Blockchain Daily: The IRS Wants its Piece of Bitcoin

Blockchain Daily 

via Florin Oprea

 

Cryptocurrencies

The IRS is Due to Present its Digital Currency Strategy to Congress Next Week

Stan Higgins – CoinDesk

A trio of lawmakers – Senator Orrin Hatch, Representative Kevin Brady and Representative Vern Buchanan – requested information about the IRS’s overall strategy toward digital currencies in a letter dated 17th May. Those answers are due by 7th June, or next Wednesday.

Exchanges & Trading Venues

BTCC Joins OKCoin to Resume Bitcoin Withdrawals in China

Samburaj Das – Crypto Coins News

BTCChina has stated that it has begun “testing” bitcoins this week. In joining OKCoin, that’s two of the ‘big three’ Chinese exchanges resuming withdrawals following regulatory scrutiny by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

 

Vendors

Spotting Cryptocurrency Pumps and Dumps with CryptoPing Bot

The Cointelegraph

CryptoPing is working on a solution to help both new and experienced traders making well-weighted trading decisions. The time couldn’t be any better to introduce the tool, given the substantial increase of altcoins’ market cap.

 

Latest Developments & Agreements

R3 powers Japan’s Blockchain Derivatives Prototype

Antony Peyton – Banking Technology

Nomura, Daiwa Securities Group, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and R3 have tested a prototype developed using Corda, R3’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform based on blockchain, to streamline ISDA Master Agreement negotiations.

FAO: R3 pushing forward in Japan.

Why Australia Needs To Champion An Open System For Blockchain

Chris Strode – Business Insider

Blockchain is still in its infancy (think internet circa 1995) and there’s work to be done in creating the infrastructure for it to underpin something as complex as the global financial system.

Microsoft Thinks Blockchain Tech Could Solve One Of The Internet’s Toughest Problems: Digital Identities

Joon Ian Wong – Quartz

Microsoft’s involvement in the Decentralized Identity Foundation gives hope that the project’s quixotic goal may one day be realized. Microsoft is on the back foot when it comes to internet identities today, crowded out by widespread use of Gmail accounts or Facebook logins among consumers.

 

Regulation

Russia Is Looking To Regulate Bitcoin But Still Doesn’t See It As A Currency

Arjun Kharpal & Geoff Cutmore – CNBC

In an interview with CNBC, Elvira Nabiullina, governor of the Russian Central Bank, explained that she views bitcoin as a digital asset rather than a currency, and this is the way it should be thought about with regards to regulation.

FAO: More comment following Russia’s latest crypto moves. Yesterday we reported about the Central Bank trying to write a Bitcoin law.

Blockchain Is Here To Stay, But What Regulatory And Legal Hurdles Does It Now Face?

Banking Technology

At the start of April, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced it is looking for feedback by 17 July 2017 on the potential for future development of distributed ledger technology (DLT)/blockchain in the markets it regulates.

Startups, Accelerators & Hubs

Bitcoin’s ‘Segwit2x’ Scaling Proposal: Where the Startups Stand

Alyssa Hertig – CoinDesk

Although there have been past efforts aimed at putting an end to bitcoin’s two-year scaling debate, the new ‘agreement‘ has perhaps earned unprecedented support from companies and mining pool operators, with over 50 bitcoin companies and firms representing more than 80% of bitcoin’s mining power signing the proposal.

The goal, according to the announcement blog post released last week, is to move forward with two changes: an optimization called Segregated Witness and a 2MB block size increase. Although, the latter is arguably the main point of contention, since it could potentially lead to the creation of two bitcoin networks if not all users agree with the change.

Bitcoin’s ‘Segwit2x’ Scaling Proposal: Core Developers Strike Critical Stance

Alyssa Hertig – CoinDesk

Days after a widely-supported but contentious proposal for increasing bitcoin’s transaction capacity was unveiled, technical details about the plan are coming to light.

It might not be particularly surprising if you’re very familiar with bitcoin’s long-standing block-size debate, but the tentative code for what’s now known as ‘Segwitx2’ hasn’t been especially well-received by the project’s open-source developer community.

Analysis

Despite the Success of Blockchain POCs, Deploying Pilots Won’t be Easy (Part Two)

Pete Harris – Distributed

Part one of this article looked at blockchain pilot deployment challenges and suggested that having DevOps skills on the implementation team could help. This article aims to highlight complex data integration issues as another aspect of roll out that will be critical in moving blockchains from proofs-of-concept (POCs) to pilots.

Other news

SEC Demands $12 Million from GAW Miners for Bitcoin Ponzi Fraud

H. Madore – Crypto Coins News

Josh Garza, former CEO of miner turned scam company GAW Miners, who recently plead guilty to massive fraud. Now, the SEC says they are not done with him and want his former company to pay $12 million in reimbursements and civil penalties.

 

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