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Bloomberg’s Editorial Board has published a piece putting the entire idea of how we use cash as a society under a microscope. While cash has undoubtedly had a moment for a few thousand years, Bloomberg’s editorial piece speculates on why cash has become somewhat passe and the goes on to address some of the many […]

The post What Does The Future Look Like Without Cash? appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

During the recent YunQi Computing Conference in Shanghai, Alipay, an online payment platform of Alibaba, the world’s seventh-largest Internet company and popular Chinese e-commerce corporation, announced it may supply a cloud service platform based on blockchain technology.

The Hangzhou-based corporation has become increasingly interested in blockchain technology after observing the initiatives of leading financial organizations and institutions such as Nasdaq, which integrated blockchain applications into the conventional finance sector.

The decentralized and transparent Bitcoin blockchain technology enables anyone on the network to send a peer-to-peer transaction, without the involvement of a third-party application. The independence of the network from intermediaries and the traditional financial platform significantly reduces the costs involved in settling transactions and payments for companies like Alipay.

The Value of Stored Credit Information

“If the blockchain will be widely used, with more and more financial institutions and commercial organizations applying the technology, ordinary people will participate, which will lead to the storage of information in it,” said Alibaba Group Vice President and President of Research Institute Gao Hongbing. “The final value of blockchain is the storage of credit information, which is the heart of business and finance. In the past, we obtained this by ranking the companies.”

He further emphasized the significance of big data, and the application of blockchain technology in the field.

“The usage of the blockchain will grow with the transaction records stored in it,” Hongbing said.

Today, Alipay serves more than 350 million registered users and settles more than 80 million transactions per day. The dominant Chinese payment network controls nearly 80 percent of the entire mobile payment provider market in China and supports 109 million active users on its Alipay Wallet platform.

The growth of cloud computing, Internet infrastructure and financial platforms such as Alipay of Alibaba recorded a revenue increase of 128 percent year-on-year during the third quarter of 2015. According to the official financial statement of Alibaba, the company recorded “$289 million in revenue for cloud computing and Internet infrastructure.”

As a response to the growing demand for simple yet robust financial platforms to process and settle cheap payments, Alipay is planning the launch of a Bitcoin blockchain-based cloud payment platform for existing Alipay users.

Growing Demand for Alipay

Over the past year, a growing number of global corporations and conglomerates have begun to offer Alipay to clients as one of their main payment options. The world’s largest airline by number of destinations, United Airlines, for example, announced that the company has officially integrated Alipay into its system due to the growing demand from Chinese citizens, who account for nearly 3 percent of foreign visitors to the United States.

“We are very pleased to partner with United and help them make online booking from China a hassle-free experience,” said Jingming Li, President of Alipay U.S. “By enabling the option to use China’s most trusted and secure payment system, Chinese travelers using United’s website can expect the safe, easy and consistent experience they have come to expect, while avoiding any currency barriers.”

Earlier this month, major Japanese department store chain Kintetsu also announced that the corporation has introduced the Chinese online payment solution in four of its department stores in Osaka.

“Alipay is a payment platform with over 400 million users in China. Chinese customers will be able to use the Alipay app on their cellphones to pay for the commodities they have bought in our department stores, which will be very convenient for them.” said Aki Shokyoku, foreign business director of Abeno Harukas Kintetsu Main Store. “We want to make payment more convenient for Chinese tourists so as to attract more Chinese customers.”

Although Alipay is still unsure whether it will gear toward the integration of the Bitcoin network or the development of its own independent blockchain network, the company’s executives present at the YunQi conference clearly stated that Alipay will most likely introduce a blockchain-backed cloud payment service in 2016.

If the Alipay team successfully integrates Bitcoin into their existing platform, it will immediately enable 400 million users in its system to use Bitcoin in settling international payments and transactions. Arguably, this could be the largest Bitcoin integration by volume to date.

Photo leighklotz / Flickr(CC)

The post Chinese E-Commerce Giant Alibaba Explores Blockchain-based Cloud Service Platform appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

In January Bitcoin Magazine reported that PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the world’s largest professional services firm, had started an aggressive blockchain-based fintech development program and recruited 15 technology specialists to explore the application and commercialization of the blockchain technology.

“The pressure to reduce costs while generating revenue growth is an ongoing goal of organizations all over the world,” notes PwC’s Blockchain Solution Portfolio website. “As those goals become increasingly difficult to obtain, many forward-thinking companies are beginning to consider innovative peer-to-peer technologies for their potential to reinvent business processes.”

More information on PwC’s blockchain strategy and technology partners is starting to emerge. Blockstream is one of the first companies to announce a strategic partnership with PwC to bring blockchain technology and services to companies around the world. Together, PwC and Blockstream will help companies evaluate cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies against business needs.

Blockstream, a company focused on implementing sidechains and accelerating innovation in digital currencies, was formed by the authors of the Bitcoin Sidechains whitepaper “Enabling Blockchain Innovations with Pegged Sidechains,” released in October 2014. In November 2014, Blockstream closed a $21 million seed funding round with nearly 40 high-profile investors.

The Bitcoin Sidechains paper envisages an ecosystem of “sidechains” separate from the main Bitcoin blockchain but interoperable with it by means of two-way pegs, allowing for the transfer of assets between sidechains and the main blockchain. A sidechain can implement changes from Bitcoin Core, for example, more powerful scripting features or more watertight privacy.

Blockstream launched Sidechain Elements, a sidechain development framework with open source code and developer sidechains, and a first commercial production sidechain, called Liquid, which is meant to improve capital efficiency and market liquidity by facilitating rapid and secure transfers between accounts held at any participating exchange or brokerage.

“For our clients, understanding new world applications of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, adapting it for myriad uses, and using it optimally are critical to improving financial security, efficiency and compliance,” said PwC FinTech Co-Leader Haskell S. Garfinkel. “PwC is teaming with Blockstream to offer our joint knowledge and capabilities to clients – giving them one place to go, maximizing expertise, talent and assets from both organizations.”

PwC analysts see three trends related to blockchain that they believe will be important in 2016: Companies will need to protect their intellectual property as they explore new collaborative opportunities with customers, suppliers and competitors; large financial institutions will need strategic plans to set parameters for technology risk-taking; and market participants will start to develop the processes that surround the transactional layer.

“Blockchain technology has the potential to open the door to revolutionary possibilities in multiple industries,” added PwC FinTech Co-Leader Dean Nicolacakis. “As we kick off 2016, we’ll be working with Blockstream across our practice areas to bring joint expertise, thought leadership, training, pilots and full-scale implementations to market.”

In related news, Eris Industries announced a strategic partnership with PwC. “We’re very pleased about this and looking forward to accomplishing great things in the coming year,” said Eris Industries’ COO and General Counsel Preston Byrne.

“Eris is a universal blockchain platform capable of running any client for a public blockchain and any client for a permissioned blockchain which is open sourced,” notes a Microsoft post on the partners in Microsoft’s Blockchain as a Service ecosystem. “The Eris platform greatly reduces the complexity of creating blockchain-based applications. Integrate multiple blockchain, distributed file storage, and other distributed systems into a cohesive application. Eris also makes it simple and easy for your organization to get started using permissionable, smart-contract capable blockchains.”

These two partnerships indicate main focus areas for PwC’s blockchain fintech program. PwC stated that they decided to look into Bitcoin and its underlying blockchain technology in response to the growing demand of their clients and investors. PwC has reviewed almost 1,000 blockchain startups against client’s needs to create a solution portfolio to support the blockchain needs of financial institutions around the world.

Photo Rick Gonzalez / Flickr(CC)

The post PwC Partners with Blockstream and Eris Industries to Create Blockchain Solution Portfolio appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The former Secret Service agent convicted of stealing bitcoins from Silk Road seems to have been planning to skip his prison sentence and leave the country.

The post Corrupt Silk Road Investigator Re-Arrested Trying to Flee the US appeared first on WIRED.

Japanese venture capital firm SBI Investment is leading a "multi-million dollar" Series B funding round in bitcoin exchange Kraken.

The long-lasting block size dispute has catapulted into the center of attention again. One of the most talked-about developments is Segregated Witness, of which a public testnet iteration was launched last week. The innovation as recently proposed by Blockstream co-founder and Bitcoin Core developer Dr. Pieter Wuille is a centerpiece of a scalability “roadmap” set out by Bitcoin Core.

To find out where the broader development community stands on Segregated Witness, Bitcoin Magazine reached out to library and wallet developers, those who will need to do the heavy lifting in order to utilize the innovation once rolled out.

In part 6 of this series: Electrum developer Thomas Voegtlin.

Segregated Witness Highly Supportable

Electrum – a hybrid model of light clients for end users and full node servers run by hosts – is one of the most-used wallets in the Bitcoin ecosystem today; according to Voegtlin’s estimations, his software processes up to 10 percent of all Bitcoin transactions. The developer has started experimenting with the Segregated Witness testnet, and will try to integrate it into his wallet once rolled out on the Bitcoin network.

Speaking to Bitcoin Magazine, Voegtlin said:

“I like Segregated Witness because it makes Bitcoin cleaner, by separating transaction data from script data. That separation has the benefit of finally removing transaction malleability, which is much needed. It also opens the door for future extensions of the scripting language, enabling all sorts of new use cases. And of course, I’m favorable to an increase in the network capacity.”

The developer believes that the added effort to integrated Segregated Witness is within acceptable range.

“It will be very easy to support transacting to Segregated Witness addresses,” Voegtlin explained. “But to really support Segregated Witness, we need to change address generation in the wallet, and the way transactions are signed. The first step will be to update the Electrum servers, in order to index Segregated Witness scripts – then to update the client. I can combine the server work with a more general update which I planned to do anyway. All in all, that will probably keep me busy for a few months – but the added effort for Segregated Witness is manageable.”

Soft Fork Best Overall

The Bitcoin Core development team plans to roll out Segregated Witness as a soft fork in April of this year. Once a super-majority of miners agrees on this solution, wallets can utilize the benefits – including almost 1 megabyte of added block space for transactions.

But this strategy is now being contested by recently launched Bitcoin Core competitor Bitcoin Classic. Bitcoin Classic plans to deploy a 2-megabyte block size increase through a hard fork instead, meaning all full nodes on the network need to switch.

Voegtlin explained that he has no strong position on the preferred block size limit itself – though he regrets that technical discussion has taken a backseat lately.

“I am not in a position to tell what the best block size is,” Voegtlin said. “Unfortunately, the block size debate has been dominated by quasi-religious attitudes, conflicts of interest, struggles of power and very little scientific data. I wish it was merely a technical issue. However, when a group of people proposes to hard fork Bitcoin against the will of its core developers, it stops being a technical issue, it becomes political.”

As such, Voegtlin believes that a soft fork would be the best way to go, for now.

“If we lived in a perfect world, where all developers agree on the direction Bitcoin should take, then a hard fork would be better, because it would be cleaner,” he said. “However, after all the controversy we had, and the various attempts to impose a hard fork against the will of Bitcoin Core developers, I believe a soft fork is preferable. Not for technical reasons, but for political reasons.”

For more information on Segregated Witness, see Bitcoin Magazine’s three-part series on the subject, or part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 of this development series.

The post Electrum Developer Thomas Voegtlin: Soft Fork Preferable for Political Reasons appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Although the block size debate has been the main point of conflict within the Bitcoin community over the past year, the reality is that this conversation is more about the larger topic of scalability. Different Bitcoin users would like to see the network scale via specific methods, and the two main parties in this debate are now Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Classic.

Along with the block size limit, the Lightning Network, and Segregated Witness, another Bitcoin feature that has been covered in controversy is Replace-by-Fee (RBF). Bitcoin Core Contributor Jonas Schnelli recently discussed this new feature, which has been implemented in Bitcoin Core 0.12, during a presentation at a Bitcoin Meetup Switzerland.

Satoshi Originally Implemented Full RBF

Schnelli started his talk by pointing out that Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto originally implemented RBF.

Although transaction replacement was disabled by Nakamoto in 2010, the commit disabling the feature came with the comment that it was only being turned off “for now.” The comment next to the code related to transaction replacement in Nakamoto’s original code reads, “Allow replacing with a newer version of the same transaction.”

Schnelli described how transaction replacement once worked on the Bitcoin network:

“It was always possible – or back then it was possible – that if you did a transaction, until that transaction ended up in a block, you could change the transaction fully by just doing something different.”

RBF Helps Avoid Transaction Delays

There are advantages to being able to replace a Bitcoin transaction with a new, updated one. For example, if a user has included a transaction fee that is too low, the ability to replace the transaction with another one containing a higher fee allows users to make sure their transactions do not get stuck with a status of “unconfirmed” for long periods of time. Users are also able to correct errors made when creating a transaction via RBF.

Jonas Schnelli noted that this functionality makes sense to him:

“This makes sense, in my opinion. If I do a payment and I find out, ‘Oh, no – wrong amount,’ or, ‘Oh, no. The fees are wrong,’ I can change it.”

0-Confirmation Doesn’t Work with RBF

The controversial aspect of RBF is that it does not work well with 0-confirmation transactions. When users are able to replace transactions before they are placed into a block, that essentially makes unconfirmed transactions much riskier. Many merchants and payment processors rely on unconfirmed transactions for real-world commerce.

Schnelli described this issue during his talk:

“0-confirmation by Satoshi’s whitepaper was always insecure, but because people have built systems on it, we have to make sure that it’s stable, that people can buy stuff instantly. I mean, you can’t wait ten minutes when you pay for a coffee; I agree.”

On the issue of the security of 0-confirmation transactions, Bitcoin Core contributor Peter Todd recently wrote a blog post where he outlined the current inability of bitcoin wallets to properly protect users against double spends.

Merchants Shouldn’t Be Afraid of RBF

Even with the security concerns often pointed out by Todd and others, it should be noted that the current version of RBF is opt-in.

Jonas Schnelli explained the optional nature of RBF during his talk at Bitcoin Meetup Switzerland:

“When you create a transaction, you can decide, ‘Should I be able to replace a transaction or not?’ If you just create transactions as you did in the past, it’s not replaceable. Nothing is broken; everything works as it was before. But now we can opt in – set the flag on that transaction – and then it gives you the chance to replace a transaction until it’s mined.”

In other words, merchants should not be vulnerable to an RBF-powered double spend because RBF transactions can be differentiated from traditional Bitcoin transactions.

As Schnelli explained during his presentation:

“Merchants can reject RBF transactions … If somebody pays you with a replace-by-fee transaction, you don’t want to accept it if it’s a 0-confirmation [transaction].”

Kyle Torpey is a freelance journalist who has been following Bitcoin since 2011. His work has been featured on VICE Motherboard, Business Insider, RT’s Keiser Report and many other media outlets. You can follow @kyletorpey on Twitter.

The post Bitcoin Core Developer Jonas Schnelli Explains Controversial Transaction Replace-by-Fee Feature appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin price is showing some recognizable indications in the 4hr chart where price has failed to make new lows and is apparently finding support. 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 […]

The post Bitcoin Price Holds Support Again appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

7 months ago, CCN first covered the launch of Xotika.TV as one of the newest and best live cam sites where users enjoy a friendly atmosphere and beautiful performers without giving up their privacy. In the coming weeks, Xotika.TV will exit their beta and bringing a variety of fresh new features to their users. Currently, Xotika.TV […]

The post Xotika.TV To Exit Beta After 7 Months of Adding New Features and One Epic Bitcoin Tip appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A new project called ‘The Bitverse’ looks to creating websites that cannot be censored or suppressed by anchoring itself to the Bitcoin blockchain. Author, physicist, ex-Peace Corps member and current software developer Andrew Barisser shared a blog post today on Medium where he talks about his latest project to build what he sees as the beginnings of […]

The post “The Bitverse” – Potential For A Trustless, Decentralized Website Based On The Bitcoin Blockchain appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has begun the trial of a blockchain project that may prove to be a landmark endeavor in bringing cost-cutting and easier trading to the banking industry. The blockchain project is facilitated by the bank’s collaboration with blockchain-startup Digital Asset Holdings (DAH). The largest bank in the United States by assets – […]

The post JPMorgan Begins Blockchain Trials appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The team from IDEO Futures looks at recent challenges facing bitcoin, and expresses its belief that bitcoin and blockchain still hold much promise.

If 2015 was the year of the blockchain, perhaps 2016 will be the year of alternatives to Bitcoin. Since midway point 2015, the Bitcoin community has argued to no end about the future of the Bitcoin protocol. The core of the debate revolves around whether the software should be soft-forked or hard-forked, technical terminology relating […]

The post An Exodus From Bitcoin to Alternative Digital Currencies appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

By Adam Jourdan

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A Chinese court has fined two domestic units of U.S. food supplier OSI Group [OSIGP.UL] up to 2.4 million yuan ($364,875) and handed prison sentences to 10 of its employees for producing and selling inferior products.

The verdict marks the end of a long-running probe into OSI after a safety scandal in 2014 dragged in fast-food giants McDonald's Corp and Yum Brands Inc .

The Shanghai Jiading People's Court said in a statement on its Weibo microblog on Monday that Yang Liqun, a general manager at OSI China, would be sentenced to three years in prison and deported. It wasn't clear whether Yang, who the court said was an Australian citizen, would serve jail time in China.

OSI said it did not have an immediate comment on the verdict, which follows a trial held at the end of December. Lawyers for the company did not immediately respond to phoned and emailed requests for comment.

The Australian embassy in China did not have an immediate comment on the case.

The Jiading court statement said Yang and other workers at OSI's China units had reused products from returned or canceled orders in order to avoid financial losses, meaning that some unapproved products had entered the market.

It added nine other people in the case would be given shorter jail terms and would have to pay fines. Four of the nine would have their jail sentences suspended, it said.

The court added the punishments were relatively lenient because the defendants had been cooperative in the investigation. People with direct knowledge of the case had feared the fine could be much larger.

China is trying to clean up its reputation for food safety scandals, which range from recycled "gutter oil" and "zombie meat" to crops tainted with heavy metals. Senior Chinese leaders recently said food safety in the country remained "grim".

The OSI case broke in July, 2014, when a Chinese TV report alleged to show workers at a Shanghai unit of OSI using out-of-date meat and doctoring production dates, a scandal which rippled as far afield as Japan and prompted apologies from OSI clients McDonald's and Yum.

A senior executive for OSI in China told the official Xinhua news agency last July the scandal had cost the firm close to a billion dollars in lost revenue.

(Reporting by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Bitcoin Press Release: Vancouver, CAN – Among the various digital currency hardware wallets to emerge last year, the Washington-based company KeepKey sticks out for its elegance, simplicity, and security. The device and software, in the form of Chrome extension, remove the nuances of securing a wallet and can be setup in minutes. The KeepKey software […]

The post Premium Hardware Wallet KeepKey Partners with The Vanbex Group appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Good morning! Here's what you need to know in markets on Monday.

China’s manufacturing sector missed growth forecasts in January. China’s official performance of manufacturing index printed at 49.4, down from 49.7 in December and missing market expectations of a read of 49.6. It was the sixth month in succession that the index came in below the 50 level that separates expansion from contraction, and marked the steepest decline in activity since August 2012.

Barclays and Credit Suisse are poised to settle US federal and state charges that they misled investors in their dark pools, with Barclays admitting it broke the law and agreeing to pay $70 million (£50 million), according to a person familiar with the matter. The settlements between the banks and the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Attorney General, which are expected to be formally announced on Monday, will mark the two largest fines ever paid in connection with cases involving dark pools.

Chinese markets are diving after the weak Chinese manufacturing numbers. China's benchmark Shanghai Composite is down 2.4% at the time of writing (6.25 a.m. GMT/1.25 a.m. ET) and the Hong Kong Hang Seng is down 0.82%. Japan's Nikkei closed up 1.98%.

European manufacturing growth figures are coming. Estimates for growth in January are due for Italy, France, Germany, Greece, the UK, and the Eurozone as a whole. The PMI figures will be released by Markit from 8.50 a.m. GMT (3.50 a.m. ET) onwards. UK growth is forecast to be 51.8, down from a reading of 51.9 in December.

HSBC is imposing a hiring and pay freeze across the bank globally in 2016, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Like numerous other global banks, HSBC is in the midst of a cost-cutting drive to boost profitability and returns to shareholders. Europe's biggest bank is pushing through with plans for annual cost savings of up to $5 billion (£3.5 billion) by 2017.

Nigeria has asked the World Bank and African Development Bank for a $3.5 billion (£2.4 billion) loan, according to The Financial Times. The request comes as Africa's largest economy grapples with a $15 billion (£10.5 billion) budget deficit in the wake of the oil crash that has seen prices fall about 70% in the last year and a half.

JPMorgan Chase is partnering with start-up Digital Asset Holdings to launch a trial project using blockchain technology that could reduce the cost and complexity of trading, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. The agreement comes as another sign that blockchain, which is best known as the basis of the digital currency Bitcoin, has wide-ranging applications for some of Wall Street's biggest banks.

But Citi warns there's a risk that blockchain technology could turn banks into just "dumb pipes" — infrastructure for nimble financial technology startups to funnel money around and earn the bulk of fees. Banks are going wild for the blockchain, the technology first invented to underpin bitcoin. Also known as "distributed ledger" technology, blockchain uses complex cryptography and a wide network of duplicated ledgers to let people transact directly with one another online without going through a middleman.

Two of Britain’s high street giants have found Syrian refugee children working in their clothing factories in Turkey, leading to calls for other retailers to investigate their own supply chains. The Independent reports that H&M and Next were the only retailers that admitted to identifying child labour in supplier factories in Turkey, but there are fears that the phenomenon could be far more widespread after several other companies failed to answer questions on the use of Syrian workers in their factories.

Toyota said on Monday it would halt production at all of its car assembly plants in Japan for a week due to a steel shortage following an explosion at a steel plant operated by one of its affiliates. The world's biggest automaker said on Saturday that a blast at an Aichi Steel Corp plant on January 8 had curbed production of steel parts, but gave no specifics on how car production would be affected.

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NOW WATCH: These are the watches worn by the smartest and most powerful men in the world

Low electricity rates in Washington and Oregon have attracted bitcoin miners. But the influx has also courted some controversy after one utility along the Columbia River proposed raising rates specifically on the bitcoiners, according to Northwest News Network, a collaboration of public radio stations. Washington and Oregon have low electric rates on account of hydropower dams. The utility, the […]

The post Cheap Energy Draws Bitcoin Miners To Northwest, Bringing Discriminatory Rate Hike Controversy appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.