B2C2 OTC, cryptocurrency liquidity provider B2C2 has received a regulatory license from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA, British regulator) to deal in contracts for difference (CFDs), it marks the first occasion that a firm has been given authorisation. Max Boonen, CEO of B2C2 said “We are excited to have received authorisation from the FCA to introduce a cryptocurrency CFD product.”
IBM Watson and LTO Network alliance will start with a technological redesign of criminal justice cases for the Dutch District Attorney’s office. Live Contracts are designed for multi-stakeholder collaboration provide a dynamic method for defining logic on the blockchain. Its purpose is to determine the process state and actively instruct humans and computers about steps in a workflow.
The Chinese authorities have busted a gang of cryptocurrency scammers in the Jian’an District of Xuchang City which have confiscated up to $193 million. They said that, “The main suspects are hiding outside the country, remotely manipulating the network platform, using high returns as a bait, and developing a large number of off-line personnel to engage in pyramid schemes.”
The Italian court has ordered the BitGrail cryptocurrency exchange to repay back to its customers due to the loss occurred in January 2018, about 17 million NANO tokens called RailBlocks worth up to $595 million were found to be inaccessible to users. Victims’ Group has called the ruling a huge win for crypto users and a cautionary tale for crypto-exchange owners.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom released warning that SMS Crypto Limited is not authorised to provide financial services in the UK and has identified it as new suspected scam. In its website, one of the first things you see is a stamp of the FCA logo, implying that the entity is regulated by the British watchdog.
A blockchain-powered accounting company have pressurized the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to update its existing guidelines on crypt0-taxation policy. The guidelines on cryptocurrency-related industry issued by IRS on 2014 were incomplete. The CEO of Libra, Jake Benson have asked the IRS to clarify the methodology used by the organization in determining the eligibility for a tax refund.
The Department of Financial Services (DFS) of New York has granted Robinhood Crypto a license which allows the user to use their debit cards to purchase Bitcoin at selective ATMs. DFS in its statement, “…is the first DFS virtual currency licensee to allow customers to use debit cards to purchase bitcoin from traditional ATMs.”
Italy seeks to add terminology related to smart contracts and distributed ledger technology (DLT) to Senate Act 1989 and would allow blockchain timestamping, validation of digital documents, to be legally recognized. It believes this move will help it to advance governance of crypto and blockchains industry and in the country. Last month, it created a dedicated group to design blockchain strategies.
A bill that proposed the usage of cryptocurrencies for tax payments purposes has been introduced in Indiana and New Hampshire. The bill requires approval from the state government before being fully implemented. The authorities also require to set-up a framework to allow the usage of digital currencies for tax and fee payments by July 1st 2020.
The Taiwan authorities have successfully captured fifteen suspects for allegedly involved in cryptocurrency scam worth of $8 million. According to authorities, the suspects have promoted IBCoin which the usages have been banned in Taiwan. Li Chi-Hsun, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) confirmed, “there are currently no known companies that trade or deal in IBCoins.”
