Coin News

Chances are, like me, the first time you heard about the Dark Web it was described as a foul and depraved marketplace, where children, drugs, and pirated movies could be bought for mere Bitcoin. Tabloids paint it as a place where a veritable "Top 10"...

For those looking to participate in crypto-commerce, uncertainty about how the law will treat virtual currency transactions can be a stumbling block. Because crypto coins are permissionless innovation, commerce and its rules are developing from the ground up along with data and process infrastructure.  As regulators encounter bitcoin, they issue ad hoc statements about the nature of virtual currency and what it means to deal in them, setting off a furore of discussion over what the ruling or advisory means. A Patchwork of Cryptocurrency Regulation Examples of regulatory action involving cryptocurrencies include: The United States Internal Revenue Service advises that […]

The post Cryptocurrency: Searching for Legal Consistency appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Exercise. Read more. Save money. Travel. Those are the staple resolutions.

But if it’s not that complicated, why are there so many fat, dumb, poor people who don’t even have passports?

So, forget about all of the tired, regurgitated resolutions that you recycle unfulfilled year in and out. Here are twenty practical and realistic goals for 2016 that will fundamentally make your life better:

• Return your hoverboard. You look like a jackass Martin Shkreli.
• Write down your goals. Less than 10% of people fulfill their resolutions, but the ones who write them down have a much higher success rate. Take it a step further and make a list of what you want to accomplish each day, week, and month. Forget an app; go old school.
• Turn off Netflix at midnight. Just chill.
• Get a comprehensive health exam. If possible, from Donald Trump’s physician.
• Read more. Hardly an original idea, but it’s seldom accomplished. This year, try being specific. Make a list of 10-15 books - a healthy mix of fiction, non-fiction, and a few classics you should have read in college. I’ll get you started with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Mark Bowden’s Killing Pablo, Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, or this one.
• Stop drinking soda. While you are at, give up orange juice too. Instead, drink green tea with fresh ginger and manuka honey. It cancels out the ten drinks you had the night before.
• Stay in on Friday nights. Your weekend will become infinitely better, and your bank account will benefit too. It’s time to act like an adult; get drunk at brunch on Sundays instead.
• Invest in a Bitcoin wallet. Because it will be the best-performing currency in 2016.
• Come back to Twitter. Sure, engagement is down and relevance has peaked. But there is still no better way to efficiently curate news and information.
• Spend more time with old people. The Greatest Generation now makes up less than 1% of the US population. Find a World War II veteran and take him to lunch from time to time.
• Plan regular FBTs (Fake Business Trips). Get away from your life for a few days to relax, and, if need be, let some bad out. It’ll make you a better partner and parent.
• Get promoted. Forget about LinkedIn; it’s the Match.com for the underemployed. Invite your seniors out, get them into a bar and network the old fashioned way.
• Freshen up your wardrobe. There’s a reason Michael Jordan wore a brand new pair of shoes every game. While you’re at it, donate your old clothes to Career Gear or Dress for Success - non-profits that provide clothing and career guidance to low-income men and women.
• Take a class. Sign up with a friend to make it more fun and help you see it through. It could be anything - cooking, coding, or photography. The Nikon D810 SLR even comes with free classes.
• Forget about unrealistic health pledges. You don’t need some insane diet or detox regime. They don’t actually make you live longer. It just seems longer. Eat sensibly, drink in moderation, and exercise; it’s not rocket science.
• Laugh more. Socialize. Drink. Throw parties. Host drunken game nights. Upgrade your friends if necessary. It’s the life in your years, not the years in your life.
• Say no to fitness gimmicks. You don’t need to start taking the stairs or parking as far away from the Whole Foods entrance as possible. And don’t prepay for thirty personal training sessions. Take up a competitive sport instead. Remember that feeling as a kid when you’re on the field, not thinking about anything else? Most of us have forgotten how great that feels. So join a basketball league or find someone to play tennis with. And get some of these.
• Skip the dramatic savings scheme. Giving up the $5 daily latte? Bringing your lunch to work? That just makes you the office pariah. Don’t go crazy with anti-social or unrealistic goals. Keep it simple; spend less than you make, and save up for the big-ticket items until you can afford them.
• Declare the bedroom technology free. Does this even need an explanation? It means more time for reading, sleep, and sex. And go ahead and upgrade your mattress. We’re talking about 1/3^rd of your life.
• Stay in on New Years Eve. It’s amateur night and it rarely lives up to your expectations anyhow. This year, stay home with a bottle of something nice. Then start January 1 early and productively.

John LeFevre is the creator of @GSElevator on Twitter, and the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Straight To Hell: True Tales of Deviance, Debauchery, And Billion-Dollar Deals

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Animated map shows all the major oil and gas pipelines in the US

As I walked by a podcast interview at a recent Bitcoin conference, I was made to laugh. “People say Bitcoin mining isn’t profitable. Well, if you mine Bitcoin now, and if the price goes up, doesn’t that mean Bitcoin was profitable?”  The key word there being “if.” That “if” makes the above-stated proposition nothing more than speculation, but leave it to a Bitcoiner to turn speculation on a nascent technology into a workable business model that people - especially young bitcoiners - can depend upon. The reality in Bitcoin is the general pay for most people is around $10 per […]

The post Warning: If You Choose A Career In Bitcoin You Might Die Poor And Alone appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

There are a variety of tribes on Wall Street — the traders, the bankers, the analysts, the managers.

Each requires a specific skill set. 

Business Insider caught up with James Koudounis, the CEO of Japanese investment bank Mizuho Securities USA, to get a sense of what makes a good trader. Based on his response, it's clear he thinks the game has changed.

Gone are the days of swinging for the fences. 

"Awareness of risk is critical in today’s environment.  We’ve seen that going after the 'big trade' at all costs is no longer a workable strategy," Koudounis told Business Insider. "Traders should be hungry, but also need to think about when it makes sense to pull back and manage risk."

Mizuho Financial Group', Mizuho's parent company, is the second largest financial services group in Japan.  They don't have a huge presence in the US, but its Americas business was the right size (on the smaller side) and had the right balance sheet (a strong capital position) coming out of the financial crisis.

Senior mentors

As such, Koudounis is focused on growing the company and they've been expanding their credit and equities businesses substantially over the last year.

There are two ways to get a good trader. You can hire them or you can train them.

The layoffs of the financial crisis created a ton of opportunity to hire great traders as they left big banks.

Training them, though, is about to become a bit more difficult. The market is changing. Rates are going up, China is slowing and the world is looking different.

"A lot of the up and coming young professionals on the Street today were not working during the turbulent period of the global financial crisis in 2008, nor previous market dislocations like what happened during the collapse of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) or the Asian Contagion," Koudounis said.

"Good traders today need to heed the advice of senior mentors to fully understand how things can go terribly wrong if you are not managing the risk in your portfolio properly."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: JIM CRAMER: This is where you should invest your first $10,000

Bitcoin price is hitting upside resistance and the sense is that bitcoin wants to follow its primary valuator - the US dollar - in a rally. There is reason to refrain from trading right now, as the chart technicals show risk to the upside. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using the code CCN29. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: 14h00 UTC BTCC 1-Hour Chart From the analysis pages of xbt.social, earlier today: Price launched higher, today, but hit an overhead […]

The post Bitcoin Price: Serious About Advance Or Not? appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

London-based Standard Chartered and Singapore-based bank DBS have partnered together to develop a distributed ledger for trade finance in Singapore after successfully testing the technology among each other. As reported by Bloomberg, the two banks are coming together to work and develop a distributed ledger in order to make transactions simpler and more transparent in trade finance. The publication adds that the two banks have tested the distributed ledger between themselves, successfully, and will invite other companies to collaborate with the now proof-of-concept system in 2016. The collaboration represents the latest effort in banks investing into their own distributed ledgers, […]

The post Standard Chartered & DBS Work on Blockchain Tech for Trade Finance appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Banks are going bananas for blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin.

Blockchain can revolutionize mainstream finance by ripping out huge amounts of processing cost, and millions of dollars are flowing into companies building the technology. 

A working group of 42 world-leading banks has been set up to establish standard practices, and top banks like UBS, Santander, and Barclays are tinkering with the technology themselves behind closed doors.

Blockchain is technology that uses a distributed ledger and complex cryptography to regulate bitcoin transactions. What that means in practice is if people want to trade or transact with each other online they can do it directly, rather than go through a middleman like a clearing house.

Cutting out the middle man makes things faster and cheaper, so banks are desperate to find a way to adapt the technology to traditional finance. Goldman Sachs says the technology has the potential to change "well, everything."

"The market for private blockchain 24 months ago was zero," says Jeremy Millar, a partner at boutique technology bank Magister Advisors. "Now we’re at a stage in the market where it has already gone into specialisation. This is a market that’s poised to scale incredibly rapidly."

Millar co-authored an extensive report on bitcoin and blockchain technology that came out this week. It's arguably the most extensive overview of the ecosystems surrounding the technology out there.

I got on the phone to him this week to hear how he sees the space evolving and one big take away is just how fast the blockchain space is growing.

"This is the fastest growing market that I have seen in enterprise technology since the internet," says Millar. "Adoption of these projects in the banks is going to be much faster than people think."

Everyone gets a win. It’s not just the uber-geek that gets the benefit.

Millar's report says almost $1 billion (£670 million) has been invested in bitcoin and blockchain-related technology over the past three years. Well-known financial firms like Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Nasdaq are all investing in the technology.

So why are banks moving so fast on blockchain? A big reason, Millar says, is because the benefits of the technology are so wide ranging.

"Everyone gets a win. It’s not just the uber-geek that gets the benefit. The CIO gets to replace very expensive, outdated mainframe infrastructure with something better.

"The business owner gets to release capital — this is very important. With the new regulations, post-2008 and Basel III, the collateral and capital that’s required against any trade has increased. Reducing settlement windows allows the banks to do more trades or release more capital."

Banks legally have to put cash aside to cover a trade until it's completed. That's to guard against the risk of a settlement house — the middle man — rejecting the trade, going bust, or any other potential risk.

But by cutting out the middle man the blockchain makes the settlement period — the time it takes to complete a trade — much shorter. That means you can get more bang for your buck from the money set aside to cover the trade, as the efficiency gains theoretically mean you can get more trades done in the same time period.

Millar adds: "The compliance team gets a win too because if everything is cryptographically signed on a blockchain, two things happen. One, you will spot misbehavior in real-time and two, after the fact no one can tamper with the evidence."

Millar expects the blockchain markets rapid development to continue for the foreseeable future thanks to the sheer level of money being pumped into the sector. He also expects more businesses to evolve around the technology, such as blockchain analytics.

"This is the banks internet moment," Millar says. "This is their moment in the sun. All of a sudden being a CTO (chief technology officer) or director of information at a bank is sexy."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How the buying power of your dollar has changed over the past 60 years

Citing unnamed but informed sources, Japanese publications are reporting that a working group under the Financial System Council have complied a draft of Japan’s first ever cryptocurrency regulations. Under the new proposed rules, bitcoin exchanges and those dealing with virtual currencies must register with the government to fall under a regulatory framework. The rules, as reported by The Japan Times, are drafted by a working group under the Financial System Council (FSA). The proposals and discussion for the new rules began yesterday, while the bills required to enact the new rules and measures are expected to be introduced during the […]

The post Bitcoin Exchanges in Japan Must Be Registered under New Proposed Regulations appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

One week after the SEC approved Overstock’s plan to issue stock via the Bitcoin blockchain, company CEO Patrick Byrne gave the keynote address - called “The Virtues of Crypto-Settlement” -  at the Inside Bitcoins Conference in the San Diego Convention Center. Byrne, whose firm was bitcoin’s first major retailer, spoke at length about his firm’s plans, launched at the website, t0.com. He lamented the “crazy system” of Wall Street banks and said there is “all kinds of room for mischief.” That’s why Byrne has developed an alternative. “This system is transparent and reduces  costs we believe 80%, maybe as much […]

The post Patrick Byrne Details t0.com At Inside Bitcoins San Diego appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.