Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Max Boddy The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) outlined regulatory compliance issues for cryptocurrency custodians in an announcement on July 8. According to the joint statement, the organizations have yet to discover a set of circumstances in which a crypto custodian could comply with the SEC’s Customer Protection Rule, which is described as follows: “Put simply, the Customer Protection Rule requires broker-dealers to safeguard customer assets and to keep customer assets separate from the firm’s assets, thus increasing the likelihood that customers’ securities and cash can be returned to them in the event of the broker-dealer’s failure.” The report further claims that a crypto custody service may not be able to sufficiently demonstrate that it actually controls the assets it purports to hold. The SEC and FINRA discuss how simply holding a private key, for instance, is not sufficient to demons...

By  William Suberg Amazon  would only consider discussing the creation of its own  cryptocurrency  like  Facebook’s Libra in several years’ time, a senior executive said at a  conference  on June 10. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Finance 2019 event, Patrick Gaulthier, vice president of Amazon Pay, said the kind of value transfer system Facebook unveiled this week was a step too far in the current climate. “It’s fresh, it’s speculative; at Amazon, we don’t really deal with the speculative, in the now,” he said. Facebook continues to cause a stir in cryptocurrency, financial and government circles in the wake of the first publicity material around Libra going live. Billed as a network designed to allow users to send money like messages or pictures on social media, the scheme has  attracted  scorn for its technical setup and roadmap, while some lawmakers have already gone as far as to request the company  halt d...

RICK D.   |  A congressman with a track record of bashing crypto has come out once again calling for a ban on digital assets. Republican Brad Sherman supposedly raised the idea earlier today in Congress. This is not the first time this week that someone has called for a ban on digital assets. However, without a huge international effort from authorities, the chances of such legislation proving effective are remote. Is the Crypto Narrative Changing from Ridicule to Fear for the Powers that be? According to a video posted to Twitter by crypto education group Coin Center, a congressman with a history of being opposed to digital currencies has once again raised the possibly of a ban on the technology. In the video, Republican Brad Sherman states with surprising candour: “I look for colleagues to join with me in introducing a bill to outlaw cryptocurrency purchases by Americans, so that we nip this in the bud, in part because an awful lot of our internation...

Blockchain, cryptocurrency, and other innovative techs have significant disruptive potential. Within the course of time, this fact becomes obvious not only for community enthusiasts but also for traditional industry players. That is probably the major reason for world electronic bulls to explore the innovative possibilities to boost their own progress. Microsoft showed interest in blockchain technology back in 2018. They announced their plans to apply the technology behind Bitcoin (the leading crypto by market cap) in its decentralised IDs (DIDs) App. The company was support DLT-based DIDs through Microsoft Authenticator App. However, as of now, the project seems to be frozen.    Unstoppable IBM    IBM, another technological giant, has has shown interest in exploring blockchain and cryptocurrency techs even earlier, in 2015. As of now, the company is known to take part in several related projects.   In January 2019, Ford Motor comp...

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 Max Yakubowski German automobile brand Mercedes-Benz Car has developed a platform based on blockchain technology to increase transparency and sustainability in complex supply chains , according to press release published on Feb. 25. Mercedes-Benz, a division of Daimler AG, a German multinational automotive corporation, has partnered with United States -based software company Icertis for cooperating in the development of blockchain tech for supply chain use. Mercedes-Benz has announced that that they have jointly developed and programmed a prototype with Icertis based on blockchain technology that allows for the storage of documentations and contracts in complex supply chains. The project allows for the creation of a transparent and sustainable mapping of sorted documents across the entire supply chain, the press release notes. The parties have now entered the testing phase of the pilot project. Underlining the complexity of the modern supply chains,...

By Marie Huillet    Denmark’s Tax Authority has been authorized by the country’s Tax Council to obtain information regarding all trades of cryptocurrencies across three domestic crypto exchanges . An official announcement published on the agency’s website reported this development on Jan. 14. The authorization means that three unspecified Danish crypto exchanges now have legal disclosure obligations to hand over identity information that includes names, addresses and personal tax numbers, as well as details of all crypto transactions made on their platforms between Jan. 1 2016 to Dec. 31 2018. The Tax Authority has said it will use the information to ensure that citizens who have traded in crypto have duly paid the correct tax. Karin Bergen, a director at the agency, is quoted as saying that its fresh mandate will give it completely new opportunities in relation to its control in the cryptocurrency sector.   Any information pertaining to f...

By Moris Beracha .-  In spite of the financial sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and other countries of the world on the government of Venezuela, the president of the Latin American country, Nicolás Maduro, is seeking to find resources through the cryptocurrency Petro. It is important to mention that this token, which is backed by certified oil reserves and precious metals lacks international confidence, which is fundamental for obtaining economic benefits. Despite the complicated scenario, the so-called “Bolivarian and revolutionary” government announced that from October 29, 2018, Venezuelans or any citizen in the world will be able to buy the Petro with convertible currencies such as the dollar, the yuan or the euro and with bitcoin, Ethereum, Nem, among others. In this sense, the vice president for the economic area, Tarek El Aissami, said in a press conference that whoever wants to buy petros with other cryptocurrenci...

By Moris Beracha .-  Although many investors are still skeptical about bitcoins, cryptocurrencies around the world continue to gain ground. Digital currency, as it is also known, has been traded by soccer players, concert companies, bicycles, among others. In this sense, the latest news that has caused a commotion in the digital domain is the inclusion of the terms bitcoin, cryptocurrency, blockchain, among others, to the Merriam-Webster Scrabble dictionary, an official publication used as arsenal by the players of the world’s most popular board game. Who has not had fun playing scrabble with friends and family? It should be recalled that Scrabble is a board game, in which each player tries to score more points as they place words on a board with a 15-by-15 grid. Words can be placed in a straight line horizontally or vertically and can be crossed as long as they appear in the aforementioned dictionary. Hasbro owns the property rights in t...

By Moris Beracha The different cryptocurrencies that are currently exchanged in the market do not move outside the multiple businesses that are striving to massively boost token as a payment option. According to Rubén Guía Chirino, attorney and advisor for Dash Venezuela, 99% of cryptocurrency transactions are involved in legal activities; therefore, those who associate the use of digital currencies with illegal activities only have a bias towards the new technology. Guía Chirinos said many countries in the world are lobbying to establish a cryptocurrency regulatory framework. He acknowledges it is a matter of time for lawmakers to agree on developing rules on crypto exchange. He also suggests possible legal scenarios for possible applicability of these rules. For example, cryptocurrency mining activities can be taxed by the treasury or they can be regarded as swaps. The international cryptography regulation context is advancing rapidly, since digi...

By Rachel Wolfson  The cryptocurrency market and initial coin offerings (ICOs) have carved out a grey area for regulatory efforts in the United States. For example, utility tokens (user owned tokens that are not created as investment vehicles and hold a claim that they are exempt from federal laws that govern securities) are the primary tokens circulating most ICOs. Owners of utility tokens can’t use the coins outside of the platform without exchanging them; they can send tokens person to person within the network. ICOs must evolve to become self-regulatory, in order to advance the crypto market and become attractive to institutional investors. It’s not uncommon to find that the majority of companies selling utility tokens don’t have token economics. Therefore, most listed utility tokens are not real utility tokens, but rather, these companies are actually selling security tokens. Due to this problem, many institutional investors have been bearish...