Bitcoin Magician

Estcoin Backs Down as Banking Authorities Bully Estonia The small Baltic nation of Estonia has backed down on its plan to create a national cryptocurrency after drawing heat from Italian economist and President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi, as well as local banking authorities. Now, the Estcoin will simply be used as an incentive for e-residents.  Banking Bullies Estonia’s cryptocurrency project, Estcoin , will “definitely not be a national ‘cryptocurrency,” after receiving pressure from banking authorities. According to Estonia’s head of IT strategy, Siim Sikkut, the digital token will now merely be offered as an incentive to foreigners using Estonia’s electronic identification to sign documents and set up companies remotely. Estonia originally planned on pegging its national cryptocurrency to the euro — the official currency of the European Union — as well as offering them to all citizens within the Baltic country. ‘The currency of the eurozone is the euro’...

AirPod Opens Pre-Sale; Hits Soft Cap Almost Immediately AirPod – undoubtedly one of the most interesting projects currently in the blockchain space, announced its pre-sale on May 29th, 2018. The team synced the beginning of the event with the project’s presentation in Belgrade’s major crypto event – CryptoKonf 2018, where AirPod was a Diamond Sponsor. In just a couple of days, the project has managed to hit its soft cap! A Stellar Start! Despite being live for just a few days, the AirPod pre-sale has already turned to gold. The project has successfully hit its soft cap, allocating more than 35,000,000 tokens with 30% discount! Grega Mrgole, AirPod’s CEO has more than once expressed his appreciation for the love and support the project’s brilliant community has been giving throughout this entire time. We appreciate to have such a supportive community. With your help we are going to change the travel experience forever. Now that the first major milestone has been achieved, it’s ti...

ICONOMI Opens Doors to ‘Everyday Users’, Introduces OTC Trading and Direct Deposits Cryptocurrency Index fund creator ICONOMI is slowly building a bridge for everyday users to venture into the world of crypto investing. On May 31st, COO Matej Tomazin announced via an official company blog post that ICONOMI would be introducing a fiat ramp-up service on their platform. The ramp up will come in 2 stages: over the counter (OTC) deals and direct deposits. In the announcement, Tomazin writes: Offering a comprehensive set of tools to allow anyone to enter and explore the crypto-economy breaks down the barriers to entry and will expand ICONOMI’s reach even further. OTC Deals Eligible users will be able to make deals with ICONOMI to acquire cryptocurrency assets in exchange for depositing fiat money from their bank accounts. Investors will not be directly purchasing the cryptocurrencies from an exchange. Rather, they will send their money to ICONOMI, who will act as an intermed...

EOS Pumps Following EOSIO 1.0 Release, $50 Million Fund Announcement Block.one has officially released EOSIO 1.0. Additionally, the publisher has partnered with SVK Crypto to launch a $50 million fund aimed at assisting projects being developed on the EOSIO platform.  EOSIO is Here At long last, Block.one — an open source software publisher specializing in high-performance blockchain technologies — has released  version 1.0 of its open source EOSIO blockchain software. The platform purportedly affords businesses the ability to quickly and efficiently construct and deploy “high-performance and high-security blockchain-based applications.” The core features of EOSIO 1.0’s design, as noted by Block.one, include: Free Rate Limited Transactions Low Latency Block confirmation (0.5 seconds) Low-overhead Byzantine Fault Tolerant Finality Optional high-overhead, low-latency BFT finality Smart contract platform powered by Web Assembly...

Crypto Exchange Huobi Jointly Launches $93 mln China-South Korea Blockchain Fund The world’s third largest crypto exchange Huobi has partnered on a $93 mln China-South Korea investment fund for blockchain startups. Huobi, the world’s third largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volumes, has entered into a partnership to launch a $93 mln China-South Korea investment fund for blockchain companies, the China Money Network reported yesterday, June 1. Huobi, together with Chinese investment firm NewMargin Capital and South Korean securities firm Kiwoom Securities Co., Ltd., will use the $93 mln fund to invest in blockchain startups and foster collaboration between the two countries. A third company, South Korean Mirae Asset Financial Group, will also reportedly join the initiative as an investor. The news comes just a day after Huobi’s rival Binance , currently the world’s largest crypto exchange, revealed its own plans to create a major $1 bln cryptocurrency-based fund to support...

EOS Moves Major Amounts of Ether to Bitfinex, Sparking Market Concerns Ethereum’s public blockchain has provided definitive evidence that EOS recently sent 200,000 ether (ETH) to Bitfinex. This leaves the EOS crowdsale’s smart contract with just over $1 million worth of ETH.  Big Money Movement EOS  — a blockchain-powered infrastructure for decentralized applications (DApps) — has gained substantial traction over the last year, while managing to raise a staggering $4 billion by the conclusion of its initial coin offering (ICO). The project’s crowdsale address is publically available and illustrates how of EOS’ ether goes to an address which is tagged EOS-Owner . At the time of this writing, EOS’ main ether account is currently holding an estimated 737,000 ETH — down roughly 400,000 ETH from its previous balance. As tracked by Trustnodes, a serious movement of roughly 200,000 ETH was sent to Bitfinex on June 1. Said movement currently equates to a little over $115 million....

Supplemental IRS Guidance on Taxation of Cryptocurrencies is Needed: Expert Take What does AICPA says in its second letter to the IRS. In our Expert Takes, opinion leaders from inside and outside the crypto industry express their views, share their experience and give professional advice. Expert Takes cover everything from Blockchain technology and ICO funding to taxation, regulation, and cryptocurrency adoption by different sectors of the economy. If you would like to contribute an Expert Take, please email your ideas and CV to george@cointelegraph.com . The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision. In the US, cryptocurrencies at a federal level are regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), the Offi...