Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 25 August 2017
Nations, platforms and some bad news. It’s our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up. Featuring securities in South Korea, KyberNetwork and the suspended First Bitcoin Capital Corp.
Over in South Korea, 18 securities firms will start offering blockchain-based authentication services from October for the “first time in the world”, according to BusinessKorea. This follows the investment banking industry setting up a task force. It looked at the current status of blockchain and sought new business models from April 2016. Based on this, the “Investment Banking Industry Blockchain Consortium” consisting of 26 securities companies, including the Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA), was established in December last year.
BusinessKorea says the participating companies “plan to connect their own mobile trading system (MTS) with blockchain-based joint authentication apps and test operate them by the end of this month and start providing the trial service in September”. The consortium is also planning to “extend the use of blockchain to clearing and settlement of financial investment products in the second half of next year and to over-the-counter bond and over-the-counter derivative product trading in 2020”.
Decentralised cryptocurrency exchange platform KyberNetwork has announced the terms of its initial coin offering (ICO) and details about the functionality of its native token, KyberNetwork Crystals (KNC). The firm says it received over 50,000 applications for its ICO whitelist.
KyberNetwork says its platform handles trading, payments, and financial transactions like derivative options and forward contracts, while also integrating as a payment API that allows wallets to receive payment from any crypto tokens. KNC will be required by reserves to participate on its network and it will also be used to reward third parties that direct traffic and multiply trading activities on the platform. The company says it will only conduct one public sale of KNC, which begins on 15 September.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced the temporary suspension of Canada’s First Bitcoin Capital Corp (BITCF) “because of concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of publicly available information about the company including, among other things, the value of BITCF’s assets and its capital structure”.
On its website, BITCF responds and says it is “likely a misunderstanding or a simple clarification necessary and that it would have been better for the SEC to ask us for this information before taking such drastic action. In fact, the SEC was so hurried in stopping trading that they inadvertently left in the symbol of another company (CIAU) as our symbol which has nothing to do with BITCF”. The Vancouver-based firm is looking to repair the damage done by “actively working to achieve audited financials “and it “has also been approached to merge with a fully reporting company and negotiations are underway”.
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