The United Kingdom plans to fast-track passport holders through the entry process if they are from the United States, Japan and three other countries.
After officially launching AmanaPRO in China last month, the company is looking to expand globally
The United Kingdom plans to fast-track passport holders through the entry process if they are from the United States, Japan and three other countries.
About a week since the seizure of what was to be the first Bitcoin ATM in India, one of the co-founders of the firm that installed the cryptocurrency vending machine, Unocoin, has speculated that the debacle could have been avoided with better branding. Speaking to Quartz India, the co-founder of Unocoin, Sathvik Vishwanath, has claimed
The post Unocoin Founder: Comparing Bitcoin Kiosk to a Bank ATM Landed Us in Trouble appeared first on CCN
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F873275%2Fb19b2b11-206d-4384-ab56-2754d6f76bc0.JPG?w=640&ssl=1)
Lightweight • Now tracks breathing • stillness and heartbeat • Great battery life
Expensive • ‘New Age’ soundscapes
Forget regular meditation apps. This upgraded brain-sensing headband is the best way to kickstart your mindfulness practice.
The list of indispensable gadgets that come with me every day, no matter where I am in the world, is a pretty short one. Most items on it are made by Apple: iPhone, iPad, MacBook. One is made by Fitbit: the Charge 2. One is made by Bose: wireless noise-cancelling QC30 headphones. Read more…
More about Wearables, Meditation, Wearable Tech, Headband, and Muse
Lightweight • Now tracks breathing • stillness and heartbeat • Great battery life
Expensive • ‘New Age’ soundscapes
Forget regular meditation apps. This upgraded brain-sensing headband is the best way to kickstart your mindfulness practice.
The list of indispensable gadgets that come with me every day, no matter where I am in the world, is a pretty short one. Most items on it are made by Apple: iPhone, iPad, MacBook. One is made by Fitbit: the Charge 2. One is made by Bose: wireless noise-cancelling QC30 headphones. Read more…
More about Wearables, Meditation, Wearable Tech, Headband, and Muse
After officially launching AmanaPRO in China last month, the company is looking to expand globally
About a week since the seizure of what was to be the first Bitcoin ATM in India, one of the co-founders of the firm that installed the cryptocurrency vending machine, Unocoin, has speculated that the debacle could have been avoided with better branding. Speaking to Quartz India, the co-founder of Unocoin, Sathvik Vishwanath, has claimed
The post Unocoin Founder: Comparing Bitcoin Kiosk to a Bank ATM Landed Us in Trouble appeared first on CCN
Lightweight • Now tracks breathing • stillness and heartbeat • Great battery life
Expensive • ‘New Age’ soundscapes
Forget regular meditation apps. This upgraded brain-sensing headband is the best way to kickstart your mindfulness practice.
The list of indispensable gadgets that come with me every day, no matter where I am in the world, is a pretty short one. Most items on it are made by Apple: iPhone, iPad, MacBook. One is made by Fitbit: the Charge 2. One is made by Bose: wireless noise-cancelling QC30 headphones. Read more…
More about Wearables, Meditation, Wearable Tech, Headband, and Muse
Lightweight • Now tracks breathing • stillness and heartbeat • Great battery life
Expensive • ‘New Age’ soundscapes
Forget regular meditation apps. This upgraded brain-sensing headband is the best way to kickstart your mindfulness practice.
The list of indispensable gadgets that come with me every day, no matter where I am in the world, is a pretty short one. Most items on it are made by Apple: iPhone, iPad, MacBook. One is made by Fitbit: the Charge 2. One is made by Bose: wireless noise-cancelling QC30 headphones. Read more…
More about Wearables, Meditation, Wearable Tech, Headband, and Muse
The Zcash Foundation is partnering with an ethereum startup on a project that could boost interoperability across the crypto ecosystem.
Ex-Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen continues to slate cryptocurrency in a speech this week
The Iranian authorities continue to press ahead with their plans to develop a national cryptocurrency with the state-led project said to be in its final stages. The digital currency is based on Hyperledger’s Fabric Platform technology, and has been developed by the Iranian technology company Informatics Services Corporation (ISC). The unnamed cryptocurrency will be issued by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), and developed under a private blockchain infrastructure mechanism and will not be available to be mined any further.
State-led Solution
Speculation surrounding the cryptocurrency dates back to the beginning of the year, when Iran’s minister of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi publicized the state’s effort towards developing a national digital currency. The government official went on to confirm in May that the crypto initiative was being led by the state-owned Post Bank of Iran, in association with the CBI, and also declared that an experimental model had already been completed.
The blockchain infrastructure will support a digital token and interbank payment instrument and also facilitate everyday retail payments. The authorities hope the cryptocurrency will be used to finalize interbank settlements for both domestic as well as cross-border transactions. Further, the cryptocurrency will be fundamentally pegged to Iran’s national currency, the Rial.
Abolhassan Firouzabadi, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, told the Iranian financial and economic news agency IBENA, that “it is promising and can be used as a financial transaction instrument with Iran’s trade partners and friend countries amid economic pressures through U.S. sanctions.” The State led initiative has been largely motivated by the reality of US sanctions with Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi, head of the economic committee of Iran’s parliament, announcing to IBENA in May that the national cryptocurrency could pave the way for multilateral currency swap agreements between Iran and any nations that were enthusiastic to enter into economic cooperation with the beleaguered country.
The move towards a national cryptocurrency has been preceded by a general shift in stance from the authorities, which up until recently, refused to recognize cryptocurrency mining as a legal activity, and also maintained a ban on changing the national currency into cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin alongside restrictions on local banks’ ability to interact with cryptocurrency exchanges.
However, a change in landscape has seen the Iranian authorities soften their stance on mining with Abolhassan Firouzabadi once again speaking to IBENA, revealing that “a decision-making authority will declare the framework and final policies for trade and participation of start-ups and trade activists in the cryptocurrency sphere by the end of September.”
Finally, the decision to legitimize mining was agreed across a range of national public sector organizations, including the Central Bank of Iran, and the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Finance, Industry and Trade, Information and Communications Technology, and Energy.
US Sanctions Stimulate Action
Iran’s national currency, the Rial, recently fell to a record low against the US Dollar as a result of both resumed and fresh US sanctions. In May of this year, the Trump administration announced that the US would withdraw from the international agreement signed between Iran and six world powers, that sought to ease sanctions on Iran as a result of the country scaling back its nuclear program. This led to a prohibition on the purchase of US Dollars by the Iranian government and also on any purchases of Iranian Rials by US citizens which was enacted in early August, and the resumed US sanctions will come into full effect in November.
The United States Treasury Department, alongside the United Arab Emirates, has sought to disrupt an Iranian currency exchange network that has transferred funds to a number of nefarious actors, with the exchange system thought to have worked with Iran’s central bank. As a result, Valiollah Seif, governor of Iran’s central bank, has been placed on the United States’ global terrorism list along with Ali Tarzali, another senior official at the bank.
This new restrictions are separate from the recently reinstated nuclear sanctions and once US President Donald Trump announced his intention to rescind the nuclear deal, he went on to promise to impose sanctions on any company that does business with Iran. The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin went on to state: “President Trump has been consistent and clear that this Administration is resolved to addressing the totality of Iran’s destabilizing activities. We will continue to work with our allies to build an agreement that is truly in the best interest of our long-term national security.”
While the restrictions make it harder for Iran to do business with foreign entities such as banks and commercial entities, this is not the first the country has been on the receiving end of US financial sanctions, as Iran was barred from banking via the global payments rail SWIFT in 2012. The four year prohibition lasted until former US President Obama’s nuclear accord deal in 2016.
As a result, Iran is gearing up to launch its own state cryptocurrency that authorities hope will be able to circumvent the prevailing economic sanctions and function as both a domestic currency and an international settlement token for global trade and commerce that alleviates the reliance on the global financial system currently dominated by organizations such as SWIFT.
Iran’s drive to develop its own national cryptocurrency follows on from Venezuela’s Petro, an oil-backed digital currency that launched earlier this year, and became the world’s first state backed cryptocurrency. The Petro was unveiled by Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last December, introducing it as a way “to overcome the financial blockade” led by the United States.
Just one month after its launch, US President Donald Trump responded by banning all citizens and residents from adopting or trading the Petro in an executive order. The Venezuelan authorities have recently attempted to strengthen their cryptocurrency by making payments for all passport applicants mandatory to be paid using it.
Featured Image via BigStock.
Despite his A-list celebrity status, George Clooney spent this past weekend like most new parents — changing diapers.
A day after Indonesian Lion Air flight 610 crashed into the sea minutes after takeoff from the capital Jakarta, questions are being asked as to what caused the new Boeing jet to suddenly lose altitude, killing all 189 people on board.
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fstory%2Fthumbnail%2F83234%2F5825ad31-6e87-4d17-94ee-4088d8c02e59.png?w=640&ssl=1)
A very sombre Stephen Colbert responded to Pittsburgh’s synagogue shooting on The Late Show Monday.
After declaring that “hate is not what America stands for,” and praising the Muslim group which raised more than $140,000 for the shooting’s victims, Colbert turned his attention to Trump’s indefensible response to the tragic event.
“Naturally, in times like these our nation looks to its president for comfort and guidance. That’s our first mistake,” he said.
Of particular annoyance to the late show host was Trump continuing with a rally hours after the attack, where he claimed that he did so because the New York Stock Exchange opened the day after 9/11That claim was in fact, false. Read more…
More about Entertainment, Tv, Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert, and Trump
Digix’s gold-backed digital token has been added to crypto custodian BitGo as demand increases for cryptocurrency to be pegged to the value of gold. Announced today, DGX has been added to BitGo’s Digital Currency Support with Enterprise Access. DGX is a token that is backed by 99.99 per cent gold cast bars from London Bullion […]
The post BitGo Adds First Gold-Backed Digital Asset as Demand for Crypto Pegged to Gold Increases appeared first on Coinjournal.
/https%3A%2F%2Fblueprint-api-production.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fcard%2Fimage%2F872968%2F74424741-06cf-4a8a-a9bd-91495f77a5a6.jpeg?w=640&ssl=1)
Does the mere thought of having your vocabulary skills tested make you kakorrhaphiophobic? Follow-up question: Do you even know what “kakorrhaphiophobic” means? Didn’t think so.
Well, fear not: You can easily improve your command of the English language — not to mention your self-esteem and your job prospects — with the Award-Winning Vocabulary Builder Bundle, a set of two programs designed to improve your communication skills.
You’ll begin your training with Vocab1, a software program that aims to double your vocabulary through contextual learning in the form of fun games. It includes access to a database of over 520 million words, which you can pick and choose from to build customized word lists. Those lists can then be printed out in the form of worksheets and flashcards for convenient, on-the-go vocabulary drills. Read more…
More about Vocabulary, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Stackcommerce, Business, and Work Life
China is, by some separation, the undisputed world pioneer in Bitcoin mining — with Chinese mining pools controlling over 70% of the bitcoin system’s aggregated hash rate, a higher hash rate is better when mining digital forms of money as it expands your possibility of finding the following block on the chain and accepting bitcoin. Bitcoin, the world’s most looked for digital money, could be at the desire and impulse of Asia’s monetary goliath.
An ongoing report titled “The Looming Threat of China: An Analysis of Chinese Influence on Bitcoin,” looked into by Princeton University and Florida International University analysts together, recommends China’s mining scene has a staggering impact over Bitcoin, something that could incite system control.
Numerous personalities in the bitcoin and digital money industry have raised worries about how much control this gives China over bitcoin, with the Beijing-based Bitmain Technologies mining the greater part the world’s bitcoins.
Bitcoin’s system is, to a great extent, subject to miners, who utilize a huge measure of processing power to check exchanges, discover blocks to proceed with the system’s record and mint new bitcoin. 74 percent of that registering power at present is in China, as per the examination.
The Bitcoin enthusiasts are conscious of this troubling pattern and have been careful about a potential assault that could be incited by outer elements. Controlling 51% of the system’s hash rate opens the risk of a 51% assault, a situation where miners can adjust exchanges on the record for their very own financial gain.
China makes the vast majority of the world’s bitcoin and digital money mining hardware and its gigantic mining ranches are bolstered by the nation’s modest power costs.
The Chinese government is watching out for the majority of the Bitcoin-related movement going ahead in its space, and given the centralization of miners in the region, it might possibly disturb the Bitcoin arrangements.
The analysts made references to China’s Great Firewall and the Great Cannon as the essential devices used to alter and monitor web activity into the nation in its offer to block the system. While elaborating on China’s specialized capacity to debilitate bitcoin, the paper gave knowledge on how the Great Firewall was utilized to boost miners to mine “vacant blocks” — a plausibility since put to rest with the ongoing Bitcoin programming redesign.
The concluding investigation in the examination was focused on China’s capacity to utilize Bitcoin as a weapon in debilitating countries that have discovered a financial use while utilizing the digital currency as an option in contrast to local monetary instruments.
Get the latest in Asian Bitcoin news here at Coin News Asia.
The post China’s Bitcoin Mining Dominance Threatens Network appeared first on Coin News Asia.
The Zcash Foundation is partnering with an ethereum startup on a project that could boost interoperability across the crypto ecosystem.
Ex-Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen continues to slate cryptocurrency in a speech this week
The Iranian authorities continue to press ahead with their plans to develop a national cryptocurrency with the state-led project said to be in its final stages. The digital currency is based on Hyperledger’s Fabric Platform technology, and has been developed by the Iranian technology company Informatics Services Corporation (ISC). The unnamed cryptocurrency will be issued by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), and developed under a private blockchain infrastructure mechanism and will not be available to be mined any further.
State-led Solution
Speculation surrounding the cryptocurrency dates back to the beginning of the year, when Iran’s minister of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi publicized the state’s effort towards developing a national digital currency. The government official went on to confirm in May that the crypto initiative was being led by the state-owned Post Bank of Iran, in association with the CBI, and also declared that an experimental model had already been completed.
The blockchain infrastructure will support a digital token and interbank payment instrument and also facilitate everyday retail payments. The authorities hope the cryptocurrency will be used to finalize interbank settlements for both domestic as well as cross-border transactions. Further, the cryptocurrency will be fundamentally pegged to Iran’s national currency, the Rial.
Abolhassan Firouzabadi, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, told the Iranian financial and economic news agency IBENA, that “it is promising and can be used as a financial transaction instrument with Iran’s trade partners and friend countries amid economic pressures through U.S. sanctions.” The State led initiative has been largely motivated by the reality of US sanctions with Mohammad Reza Pourebrahimi, head of the economic committee of Iran’s parliament, announcing to IBENA in May that the national cryptocurrency could pave the way for multilateral currency swap agreements between Iran and any nations that were enthusiastic to enter into economic cooperation with the beleaguered country.
The move towards a national cryptocurrency has been preceded by a general shift in stance from the authorities, which up until recently, refused to recognize cryptocurrency mining as a legal activity, and also maintained a ban on changing the national currency into cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin alongside restrictions on local banks’ ability to interact with cryptocurrency exchanges.
However, a change in landscape has seen the Iranian authorities soften their stance on mining with Abolhassan Firouzabadi once again speaking to IBENA, revealing that “a decision-making authority will declare the framework and final policies for trade and participation of start-ups and trade activists in the cryptocurrency sphere by the end of September.”
Finally, the decision to legitimize mining was agreed across a range of national public sector organizations, including the Central Bank of Iran, and the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Finance, Industry and Trade, Information and Communications Technology, and Energy.
US Sanctions Stimulate Action
Iran’s national currency, the Rial, recently fell to a record low against the US Dollar as a result of both resumed and fresh US sanctions. In May of this year, the Trump administration announced that the US would withdraw from the international agreement signed between Iran and six world powers, that sought to ease sanctions on Iran as a result of the country scaling back its nuclear program. This led to a prohibition on the purchase of US Dollars by the Iranian government and also on any purchases of Iranian Rials by US citizens which was enacted in early August, and the resumed US sanctions will come into full effect in November.
The United States Treasury Department, alongside the United Arab Emirates, has sought to disrupt an Iranian currency exchange network that has transferred funds to a number of nefarious actors, with the exchange system thought to have worked with Iran’s central bank. As a result, Valiollah Seif, governor of Iran’s central bank, has been placed on the United States’ global terrorism list along with Ali Tarzali, another senior official at the bank.
This new restrictions are separate from the recently reinstated nuclear sanctions and once US President Donald Trump announced his intention to rescind the nuclear deal, he went on to promise to impose sanctions on any company that does business with Iran. The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin went on to state: “President Trump has been consistent and clear that this Administration is resolved to addressing the totality of Iran’s destabilizing activities. We will continue to work with our allies to build an agreement that is truly in the best interest of our long-term national security.”
While the restrictions make it harder for Iran to do business with foreign entities such as banks and commercial entities, this is not the first the country has been on the receiving end of US financial sanctions, as Iran was barred from banking via the global payments rail SWIFT in 2012. The four year prohibition lasted until former US President Obama’s nuclear accord deal in 2016.
As a result, Iran is gearing up to launch its own state cryptocurrency that authorities hope will be able to circumvent the prevailing economic sanctions and function as both a domestic currency and an international settlement token for global trade and commerce that alleviates the reliance on the global financial system currently dominated by organizations such as SWIFT.
Iran’s drive to develop its own national cryptocurrency follows on from Venezuela’s Petro, an oil-backed digital currency that launched earlier this year, and became the world’s first state backed cryptocurrency. The Petro was unveiled by Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last December, introducing it as a way “to overcome the financial blockade” led by the United States.
Just one month after its launch, US President Donald Trump responded by banning all citizens and residents from adopting or trading the Petro in an executive order. The Venezuelan authorities have recently attempted to strengthen their cryptocurrency by making payments for all passport applicants mandatory to be paid using it.
Featured Image via BigStock.
Despite his A-list celebrity status, George Clooney spent this past weekend like most new parents — changing diapers.
A day after Indonesian Lion Air flight 610 crashed into the sea minutes after takeoff from the capital Jakarta, questions are being asked as to what caused the new Boeing jet to suddenly lose altitude, killing all 189 people on board.
A very sombre Stephen Colbert responded to Pittsburgh’s synagogue shooting on The Late Show Monday.
After declaring that “hate is not what America stands for,” and praising the Muslim group which raised more than $140,000 for the shooting’s victims, Colbert turned his attention to Trump’s indefensible response to the tragic event.
“Naturally, in times like these our nation looks to its president for comfort and guidance. That’s our first mistake,” he said.
Of particular annoyance to the late show host was Trump continuing with a rally hours after the attack, where he claimed that he did so because the New York Stock Exchange opened the day after 9/11That claim was in fact, false. Read more…
More about Entertainment, Tv, Donald Trump, Stephen Colbert, and Trump
Digix’s gold-backed digital token has been added to crypto custodian BitGo as demand increases for cryptocurrency to be pegged to the value of gold. Announced today, DGX has been added to BitGo’s Digital Currency Support with Enterprise Access. DGX is a token that is backed by 99.99 per cent gold cast bars from London Bullion […]
The post BitGo Adds First Gold-Backed Digital Asset as Demand for Crypto Pegged to Gold Increases appeared first on Coinjournal.
Does the mere thought of having your vocabulary skills tested make you kakorrhaphiophobic? Follow-up question: Do you even know what “kakorrhaphiophobic” means? Didn’t think so.
Well, fear not: You can easily improve your command of the English language — not to mention your self-esteem and your job prospects — with the Award-Winning Vocabulary Builder Bundle, a set of two programs designed to improve your communication skills.
You’ll begin your training with Vocab1, a software program that aims to double your vocabulary through contextual learning in the form of fun games. It includes access to a database of over 520 million words, which you can pick and choose from to build customized word lists. Those lists can then be printed out in the form of worksheets and flashcards for convenient, on-the-go vocabulary drills. Read more…
More about Vocabulary, Mashable Shopping, Shopping Stackcommerce, Business, and Work Life
China is, by some separation, the undisputed world pioneer in Bitcoin mining — with Chinese mining pools controlling over 70% of the bitcoin system’s aggregated hash rate, a higher hash rate is better when mining digital forms of money as it expands your possibility of finding the following block on the chain and accepting bitcoin. Bitcoin, the world’s most looked for digital money, could be at the desire and impulse of Asia’s monetary goliath.
An ongoing report titled “The Looming Threat of China: An Analysis of Chinese Influence on Bitcoin,” looked into by Princeton University and Florida International University analysts together, recommends China’s mining scene has a staggering impact over Bitcoin, something that could incite system control.
Numerous personalities in the bitcoin and digital money industry have raised worries about how much control this gives China over bitcoin, with the Beijing-based Bitmain Technologies mining the greater part the world’s bitcoins.
Bitcoin’s system is, to a great extent, subject to miners, who utilize a huge measure of processing power to check exchanges, discover blocks to proceed with the system’s record and mint new bitcoin. 74 percent of that registering power at present is in China, as per the examination.
The Bitcoin enthusiasts are conscious of this troubling pattern and have been careful about a potential assault that could be incited by outer elements. Controlling 51% of the system’s hash rate opens the risk of a 51% assault, a situation where miners can adjust exchanges on the record for their very own financial gain.
China makes the vast majority of the world’s bitcoin and digital money mining hardware and its gigantic mining ranches are bolstered by the nation’s modest power costs.
The Chinese government is watching out for the majority of the Bitcoin-related movement going ahead in its space, and given the centralization of miners in the region, it might possibly disturb the Bitcoin arrangements.
The analysts made references to China’s Great Firewall and the Great Cannon as the essential devices used to alter and monitor web activity into the nation in its offer to block the system. While elaborating on China’s specialized capacity to debilitate bitcoin, the paper gave knowledge on how the Great Firewall was utilized to boost miners to mine “vacant blocks” — a plausibility since put to rest with the ongoing Bitcoin programming redesign.
The concluding investigation in the examination was focused on China’s capacity to utilize Bitcoin as a weapon in debilitating countries that have discovered a financial use while utilizing the digital currency as an option in contrast to local monetary instruments.
Get the latest in Asian Bitcoin news here at Coin News Asia.
The post China’s Bitcoin Mining Dominance Threatens Network appeared first on Coin News Asia.
A number of similar crude explosive devices have been sent since Monday to former President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, other top political figures and CNN’s New York offices.
