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The divided regulatory policies and frameworks on digital currencies, including Bitcoin, in the United States have created an impractical...

The post Without Unified, Federal Regulations for Digital Currencies, the U.S. Risks Falling Behind appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Brazilian bitcoin exchange Foxbit has acquired payment processor BitInvest.

Bitcoin Press Release: In late July, the Nav team announced that their Electrum Mobile Wallet had gone live. This news came off the back of a successful coin swap, giving Nav Coin a modern code base that is a platform for a huge range of possible new features. One feature already released since the upgrade is the POS […]

The post NAV Coin Releases World’s First X13 Mobile Wallet appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

The most exciting thing to happen in the digital currency space since its invention is the controversial hardfork of Ethereum. Unlike much of what has gone before, the hardfork brings to the forefront an immense power of public blockchains, full freedom for all and free market based choice. There is, currently, a debate on whether […]

The post The Solution to the Breakdown in Public Blockchains Governance appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Most people have some debt — payments to make, loans to pay back. But for some Americans, their debt has gotten to an extreme and dire level — all their debts, added up, cost more than all their assets combined.

It’s called “negative wealth,” and a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that 14% of Americans are dealing with it, along with another 1.1% who are just breaking even. Which means that for 15.1% of Americans, everything they own isn’t enough to pay off their debt.

The analysis was done by four economists using data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) from 2015 (the 2014 data was just released on the SCE website). The economists were interested in the composition of households with negative and non-negative wealth. In other words, who are these 15.1% of Americans? How much money are they making, and what kind of debts do they owe?

Some of their findings are intuitive. The heads of households with negative wealth are younger, on average, than heads of non-negative households, and are slightly less likely to have a college degree. They have lower annual incomes ($39,077 versus $86,309), and they’re also four times more likely to be single parents, three times less likely to own their home, and more likely to be black or Hispanic.

In terms of what they actually own, the discrepancies are clear: Households with non-negative wealth have more retirement wealth and have more money in housing assets. Only 20% of negative-wealth households own their home, compared to 75% of those with non-negative wealth. Conversely, for households with negative wealth, 40-55% of their total assets are in their vehicles.

But one of the starkest contrasts is in the debt composition for each wealth group. The chart below shows how much debt households have, on average, in seven categories: mortgages, credit card debt, auto loans, student loans, medical bills, legal bills, and other personal loans.

For households with negative wealth less than $12,400, debt is dominated by credit cards, which account for over 30% of their total debt, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analysis — which is 60% larger than households with non-negative wealth.

And for households that have even less wealth (or, more negative wealth), student loan debt is the biggest cause for concern. For households in the middle third, student loan debt is 40%, and for the bottom third it’s almost 50%. Which means that for the people who most affected by debt, almost half of that is due to their college education. 

Academics have argued that student debt is partly to blame for America’s increasing inequality — that college is only worth the cost for wealthier students, but for poor and middle-class students, it’s actually preventing them from building wealth because they’re crippled by their student loans. And indeed, wealthier students are less likely to take on loans to attend school and tend to graduate with a lower amount of debt as a portion of their income.

That’s even clearer after looking at households’ debt composition. The people who have the least ability to pay their debts — for whom everything they own is nowhere near close enough to pay back what they owe — the biggest chunk of that is going to repaying student loans.

The authors agree it’s a problem.

“Given the importance of student debt in explaining negative household wealth,” they write, “it is likely that the steady growth in student debt and borrowing… has materially contributed and will continue to contribute to negative household wealth and wealth inequality.”

The hope, they say, lies in housing. For the lowest third, 22% of their debt is mortgage debt, and for the slightly-better-off two thirds, mortgage loans make up slightly less. “The continued recovery in the housing market observed over the past few years may help households with negative home equity come out of their negative wealth position,” the authors wrote.

SEE ALSO: A dangerous 'confluence of forces' is threatening the US economy

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NOW WATCH: The 'Zulu Cobra' helicopter is one of the Marines' most powerful weapons

The question of whether or not bitcoin is really money has gained attention in light of recnt events in the bitcoin world. Even the Torah, the traditional Jewish law, has weighed in on what defines currency, according to a recent post in Chabad.org, a website dedicated to empowering Jews worldwide with knowledge of their 3,300-year-old […]

The post Is Bitcoin Currency? What The Torah Says appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

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In late July, Visa and PayPal announced a collaborative deal that would push PayPal to better promote Visa cards as an option for PayPal transactions and have PayPal share more information with banks and card networks.

Now, it looks like Mastercard is seeking a similar partnership — the firm is having a “constructive dialogue” with PayPal, according to Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga in the firm’s Q2 2016 earnings call. That’s because Mastercard and its peers feel disrupted by PayPal and its 188 million customers, because it makes it easier for consumers and merchants to bypass card network rails, which ultimately limits card network and banks’ business and revenue.

Mastercard is “actively seeking to expand” its relationship with PayPal, according to Banga.  

• PayPal and Mastercard have a longstanding relationship. The firms have been offering a cobranded card product, called PayPal Extras, for ten years. The card, which is issued by Synchrony Bank, offers customers PayPal buyer protection and Mastercard rewards. The firms announced a multi-year renewal of their contract last week.
• But Mastercard believes further collaboration is better for both consumers and merchants. Since 2013, Mastercard has charged a small fee to digital wallets like PayPal, which allow customers to pay via their credit card but don't provide card networks and issuers purchase data. That data is key to Mastercard, which likely wants to know how consumers are spending as commerce moves online. By deepening its relationship with PayPal, MasterCard can grow its card spend while gaining insights about its consumers, which in turn could build a better, more transparent digital wallet offering for all parties. 

Building a relationship with PayPal could help Mastercard in two key ways:

• Becoming more competitive: PayPal’s partnership with Visa puts Mastercard at a slight disadvantage. As it currently stands, the new partnership should shift some of PayPal’s transactions funded by bank accounts — which comprise roughly half the firm’s volume —  to card networks. But because of the nature of the agreement, Visa specifically will gain most of that benefit. By inking a similar deal, or at least finding an agreement that promotes Mastercard products as an option preferable to ACH, Mastercard could gain standing in the digital wallet space. 
• Growing the ecosystem: Electronic payment providers’ biggest competitor is cash. By finding opportunities for synergy among electronic companies at odds, the entire digital ecosystem can stand to gain by creating more enticing opportunities that draw customers away from cash and towards other payment methods, according to Banga.

MasterCard and PayPal's relationship is just one piece of the larger payments ecosystem, which contains acquirers and processors, issuers, card networks, gateways, 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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Blockstream announced the acquisition of Bitcoin wallet provider GreenAddress on Wednesday. In a post on the company’s official blog,...

The post Here's What's Next for Bitcoin Wallet GreenAddress After Being Acquired by Blockstream appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin’s price dropped by $30 this morning (July 31st, 2016) as market uncertainty increases due to a closed door meeting between Bitcoin miners and Bitcoin Core developers. Details are sparse as no media representatives or independent observers have been invited to arguably the most important bitcoin related meeting in it’s almost eight-year history. What is […]

The post Bitcoin Price Falls as Miners Meet Bitcoin Core Developers appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Brave Software has raised $4.5m to expand on its efforts to let users send bitcoin micropayments to their favorite websites.

I knew we were going to be hearing more about Brave when I first wrote about it in May. Micropayments, along with international payments, have been touted as one of the many early use cases of the blockchain since I joined the industry 4 years after the inception of the first blockchain, Bitcoin.

Brelion, a real estate crowdfunding website, is allowing investors to use bitcoin to invest in real estate, making it the first company to offer such an investment option, according to the company. Brelion vets projects from small to mid-sized renovation companies. Investors can create an account, undergo accreditation, explore pre-vetted investment opportunities and pledge an […]

The post Bitcoin Accepted! Real Estate Crowdfunding Website Brelion Welcomes Investors appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

SAP, a multi-national enterprise resource planning software provider, is writing specialized software to allow customers to connect blockchains to its Hana Cloud Platform, which provides an online database for adding new functions to their SAP systems, according to Bloomberg. Juergen Mueller, chief information officer for the Walldorf, Germany-based company, said the blockchain’s potential for disruption […]

The post Enterprise Software Leader SAP Taps Blockchain to Improve its Products appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Bitcoin price slipped over the edge during weekend trade. Analysis looks at the basic chart indications and potential decline targets. This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3-hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now. Bitcoin Price Analysis Time of analysis: 14h00 UTC Sunday Bitstamp 4-Hour Candle Chart From the […]

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