Decentralization is a more important phenomenon than blockchain, a senior executive at South Korean tech giant Samsung said in an interview with computing magazine JAX Jan. 10. 

Speaking about the future of blockchain, Ricardo J. Méndez, Technical Director at the firm’s innovative technology arm Samsung NEXT, forecast a consolidation of the space in the coming year, but underscored the importance of reshaping centralized structures.

Asked whether he thought decentralization was more important than blockchain, Mendez replied:

    “Without question. Blockchain is just one more tool, and one that can help in decentralized contexts, but a tool is always less important than the goal.”

The perspective places Samsung in a somewhat smaller group of tech businesses championing the more ideological aspects of the blockchain phenomenon.

As Cointelegraph has reported, the majority of big players continue to look to blockchain as a method of streamlining operations such as supply chains, costs and paperwork, but rarely mention the benefits of a decentralized system akin to that of the Bitcoin (BTC) network.

On the topic of cryptocurrency, however, Méndez appeared keen to highlight the flipside of many assets’ method of transacting.

“You need only look at most cryptocurrencies, which are completely decentralized but also 100% public – their pseudonymity only needs to be broken once,” he continued.

    “Peer-to-peer approaches require you to broadcast your activity to peers, so they need an extra privacy layer (like a VPN or mix network). This is why, as an industry, we need to get better at explaining to users the trade-offs of different approaches.”

Samsung itself maintains a vested interest in blockchain and cryptocurrency-based experimentation, last month revealing it was seeking a U.K. patent for a cryptocurrency wallet.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/samsung-next-technical-director-values-decentralization-above-blockchain

Nistor Vlad Călin, the founder of Romanian crypto exchange Coinflux, will be extradited to the United States, local media company Mediafax reports Jan. 4.
As Cointelegraph reported in December, Călin was arrested earlier on a warrant from the U.S. for organized crime, money laundering and fraud allegedly conducted through his cryptocurrency exchange.
Călin has been reportedly arrested by the U.S. authorities after a note from a secret service agent accused him of knowingly helping to launder proceedings of criminal activity committed on the territory of the United States.
According to the most recent report by Mediafax, Anatol Pânzaru, Călin’s lawyer, has declared before the Bucharest Court of Appeal that the conditions of the treaty on judicial cooperation between Romania and the United States have not been met.
Furthermore, Pânzaru has claimed that his client had no way of knowing that the cryptocurrency in question was earned via fraudulent activity. He also demanded from the court to reject the extradition request.
As Cointelegraph reported in December, the Supreme Court of Greece has approved the extradition of Alexander Vinnik, the purported former operator of the now-defunct crypto exchange BTC-e, to France, based on allegations of money laundering.
Vinnik was arrested in Greece in July 2017, after being accused of leading a group which laundered $4 billion in Bitcoin (BTC) over six years.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/founder-of-romanian-crypto-exchange-coinflux-to-be-extradited-to-us-on-multiple-allegations

A crypto assets regulatory working group dedicated to crypto and blockchain has been established by the South African (SA) government. English-language local news outlet BusinessLive reported on the development on Jan. 2.

Tito Mboweni — the South African finance minister — declared:

    “It is anticipated that, following broad industry comment and participation, the crypto assets regulatory working group will be ready to release a final research paper on the subject during the course of 2019.”

The finance minister further noted that the SA Revenue Service is working to include cryptocurrencies in the tax forms for the next year. The taxation laws amendment bill of 2018 included amendments that, Mboweni explained, would ensure that losses may only be offset against profits from crypto.

Also, he added, these amendments would clarify that cryptocurrencies cannot be classed as personal-use assets for capital gain tax purposes, and would instead treat crypto as a financial service for VAT purposes.

As Cointelegraph reported in June, South Africa’s central bank has successfully piloted an interbank payment system that employs tokenized fiat currency.

Cryptocurrency is also welcome by the local population, with 38 percent of South Africans reportedly wishing that they had invested in cryptocurrency before, according to a July survey conducted by the pan-African financial services company Old Mutual.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/south-african-government-establishes-crypto-assets-regulatory-working-group

GMO Internet Exits Bitcoin Miner Production After Recording ‘Extraordinary Loss’ in Q4

Japanese internet giant GMO Internet Group is quitting the Bitcoin mining hardware sector, Cointelegraph Japan reported Dec. 25 referencing a public document.

Citing “extraordinary loss” in Q4 this year, GMO, which began its foray into Bitcoin mining in 2017, said that it will “no longer develop, manufacture and sell” miners.

“After taking into consideration changes in the current business environment, the Company expects that it is difficult to recover the carrying amounts of the in-house-mining-related business assets, and therefore, it has been decided to record an extraordinary loss,” the document reads.

GMO will further relocate its mining operation “to a region that will allow us to secure cleaner and less expensive power supply.”

The news makes GMO the latest casualty of the 2018 Bitcoin (BTC) bear market, with falling prices taking their toll on mining profitability.

As Cointelegraph reported, scenes from China showed mass dumping of hardware, followed by news of redundancies from major player Bitmain.

After closing down its Israeli operations, this week, new reports suggested that Bitmain was preparing to fire up to half of its 2500-strong workforce.

Readmore: https://cointelegraph.com/news/gmo-internet-exits-bitcoin-miner-production-after-recording-extraordinary-loss-in-q4

Ireland’s High Court has ruled that 25,000 euro in cryptocurrency held by a man in prison is considered “the proceeds of a crime,” the Irish Times reported on Tuesday, Dec. 18.
The court “broke new legal ground”, the Irish Times states, while considering the case of Neil Mannion — a man reportedly serving a six-and-a-half year prison sentence at Wheatfield Prison in Dublin for drugs offences since 2014.
Mannion had reportedly admitted to selling drugs on the darknet, specifically on Silk Road and Agora. He was jailed at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2015 after purportedly pleading guilty to charges of possession and intent to distribute various controlled substances.
The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) withdrew his Bitcoin (BTC) revenues along with funds from banking accounts and credit cards in proceedings which where purportedly settled in February 2016.

Readmore: https://cointelegraph.com/news/irish-high-court-ruling-breaks-new-legal-ground-reports-local-media

Business Models Should Be ‘Re-Imaged’ for Blockchain, Says Barclays Rep

A Intrapreneur from financial services giant Barclays has expressed the idea that blockchains should be built with regulatory compliance in mind, tech news website The Next Web (TNW) reported Dec. 14.

Speaking at a Hard Fork Decentralized event, Barclays’ Julian Wilson stated that when building blockchains, developers need to “reconfigure our approach and way of thinking.” Wilson argued that not all business models require blockchains and that the tech should not be used, as TNW paraphrased his words, “as bolt-ons or additions to current business models.”

TNW also reports that Wilson presented an integrated concept of regulation and development, arguing that “to make a blockchain legally compliant, it should be built with the law in mind, and not the other way around.”

Speaking about using blockchain at Barclays, he noted that for a bank with over 300 years of activity, changing its business model to a blockchain-based one would not be simple, and that a blockchain solution would need to be “bespoke.”

Readmore: https://cointelegraph.com/news/business-models-should-be-re-imaged-for-blockchain-says-barclays-rep

Blockchain Startup Civic Appoints Apple Veteran as Executive Director of Identity.com

Blockchain startup Civic has appointed Apple veteran Phillip Shoemaker as executive director of Identity.com, its Ethereum (ETH) blockchain-based, decentralized identity platform. The news was announced in a press release published Dec. 13.
Identity.com is Civic’s open-source, decentralized and tokenized digital identity ecosystem that uses smart contracts to provide on-demand, blockchain-based identity validation.
Shoemaker joins the initiative after working over seven years as senior director of the Apple App Store Review team, which he reportedly built “from the ground up, taking his team from 4 to over 300 employees,” under the company leadership of founder Steve Jobs. Since leaving Apple in 2016, he has worked advising multiple blockchain projects and startups.
The company has said the appointment comes at a “key time” as it prepares to add external organizations to its ecosystem, “both as collaborators and participants.”

Readmore: https://cointelegraph.com/news/blockchain-startup-civic-appoints-apple-veteran-as-executive-director-of-identitycom