Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

Soluna says its new business model can be good for blockchains and clean energy development. By Mike Orcutt It’s undeniable: Bitcoin’s energy guzzling is a growing environmental problem. It’s been estimated that the network uses nearly as much electricity as all of Ireland, raising alarms about its carbon footprint. In theory, though, it doesn’t have to consume nearly as much fossil-fuel-based power as it does today—and a new renewable-energy company has an ambitious plan to prove it. The firm, called Soluna , has acquired a 37,000-acre wind-farm site in Morocco that it says has the potential to host up to 900 megawatts of power-generating capacity. (A recent estimate (PDF) suggests that the Bitcoin network uses at least 2.55 gigawatts.) Development of the site began nine years ago, but progress stalled under its previous owners. Soluna, which has teamed with the German wind-power developer ALTUS AG , aims to build at least 36 megawatts of capacity by...

By Nikhilesh De Crypto mining giant Bitmain may be losing its advantage in developing miners amid other potential cash-flow issues, according to a new report. Analysts with research firm Alliance Bernstein said the company's "cash flow appears to be questionable and the company may be gradually losing technological edge" in a report published Wednesday. The researchers note that Bitmain's revenue in 2017 fell below estimates after the company stored a large number of its miners' components, rather than selling to customers, although its revenue still remained "remarkably high" for that year. Further, even though Bitmain dominated the mining device market with "77 percent unit share in bitcoin and ~85 percent in all cryptocurrencies last year," declining cryptocurrency prices reduced some of that revenue stream. The bear market also impacted Bitmain's holdings. The company holds roughly 5.7 percent of the total supply of bitcoin cash, whi...

 By Joseph Young The Chinese government has banned all commercial crypto and blockchain-related events in the region, after encouraging local financial authorities to speed up the development of blockchain technology. Red Li, the co-founder of 8BTC and Chinese cryptocurrency researcher, shared a document released by the Chaoyang District government in Beijing, which ordered local financial authorities and police to ban offices and hotels from hosting crypto-related events. Why the Ban? Previously, crypto-related events were shut down by local police, during a period in which the government was in process of implementing new regulatory frameworks surrounding cryptocurrency trading. At the time, the government clarified its stance on crypto trading and reaffirmed that while the country supports the development of blockchain technology, it is firmly against trading digital assets on cryptocurrency exchanges. Analysts suggested that the ban was imposed as a part of a larger initi...

 By William Suberg Liechtenstein bank Union Bank AG announced it was issuing its own security tokens and in-house cryptocurrency backed by fiat in a press release Friday, August 17. Union Bank, which has concentrated increasingly on blockchain this year, said issuing its so-called “Union Bank Payment Coin (UBPC)” was a further step towards becoming a “full-service blockchain investment bank.” UBPC will act as a stable coin, the institution explained, and will have fiat currencies “such as the Swiss franc” as its backing. “Our goal is to become the world's first blockchain investment bank and to provide tangible solutions which help drive efficiencies, reduce cost base and open up new revenue opportunities for our customers and intermediaries alike,” chairman of the board of directors Mohammad Hans Dastmaltchi commented in the release. “...As such, our fiat-backed Union Bank Payment Coin has the potential to disrupt the approach to international trad...

By Billy Bambrough The bitcoin and cryptocurrency world has been closely watching Venezuela over recent years as the socialist country grapples with an economic crisis that has plunged people's lives into chaos. Now Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has broken new ground in his efforts to stabilize the country's economy: lopping five zeros off the bolivar, introducing new bills, a name change and linking the new bolivar’s value to the national oil-linked petro cryptocurrency. The official rate for the currency will go from around 285,000 per dollar to 6 million while the minimum wage will be raised some 3,500% in an effort to offset the devaluation shock. The historic devaluation and changes to the currency mean the new minimum wage will be 1,800 sovereign bolivars, instead of 1.8 million old bolivars. Meanwhile, bitcoin and cryptocurrency use in Venezuela has remained far above other countries, with transaction volumes climbing since the beginning of this year, accordi...

CCN In the past 24 hours, the valuation of the crypto market has dropped slightly by $2 billion, from $215 billion to $213 billion, as the Bitcoin price and Ethereum price demonstrated stability. Most major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, EOS, and Ethereum recorded decent gains in the range of 1 to 5 percent. Top 10 best performing cryptocurrencies, chart provided by CoinMarketCap Tokens including VeChain, Ontology, and DigixDAO, which fell by more than 20 percent against both Bitcoin and the US dollar on August 18, recovered relatively quickly, recording 15 percent gains to overcome yesterday’s losses. Tokens are Showing Massive Volatility Earlier this week, on August 17, VeChain, Ontology, DigixDAO, Nano, 0x, BAT, and other tokens recorded some of their strongest performances against Bitcoin. VeChain and Ontology in specific rose by over 70 percent against the US dollar, recording 30 to 60 percent gains against Bitcoin and Ethereum. But, on Augus...

By Rachel Wolfson While the world of crypto still very much resembles the digital wild west for big financial firms, there is hope that the cryptocurrency market will “go to the moon” once institutional investors join the ranks of high-net-worth individuals and hedge funds in the space (currently there are over 400 ).  This could happen sooner rather than later, as a number of self-regulatory advancements are being made that are starting to attract interest from institutional investors. Actions centered on regulatory compliance and adding stability to the volatile crypto market are being performed to demonstrate that the crypto market is becoming ripe for large financial firms. 2018: The Year Of Security Token Offerings Regulatory uncertainty around ICOs and the crypto market in general have taken center stage since the emergence of initial coin offerings (ICOs) last year. Not surprisingly, utility tokens (user tokens that are not desig...

By Bernard Marr Even though Bitcoin and blockchain are still in their infancy, they have both been the "talk of the town" as experts contemplate the potential ramifications—good and bad—for virtually every industry. As the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is the first exposure many people have to blockchain technology. Many compare the transformative effect of blockchain to the disruption caused by the Internet, search engines and Google that changed the way we work, shop and communicate with one another. Everyone from world leaders to CEOs, and industry experts to investors are being asked their thoughts about Bitcoin and blockchain. Here are just a few of their opinions. “It’s gold for nerds.” —Stephen Colbert, Comedian “Bitcoin will do to banks what email did to the postal industry.” —Rick Falkvinge, Founder of the Swedish pirate party “Bitcoin is a technological tour de force.” —Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, investor, and philanthropist “Every informed person...

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai A cryptocurrency investor who says he lost $24 million after his phone number was stolen in two hacks wants AT&T to pay him more than $200 million in damages. Michael Terpin, founder of Transform Group and BitAngels, filed a lawsuit against AT&T on Tuesday. Terpin argues that AT&T didn’t do enough to protect his phone number despite the fact that the company was fully aware of the fact that criminals are increasingly targeting cryptocurrency investors by stealing their phone numbers in a fraud commonly known as SIM swapping, SIM hijacking, or “port out scam.” In the last few months, several criminals have stolen millions of dollars in Bitcoin or other virtual currency by targeting people who work in the cryptocurrency world. In July, police in California accused a 20-year-old of being part of a group who stole $5 million from more than 40 victims. A couple of weeks later, police in Florida charged a 25-year-old for similar crimes. ...

By Moris Beracha/ Crypto.BI According to a quarterly report released by Cipher Trace, the quantitative investment firm, specializing in the systematic trading of cryptocurrencies, in the first half of 2018, more than $760 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from exchanges, nearly three times more than in 2017. The growth in the demand for currency in the industry of services has driven, according to this report, money laundering of coins. Also, the services that clean dirty funds are widely available, said CipherTrace, and some have even advertised through Google AdWords. Likewise, many exchanges, and new ones are opening all the time, have security vulnerabilities. And cryptocurrencies, once stolen, often cannot be returned or even traced to the thieves. “There are so many cryptocurrencies now, and they are worth so much money, and there are so many exchanges globally where you can cash out, that we’ve seen not just traditional cyber gangs, but we’ve seen a new s...

By Moris Beracha According to Coin ATM Radar, a company specialized for studying the Bitcoin ATM market, the number of automatic teller machines for purchasing and selling Bitcoin is growing by 10% on a monthly basis. Only in 2018, the number of bitcoin ATMs rose from 2,000 to 3,000 units distributed around the world. The company estimates that by the end of this year the number of Bitcoin ATMs will reach 6,300 units. Despite the negative price trend of Bitcoin at the beginning of the year, Bitcoin ATM industry is apparently following a different path. General Bytes and Genesis Coin are two companies that lead the market with respect to bitcoin ATM installation. So far this year, General Bytes stays on top with 76 new ATMs installed (10.4% increase), followed by Genesis Coin with 61 installations (6.7% increase). The United States still tops the countries with the highest number of Bitcoin ATMs installed, followed by Canada. In Europe Austria i...