Awareness of bitcoin in India has reached its highest level ever according to Google trend searches as the country still grapples with Prime Minister Modi’s shock tactic of demonetization which has recently exacerbated following a deadline of 30th December 2016 when all old ₹500 ($7) and ₹1,000 ($14) rupee notes must be exchanged. India’s economy, which used to operate at 90% or more on cash, now face shortages of the new ₹500 and ₹2,000 notes, incentivizing some to look for alternatives as money has seemingly dried up. Mr. Shoran, an engineer, tells Washington Times: “I remember standing in lines at banks from 6 in the morning until the afternoon and then finding out that they had run out of money.” Bitcoin Google Searches Reach All-Time High in India…
A newly released study on the relationship between bitcoin and global uncertainty finds that bitcoin acts positively to uncertainty. Analyzing a lengthy period from the 17th of March, 2011, to the 7th of October, 2016 by using the VIX index, a widely used key market risk indicator that reflects market sentiment and investor expectation of 14 countries, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US, the study concludes: “Bitcoin is shown to serve as a hedge against uncertainty at the extreme ends of the Bitcoin market and global uncertainty, but at shorter investment horizons. Therefore, short-horizon investment in Bitcoin can help investors hedge global equity market uncertainty,…
The Dutch public prosecution office is looking at three pending cases involving the digital currency bitcoin and money laundering in 2017. In a report from Financieele Dagblad, a Dutch daily newspaper, the public prosecution department is aiming to tackle money laundering by cracking down on the issue that the country is facing. The first case to be heard will take place on February 6 involving a 24-year-old man from Amsterdam and a 27-year-old man from Utrecht. They are accused of laundering €2.4 million with the use of bitcoins. In the second case, four Dutch nationals are involved who are alleged to have set up a currency exchange enabling them to turn bitcoins into euros. The third case, which is expected to be heard at the end of 2017, forms part of a…
Brian Armstrong, CEO and co-founder of Coinbase, has called for the activation of segwit, a controversial protocol update of the bitcoin network which adds further transaction capacity while largely fixing transaction malleability to pave the way for the Lightning Network. Armstrong stated segwit is “prob[ably] the best path forward for bitcoin at this point,” before calling on everyone to “come together and move forward as an industry. Activating SegWit can help us get there and it has a number of good features.” His statement was in reply to Charlie Lee, Litecoin’s founder and Director of Engineering at Coinbase who publicly asked to “activate SegWit! Maybe not the full scaling solution you want, but it does a ton of good stuff today and enables lightning…
Financial institutions worldwide are exploring the benefits promised by blockchain technology. The research is moving beyond the hypothetical stage to proof of concept and planning. The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) established by the Reserve Bank of India – India’s central bank – recently explored blockchain applicability to the Indian banking and financial industry by conducting a workshop with bankers, academicians, regulators and technology partners. The participants produced a white paper [PDF] detailing the areas of adoption in the financial sector in India. The Institute also attempted a proof-of-concept (PoC) on applying blockchain technology to trade finance with the participation of banks, National Payments…