Opera’s Perfect Pitch Could Create a Gateway for Cryptocurrency Cross-Border Payments
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 134: July 23, 2018. By @yassineARK Earlier this month, browser company Opera filed for a $115 million initial public offering (IPO), highlighted by Bitmain – the dominant bitcoin mining machine manufacturer – agreeing to purchase $50 million of shares. In tandem, Opera announced the launch of a cryptocurrency wallet native to its mobile browser. The strategic relevance […]
Litecoin Foundation Acquires a 9.9% stake in Germany’s WEG Bank
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 133: July 16, 2018. By @yassineARK In a new strategic partnership with TokenPay, Litecoin Foundation has acquired a 9.9 percent stake in Germany’s WEG Bank. In what started as a friendly Twitter exchange between Litecoin creator Charlie Lee and TokenPay CEO Derek Capo, the two entities agreed to a deal that will grant Litecoin an […]
China Modifies Regulations for Mobile Payment Platforms
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 132: July 9, 2018. By @bhavanaARK Earlier this year the Central Bank of China issued regulations for the financial services industry that it appended last week for mobile payment platforms. The appended regulations include the following: New ceilings on mobile payments per transaction: Based on customer credit profiles, each transaction is limited to 500 yuan ($77), 1000 yuan […]
Media Metrics on Cryptoassets Look Like Those on Internet Stocks at Their Peak, But May Not Be Sending the Same Signal
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 131: July 2, 2018. By @wintonARK Almost everyone in the US has encountered an article or two, or two thousand, describing bitcoin, cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology over the past 6-9 months. Indeed, the number focused on bitcoin/cryptocurrencies spiked with bitcoin’s price during the fourth quarter of 2017, as shown below. Now […]
Venmo is Popular Among Young People, But Will Their Parents and Grandparents Follow?
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 130: June 25, 2018. By @bhavanaARK Paying friends for lunch is simple these days thanks to a number of peer-to-peer (P2P) apps. Among the most popular are Venmo and Square Cash despite other options like Facebook Messenger payments. Venmo is the most social, making it fun as well as convenient. In a survey, […]
ARK Presents on AI Hardware and Blockchain Technology at CogX London 2018
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 129: June 18, 2018. By @jwangARK This week ARK presented at CogX, a premier technology conference in Europe focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technology. Sponsored by Softbank, CogX attracted more than 7,000 attendees and a wide range of speakers spanning industry (Nvidia, ARM, Intel), startups (OpenAI, Graphcore, Five.ai), and the […]
Is Venezuela Foreshadowing Other Financial Crises and an Important Role for Some Cryptocurrencies?
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 128: June 12, 2018. By @wintonARK In Venezuela, person-to-person bitcoin trading has again elevated, as shown in the chart below. Apparently, the local population is resorting to the cryptocurrency as it tries desperately to protect its purchasing power and savings. Source: Coin Dance Threatening to ravage the country’s wealth, the Venezuelan bolivar is in […]
GMO Internet Launched its New Bitcoin Miner
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 128: June 12, 2018. By @bhavanaARK Japanese internet player, GMO Internet, has become an active player in the blockchain technology space. Group Director Masatoshi Kumagai has focused the company on Bitcoin technology and its potential to create a borderless economic zone. GMO operates its own exchange and mining operation. It also […]
Decoding Attacks on Cryptoassets
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 127: June 4, 2018. By @wintonARK A handful of cryptoassets has been attacked successfully over the past month. Hackers have exploited Verge, a small privacy-focused coin, twice, both times accelerating coin issuance and stealing coins worth millions of dollars. Ironically, Verge had introduced complexity into its protocol to address perceived weaknesses in Bitcoin’s […]
Banks in Emerging Markets are Beginning to Say No to SWIFT
Source: ARK Disrupt Issue 126: May 30, 2018. By @bhavanaARK Two announcements in emerging markets this week suggest that banks are beginning to move away from SWIFT, a global financial messaging network, to blockchain based payments. Banco Masventas (BMV), an Argentine bank, has partnered with Bitex to facilitate cross border transactions over the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitex, a crypto […]
