Coin News

The development of payments channels on the bitcoin network took a step forward today with new technology released by wallet startup Blockchain.

A new entity called The DAO, based on Ethereum, has raised more than $100 million since late April and will use the funds to support...

The post The DAO Raises More Than $117 Million in World's Largest Crowdfunding to Date appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Press Releases: New blockchain-based initiative in Africa Bitland aims to stamp out corruption and free up trillions of dollars in locked capital for infrastructure development. May 16, 2016 – Blockchain technology is extremely powerful, offering huge advantages of cost, transparency and reliability thanks to the immutable nature of decentralised ledgers. However, these benefits often […]

The post New Blockchain Initiative Bitland is Putting Land on the Ledger in Ghana appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The Ministry of Justice in Russia has, once again, not agreed to a draft bill put forth by the Finance Ministry seeking to ban bitcoin and introduce criminal liabilities to those who adopt, transact or mine the cryptocurrency. The Russian Ministry of Justice has disagreed with the bitcoin bill prepared by the Ministry of Justice, […]

The post Russian Ministry of Justice Disagrees with Bitcoin Ban Bill, Again appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Most people in the Bitcoin community know Paul Sztorc for his work on the Truthcoin concept (now backed by Roger Ver and currently in...

The post Bloq’s Paul Sztorc on the 4 Main Benefits of Sidechains appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Gatecoin has claimed that it lost as much as 185,000 ethers and 250 bitcoins, an amount worth roughly $2.14m at press time.

Bitcoin trading returned price to a sideways path after a short upside burst failed to achieve altitude and fizzled back toward $455. 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 Trading and Price […]

The post Bitcoin Trading Back To The Mean appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

 Blockchain, the company behind the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet, has been quietly working on an interesting project called Thunder. The Thunder network is an alternative network of nodes that lets you make off-chain bitcoin payments in seconds and settle back to the bitcoin blockchain every now and then. And it makes me excited about bitcoin all over again. Read More

In its final report on virtual currencies and distributed ledger technology concerning the likes of bitcoin and blockchain tech, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has spoken about the possibility of revising existing EU payment laws, due to the innovations afforded by virtual currencies and blockchain technology. The European Parliament’s Committee on […]

The post Bitcoin & Blockchain Could Reform European Union Payment Laws appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin Press releases: BTCPOP first introduced the ability for users to create an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in December 2015, however, you might not know about this marvellous feature and why you should be using it. An IPO is created when a company decides to sell shares to the general public. This means that the […]

The post IPO’s at BTCPOP appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

When Bob Greifeld became Nasdaq's CEO in 2003, he was presented with outdated tools and a company that was bleeding cash and rapidly losing market share.

Thirteen years later, Nasdaq has the largest market share for options and equities of any exchange in the US. Through acquisitions and partnerships, Greifeld has shaped Nasdaq into what he primarily views as a cutting-edge technology company.

During a recent interview with Business Insider, Greifeld discussed his vision for the future of Nasdaq and how it fits into the exchange industry.

What follows is that portion of our interview, edited for length and clarity.

Richard Feloni: What are you trying to create with Nasdaq for 2016, and what is your vision going forward?

Bob Greifeld: We have done five acquisitions in the last six months, the largest being International Securities Exchange [ISE] for $1.1 billion, and the others significantly smaller. Each of the five really represent a continuation, rather than an extension, of our strategic direction.

I think it's fundamentally important to understand that we are leveraging the mother ship in some core way with each of these acquisitions.

With SecondMarket, we committed to the private market. We believe that more companies will want to stay private, and this gave us more of a leadership position in that place.

We're the No.1 player in the options business and the purchase of ISE will allow us to extend our lead, after we get SEC approval on the deal. We'll have 40% market share in the US options business. And the transaction businesses are about scale and so it's always great to be the scale player.

The acquisition of Chi-X Canada expanded Nasdaq's equities trading business beyond the U.S. and the Nordics, and will ultimately enhance the trading experience for customers by promoting greater uniformity in technology and functionality across U.S. and Canadian trading venues. We believe that more competition in the Canadian market is overdue and market participants deserve a compelling alternative.

With Boardvantage, we're expanding on what we had with Director's Desk, a protected portal for board directors that replaces their big loose leaf binders.

And the same thing with Marketwired — we're building on our global newswire services.

We've done a long march from 13 years ago.

When I first got here, there was nothing strategic about what we thought about. It was about survival, because we were burning money every day. It really wasn't until after 18 months that we had the ability to put our heads up above the parapets and say, "OK, what do we want to be when we grow up?"

Feloni: And where do you see Nasdaq headed beyond this year?

Greifeld: The first thing we have to do is integrate these five acquisitions successfully, and we should have the bulk of the work done in the next year. We integrate acquisitions pretty aggressively into our culture, because the last thing I want to do is turn into a collection of companies.

On a broader perspective, we certainly identify ourselves as a technology company. I want the computers to work harder as we do higher-volume activities through them, and not have to hire lots of people to do that.

Now, in that pure technology basis, we're clearly in what I call the "applied technology" game, in that I don't want to invent basic technology, I want to be wired into the best of what is becoming available and apply it as aggressively as we can in our chosen business disciplines.

Two things that we need to be a rapid applier of stand out very clearly. One is machine learning [artificial intelligence]: We think that is coming of age for our industry, and we've announced a joint-venture with the company Digital Reasoning, which specializes in this. And the second is blockchain [the technology that powers Bitcoin].

Our relationships in the Valley and other technology centers helps us with this vision, because our relationships allow us to know what the venture capital firms are funding and what's coming down the pike.

Feloni: How do you view the competition?

Greifeld: In certain areas we are the big player in the transaction business, such as in US options, US equities, and Nordic equities.

In others, we have the great enjoyment of being the upstart. We've started Nasdaq Futures (NFX) and NLX, and those are to do financial futures and commodity-based futures, in an area where you've got existing vertical monopolies. For us, it's fun to be David going up against Goliath.

Feloni: And in terms of the industry, are you predicting that there's going to be more consolidation, like with Deutsche Börse and the London Stock Exchange?

Greifeld: I think the trend of consolidation came about when exchanges went from being mutualized organizations either owned by brokers or by the government, and as they separated out and then went public or stayed private but as an independent enterprise, then they started to think about what they could do.

It also tied to the fact that in 1971 Nasdaq pioneered the floor-less trading, and so as the markets followed the Nasdaq model and became electronic, it became a lot easier for electronic exchanges to merge.

From our vantage point now, providing technology around the globe, we know all the different order types. There are certainly different order types and some variations on market structure in different parts of the world, but there's really been a massive conversion on how exchanges operate as compared to the different practices that existed when the markets were floor-based.

So, between those two dynamics — the fact that exchanges de-mutualized and went electronic — you had the benefits of scale available through transactions. And we're obviously doing that with ISE.

The easiest transactions to affect in the exchange space is within your home country because you're under the same regulator, assuming you don't trip an anti-trust law.

But in no way, shape, or form should you be surprised at Deutsche Börse and LSE coming together.

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  The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Japan, the country’s central bank, has stated that central banks around the world “will and have” to watch the progress and developments concerning digital currencies like Bitcoin and its underlying technology, the blockchain. Hiroshi Nakaso, a deputy governor of the Bank of Japan was speaking broadly about […]

The post Central Banks Should Observe Blockchain, Says Japan’s Central Bank Official appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

As founders of bitcoin and ether exchange Gemini, the Winklevoss Twins graced us with their presence on Fox Business. The interview was lackluster and so was their “vision.” Are these guys still relevant? Ok ok, we get it. You guys almost had your day in the sun with Facebook…and it didn’t work out. So since […]

The post The Winklevoss Twins on the Future of Cryptos…Case of The “Has-Beens”? appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Goldman Sachs — which in recent years has been notoriously bearish on the state of the oil markets — increased its forecasts for the price of crude in a note to clients.

The bank predicted $45 per barrel WTI oil in the second quarter of 2016, and $50 oil in the second half of the year.

That increase in the bank's expectations is largely down to a rebalancing in the oil markets that Goldman says has come much earlier than expected.

Essentially, the huge glut of oil in the markets which has helped subdue prices in the past couple of years has finally come to an end, Goldman argues. Here's the bank's take:

The physical rebalancing of the oil market has finally started. While supply and demand surprised to the upside commensurately in 1Q16, leaving the market oversupplied by 1.4 mb/d, we believe the market has likely shifted into deficit in May. The 2Q16 deficit that we now forecast is occurring one quarter earlier than we expected mid-March, driven by both sustained strong demand as well as sharply declining production. The shift in OECD stocks will be further exacerbated by the ongoing strong Chinese inventory builds.

One of the big drivers of this rebalancing has been a series of huge, unconnected disruptions to production across the world in the last few months. In the last couple of months alone the Iraqi government decided to stop pumping oil to Turkey, Kuwaiti workers brought the country's oil industry to its knees with a strike, and a massive wildfire in Canada crippled the country's oil sands. The number of outages is almost too many to count. Thankfully, Goldman has put together a handy chart showing just where these industry altering outages have occurred:

And here is what analysts Damien Courvalin, Jeffrey Currie, Abhisek Banerjee, and Raquel Ohana have to say about their research (emphasis ours):

The recent roll-over in production is the result of somewhat offsetting cross currents. Production has rolled over faster than we had expected in China, India and non-OPEC Africa more than offset upside surprises in the US and the North Sea. Transient but recurring disruptions have more than offset larger than expected Iran and Iraq production. And while some of the disruptions will stop such as maintenance, fires and strikes, some are likely systemic, for example in Nigeria, and we now expect production there will remain curtailed for the remainder of the year. Net, this leaves us expecting a sharp decline in 2Q output.

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Gatecoin, a Hong Kong-based digital currency startup that has cited segregated client accounts as a way to minimize exposure to risks, suffered a breach and lost 250 BTC and 185,000 ETH, 15% of its crypto asset deposits. A cybersecurity firm, Tehtri Security, conducted a forensic investigation and confirmed the breach, Gatecoin announced in a statement by CEO […]

The post Bitcoin Exchange Gatecoin Hacked; 250 BTC & 185,000 ETH Lost appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

ICAP as we know it is dead.

The £2.9 billion City of London dealer-broker announced a deal to sell its global broking division to rival Tullett Prebon last year.

But on Monday the company, which buys and sells derivatives and swaps for clients, revealed it will also sell its brand name, ICAP, with the deal and reinvent itself as NEX Group.

CEO Michael Spencer, a major Tory party donor, says NEX Group "intends to lead the market in technology innovation in global financial markets." As part of this shift, Spencer says: "Euclid Opportunities, our early-stage fintech investment incubator, which finds these new investments will play a bigger and more important role as we become NEX Group plc."

ICAP needs to reinvent itself because its traditional business of brokering exotic products for clients is the toilet. In the post-2008 worlds, bankers and finance workers are looking to de-risk their businesses, not indulge in the complex bets that characterized the City in the decade before the crash.

So Spencer wants to transform ICAP into a venture capital firm to help it find the products and services that finance workers do want now.

Fintech, or financial technology, is the name given to the wave of startups that have sprung up since the financial crisis that are aiming to refine or reinvent finance using technology. Faster and cheaper tech has made businesses that would have been unthinkable even years years ago relatively cheap and easy to do.

ICAP has been making strategic investments in technology startups since the early 2000s but it has recently been stepping up activities, investing in the last year in:

• Abide Financial: A regulatory reporting platform;
• Digital Asset Holdings: A startup building new market infrastructure based on blockchain tech, the underpinning of bitcoin, and run by former JPMorgan banker Blythe Masters;
• Cloud9: A cloud-based communication platform for trades;
• Duco: A data control service;
• AcadiaSoft: An industry collaboration platform to automate collateral management.

In April ICAP also acquired ENSO Financial Analytics, a portfolio analytics provider to asset managers and hedge funds. Through deals like this ICAP, or NEX Group as we should now call it, hope to "create the world's leading multi-product global electronic transaction network for OTC products and post-trade services."

You can already see a theme emerging from ICAP's investments so far — compliance and regulation. These are the watchwords in the City after 2008 and technology offers a way to do smarter and cheaper analytics and recording of what it is you are holding and just how risky it is.

ICAP announced its plans to bet big on new products and services alongside a set of full-year results that show just why it needs to reinvent itself. Here are the key figures:

• Revenue down from £1.27 billion to £1.2 billion;
• Pre-tax profit down from £95 million in 2015 to £89 million;
• Profit margin down from 20% to 18%.

Spencer says in the results statement:

Trading conditions continue to be challenging as a result of the macro economic environment, historically low and negative interest rates and continued bank deleveraging. These headwinds have naturally impacted our performance during the year. In the US in December 2015, we saw the welcome first step in raising interest rates but in what is likely to be a long and slow journey towards more normal market conditions.

ICAP's deal with Tullett has faced some regulatory scrutiny in the US but Spencer says the deal "remains on track to complete later this year."  In 2013, ICAP was fined $87 million (£59 million) for its part in the long-running Libor manipulation scandal by the US Department of Justice.

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