Cryptocurrencies

lightning

mallers

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Bitcoin

bitcoin

bitcoin lightning

bitcoin lightning network

fiat

lightning network

lightning wallet

network

Robert Stevens

Wallet developer Zap has launched a new service that makes it easier to start using the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The new service, called Olympus, lets users load up their wallets with fiat money and instantly start making Lightning payments in crypto, announced founder Jack Mallers in a blog post yesterday. 

The Bitcoin Lightning Network has always been a tricky and a long-winded process to set up. This may be one of the reasons why adoption of the network—designed to make instant Bitcoin payments—has been slowing down over the last year. 

Previously, wrote Mallers, users would have to undergo a lengthy process, “Take fiat, buy bitcoin, wait until you’re allowed to withdraw, withdraw and wait for confirmations, deposit bitcoin onto the Lightning Network, open channels, wait for more confirmations, scan QR code.” It’s a faff; we even tried it ourselves and struggled to even make a single payment.

Bitcoin Lightning Wallet review: Too technical and lacking guidance
With Olympus, wrote Mallers, all you have to do is, “Download, buy, scan.” You can buy your bitcoins in the app, and deposit them straight into your Lightning wallet after each purchase.

To make this happen, Olympus uses Turbo Channels to settle transactions, with means that the transaction doesn’t need to be immediately validated on-chain. These avoid the need to wait for a Bitcoin transaction to be confirmed—which takes over an hour—before payments can be made.

Olympus will be available inside all Zap wallets: iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. But it’s also a standalone component; meaning you don’t need a Zap wallet to use it. Is this the turbo Lightning adoption has been looking for?


The Bitcoin Lightning Network has always been a pain to set up and use but Zap’s created a solution.

Zap wallet creates rapid on-ramp to the Bitcoin Lightning Network

The projects, currencies, and events shaping crypto today.

Wallet developer Zap launches Olympus, which lets users load up their wallets with fiat money and instantly start making Lightning payments in crypto.

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deutsche bank

Ethereum

Interbank Information Network

JP Morgan

banking

banks

blockchain

central

coin

cryptocurrency

deutsche

global

J.P. Morgan announced yesterday in a press release that over 330 banks have joined its blockchain network, the Interbank Information Network (IIN).

IIN is designed to share information between banks, to help them make payments—similar to SWIFT. It uses Quorum, a permissioned version of the Ethereum blockchain, with the aim of speeding up global payments.

Deutsche Bank joined the network last week, a partnership that could encourage other large banking institutions to follow suit. While Deutsche Bank has made widespread layoffs in recent months, it still brought in $24 billion in revenue last year.

“The intent with IIN was always to develop a meaningful ecosystem of bank users, all focused on harnessing emerging technologies such as blockchain to better address the complex cross border payments industry,” said John Hunter, global head of clearing for JPMorgan Chase, in a statement.

JP Morgan Coin: The next big cryptocurrency?
Head of payments at JPMorgan, Takis Georgakopoulos, told the Financial Times that J.P. Morgan hopes to bring the total number of banks up to 400 by the end of the year.

Earlier this year, J.P. Morgan announced their own blockchain-based stablecoin called JPM Coin. The bank was subsequently grilled alongside Libra about its US-dollar backed cryptocurrency, which many regulators and central banking officials regard as a threat to the authority of central banks.


Deutsche Bank is one of the key new institutions to join the list.

J.P. Morgan's blockchain-based network grows to over 330 banks

J.P. Morgan announced yesterday in a press release that over 330 banks have joined its blockchain network, the Interbank Information Network (IIN).

assets

coinbase

coins

company

exchange

firm

goal

hirji

listing

listing process

Ben Munster

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is considering listing 17 as-yet un-launched tokens, among them Telegram’s TON, Chia, Dfinity, and Polkadot, as part of its goal to expose its customers to “at least ninety percent of the aggregate market cap of all digital assets.” 

“Coinbase’s goal is to offer support for all assets that meet our technical standards and which comply with applicable laws,” said the firm in a blog post published Friday. 

The exchange has recently begun to open up its listing process to various lower volume coins. The latest move develops on this—while previous listings have largely involved coins already operational on “other venues,” Coinbase is now exploring tokens yet to launch anywhere.

Other coins up for consideration include Avalanche, Celo, Coda, Filecoin, Handshake, Kadena, Mobilecoin, NEAR, Nervos, Oasis, Orchid, Solana, and Spacemesh. There is also an application form for coins unmentioned.

The exchange said it couldn’t guarantee which of these coins would be listed, and would be factoring in various technical and regulatory considerations.

Coinbase was previously more restrained in its listing process than other exchanges, and reportedly began to seek new listing opportunities at the behest of Balaji Srinivasan, who joined the firm in mid 2018 (and recently resigned). 

According to The Information, Srinivasan pushed for a more “wild” mentality, clashing with Chief Operating Officer Asiff Hirji, who wanted the company to behave more like a “traditional financial services company.” Hirji has also since left the firm. 


Coinbase mulls listing 17 unlaunched tokens  - Decrypt

Hoping to eventually represent “ninety percent” of crypto’s total aggregate market cap, Coinbase is looking into listing a spate of new tokens.

Coinbase mulls listing 17 unlaunched tokens

The NDAA, which first authorized the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens in 2012, now calls for research into military applications for blockchain tech.

Technology

Blockchain

government

military

politics

bill

blockchain technology

blockchain technology for defense

civil liberties

defense

defense purposes

detention

indefinite detention

Nicholas Marinoff

Can blockchain technology be used in the name of national defense? The U.S. government aims to find out.

Buried within the annual military defense spending bill, the highly controversial National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is a provision requesting research on the “potential use of distributed ledger technology for defense purposes.”

Section 255 of the bill, “Briefing on use of blockchain technology for defense purposes,” briefly describes the ways in which the Pentagon could use blockchain for military applications.

Should it pass, the spending bill for fiscal year 2020 stipulates that the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering must provide a briefing that explains how blockchain technology can be used to improve cybersecurity for “vulnerable assets such as energy, water and transport grids through distributed and centralized computing.” 

 US Department of Defense explores blockchain for secure messaging and ‘unhackable’ code

The bill also asks for research into how blockchain can improve defense logistics and supply chains; how it can enhance auditing transparency, and how blockchain tech could potentially “reduce single points of failure in emergency catastrophe decision-making.”

The briefing would be due no later than 180 days after the bill is passed. (Curiously, the 2018 version of the NDAA included a similar provision to research blockchain technology for defense, though the bill for the 2019 fiscal year did not.)

The NDAA, however, is no mundane spending bill—and not without staunch critics. In 2012, the bill signed into law by President Barack Obama introduced a section which authorized the indefinite detention of civilians, including U.S. citizens, without due process, if considered a threat to national security.

At the time, several civil liberties groups across the country, including the American Civil Liberties Union, raised serious concerns. “The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA,” read a statement from the group just after the bill’s passage.

And the bill continues to face opposition from the likes of Vermont Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who as recently as last week was quoted in _Th_e _New York Times_ as saying he believed that “the indefinite detention of so-called ‘enemy combatants’ is unconstitutional.”

Across the aisle, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has likewise spoken out against the indefinite-detention provisions of the bill. Last June, Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe said Paul was “slow-walking the NDAA,” forcing the Senate to wait to vote on the bill until his various amendments could be considered, according to _The Hill_. Of his six proposed amendments, one includes a provision to explicitly prohibit indefinite detention.

Nevertheless, should the bill move forward and be signed into law, it appears that the U.S. government may soon be paying much closer attention to blockchain technology’s potential to aid its military efforts.


Controversial military spending bill NDAA proposes blockchain for national defense

The new tools, protocols and infrastructure shaping crypto today.

Following its listing of Dash on Coinbase Pro last week, the leading U.S. exchange has now made Dash available across all platforms.

Dash

investing

money

trading

coinbase pro

crypto

decrypt

people

users

Dash is now available on Coinbase, the San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange announced in a blog post today. Dash, currently among the top-20 cryptocurrencies by market cap, is available everywhere Coinbase operates, apart from New York and the United Kingdom.

Today’s news follows the launch of Dash on Coinbase Pro last week. Coinbase Pro is designed for institutional clients—an exchange where users can trade crypto between each other. On Coinbase.com, retail customers can buy crypto instantly, directly from Coinbase itself.

 Coinbase announces support for Dash on pro trading platform

“Dash’s listing on Coinbase represents a significant expansion in access for users, as tens of millions of people have accounts with the exchange,” Ryan Taylor, CEO of Dash Core Group, told _Decrypt_.

Dash’s main priority is payments and e-commerce. It offers lower transaction fees than credit cards, and, unlike its slower brethren Bitcoin, settles transactions quickly. 

And it turns out people actually use the thing: Dash’s volume hit over $350 million in the past 24 hours, and thousands of merchants across the world accept it, including Overstock.com. It’s also recently signed deals with a bunch of ATM operators, who operate around 1,000 Dash-friendly ATMs worldwide. 

Dash is “proof that crypto can be a more viable alternative to fiat,” Joël Valenzuela, director of community outreach at Dash, told _Decrypt _earlier this month.


Following its listing of Dash on Coinbase Pro last week, the leading U.S. exchange has now made the coin available across all platforms.

Coinbase opens up Dash trading for all retail customers, except NY and U.K.

business

european union

finance

Libra

cryptocurrencies

le maire

maire

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has called for an EU-wide “common framework” governing cryptocurrencies, according to _Reuters. _

Speaking before 28 European leaders at Helsinki, Le Maire also reportedly reiterated concerns over Facebook’s planned Libra cryptocurrency, which he said yesterday threatened “monetary sovereignty.” 

Elsewhere in his address, Le Maire urged, once more, for a “public digital currency,” without specifying further.

The EU has yet to legislate on cryptocurrencies, instead leaving regulation to its member states. Exchanges and money transmitters, however, still have to comply with bloc-wide EU anti-money-laundering regulations. 

In some cases, companies have to seek approval from local regulators before they can operate across the entire bloc. 

Le Maire, for his part, isn’t wholly anti-crypto, and yesterday granted tax-exempt status to users conducting “crypto-to-crypto” trades that aren’t realized into fiat.  


France calls for EU-wide crypto regulation  - Decrypt

France's finance minister is pushing for a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies that will cover the entire European bloc.

France calls for EU-wide crypto regulation

France calls for EU-wide crypto regulation

France's finance minister is pushing for a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies that will cover the entire European bloc.

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