Crypto Funds Gets Greenlight from Swiss Financial Markets Regulator
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In a move that clearly shows the government’s resolve to encourage investments in cryptocurrencies, Switzerland’s financial markets regulator has opened the floodgates for institutional participation in cryptocurrencies.
Zug-based subsidiary Crypto Fund AG becomes the to get the green light from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to offer a wide range of blockchain-based assets to institutional investors in the country.
Crypto Fund was granted a earlier this year to distribute “offshore based cryptocurrency” funds to qualified investors, but the new license from FINMA empowers the Fund to legally act as an asset manager that can offer investment advice and issue an array of investment products that “tracks bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies,” including Swiss-based funds.
Former UBS banker Jan Brzezek founded the Fund in 2017 under the country’s Collective Investment Schemes Act (CISA.) While commenting on the approval from the regulators, Brzezek said the importance of crypto assets could not be overemphasized, and his company’s goal is to “accelerate maturity” in the market it currently operates.
“Regulatory recognition remains highly sought after by participants, as seen in recent press and company statements.”
Mathias Maurer, the chief operating officer of Crypto Fund AG went on to state:
“The authorization represents our professional work over the last 12 months and is a major milestone for us. Our thanks go, above all, to our partners who made this ground-breaking authorization possible and to FINMA for the good cooperation.”
Switzerland has remained popular over the years due to its favorable crypto laws, and it has continued to blaze the trail with a set of guidelines issued by its regulators earlier this year, which focused on tokens that would be classified as securities and on how crypto companies can be compliant while carrying out ICO activities.
SEBA Crypto AG, another Zug based startup is currently seeking a banking and securities license from FINMA, in a bid to become a regulated crypto bank, as by CCN previously. The startup, which is headed by Guido Buehler—another former UBS banker— wants to help fill a “critical missing element of the currency ecosystem,” as most banks are still not willing to open accounts for companies involved in the cryptocurrency (or blockchain) spaces.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
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ViaBTC just published a in which they explain the reason behind their opposition to SegWit, citing the concerns regarding the complexity of the soft fork, the irreversible damage it may and the introduction of second-tier networks like Lightning Network. The mining pool also mentions ’s impact on bitcoin and the community as a negative, claiming that they are “abusing their previous influence”. The post reads:
Today, bitcoin is in urgent need of diversified dev teams and implementations to achieve decentralization in bitcoin development.
As companies and mining pools choose their side of the debate, or , most have released regarding which solution they are backing and why. While favor the activation of SegWit, has been on the side of BU. Among the pools that support BU, Antpool and ViaBTC have been two of the most vocal regarding bitcoin Core and the Segregated Witness proposal. On , a popup service statement reads:
ViaBTC is of the opinion that the current “bitcoin Core + Blockstream” bitcoin development team is not taking satisfactory steps to ensure the growth and advancement of bitcoin in accordance with satoshi’s original white paper, and is in fact actively harming the health of the bitcoin economy by actively stifling efforts to solve some of bitcoin’s most pressing problems.
“SegWit doesn’t solve the most urgent capacity issue”
In the latest blog post dubbed “Why we don’t support SegWit”, ViaBTC states that SegWit is a soft fork solution for transaction malleability and that it cannot solve the current network overcapacity problem which is currently the most urgent issue in the bitcoin network.ViaBTC goes on to state that second-tier networks like Lightning Network cannot be considered as a block scaling solution. The blog post reads:
LN transactions are NOT equal to bitcoin’s peer-to-peer on-chain transactions and most bitcoin use scenarios are not applicable with Lightning Network. LN will also lead to big payment “centers”, and this is against bitcoin’s initial design as a peer-to-peer payment system.
However, the SegWit is not . SegWit introduces a much-needed fix for a pressing issue in bitcoin, which is transaction malleability. This fix would allow LN to be implemented in bitcoin.
However, ViaBTC seems to be missing some very important points. The introduction of a patch to one of bitcoin’s bugs should not be considered as harmful just because it allows developers to build a second network on top of bitcoin. bitcoin should be cleared of bugs like transaction malleability and developers should be free to build whatever they want (which is what has happened so far) on top of bitcoin.
The fact that a mining pool would block an important fix like this due to the possibility of losing out on transaction fees is, at best, selfish. ViaBTC also seems to have missed the fact that some forms of second-tier networks are already possible in bitcoin, even without the transaction malleability fix, and are being developed right now. Lastly, one should also note that without these channels, users that are looking for the advantages they would provide will find them elsewhere either through altcoins or centralized payment systems, which can only result in the loss of use cases for bitcoin with nothing gained.
ViaBTC’s statement that “SegWit doesn’t solve the most urgent capacity issue” is, however, correct. While it may be considered as a “quick-fix” that will double the network’s capacity, further updates will have to be made in the future. This is where bitcoin Unlimited seems to please its supporters, their protocol proposes a fix that is somewhat “permanent” as it allows the block size limit to change according to demand.
“SegWit makes it harder for future block scaling”
Here, ViaBTC cites some real concerns regarding the possibility for future scaling updates which are indeed made harder by SegWit’s changes. SegWit allows blocks to reach a 4MB limit due to the way witness data is accounted for. However, this limit is not meant to be reached, as the only data that is read differently is the witness data and not the tx. inputs and outputs. This results in a ~2MB block limit under regular circumstances.
This means that a possible attack vector is to create 4MB block which is a problem for the network. So, any future increases, for example from a ~2MB limit to a ~4MB limit, will theoretically allow a block that is four times bigger to be created, in the example above this would mean a ~16MB limit. This, however, is extremely unlikely and is not seen as a problem for bitcoin Core developers.
The problem is that if a way to implement this attack did come along, SegWit could not be reversed. The blog post reads:
On technical terms, SegWit uses a transaction format that can be spent by those who don’t upgrade their nodes, with segregation of transaction data and signature data. This means SegWit is irrevocable once it’s activated, or all unspent transactions in SegWit formats will face the risk of being stolen.
While this may be a real concern to a certain degree, the prospect of an attack vector that is currently considered impossible and would theoretically become a problem once the network implements a second scaling update, which may never happen, doesn’t seem to be a valid reason for blocking SegWit.
“SegWit will deepen Core’s impact on the community”
In the last section of the blog post, ViaBTC states its concerns regarding the bitcoin Core development team and its influence on the bitcoin community, citing problems like the infamous censorship perpetrated by bitcoin Core on Reddit and bitcoin forums. This seems to be completely off from what bitcoin is supposed to be, a global apolitical currency.
bitcoin forums, boards and development teams are not part of bitcoin. They are exterior to the network. If there is indeed censorship going on in these places, users should abandon them. If the bitcoin Core team is trying to turn bitcoin into a centralized payment system (or whatever), the community/miners should not approve their updates. However, rejecting an update based on the developer that proposed it, and not on the actual code, is childish. This reason could easily be turned around on the bitcoin Unlimited development team, which has had its fair share of .
Conclusion
While we do believe that both scaling proposals have their strengths and weaknesses, ViaBTC’s concerns regarding SegWit seem to be non-existent at best: Blocking transaction malleability is a malicious act on the network. Opposition to SegWit should be based on the problems it will cause the network and not on the problems it could theoretically cause if a currently-nonexistent attack vector is eventually found. Lastly, users should decide what is best for the network and not whom, that’s the beauty of bitcoin.
Do you think that ViaBTC is right and that we are missing the point? If so, let us know in the comment section.
is announcing the official start date for the highly anticipated crowdfunding event is September 15th, 2017. After an incredibly successful presale in July, the BitClave team, which has been actively developing their public Alpha release, will be launching the full sale of their token, the Consumer Activity Token (CAT), to be carried out on September 15th. The full sale will provide the opportunity for the public to purchase CAT and be part of the first wave of users on the innovative BitClave Active Search Ecosystem.
[Note: this is a press release]
BitClave is a software company lead by former LG Electronics CSO Alex Bessonov building the next generation of decentralized search focused on delivering the best experiences for web users. Powered by the privacy and security of blockchain technology, BitClave is creating a search engine that connects users directly with what they’re looking for, turning browsing into finding. By removing the middlemen in the digital advertising ecosystem, BitClave gives users control over their data and connects them directly with the businesses they’re looking for.
The BitClave Active Search Ecosystem (BASE) is a unique decentralized search engine where users can perform a search and then opt-in to relevant advertisements, earning Consumer Activity Tokens for each ad engaged with. Through this platform, businesses can serve personalized, relevant offers directly to users who are already expressing interest in their products and services, significantly increasing their return on advertising spending while consumers are no longer plagued by irrelevant, obtrusive advertisements.
In July, BitClave successfully launched a presale of CAT which earned over $1.8 million USD, demonstrating high engagement from the user base. Initially offered at a discounted rate, the BitClave presale reached its soft cap in less than 24 hours with extremely high transaction volumes from the moment the presale opened at 4:00 am, Pacific Time. Since the conclusion of the presale, interest in purchasing CAT has continued to grow along with the amount of users opening BitClave wallets in anticipation of the full sale.
Additional Crowdfunding details:
Token generation cap: 2 billion
Token crowdfunding distribution: 1 billion
Tokens exchange: 1 CAT = $0.07 USD
Timeline: September 15 – October 15
Crowdsale opens: 4 am Pacific Time, September 15
Ownership of CAT Tokens carries no rights, express or implied, other than the right to use CAT Tokens as a means to enable usage of and interactions with the Network, if successfully completed and deployed. In particular, Purchaser understands and accepts that CAT Tokens do not represent or confer any ownership right or stake, share or security or equivalent rights, or any right to receive future revenue shares, intellectual property rights or any other form of participation in or relating to the Network and the Company, other than access to the Network, subject to limitations and conditions in the Terms of Use. CAT Tokens are not intended to be a digital currency, security, commodity or any other kind of financial instrument. Furthermore, CAT Tokens are not intended to be marketed, offered for sale, purchased, sold or traded in any jurisdiction where they are prohibited by applicable laws or require further registration with any applicable governmental authorities. More information about the crowdfunding terms can be found on the BitClave page.
To learn more about BitClave and participate in the crowdsale, please visit the website and or reach out at info@bitclave.com.
