Coin News

California's legislature has once again shelved a plan to regulate businesses in the digital currency industry.

A criminal investigatory unit in the UK has said that it would consider investigating cases involving bitcoin.

Article written by Leah Zitter On August 11, 2016, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released a 300-page report entitled The future of...

The post World Economic Forum Examines How Blockchain Can Reshape Financial Services appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

A hacking group called The Shadow Brokers has claimed to have hacked a group linked to the National Security Agency (NSA) and is asking for 1 million bitcoins ($568 million) to return files after having dumped some of the files, according to Motherboard. The Shadow Brokers claims to have hacked a group called Equation Group, […]

The post Hacking Group Claims It Dumped NSA-Linked Files, Demands One Million BTC appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A study conducted by Juniper Research has found that the total value of Venture Capital (VC) blockchain and bitcoin investments totalled $290 million in the first six months of 2016. While more than 30 startups were involved that received funding during that time, more than a third of all the investment went to three major […]

The post Study Shows Bitcoin and Blockchain Investments Near $300 Million in First Six Months appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

According to an Apple Insider report published on August 9, a disturbing trend has emerged on Apple’s App Store as a series of malicious...

The post Does the Open-Source Model Enable Bitcoin-Stealing Wallet Apps? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

A recent report by the All-Parliamentary Group (APPG) has reiterated confidence in the U.K.’s entrepreneurship and innovation in the long term despite Britain’s recent vote to exit from the European Union. After the Brexit referendum, there were concerns that the exit would reduce access to markets, talent, passporting powers and funding for U.K. SMEs. The fear was compounded […]

The post UK Is Still a World Leader for Fintech appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A hacking group by the name of Shadow Brokers is claiming that it has National Security Agency hacking tools for sale.

The post Shadow Brokers Hacking Group Claim to Have NSA Hacking Tools for Sale appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

When you think of lock picking you might not put it with a cybersecurity conference such as Def Con. However, the recent conference in Sin City demonstrated that the traditional method of picking locks is essential to teaching individuals how to protect machines from digital threats letting them unleash their inner child.

The post Lock Picking at Cybersecurity Conference Def Con appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

A year ago U.S. intelligence officials are reported to have informed congressional leaders that Russian hackers were attacking the Democratic Party, reports CNBC.

The post Sources Say Congressional Leaders Knew of Democratic Hacking a Year Ago appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Startups working with blockchain and bitcoin technology around the world raised close to $300 million (£231.2 million) in funding in the first 6 months of the year, according to Juniper Research.

Over 30 startups raised $290 million (£223.5 million) but over a third went to just three companies in big ticket fundraises: Circle, which raised $60 million (£46.2 million) in June; Blockstream, which bagged $55 million (£42.4 million) in February; and Digital Asset Holdings, which raised $50 million (£38.5 million) in January.

Blockchain is a type of database technology first developed to underpin digital currency bitcoin. Instead of one central database of who owns what, blockchain allows for a network of identical, linked databases that talk to each other and are updated simultaneously.

Every time someone wants to make a change or add something onto the blockchain (the shared database), the majority of members of the network must sign off on it. This cuts out the need for middlemen in transactions, because the fact that everyone signs off means trust is built into the system.

By cutting out middlemen, cost is reduced. The process of the group signing off on transactions should also theoretically reduce error.

Bitcoin's original blockchain is used to record bitcoin transactions — but the tech could theoretically be used to record just about anything that involves transactions. Applications are being developed for everything from share records to art and diamonds.

Banks and financial institutions spending thousands on proof of concepts using the technology, issuing countless white papers, and joining industry-wide bodies to figure out how to use the protocol.

Juniper says banks are increasingly active in the bitcoin and blockchain investment space. But Juniper's Dr Windsor Holden says in a statement:

"While blockchain technology offers the potential for increased speed, transparency, and security across an array of verticals, there has to be rigorous and robust roadtesting in each unique use case before any decision is taken."

Juniper's investment stats come a week after the World Economic Forum declared that blockchain technology "will fundamentally alter the way financial institutions do business around the world" and "become the beating heart" of finance, following a year-long study of the technology.

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NOW WATCH: There’s a glaring security problem with those new credit card chips

In a bid to tap into the blockchain technology, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has awarded small businesses with the task of supporting identity verification. Four small businesses have each been awarded $100,000 in preliminary funding through the DHS S&T Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. In a statement, the […]

The post DHS Awards Small Companies to Explore Blockchain Technology appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

George Cottrell, an ally to U.K. politician Nigel Farage, has been arrested by the FBI on charges of laundering drug money and asking drug dealers to pay him 62,000 pounds in bitcoin, according to The Telegraph, a U.K.-based newspaper. Cottrell was in custody awaiting trial on 21 charges that include money laundering, fraud, and attempted extortion. […]

The post FBI Arrests U.K. Politician Ally for Crimes including Extorting Bitcoin appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

Google is the latest giant tech company to enter the IoT space with Fuchsia – a new operating system that seems to be targeting IoT devices. Little, if anything, has been officially announced, but the code has been publicly released. It’s use of Magneta, based on the LittleKernel Project, a far more scalable kernel than […]

The post Google Enters the IoT Space with a New Operating System appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When the United States blacklisted John Angel Zabaneh, a banana farmer and exporter in Belize, for alleged ties to a top drug lord, it did more than just sideline one local businessman from the global financial system.

The action, designed to target only Zabaneh, his alleged associates and their businesses, also dented Belize's banana exports for months from last October, throwing hundreds of people out of work and undercutting a main source of hard currency for the tiny Central American country.

Zabaneh's blacklisting shows the ripple effects that U.S. sanctions aimed at stopping illicit activity such as drug trafficking, terrorism, and human rights abuses can have on the people and industries of economically fragile countries.

Broad U.S. sanctions against entire countries have drawn criticism for impoverishing millions while doing little to hurt those at the top. But Zabaneh's case shows that even laser-targeted actions against individuals and firms -- a strategy the United States is increasingly using -- can cause collateral damage.

Belize's banana crop, which makes up a fifth of the country's exports, faces other obstacles beyond sanctions. Droughts and floods have damaged crops and a further hit is likely after Hurricane Earl swept through the tiny nation this month.

But government officials and industry executives in Belize said Zabaneh's blacklisting -- part of counter-narcotics sanctions aimed at choking off the drug trade in Latin America -- had a marked impact on the country's overall banana exports in late 2015 and early 2016 and contributed to a sharp economic contraction. [Graphic showing banana export trend: http://tmsnrt.rs/2b8WA97]

A 42 percent drop in banana shipments in the first three months of 2016, stemming from the closure of Zabaneh's farms and the floods, helped drive a two percent drop in economic output in the first quarter, according to the Belize Statistical Institute.

"We're a smaller banana supplier, therefore the economics are very touch and go," said Sam Mathias, general manager of the Belize Banana Growers' Association (BGA). "You reduce our annual volume by a little bit, it does make a big difference."

Zabaneh, the U.S. Treasury said, was a key associate of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. In a telephone interview with Reuters, Zabaneh denied any connection to Guzman, and said he has sent Treasury information on decades of his finances in an effort to get his name off the blacklist.

A U.S. Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the designation's impact on Belize's banana industry.

TARGETED SANCTIONS

The banana crop, exported year-round, is vital to Belize, a country the size of New Jersey with a 40 percent poverty rate. It provides thousands of jobs to migrants and Belizeans in the country's southeastern agricultural region.

The United States has increased its use of targeted economic sanctions in recent years, with officials seeing them as an alternative to more deadly options like air strikes or military raids. They also view them as preferable to the kind of broad boycotts of Cuba, Iraq, and Iran that stunted those countries' economies, experts and former officials said.

"Increasingly the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on individuals, entities, and companies that are wrongdoers as opposed to entire jurisdictions because the more surgical approach is viewed as more effective and more fair," said Adam Smith, a former senior advisor at Treasury.

Wary of hurting a major economy with broad sanctions, the United States imposed highly tailored measures on Russia over its 2014 annexation of Crimea, targeting particular transactions in the energy, defense and finance sectors.

But even those specific measures had an "outsized impact" on levels of foreign investment in the Russian economy, said Eric Lorber, a senior associate at the Financial Integrity Network, which advises banks on sanctions.

Many sanctions can lead to unintended damage, but it is relatively common in counter-narcotics designations because major players in drug trafficking often have ties to legitimate business, Smith said.

"People who rise to the level of interest with respect to the U.S. government almost by definition are substantial players," said Smith, now an attorney at Gibson Dunn in Washington. "They may be important components of a country's economy."

"RENDERED USELESS"

The blacklisting of Zabaneh in 2012 had little impact for the first three years because Zabaneh, now 61, quickly stepped away from his business, once one of the largest banana farms in Belize.

Soon after the U.S. Treasury blacklisted Zabaneh, his company Mayan King, and a handful of other people and companies, Treasury and Belize officials explored the idea of transferring the farms to another firm, said Jose Alpuche, chief executive of Belize's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The officials' aim was to figure out how to "keep the banana industry up and running," Alpuche said. Treasury officials made clear in a 2012 phone call with Belize officials that it was up to private firms, not the U.S. government, to determine whether the solution was acceptable, he said.

Another company, Meridian Enterprise, took over management of the farms from Mayan King, Zabaneh said.

For years, the sole buyer of Belize's bananas has been Ireland-based Fyffes. The company said in a statement that the BGA had confirmed in 2012 that Zabaneh and Mayan King had resigned from the trade group, and that the farms were under new ownership not connected to Zabaneh. It continued to buy bananas from the farms for three more years.

But the blacklisting finally bit late last year when Zabaneh was quoted in local media speaking about the farms' operations. He said he was representing his mother, who, he told Reuters, owned the farms throughout the change in management.

The report publicly linking him to the farms prompted Fyffes to cut off purchases of the bananas, the company said in October 2015. It has continued to buy bananas from other farms in Belize.

"Those would have been bananas that were already ready for harvest and for shipment, so the minute he was stopped, then we lost his portion of exports," Alpuche said.

Fyffes' decision caused an instant 13.5 percent plunge in Belize's banana exports, said Mathias.

The value of banana exports dropped by $1 million in October 2015, or 20 percent compared to the prior year, according to the Belize Statistical Institute, which linked the drop that month to the closure of the farms.

Fyffes declined to comment beyond an October 2015 statement confirming it had stopped purchasing bananas from the farms, and that it had immediately cut ties with Zabaneh and his businesses following the Treasury sanctions in 2012.

Zabaneh's farms now lie dormant and overgrown with weeds, with the bananas sick with black sigatoka disease, said Alpuche, who recently visited the area. The farms used to employ about 900 workers, Alpuche said.

"It's been rendered useless," he said. "It's not in a condition where it can export any time soon."

(Reporting by Yeganeh Torbati, editing by Stuart Grudgings)

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According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), China needs to control its corporate debt before the situation becomes unmanageable. Does bitcoin hold the answer? A report from the IMF has found that at $25 trillion, China’s debt accounts for 254 percent of GDP. As a consequence, startups and businesses could soon turn their attention to […]

The post IMF: Spiralling Corporate Debt in China Needs to be Controlled; Bitcoin Holds the Answer appeared first on CCN: Financial Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency News.