Malaysia wants to put major industries on blockchain

The Malaysian government is seeking to utilize blockchain to increase transparency, sustainability and logistical efficiency of its three largest industries—renewable energy, palm oil, and Islamic finance.

According to reports, the government has appointed a task force named the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) to oversee the blockchain adoption. Mastura Ishak, program director at MIGHT, told GovInsider: "Blockchain is interesting because it allows small players to have a say about what's going on."

The Malaysian government believes that adopting blockchain in the renewable energy industry will help bring new players to the table and increase energy production in the country. Currently, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is the only utility provider in the country.

The new project will allow private solar panel owners to sell any excess electricity they have. In the new system, electricity sellers will be required to state how they are generating their electricity, while consumers will have the choice of deciding which sources of electricity they would like to use.

By allowing private solar panel owners to sell their surplus electricity, the country will also save up on the electricity lost during long-distance distribution.

For the palm oil industry, the Malaysian government hopes blockchain will help bring major changes that will improve the country's economy. Palm oil is Malaysia's biggest export, accounting for about 43.1% of the country's agricultural income.

Palm oil has been facing problems for quite some time now. This happened after reports emerged associating the industry with bad practices and child labor. MIGHT believes blockchain adoption can help identify certified palm oil operations which will help eliminate illegal operations. The government will also be able to monitor and regulate the operations.

Finally, there's Islamic finance. Islamic laws state that money has to be based on real commodity and cannot be created from more money. The strict nature of Islamic laws have caused high overhead costs on the industry, which is reflected in the country's economy. The government is looking at how they can offset these costs while also adhering to Sharia laws. Blockchain and the adoption of smart contracts could help offset some of these costs.

UNICEF France starts accepting donations in Bitcoin BCH, other cryptos

UNICEF France is now taking donations in cryptocurrencies. On its website, the humanitarian body said it accepts donations in nine cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin BCH, as well as BTC, ETH, EOS, Stellar, LTC, XRP, DASH and XMR. The decision to finally accept cryptocurrencies was partly due to the organization's need to expand its circle of donors and sources of funding, according to UNICEF France.

The organization is also calling on its well-wishers to donate their computing power for the purpose of mining six crypto coins to directly to UNICEF France's wallets. This concept of accepting crypto donations was born after the GameChaingers campaign in February. The campaign, launched by UNICEF to help children in the war torn country of Syria, asked gamers to contribute their mining power to mine cryptocurrency as part of the initiative. Interested gamers and donors had to install the Claymore mining software to mine ETH, the chosen crypto for the project. The campaign ended last March 31, with UNICEF mining 85 ETH.

Sébastien Lyon, the director of UNICEF France pointed out that while cryptocurrencies is an innovation in the fundraising sphere, it is being utilised by few organizations in the field. He noted, "Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology used for charitable purposes offer a new opportunity to appeal to the generosity of the public and continue to develop our operations with children in the countries of intervention."

UNICEF France had taken a cue from UNICEF Australia, which, in April, created an initiative where crypto mining was conducted by visiting a website, HopePage, which had been set up for the specific purpose of mining Monero. Also in May, UNICEF announced that donors could use Coinhive to offer their donations to support refugees through mining cryptocurrency. The funds raised was used to help 400,000 children in Rohingya who were affected by the violence in Myanmar.

Jennifer Tierney, director of UNICEF Australia, explained, "The HopePage allows Australians to provide help and hope to vulnerable children by simply opening the page while they are online." HopePage asks users for confirmation before using anybody's system to mine for UNICEF Australia, and users can adjust how much computing power they are willing to donate or leave the browser tab open to keep contributing to the initiative.

Denmark’s Largest Bank Took Two Years to Close Accounts of Blacklisted Russian Clients

Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank, reportedly knew that some of its Estonian branch's clients were on the Russian government's blacklist but did not close their accounts for two years. The bank is currently being probed by three countries over $150 billion money laundering allegations.

Danske Bank is currently under investigation by authorities in three countries: the US, Denmark, and Estonia. Its officials reportedly "knew earlier than previously indicated about problems at its tiny Estonia branch, including that it held accounts for blacklisted Russian clients," The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday, citing correspondence it has seen. The publication elaborated:

Officials at Danske Bank were aware almost two years before it started shutting questionable accounts that the small but highly profitable branch was involved in potentially illicit money flows.

The Estonian branch was one of the bank's profit drivers, generating a net profit of €63 million (~US$73.5 million) in 2012, the most lucrative year. The whole bank reported €636.6 million (~$742.6 million) in net profit that year, the publication noted.

The largest bank in Denmark has been at the center of one of Europe's largest money laundering cases. Between 2007 and 2015, an estimated $150 billion was suspected to have flowed through the branch to accounts belonging to non-Estonian customers including Russian clients. However, the bank has not confirmed how much of that figure comes from suspicious transactions. It has launched an internal investigation and is expected to announce the results on Wednesday, Sept. 19.

Discriminating Email

According to the Wall Street Journal, an April 2013 email reveals that the bank's anti-money laundering (AML) chief based in Denmark had asked colleagues in the Estonian branch "about client accounts whose owners appeared on a blacklist generated by Russia's central bank." The Bank of Russia keeps a database of individuals and companies suspected of financial wrongdoing which it shares across borders. The list currently has about 500,000 names.

The Estonian Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) said on Tuesday that "it repeatedly complained to Danish counterparts about the branch's blacklisted customers," the news outlet conveyed, adding that in a 2013 email, Niels Thos Mikkelsen, the bank's then-compliance executive, wrote:

"They have the impression that we do not take the issue seriously."

Furthermore, the news outlet added that a spokesman for the Danish FSA pointed out that a reprimand ruling against Danske Bank in May states that the authority received "misleading" information from the bank between 2012 and 2014. Danske claims the information came from the branch.

While the Financial Times recently reported that Thomas Borgen, the bank's CEO, was notified in October 2013 about suspicious transactions at the Estonian branch, Borgen insists that "he was not informed in detail at the time about the problems," Reuters described on Tuesday, elaborating:

"The Danske Bank case has led to speculation in Denmark that its chief executive Thomas Borgen, who was in charge of its international operations, including Estonia, between 2009 and 2012, will step down."

Less Than Two Months Away – Bitcoin Cash Upgrade Discussion Heats Up

Over the past few weeks, Bitcoin Cash supporters have been debating the upcoming hard fork scheduled for November 15th of this year. Most of the community understands, that as of right now, there are two camps that have entirely different visions. It doesn't seem like a compromise is coming any time soon. Lately, as each day passes and as time draws closer to the upgrade, both disagreeing parties have been testing certain features and publishing various papers concerning the theoretical effects of specific upgrade additions.

The November 15th Upgrade Debate Continues

Right now is probably a pretty confusing time for a few people just learning about the disagreement taking place concerning the scheduled November 15, 2018, Bitcoin Cash network upgrade. Currently, there are two camps that disagree on which features will be added to the hard fork this November — The Bitcoin ABC development team and the clients' supporters, and the Nchain development team and the Bitcoin SV clients' crew of proponents.

The Bitcoin ABC development team wants to add an opcode called OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY (DSV) that aims to improve BCH scripting, canonical transaction ordering (CTOR), and some minor technical fixes and improvements.

The Nchain team and it's BCH full node client called Bitcoin SV wants an entirely different set of features. Bitcoin SV's upgrade list includes a 128MB block size increase, add the opcodes:  OP_MUL, OP_LSHIFT, OP_RSHIFT, OP_INVERT, and remove the limit of 201 opcodes per script.

At first, the most vocal person against the Bitcoin ABC proposals was Nchain's chief scientist Craig Wright. However, there are many others who support the idea of Bitcoin SV and the blockchain, and mining firm Coingeek had decided to support Nchain's idea from the beginning. Since then Nchain has released its alpha version codebase, started a Bitcoin SV mining pool so people can direct hashrate to the client, and both the mining pools Coingeek and BMG Pool (Nchain's hashrate) have managed to capture 46.2 percent of the global BCH hashrate over the last seven days.

Bitcoin Cash Proponents Argue the Pros and Cons of Canonical Transaction Ordering

There have been so many arguments for and against some of the features the two camps are promoting. For instance, there have been lots of conversations in regard to adding CTOR and plenty of discussions against the idea. Andrew Stone wrote a critique about CTOR on September 7th called "Why ABC's CTOR Will Not Scale." Coingeek has published opinions against adding CTOR in a post two days ago. The Coingeek post also leads to another critical evaluation of CTOR by the Reddit user /u/awemany and the BCH developer Tom Zander.

On the other hand, Electron Cash developer Jonald Fyookball wrote a case for adding CTOR to the Bitcoin Cash protocol this week. Of course, early on Bitcoin ABC has published some opinions as to why the development team believes CTOR should be added to the BCH codebase. Another post on r/btc, written by Mark Blundeberg, gives a comprehensive technical dive into canonical transaction ordering, and the BCH mining pool Rawpool has also given an objective evaluation towards CTOR. The Bitcoin Miner Jonathan Toomim also added some information to the mix with his block propagation data that stemmed from Bitcoin Cash stress tests that took place a couple of weeks ago.

"During the stress test, blocks propagated through the non-China mainnet at around 300–1000 kB/s — This is pretty slow, and would cause problems with orphan rates if block sizes were frequently larger than 8 MB unless we improve our block propagation algorithms," Toomim explains in his recent post.

The Pros and Cons Concerning the OP_Code CHECKDATASIGVERIFY or DSV

Then there are many discussions concerning the OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY (DSV) feature Bitcoin ABC wants to add. Nchain's Craig Wright says that "DSV opens many issues" and others have disagreed with the idea of adding DSV as well. One Github repository details another option the community could use instead of DSV called recursive smelting. Then Nchain's senior researcher Owen Vaughan recently published a paper called "Rabin Signatures in Bitcoin Cash." The paper posits the belief that "arbitrary messages can be signed and verified directly in Bitcoin Cash script without introducing new opcodes."

Mark Blundeberg has written another extensive post that shows the benefits of DSV called "'Pay To Identity' — a proposed use of OP_CHECKDATASIG." Moreover, another post published on Yours.org by a writer named Perica argues that DSV is already in the codebase, and has been there since the creation of the Bitcoin version 0.1 release. Perica's paper claims the current DSV model, that's already baked into the original code, is a "more powerful form than the one proposed by various developer teams."

Bitcoin Cash Supporters Have so Much to Discuss Over the Next Few Weeks Before the Fork, and Anything Can Happen Between Now and Then

There's been so much to discuss its hard to believe the fork will happen this November but right now both camps seem pretty adamant an upgrade will take place. Further people can stay rather neutral and run either Bitcoin XT or the Bitcoin Unlimited clients, as those teams plan to allow the decision to be ultimately made by majority hashrate. There's also a lot of bickering between community members over the 128MB increase and whether or not the chain should upgrade the block size now. The stress test, although remarkable, offered insight to some of the problems (block propagation times & bottleneck) introduced by exceeding blocks larger than 8MB. However, a slew of big block advocates believe the network can handle super large blocks and some think the limit should be removed entirely.

In order to keep our readers informed over the course of the next few weeks leading up to the November 15 upgrade, news.Bitcoin.com is sure to be there every step of the way.  

Leading Crypto Firms Form A Lobbying Group To Push For Regulation

After years of waiting for the government to put in place regulations to govern the industry, crypto and blockchain industry leaders have come together to establish a lobbying group whose goal will be to push for the implementation of these policies. Based in Washington D.C, the group brings together some of the biggest names in the industry, including startups like Coinbase and crypto-focused VC firms like Polychain Capital. Known as The Blockchain Association, the group aims to become the voice of the industry in D.C and to work with the regulators from the inside, helping shed light on the developments in the industry and influencing the policy-making process.

The Inside Man

The crypto industry has for a long time been perceived as anti-government, perhaps largely because of its promise of taking the power away from a few entities and giving it to the people. However, many industry leaders have continuously sought to involve the government in their operations and have called for the implementation of regulations to govern the industry. The Blockchain Association is the latest effort by the industry to work with the government, with the group hiring a former Senate aide, Kristin Smith to lead the charge. Smith was the aide to former Maine Senator, Olympia Snowe, before taking over the blockchain lobbying duties for the bitcoin-friendly online retailer, Overstock.com.

As revealed by The Washington Post on September 11, some of the founding members of the new lobby group are Coinbase, fintech startup Circle and crypto-focused VC firms Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital. Protocol Labs, the company behind decentralized storage startup Filecoin is also among the founding members.

The industry is not looking to circumvent the set regulations, Coinbase's Mike Lempres told the Post. Instead, it's been awaiting regulations for the longest time to weed out the scammers and promote healthy competition, Lempres, who is the chief legal and risk officer stated.

THE BLOCKCHAIN ASSOCIATION IS AN EFFORT TO GET THE PREEMINENT COMPANIES IN THE SPACE TOGETHER SO POLICYMAKERS KNOW THEY'RE HEARING FROM COMPANIES THAT WELCOME REGULATION WHEN IT'S APPROPRIATE. WE'RE NOT COMPANIES LOOKING TO GAME THE SYSTEM, BUT TRYING TO DEVELOP A LEGAL AND REGULATORY SYSTEM THAT'LL STAND THE TEST OF TIME.

The group's first priority will be working with regulators and lawmakers to establish regulations that will govern the application of the U.S tax laws to cryptos. This has been one of the most contentious issues in the industry, with the IRS's current application of the tax law being deemed prohibitive by many crypto users. The contention hasn't been made any better by the different regulatory authorities that have issued different classifications of cryptos; the IRS as a property, the SEC as a security and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as a currency.

Earlier this year, the Winklevoss twins announced an industry initiative to self-regulate which was officially launched a month ago. Known as the Virtual Commodities Association, the body has picked up new members over the last month as more crypto companies seek to become compliant with the set laws and to become actively involved in the formulation of new ones. Among the body's founding members are crypto exchanges Bitstamp, Bittrex and Bitflyer USA.

Markets Update: Ethereum Leads Strong Altcoin Rally

Since yesterday's update, the cryptocurrency markets have produced a strong bounce over the last 24 hours. Of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market cap, Ethereum, and Monero were the day's top gainers – both of which have posted gains of over 15% in the last 24 hours.

BTC Tests $6,500

In the last 24 hours, BTC has gained by roughly 3% – with current prices testing resistance at the $6,500 USD area as of this writing.

Looking at the daily chart, the stochastic RSI appears poised to break above the 20 threshold – signaling that more bullish action may ensue should BTC be able to produce and hold a strong break above the $6,500 area.

Bitcoin Cash Gains 7% in 24 Hours

BCH produced gains of approximately 7% in the last 24 hours, bouncing off a new low for 2018 of $410 yesterday to now be trading for roughly $455.

The bullish move for BCH coincided with a roughly 5% gain over BTC – with BCH currently trading for around 0.07 BTC after bouncing off 0.066 BTC yesterday.

Ethereum Shorts and Longs Continue to Test Record Highs

Of the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Ethereum has produced the strongest gains during the last 24 hours of price action. As of this writing, ETH is trading for $205 – up more than 18% from yesterday's lows of roughly $170.

The number of open ETH/USD short positions is currently testing the all-time high area of 240,000 for the second time since the record was established just three days ago.

The number of ETH/USD longs appears to be retracing to test the area of September 5th's prior all-time high of roughly 330,000, after yesterday establishing a new record of approximately 360,000.

Mainstream Media Narrative Sensationalizes Chinese Crypto Crackdown

An article written by Nicholas Krapels – an American academic who has lived in China since 2011 whilst working towards his PhD in Chinese politics at East China Normal University, has criticized mainstream media narratives pertaining to Chinese regulatory actions regarding cryptocurrencies.

Mr. Krapels states that "Last week, many minor statements fomented a mountain of fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding cryptocurrency's future in China. On Tuesday evening, Wechat blocked a few crypto-oriented news official accounts. Late in the evening the next day, Beijing's Chaoyang District banned public venues from holding crypto-related events."

Mr. Krapels asserts that "the way Western media portrays events in China" heightened and exaggerated concerns pertaining to the events, adding: "That situation is only made worse when crypto influencers like Danhua Capital Managing Director Dovey Wan tweets out pictures of the primary source of the Beijing district ban in Chinese along with misleading English comments, 'The new China crypto BAN is now official'." Mr. Krapels likens such to "post[ing] […] an official English notice […] on Weibo […] from the NYC police banning handguns in Manhattan and then claim in Chinese, 'America's BAN on handguns is now official'."

Chinese Government Had "No Direct Involvement" With Wechat and Chaoyang District's Respective Actions

Mr. Krapels asserts that "the national government has had no direct involvement with any of these actions," emphasizing that "So far, a single district in Beijing and a development zone in Guangzhou have explicitly called for venue bans."

"Wechat and Alipay, corporations not the government, voluntarily self-regulated the blurry edges of their ecosystem that facilitated illegal behavior such as coordinating pyramid schemes and averting capital controls," he added.

The article states that "Most casual observers of Chinese politics do not understand that rarely, if ever, does the Chinese Communist Party issue bold black-and-white proclamations," adding that "By design, Chinese law maintains a grey area, a Hegelian nuance that provides for innovative creativity while at the same time attempts to ward off destructive tulipomania and outright scammers."

As such, Mr. Krapels states that one must "read between the lines" in order to "find true regulatory intent."

4 Financial Moguls Who Are Still Hating on Bitcoin

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies tend to attract a lot of attention. Not all of this attention is positive, and financial experts often condemn Bitcoin for having no real value or future. The following list of individuals is ranked by their "clout" in the world, even though virtually all of these opinions will fall on deaf ears in the end.

#4 Themis Trading Group

This particular group has not been too involved in voicing opinions on Bitcoin and alternative cryptocurrencies. That suddenly came to change a few days prior to CME Group launching its Bitcoin futures. As there is no official template or regulation for such investment vehicles, it seems the financial firm was convinced CME Group "caved in to client demand." Moreover, Themis Trading LLC claimed Bitcoin was an instrument subject to plenty of fraud and manipulation.

#3 Severin Cabannes

In the financial world, most service providers tend to not look beyond the traditional financial offerings. Given the lack of regulation surrounding Bitcoin in the US and other countries, that is not entirely surprising either. Severin Cabannes, the deputy CEO at Society Generale SA, is one of the people in the "Bitcoin is in a bubble" camp.

In a way, that statement was not entirely incorrect either. Late last year and early 2018 generate unsustainable values for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. With all prices crashing down in spectacular fashion, it would appear any bubble concerns regarding Bitcoin have evaporated. That doesn't mean there will be no further price increases or new all-time highs.

#2 Tidjane Thiam

Similar to Cabannes, Tidjane Thiam holds a high position at Credit Suisse Group AG. One does not become a major financial group's CEO by taking unnecessary risks or jumping on every single bandwagon as the opportunity presents itself. Even so, claiming Bitcoin is only designed to "make money" and nothing else is rather shortsighted first and foremost. There are numerous use cases for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies worth exploring.

#1 Jamie Dimon

Everyone has heard the comments uttered by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon over the past 18 months. He was one of the first to claim Bitcoin is a major bubble, although that was the least offense of his comments to date. In further interviews and presentations, Dimon went as far as calling Bitcoin owners "stupid" and how the government would "eventually crush this scheme."

While those comments seem to be on the bitter side of the spectrum, they also highlight a clear lack of understanding how Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies work. That is not uncommon in the world of finance these days, unfortunately, although it remains doubtful any positive changes will be made in this regard moving forward. As JPMorgan & Chase postponed its Bitcoin trading desk plans, it seems unlikely the bank will ever revert its stance on this new form of money.