Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

Por William Suberg  The former CEO of reported cryptocurrency scam AriseBank has pleaded guilty to defrauding victims of over $4.2 million, Texas -based daily news outlet Dallas News reported March 21. Jared Rice, whom the FBI arrested over securities and wire fraud in November last year, confessed to his activities, according to an announcement by the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin Nealy Cox. Rice had allegedly falsely claimed that AriseBank could offer customers “FDIC-insured accounts and traditional banking services, including Visa -brand credit and debit cards, in addition to cryptocurrency services.” The announcement, seen by Dallas News, reportedly shows that Rice specifically entered a guilty plea for one count of securities fraud, implicating him in lying to investors of AriseBank while it operated. As Cointelegraph reported, Rice initially faced a 120-year jail term for the combined counts, but sources now indic...

By  Edward Nash As the South American nation, Venezuela is struggling with economic and political issues; the country’s payment system also has gone down. Venezuela has been experiencing issues related to inflation since World War Two. Reportedly the prices have increased by almost 373,233% in Venezuela. The devaluation of its currency added to the woes of the Venezuelan economy. Due to this economic crisis and political instability, the deteriorating standard of living has forced millions of Venezuelans to move to other countries permanently. The prices of basic necessities have also increased leading to high crime rate and corruption. The value of its official currency,   Venezuelan bolivar has been declining for the last few years, and the devaluation has forced most of the Venezuelans to depend on the cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is at the forefront in Venezuela, but the instability of the pricing of Bitcoin is also affecting the country’s fiscal status. It should b...

By Matthew Beedham   At its 2019 “ Cloud Summit ” industry conference in Hong Kong, Huawei unveiled a new blockchain-based cloud service. Huawei Cloud now offers blockchain oriented services designed to help Hong Kong-based businesses make use of the decentralized platform’s typical characteristics. These being, decentralization, immutability, and traceability (transparency). Huawei hopes this will aid the Chinese province’s mission to become an international financial and logistics hub. Specific details of the blockchain service have not been disclosed. But given the wording used to promote the new offering it will be a form of privatized, permissioned ledger designed for corporate clients. It shouldn’t be entirely surprising that Huawei‘s cloud division has got into the blockchain game. Late last year, Huawei featured as one of the founding telecom members in an “ industry specific group ” setup to explore the viability and potential of blockchain technologies for v...

By Clay Neely Through the use of asset forfeiture, the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office has added another tool to help investigators identify possible criminals. Last week, members from the sheriff’s office began utilizing two new Data Works Plus Rapid-ID systems. The technology utilizes a smartphone to run fingerprints through a local database in order to reveal possible aliases, physical descriptions and possibly mugshots. If police believe someone is lying about their identity, or can’t produce a valid ID, the Rapid-ID will help determine who they are. The device can also be used to help identify a deceased person if needed. Results are returned almost instantly. When the information is captured by the device, it is compared against local and national databases. Similar technology for fingerprint identification has been around several years, but the capabilities of the Rapid-ID recently turned some heads at the sheriff's office. The devices were used during a pr...

  BY Erik Gibbs    Japan has always been a leading country. It embraces new technologies quicker than most others and this has even included cryptocurrencies. A recent discussion on the future of integrated resorts (IR) and crypto in the country reveals that, if it chooses, Japan could become one of the first countries to fully embrace digital currencies as a form of payments at its casinos. Could Japan's IRs accept crypto? The discussion took place during a panel session at the iGaming Asia Congress, which was held this week at Studio City in Macau. The event wraps up today and saw participants involved in the “Spotlight on blockchain and crypto regulation in Asia” talk on Wednesday. During that talk, Japan was singled out for its experience and adoption of crypto, and how these could give it a serious competitive edge in the casino industry if it decides to allow crypto in the country’s casinos and IRs. One of the panelists in the discussion, Bitwork Asia co-founde...

By Moris Beracha .-The Venezuelan government has carried out a massive advertisement campaign nationally and internationally, to promote its crypto asset called “Petro”, which has taken center stage, since it is used and anchored to the local currency and accounting unit in the finances of the South American nation. Not only is the referred token commercialized in the country, which is backed by the huge oil reserves, but also digital entrepreneurs have decided to develop new cryptocurrencies that allow Venezuelans to protect their money in the face of a serious economic crisis that could not be controlled by the administration of President Nicolás Maduro. In this sense, the head of the Venezuelan Association of Cryptocurrency (Asonacrip), José Álvarez, has stated in different media “there is a modest number of successful developments beyond the petro in Venezuela.” It should be noted that in addition to bitcoin, dash and the bolivar, Venezuelans have ...

Bruce Flatt put Wall Street’s biggest private equity players on notice that the Canadian juggernaut was coming for them three years ago. The head of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. told Bloomberg Television then that his firm -- pushing into private equity -- should be mentioned in the same breath as Blackstone Group LP , Carlyle Group LP and KKR & Co. It was an unusually brash statement from the understated Winnipeg native. He’s more than backed it up. On Wednesday, Brookfield Asset Management agreed to buy a majority stake in Oaktree Capital, a move that will create a $475 billion alternative-investing behemoth. That’s more assets under management than any of the other blue-chip buyout firms reported at year-end. The transaction caps a flurry of deal-making across Flatt’s investing empire of four publicly traded companies focused on real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy and private equity. “I don’t think Brookfield has grown quickly,...

Bitcoin miners consumed as much as energy in 2018 as Hungary, according to Alex de Vries. The researcher at the Netherlands’ PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) branch studied bitcoin’s global energy consumption all across the year. He found that existing hydropower projects were not sufficient in sustaining the cryptocurrency mining operations, adding that the bitcoin network demanded as much as 62.3 TWh power. The power of such scale could single-handedly serve a Hungary or a Switzerland. More than Banks The revelation followed years of debates about whether or not bitcoin is anti-environment. Skeptics criticize the decentralized financial network for contributing to global warming because each node in the system requires electricity to sustain itself. That is how machines process mathematical problems – by injecting vast computing power – that eventually mine and confirm bitcoin transactions on the network. As a result, the entire mining operation generate...

William M. Peaster A cryptocurrency custody service entering its beta launch this month will use cloud infrastructure provided by international tech powerhouse IBM. It’s the latest notch in the powerful firm’s cryptoverse belt, as the company has already undertaken a slew of blockchain pilot projects over the last few years. That new custody solution, the Digital Asset Custody Services (DACS), is being launched by investment company Shuttle Holdings. It’s currently unclear the extent to which IBM was directly involved in the creation of DACS. However, it is known the custody platform will rely on the IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Services suite, which leverages enterprise-grade Linux servers from the tech titan’s IBM LinuxONE offering. IBM had highlighted the capabilities of that suite by allowing Shuttle Holdings to present on DACS at the former’s Think 2019 conference in February. The target market for the service will be institutional investors, as the platform is d...

Moris Beracha .- The bitcoins and the main cryptocurrencies in the market were designed with some important security patterns, which make them quite difficult to steal. The fundamental aspects of cryptocurrencies include protecting user privacy, avoiding asset theft and avoiding harmful practices such as double spending. However, there are some failures that are sought out by hackers, which allow them to take over and empty some accounts, leaving losses, in some cases, of thousands or millions of dollars. According to the Bit2me cryptocurrency and blockchain academy, about a billion US dollars in Bitcoin have been stolen to date. They recall the thefts in Mt Gt I and II, for a total of 769,408 bitcoins; the 173,655 bitcoins seized by the FBI when closing Silk Road; the robbery known as “Pony” Botnet, which stands out due to the number of machines involved, and which amounted to a total of US $ 220,000 in various types of cryptocurrencies that curren...

  By Moris Beracha .- Different companies that manufacture computer hardware and electronic components have launched campaigns to offer their users, a kind of “passive” mining that will allow them to make profits in cryptocurrencies with very little effort. The decision is basically due to the resounding fall in the prices of the main digital currencies, which have hit hard the assets of these companies. Given this reality, the Taiwanese company Asus, has decided to take action on the matter, specifying an alliance with Quantumcloud to develop a software that allows users of its gaming equipment, to mine cryptocurrencies while our GPU is at rest. To date the Asian technology giant has not offered details of how this tool will work and they have not explained which cryptocurrencies can be mined through it. Although the Quantumcloud website ensures that users of their application “will not get rich quickly,” they argue if they can get some money w...

  Matthew Beedham South Korea is preparing to come down hard on cyber-criminals with the launch of a new “task force” specifically aimed at fighting cryptocurrency fraud and fintech-related crimes. The launch comes in specific response to the 800-percent increase in cryptocurrency crimes the country has seen over the last few years, local news outlets reports . In 2016, there were just 53 reported cases of such crimes, but in 2017 this figure rose to 453, and it exploded to 4,591 cases in 2018. Professional investigators and prosecuting bodies from around the country came together earlier this week in Seocho-dong, Seoul to mark the launch of the task force. According to the report, the task force will be able to track accounts suspected of harboring illicit funds, although it has not stated how it plans to do this. Naturally, as it’s a matter of public security, it’s likely to be a closely guarded secret. The task force will also be empowered to share info...

By Yogita Khatri Seventy-three percent of U.K. consumers don’t know what a cryptocurrency is or are unable to define it, according to a new survey from the country’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Announced  Thursday, the research indicates that those who are most aware of cryptocurrencies are likely to be men aged between 20 and 44. The  survey , which polled 2,132 British consumers in association with London-based market research firm Kantar TNS, further found that only 3 percent of those surveyed had ever bought cryptocurrencies. Of those who had purchased, half of them spent under £200 ($263) from their “disposable income.” Bitcoin appears to be the most popular cryptocurrency, with over 50 percent purchasing the cryptocurrency, while 34 percent bought ether (ETH). The FCA has also carried out “qualitative” research and interviews of UK consumers in association with London-based research agency Revealing ...

By John Detrixhe As part of Japan’s drive to embrace electronic payments, Mizuho and about 60 other banks have launched a new digital wallet called J-Coin Pay. But contrary to what you may have read about it, it doesn’t use crypto. Mizuho’s new service uses QR codes to process smartphone payments, resembling Alipay and WeChat Pay, the dominant platforms in China. Japan has one of the most cash-intensive economies in the world, and its government is pushing for an electronic overhaul in time for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Digital payments account for about 20% of transactions in Japan—compared with more than 60% in China—and the government aims to double that percentage by 2025 . According to a Mizuho spokesperson, J-Coin doesn’t use cryptocurrency or blockchain in any form. That conflicts with numerous reports going back as far as 2017 suggesting that the bank was researching or planning a digital currency pegged to the Japanese yen (paywall). Perhaps ...

  By Moris Beracha .- In the world, millions of people are participating in sports betting, either as a hobby or as a way to get easy money. Given the rise of cryptocurrencies and electronic money, some bookmakers have decided to take the technology path and open transactions that allow holders to use tokens from their personal wallets to try their luck. Within sports betting, many businesses appear and disappear almost instantly; also, some providers do not care much about delivering a good experience to their customers and many sportsbooks make deposits easy for customers but no withdrawals. In this regard, it should be noted that there are a large number of platforms for sports betting and it is not an easy task to decide which one to participate in. Being able to invest a Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency requires to take into account different factors, such as the opinions of existing users, the levels of quotas and promotions, withdrawal limits...