Crypto News #16: Japan Proposes Guidelines to Legalize ICOs

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Find the best latest news about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in this daily post. Good read !

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Japan Proposes Guidelines to Legalize ICOs
A working group backed by Japan’s government has proposed new guidelines intended to legalize and regulate initial coin offerings (ICOs).

In a report published April 5, Japan’s ICO Business Research Group — a task force that includes lawmakers, academics, bankers, and the chief executive of bitFlyer, Japan’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — called for the government to legalize ICOs and adopt clear industry rules and practices that encourage growth but also protect investors.

“ICO is still in its infancy and has no industry practices yet,” the group wrote. “Appropriate rules must be set to enable ICO to obtain public trust and to expand as a sound and reliable financing method.”

Under the proposed guidelines, ICO operators would be required to perform KYC verification on all contributors.They would also be required to make copious disclosures to ICO contributors and other investors prior to beginning the offerings and regularly update them on how closely the project is sticking to the roadmap laid out in its whitepaper.

Exchanges — perhaps through the newly-formed self-regulatory body — would adopt industry-wide standards on token listing, and insider trading related to ICO tokens would be explicitly classified and prosecuted as such.

The report notes that regulators may have to adopt more detailed rules in the future, including regulations designed to “restrict or encourage certain types” of ICO structures.

According to Bloomberg, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) will consider the proposal as soon as this month, though it may take several years for them to be codified into law.

Read more on : ccn

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Why You Should Buy Litecoin (LTC) While It’s Cheap Now
Litecoin is generally considered as a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open source software project that is released under MIT/X11 license. The creation of the coin is based on the open source cryptographic protocol and thus it is not managed by any central authority. Technically, Bitcoin (BTC) is almost identical to Litecoin but it is far quicker and cheaper. According to the views of the cryptocurrency market experts, Litecoin pricing acts in a more rational manner than Bitcoin and it has a more sustainable future. The value of the Litecoin depends on the demands of currency trading websites like Bitfinex, OKEx, GDAX, and Coinbase. In the current scenario, some online stores, in fact, started to accept cryptocurrencies to buy products like jewelry, groceries, clothes and other important stuff.

Litecoin (LTC) is known to be the next best thing to Bitcoin. This cryptocurrency was launched a couple of years later after Bitcoin and it has a few aspects which make it acceptable to the present day crypto investors, users, and traders. This coin is growing at a fast pace and it is already taking the initiative to close the gap on Bitcoin. It is true that the recent crypto slump has brought the Litecoin down to $122.7 and this is the best opportunity to buy the Litecoin when it is cheap. Some of the good reasons to buy Litecoin are discussed below.

Better than Bitcoin:
Most people tend to invest in altcoins because of the early investors’ reliance on Bitcoin. Like, those many new investors want to buy coins at a cheap rate and want to become richer. For this reason, it is the best time for you that you should invest more on Litecoin. Although it is much like Bitcoin it is better than it. It generally uses proof-of-work algorithm but it is ASIC resistant and allows both CPU and GPU miners. The network of Litecoin is as secure as Bitcoin. Although the price of LTC fell from around $300 and to just the above margin of $100 but still it is better than other crypto coins because of its stability. However, the trading price of Litecoin has started to rise and thus it is the ideal time for you to buy Litecoin.

Litecoin’s association with Abra app:
Abra app allows the users to trade crypto-fiat, crypto-crypto pairs and fiat-crypto. Through Abra App, you can avail 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies. For this, the users need to buy Litecoin first and then they can use this for future trading in the app. This app, in fact, uses Litecoin to access smart contract as Litecoin transactions are faster and scalable with a much more secure network.

The launch of Litecoin Core:
Litecoin was not much affected by the recent bearish trend in the crypto market because of the release of Litecoin Core. The investors still believe in Litecoin and the price of the Litecoin remained above $100 mark. This actually contributes to Litecoin’s stability gaining the confidence of the traders.
Read more on : globalcoinreport

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Telegram Cryptocurrency Will Undermine Iran’s National Currency, Says Cyberspace Council Executive
Telegram’s upcoming blockchain network, TON and its native cryptocurrency, Gram, may pose security risks and challenge local currencies, or so believes Hassan Firouzabadi, the secretary of Iran's High Council for Cyberspace.
Iranian authorities and lawmakers appear to be against the messaging app, which is widely used in the country, and is believed to have been instrumental in allowing protestors to organize demonstrations in December last year.
Telegram to be blocked in Iran?
According to Al-Monitor, parliamentary member Alaeddin Boroujerdi spoke about a possible ban on Telegram in the country, and shared plans for it to be replaced with a local app.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also commented on the need for local messaging applications to eliminate monopolies, but spoke against blocking Telegram in order to achieve this goal.
However, Hassan Firouzabadi, the secretary of the High Council for Cyberspace, responsible for policies related to the internet, spoke against Telegram, calling it “an enemy of the private sector”.
Telegram crypto a threat to national currency
He also expressed concerns about Telegram’s planned cryptocurrency, terming it a threat:
“Telegram is not a dominant messenger in any country except for Iran…Telegram has officially announced that it will be used as an economic platform, and Telegram will undermine the national currency of Iran.
We cannot allow [Telegram’s virtual] currency to enter the country.”
Earlier, we reported Telegram’s plan to launch its own ICO to develop a blockchain network which would rival Bitcoin, Ethereum and all other popular cryptocurrencies.
Read more on : investing

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14 Percent Of Japan’s Young Male Workforce Invest In Cryptocurrencies, Study Shows
A survey of male employees in Japan from ages 25-30 shows that 14 percent of the participants own cryptocurrency, according to data published April 3 by Shin R25, an online magazine for young businessmen.

4,734 men nationwide participated in the Shin R25 “Questionnaire Survey on Virtual Currency” from January 2018 to March 2018. According to the survey, over a quarter of respondents that owned crypto reported that it was their first investment experience.
Of the young Japanese male employees that own crypto, 92 percent said that they entered the crypto markets “for investment,” 37.4 percent “for the time being because it is a trend,” and 19.9 percent due to “acquaintance and media recommended information.”
In regards to the value of respondents holdings, 34.5 percent own less than 50,000 yen (about $469) of crypto, while only 10.2 percent owned 1 mln yen or more ($9,360 or more).
Read more on : cointelegraph

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What’s In Store For ASIC Miner E3 And Ethereum Miners?
The world’s leading mining hardware firm Bitmain has released their long-awaited Ethereum Antminer E3 on Monday 2nd April. There were several rumors, leaks regarding the upcoming launch of Bitmain Antminer E3 Ethash ASIC Miner since February when a China-based technology news site ‘technews.cn’ published details about the expected hardware. The rumors got strengthened when a leading Wall Street research firm Susquehanna slashed price targets for leading international Chipmakers which are Nvidia and AMD claiming that they have confirmed the news that the Bitmain has started production of their Ethereum ASIC Miners.

Features & Specialties:

E3 is the first ASIC miner produced by Bitmain that is capable of mining Ethereum (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies.
It uses the Ethash/ Dagger-Hashimoto algorithm and delivers 180 MHS hashrate at the power usage of 800W.
The price tag at this sensational hardware mining tech is $800 USD.
The first batch of Antminer E3 Ethash ASIC miners is set to be shipped 16-31st July according to the information at Bitmain’s official website.
There’s a limit of purchase to ensure more buyers worldwide that is five miners per user.
The user would need an ATX PSU with sufficient 6-pin PCIe connectors and the ones on the hashing board need to be connected to the PSU for the hashing board to operate.
Ethereum’s Increasing Hash Rate:

According to the uptrend and dramatic increase in Ethereum’s hash rates in the past months, its evident that Bitmain has already started using these miners. Pre-orders are open, and it seems as the net result of Antminer E3 is going to be positive for the industry. The ASIC development and centralized hash power are currently in the hands of Bitmain only and analysts find it argumentative.

Strengths and Weaknesses of ASIC Chips:

As the name suggests Application Specific Integrated Circuit chips are known to be the most profitable and efficient way to mine cryptocurrencies. The only difference that sets apart an ASIC chip from CPU and GPU chips lies in the fact that it’s not general-purpose chip like the others. The sole application of an ASIC chip is mining a cryptocurrency and it can be rendered obsolete easily by simply changing the mining algorithm of a digital currency.

Read more on : globalcoinreport

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Electronics Giant Foxconn Signs on to Manufacture $1000 Blockchain Phone
Taiwanese electronics behemoth Foxconn is reportedly getting onboard to develop and manufacture ‘Finney’, a blockchain phone from Sirin Labs.

Codenamed the Finney, Swiss startup Sirin Labs first announced its Android-based open-source ‘blockchain’ smartphone with features including a built-in cold storage cryptocurrency wallet, encrypted communications and peer-to-peer resource sharing late last year. The startup raised $158 million for the Finney project, which includes a desktop, in an initial coin offering in December.

Bloomberg is now reporting that a subsidiary of Foxconn, the electronics giant that mass-manufactures popular hardware devices like the iPhone, has ‘agreed to help develop and produce’ the smartphone. The device will be developed with a physical switch that activates a cache of cryptocurrency-related services. The smartphone will also support and integrate all kinds of tokens, the startup said.

‘It will let owners shop on crypto friendly sites like Overstock.com and Expedia, converting cash into specialized tokens if needed,’ an excerpt from the report read. ‘Users may also activate their phone’s Wi-Fi while commuting and get paid in tokens by fellow bus riders looking for access to a wireless network.’
Read more on : ccn

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Ripple Would Pay to Play on Major US Exchanges: Report
It’s not every day we get a glimpse into what it takes for a cryptocurrency to get a listing on a major exchange. But today we learn the lengths that Ripple, the No. 3 digital coin by market cap, would go to get its XRP coin listed on the leading trading platforms alongside bitcoin and Ethereum.

According to a report in Bloomberg, the cross-border payments startup is willing to pay millions to get XRP listed on the US trading platforms where there’s the most liquidity. The report says that Ripple offered “financial incentives” to bitcoin exchanges Gemini of Winklevoss twins fame as well as Coinbase in exchange for a listing. It’s standard procedure to pay for a listing in the equities markets, but not necessarily the loosely unregulated cryptocurrency markets.

Ripple reportedly offered $1 million cash money to Gemini for a Q3 2017 listing and proposed a loan of $100 million in XRP to Coinbase with which investors could trade on the exchange. The report suggests that Ripple would have taken repayment either in fiat money or XRP, which would have given the US-based exchange an opportunity to profit from the deal.
Read more on : ccn

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide, investment advice.
Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency.