Trump Picks a Bitcoin Supporter for Cabinet as U.S. Budget Director

Mick Mulvaney, a conservative Republican congressman from South Carolina and a long-time bitcoin supporter has been picked to run the Office of Management and Budget.

President-elect Trump stated:

With Mick at the head of OMB, my Administration is going to make smart choices about America’s budget, bring new accountability to our federal government, and renew the American taxpayer’s trust in how their money is spent!

Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney

Mulvaney became interested in bitcoin around April 2014 when he publicly stated:

Just wrapped up a Small Business Committee hearing on Bitcoin. I know it isn’t a mainstream issue yet — and may not become one — but it is extraordinarily interesting and something that could eventually influence the dollar and our monetary policy. In fact, one of the witnesses drew favorable comparisons between Bitcoin and Milton Friedman.

He is the first member of Congress to accept bitcoin donations and questioned Janet Yellen, Chair of the Federal Reserve, in October 2015: “what Bitcoin’s rising popularity says about public perception of the Federal Reserve’s conduct of monetary policy,” according to Coin Center, a non-profit bitcoin research and advocacy center.

Moreover, Mulvaney, together with Jared Polis, a Democratic member of Congress from Colorado, launched the bipartisan Blockchain Caucus in September with Mulvaney stating:

“Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize the financial services industry, the U.S. economy and the delivery of government services, and I am proud to be involved with this initiative.”

According to Mother Jones, Mulvaney’s view of the Federal Reserve is that it has “effectively devalued the dollar” and “choke[d] off economic growth.” While regarding bitcoin Mulvaney stated that the currency is “not manipulatable by any government.”

This is the latest sign that the Trump administration is likely to be highly favorable to this space. Peter Thiel, an investor in Bitpay and vocal bitcoin supporter who campaigned for Trump during the election is now an advisor. Milo Yiannopoulos, the flamboyant technology editor for Breitbart News whose founder has been named chief strategist and Senior Counselor for the Presidency of Donald Trump is known to be a bitcoiner.

Donald Trump found support in Bitcoin investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

Mike Cernovich, a strong and influential supporter of Trump during the campaign, is a bitcoin users. In a short interview with Cenovich for my editorial before the election after he tweeted about bitcoin, Cernovich stated:

“Freedom is a mindset and BitCoin is freedom. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Trump’s sons hold BitCoin.”

New York and California have been ranked as the worst regulatory environment for digital currencies, out of seven global centers. The Obama administration has given this space IRS’s double taxation, requirements for Fintech companies to become a bank if they wish to operate across all 52 states in a streamlined fashion and of course the disastrous BitLicense. That is now likely to drastically change as the Trump administration, following UK’s lead, potentially provides this space with a sandbox, hopefully ends double taxation, and, maybe, even sets up a research fund to encourage FinTech innovation.

Image from Shutterstock and Flickr/Gage Skidmore.

Alex Tapscott: Thailand Should Embrace Blockchain

Alex Tapscott, chief executive of Northwest Passage Ventures, a blockchain business consulting firm, has said that Thailand should embrace blockchain technology to improve quality of life, according to a report from the Bangkok Post.

At a recent seminar, ‘Blockchain Revolution,’ hosted by Total Access Communication Plc (DTAC), Tapscott was a keynote speaker on the disruptive technology, which he has called the ‘second generation of the Internet.’

It is reported that around 40 percent of Thailand’s population has Internet access through their smartphones with 60 percent among the general population.

At the seminar, Tapscott said:

Bangkok can channel disruptive technology in a manner similar to Singapore, Hong Kong, Berlin and London in order to survive in the second era of the internet.

According to Lars Norling, DTAC chief executive, blockchain technology has the potential to change how businesses operate in Thailand and how it can contribute to the growth of the country.

Is Thailand Embracing Blockchain?

In the past, Thailand has bit somewhat adverse to bitcoin and its underlying distributed ledger, the blockchain. In particular, the Bank of Thailand has issued several statements as to their feelings on the digital currency.

And yet, while the Bank of Thailand may have taken a cautionary view toward bitcoin, it seems the country is slowing opening itself up to it.

Bangkok is seeing Fintech and blockchain activity.

Just last month, a successful blockchain remittance pilot saw 100 participating migrant workers transfer money to Myanmar instantly. Everex, an Asian blockchain startup based in Thailand, facilitated transactions totaling more than 850,000 Thai baht (approx. $24,000), using its wallet over a blockchain.

Not only that but earlier this month, Kasikornbank, Thailand’s fourth-largest bank by assets, developed a blockchain platform in partnership with Chinese FinTech firm International Business Settlement (IBS), which allows for baht-yuan cross-country settlements.

The past has shown that while Thailand has been slow to take advantage of the technology and what it can offer, it is attempting to make up by embracing the technology now.

Still a Long Way to Go

Undoubtedly, the country has many miles to cover before it can claim to be among the likes of London, Singapore, or New York.

However, as the benefits of the blockchain become evident such as through the ease of peer-to-peer transactions while maintaining a permanent public record of all transactions in sectors ranging from finance, government, energy, and supply-chains, Thailand could potentially end up becoming a hub for the technology in the future.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Purse.io Partners Coinsecure to Push Bitcoin Adoption with Amazon Discounts

Bitcoin startup Purse.io, an online marketplace that enables discounts on Amazon with payments in bitcoin has announced a new partnership with Coinsecure, a prominent Indian bitcoin exchange.

Announced yesterday, the new collaboration comes during a time when demand for bitcoin is increasing in India following the controversial demonetization drive in early November. The tie-up is a marked effort by Purse to expand in India during these cash-strapped times. This is in addition to its existing partnership with another major Indian bitcoin exchange, Unocoin.

Coinsecure’s own announcement added:

Purse.io also makes it possible to buy products from Amazon at a discount. You automatically get 15% off on products on Amazon when shopping with the Coinsecure/Purse.io partnership!

Purse works by leveraging unspent gift card liquidity as discounts to Amazon customers, matching shoppers with individuals who have illiquid gift card balances.  Amazon’s Mechanical Turk sees such individuals performing manual tasks that cannot be fulfilled by computers. With a majority of these workers based outside the U.S. their payout choices are constricting, particularly with Amazon gift card balances or a USD check in the mail. Purse helps these individuals by converting their gift card balance into a payout in their local currency, via bitcoin.

Purse’s announcement adds:

Amazon Mechanical Turk workers continue to need ways to liquidate their excess Amazon gift credit as well. With over 500,000 people working through their Mechanical Turk service, Purse is an excellent way for those users to cash their credit out for bitcoin, where they can easily sell for INR through a local exchange like Coinsecure.

Meanwhile, Amazon India has, according to reports today, gained a massive $300 million in investment from its parent Amazon Inc. The investment is the single largest fund infusion by Amazon in its Indian arm as the retail giant looks to outpace its rivals in one of the world’s fastest-growing online retail markets.

Image from Shutterstock.

Banking Giants Set to Invest in R3-Rival & Blockchain Startup Axoni

US banking giants Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are leading a number of other financial institutions to invest in blockchain startup Axoni, a report has revealed.

According to Reuters, the banks are looking to invest between $15 to $20 million in the blockchain firm. While details remain scarce, the deal itself is set to be announced sometime this week.

New York-based Axoni has provided its blockchain prototype for banks’ testing of the innovation for the financial services industry. At least one known and notable example is a months-long test where banks engaged in a smart contract enabled blockchain prototype to process over-the-counter (OTC) equity swaps earlier this year.

The four-month testing period saw Axoni’s blockchain prototype installed by banks including the likes of JPMorgan, Citi, Credit Suisse and Barclays, as well as support firms such as Thomson Reuters. The blockchain was installed and implemented either physically in the premises of the participants or over a cloud environment. 133 test cases were assessed to reveal a 100% success rate.

Axoni’s blockchain prototype has already powered several Wall Street experiments with the technology.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs’ investment in Axoni a month after its exit from another New York-based blockchain startup R3. Evidently, the bank picked Axoni over R3 for its blockchain endeavor. Furthermore, Goldman Sachs has also invested in Digital Asset, another blockchain firm, as a part of a $60 million investment funding round led by JPMorgan Chase earlier this year.

R3 is also reportedly dropping fundraising target from $200 million to $150 million as other banks such as Banco Santander and Morgan Stanley reportedly quit the consortium.

Axoni and R3 had jointly collaborated over a blockchain proof of concept for managing reference data of traded products earlier in September this year.

In April 2016, Axoni saw its blockchain infrastructure put to test by seven Wall Street firms for credit default swaps trading in post-trade cycles, a market that sees outstanding contracts stack up to trillions of dollars. The experiment saw a total of 85 tests which achieved a 99% success rate.

Images from Shutterstock.

Swiss Town Zug Continues Allowing Bitcoin Payments for Municipal Services

The Swiss town of Zug has decided to continue accepting bitcoin payments for municipality services following a pilot that launched in July 2016.

First announced in May, the picturesque lakeside town of Zug, also known as “Crypto Valley” for its embracive approach to Fintech, revealed a pilot program wherein it allowed bitcoin payments from its public for city services. A payment of up to 200 Swiss francs ($195 USD) in bitcoin was to be allowed. The pilot launched on July 1 and was scheduled to last until the end of 2016. At its conclusion, the City Council was to decide if Bitcoin or other digital currencies were a feasible, attractive payment option for its citizens.

“With Bitcoin, we’re sending a message,” said Zug mayor Dolfi Müller in July after the program began. “We win Zug want to get out in front of future technologies.”

Now, the city authority has revealed that it will continue to accept bitcoin payments beyond the pilot program that ends in December 2016. The decision was made at a City Council meeting last week.

In roughly translated statements, Müller said:

It was an important experience for us to install and test the technology for bitcoin payments. We were able to put a sign for Fintech companies to express that they were welcome herein Zug. We have [also] triggered an international media frenzy which lasted until last week.

The media coverage had been significant in May. It made for a telling example of open-minded acceptance of the innovation. Quite possibly for the first time ever, the administration of a town of nearly 30,000 inhabitants, was to begin accepting bitcoin as currency for payments for city services.

Lake Zug and the city of Zug

How successful was the pilot? Only a dozen customers wanted to pay with bitcoin since the commencement of the pilot in July, the Zug authority said. However, the attention and press coverage garnered from around the world was a “positive experience” for the City Council, noting that the pilot, despite its low turnout in participants, was entirely “worth it.”

As a result of the significant coverage, the council is also looking into other electronic payment platforms such as ApplePay and Swiss-based digital wallet, Twint.

Furthermore, blockchain applications will also be explored for the public sector, the municipal authority stated, continuing to roll out the welcome wagon for bitcoin- and blockchain-related companies.

The announcement also stated:

In addition, digitization and e-government will be central issues for the city administration in the coming year.

Images from Shutterstock.

NASA Petitioned to Send Bitcoins to Mars

Roman Koshlyak, a former Facebook software engineer and current CEO of Troider, an experimental content publishing platform, has created a petition asking NASA, an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government, to “create Bitcoin wallets for Curiosity and Opportunity and put private keys on Mars.”

“Curiosity is a car-sized robotic rover exploring Gale Crater on Mars as part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission… since landing on August 6, 2012,” according to Wikipedia. Opportunity is much older, landing in 2002, but remains on Mars, undertaking explorations.

If the rovers are provided with a private key, sending bitcoins to that address would count as sending it to Mars with the first such transaction being a historical and culturally revolutionary event, for man would have, for the first time, sent money to outer space, from earth.

Accessing that money from Mars would be a different story. There are no humans on the planet and there is no internet in outer space. However, there are plans for both. Elon Musk, the founder of X.com, now known as PayPal, and the current founder of SpaceX, has revealed plans to send hundreds of satellites to space with the short-term aim of “creating a global communications system” and longer term plans of creating “a system that will stretch all the way to Mars”.

Musk has further revealed plans to colonize Mars itself, hoping to “make humans a “multi-planetary species” by creating a “self-sustaining city”” on our nearest planet. Both plans are highly ambitious as no man has been to Mars, it has no atmosphere nor, as far as we know, water. The scale of the task would be enormous, but we do have the resources and ability to form such colony.

Moreover, Musk may find support from the new Trump Administration which made space exploration “a major part of his final campaign message,” former Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Robert Walker and a senior advisor to Trump told Forbes.

Mars – the New Frontier

Considering the many resources required to establish a base in Mars, some may wonder why we would want to do so. The main reason would be to ensure the survival of the species in case of any catastrophe. Another reason may be because earth’s population has been growing exponentially. Sooner or later we may run out of space. And yet a third reason may be because we can more easily explore the vast universe from Mars.

Perhaps more importantly, the establishment of an actual colony would accelerate scientific discoveries for man’s needs would drive the invention of ways to travel between the two planets faster (so providing the economic incentive due to demand,) establish fast communication links, harness the elements for the supply of oxygen, engineer water, as well as form a base from which other planets can be explored and colonized.

Bitcoin – The Inter-Planetary Currency

If such colony is established, basic commerce would need to arise, requiring its own currency. A traditional bank account might work, but an internet connection to earth would be scarce. The limit is the speed of light. That takes between 6-44 minutes for a two-way communication, depending on the relationship between the orbits of Earth and Mars.

To overcome such limitations, Bitcoin and likewise digital currencies may be the initial means of value transfer between the two planets as it can be easily transported to earth or mars without requiring any intermediary. The Martians can create their own private wallets or coins, with keys hidden under laminated scratchable bars, without requiring advanced tampering technology or huge transfers of cash, thus fully facilitating commerce while rarely connecting to the bitcoin network. Eventually, they might simply create their own digital currency, tradable both on earth and Mars.

This is a very futuristic world that now may be possible due to a combination of new advancements and technological discoveries. We may, in our lifetime, see a new frontier form and develop, with some of our bitcoins coming or going to Mars.

The last man to land on the moon was Eugene Cernan, 44 years ago. Considered the pinnacle of achievement, it opened our imagination, but the last 15 years have culturally turned us inwards. That may be about to change as men like Musk and, whether he is to believed or not, Trump, whose stated aim is to re-focus NASA towards deep space exploration, may allow us to dream again of a futuristic world with monthly interplanetary travels and space commerce.

NASA furnished image of Mars from Shutterstock.

Bitcoin Commerce Increases by 1,800% at BitPay

Bitcoin adoption continues to increase with Sonny Singh, Chief Commercial Officer at BitPay, revealing in a public statement that BitPay has experienced a 1,800% increase growth in volume.

Some of this growth is due to affiliate networks, like Amazon or Google AdWords, which have increasingly adopted bitcoin, according to Singh, for a variety of reasons. Primarily, the dispersed nature of affiliate network participants across the globe makes fiat transfers difficult, especially if credit cards are not available or fast bank transfers, such as SEPA, are not an option.

With bitcoin, a payment can be sent to someone in USA just as easily as to someone in Africa, with the receiver requiring no bank account. In most countries, receivers can then exchange them on a local bitcoin exchange or spend them directly with merchants that accept bitcoin. Moreover, according to Singh:

“Bitcoin is far less expensive than credit cards, with zero chargebacks and no chance of identity theft. Because of this, bitcoin processors like BitPay can offer merchants services fees of on average between 1% – 2%, while credit card transactions costs range from 2% – 6%. Since credit card fees don’t cover the merchant’s own cost for losses to chargebacks or payment fraud, credit cards stack up even more poorly when compared to bitcoin.”

An interesting example is Turkey which has recently blocked merchants from using PayPal. The result, “a dramatic increase in advertisers and affiliates paying and receiving bitcoin,” according to Singh, which cannot be directly censored. Increasing bitcoin’s popularity in Turkey for online payments and general commerce.

More widely, from Brazil to Argentina, India and China, bitcoin is finding wider adoption, especially when it concerns sending or receiving global payments, as these countries lack an efficient banking infrastructure. Bitcoin, replacing the need for a bank account, allows them to join the global economy in an efficient manner with transfers in mere minutes, providing developing countries with a way to leapfrog from an outdated banking system to a 21st century global payment network.

Images from Shutterstock and BitPay.

How Classic is Ethereum’s Austrian Kin

Ethereum Classic rejects Keynsean heresy, and returns to Bitcoin’s Austrian roots,” declares arvicco, a pseudonymous Ethereum Classic project coordinator and cross-chain trading programmer.

An event organized by enthusiasts of Ethereum Classic took place Tuesday in London, featuring renowned cryptocurrency enthusiasts like Jon Matonis, whose words were the first in the mainstream to openly celebrate Bitcoin when he wrote for Forbes.

The event might mark the first time that high-profile thinkers (such as Jon Matonis for example) will come together on a panel to discuss what might be the most optimal monetary policy for cryptocurrencies. One of the discussions revolved around Ethereum Classic monetary policy.

The conference, organized by Ethereum Classic supporters, did not revolve around what some have called a “copycat” platform (referencing its Ethereum basecode) in Ethereum Classic. It did feature Ethereum Classic specific presentations on, for example, Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposals (ECIP) in reference to a new iteration of the blockchain which, if implemented, would differentiate further Ethereum Classic from Ethereum.

At the conference, the discussion concluded dramatically with an Ethereum supporter calling out that Ethereum Classic was nothing more than a “copycat chain.”

As reported first by Bitcoin Magazine’s Aaron van Wirdum, ETC is abandoning Ethereum’s unlimited inflation model and moving to a fixed emission cap schedule, similar to Bitcoin’s. Ethereum Classic is not following the vision set out for the smart contract platform, Ethereum, and won’t adopt proof-of-stake mining like Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin discusses.

ECIP-1017 (Ethereum Classic Improvement Proposal 1017), proposed by Matthew “snaproll” Mazur, caps the number of classic ethereum tokens that can be mined and issued. It also won’t ‘halve’ like the Bitcoin does, referring to the changes in the code where bitcoin’s mined supply is cut in half in line with its disinflationary model.

Instead, ‘tithings’ will represent more incremental disinflationary programming. The proposal for 1017 caps ETC at 210 million by 2070. Right now, there are 87 million ETC tokens

There’s currently no consensus for this proposal, but arvicco suggests its most popular within the small community. While Ethereum Classic has enjoyed some adoption, such as by China’s BTCC, Ethereum Classic suffered the same ‘bug attack’ as Ethereum and there’s a hard fork planned for January.

“We want to tap the intellectual capital of the whole crypto-community to come up with an optimal model,” says the crypto-decentralist, “ given our circumstances and the lessons learned by crypto community since Bitcoin’s inception.

He adds: “One of the lessons was that Bitcoin’s ‘halving’ events were pretty disruptive, so we would like to cut inflation in smaller increments, but more often.”

Ethereum Classic remains at work putting together a governance framework and tools implementing it, “for a truly decentralized community,” Arvicco notes. Ethereum Classic, similar to changes recently made by the Steemit developers, want to encourage the adoption of the blockchain’s native token.

“Monetized platform token is a critical component of a blockchain system that aligns economic incentives of key stakeholders,” arvicco says, “including miners, investors, developers and users. It is impossible to achieve sustainable monetization without token scarcity.”

Ethereum Classic proponents cite this as a “basic proponent” of Austrian economics, an undercurrent in the Ethereum Classic Community, which sees Ethereum’s choice to hard fork and undo the DAO exploitation as proof that Mr. Buterin’s chain is not immutable or vulnerable to tampering.

“A proper disinflationary monetary policy should support token monetization,” arvicco rationalizes, “thus ensuring alignment of interests and long-term platform success.”

While users say ETC became its own blockchain the minute of the DAO bailout hard fork, the two platforms are diverging still. Despite ETC keeping 100% code-level compatibility with Ethereum, its security model and monetary policy will be different than Ethereum.

“Similar to Bitcoin’s disinflationary model, it will provide incentives for investors to invest, for miners to provide ever higher levels of security to the chain, and for the whole ecosystem to bootstrap on the basis of security and monetized value,” arvicco said.

Ethereum approached public blockchain and smart contracts platform wrong, ETC proponents believe, and want to approach Ethereum Classic in a more measured, conservative manner.

“Ethereum focused  on easy accessibility for JS developers, often at the expense of security,” says arvicco. “DAO hack didn’t appear out of nowhere – there were a lot of red flags about this whole ‘move fast and break things’ attitude when it comes to highly monetized platform where you program literally with your and other’s money. ETC developers are much more concerned about security and code correctness.”

This is underlined by the recent announcement of new ETC dev team. Developers will focus on developing a well-tested functional paradigm for Ethereum Classic.

“Because when you are programming the money, you better make damn sure that the code you are deploying is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do,” arvicco says.

Trading has fallen since Ethereum Classic caught the hearts and minds of so-called “Crypto-decentralists” earlier in 2016. Currently, the Ethereum Classic price has gravitated around $0.90 per token, the sixth most traded altcoin according to CoinMarketCap, and the fifth most traded altcoin on Poloniex.

Image from Shutterstock.