’

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In an announcement today, SWIFT has confirmed the addition of 22 additional global banks to the PoC blockchain endeavor founded by six initial banks in April this year. As CCN reported at the time, SWIFT chose the Hyperledger Fabric, a product of the open-source Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger initiative, for the core technology of the trial. The aim of the blockchain trial is to enable banks to reconcile with their international nostro accounts in real-time.

Nostro accounts are critical to the global banking system, enabling banks to deposit money in designated nostro accounts around the world. These accounts facilitate international money transfers with recipients’ destination accounts receiving deposits from geographically-nearby nostro accounts.

Damien Vanderveken, head of R&D of SWIFTLab and user experience at SWIFT, explained the benefits of powering the world’s interbanking and financial messaging system with blockchain technology, stating:

If banks could manage their nostro account liquidity in real time, it would allow them to accurately gauge how much money is required in each account at any given point, ultimately enabling them to free up significant funds for other investments.

The SWIFT-developed blockchain will be developed with a combination of the recently released Hyperledger Fabric 1.0 and ‘key SWIFT assets’ to restrict access to permissioned partners – the bank owning the nostro account and its corresponding banking partner.

The 22 new members include major banks from Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. The banks will act as a validation group to test the blockchain application developed by the original six founding members in Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, RBC Royal Bank and Wells Fargo.

“This new group of banks allows us to greatly extend the scope of multi-lateral testing of the blockchain application and thus add considerable weight to the findings,” stated Wim Raymaekers, Head of Banking Markets and SWIFT gpi at SWIFT.

The PoC blockchain will see testing during this year’s summer while results are expected to be published in September prior to a presentation at this year’s Sibos conference in Toronto come October.

The complete list of the 22 banks, who will work independently of the founding six banks as testers and validators of the blockchain PoC, are: ABN AMRO Bank, ABSA Bank, BBVA, Banco Santander, China Construction Bank, China Minsheng Banking, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank, FirstRand Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq bank, Nedbank, Rabobank, Société Générale, Standard Bank of South Africa, Standard Chartered Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, UniCredit and Westpac Banking Corporation. #blockchain #bitcoin #crypto #cryptonews

How a Bitcoin Whitehat Hacker Helped the FBI Catch a Murderer

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An ethical hacker breached the database of a phony darknet website offering hitman services and leaked the data. The information from the data dump helped the FBI in their investigation of a man who murdered his wife.

In November 2016, Stephen Carl Allwine, 47, of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, killed his wife in “one of the most bizarre cases ever seen,” police officers reported. The husband tried to mask the murder as a suicide, including putting a 9 mm pistol next to Amy Allwine’s elbow. However, detectives arriving on the scene identified the case as murder and collected evidence — mostly electronic devices, such as computers — belonging to Mr. Allwine. Later on, in January, investigators arrested and charged Mr. Allwine with second-degree murder based on the forensic evaluation of the confiscated electronic equipment.

In May 2016, a hacker called “bRpsd” breached the database of a controversial hitman service offered on a darknet website. The service, “Besa Mafia,” offered a link between customers and hitmen, who could register on the site anonymously. The price for a murder ranged between $5,000 and $200,000, but clients seeking to avoid fatalities could also hire a contractor to beat up a victim for $500 or set somebody’s car on fire for $1,000.

The hacker uploaded the data dump to a public internet website. The leaked files contained user accounts, email addresses, personal messages between the Besa Mafia admin and its customers, “hit” orders and a folder named “victims,” providing additional information on the targets.

The breach highlighted the fake nature of the website, which operated only to collect money from the customers. Chris Monteiro, an independent researcher who also hacked into the site, stated the owner or owners of Besa Mafia had made at least 50 bitcoins ($127,500 based on the current value of the cryptocurrency) from the scam operation.

According to a message posted by a Besa Mafia administrator and uncovered in the dump, “[T]his website is to scam criminals of their money. We report them for 2 reasons: to stop murder, this is moral and right; to avoid being charged with conspiracy to murder or association to murder, if we get caught.”

The leak of the Besa Mafia database helped the police investigating the murder of Mrs. Allwine. As the officers analyzed her husband’s devices, they discovered the suspect had accessed the dark web as early as 2014. Furthermore, investigators identified the pseudonym Mr. Allwine used on the darknet, “dogdaygod,” which was also linked to his email, “[email protected],” in some cases. Detectives found bitcoin addresses in the conversations between Besa Mafia and Mr. Allwine, which linked the husband directly to the “dogdaygod” pseudonym, providing authorities with necessary evidence for the case.

Eventually, law enforcement agents analyzed the data dump bRpsd leaked and discovered Mr. Allwine’s email in the list. In addition, investigators found messages between the suspect and the Besa Mafia admin. According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Allwine paid between $10,000 to $15,000 to the supposed hitman service to kill his wife. The complaint detailed how Mr. Allwine had decided to have the hitman shoot Mrs. Allwine at close range and burn down the house afterward.

However, once the funds were transferred, the Besa Mafia communicator told Mr. Allwine that “local police [have] stopped the hitman [from] driving a stolen vehicle and taken [him] to jail prior to the hit,” thus rendering him unable to complete his “service.” The complaint cited Sergeant McAlister who reported that during that time, “no one was apprehended in Minnesota and western Wisconsin in a stolen vehicle and possession of a gun.”

It is likely that the ethical hacker’s data breach had an impact on Mr. Allwine’s case; on March 24, 2017, the Washington County District Court charged him with first-degree murder. In addition, officers have gathered more evidence in the case — a drug called scopolamine was discovered at 45 times higher than the recommended level in Mrs. Allwine’s body. Investigators subsequently discovered that her husband had also ordered the substance on the dark web.

Australian’s New Budget Includes a Bitcoin Tax Cut

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Australia’s latest national budget eliminates goods-and-services tax (GST) on bitcoin purchases.

The cut, announced today by the Australian Department of the Treasury, brings an end to a years-long controversy over the way consumers faced the prospect of paying double GST when first buying, then spending digital currencies.

The government began looking into the matter in mid-2015, and the removal of the tax comes just days after officials reaffirmed their pledge to resolve the issue. If the new budget is approved, the policy will go into effect on 1st July, according to the Treasury Department.

The Australian government noted that the new budget “will make it easier for new innovative digital currency businesses to operate in Australia”.

Officials unveiled their plan to eliminate the GST charge on digital currencies last year, as part of a wide-ranging statement on fintech.

The budget also includes support for a previously announced fintech accelerator program. The goal, according to the government, is to provide a two-year window for new technology firms to test financial products in a limited setting – a strategy that a number of governments and central banks worldwide have pursued in recent months.

“Robust consumer protections and disclosure requirements will be in place to protect customers including responsible lending obligations, best interest duty, and the need for adequate compensation and dispute resolution arrangements,” the Treasury Department said of the program.

While not part of today’s release, Australia is also weighing potential regulatory changes to account for blockchain applications.

Scissors image via Shutterstock

Korean bitcoin exchange Coinone announces launch of Ripple (XRP) trading

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Announced new today from South Korea-based bitcoin exchange Coinone is notice of the official launch of Ripple (XRP) trading. The date of listing will be next Monday, May 15th.

Ripple (XRP) is a unique encryption currency used in the ‘Ripple protocol’, which is emerging as a next-generation global payment network. Through this token and Ripple’s distributed financial technology, anyone in the world can send payments in seconds and cross-border.

KRW and SGD currencies will be supported in transactions to deposit into XRP.  Margin trading is expected to open sometime in the future with support from only KRW.

Features:

Transaction Fees – Will apply as same as every other cryptocurrency. However, because Coinone is a partner of Ripple Labs, there will be an introductory 0% fee schedule.

Fee Rebate – Users can trade Ripple (XRP) on Coinone for a full fee rebate which means 0% commission. Once the total amount of all rebates from the exchange reach USD $25,000, the fee rebate event will end. Once the limit is reached, the fee on XRP trading will be applied as normal.

XRP has rocketed in price in the last days to at one point on Monday overtake ETH as the number two cryptocurrency by market cap but has since fallen back to number three.

In the last 24-hours from the time of writing XRP has shot up more than 40 percent against USD and others, top markets from XRP are shown below:

XRP/USD is now trading at around 0.1900 at the time of writing. Below from RippleCharts is the all-time XRP/USD chart using Bitstamp data:

Bitcoin soars above $1,700 as market cap adds $1 billion in just 24 hours

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Bitcoin surged past $1,700 on Tuesday, extending an astonishing rally that has seen the total market value of all virtual currencies more than double since the beginning of 2017.

The price of a single bitcoin BTCUSD, +6.41%  has gained more than $300 in the past week, to trade as high as $1,747 on Tuesday, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which aggregates pricing across a handful of the largest exchanges. Meanwhile, daily trading volume has surpassed $1.3 billion for the first time, according to Coin Market Cap.

However, prices varied widely between exchanges. On Kraken, one of the biggest U.S.-based exchanges, one bitcoin recently went for $1,578, while simultaneously trading at $1,742 on GDAX, another popular U.S.-based digital-currency exchange.

Price discrepancies were even wider across different markets, with coins trading on Korean exchanges like Korbit and Coinone in excess of $2,000, valued in Korean won USDKRW, +0.30%

Spencer Bogart, head of research at Blockchain Capital, said the Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to revisit its rejection of the proposed Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund was one possible catalyst for bitcoin’s recent rally.

But he said the massive appreciation in smaller rivals like Litecoin and Ripple has probably contributed to the bulk of bitcoin’s move: Many of these coins are denominated in bitcoin, so investors who wish to buy them must first have it on hand.

The virtual-currency market has all the trappings of a bubble, Bogart said, though he thinks it could have more room to rise before a correction occurs. A correction is typically defined as a decline in an asset from a recent peak of at least 10%.

“It’s definitely unsustainable,” Bogart said, “though I don’t know if it’s in its final moments right now.”

Chris Dannen, founder of New York-based cryptoasset fund Iterative Instinct, said the massive wealth creation in the space has fostered a pattern where wealth shuttles back and forth between bitcoin and other alt-coins, or alternative cryptocurrencies.

Though Dannen added that he suspects at least some of the recent run-up could be the result of manipulation by a handful of “whales”—wealthy traders with large reservoirs of cryptocurrency wealth, who use their relative heft in the marketplace to move prices to their advantage.

“There’s a group of whales out there, they kind of bounce around from coin to coin,” he said. “They clearly have a system. It’s almost like the tide is coming in and out; you know there’s a pattern.”

Digital Currencies Reach a $42 Billion Market Cap

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The market cap of all digital currencies just surpassed $42 billion, up $4 billion in just one day from $38 billion as interest in this space continues to reach new highs almost daily.

Everything is up. 10%, 20%, 30%, everything is green. But there’s something interesting. You see that sort of straight line around the 2nd of May there in the chart below? That’s a two-day period when everything was down, except for bitcoin which has gone up by some $200 in the same time.

The total market cap of all digital currencies spikes to a new high.

The interesting thing here is that the total market cap of all digital currencies did not change, even though bitcoin was going up and up. Why? Well, your guess is as good as any, but mine is that the event was just re-shuffling from other coins to bitcoin, instead of outsider’s interest.

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Now look at the line since yesterday, it’s straight up, $4 billion added to the total market cap in one day. That might suggest other currencies, except for bitcoin, are attracting outsider interest.

Can’t really blame them. I went to r/bitcoin yesterday to check-out what was happening and my blood pressure went up considerably. It was all just angry statements, two minutes of hate, vitriol…

I see today they’re a bit more cheerful, with almost every post saying price is at $1,500 or has gone up or whatever. Yeah, ok, we get it. I came here to find some news… do you have any? What’s that? Something, something Japanese? That’s old news mate, old news!

Alright well let’s go to eth. It’s gone up $10 since yesterday, finishing another ICO which raised some $12.5 million in around 30 minutes for a smart contract Visa debit card. It didn’t go too well because of two “errors.”

Firstly, not everyone received the same amount of tokens for the same amount of dollars. Secondly, not everyone was insta-accounted. So now there has to be some “remedial action.”

That’s just the latest news, there’s much more I’ll be covering on its own article, but what is going on with litecoin? Thing has gone up around 30% yesterday, joining the $1 billion club.

After many “two weeks,” Coinbase finally added them. I thought it’ll never really happen, but, it happened. So they all partying now, repeating to themselves “Coinbase added litecoin” and “price is up.” Ok, we get it, we get it.

Just noticed dogecoin is still around, and they up! All happy as always, with their much wows and such moons, wondering how they can into Coinbase. Maybe howl at them?

The boom times are here folks, so turn the volume up, down the champagne, and dance like it’s the 90s because when the music stops you’ll probably get a hangover whether you partied or not.

Now when will it stop no one knows. It could be tomorrow, it could be next decade. That’s why ancient wisdom says diversify, keep most of your savings in boring safe assets, some in medium risk and the smallest amount in very risky digital currencies. Because they could go down. There have been times they have gone down 70%. So, act accordingly.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not represent those of, nor should they be attributed to CCN.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Top 10 Cryptocurrencies to Invest in Long term

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Top 10 Best Cryptocurrencies & Alt-coins Investment:

Make Smart Decision Investing in top 10 Cryptocurrency to secure your future.

  1. Ripple (XRP)
  2. Bitcoin (BTC)
  3. Dash (DASH)
  4. Monero (XMR)
  5. Litecoin (LTC)
  6. Ethereum (ETH)
  7. Dogecoin (DOGE)
  8. Steem (Steem)
  9. Zcash (ZEC)
  10. MaidSafeCoin (MAID)

Bitcoin just hit 1502.00 US Dollar on google

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According to Bitcoin increasing rate, we believe it can hit up to $2,000 USD within May 2017, rising more than $70 today as volume in trading for the cryptocurrency surges to an all-time high. Some analysts are predicting a price of $3,000 USD in 2017.

Major Credit Unions Will Unveil New Blockchain Tech Next Week

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A blockchain initiative backed by dozens of US credit unions is set to give a live demonstration next week.

CULedger, a consortium project unveiled late last summer, is supported by more than 50 credit unions and four of the biggest credit union service organizations in the US. Spearheading the project are the Credit Union National Association and Mountain West Credit Union Association (MWCUA).

Those involved in the initiative say they want to utilize the tech in a bid to improve how credit unions function – while also making them more competitive in an increasingly tough environment for financial institutions. The idea is to create a blockchain-powered utility through which credit unions could send money or exchange other types of information.

The live demo of a CULedger proof-of-concept focused on identity is being unveiled an eventon 9th May in Tuscon, Arizona. The concept was first outlined in a demonstration given by MWCUA vice president of innovation and product development Rick Cranston early last month.

In that presentation, Cranston – who helps lead the CULedger project – also touched on the topic of smart contracts, arguing that self-executing code operating on a blockchain could have a major impact on the credit union industry, particularly when it comes to cost savings.

“Smart contracts will do several very important things for the credit union industry but there is one very big thing it will do. Smart contracts will save credit unions lots and lots of money,” he wrote.

Piggy bank image via Shutterstock

Ten More Banks Join Ripple’s Global Payments Network

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Ripple, the only Blockchain payments provider with proven commercial deployments, announced today the addition of 10 new customers to its growing global network. These financial institutions include MUFG,BBVA, SEB, Akbank, Axis Bank, YES BANK, SBI Remit, Cambridge Global Payments, Star One Credit Union and eZforex.com, representing some of the world’s largest banks, innovative smaller banks and payment service providers (PSPs). These customers have all turned to Ripple as the Blockchain solution that solves the problems of speed, scalability and costs associated with the old way of conducting global payments.

“The world’s largest banks have been the first to adopt Ripple’s technology, and the network effect from our customer base is accelerating,” said Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. “People know Ripple is the only Blockchain solution for payments that is proven in the real world, and it’s driving demand from financial institutions of all kinds and sizes because they want to stay ahead of the curve.”

This new group of customers showcases how Ripple can drastically reduce the time and cost associated with global transactions for a breadth of financial institutions, including the following use cases:

  • BBVA, one of the top 50 largest banks in the world, is using Ripple to enable real-time payments between Europe and Mexico.
  • Digital banking pioneer and one of Turkey’s largest private banks, Akbank, is the first bank in Turkey to adopt Blockchain and is a model for other banks who want to make faster cross-border payments without the need for correspondents.
  • Star One is the first credit union to offer Ripple remittances to customers via eZforex.com, demonstrating how smaller banks can lower costs and achieve much greater reach for their customers.
  • Cambridge Global Payments and Earthport are collaborating with Ripple to improve the customer experience, increase the reach and reduce the cost of real-time cross-border payments.

Today’s news follows last week’s release of Ripple’s Q1 2017 XRP Markets Report highlighting the tremendous growth in adoption of the digital asset XRP with $6.7MM purchased during the quarter. Growing volume for XRP strengthens it as a solution for banks and PSPs interested in lowering liquidity costs for their global payments.

Several of the financial institutions commented on their use of Ripple’s Blockchain network:

Hirofumi Aihara, General Manager, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, a member of MUFG:

“We are very pleased to be working with Ripple to provide new types of payments services to change our customers’ experience using the power of the Blockchain technology. To demonstrate our commitment to the technology, we are joining the Japan Bank Consortium to collaborate with other Japanese banks move to commercial use of Ripple’s global network. I do believe we can bring our experience from the Japan Bank Consortium to the Global Payments Steering Group.”

Tolga Ulutaş, Executive Vice President in charge of Akbank Direct Banking:

“We are excited and happy to be the first bank in Turkey to take the important step of using Blockchain technology for international money transfer services. We believe that this new phase in technology will increase speed and transparency for our customers while at the same time reducing costs and providing a higher quality of service.”

 

To learn more about Ripple’s solutions and relevant use cases for financial institutions, please visit Ripple.com.

Ripple provides global financial settlement solutions to ultimately enable the world to exchange value like it already exchanges information – giving rise to an Internet of Value (IoV). Ripple solutions lower the total cost of settlement by enabling banks to transact directly and with real-time certainty, optionally using the digital asset XRP to further reduce liquidity costs. Banks around the world are partnering with Ripple to improve their cross-border payment offerings, and to join its growing, global network of financial institutions and liquidity providers.

Ripple is a venture-backed startup with offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Sydney and Luxembourg. As an industry advocate for the Internet of Value, Ripple sits on the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force Steering Committee and co-chairs the W3C’s Web Payments Working Group.