Image of The Week, 15-19 of October: Financial times, CNBC, Forbes and Others
We're presenting “image of the week”. Bitnewstoday.com has chosen only the most important news about the digital economy and virtual currencies. Only the most valuable stories from only the trusted sources. Each and every event from this list will change the world of the digital economy either way. The most important stories in the most indicative quotes are below!
15 of October
WOZ AND BARONESS DUO (Financial times)
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak become a co-founder of the blockchain company, EQUI Global
FT already reported that Woz would become a co-founder back in September. That was in the same story that we reported EQUI had canned its initial coin offering (ICO) after failing to get enough investment, that there had been a big row over how much the people who had been promoting it should be paid, including warnings of criminal consequences if EQUI were “bad-mouthed”, that the company had threatened us with lawyers and told us our every move was being watched, and that they had used a parliamentary email address to correspond with us.
EQUI says it's a “tokenised” venture capital fund focused on tech, that aims to open up VC investing to a wider group of people. It also describes itself as “a potential cryptocurrency of safety”.
FAMILY AFFAIR (CNBC)
Fidelity just made it easy for hedge funds and other pros to invest in cryptocurrencies
Financial services giant Fidelity is taking a huge step into cryptocurrency.
The 72-year-old firm announced the launch of a separate company, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, on Monday that will handle cryptocurrency custody and trade execution for institutional investors.
“Our goal is to make digitally native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors,” Fidelity Investments Chairman and CEO Abigail Johnson said in a press release. “We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use.”
16 of October
GEOPOLITICS: RIPPLE VS BITCOIN (Forbes)
China's Bitcoin dominance is disturbing Trump's White House and pushing it towards Ripple
China is, by some distance, the undisputed world leader in Bitcoin mining — with Chinese mining pools controlling more than 70% of the Bitcoin network's collective hash rate. Many in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency industry have expressed concern about how much control this gives China over Bitcoin, with the Beijing-based Bitmain Technologies mining more than half the world’s Bitcoins.
Now it appears U.S. president Donald Trump's White House is also worrying about China's Bitcoin dominance, with a Ripple Labs executive suggesting the U.S. administration is interested in ripple (XRP) adoption to offset China's Bitcoin strength.
52% VOTE FOR CRYPTO (Daily Hodl)
Survey shows 52% of investors at top traditional brokerages would invest in cryptocurrency if option existed
In a new survey covering mainstream interest in cryptocurrencies, LendEDU, in collaboration with The Daily Hodl, explores the untapped market of traditional investors. The results reveal that 52% of respondents would likely use their brokerage accounts to invest in cryptocurrency, if the option existed, and 59% of traditional investors believe their brokerage will offer cryptocurrencies in the near future.
The interest in cryptocurrency investing mirrors recent institutional interest and developments on Wall Street, including the launch of Fidelity Digital Assets; the upcoming crypto exchange Bakkt from Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange; Yale’s entry into crypto endowment investments, along with Harvard, Stanford, MIT and other leading universities; and pending Bitcoin ETF approvals that are being deliberated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
17 of October
SHORT SIGHTED (The Next Web)
RIP Satoshi’s vision — report finds only 16% of cryptocurrencies are decentralized
An overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects (cryptoassets) on the market today are centralized in one way or another. Even more startling, 85 percent of development teams have the authority to alter their cryptoassets’ protocol at their own discretion. These are just some of the findings presented by blockchain and cryptocurrency research unit CryptoCompare, in its yearly taxonomy of the cryptocurrency sector.
The study analyzed hundreds of cryptoassets with the intention of classifying cryptocurrency projects and blockchain platforms. Among other things, the report acts as a “decentralization thermometer” for the cryptocurrency market. It has indiciated a growing trend towards centralization, mostly driven by utility tokens running on private, controlled servers.
COMMITMENT TO THE CAUSE (Reuters)
Industry group plans blockchain tool to track firms' sustainability commitments
A responsible investment non-profit organisation said on Wednesday it aims to develop a blockchain tool to track companies’ sustainable commitments, to help identify those not keeping up with their ethical credentials.
The plan comes as the ethical investment industry expands beyond its core centres of Europe and North America, with governments such as Indonesia issuing green bonds for the first time this year. The London-based Responsible Finance & Investment (RFI) Foundation will work with a group of 23 other signatories to develop the tool over the coming year, Chief Executive Blake Goud told Reuters.
18 of October
FAKE NEWS (Blokt)
Fake news site uses pictures of New Zealand's Prime Minister to promote cryptocurrencies on Facebook
The fake news nuisance is growing by the day where pictures and even deep-fakes are used to manipulate audiences. A new fake news controversy related to digital currencies has unveiled in New Zealand. A fake news ad campaign run on Facebook was using the pictures of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to promote digital currencies. The ads suggested that the New Zealand Treasury is investing half of its wealth in a new Bitcoin start-up.
The ads were reported to the government by news website Stuff. The office of the Prime Minister then reported these ads to Facebook, and they were taken down. The ads were used to target different age groups in New Zealand and featured captions like “Every Kiwi aged between 30 and 45 must NOT miss this.” These ads included a picture of PM Ardern, along with a photo of US president Donald Trump or some money.
ELON MUSK EMBRACES CRYPTO (Daily Hodl)
Elon Musk enters the world of crypto: accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin at The Boring Company
Elon Musk has officially entered the world of cryptocurrency, with the entrepreneur’s startup The Boring Company now accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.
Founded in 2016, The Boring Company’s mission is to eliminate traffic in major cities by creating a web of underground tunnels that provide a new way to rapidly move from one place to another. With the company building its first test tunnel in Los Angeles, Musk decided to sell a line of unique items promoting the venture, including hats and the now-infamous “Not-A-Flamethrower.”
19 of October
FORBES MOVES TO BLOCKCHAINVILLE (Yahoo Finance)
World’s leading business magazine Forbes is partnering with blockchain start-up Civil
The magazine is merging Civil’s software with its content management system so that it can start uploading content on a decentralized system beginning 2019. This arrangement is expected to make it impossible for a third party to alter or remove Forbes’ content.
Major corporate giants including Apple AAPL, Alphabet GOOGL, Microsoft MSFT, Qualcomm QCOM, Dell DVMT and Berkshire Hathaway have started exploring blockchain and its implementations. According to MarketsandMarkets, global blockchain operations are expected to witness a compound annual growth rate of 79.6%to USD 7,683.7 million by 2022.
DANGERS OF DEMOCRACY (MarketWatch)
Voting by blockchain could add new risks to our elections
Looking to modernize voting practices, speed waiting times at the polls, increase voter turnout and generally make voting more convenient, many government officials — and some companies hawking voting systems — are looking to an emerging technology called a “blockchain.”
Blockchains might sound like an ideal remedy for the trust problems caused by internet voting. Data can only be added to a blockchain — not deleted or changed — because multiple copies are stored on computers owned by different people or organizations and perhaps spread across different countries. Yet scholars who have studied traditional and blockchain-based voting, believe that while blockchains may help with some specific issues, they can’t fix the basic problems with internet voting. In fact, they could make things worse.