CCN With $2billion raised in ICOs so far this year, it is not surprising that regulatory bodies are not only looking hard at the products and companies, but they are now starting to step in and test the veracity and legality of crypto fundraising. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently formed a Cyber Unit to fulfil this task. Last month it filed fraud charges against PlexCoin and it also forced Munchee, a distributed restaurant review ecosystem on the blockchain, to abort its ICO. Earlier in the month, as a result of the SEC Cyber Unit’s warning to Munchee, the ICO was cancelled. It had only run for two days and had attracted 40 investors. On the Twitter account plans were been made to return funds as soon as possible as of November 2. Munchee had aimed to raise $15million to provide development, grow the management team and market the product. Now, the sale is stopped, investors refunded and despite tweets from November 2 saying the company hoped to relaunch the ICO, it has gone quiet; unless you count the filing of the ‘cease-and-desist’ papers by the SEC against Munchee yesterday. This action tallies with a statement made by […]
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The Difference Between A TGE And An ICO, Gabriele Giancola Explains More
CCN We find out more about loyalty programs on the Blockchain delivered by qiibee, a decentralized, Ethereum blockchain-based loyalty ecosystem. Its name, which is derived from qii for energy and bee for the one of the world’s most important insects, is not the only different thing about this company. It is also looking at a Token Generation Event (TGE) next year. A TGE is different from an ICO in legal terms according to co-founder and CEO Gabriele Giancola. Incorporated in Zug, the heart of the Crypto Valley outside Zurich, Giancola says that the Swiss like to keep things above board and that hosting a TGE is easier to run than an ICO and certainly it makes issues like regulation much more straightforward. Currently there is a hardcap of 70,000 ETH to be raised in Q2 of next year. The token is a qiibeePoint or QBX. qiibee is a classic example of a traditional technology solution pivoting onto the blockchain for two main reasons: scalable data capture and security. qiibee began life trying to solve the loyalty program platform. Giancola and his brother, both co founders, looked at the loyalty program space and saw a lot of problems. Loyalty Programs are […]
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The Crypto Valley Of Zug, Why Switzerland Is The Place To Be For Bitcoin, Ethereum And Blockchain Initiatives
CCN Coming to a city near you… At first glance it might seem an unusual choice for the hottest tech location in Europe, if not EMEA, but Zug, named for its fishing rights is both a town and canton in Switzerland and home to a little under 30,000 residents. It is an affluent area, a low tax region and a base for several multinational companies. In 2001, it first sparked to international recognition when a disgruntled gunman shot 15 people, including himself, in the Zug Cantonal Parliament in what became known as the Zug Massacre. This year, Zug was very much back in the news for quite different reasons. In January 2017 a not for profit organisation was formed: the Crypto Valley Association (CVA) headquartered in Zug and formed for the express purpose of attracting and supporting blockchain companies and organisations to Switzerland. Prior to the formal establishment of CVA, the Crypto Valley in Zug had been the brain child of Johann Grevers who based his cryptofinance startup Monetas in Zug in 2013. He outlined all sorts of positive reasons why Switzerland was attractive for blockchain companies and soon attracted broad support from numerous individuals, startups, corporates, service providers, industry […]
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Indorse – Spelling The End Of The Dishonest CV…
Just how do you know if what people claim in their CV is true? For a time, google seemed to deliver an endless source of data on other people. You could search for people online and see where they had worked. Then social media made it even easier to track people – or so it seemed. In the last few years prospective employees have been warned that when they attend interviews, the company looking to hire will include a trawl of their social media to see if what they say is true or to ascertain the calibre of the person. Of course there have already been cases where legal claims have been made against individuals abusing social media, but even harmless activities may be seen as detrimental to prospective employment. Applying to a company where the CEO is teetotal? Then perhaps don’t post those post party pictures on FB. Looking to work in a company that works in pet supplies? Perhaps posting pictures of you supporting the local hunt might not be so clever. The list is endless. However, while verifying your character online is one thing, verifying your career details is another. Most CVs have referees which a thorough […]
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Is Hashgraph The Solution To The Scaling Problems Faced By Bitcoin And Ethereum?
First published in CryptoCoin.News As Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to struggle with their scaling problems, an abundance of alternative high-throughput distributed ledgers are springing up, including EOS, IOTA, and many more. Hashgraph, developed by Swirlds, and hyped as one of the leading candidates to replace blockchain, has steadily being making ground in Dublin, albeit through a circuitous route. Conor O’Higgins, Public Relations Officer for Hashgraph in Dublin, had worked with Hashgraph co-founder Andrew Masanto back in 2008 in the world of digital marketing. They were not to meet again until O’Higgins visited Burning Man this year and bumped into his old friend. Burning Man is a hotbed of new thinking, and Masanto could not wait to introduce O’Higgins to the founder of Hashgraph, Dr Leemon Baird. “I’d used Bitcoin to pay for Burning Man, and was neck-deep in crypto, but I’d never heard of Hashgraph before,” says O’Higgins. “Andrew was eager for me to meet Leemon in San Francisco.” O’Higgins spent a day in San Francisco with the Hashgraph team, and was blown away by Dr Baird and the technology. He signed up there and then. O’Higgins is now masterminding the first Dublin meetup for Hashgraph enthusiasts, and is in […]
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Ireland Launches Crypto Coast Initiative For Blockchain Developers
First published in Cryptocoin.News Reuben Godfrey, co-founder of the Blockchain Association of Ireland, used a talk at the Monaco Growth Forum in London last night to launch a major new crypto initiative in Ireland. His new project, Crypto Coast Ireland, is a play to attract blockchain commerce and development not just to Dublin, but down the East Coast of Ireland. His message was that companies and crypto-centric entities can available of the same attractions offered in Dublin – but stretch further outside the high-cost city centre. ‘Ireland is a known destination for software development,’ Godfrey said. ‘Last year again we claimed the place of the second largest exporter of computer and IT services in the world. We are known as the heart of ICT in Europe. It is no mistake that nine out of the top ten ICT companies in the world are located in Ireland.’ The attraction of Ireland to ICT companies remains the same; highly skilled work force, English as a native language, proximity to both US and the rest of Europe, and attractive corporate rates. The predominance of global technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, means the workforce is technology ready and already upskilled. In addition, […]
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What have the pope, weapons of mass destruction and student protests have in common?
First published in CryptoCoin.News Angel Versetti, CEO of Ambrosus featured, and helping to demonstrate what have the pope, weapons of mass destruction and student protests have in common? Why is he in the news? CEO of newly formed Ambrosus, a blockchain ecosystem to assure quality of products, and having signed a partnership with INS Ecosystem Most bizarre thing he has done? Lectured the Pope on blockchain in the Vatican Most unusual job? Versetti’s first job in the UN was at the Department of Weapons of Mass Destruction, where he used satellite imagery and intelligence to find out where Americans and Russians were hiding their nuclear warheads Low tolerance of? Stupidity and Hypocrisy Interview: It’s not every day that a Russian-born, half Italian, Swiss resident quotes an Irish writer in interview. Oscar Wilde to be exact and the quote is about common sense being remarkably uncommon. Angel Versetti uses the quote as a throwaway line in relation to madness that surrounds ICOs. ‘The ICO industry is a bit of a circus,’ he says. ‘Blockchain is an amazing technology but the early emphasis on changing the world has been overtaken by money.’ It might seem ironic that an entrepreneur in the […]
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Peter Fedchenkov, Disrupting The Global Grocery Marketplace, INS Ecosystem ICO Launches Dec 4th
First Published in CryptoCoin,News.com Despite a very handsome CV littered with impressive names including Harvard Business School, Goldman Sachs and Baring Vostock Capital Partners, Peter Fedchenkov, founder of the INS Ecosystem, insists he is a grocer at heart and that the grocery trade is in his genes. His grandfather had a wholesale grocery business when, just after the collapse of the USSR in 1993, his retail distribution channels disappeared, As a result his grandfather was forced into selling groceries directly to consumers at small market stalls, Then he discovered the approach of placing ads in regional newspapers to sell goods directly to his customers; thereby creating an early mail-order grocery business where he no longer relied on the middle man. Four years ago Fedchenkov put his education and genes into practice, and co-founded Instamart in Moscow – an upgraded internet of things approach to his grandfather’s business. Today Instamart is the largest online grocery delivery business in Russia, with 100,000 orders processed every day. Instamart possesses no stock, warehouses or fleet but picks fresh produce to order from a number of key grocery outlets and ships it to the customer the same day. Compared to the UK where online food […]
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What do dogs, shoe shiners, taxi drivers and now gang members have in common?
It used to be the dogs in the street. Then it was the shoe shiners. Joe Kennedy famously said that when his shoe shiner gave him stock market tips, then it was time to quit the market. After that it was taxi drivers with the Troika taken to task when Irish journalist Vincent Browne questioned just what Klaus Masuch’s taxi driver understood. What the classic video here of the banker, Vincent Browne and the taxi driver Now the traditional media are conflating Bitcoin with money laundering and the darknet. It’s an easy jump to make. Pick something you don’t understand, demonise it and then blame it for all sorts of seedy stuff – without any evidence. Today it happened in the Irish Times, Ireland’s paper of record. A major drug sting in Amsterdam resulted in eight arrests, three of which are Irish nationals and known to the local Irish police as gang members. The paper detailed the swag found which included Bitcoin Mining equipment. The article ran the mining equipment as the main headline and then went on to say that Bitcoin could be used for money laundering. No mention of the cash and its use in money laundering. So, […]
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Dashing Over Bitcoin, Why Dash Gained 40% In Value, Fernando Gutierrez Explains
Original post on CryptoCoin.News Last week the cancellation of the Hard Fork in Bitcoin had the markets jumping and in particular the altcoins gained a lot of ground (60% in some cases) before things levelled off. Dash was one of the alt coins to be so positively affected and while it jumped all over the place it settled back to a comfortable gain of a net 40% to lie at the $430 mark. Given its gain in value since the start of the month this might be argued to be a function of more than just the cancellation of the SegWit2x or at least the head of legal at Dash, Fernando Gutierrez would argue as such. Based in Spain, Gutierrez has been involved with Dash for three years. The first non-developer to be appointed to the board, Gutierrez is genuinely cryto-curious, a specialisation from general curiosity before. ‘My wife is relieved,’ laughs Gutierrez. ‘Previously my curiosity led me to online learning constantly. I was doing all-nighters taking online courses on everything from sociology to physics. Now I am just concentrating on cryptocurrency.’ Gutierrez is self-deprecating as he is also a fully-qualified lawyer, economist and owner of a number of successful […]
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