Financial services giant Fidelity Investments, which manages more than $2.6 trillion in client assets, has become the latest big name to participate in the ongoing Lightning Network Trust Chain, a community-driven initiative started by hodlonaut.
igital Assets
 Fidelity posted this on their Twitter feed:

 We and our research team at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology have received the #LNTorch ⚡from @Wiz.

Who should we pass it to?
wiz
@wiz
I've just passed the ⚡️Lightning Torch🔥 to @Fidelity @DigitalAssets!

They're launching a new institutional Bitcoin custody service, and the worth ₿0.0364 is their first Lightning transaction! ⚡️🔥😆

They can add that to their ~$2.5T of assets under management 😂 https://twitter.com/DigitalAssets/status/1099076994485096448 …

With the Trust Chain, participants send marginally more Bitcoin (BTC) to one another indefinitely, or until the value increases to the point that one unscrupulous individual decides to keep the funds — this already happened once and two generous users refunded the chain.

Fidelity Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency arm of the firm, accepted the torch from Twitter user wiz, who sent them 0.0364 BTC, or roughly $143. The torch was then passed to the Harvard Business School Blockchain & Crypto Club.

This comes a week after Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, carried the torch worth 2,860,000 Satoshis, or roughly $98.

Fidelity is reportedly targeting a March launch date for its own crypto custody service. Bitcoin custody will be the first of many crypto products made available and insiders have indicated that Ethereum (ETH) custody is expected to be next.

Imperatriz Leopoldinense, a prominent Brazilian samba school, has chosen money as the theme of its performance during the 2019 Carnaval do Rio de Janeiro, which will be held in the week of March 2 – 9. Its dancers will tell the history of money, from the first metal coins and paper bills to modern day cryptocurrencies.


Samba School Chooses Money as the Theme of Its Show
The samba school is betting on Bitcoin to impress the spectators at Marquês de Sapucaí Sambódromo, the venue that hosts the famous carnival in Rio de Janeiro, hoping to win the competition this year. Imperatriz Leopoldinense was created in 1956 and has been proclaimed champion of the festival many times. But that hasn’t happened since 2001 and the stakes are high.

Rio Carnival to Feature Bitcoin This Year

According to its website, the school’s performance this year has been named “Give Me Some Money,” the Brazilian crypto news outlet Portal do Bitcoin reported. It will be dedicated to the relationship between money and humanity, from the invention of the first currencies in ancient times to the present when they appear in digital form.

“Our story is about money and its relationship with humans from their invention to the present time. It is, without a doubt, one of the most important instruments in the economic life of nations and people,” the samba school explains. “Imagine what life would be without money. How could we buy and sell, receive and pay, stock up and save for the future, if it did not exist?”

From the First Coins to Digital Coins
The narrative covers various periods of human history and important developments such as the minting of the first coins in the ancient kingdom of Lydia, in the 7th century BC, and the issuance of the first paper money in China during the 10th century. Then it portrays the first exchange relations between South America’s native population, the Indians, and the European discoverers, as well as the first Brazilian mint that produced coins used in the slave trade.

Rio Carnival to Feature Bitcoin This Year

The choreographers will draw attention to the saving and investing of money through bank deposits, financial instruments and other means. They will also highlight with humorous critique many of the socio-economic challenges of societies such as social divisions and income inequality that countries such as Brazil continue to face. The lack of quality healthcare, high unemployment, increased violence, and government corruption are among its most pressing problems.

Imperatriz’s dancers will conclude their performance at the Rio Carnival with the topic of Bitcoin. “We’ll end the parade talking about a future already present through cryptocurrencies – a digital resource system designed to function as a medium of exchange,” the samba school says in the announcement, noting that a growing number of companies on a global scale have begun to use Bitcoin in the years since the creation of the cryptocurrency.

Carnival Hit by Financial Crisis
The samba school’s decision to choose money as the main theme of its show this year has been criticized by some participants. According to 82-year old Mário Monteiro, who performs along with his sister Cacá Monteiro, 64, it’s a great irony to talk about money when the carnival goes through its longest period of financial difficulties, Brazilian online edition IG reported.

Rio Carnival to Feature Bitcoin This Year

“It’s a challenging job. We are using old materials and optimizing all we can in order to save,” he said, noting that the narrative exploring the relationship between money and humans is a precedent for the annual parade in Rio. However, he believes the lack of money will not stop his dance group, insisting: “It’s time to put the sadness in the drawer and take the joy out of the closet, because it’s Carnival!”

The bitcoin price on Wednesday depreciated as much as 2.56 percent on the back of a stronger US dollar. Paradoxically, that might not be such a bad thing for the crypto market.

The bitcoin-to-dollar exchange rate (BTC/USD) bottomed at $3,340 on an intraday basis, while retesting the low of January 29 trading session. There was a little attempt from bulls to reverse the price action with the bearish bias intact. Nevertheless, the pair consolidated above $3,340, which served as an opportunity to reclaim $3,400 in the near-term
In our previous analysis published Monday, we had predicted a bitcoin dump as the cryptocurrency’s volatility and volume went lower than normal. We also noted a strikingly similar pattern between bitcoin’s current and previous price actions. In this analysis, we aim to elaborate on the same to predict where the next bitcoin move could be.

Source:ccn.com

In the Coinbase chart above, we can see bitcoin trending lower inside a falling wedge formation. Inside the wedge, the price consolidated inside a small symmetrical triangle (1). It attempted a breakout that eventually failed to blossom. The price reversed and formed a large bear flag, then continued to consolidate again inside a new symmetric triangle (2). The price action repeated four times, excluding the current scenario (6) which has yet to mature
As period 6 develops, bitcoin could form a smaller symmetrical triangle as it attempts to retest the falling wedge resistance to the upside (depicted as a dotted falling trendline). Meanwhile, the price would keep pressure on $3,430 to remain its interim resistance. Based on the previous price actions, bitcoin should continue its downside momentum. However, as we are reaching the apex of the falling wedge, the price should technically attempt a strong upside breakout action.

Binance Coin (BNB), the utility token of the Binance’s ecosystem, has surged by 15% today, hitting the price of $8 per coin at the time of writing, with a daily high of $8.5. The currency is also up by 15% against BTC, and 17% against ETH according to CoinMarketCap.

The sudden growth of BNB has brought the coin for the first time to the list of top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap, with a current market cap of $1.13 Billion. The coin currently holds the respectable 10th place, replacing Bitcoin SV.

BNB: A Real Utility For Binance Users
Binance Coin has performed relatively well ever since its launch because it was created and launched by the largest crypto exchange in the world, Binance. It has seen a lot of use within the exchange, as using it provides benefits such as a discount on trading fees. However, the more recent reason for the sudden growth could be related to the fact that Binance Launchpad is back, with one successful launch from the past week.

Binance Launchpad is an initiative platform that enables Binance users to participate in fundraising for new cryptocurrencies that meet high criteria set by Binance analysts. The Launchpad has been around for a while, although it was inactive ever since the current bear market took hold over the crypto space in January 2018.

The Launchpad recently returned in 2019, with the launch of BitTorrent Token (BTT), which took place on January 28th. The crowd sale received a massive amount of attention and demand and finished its rise within 18 minutes. The sale would have likely been over within seconds if not some technical issues with the platform which did not expect such a large number of eager investors.

The Return of The Launchpad
While the initiative is supposed to hold one token sale per month, so far, only two coins were announced. The first one was BTT, while the second one is Fetch.AI (FET), with a launch scheduled for February 25th, 2019.

The return of the Launchpad was also taken as a sign that the ICO model still has supporters within the crypto industry. Meanwhile, investors have started purchasing additional amounts of BNB, likely to being used in the Launchpad’s future crowd sales, and the demand is already affecting the coin’s price.


source:  https://cryptopotato.com/binance-coin-bnb-surges-15-enters-the-top-10-largest-cryptos-by-market-cap/

Kraken, the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange in euro volume and liquidity, has announced the acquisition of a London-based cryptocurrency exchange, costing the firm in nine digits for the trading firm, according to an official announcement on their website. The cryptocurrency exchange in the spotlight here was identified to be Crypto Facilities, a London-based exchange that focuses on derivatives trading and is also an index provider.

To add on, Crypto Facilities is regulated by UK’s Financial Conduct Authority [FCA] and will continue to be under the FCAs surveillance. It is also the first regulated platforms to list Bitcoin [BTC], Ethereum [ETH], XRP, Litecoin [LTC] and Bitcoin Cash futures.

Timo Schlaefer, CEO of Crypto Facilities, said:

“It has been our mission to build the most sophisticated, powerful and user friendly cryptocurrency trading platform. Teaming up with Kraken allows us to innovate the next generation of products and tremendously boosts the value we are able to provide to our clients.”
Through this acquisition, Kraken will now be able to implement spot and futures market for currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP. This market for the top cryptocurrencies will soon be open to all eligible customers of Kraken as the company has completed integrating back-end operations for Crypto Facilities, according to reports by Forbes. However, the futures market will remain closed for its US customers.

Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken said:
“I’m trilled to welcome the Crypto Facilities team into the Kraken family. We are excited to introduce eligible clients to these industry leading futures and index products. Over the coming months, our teams will continue to enhance and expand these offerings. We’ve got great stuff in store for traders and institutional clients in 2019.”

davinci7777, a Redditor said::

“If more liquidity flows into the paper copy (a.k.a derivative) of the spot asset, that is demand chasing the fiat copy and not pushing up the real asset. Kraken is thus essentially becoming another on ramp for the fiat copy, making it easier for capital to flow away from underlying real tokens.”

Notably, this is considered to be the largest acquisition in the space till date, even though the team has not revealed the exact amount invested in the acquisition. On the other hand, this is not the first firm the Bitcoin exchange has acquired. Previously, Kraken was in the limelight was acquiring Coinsetter, Cavirtex, and CleverCoin, all three are noted to be leading Bitcoin exchanges in the space. Apart from this, Kraken acquired a wallet funding service, Glidera, and Cryptowatch, a trading and portfolio tracking platform.

source:https://ambcrypto.com/kraken-bitcoin-btc-ethereum-eth-and-xrp-futures-will-be-the-next-big-addition-for-customers/

We are proud to announce that the company Noku North Europe Ou (NNE), based in Estonia, has joined the Noku group.

Thanks to its recently obtained licenses as regulated Exchange and Custodian, the company will enable the platform to accept Fiat currency payments and the trading of tokens and cryptocurrencies against fiat money.

The first service that NNE will launch on the market is the Noku Swap:

The platform enables crypto to fiat and fiat to crypto conversion of a selected number of tokens, against Euros or Swiss Francs. The number of fiat and crypto pairs available will keep increasing over time.

Noku announces the conversion of the stable – coin EURN directly from the Noku platform.

 EURN (the stable – coin pegged to the Euro) is among the cryptos that will be available on the Noku Swap platform right from the start. It will be possible to convert the stable – coin to Euros directly from the platform.

The conversion occurs straight from your wallets, without having to send your tokens to any external exchange service. In the case of crypto-crypto conversion, the timeframe will be in the order of minutes and it will depend on the speed of the Blockchain involved. The selected tokens will be sent directly to your wallets after being converted. In the case of crypto – fiat conversion, the tokens will be sent first and on a later stage, the fiat amount will be credited to your bank account. Instead, for fiat – crypto conversions, firstly you will have to send a transfer request for the fiat amount to NNE and then you will receive the tokens on your wallet. Given the fluctuations of the crypto markets, the amount to be transferred at the fixed exchange rate will have to take place within the next 24h.

Noku will integrate fiat money in the rest of the services available in the Noku ecosystem.

On a later stage, Fiat currency will be implemented in other services, such as Tokenraise, which will enable its users to run crowdsale campaigns (ICO, STO and TGE) accepting major international currencies, from the get-go Euros and Swiss Francs.

The service will be active from the 18th of February 2019.

source: https://coinscribble.com/noku-announces-the-introduction-of-fiat-money-into-its-platform/7765/news/32/ 

Binance is adding support for credit card crypto purchases through its partnership with payment processor Simplex, according to a press release on January 31st.
Changpeng Zhao, Binance's CEO, said that the firm "wants to provide Binance traders with fast and easy access to crypto, in the most sucure way possible." Zhao added that the exchanges clients can purchase digital assets with credit cards and start trading in minutes.
Zhao continued explaining that " the crypto industry is still in its early stages and most of the world's money is still in fiat" which according to him is the reason why fiat gateways are important for the growth of the ecosystem.
Nimrod Lehavi, co-founder and CEO of Simplex said that for mainstream users, easy and fast credit card payments are a "key factor in wider adoption of crypto in general"
According to the press release, Binance users will be able to use Visa and MasterCard cards to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) Ethereum (ETH) Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP)



read full story at:https://cointelegraph.com/news/top-exchange-binance-adds-support-for-credit-card-purchases-of-major-cryptos

By now you may know the name Matt Arnett. As the CEO of PO8, Matt has been responsible for the rapid tech sector growth developing in The Bahamas. This week, CoinScribble was fortunate enough to sit down and speak with Arnett regarding PO8, his goals for the organization, and his vision for The Bahamas.
How would you describe PO8 in a nutshell? What is your vision for the project?
PO8 is strategically poised to usher in a new era of marine exploration in The Bahamas. Utilizing A.I., robotics and blockchain technology coupled with the blue economy mindset, PO8 is discovering the answers to questions about our history and the secrets the sea bed holds. PO8’s trajectory will lead to new sectors of tokenized underwater treasure and artifacts, seafloor mineral databasing, underwater virtual reality mapping and a museum with educational components emphasizing historical tourism in The Bahamas. With over three million shipwrecks worldwide, PO8 has the ability to scale up to over 20 countries with a total market size of over a trillion dollars.
The vision for PO8 is to be the fuel that fires the dreams of billions of young people around the world! PO8 will turn disbelief to complete conviction, and ideas to action. The young will understand that they can achieve anything and the old will have a second breath of hope that truly confirms that nothing is impossible.
PO8 is the winner of the 2018 Creative Business Cup Award at Demand Solutions held by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
How big is the market that PO8 is targeting?
We are targeting $100 billion over the next 5 years and $1 trillion with our global expansion. Although a lot of people miss the major point here, PO8’s mission is not just about tangible treasure but more about treasures of the mind which makes our target market 7.5 billion+ minds!
What’s the story behind the PO8 name?
Poetic justice, really. In 1497, after a monetary reform, the Spanish created PO8 which means pieces of eight. These coins had the ability to be broken into eight pieces, whereby anyone could give change while purchasing items or paying for services. If you wanted to buy a loaf of bread or some fresh fish, the merchant would say your total is 3 pieces of eight and you would break three equal pieces to pay. All PO8 coins bear the image of the monarchy or the church, and certain coins like gold minted coins were only for the aristocratic society. Many of the coins that have been found in the Bahamas on shipwrecks are PO8, so we felt that it was only right being named after what was one of the first legal tenders to be redistributed to all mankind defying tradition and custom of class or rank. Now anyone can own the digital cryptocurrency PO8 and by owning PO8 we fulfill the very essence of decentralization.
How do you see PO8 impacting The Bahamas?
We have already seen the tides starting to turn. PO8’s mission is to shift the Bahamas from tourism to a new third pillar – tech. Which means the creation of new economies by using asset-backed non-fungible tokens known as NFTs to jump-start local economies and create sustainable revenue channels that spillover to the Bahamian people. We are building a group of companies that provide a very profitable ecosystem to fuel our global expansion. PO8 now has several new arms like VR data and content creation, seafloor mapping and mining and the first ever reward based digital collectible.
In tandem with the government, we are working to educate young people with a focus on coding and a blockchain curriculum that includes free classes at The University of The Bahamas and Bahamas Technical Institute. Students also stand to benefit from job placement and internships in PO8. We are deeply committed to retooling professionals from down-trending industries like financial services, to refocus their skillset and service new industries and companies in the tech space. Especially tech companies that come and set up shop in The Bahamas.
So, this means more local jobs ranging from tech to tourism.  From hiring divers during the fishing off-season, to creating The Bahamas Archeological Treasure and Maritime Museum, resulting in additional economic activity worth $60 million per annum, and at peak some 100+ jobs. This venture will also become an anchor project for the tech hub of The Bahamas in Grand Bahama and establish itself as one of the first historical tourism products for The Bahamas. Essentially, our unique project illustrates sustainability and capacity building through underutilized resources.
What does the roadmap look like? Is there anything big on the horizon?
Well, we’re always moving forward with establishing new global partnerships, so expect to hear more on those soon. We also anticipate making an announcement of the first ship with expected cargo value, but as you can imagine this is quite sensitive information, so it must be managed well and timing is crucial.
But, for now, we’re gearing up for our upcoming security token offering or STO. We’ve been working on it since last year. More and more investors want to invest in the company in the form of equity, so we have been working with a dedicated team of lawyers, accountants, stock transfer agents, and the Securities Commission of The Bahamas to create an attractive offering for our potential investors in the coming weeks. Unlike many of the STOs were seeing in the market these days, we are really trying to differentiate ourselves by providing more due diligence documents to investors. It’s very similar to what you would expect from the IPO world. So, expect to see a full prospectus with financials and equity research reports. Transparency is key to winning our investor’s trust. I think I have yet to see ICOs or STOs show actual financials.
We are also working hard to launch a rewards-based digital collectible game, Skullys. It’s a fun pirate-themed game on the blockchain with the objective “geo-flag” locations around the globe to earn PO8 coins, also known as “booty drops”. So, once players have their Skully, they will then be able to purchase accessories with their earned PO8 coins to unlock more earning powers. Players can also earn PO8 coins by battling other players and taking down their geo-tagged flags. Each time a Skully earns coins, the value of the collectible increases. Players can buy or sell Skullys on our own NFT marketplace and will also be available via third-party sites.
What was your background prior to PO8?
I lived in China for 12 years where I went to university and launched two startups. One was a creative agency focused on live events which was acquired in 2013 and the other a dot.com business which was the first online English ticketing platform in Beijing that was acquired in 2012 just one year after we launched it. After that, I focused on China market entry for Uber, Wework and many other multination firms. I parlayed all of those experiences into a consultancy firm that managed outbound investment from China to Latin America and The Caribbean in the areas of venture capital investments for commercial projects involving hotels, airports, and casinos, managing portfolio in the billions of dollars. By mid-2016 the new government of The Bahamas wanted to make tech a new mandate for the new administration, and I rose to the challenge to build local blockchain solutions with global scalability.