Bitcoin exchange BitX has announced a US$4 million Series A funding round lead by the Naspers Group; the team behind the Bitcoin fueled peer-to-peer marketplace OpenBazaar has indicated it plans to launch their platform by November of this year, and more top stories for July 21.
BitX Raises US$4M in Series A Funding
Bitcoin exchange BitX has announced a US$4 million Series A funding round lead by the Naspers Group, through their payments subsidiary PayU. According to BitX, the company now has the largest emerging market footprint of any cryptocurrency company, as the platform is available to over half a billion consumers spread across Southeast Asia and
On its blog, BitX writes:
“In order to help facilitate this growth and continue to deliver on our promise of providing high quality Bitcoin products and services to our customers, it was important to raise more capital from quality partners. Naspers backs some of the most successful internet companies of our time, and with their unrivaled experience and networks in all the key high growth markets around the world, we couldn’t have wished for a better partner to continue this exciting journey with.”
Deloitte to Work with Australian Bitcoin Lobby on Regulatory Changes
Deloitte has announced a partnership with the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association (ADCCA) to work on the strategic, tax and regulatory changes in
Speaking about the news, Deloitte
“Deloitte has had an interest in digital currencies for quite some time, so this was a great opportunity to get involved. Digital currencies have a lot of momentum at the moment […] With ADCCA, we’ll be working on the strategic, tax and regulatory changes that will need to happen, and we’ll be recommending and challenging specific changes in those arenas.”
OpenBazaar Sets Launch Date for November
The team behind the Bitcoin fueled peer-to-peer marketplace OpenBazaar has indicated it plans to launch their platform by November of this year. The open source project was started in April 2014 by Brian Hoffman, who based the platform off the hackathon-winning DarkMarket code by the DarkWallet & Airbitz team. It has since received US$1 million in funding, and is widely considered as one of the most highly anticipated projects in the Bitcoin space.
London
Police Warns of Bitcoin Ransom Scam
The British National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) has issued a warning about new bitcoin ransomware attacks disguised as messages from government agencies. It concerns faked emails from the country's Home Office and Ministry of Justice, as well as from domestic energy giant British Gas. The emails are being used to distribute TorrentLocker, malware, that, when activated, locks up a user's files unless a ransom in bitcoin is paid.
Coinffeine Opens to 70 Countries in Largest-ever Crypto Expansion
World-first decentralized bitcoin exchange Coinffeine has announced its launch in over 70 countries in the largest international expansion program ever undertaken by a Bitcoin startup. The exchange will now offer international usage options via third-party payment processors with limited liquidity.
CEO Alberto Gómez Toribio said he was confident the technology had arrived to provide users with a serious alternative to the current market players:
“To use Coinffeine is as simple as using LocalBitcoins, but as powerful as using Coinbase or Bitstamp.”
Coins.ph Launches Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin App for
Southeast Asia
Bitcoin services firm Coins.ph has launched Teller, a mobile app that matches up its customers in
Coins.ph CEO Ron Hose said:
"We’ve been getting really good traction with our existing bills, payment and money transfer services after shifting to using blockchain in the background. We think this is the natural progression as far as being able to reach customers."
Former Bitcoin Foundation Director Jon Matonis Joins Cubits Board of Directors
Julian Mautner, Founder of Cubits, said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Jon Matonis to our board at this time of extraordinary growth. We share a vision for the future of blockchain-based financial industries and Jon’s experience and insight will be invaluable to the success of our team.”
Coinbase Exchange Introduces Market Orders
Coinbase has announced that users can now place market orders on Coinbase Exchange. In contrast to limit orders, which are filled based on a desired price or not at all, market orders are filled immediately at the best available price.
Consensus Elusive for Jeff Garzik’s 2MB Block Size Limit Proposal
Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik's proposed compromise to double the block size limit to 2MB as a temporary solution is still far from reaching consensus. The proposal is explicitly intended to buy more time to reach a consensus on more durable or alternative solutions before the maximum amount of transactions on the Bitcoin network is reached. When asked by Cointelegraph, however, developers from both sides of the debate were skeptical of the small bump in size.
