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Bitcoin Sweden regulation: the blockchain to record property deals

A new project for Bitcoin Sweden regulation has moved to its second phase. In fact, the Sweden’s land registry authority, the so- called Lantmäteriet, wants to use the distributed ledger tech with the main goal of recording property deals.

This project was conducted by the blockchain startup called ChromaWay and the consultancy group Kairos Future, that are also working in partnership with two banks: SBAB and Landshypotek.

Talking about the project’s potential, ChromaWay CEO Henrik Hjelte commented:

“It could be a great benefit for economic growth”.

Also, he said that Sweden is the ideal country to test a distributed ledger system for land titles, because trust in public authorities is higher than elsewhere and it could influence other countries to do the same in the next future.

Thanks to this system, a buyer and seller would open a contract where banks and the land registry can view the workflow of the deal, such as due dates for payments.

“In the blockchain confirmation of each step in the workflow is made with a hash, like the blockchain normally. Everyone has the same information and you can check it yourself,” said Magnus Kempe of Kairos Future.

Another use case for this project is the potential verification of an IOU issued by the bank to its property buyer.

“That part is going to be hidden for the others in the contract. You will only have the hash confirming from the bank that the IOU has been signed,” commented Kempe.

That said, SBAB Bank explaind it has no imminent plans to implement the blockchain:

“Our reason to participate in the project has not been to actually implement the solution in our current processes. But rather an opportunity for us to get a better understanding of the blockchain technology and how it might possibly fit in our future products/offerings.”

Bitcoin Sweden regulation: what is the EU doing?

Recently, the EU passed a directive that puts more weight behind digital signatures; a similar bill has been proposed in Arizona too.

Click here to read more about EU regulation related to bitcoin and blockchain.

A the moment, this land registry project is looking at new ways for working at this issue.

“Actually, the land registry today, they don’t receive much physical paper, they get PDFs of the contracts which are signed electronically so they don’t store the physical contracts. What we are thinking of is, you can actually sign the contract digitally in the blockchain to the land registry, they can award the land titles and then you can throw away the paper so you’re not dependent on the physical archive.”

 

According to ChromaWay’s Henrik Hjelte, the use of blockchain could be disruprive in order to manage ownership of property and improving transparency in real estate sales.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio
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Sweden Digital Currency: a new Bitcoin?

Today I want to talk about the new Sweden Digital Currency project.

Sweden’s central bank, in fact, is considering the possibility of issuing its own national virtual currency, but the technology behind it is yet to be revealed.

According to an article published today by The Financial Times, Riksbank wants to create the new virtual currency because of a strong decline in domestic cash use. In fact, according to a report, the amount of notes in circulation has declined 40% since 2009.

Sweden Digital Currency and other solutions

Deputy governor Cecilia Skingsley commented that the central bank wants to test various technologies. Although she did not mention blockchain drectly, the Financial Times explained that the distributed ledger might be one of the options the Sweden bank could consider.

“We need to do the homework because it’s not an option for the public sector to stay on the sidelines and see the private sector cut off access to central bank money for individuals.”

Skingsley said that the digital currency could be issued together with banknotes and coins, but the Riksbank do not want to encourage illegal activity.

Tomorrow Skingsley will give a speech and he might explain more details about the Sweden Digital Currency project.

With this announcement, Sweden will become the latest country to have its own central bank considering to issue a new digital currency, an idea that for the greatest part of nations meant doing several reseatches related to blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.

During the latest few months, the Bank of England has started to discuss and test issuing its own digital currency using the blockchain; and the People’s Bank of China is investigating the idea too.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio
25568078 BG2

Blockchain Properties: bitcoin tech to verify property transactions

One of the major use cases for the distributed ledger can be identified as “blockchain properties“, or the way to register and verify property transactions on the blockchain.

A few days ago, the first government to do so was Georgia that signed an agreement to use the blockchain to verify property transactions by using the well-known company BitFury services.

This is the first time that an American government uses the distributed ledger to prove and authenticate national operations using this disruptive technology.

Government on Blockchain

The private blockchain ledger that is an alter-proof ledger is also provable using the core bitcoin Blockchain that is in the public domain.

The Georgian National Agency of Public Registry and BitFury wrote a memorandum of understanding trying to find how to extend services to new land titles registration, property demolitions, mortgages, purchases and sales of land titles, rental and notary services.

There are a few other ideas focused on Blockchain land title services also in Sweden, Honduras and Cook County in Chicago which are being developed by ChromaWay, Factcom and Velox too.

Magazines also revealed that Peruvian Economist Hernando de Soto is involved with the Georgian Blockchain properties project too.

De Soto, in his book Mystery of Capital, estimates that there is “dead capital” of $20 trillion globally, consisting of buildings and lands without legal title.

Blockchain Properties on mobile

Tea Tsulukiani, Georgia’s Minister of Justice, commeted that she is very proud and happy that her country will work with the blockchain technology with the goal of having real estate quotations in a completely safe and secure system.

Also, chairman of the Georgian National Agency of Public Registry commented in a press release that he is “very pleased with the technical progress and looks forward to continuing their fruitful collaboration.”

BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov explained that the Georgian government is excited about the whole project and the methods used. Also, he continued by explaining that all the changes were executed for the citizens of Georgia, so they can track if a title is authentic when it is entered into the system.

The software is going to be completely operational during this year, he said.

“The big goal is to move the process to smartphones, so people can use it in any moments and all transactions are secured, transferrable and accountable.”

Applied on properties management, the Blockchain technology maintains agreements in a few ways: in blockchain-based entries, records are time-stamped  and this system would allow members interested in a property to verify and establish the date of previous sales.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio
La Tour Eiffel forse il simbolo piu rappresentativo di Parigi e della Francia

France Bitcoin Tests by the Central Bank

France Bitcoin tests have been revealed by the French Central Bank last week.

The Banque de France published a press release on Friday where it talks about its technology tests for  use in the management of SEPA Credit Identifiers.

According to the French central bank, one of the key participants in this project is the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, and the Paris-based startup called Labo Blockchain.

The project began in July 2016 and culminated in October with the creation of prototypes for creating and managing SEPA Credit Identifiers.

The central bank also explained how meetings were held with stakeholders as the project moved forward, indicating that more details about the project will be revealed in 2017.

France Bitcoin project and more central bank efforts

This is not the first time a  central bank test the distributed ledger.

A few months ago, in fact, central banks in Japan, Sweden and Singapore launched similar projects.

Also, earlier this month, the US Federal Reserve published its first major research paper on the ledger you can read here.

Credits: Coindesk.com

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio

Why governments should embrace the Blockchain

governments_should_embrace_the_blockchain
 
William Mougayar, author of “The Business Blockchain” and member of the Ethereum Foundation, explains why governments should embrace the blockchain.
A few days ago we published an article where ICAP suggested on why banks must adopt digital currencies; today we want to talk about this new important opinion by Mougayar, who is convinced that the distributed ledger could improve government services.
Government services, in fact, are one of the most important and revolutionary use cases for this technology , so it is not a surprise that governments are working to develop their own blockchain-based applications.
During this year several cities and governmental institutions made their own plans for the ledger.
Singapore, Delaware, Estonia, Georgia, Ghana, Sweden, Switzerland, UK are just a few of many countries that developed a project related to the blockchain.
So, if your government is not working on the blockchain, they should, explained Mougayar.
As the blockchain is an early stage technology, it is easier to implement solutions at smaller scales.

How governments should embrace the Blockchain

What can your government do with the blockchain? There are four main areas:
  1. Verification: licenses, proofs of records, transactions, processes or events.
  2. Movement of assets. E.g. Transferring money from one person/entity to another.
  3. Ownerships: the blockchain is a perfect ledger to custody any asset.
  4. Blockchain can be used to give e-identities to its citizens, enabling a safer kind of voting.
So, government leaders should:
  1. Study the blockchain and explore its potential.
  2. Let people develop a blockchain strategy.
  3. Start experimenting with blockchain technology
  4. Develop new ideas to improve the quality of life of the citizens

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi
how to mine bitcoins

Why the KnCMiners Bankruptcy might be a good news

The Sweden bitcoin mining company called KnCMiner announced its bankruptcy.
KncMiners was one of the greatest mining company who raised $15m in venture funding from Accel and Creandum, among the other investors back in 2015 after only two years of life.

Why KncMiners had to face Bankruptcy

One of the possible reason of this bankruptcy could be the three class-action lawsuit KnCMiner had to face recently. 
But CEO Sam Cole denied any relationship between their bankruptcy and these recent lawsuits.
Cole, in fact, argues that the main reason for KnCMiner bankruptcy is the decrease of the bitcoin transaction rewards for miners.
“Effectively our cost of coin – how much we produce the coins for – will be over the market price. The price is now [roughly] $480. With all of our overhead, after July, the cost will be over $480. All of the liabilities we’ll have after that time will be too high”, explained Cole.

Why the Bitcoin Mining Company KnCMiners Bankruptcy might be a positive news

In a centralized economic system currency is issued by central banks who control the emission and the value.
Conversely, in a decentralized economy currency is not controlled by any central authority and this is the reason why – in the Bitcoin case, for example, in his whitepaper Satoshi Nakamoto suggested an algorithm to define when and how many new bitcoin can be created.
According to this algorithm the number of new bitcoins is set to decrease with a 50% reduction every 210000 blocks, or almost 4 years.
As a result, the number of bitcoins will not exceed 21 million.
As the number of bitcoins is set to decrease the same thing happens to the miners reward.
Thanks to a process called halving, the rewards drop down, as it happened back in 2012 when it took down from 50 to 25 BTC.
Now it is set to become 12.5 BTC in July. 
For this reason the miners work is not so convenient anymore, so the number of miners is decreasing. Ans this means that the Bitcoin price will grow.
Also, a Bitcoin value is roughly $500, and miners cost of a new Bitcoin is more than $480 in energy and computer tools, so under that price it’s not worth doing it.

Halving process to help Bitcoin rising

<img src="/images/mining.jpg" alt="kncminers bankruptcy" height="264" width="350" />
Image Courtesy of Coindesk.com
As for any scarce product, like gold or oil, the cost of extraction is one of the main elements that determine its price. If it increases, then the miners stops to do their jobs.
As a result the offer is reduced and its value rises.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio

Ethereum and Arcade City could kill Uber

A few days ago Don Tapscott suggested the idea that the blockchain could cause the death of services like Uber and Airbnb.
And it seems like this is truly happening, as a service called Arcade City has officially published a press release where they “declare war on Uber over fare cuts and plan to replace drivers with self-driving cars”.

Arcade City is an open marketplace where riders connect directly with drivers. It only works via a mobile app, available for both iOS and Android. 

How it works

Let the company speaks for itself:

It works through the Ethereum Blockchain

Most importantly, Arcade City integrates the Ethereum blockchain.
During a recent interview with CoinTelegraph, Christopher David, founder at Arcade City, commented: 

“the main deciding factor was that the vision of Ethereum aligns precisely with our own vision of peer-to-peer transportation and distributed logistics”.

Where can we move with Arcade City?

At the moment Arcade City is active in the US.
These are the states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Washington D.C.
Drivers are also available in Australia; while Mexico, Canada and Sweden will be launched next spring.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Amelia Tomasicchio
eu tax authorities confirm bitcoin vat free switzerland

EU’s Top Court Rules That Bitcoin Exchange Is Tax-Free

(Bloomberg) Bitcoin and other virtual currencies can be exchanged tax free, the
European Union’s top court said in a ruling that puts them on a more
equal footing with traditional cash.
Value added tax — a type of
sales levy — needn’t be applied because the business involves “the
exchange of different means of payment,” the EU Court of Justice in
Luxembourg ruled Thursday. The case was triggered by a dispute in
Sweden, where David Hedqvist set up a service for the exchange of
mainstream money for bitcoin and vice versa.
Bitcoin
currency, introduced in 2008 by a programmer or group of programmers
under the name Satoshi Nakamoto, has no central issuing authority and
uses a public ledger to verify encrypted transactions. It has gained
traction with merchants selling legitimate products but also has been
used to facilitate illegal transactions because money can be transferred
anonymously.
“Transactions
to exchange traditional currencies for units of the bitcoin virtual
currency (and vice versa) constitute the supply of services” under the
bloc’s law “since they consist of the exchange of different means of
payment,” the court ruled. As such they are exempt from value-added
taxes, it said.
To exclude such transactions from the tax
exemptions given to traditional exchanges “would deprive it of part of
its effects,” given that the exemption’s aim is to counter “the
difficulties connected with determining the taxable amount and the
amount of VAT deductible” in cases of taxation of financial
transactions, the court said.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi
Close up of Sweden Flag

Swedish central bank acknowledges benefits of cryptocurrencies

Close up of Sweden Flag(CoinDesk) Sveriges Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, has published a brief economic commentary on the impact of digital currencies on the retail payments market.
The document outlines the basics behind digital currencies and focuses on bitcoin, but it also mentions some altcoins such as litecoin and dogecoin. Aside from a relatively basic introduction to digital currencies and background information for novices, the document also sheds light on the state of bitcoin in Sweden and the bank’s attitude towards bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Take-up remains limited

The Sveriges Riksbank report found that the use of digital currencies in Sweden remains very limited. The authors point out that it is particularly difficult to obtain accurate information on the use of digital currencies in different countries, hence most analyses are usually limited to the total issue value and global usage. The report tries to isolate Sweden and examine transactions limited to Swedish krona (SEK) exchanges. Even so, the data may not be complete, as it only deals with transactions involving SEK.
“On average, around 212 bitcoins per day were converted to or from SEK during the period December 2012 to May 2014 at an average value of just over SEK 266,000. However, the daily value varied substantially, between SEK 2,500 and SEK 2.5 million, depending on the exchange rate and the number of bitcoins exchanged,” the report notes.
The authors caution that the statistics are incomplete, as there is no data on transactions between private persons and other movements of funds that could be relevant. Therefore, they concede, the exchange statistics may underestimate the use of bitcoin in Sweden. However, the report concludes that the values involved in cryptocurrency transactions pale in comparison to traditional transactions. This is how bitcoin stacks up:

“Households make daily payments using cards and cash totalling 8 million in volume and to a total value of over SEK 3 billion. Even if the use of bitcoin in Sweden were to be much larger than the average exchange value of just over SEK 266,000, this is a relatively low value in relation to other types of payment. At present, there only seem to be around 25 swedish companies accepting Bitcoin.”

Risky but innovative

Although the report contains the usual set of caveats found in most central bank statements involving digital currencies, it also includes some relatively positive commentary. The report states that digital currencies are one of many innovations in the Swedish payments market and like other innovations, digital currency is essentially positive:

“It can contribute to meeting new payment needs and to making payments cheaper and more secure. Those who choose to use a particular payment service can be expected to do so because it gives them an added value in relation to other payment services. This also applies to virtual currencies, which can for instance make some cross-border payments simpler, faster and cheaper. Another advantage is if the payer does not need to share sensitive information, such as card number or bank account number, with the payee.”

Cryptocurrencies may also be better suited for micropayments made via websites, the report further notes. Disadvantages associated with digital currency platforms include lack of clear regulation, lack of consumer protection regulation, volatility, security risks and the risk of using digital currencies for illicit transactions. The report concludes that the impact of any innovation depends on how much it is used. The use of digital currencies is “very limited” both in terms of the number of users, the number of transactions and the value involved in said transactions. Therefore both the positive and negative effects of digital currencies on the payment market in Sweden are currently negligible.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi