Your Crypto News on Steemit January 5, 2018

• BREAKING: Problems with Bitcoin Debit Cards - what is behind it?
• Greece: Academic Degrees available on Blockchain Platform!
• Ebay: Selling of Cryptocurrencies without a License?
• Will the Chinese Central Bank regulate Electricity for Bitcoin Miners?
• A Phone on the Blockchain: What can the Sirin Labs Finney Phone do?
• Ethereum cracks Milestone $ 1,000!
• Bitpanda integrates Bitcoin Cash!

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Since last night, various sites report that there are problems with payments with Bitcoin debit cards like Bitwala, TenX, Mobi - what's behind it.

Bitcoin debit cards are very popular, as they allow easy use as a means of payment at any point accepting a debit card. Accordingly, cards from various providers such as Bitwala, TenX, BitPay are widely accepted among people who see Bitcoin not just as a store of value, but as a real means of payment.

In order for such debit cards to be used like other cards, their providers must work with credit card service providers. VISA and MasterCard are the two largest companies, which is why cooperations with these offer.

Of course, this leads to a dependency on these service providers by the companies behind the Bitcoin Debit Cards. This dependency has now become a big problem, so Bitwala made a statement:

But Bitwala is not alone with these problems: TenX also seems to be affected. This morning they wrote that payments with the TenX card are currently not possible. They refer to discussions with their issuing bank WaveCrest, which is responsible for the European Bitcoin debit cards. In a recent announcement, Julian Hosp, CEO of TenX, stated that Visa WaveCrest has withdrawn its license to activate the cards. However, this problem should not be dramatic; Finally, TenX had been looking for a new issuing bank for some time. All in all, it looks like a problem between Visa and WaveCrest. The extent to which the involvement of cryptocurrencies plays a role can not be assessed beyond doubt at the present time.

BitPay has written a long statement that the BitPay Card can not be used outside the United States. BitPay also attributes the problems to WaveCrest, which has been ordered by Visa to stop all Visa debit accounts.
The American Bitcoin debit card provider, however, hopefully concludes his announcement:

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University degrees are among the most important documents in life. It is all the more important that these can be issued and handed over without fraud or forgery. Three Greek universities therefore want to bid farewell to certificates in paper format. Instead, the documents should in future be issued using blockchain technology. The digital version of their diplomas can then be used by graduates to share with potential employers and others.

The blockchain research and development company IOHK is working with Greece's national research and education network GRNET on a new pilot program. This aims to put college qualifications on a blockchain platform.

The open-source pilot project involves three Greek universities: the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the largest university in Greece, the Democritus University of Thrace and the Athens University of Economics. Holders of diplomas from these universities should be able to prove their degree electronically via a blockchain platform.

At present, higher education diplomas are still printed on paper in Greece. The graduate will then be handed over his final document as a certified copy by the registrar of the department. Potential employers must therefore be photocopied. The university retains proof that the graduate has passed all degree programs and has obtained the degree.

Blockchain technology against document counterfeiting

However, photocopied certificates can be faked quickly. It is not easy for employers to check if a diploma is genuine. To make sure that the degree is real, the employer would have to contact the university in Greece. Qualifications in a block chain give transparency to this process. They offer a simple way to check if someone has a degree. In addition, a lot of paperwork is unnecessary. Graduates can take care of their own personal records and reduce the bureaucracy at the universities.

Professor Panayiotis Tsanakas, CEO and Managing Director of GRNET, explains the pilot project:

Panos Louridas, Consultant at GRNET and Associate Professor at the Athens University of Economics, praised the collaboration, saying that the experience so far has been very positive:

IOHK will build the blockchain platform with a fork of Mantis, the Ethereum Classic Client. The Greek universities join the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In October 2017, MIT launched a pilot project to use the Bitcoin blockchain to award digital diplomas to more than 100 graduates. The certificates were issued through an app called Blockcerts Wallets. This will allow graduates to share a verifiable and tamper-proof digital version of their diplomas with potential employers and others.

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The Ebay online platform appears to be offering unlicensed cryptocurrencies, including unambiguous scams and coins, the offer prices of which are out of all proportion to the current market price. Those responsible seem to be aware of this issue and have taken steps to see how effective they are, but they still need to be proven.

Ebay, the world's largest online marketplace, seems to have a massive problem with regulating the products offered on its own platform. Thus, completely undisturbed cryptocurrencies are discontinued as goods and offered for sale. This is done in various ways, such as offering paper wallets or vouchers that can be exchanged for cryptocurrencies. All in all, several such offers are discontinued daily, which clearly promise to acquire cryptocurrencies via the Ebay platform.

This procedure is not only cumbersome and confusing, but could also be problematic beyond that. In Germany, it is not allowed to conduct commercial financial services business without being in possession of an associated license. A corresponding license is issued by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and may cost a six-digit sum, depending on the volume of financial services to be offered. If this license is missing, it is not allowed to sell financial products commercially. Thus, according to § 54 KWG there is a criminal offense.

Apart from the fact that the mere offering and selling of cryptocurrencies is not permitted without the equipment with a corresponding license, the offered products usually lack any substance. For example, various cryptocurrencies are offered at a price that far exceeds the current price of the coin, as shown in the image section. The format Ebays also does not allow to consider the hourly fluctuating price adjustments of the respective cryptocurrencies. It also happens that very obvious scams and nonexistent cryptocurrencies are offered for sale in order to exploit the ignorance of crypto-interested parties with a clear fraudulent intention.

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The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has apparently set itself the goal of more vigilant monitoring and regulation of the energy consumed by the mining of cryptocurrencies. This should, among other things, reduce the increased demand for electricity in the People's Republic.

China is one of the largest sources of mining power to mine bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Meanwhile, a veritable market has developed for the provision of computer computing in the People's Republic. Conversely, however, this also means that the more intensively China is handled, the higher the energy consumption and energy demand in the country rise.

At this point, the Chinese central bank would now like to start. As reported by consistent international media, the PBOC is planning a stronger regulation of energy consumption spent on mining cryptocurrencies. As a possible effect, the officials seem to hope for a reduction of the mining revenue and thus a collapse of the Chinese mining market.

As the central bank responsible for monetary stability, the People's Bank of China, while not directly intervening in the energy supply of the Chinese people, has the ability to use indirect leverage. For example, the central bank can instruct regional governments to control and, if necessary, limit the energy supply of the local population in order to prevent the use of energy and hence the processing power to mine cryptocurrencies.

This could once again push the Chinese government against the circulation of cryptocurrencies in their country. Already last year, a series of bans from China caused quite a stir in the crypto markets. Thus, the People's Republic had banned ICOs as a source of revenue in September 2017, shortly thereafter also to close the largest crypto-trading centers in the country. With the impending curtailment of energy supply for crypto-miners, the central bank also seems to want to eliminate the third pillar of the adaptation of cryptocurrencies.

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Last year, Sirin Labs launched the Finney Smartphone, the first mobile phone to work on a proprietary blockchain ecosystem. The company has also developed a blockchain all-in-one PC. Let's take a closer look at what this innovation brings and how it could change our way of communicating.

Blockchain remains a buzzword in 2018 when it comes to technological innovations that make our lives easier, more convenient and more efficient. Driven by the use of cryptocurrencies, which have recently been on everyone's lips thanks to the recent Bitcoin flight, technology is gradually finding its way into the middle of society. In addition to institutionalized adaptations, such as in logistics or the energy industry, the private use of blockchain-based solutions is increasingly coming into focus.

A fitting example of this is the Finney smartphone, a mobile phone released by Israeli blockchain start-up Sirin Labs. Sirin Labs has developed a proprietary ecosystem with Finney that is designed to combine consumer hardware with blockchain technology. Sirin denounces that the current generation of interconnected electronic devices put too little focus on security and sacrificed it in favor of optimizing the user experience. For a future-proof digital economy, however, sufficient protection of user data when using a device is indispensable. The blockchain named after Hal Finney, one of the bitcoiners of the first hour, is here to help.

For example, Sirin Labs recently released two products that can be used within the Sirin ecosystem. The Finney smartphone will be marketed as the first blockchain-enabled mobile phone and can be purchased for around $ 1,000. The Finney Blockchain All-In-One PC is said to be slightly cheaper for about $ 800. Both devices are designed to run on the Android-based open-source OS Shield OS, which is programmed to include blockchain applications such as an integrated cold-storage crypto-wallet, secure access to crypto exchanges, and an encrypted P2P resource split supported. Likewise for the devices own DApps are designed.

The Finney smartphone is not the first mobile phone developed by Sirin Labs. In 2016, the luxury smartphone Solaris came on the market, which was to acquire $ 14,000. Here, too, the focus was on the security of user data, but in this early version, no blockchain solution was provided. In addition, the expensive purchase price prevented that the device could seriously enforce. Instead, the Finney smartphone is designed for the mass market and aspires to become one of the pioneers of a new generation of smartphones.

To further expand the Finney blockchain ecosystem, Sirin Labs has already grossed more than $ 150 million over the past year, far exceeding its target of $ 100 million. For the purchase of the products and the use of the Finney network exists since the last week ended ICO the SRN token, which will have contributed significantly to the financing of the project. Sirin Labs had announced that it would develop the smartphone in the event of a captured amount of 50 million US dollars, for the development of the PC had spent the figure of 75 million US dollars.

With the development of the first blockchain-enabled devices, when it comes to Sirin Labs, the electronics will be carried into the blockchain era and a customer-oriented, secure open-source product will be created. Finney smartphone and Finney PC thus create an interface between hardware and blockchain technology, between electronics and digital through the Sirin ecosystem. This innovation could be the next logical step in the evolution of the smartphone by flanking the permanent connectivity and availability of self-managing its own data.

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Ethereum first crossed the magic limit of $ 1,000 yesterday afternoon, reaching a symbolic mark. Thus, the cryptocurrency defies the developments of the still young year, in which Ethereum was not yet one of the winners of the crypto-overthrow.

At the beginning of last week, Ethereum had lost second place in the ranking of cryptocurrencies to Ripple and dropped to third. For the first time since 2016, the Ether was thus not the Coin with the second highest market capitalization. Throughout 2017, Ethereum has always been able to decorate with the vice title.

However, anyone wishing to start the swan song on ETH Zurich in the face of the heyday of Ethereum's competition can now feel better off. By a rapid rise in the price of ether can record a new all-time high and cracking for the first time the mark of $ 1,000. In the meantime, the Ethereum price was even higher, resulting in a market capitalization of $ 100 billion - a new record, of course.

The rise of Ethereum is almost fading against the background of the upheavals that are currently taking place in the marketplace. A whole range of new coins appear in the top 10, many coins from the second row increased by 20-30%. Overall, the cumulative market capitalization was more than $ 760 billion with a 24-hour trading volume of $ 70 billion.

An early reconquest of the second place of Ripple seems to Ethereum currently still far off, because even today, the increase in price of XRP outweighs those of Ethereum. Ripple, after a renewed increase, has a market capitalization of $ 140 billion and is currently priced at $ 3.60. With this, Ripple is slowly but surely getting closer to the crypto King Bitcoin, who has benefited relatively little from the renewed boom of the entire market and has only just under 33% market dominance. In the summer of 2017, the gap between Bitcoin and the second-placed currency last time was as low as at the time - the competitor at that time: Ethereum.

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Bitpanda, an Austrian Bitcoin exchange based in Vienna, currently offers Dash, Litecoin, Ethereum and Bitcoin. On 3 January, the financial services provider announced that it would also like to integrate Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in the future.

High demand reason for integration

Bitpanda was founded in 2014 by Eric Demuth, Christian Trummer and Paul Klanschek. At that time, the company offered only services for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Now cryptocurrencies can also be stored on Bitpanda's Walltet. In addition, the payment options have been expanded and you can pay, inter alia, by credit card, Skrill or SEPA transfers. With demand rising due to the aborted SegWit2x, the company decided to fully integrate Bitcoin Cash on the platform.

Co-founder and CEO Eric Demuth stated in a blog post:

Bitcoin Cash fans can also use Amazon gift cards and Austrian Post AG services

In addition to its use on the platform, Bitcoin Cash can also be used by Österreichische Post AG. Since last summer, Bitpanda To Go users have been able to use digital currencies at 1700 Post Offices. Bitpanda's customers can buy Bitcoin Cash worth € 50, € 100 or € 500.

"Thus, BCH is also available offline in all outlets of Austrian Post with Bitpanda To Go. Thanks to our cooperation with Austrian Post, Bitpanda To Go customers can now buy five digital currencies at more than 400 post offices and 1300 postal partners within Austria, "explained Demuth.

Demuth also said:

In addition to the possibility to buy Bitcoin Cash at the post office, it will also be possible to use Bitcoin Cash for all services related to Amazon.de and Bitpanda. For this purpose, Bitcoin Cash must first be available in a verified account. If you then want to buy a gift card on Amazon, Bitcoin Cash must be selected as a payment method, it said in the blog post.

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