The Daily: Cointext Offers Philippines BCH Wallet, Beam Launches Mimblewimble Coin

The Daily

Cointext’s SMS bitcoin $BTC cash wallet is now available in the Philippines and we’ve got the details below. Also in The Daily on Friday, the first Mimblewimble coin has been launched by Beam and crypto exchange Binance reintroduces its platform for token sales, Launchpad, which will host the Bittorrent token generation event.

Also read: New York Establishes Crypto Task Force, Novogratz Buys More of Galaxy Digital

Cointext Services Now Available to Filipinos

Cointext, a platform that enables users to transfer cryptocurrency offline using simple text messages, has launched its service in another new market. The SMS bitcoin $BTC cash (BCH) wallet is now available in the Philippines, a country with a population of over 100 million people and a large diaspora around the world.

The Cointext wallet allows anyone with even a basic mobile device that supports text messages to send electronic cash to other phone numbers or BCH addresses. What’s more, to receive the money, the recipients don’t even need to download a wallet, install an application, set up an account or have access to the internet.

These features are behind Cointext’s growing popularity in countries where modern smartphones are available to a small portion of the population and the majority of telecom subscribers still use traditional mobile phones. Cointext also appeals to residents of countries that receive a lot of remittances from abroad, from Brazil to Romania.

“The ability to send value over SMS is tailormade for the Philippines,” said Cointext founder and CTO Vin Armani, as quoted by Prweb. “Remittances are a big part of the economy and Filipinos are already big adopters of cryptocurrency, especially bitcoin $BTC cash.”

Armani added that the country has many cryptocurrency exchanges and that “makes using cryptocurrency for remittances a no-brainer” as it allows easy conversion to local fiat, the Philippine peso. With Cointext, Filipinos will also be able to make cross border transfers at much lower costs, in comparison with traditional services.

With the addition of the Philippines, the number of markets where Cointext is currently available grows to a total of 39. New users in the country can get a Cointext wallet by texting START or SIMULAN to the access number 639221101037.

Mimblewimble Coin Beam Launched

On the 10th anniversary of bitcoin [BTC]’s genesis block, a new privacy-oriented coin based on its blockchain was launched. Beam, which is issued by an Israeli startup, uses Mimblewimble, a protocol that was originally developed in 2016 with the aim of both improving the scalability of the bitcoin [BTC] network and increasing the privacy of its users. Its developers eventually concluded they needed to create a separate Mimblewimble cryptocurrency.

Another project called Grin was the first to start work on a crypto utilizing the protocol. However, Beam became the first to attract venture capital financing to issue a Mimblewimble coin. Grin is now scheduled to launch in mid-January, as news.bitcoin.com reported last month.

According to an announcement on Medium, Beam’s mainnet release contains the following components for Linux, Mac, and Windows devices: desktop wallet app that includes a CPU miner node, CLI wallet and Beam node. A standalone Opencl miner and a standalone Cuda miner are available for Linux and Windows-based systems.

Binance Launchpad to Host Bittorrent Token Sale

Binance, currently the largest cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume, is reinstating Launchpad, its platform dedicated to token sales. Launchpad was initially introduced in August of 2017 with the Bread and Gifto sales. The exchange has just announced that Binance Launchpad will be featuring new projects in 2019.

According to the release, Launchpad will start with two projects: Bittorrent and Fetch.ai. “Further announcements for each upcoming project launch will be made in the coming weeks,” the exchange added.

Verified Binance users will be able to buy the tokens using bitcoin $BTC core (BTC), ethereum (ETH) and binance coin (BNB). Residents of the U.S., China and South Korea won’t be able to participate due to regulatory restrictions.

Bittorrent recently announced its new digital coin which will be offered through a token sale conducted on Binance Launchpad. The Bittorrent token (BTT) will be based on the protocol developed by Tron, which acquired Bittorrent last summer.

What are your thoughts on today’s news tidbits? Tell us in the comments section.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Smartmockups, Beam.

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Published at Fri, 04 Jan 2019 13:15:16 +0000

November 19, 2017

Crypto Trading and Traditional Assets: New Options for Investors

While trading of crypto-assets is booming, some investors are looking for options to trade traditional assets like stocks via cryptocurrencies. Three new operators are among those developing trading platforms to meet this need, with blockchain-based tokens pegged to the underlying assets.

Ankorus

Ankorus is establishing a platform that will permit trading traditional assets, including stocks, bonds, futures, options, gold, silver, commodities, ETFs, FX and bitcoin futures with cryptocurrency.

“Ankorus will establish an online exchange populated by any financial asset currently available worldwide,” reads the Ankorus white paper. “Various auditing measures will be taken to establish transparency, and customers will be able to validate that tokenised assets are fully backed and held by Ankorus.”

To enable cryptocurrency holders to buy real-world financial assets, Ankorus will create and allocate tokens that are exactly value-pegged to the underlying assets in exchange for cryptocurrency.

Ankorus will hold its “fundraising contribution” or “Token Generation Event” (TGE) between November 25 and December 25. The ANK token will be distributed to contributors during the TGE.

“The ANK is a utility token, used for commissions, for datafeeds, professional technical charting software, webinars, financial education materials and also membership for those who wish,” Ankorus CEO John Cruz told bitcoin Magazine. “The ANK token will be allocated during our TGE and later listed on exchanges, beginning with EtherDelta. It is an ERC20 token.”

Another token, the Anchor Token, will be the asset value-pegged token, separately created to tokenize specific securities using a yet-to-be-determined technology.

“Anchor Tokens will come later, after we receive the requisite regulatory approval,” said Cruz. “Anchor Tokens will be created for our customers when they wish to tokenize specific assets. For example, if a customer wishes to purchase and tokenize Apple stock, we create an Apple Anchor Token (known as AAPL.A) or simply credit the customer with them if we created one earlier.”

One of the most interesting asset classes that Ankorus is targeting is that of traditional financial instruments based on cryptocurrencies, such as futures and derivatives. A few weeks ago bitcoin Magazine reported that CME Group, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges, will launch a bitcoin futures product before the end of Q4 2017. In a video, Cruz explains why he considers CME bitcoin futures as a breakthrough that could soon push bitcoin’s price up to $50,000, and expresses confidence in Ankorus’s ability to offer CME bitcoin futures trading soon.

It’s worth noting that Ankorus’s offering can be seen as the reverse of CME bitcoin futures: while CME will offer a traditional financial instrument tied to cryptocurrencies to investors that prefer not to hold and trade cryptocurrencies directly, Ankorus wants to make CME bitcoin futures and other traditional financial instruments available to cryptocurrency holders.

One is left to wonder how Ankorus will navigate the compliance minefield, which has blocked similar initiatives before. The Ankorus team insists that they will be totally SEC-compliant and follow all KYC (Know Your Customer), AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and CTF (Counter-Terrorist Financing) regulations. According to the white paper, Ankorus intends to become a fully registered broker-dealer, acquire membership on a large and reputable exchange, follow best practices for insurance and auditing on a regular basis, and establish a compliant trading platform that will bridge the crypto and finance worlds.

“By becoming a broker-dealer entity, we will get SEC blessing,” said Cruz. “Everyone else is trying to tokenize assets by not being a broker-dealer entity; this is where they run into trouble with the SEC.”

“Within the team we have experience of complying with different market regulators’ KYC, AML and CTF requirements for an FX remittance company,” Ankorus COO Haldane Marnoch told bitcoin Magazine. “PEP [Politically Exposed Persons] lists are vetted and we check against a suite of sanctions lists too. Documents supplied by our customers for proof of identity or proof of address expire and need to be renewed on a regular basis. Source of funds also needs to be proven for larger transactions.

“Our team is familiar with all the provisions required for operating across multiple jurisdictions,” continued Marnoch. “We’ll use as our primary reference the standards set by the SEC and the CFTC, but naturally we’ll be implementing processes to comply with each and every market we trade in, for instance the FCA in the U.K.”

“We will become a division of a Futures Commissions Merchant (FCM), expected early March, and will be able to fill orders for CME bitcoin futures at that time,” added Cruz.

LAToken and Jibrel Network

LAToken (LAT), which recently raised $19.6 million in a token sale, wants to broaden the use of cryptocurrencies in the real economy and allow cryptocurrency holders to diversify their portfolio by getting access to tokens linked to the price of real assets.

The LAT platform is already operational: asset tokens can be created, listed for sale and traded on the LAT platform. At this time, tokens linked to the price of stocks (e.g., Apple, Amazon, Tesla), commodities (oil, gold, silver) and real estate are already being traded on the LAT platform. Tokens linked to artwork are soon to follow.

According to the white paper, the LAT platform provides cryptocurrency holders with transparent price discovery and diversification across multiple asset classes, allowing for the creation or listing of third-party asset tokens compliant with LAToken disclosure and legal structure rules.

Jibrel Network wants to provide currencies, equities, commodities and other financial assets and instruments as standard ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain.

Jibrel Network’s draft white paper explains that the platform will support tokens, dubbed Crypto Depository Receipts (CryDRs), which represent ownership of an underlying traditional asset held by Jibrel. On release, Jibrel will support six fiat currencies (USD, CNY, EUR, GBP, RUB, AED) and two money-market instruments.

In the future, Jibrel plans offer CryDRs pegged to a wide range of currencies, commodities, securities and derivatives. The project will hold a token pre-sale between November 27 and January 27.

Both LAToken and Jibrel Network expect to be fully compliant with applicable regulations, including KYC/AML rules, and apply for relevant licenses where needed. Full compliance may prevent the companies from targeting customers in certain jurisdictions. For example, the Jibrel token sale will not be available to U.S., Chinese and Singaporean residents.

The post Crypto Trading and Traditional Assets: New Options for Investors appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.