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The co-founder of an Australian digital currency startup has been indicted for his alleged involvement in a fraudulent text messaging scheme.

Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada, and five other Canadian banks (like a growing number of banks around the world) are experimenting...

The post Canadian Banks Experiment With Blockchain Technology; Fintech Sector Calls for Regulatory Certainty appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

32-year-old Steve Manos of Lake Worth, Florida was robbed at knifepoint as he attempted to buy $28,000 in bitcoin earlier this week. On a late Sunday night this week, Steve Manos thought he was partaking in a routine bitcoin sale with two men he had done business with in the past. Manos was looking to […]

The post Bitcoin Buyer Robbed of $28,000 at Knifepoint appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin is designed as a peer-to-peer network, where nodes randomly connect to other nodes. Transactions and blocks are transmitted over...

The post On Relay: How Different Bitcoin Developers Are Speeding Up the Network (Part 1) appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin price toys with gravity after a non-committal Fed rates hold. Few large players, who have little perceived need for Bitcoin’s features, have any reason to hold a slumping commodity while stocks push to new highs. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join […]

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: Sideways Then Down appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

MIT’s Media Lab is where brilliant people work on some of the most creative tech projects in the world. And if they get hungry there’s a vending machine just down the hall. But you won’t find Cheetos or cookies. This vending machine exclusively stocks Soylent. And it takes Bitcoin. And it has a QR code. I’m suddenly terrified for our future.

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A Florida man was reportedly robbed at knifepoint during a sale of $28,000 in bitcoin this week.

Print section UK Only Article:  standard article Issue:  The new political divide Fly Title:  Schumpeter Main image:  20160730_WBD000_0.jpg Rubric:  For the time being at least, human judgment is still a better bet than cold-hearted code BUSINESS could be such a breeze—if it weren’t for those pesky humans. Imagine contracts that enforce themselves and are not subject to interpretation by, for instance, rent-seeking lawyers. Or envisage autonomous corporations, made up of bundles of automatic agreements, which could send their investors dividends whenever profits reach a certain, specified level and not just when the board of directors has had a good lunch. Such “smart contracts” are all the rage among futurist backers of the blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin, a digital currency. In simple terms, these are pieces of software that represent a business arrangement and execute themselves automatically under pre-determined circumstances. As well as making businesses more efficient, ...

Blockai, a San Francisco, Calif.-based technology company, has developed a copyright service that uses the bitcoin blockchain to allow artists to protect their creative work in the digital age. While the Internet has unleashed a wealth of opportunities for creative work, protecting content has posed a big challenge, especially for independent producers of digital art, […]

The post Blockai Taps the Bitcoin Blockchain to Protect Creative Content appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

In this opinion piece, lawyer Stephen Palley argues a recent court decision that found bitcoin isn't money is unlikely to set precedent.

Open source blockchain developer Blockstream, notable for its endeavor for developing sidechains for the bitcoin blockchain has acquired multi-wallet provider GreenAddress. The acquisition, it says, will help the strengthen its sidechain platform. In an announcement yesterday, bitcoin blockchain-centric Blockstream revealed its acquisition of European multisig bitcoin wallet GreenAddress, in a move that will further accelerate […]

The post Blockstream Acquires Bitcoin Wallet GreenAddress to Advance Sidechains Project appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Rory Cellan-Jones, a BBC technology writer, recently took advantage of Estonia’s e-Residency program and became an Estonian resident. He now has a plastic card with an embedded chip that confirms his identity. The e-Residency platform is an electronic identity system that Estonian residents and those with business interests in Estonia use to access government services. The […]

The post British Beeb Journo Becomes an Estonian e-Resident appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Prior to the Brexit vote, an independence movement fizzled in Scotland. In the wake of Brexit, some Scots are reconsidering independence. In considering what went wrong in 2014, some blame failure to sufficiently address currency issues. In the interest of not making the same mistake again, some Scots want to consider how a national currency would […]

The post Cryptocurrency among National Currency Options for an Independent Scotland appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence "Payments Briefing" subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

WePay, a US-based processor that handles digital transactions for platforms like GoFundMe, FreshBooks, and Constant Contact, announced its expansion into the UK market on Tuesday.

The firm will begin providing its white-label integrated payments service to UK customers, marking the firm’s first expansion outside of North America. That expansion, which also includes the opening of new offices in London and Rhode Island, could make the company a leading provider of payments-as-a-service for platforms looking to move into cross-border processing.  

The UK’s strong e-commerce market gives WePay a broad addressable audience.

• The UK’s e-commerce market is the third largest in the world, trailing just the US and China. And consumer e-commerce spend in the UK was $1,524 per capita last year, higher than the European average overall as well as countries like Germany, France, and Sweden. Consumer willingness to spend online for goods likely translates to the platform-based merchants that WePay targets. 
• And the popularity of UK-US cross-border commerce gives WePay the potential to capitalize on growth among existing clients as well. Forty-nine percent of all US-based cross-border transactions go to UK sellers. By helping existing clients integrate international or cross-border payments, WePay could ultimately increase its processing volume, which in turn would raise the firm’s revenue. 

WePay could gain a competitive advantage by easing frictions associated with international processing. WePay CEO Bill Clerico noted that going international is challenging for companies that offer payments. That's likely because of complex and often inaccessible regulatory guidelines.

WePay worked with UK and EU regulators, credit card associations, and financial institutions in order to "ensure a robust European payments infrastructure," which could drastically simplify international integration for its clients. That simplicity could make WePay a more compelling option than its peers for platforms that might be looking to expand abroad.

WePay is one piece of the larger payments ecosystem, which contains acquirers and processors, issuers, gateways, card networks, and more.

Evan Bakker and John Heggestuen, analysts at BI Intelligence, have compiled a detailed report on the payments ecosystem that drills into the industry to explain how a broad range of transactions are processed, including prepaid and store cards, as well as revealing which types of companies are in the best and worst position to capitalize on the latest industry trends.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• 2016 will be a watershed year for the payments industry. Payments companies are improving security, expanding their mobile offerings, and building commerce capabilities that will give consumers a more compelling reason to make purchases using digital devices.
• Payments is an extremely complex industry. To understand the next big digital opportunity lies, it's critical to understand how the traditional credit- and debit-processing chain works and what roles acquirers, processors, issuing banks, card networks, independent sales organizations, gateways, and software and hardware providers play.
• Alternative technologies could disrupt the processing ecosystem. Devices ranging from refrigerators to smartwatches now feature payment capabilities, which will spur changes in consumer payment behaviors. Likewise, blockchain technology, the protocol that underlies Bitcoin, could one day change how consumer card payments are verified.

In full, the report:

• Uncovers the key themes and trends affecting the payments industry in 2016 and beyond.
• Gives a detailed description of the stakeholders involved in a payment transaction, along with hardware and software providers.
• Offers diagrams and infographics explaining how card transactions are processed and which players are involved in each step.
• Provides charts on our latest forecasts, key company growth, survey results, and more.
• Analyzes the alternative technologies, including blockchain, which could further disrupt the ecosystem.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the payments ecosystem.

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