Your Crypto News on Steemit February 2, 2018

• Is Facebook planning to integrate Litecoin?
• South Korea finds $600 Million in Crypto Crime!
• IOTA announces Partnership with Taipei to create a Smart City!
• Sawtooth Hyperledger: Blockchain Solutions for Businesses!
• SBI Ripple Asia: Blockchain Consortium of Brokers!
• KodakCoin postpones ICO for several Weeks!

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Two days ago, Facebook announced no more advertising for cryptocurrencies and ICOs on its social media network - the courses of the most cryptos fell slightly. However, what initially looks like a hit against cryptocurrencies could have a completely different reason.

Mark Zuckerberg announced at the beginning of the year, this year to deal more with cryptocurrencies, therefore, the announcement of banning advertising for cryptocurrencies and ICOs on Facebook seems confusing at first.

However, it might make sense again if we look at David Marcus, Head of Messenger on Facebook, recently joining Coinbase. Incidentally, Coinbase also works with Charlie Lee as the director of engineering for Litecoin, who announced a "big and unexpected surprise" in the world of cryptos in 2018.

Now it is speculated that Facebook bans advertising for digital currencies, because they maybe want to integrate Litecoin. For example, the social media giant could exclusively promote the LTC and make it the currency of Facebook.

Recent events also point to Litecoin being primed for a Facebook adoption.

In December 2017, news broke that Charlie Lee had sold or donated all his liquid Litecoin holdings. This sparked a big dump of LTC in the cryptocurrency markets and causing the coin’s value to experience a nosedive in its value.

Many questioned, Lee’s motive for relinquishing his LTC holdings, with many claiming he did so for personal benefits, i.e., dumping when the coin was high.

Lee, however, moved to debunk such claims, he is quoted as saying “we have not taken off yet,” via a tweet in response to an allegation of bailing when the coin was high.

It is believed that Lee was exclusively requested to drop his LTC holdings by the social media giants, so he cannot be faced with accusations of chasing personal interests as well as decision bias when it comes to the development of the Litecoin ecosystem.

It is rumored that Facebook is making preparations for the massive announcement that is set to send Litecoin’s value to the moon, i.e., announcing the introduction of the support for LTC as a payment channel on the social media platform.
Litecoin boasts the added payment processing layer on its blockchain that facilitates point-of-sale convenience without compromising proof-of-work security, making it a perfect coin to adopt as a payment channel on Facebook.

However, if this doesn’t happen, Litecoin still has the massive potential of going up this year. Recently, OpenBazaar added Litecoin as another payment option.

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Reports from the Republic of South Korea indicate its Customs Service announced on Wednesday, 31 January 2018, it has discovered “cryptocurrency crimes” which amount to nearly 600 million USD.

Customs authorities investigate against cryptocurrency criminals

According to Reuters, the South Korea customs office issued a statement two days ago stating that "cryptocurrency crimes valued at 637.5 billion won were uncovered". It should be above all illegal trading in foreign exchange.

In the past month of January, it was mainly South Korea that kept the crypto world in suspense and made the headlines. For example, there have been conflicting statements by various government agencies and ministries regarding a possible deeper ban on cryptocurrency trading, initially initiated by the Department of Justice but subsequently rejected by the Ministry of Finance. In the end, it was agreed that crypto trading would simply be more regulated in the future and would take place under sharply controlled KYC conditions.

Recent reports from Korea now suggest that skepticism about cryptocurrencies will not necessarily diminish. South Korean officials have uncovered illegal cryptographic activity totaling nearly $ 600 million. This figure came in the wake of a closer examination of the use of cryptocurrencies used in illegal foreign exchange trading. Under the new legislation, the government of South Korea recently stepped up efforts to identify crypto-related activities related to illegal business.

According to the Korean Customs Authority's statement, much of the illegal foreign exchange trade between South Korea and Australia took place between March and December last year. The circulating in cryptocurrencies money should have amounted to the equivalent of almost 450 million US dollars.

The statement also comments: "Customs is investigating illegal foreign exchange trading using cryptocurrency as part of a special government unit." The bulk of the money came from illegal foreign exchange trading. It is still unclear what action the Authority will take. In addition, Japanese investors have spent about 53.7 billion won for the illegal trading of cryptocurrencies in South Korea.

Whether this finding will affect the immediate actions of the government, remains to be seen. In any case, it is expected that these in-depth reviews of cryptocurrency related activities will increase in the future. However, an even tougher approach to cryptocurrencies in general is not expected.

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In an official press release, the municipality of the capital of Taiwan, Taipei City, has announced a partnership with IOTA. The goal of the cooperation is the creation of a Smart City. Tangle technology is being used to create a series of technical innovations for the city's residents.

The Taipei City Government press release states that IOTA and Taipei will explore the possibilities of adapting IOTA technology to their smart city needs. There are a number of projects dealing with data integrity as well as authenticity problems in public life.

The first project will be the creation of digital citizen ID cards based on Tangle technology. Using the TangleID card, the risk of identity theft and electoral fraud is eliminated. In addition, all health data of the citizens should be stored safely and with integrity on the TangleID - a kind of digital medical record. But other data, such as government-related services, should be stored on the TangleID.

Furthermore, Taipei has already started the project "Airbox" with other partners and companies. As part of this project, air sensors are being developed that detect temperature, humidity, light and environmental pollution. In cooperation with the Taiwanese startup BiiLabs, the collected airbox data will be integrated into the IOTA Marketplace and thus made available in real time.

Short video about the Airbox project:

In the press release, David Sønstebø, co-founder of the IOTA Foundation said:

With the announcement of the partnership with Tapei, IOTA continues on its path towards mainstream adaptation and establishment through real-world applications. In recent months, IOTA has already announced several strategic projects and partnerships. These included the International Transportation Innovation Center (ITIC), the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Bosch and the extensive IOTA Marketplace project, with numerous cooperation partners.

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Hyperledger Foundation launches Hyperledger Sawtooth, a new blockchain development platform. It is aimed primarily at companies that want to develop their own blockchain applications.

With Hyperledger Sawtooth, developers want to give businesses a way to develop their own blockchain applications. For this they provide a kind of framework, which developers can access. To relieve the platform, the application domain is separated from the core system. This allows developers to program the applications in their own language without having to know the main chain.

Hyperledger Sawtooth is modular in design. Sawtooth's design allows you to choose the rules for transactions, smart contracts, and consensus algorithms and customize them for your own needs.

The platform offers a variety of examples of transactions that developers can use as models. Available languages ​​include Python, JavaScript, Go, C ++, Java, and Rust.

Since there is no centralized service, transaction patterns or other confidential information should not be able to go outside. In addition, the developers want to make the parallel execution of transactions possible with this outsourcing.

Sawtooth uses alternative consensus mechanism

As a consensus mechanism, Sawtooth works with the Proof of Elapsed Time, which is based on the proof of work. It's supposed to work by leveraging the scaling capabilities of the proof of work, while changing the algorithm so that the process uses less energy.

Hyperledger Sawtooth refers to the basic capabilities of hyperledgers. With their help, users can construct transactions, track information in the supply chain, and exchange goods. As application areas the developers lead finances, the health system as well as supply chains. For supply chains, the use of IoT sensors should make it possible to track the entire delivery path. The object in question is therefore equipped with a sensor to later trace the route from the starting point to the transport, ownership and other parameters. This application would be conceivable, for example, in the fish trade or in the medical sector - depending on the taste of the respective companies.

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Under the leadership of the SBI Ripple Asia joint venture, Japanese brokers are launching a consortium to further advance the blockchain adaptation in the sector. Blockchain solutions are designed to increase efficiency and better serve customers. Furthermore, SBI Virtual Currencies would like to exclusively list ripple as a cryptocurrency.

Eighteen Japanese brokerage companies have launched a consortium to advance blockchain technology in their businesses. Participants include the online trading platforms SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities, as well as conventional brokerage firms such as Noruma Securities and Daiwa Securities.

The main organizer and the driving force behind the project is SBI Rippe Asia, a unit of SBI Holdings. In addition to the focus on blockchain technology and its potential applications in stock market issues, other technological innovations should also be considered. Intensive cooperation between all companies involved in the joint project should reduce costs.

One project that the consortium wants to follow more closely is a shared log-in mechanism for customer accounts that uses biometrics and other personal identification information. In addition, artificial intelligence should be used to track trading activities. This could be especially helpful to retail investors who do not always have to re-enter their personal information whenever they create an account. The overall flow of stock trading would be so much more efficient.

SBI Ripple Asia is a joint venture between Japanese investment company SBI and DLT payment service provider Ripple. SBI Ripple Asia was founded in early 2016 to introduce the use of ripple products and services to the Asian market. The company had already initiated a bank consortium early last year to work on propagating ripples technology in Japan.

The partnership is underlined by the announcement of the SBI Holding, initially in the soon-to-start Exchange SBI Virtual Currencies want to list exclusively the Rippple token XRP. The Exchange is intended to be a reliable crypto exchange for both institutional customers of the financial services provider and individual investors in cryptocurrencies in Japan. The XRP is particularly suitable here, since the focus of application of the cryptocurrency is in the institutional area. For example, SBI VC is also considering joining the xRapid ecosystem - a network that is currently growing.

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The Kodak cryptocurrency ICO, called KodakCoin, has been postponed. The public sale was originally scheduled to start on January 31, after a pre-sale sale of 8 million KodakCoins.

According to the statement, the delay is attributed to an extended process of verifying that investors are actually recognized in the US. The SEC requires that an individual accredited investor have a net worth that exceeds $1 million, or an annual income of at least $200,000, along with other conditions.

The project is the result of an agreement between Kodak and WENN Digital and will serve as the basis for a decentralized photo-rights management platform.

Kodak's turn to blockchain led to rumors that the company was trying to leverage the current investor sentiment around other companies, many of which doubled or tripled their shares after announcing it to the company in the context of the technology. The Securities and Exchange Commission said last week that it wants to take a closer look at such moves.

Market data shows that Eastman Kodak Co. stock prices fell as part of the announcement of the KodakCoin token sale delay. According to Google, the value of the stock at the time of publication has fallen by more than 15%.

The January 31, 2018 statement warned investors against fake KodakCoin ICO sites appearing on Facebook and other websites, and investors could not buy tokens outside the company's official platform.

According to Marketwatch, Kodak's stock (KODK) prices sharply increased after the press release of the project on January 9, 2018 from $3.1 to almost $11 the next day. However, after the delay was announced on January 30, 2018 the stock dropped by more than 18 percent, and continues to trend downwards February 1, 2018.

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