Don’t Tell Jamie! JPMorgan Admits Cryptocurrencies Could Disrupt Banks

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JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the US, has formally acknowledged that cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology could disrupt banks.

JPMorgan Admits Cryptocurrencies Could Disrupt Banks

The firm made this admission in its annual report, which was dated Feb. 27 and filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Deep in the 301-page document, JPMorgan — which manages $2.53 trillion in assets according to recent estimates — listed cryptocurrencies and peer-to-peer technology as potential disruptors to financial institutions and payment processors.

“Furthermore, both financial institutions and their non-banking competitors face the risk that payment processing and other services could be disrupted by technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, that require no intermediation,” the bank wrote in the filing. “New technologies have required and could require JPMorgan Chase to spend more to modify or adapt its products to attract and retain clients and customers or to match products and services offered by its competitors, including technology companies.”

Notably, the report was signed by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, a noted Bitcoin skeptic who has repeatedly lambasted the flagship cryptocurrency as a “fraud” and once threatened to fire any employees caught trading cryptoassets, although he recently walked back some of these comments.

Banks Sweat as Crypto Interest Booms

JPMorgan is at least the third major financial institution to cite cryptocurrencies as a business risk in its annual report for 2017.

Last week, Bank of America — the second-largest US bank — admitted that cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-based financial services present a threat to its business model, adding that it fears it anti-money laundering systems will need a facelift to account for cryptocurrency-related transactions.

Both JPMorgan and Bank of America noted that increasing adoption of cryptocurrencies could force them to make significant expenditures to ensure their products and services remain competitive.

Goldman Sachs — whose $917 billion in assets rank fifth among US institutions — also listed cryptocurrency as a business risk. The report said that Goldman’s concerns were primarily related the firm’s investment in startups that operate in the nascent cryptoasset space, such as Circle, which owns one of the most profitable cryptocurrency trading desks and recently acquired cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex. If flaws are exposed in the underlying technology, those firms could suffer losses, reducing the value of Goldman’s ownership stakes.

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World Satoshi Summit 2018: Heralding the Blockchain-Revolution

Lawyers Discuss Challenges Posed by Cryptocurrencies During Divorce

Economy & Regulation

Several lawyers have discussed some of the challenges that arise from cryptocurrency ownership during divorce. The anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies creates the possibility for spouses to accumulate wealth that is concealed from their partner. However, this often can lead to parties searching for “pots of gold” that don’t exist.

Also Read: Israeli Supreme Court Forbids Bank From Denying Service to Bitcoin Exchange

Cryptocurrency Holdings Complicate Divorce Proceedings

Several lawyers specializing in divorce have shared some of the issues that are now arising during the judicial separation process as a consequence of cryptocurrencies.

One of the major challenges posed by cryptocurrencies is the ability for an individual to hide assets from their partner, owing to the anonymizing qualities of cryptocurrency. Toby Yerburgh, the head of family law of Collyer Bristow in the UK, recently told media that “Often in a divorce one spouse is looking for a pot of gold that doesn’t exist. But with cryptocurrencies, it’s possible the pot does exist.”

Mr. Yerburgh attests to having begun to receive cases involving one party suspecting that the other is failing to disclose cryptocurrency holdings following the spike in the popularity of virtual currencies last year.

Lawyers Seek to Educate Themselves Regarding Cryptocurrency

Victoria Clarke of UK-based Stowe Family Law, stated “Cryptocurrencies make things complex if you have a spouse who’s determined to hold on to their money, same as if they were hiding assets overseas. We have the tools to trace Bitcoin. The difficulty is that some lawyers don’t necessarily understand it yet — you need knowledge of the asset you’re trying to get hold of.”

The president-elect of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Peter Walzer, states that many American lawyers are seeking to better understand cryptocurrencies in response to their increasing persistence as an issue during the matrimonial separation.

“I’m getting calls from lawyers all over the US trying to get familiar with the language around cryptocurrencies. We have to learn some new words for old ideas,” Mr, Walzer said. Jonathan Fields of Massachusetts-based firm Fields and Dennis described cryptocurrency as “now” comprising “a standard part of our discovery process. I will make sure I’ve got the right language and questions to ensure a partner discloses their cryptocurrencies.”

Uncovering Evidence of Cryptocurrency Ownership Comprises Long and Uncertain Process

Jo Carr-West of UK-based law firm Hunters stated that cryptocurrencies are “creating another layer of distrust that we haven’t had to deal with before,” adding that “The public perception that there is a lack of a paper trail causes the anxiety.”

Concerns that a spouse may be concealing undisclosed cryptocurrency holdings from their partner can add considerable time and expense to the divorce process, as the services of a digital forensics expert are often required in order to scour for evidence of hidden crypto. However, cryptocurrencies held offline will leave scant digital footprints, resulting in little guarantee that the efforts to evidence concealed holdings will prove fruitful.

“Courts Are Being Faced With a Challenge It Doesn’t Have the Power to Deal With”

Vandana Chitroda, a partner at Royds Withy King, has emphasized that challenges that the significant volatility in the virtual currency markets poses in attempting to estimate the value of cryptocurrency holdings during a divorce. “It’s not as straightforward as valuing your ordinary shares and investments, Mrs. Chitroda said. “There will have to be valuations made at every step in the proceedings. You would then have to agree a value on the date of the final hearing.”

Mrs. Chitroda also stated that “The courts are being faced with a challenge it doesn’t have the power to deal with,” adding that “The courts have only recently started allowing people to send documents to court using email. We’re going to really have to run to keep ahead of all of this. It’s a big challenge for all of us. We’re trying hard to educate ourselves and be ready.”

Do you think that cryptocurrencies pose unique challenges to divorce proceedings? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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source https://cryptocurrencyonline.co/lawyers-discuss-challenges-posed-by-cryptocurrencies-during-divorce/

$776 Million: Cryptocurrency Miners Bought 3 Million GPUs in 2017, Research Says

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As covered by CCN, last year’s cryptocurrency mining ‘boom’ has led to a shortage in the GPU market. So much so that reports suggest using GPUs to mine cryptocurrencies is stopping us from finding aliens, as these are also used in observatories. New data shows crypto miners actually bought 3 million GPUs last year, worth roughly $776 million.

This, according to a new report published by Jon Peddie Research (JPR) that found AMD is emerging as the primary cryptocurrency ‘mining rush’ benefactor over Nvidia. The numbers have a major impact on the market as a whole and have even incurred the wrath of gamers, while chip manufacturers have seen the value of their shares soar

Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, stated:

“Gaming has been and will continue to be the primary driver for GPU sales, augmented by the demand from cryptocurrency miners. We expect demand to slacken from the miners as margins drop in response increasingly utilities costs and supply and demand forces that drive up AIB prices.”

AMD’s market share reportedly increased by around 8.1 percent, while Nvidia’s share went down by 6 percent. Last year, notably, the GPU market as a whole dipped 4.8 percent. The preference for AMD over Nvidia could be justified by the lower price tag in its GPUs. Nvidia’s CEO has recently stated cryptocurrencies aren’t going away, and the company has prioritized gamers over cryptocurrency miners amid the graphics card shortage.

Nvidia’s move, however, isn’t believed to have been what drove AMD’s sales up, but rather the potential ROI (return on investment) cryptocurrency miners could obtain by buying cheaper graphics cards from AMD.

Last year, both companies entertained the idea of creating cheaper cryptocurrency mining GPUs, although the gaming market is still their primary concern. JTR’s analysis notes that cryptocurrency miners can be, for now, an attractive audience for chip manufacturers, which means prices aren’t likely going down anytime soon.

As a solution, Dr. Peddie suggests gamers use their GPUs to mine cryptocurrencies when they aren’t using them for gaming. This, he suggests, will help them pay premiums and help them avoid getting priced out of the GPU market.

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Group-IB Protects Lightcash Project’s “Golden ICO”

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This is a paid-for submitted press release. CCN does not endorse, nor is responsible for any material included below and isn’t responsible for any damages or losses connected with any products or services mentioned in the press release. CCN urges readers to conduct their own research with due diligence into the company, product or service mentioned in the press release.

Group-IB, an international company specializing in the prevention of cyber attacks and information security products development, and Lightcash financial platform have announced a strategic partnership. Their primary goal is to launch the upcoming Lightcash project’s ICO. Sales of LCCT tokens will begin on March 12, 2018 and 210,000,000 tokens will be sold during the event.

Lightcash is a developer of cryptocurrency exchange services, with their own crowdfunding platform, and a system for placing crypto deposits. At the same time, the Lightcash project team is working on its own low-volatile cryptocurrency (LCSH) backed by real gold. One thousand tokens will be equated to the cost of 1g of gold, which is currently worth around $40.

The precious metal is mined by Lapri Mining LLC, a company belonging to Lightcash co-founder, Alexei Kholmagorov. The company owns a placer gold deposit and has obtained state-issued licenses for mining. The gold mining site is located in the Tynda area of the Amur region of Russian Federation, 75km north-east of the district center of Tynda. The primary goal of Lightcash ICO is to raise funds to purchase a new gold deposit. The team expects to close the deal and start working on the new site this summer.

According to the signed agreement, Group-IB will develop a risk map, with risks ranked by the degree of their severity and Lightcash’s susceptibility to them. During the period of preparation and staging an ICO, priority will be given to identifying and blocking phishing sites, as well as protecting the community, monitoring social networks, and public communications with investors.

“Explosive worldwide growth of the crypto industry has provoked an interest from cybercriminals,” says Ruslan Yusufov, director of the private banking division of Group-IB. “We see that companies from the so-called ‘real sector’ of the economy are becoming more and more interested in blockchain technology and ICO, as a new financial instrument.  Businesses assess the risks and importance of information security, starting working on it from the stage of project design. During our collaboration with Lightcash, our primary goal is to protect the brand from illegal activities and secure the Lightcash community from potential fraud, which, unfortunately, have become quite common in the crypto world. In the future, we plan to expand our partnership to protect the entire project infrastructure.”

The blockchain-based Lightcash service provides a mechanism for carrying out transactions with both fiat money and cryptocurrencies, as well as the functionality for currency exchange. According to the developers, Lightcash users will be able to use cryptocurrencies to pay for goods sold for ‘real’ money. Transactions with minimal commission are made in payment terminals and e-commerce websites.

“The global goal of the Lightcash project is to create a convenient tool for using cryptocurrencies which will help to get rid of their excessive volatility problem,” commented Vyacheslav Vokin, Lightcash co-founder. “We want to provide investors with the opportunity to use new technologies with minimal risks. To achieve this, it is important not only to ensure service stability via the use of gold to bake our crypto coin, but also to protect investors and community members who believe in our project. To solve this issue, we’ve partnered with Group-IB whose experts have successful and relevant experience in securing many successful crypto projects and ICOs.”

Authors of a study titled, EY research: initial coin offerings (ICOs), have identified the top three leading countries in conducting ICOs. The US holds first place – local startups were able to attract more than $1 billion in investments, Russia and China came second and third with $452 and $310 million, respectively. During the report preparation period, Group-IB experts were involved in the analysis of ICO-related cyber threats. According to statistics, almost $400 million, i.e. about 10% of $3.7 billion, earned through ICOs, was eventually stolen by hackers or lost in security incidents. According to the Group-IB’s research for the year 2017, the number of attacks per ICO has increased 10-fold. On average, more than 100 attacks are committed during the average ICO time, while attack vectors have ‘socialized’. There are more and more cases where cybercriminals use modified trojans that were previously used in bank thefts.

Learn more about the Lightcash project: https://Lightcash.io

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source https://cryptocurrencyonline.co/group-ib-protects-lightcash-projects-golden-ico/

ZClassic Price Jumps Above $100 On Day Of Scheduled Fork

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ZClassic’s price has jumped 22.5% to $98.26 over a 24-hour period today, the date of a scheduled fork, giving it a $335,496,321 market valuation. The cryptocurrency has a circulating supply of 3,414,350 ZCL out of a maximum supply of 21 million ZCL.

Source: Coinmarketcap.com

ZClassic has traded 8,826 BTC ($93 million) in the last 24 hours, hitting a high above $120 on the day.

Hard Fork Planned

Just 44 days ago, Bitcoin Private’s founder and lead developer, Rhett Creighton, proposed that the ZClassicCoin (ZCL) be revitalized by migrating it to become a bitcoin hard fork – “Bitcoin Private,” according to a Reddit post.

The Bitcoin Private contribution team announced the much-anticipated snapshot date of both bitcoin and ZClassic which are scheduled to occur today, Feb. 28, 2018, according to the Reddit post. This announcement was made at the first official Bitcoin Private Conference held in Austin, Texas.

In the last 24 hours, the price has ranged from $7.15 to $122.32. The price began a slight decline in the past week, beginning the week at $157.37. In the past month, the price has varied from $57.24 to $196.67.

The price reached an all-time high of $235.32 on Jan. 7, after emerging from the low single digits for the first time in late December. The price began climbing on Dec. 20, 2017, when it was $4.53.

Manifesto Posted

On Dec. 8, Creighton tweeted that he was going to be teaming up with another ZClassic founder in order to plan more active development for the project. Following that tweet, Creighton posted an entire manifesto one week later on the ZClassic Subreddit, detailing his plan for a new Bitcoin fork called “Bitcoin Private.”

The fork would create a derivative of bitcoin that utilizes the same privacy protocols as ZClassic, which would enable users to send shielded transactions that hide transacting individuals and values.

ZClassic originally forked from Zcash to eliminate the 20% founders reward that Zcash put in place for the first four years. Although Zcash is limited to 21 million coins, a portion is allocated to founders, investors, employees, and advisors to the company. The founders’ reward allocation will eventually be dropped in 2020 due to it being limited to the first set block reward, however, this still accounts for 10% of the entire supply.

This move was similar to the Ethereum Classic and Bitcoin Cash splits, in which the original code base was forked due to an ideological difference. It contains the same nuts and bolts as the original blockchain, with a few tweaked parameters.

Also read: ZClassic spikes 100x in December with ‘Bitcoin Private’ fork approaching

Price Posts Gains

Since news of the fork grew in mid-December, ZClassic has seen significant price movement.

Many attributed the price action to individuals who wish to capitalize on the derivative produced from the fork without having to pay the exorbitant price for bitcoin. Investors may see ZClassic as an easier way of obtaining more of the forked cryptocurrency at a cheaper rate, considering that ZClassic is currently trading at a fraction of the price of bitcoin.

The popularity of recent bitcoin forks has had both exchanges and wallets in a frenzy due to user requests for support. After Bitcoin Cash forked in August, and Bitcoin Gold forked in October, derivative attempts have been commonplace.

Some have likened the strategy to an initial coin offering by calling the process an “initial fork offering” due to the increase in frequency.

Currently, the only known way to receive this new form of bitcoin derivative is by storing ZClassic in the project’s official wallet.

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Report: Crypto Miners Bought 3 Million GPUs Last Year

Mining

More than 3 million graphics cards have been sold to cryptocurrency miners in 2017, with sales reaching $776 million, a new report revealed. According to a major manufacturer, prices of GPUs will continue to increase in 2018, despite expectations of decreasing demand in the mining sector.  

Also read: AMD Increases GPU Production to Match Crypto Mining Demand

Rising Mining Costs to Slow Down Demand

Over three million Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) have been sold to cryptocurrency miners last year, Jon Peddie Research announced in its latest report. The total sales of video cards have reached $776 million, according to the market research firm, which does not expect prices to go down in the near future.

The study covers data from the top three producers of GPUs – AMD, Nvidia and Intel. Recently, Advanced Micro Devices acknowledged shortages of its Radeon cards because of their use in mining applications. The company plans to increase their production, as news.Bitcoin.com reported.

AMD’s main competitor, Nvidia, admitted the demand by miners had exceeded its expectations in the last quarter of 2017. In an attempt to guarantee that gamers would be able to get their share, the company asked retailers to limit the number of graphics cards that can be purchased at a time. Miners usually buy the latest GPU’s in bulk, leaving empty shelves.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has said that the company is working to address supply issues. It has been reported that Nvidia may reveal a new “Turing” card dedicated for mining. GPUs are mainly utilized in mining altcoins like ethereum and monero, as bitcoin requires more powerful, specialized hardware.

The report also says that overall GPU shipments in Q4 have decreased by 1.5% from the previous quarter and 4.8% year on year, mainly due to lower sales in desktop and notebook applications. However, the indicator is still above the ten-year average of -3.40%. While the market shares of Nvidia and Intel have shrunk by 6% and 2%, respectively, AMD has seen an 8.1% increase.

GPU Prices to Go Up This Year

According to the president of the market research company, “gaming has been and will continue to be the primary driver for GPU sales, augmented by the demand from cryptocurrency miners.” Dr. Jon Peddie expects a decrease in that demand, as margins drop with increasing utilities costs, while the prices of GPU’s go up because of short supply. He also said that gamers can offset those costs by mining when not gaming, but prices will not drop in the near future.

Nvidia has also stated that GPU prices will continue to go up in 2018, according to some publications. The hardware marketplace Massdrop claims the manufacturer informed them to expect prices to continue rising through the third quarter of the year, as reported by many tech sites.

The availability of memory for the graphics units is another major factor that can influence supply and price rates. Shortages of RAM have already been reported. AMD has announced it would work with suppliers to overcome the deficit, as the two main types of memory used in its RX cards, GDDR5 and HBM2, are in short supply.

What are your expectations about the development of the GPU market? Tell us in the comments section below.

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