Ontorio Town Accepts Bitcoin Payment For Property Taxes

It has been reported that a town in Ontario Canada called Innisfil will now be allowed to pay their property taxes with Bitcoin.

According to the mayor of Innisfil while the demand for the service is still unclear the move is a clear indication that that town is truly a future-ready and innovative community.

The initiative was made possible through the town’s partnership with a Canadian fintech firm Coinberry Pay which will be responsible in converting Bitcoin payments into Fiat and deposit to the Innisfil bank account.

However, some members of the cryptocurrency community criticized the move as a mere publicity stunt that seeks to exploit the popularity of the emerging asset class.

They point out that while there will be an option to pay Bitcoins the town that prides itself as the first
Municipal to accept such a payment method will not actually hold Bitcoin due to the fact that Bitcoon payments will instantly be converted to fiat and never reaches the municipality.

Another point to consider is the volatility of Bitcoin which throws the responsibility to users to make sure that they pay the exact amount, if any discrepancies are discovered tax payers will have to shoulder the difference to settle their tax account obligation.

On the other hand the town will owe the tax paper any excess if the price of Bitcoin appreciates in value.

Security Token Offering Guidelines Released By Hong Kong’s Securities Regulator

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has recently released its official guidelines with regards to Security Token Offering (STOs) last March 28, 2019.

The primary purpose of the guideline is to provide legal and regulatory requirements for anyone planning to participate in STO-related activities.

The document also clearly define the security token and sale stating that STOs are offerings which are structured to have features of traditional securities offerings and involves Security Tokens which are digital representation of ownership of asset or economic rights which uses blockchain.

According to SFC security tokens is more likely to be securities therefore should be regulated under Hong Kong’s Securities and Future Ordinance or securities laws.

This basically means that all STO, unless exempted, must acquire a license and register for dealing in securities under the provisions of the ordinance.

Engaging in securities dealings without the necessary license is considered a criminal office under Hong Kong’s existing laws.

SFC also states that anyone who plans to engage in STO are required to comply with the existing Code of Conduct it outlined last November 2018.

ASICs Making Ethereum More Decentralized Not The Opposite According To Former Bitmain CEO

The co-founder and former CEO of Bitmain, Jihan Wu has recently stated that ASICs are less of a centralizing force than more general purpose graphics processing units in a keynote speech during a blockchain event in Changqing , China.

He also states that that altering the network’s mining algorithm to be more resistant ASIC miners such as Cuckoo cycle and ProgPow will still have little effect as there will be ASIC miners that will be optimized to bypass these measures.

The Ethereum community voted to approve a network upgrade to ProgPow that will impact mining rewards that has an annual market of around $600 million.

Wu also alleged that certain individuals who are involved in the ProgPow proposal directly report to the CEO of Nvidia which he describes a clear effort to achieve centralization by excluding other integrated circuit designers to participate in Ethereum mining.
He argues that ASIC miners are more capable of securing a blockchain network than GPU hardware due to the higher cost it brings to bad actors to launch a 51 percent attack on the network.

According to Wu this is the primary reason why there is a lot more 51 percent attacks on GPU-based cryptos compared to ASICs.

His statements are not surprising given his firm owns about 70 percent of the global crypto mining equipment market share.

USStocks Token Enables Investors To Access US Stock Market

News reports online have reported that decentralized financial contract platform UMA has recently partnered with decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) MakerDao to release a token tied to the United States Stock market .

The new partnership is marked with the creation of a new ERC-20 token called the USStocks token which can be purchased using the MarkerDAO’s USD-backed Stablecoin DAI.

The USStock token will represent synthetic ownership of an index of the 500 largest exchange-listed US Stocks.

With this new digital asset anybody with the access to the internet and digital money can participate in the US stock market.

According to Rune Christensen, Maker’s CEO and co-founder USStocks is an exciting example of how decentralized finance can unlock economic opportunities for people regardless of geography or income level.

Investor will not take actual ownership of any stocks while USStocks tokens ownership represents a bet on a basket backed by DAI at an overcollateralized ratio of 108.5 percent.

Coinbase Leads Wall Street Crypto Staking

According to reports the online the U.S cryptocurrency –related company Coinbase is aiming to entice institutional investors into the world of staking crypto assets for earnings.

Coinbase Custody will start offering staking services to institutional clients with initial support for the proof-of-stake coin Tezos.

Clients who chose to stake their coins in Coinbase’s custody solution will be protected by a fully insured cold storage at all times and will expect to earn about 6.6% annually after deduction of Coinbase’s fees.

Since staking requires funds to be kept online at all time Coinbase will put up its own coins assuming the risk for its investors.

Cryptocurrencies Staking is a way of securing the network of a Proof-of-stake (POS) coins which requires participants to hold cryptocurrencies in their wallet.

Stakers helps in validating transactions in the blockchain and be rewarded depending on the amount they have staked.

Staking is poised to become a bigger opportunity down the line given the fact that that the second-largest cryptocurrencies by market cap expected to migrate to a PoS consensus system.

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