In previews for next week's episode of the hit show "Silicon Valley" on HBO, "Pied Piper" genius/narcissist coder Gilfoyle has a suggestion as an alternative method for the company to get funding, rather than a standard Series B round of investments - he suggests the company create a coin!

The TV series (which is a must watch here inside the real Silicon Valley) has gained its loyal following by being on top of, and including emerging tech in the show.   They've mentioned Bitcoin and blockchain throughout, Ethereum once, and even they even slipped Coinbase's logo into the intro.


The episode airs next Sunday on HBO.

Technology is a wonderful thing, but work availability in the future is on the minds of many. With automation devouring jobs, alternative education becoming more popular, and networks like LinkedIn as hubs of employment, it’s clear we will soon need an integrated system of skill- building and career development.

In comes Skyllz (pronounced like “sky”). Skyllz was born to solve the problems like commoditization of degrees, increasing skill gap, and inefficiency of the current methods of tracking work experience. Imagine never needing to write a resume again. Imagine acquiring a skill and immediately finding a job suited to it, all on the Ethereum blockchain.

Skyllz calls their system “Proof of Skills”. Applications built on the platform will help users either get the education they need (i.e. via online courses) or validate the skills they already have. The application is a ledger of meritocracy. It is open source, public, and distributed. In other words, Skyllz creates and tracks a footprint of one’s education, work history, and merits, just like a resume, but on the blockchain.

The Ethereum based Skyllz Token (SKT) has a fixed supply and will work as a unit of account. This will allow users to validate and certify all relevant skill information. Users can use the tokens to participate in challenges, validations, or to boost their skills.

SKT will work as the main fuel for a deeper concept, The Skyllz Distributed Platform (SDP). Using the SDP, users may be rewarded SKT for “exceptional quality or performance”, and they can be exchanged for other apps on the platform, such as online Udemy courses, Workkola challenges, or premium LinkdIn services.

As you can see, Skyllz is much more than just a ledger of CVs. They provides an entire ecosystem of merit and education. They host applications, locally referred to as STapps, that
run special services on the platform. The first STapp to be created is called Workkola. Workkola works specifically with digitally-skilled students of higher education to test, debug, and standardize parts of the SKT and SDP systems. Workkola has its own system of education and certification that works within the Skyllz ecosystem.

Is Skyllz ready to be used? The Workkola application is online and running as we speak. In fact, their metrics show major potential for growth and adoption of STKs and the SDP between 2019 and 2020. Of course, this is hypothetical info, but it’s still impressive that they have a working application on the platform, not just a proof-of- concept.

As stated in the whitepaper:
“The team understands that Skyllz needs to put humans in the very center of its solution, building from the problem to the product, and not the opposite”.

In this regard, they are dedicated to offering user interface (UXI) solutions that the average person can understand. As any cryptocurrency enthusiast knows, this is one critical aspect that is lacking. Having a team prepared to take on this challenge will undoubtedly improve their visibility.

The alpha for Skyllz was created in 2015 in Boston, MA and the Workkola app launched in 2016, so the team is well seasoned. The Skyllz ICO whitelist is open for pre-sale to accredited investors only starting in February 2018.

For more details, visit https://skyllz.org

It's been the source of never ending controversy since Roger Ver and his site Bitcoin.com began their marketing campaign for Bitcoin Cash.  But what they viewed as perhaps just 'bold marketing tactics' may actually be considered fraud in the eyes of the law.

The question is - can they legally say "Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin" even though "Bitcoin" is older, and obviously much more popular?

Is it fraud if someone goes to Bitcoin.com, but then purchases Bitcoin Cash based on the information they received there - only later to find out they don't own the real original Bitcoin they believed they were buying?

Then throw in all the people who accidentally sent BCH to a BTC address and visa-versa - and these are the 'victims' this lawsuit claims to be for.

The just launched site bitcoincomlawsuit.info behind the pending lawsuit describes themselves as:

"A group of 600+ participants from influential industry leaders to community volunteers & contributors who are devoting their time and money to protect users from fraudulent businesses and help victims recover lost funds. Further details will be published after lawsuits have been filed"

Now in what may end up making their defense much harder, Bitcoin.com just last week took things a bold step further - they're now calling "Bitcoin Cash" simply "Bitcoin” within some areas of the site. The word “cash” is nowhere to be found - when they are actually referring to Bitcoin Cash.

It's one thing to say it's the "real bitcoin" in debates and marketing material - but downright dangerous to mislabel them within bitcoin.com, where wallet services are provided and confusion could lead to a massive loss of funds.

A bold and risky move of relabeling coins.

Papers have not yet been filed and those behind the lawsuit are currently gathering stories from users who feel they were misled and building up their case. They have also stated that when the time comes, they will be using the courts of the Caribbean island of St. Kitts - where Bitcoin.com is registered, in hopes of taking down the site entirely.

Real Estate investing and property ownership is a must in the world of professional investors - it's virtually standard practice to own real estate assets among high profile investors and investment funds.

As the cryptocurrency markets grow, many younger investors who started in cryptocurrency are looking to diversify, but with that comes a giant leap into markets they likely know nothing about.

Global REIT is trying to bridge that gap.  REIT stands for "real estate investment trust" and Global REIT is building an investment platform that blurrs the lines between traditional real estate investing, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain.

First let's understand the basics of REIT's and why they attract investors.  One of the main reasons investors looking to diversify use REIT's to enter the real estate market is generally investing in property outside of your home country comes with lots of red tape, in fact in most jurisdictions foreign investments are flat out banned.

A REIT however forms an 'alternative investment vehicle' by creating a trust or corporation that invests in property - then that trust or corporation can be publicly or privately listed and opened to investors from around the world. If a RIET plays their cards right, the rewards can be significant - on average 90% of dividends are then paid out to investors.

Moving this structure onto the blockchain, and powering the investments with cryptocurrency now means the average cryptocurrency investor can easily access the real estate investment market. Global REIT will begin in their home of Dubai, a place where real estate is currently exploding, and acquire assets within the U.A.E, before branching out globally.

This is why token purchases form Global REIT function like subscribing to and investing in a traditional REIT would.  The twist here is an investor will buy into Global REIT with Ethereum or Bitcoin, receive their token, then based on how many tokens someone holds, dividends will paid out monthly will be via USD or USDT (tether).

Their post-ICO goals include immediately moving to purchase $75 million in U.A.E. real estate assets, and to grow that to $10 billion within 5 years.

Global REIT's public ICO begins June 1st. 

Note to investors inside the USA - you'll have to sit this one out.

Learn more about Global REIT at http://globalreit.io

The NASDAQ stock market is the second largest in the world, behind only the New York Stock Exchange - and it's clear they're eyeing cryptocurrency like never before. There's two fairly big developments on this front, all within a 24hr period.

First off - the Winklevoss twins, owners of the Gemini exchange have officially brought NASDAQ on board to monitor their exchange for fraud.  A press release from NASDAQ states:

"Nasdaq announced today that Gemini will be leveraging Nasdaq's SMARTS Market Surveillance technology to monitor its marketplace. The technology, which is considered the most widely deployed surveillance system in the world, will enable Gemini to monitor across all of its trading pairs..."

The second big development comes from NASDAQ's own CEO Adena Friedman speaking yesterday on CNBC's Squak Box, saying they're considering starting a cryptocurrency exchange of their own:

"I believe that digital currencies will continue to persist...it's just a matter of how long it will take for that space to mature" Friedman continued... "Once you look at it and say, 'do we want to provide a regulated market for this?' Certainly, Nasdaq would consider it."

These developments are being viewed on Wall Street as cryptocurrencies biggest endorsement in recent times - and may also be viewed as a signal to traditional investors to get into the market now - before things truly explode.

Today at the 23rd annual Sohn Investment Conference, John Pfeffer of Pfeffer Capital surprised the crowd with his views on bitcoin - calling it “the first viable candidate" to replace gold, adding it was better than gold "on every front".

But he also warned the crowd of the risks in the cryptocurrency market, adding that most are "bad bets".

Pfeffer wrapped up his presentation by giving the crowd something to think about Bitcoin's long term potential, stating that if just 25% of foreign reserves moves into Bitcoin, it would give Bitcoin a $6.4 trillion market cap.

John Pfeffer was Chairman of the Executive Board of leading French IT company Groupe Allium S.A in the 90's, and in the 2000's was a London-based partner at private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts before founding Pfeffer Capital.

As the first ever cooperated exchange between China and South Korea, Coineal is going to be launched in April! Its native token, NEAL, will be released as well with a total volume of 10billion.

Our Team :
Coineal has a dedicated team which composited with technical specialists, blockchain technology experts and digital currency investors from South Korea and China. The team had been leading a number of blockchain projects to rapidly step into the South Korean and Chinese community. And also, helping the blockchain projects to grow the local community.

Our Mission:
Coineal is committed to building a world-class blockchain asset trading platform, providing users with safe, professional and easy-to- use cryptocurrency exchange services. Coineal provides a full liquidity for digital assets which would enable everyone to trade cryptocurrencies freely.

Our Competitiveness:
Global business layout Coineal has established operating centers based in South Korea and China. In the future, independent operations in Japan, Singapore, the United States, Russia and more other countries will be set up as well to build an integrated global business layout.

Safety:
The technical team of Coineal has extensive experience in the digital asset industry. Coineal is built using a distributed architecture with high-quality risk control system and DDOS defense system.

Sufficient users bases:
Coineal has accumulated a strong user bases in the early stage of development. For example, MT, the native token of the Chinese biggest cryptocurrency ticker app, will be listed on Coineal the moment it goes online. With our international investment advisor team, Coineal will soon be involved in larger business networks and partnership potentials.

High-quality user experiences:
Covering mainstream currencies, Coineal platform will support iOS, Android, H5 and PC clients with a various choice of languages. A 7*2-hour customer service will be available.

High return on investment:
Coineal will set up community nodes. Each node is able to have a native independent cryptocurrency exchange. To incentive these community exchanges, a bonus will be distributed each month (in NEAL) to award those who achieved a certain amount of workload. Furthermore, a portion of Coineal's profit will be distributed among the community, as a reward for nodes operating and managing the community exchange.

All about NEAL
Transaction fees
A transaction fee will be required for trading on the Coineal platform. Users who hold a certain amount of NEAL will enjoy a discount on the transaction fee.

1:1 token claim
NEAL holders will have the choice to claim various other cryptocurrencies. For example, MT (the native token of MyToken) will be listed on Coineal so users can use NEAL to 1:1 claim MT. Those repossessed NEAL will be burned immediately. As more cryptocurrencies are traded on Coineal, a lot more other cryptocurrencies can be claimed with NEAL.

Node selection
As Korean's first decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, Coineal asks everyone in the community to operate it. Thus, we will select members from the community to join the governance committee and NEAL will be required both to voting and participate in the selection.

Cryptocurrency listing
Blockchain projects need to have NEAL to get their token listed. Voting and auditing mechanism, where NEAL is also required, will be applied before any new
cryptocurrency being listed.

A final note
Although Coineal issued NEAL before releasing the product, NEAL will not start selling until the platform achieves a stable operation. Users can only obtain NEAL through a POW-like mechanism. Such design would enable the platform to grow steadily and ensure the best interests of the community members who have
contributed to it.

Do not forget to claim your MT with NEAL!
See the Coineal Official Website and join the Coineal Telegram Group for details of the activity.

Telegram Group: https://t.me/coineal
WeChat: coineal
Website: https://www.coineal.com

About
Spectra Ventures & Advisory is the exclusive investor of Wellspring at the earliest stage. We are blockchain and cryptocurrency consulting company under the Spectra Group. We bring our enriched experience across industries and countries to practice professional advisory services for clients around the world.

For business consulting and cooperating please check our website: Spectra Ventures & Advisory (www.spectragroup.io）

I think the first time I ever heard the word "token" was as child in a video game arcade, and even as real world arcades have mostly been phased out, the token model has remained standard in gaming ever since, even new games for mobile devices commonly use 'virtual tokens' of one kind or another as their in-game currency.

Yumerium however, believes a token can drive the entire industry.  From incentivizing players, to empowering developers.

The company behind it all isn't new to the gaming industry, their parent company Subdream Studios has multiple games out for mobile and web platforms, as well as owning 29+  virtual reality arcade locations in South Korea though their partners VR Plus.

Currently, the top two ways people discover a game is word of mouth from a friend they know, and secondly from someone they follow online. So the idea is simple - if you love the game, and spread the word - the player should be rewarded. This is how to build a proactive community of gamers - by giving strong incentives for bringing in new users.

Game developers signing up to the platform are first given a “Seeding Fund” - these are tokens they can distribute as rewards to players who try the game, or share the game on social media, or put up a YouTube video, etc. This can create a community easily, if a player likes one game that uses YUM tokens, they can earn more by trying out other games that use the YUM token as well. It's a way to developers to launch their game and quickly draw new players in.

Another key feature to the platform that will draw developers in - crowdfunding. Crowdfunding games isn't new, over 2000 were crowdfunded just though kickstarter in 2016, and half of those brought in over $500,000.  Moving this model over to cryptocurrency means lower transaction costs so more goes towards actually making the game, as well as instant access to funds for the developers.

"Blockchain and smart contract technology is opening up a new era of gaming by giving gamers chance to earn game  token by participating in games. The game token can be used for buying game money for any game that gamers want  to play or buy game items. This will make gamers even more engaged and bring more fun to gaming experience!   We have a track record of leading the evolution of gaming business model from “pay-to-play" to “free-to-play” with  GalaNet which ran the first free-to-play game publisher gPotato in US. Now, we are leading the next revolution to  “earn-to-play” model with team of experts and groundbreaking block chain and smart contract technology." Yumerium explains.

It will all begin Q3 of this year with the launch of their anticipated game "CryptoMine" which will be the first native Yumerium supported game, on multiple platforms including iOS, Android and web. After using this as a test run, the platform then opens to developers around the world.

The public presale ICO for YUM tokens begins May 23rd, for more information visit http://www.yumerium.com

EIP 867 published here on GitHub outlines a method of Ethereum recovery to deal with lost or stolen funds.

Of course - as with all things tech, what sounds like a solution to some becomes a new feature to abuse for others - which is why EIP 867 has gotten mixed reactions. The EIP 867 developers acknowledge this battle of ideas, saying:

"The issue of fund recovery on the Ethereum blockchain is often controversial. Frozen fund recovery proposals are almost never successful due to the relatively ad-hoc nature of such requests and the subjectivity that is often required to evaluate the merits. This EIP attempts to remove these barriers by providing both a standardized format for fund recovery EIPs and an objective standard by which to measure future proposals."

There's currently hundreds millions of dollars worth of lost Ethereum, often caused by a simple typo in a smart contract, plus countless people who lost funds during the parity contract issue, floating around the Ethereum blockchain. We know who it belongs to, but there's no method to retrieve them yet.

While the future of EIP 867 officially being added to Ethereum is unknown, the demand for such a feature is growing.

But so is the opposition - as many believe irreversible transactions are one of the biggest upsides to blockchain technology. Included on the oppising side is Vitalik Buterin himself.

One possibility worth noting - this feature may appear, but not as the official "Ethereum" - some EIP 867 supporters have proposed making it happen via a hardfork of their own.

While we're glad this wasn't the worst outcome (the money actually being stolen) in my opinion this is the sign of a deeply mismanaged company.

A CEO with a horrible idea - and a team that either didn't speak up to say so, or were ignored when they did. 

Everyone knows ICO's can steal or pull off an exit scam - no one wants or needs stupid tricks like this to remind us.

*UPDATE* - This was all an idiotic stunt - full story here.

*UPDATE* - (9:16pm PST/San Francisco) - We have been in contact with a senior adviser from SaveDroid.  He has confirmed that none of the advisers have been able to reach the CEO since this story began.

Here's what's known so far...

German-based ICO "Savedroid" wrapped up their ICO on March 9th raising $50 million dollars.    They then stated their token was set to be listed on HitBTC, IDEX and Bancor - and that was the last update given to participants.

Until today, when the tweet above was sent out from the founder, implying he is running off with the cash, that can be viewed here.

Their homepage https://ico.savedroid.com has been deleted only to show this image:



It's important to note at this early phase - ICO's have been a prime target for hacks. A keylogger/trojan on the founders computer could explain how everything could have been hijacked at once.  The image used in the tweet could very well be an old one, as the company has been traveling and attending cryptocurrency and blockchain themed conferences around the world.

Also not rare these days - ICO scams.  So anything is possible.

We're following the story for further developments.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today launched what he's calling "Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative" - a fact finding inquiry to learn how cryptocurrency exchanges are running behind the scenes, by requesting "Disclosures on Their Operations, Use of Bots, Conflicts of Interest, Outages, and Other Key Issues".

Schneiderman said today on twitter:

"Today, we sent letters to 13 major cryptocurrency platforms requesting key information on their operations, use of bots, conflicts of interest, outages, and other key issues.  Too often, consumers don’t have the basic facts they need to assess the fairness, integrity, and security of these trading platforms. Our Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative sets out to change that, promoting the accountability and transparency investors and consumers deserve."

The information was requested from the following 13 exchanges: Coinbase, Gemini,  bitFlyer, Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Kraken, Bittrex, Poloniex, Binance, Tidex, Gate.io, itBit, and Huobi.

So far, the Winklevoss twins (owners of the Gemini exchange) are the only ones to issue a response, stating to CNBC:

"Gemini applauds the Attorney General's focus on this industry and the Virtual Markets Initiative, and we look forward to cooperating with and submitting our responses to the questionnaire that has been circulated".

The Attorney General's office has requested the questionnaire which can be viewed in full here, be returned completed by the exchanges by May 1st.

Swiss Based 'Smart Containers Group' is using blockchain to disrupt two industries that go hand in hand - distribution, and logistics.  In order to disrupt these two industries you first need two types of tech - both hardware, and software.

First with distribution, they're targeting materials that are deemed extra-sensitive and important to have efficient tracking and controls over - foods and pharmaceuticals, to be shipped in their smart containers. These items require more data and monitoring with their shipping, as well as temperature controls to keep the materials being shipped safe for eventual human consumption. Everything from transport time, to temperature variance can effect the product inside the container greatly.

For example, $1.1 trillion worth of pharmaceutical products are shipped around the globe each year - but the W.H.O (World Health Organization) estimates that 40% of vaccines degrade due to temperature deviation during transport. 

Then obviously,  foods spoil in a similar way - so the food industry benefits from these same additional control mechanisms.

They began addressing these issues 8 years ago when the development of their Smart Containers began, and were designed to solve these issues working in collaboration with EU based scientific laboratories (EMPA – Leading Swiss Institute for materials science and testing, Fraunhofer Institute – leading German Institute for materials science and testing.)

Secondly is a software based solution bringing the logistical aspects onto the blockchain.  This project of theirs is titled "Logi Chain" and aims to rid the industry of the slow and still paper-based management systems it currently runs on, and to replace that with smart contracts, and automated billing through cryptocurrency.

"What we do is combine hardware and software, so it's not one aspect that wins it, it's the combination. This is the vision of myself and my co-founder Nico, that smart contracts can actually decentralize the logistics industry to become really efficient, because logistics is (already) a decentral process, but it's handled centrally. That's why you need to handle a decentral problem with a decentralized solution." says Co-founder and CEO Richard Ettl.

Using Logi Chain, everyone who has a part in the transaction (customs officers, freight forwarders, contractors, shippers, buyers, warehouse workers) can have their relevant information mirrored on the blockchain making data they need instantly accessible to them.

The project is already full steam ahead, and Smart Containers Group has already raised more than $25 million in investments from traditional funding investment rounds between the 4 companies it includes - Smart Containers Group, SkyCell & FoodGuardians.

Earn.com is a website that allows users to earn cryptocurrency by 'replying to an e-mail' - which often really should be looked at more as 'completing a survey' as companies can use Earn.com to seek feedback on a variety of projects and apps.

Today, Coinbase acquired Earn.com for an undisclosed amount, which is said to be over $100 million.  In a statement just released from Earn they stated:

"As of today, Earn.com is being acquired by Coinbase! The Earn.com product is going to get bigger and better as a consequence of this deal. You can read more about the acquisition here and the history of the company here. In this post, we want to first briefly introduce Earn.com for new audiences and then explain what this means for our existing users and senders."

Part of the move includes a new role for Earn.com's CEO Balaji Srinivasan, who will now be the first to hold the title of "Chief technology officer" at Coinbase.

You may not have heard of the WellSpring platform, but the WellSpring team has already been successfully helping 20 blockchain projects based in China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia, with marketing and community building. Wellspring team is now expanding throughout the world and currently covers 14 countries in Asia, Europe, and America. What WellSpring is trying to build, is an efficient and transparent global blockchain community.

Why is it hard to build a global community?

- Language Barrier.
English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean are the main languages that blockchain projects wish to cover. It is important to have frequent and accurate translations of the project announcements and newsletters. However, lacking professional translators and the cultural barrier made it an uneasy
task.

- Community Formation.
Managing and expanding the community is vital for blockchain projects. Different communities have distinct social media channels and reading habits, which made it tedious to open accounts and maintain active for each social media platform. Recruiting qualified community managers are
costly and time-consuming as well.

- It is not easy for investors to make investment decisions as well.
Segmented Information - for investors, getting information is the initial and the most important thing when investing in any blockchain projects. A good investment decision depends highly on if investors could obtain real and up-to- date information. While digging comprehensive information costs a lot of time and there's no guarantee that you have not missed the key information.

What WellSpring Wants to Achieve?

WellSpring is building a multi-language community service platform integrating up-to- date and official information from all the high-quality blockchain projects. By bridging projects and investors, WellSpring would bring more liquidity and transparency to the crypto market. The first release of WellSpring platform (V1.0) aims at assisting blockchain projects in global community management including:

⁃ community formation
⁃ content creation and distribution
⁃ bounty programs

The WellSpring app will be released in April and the future versions will cover more functions such
as wallet account creation, market data lookup and digital assets trading.

Is there a token mechanism for the WellSpring platform?
Yes, there is! WELL is the native token on the WellSpring platform and it is created for paying the service fee on the WellSpring platform. WELL will be required for content translation, recruiting community managers and attracting talents to participate in the project's community. In the future, WELL will be used for cryptocurrency trading and investment rewarding with more functions being added to the platform.

WellSpring has positioned itself to become the bridge between blockchain projects and the global communities. Wellspring would like to work with all the blockchain enthusiasts and contribute together to establish a global community with full transparency and efficiency.

For more insights be sure to check out Wellspring via:
Telegram: @WellSpringofficial
Email: admin@wellspring.vip

About
Spectra Ventures & Advisory is the exclusive investor of Wellspring at the earliest stage. We are
blockchain and cryptocurrency consulting company under the Spectra Group. We bring our
enriched experience across industries and countries to practice professional advisory services for
clients around the world.

For business consulting and cooperating please check our website: Spectra Ventures & Advisory - www.spectragroup.io

-------

Information provided via press release. 

Bitcoin and altcoins are in the middle of a powerful rally today - with Bitcoin 's value jumping up by over $1000, all in less than an hour.

While a rally is always good - a rally isn't always recovery.  Here's what to look for next.

First - will it hold above $7500 for over 24hrs? This is a sign of support and stabilization investors are watching for.

Then only after market stabilization, can true market recovery begin.   If the above happens, and is then followed by Bitcoin breaking the $8500 resistance marker - we can officially consider the cryptocurrency markets in true recovery and rebound mode.

So far so good though - the market has held steady throughout the day, and we're about half way though the first of these two key steps.

China seems to still be figuring out their comfort level with the cryptocurrency world, while making an effort to not get left behind technologically while enforcing a cryptocurrency trading ban.

Blockchain technology itself has grabbed the attention of both the Chinese government and the private Chinese tech industry - they actually lead the world in blockchain related patents already - with over double America's total of 112, with a total of 284 over the last 2 years.

Now a new fund of over $1.6 billion allocated to 'innovative blockchain startups' includes $400 million of Chinese government funds, with the rest from Chinese venture capital firm Tunlan Investments.

Still, no signs of letting up on the cryptocurrency crack down.  For now, China is big on blockchain, and bad on cryptocurrency.

With The Bank of Montreal (BMO) now joining Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank) in blocking cryptocurrency exchange purchases within Canada - smart Canadian's are proving their efforts to be useless.

Credit-card based purchases have been blocked in numerous countries for some time now, and that's hardly surprising. While my personal belief is that someone has the right to decide their own risks - I can also see the bankers point that using credit cards (technically loans) to buy cryptocurrency falls under a 'high risk' transaction category, so they can at least make an argument for blocking such transactions.

But these Canadian banks took things a step further - actually blocking people from using their own money - not just credit, but even debit card transactions. Which frankly - is pretty disturbing.

Not surprising - the Canadian cryptocurrency community isn't putting up with it - trade is alive and well in Canada despite these bankers best efforts to interfere.

They're using a number of alternative methods exercize their freedoms.

First, leaving these corperate banks alltogether. Local credit unions and co-operative financial services providers are easy to find and join in pretty much every city across Canada.

Then of course, there's Bitcoin ATM's.  Simply withdraw cash from your bank, deposit it into a Bitcoin ATM and have the cryptocurrency issued to your digital wallet.  Once you have paper cash in hand, the bank loses control over how you use it.

Lastly, sites that connect traders directly with each other like localbitcoins.com and there's even one specific to Canada, cancoin.co.  These sites are reporting usage up 400% in response to these recent moves by Canadian bankers.

Thanks to the strength and wits of the Canadian cryptocurrency community, they're giving the banks a hard pill to swallow - they can't, and won't be stopped.

Rumors are flying in the traditional financial world, that some of the most elite and wealthy families are preparing their entry into the cryptocurrency markets.  

Japanese online broker Monex Group is looking to take over a recently hacked Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck.

The Twitter username @Bitcoin has taken a lot of heat in the past - that's because the anonymous owner doesn't use it to actually talk Bitcoin, but is instead a heavy promoter of BCH (aka Bitcoin Cash or BCash) an alternative coin to the original Bitcoin.

Hackers in both Russia and Turkey claimed credit for the hack, but the account owner is going as far as claiming the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was part of an inside-job conspiracy against him.

"...Jack disabled this account, gave it to someone else, only to return it in the face of public backlash with 750,000 fewer followers. #censorship" he said in a Tweet shortly after gaining back control of the account.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has been an advocate of the original Bitcoin, recently stating "The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency. I personally believe that it will be bitcoin."

Unfortunately, the truth behind the hack is likely much less interesting, and we highly doubt this was an 'inside job'.  A more likely and simple explanation such as malware or a keylogger installed on a device of the owner is probably how this and most twitter 'hacks' occur.

Centra claimed they had developed a debit card that would allow users to link their cryptocurrency wallets to it, then spend their Bitcoin or Ethereum anywhere Visa and MasterCard is accepted.  Even going so far to claim they had a partnership in place with the credit card companies to make this happen.  The ICO went on to raise $32 million.

But the US Government says - that partnership never existed, and is now the SEC is pursuing Centra for fraud.

“They claimed, for example, to offer a debit card backed by Visa and Mastercard that would allow users to instantly covert hard-to-spend cryptocurrencies into US dollars or legal tender. In reality,  Centra had no relationships with Visa or MasterCard.” reads the SEC complaint which can be read in full here

However, Centra did have two other real partnerships - with celebrity endorsers DJ Khaled and Floyd Mayweather.

Also cited in the SEC complaint "As we allege, the defendants relied heavily on celebrity endorsements and social media to market their scheme".

So far however Khaled and Mayweather haven't been charged with any crimes.  But that doesn't mean they're in the clear yet - they may have violated securities law by promoting the ICO without disclosing the amount of their compensation. 

At this point the SEC investigation is focused on the company founders - but the case still could expand to include Khaled and Mayweather.

*Update* - Centra's token has also now been delisted by Binance.

Coinbase is getting into the world of venture capital - looking for the next hot companies in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, and helping to fund their projects.

"We’ll be providing financing to promising early stage companies that have the teams and ideas that can move the space forward in a positive, meaningful way. At least in the beginning, our goal is simply to help the most compelling companies in the space to flourish.

This means that we don’t have the strategic requirement of formalizing partner relationships with such companies, as some corporate venture programs do. Our focus is on building strong relationships and helping to spur on the development of the ecosystem." the company explains on their blog.

Another interesting twist - they've stated they're even open to investing in companies that 'look competitive with Coinbase'.  A move that can keep them dominate in the US cryptocurrency exchange world by owning a piece of their competition, and putting them in a strategically strong position for buy-outs.

With the first quarter of 2018 coming to an end, every cryptocurrency felt some major pain.

But it wasn't Bitcoin to suffer the most - Ripple's token XRP took the harshest hit among the top cryptocurrencies - down a massive 77 percent!

Now before the Ripple haters out there start laughing and saying "I told you so!" - this isn't even Ripple's worst performing quarter, in 2014 when they took an even bigger dive, down 94% before -shooting back up beyond all expectations.

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Amber Baldet, blockchain program lead at JPMorgan Chase is leaving the banking firm to start her own venture.

“Amber is extremely talented and helped build the outstanding team we have today. We respect her desire to start her own venture and we wish her nothing but the best.” the company stated in a memo.

Baldet's name came up often in the cryptocurrency world while there was a strange contrast of JP Morgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon continually bashing Bitcoin, followed by news from Baldet and her project showing the bank quite interested in it's underlying blockchain technology.

The company's senior product manager Christine Moy will step up to replace to Baldet.

No details yet on what Amber Baldet's new venture will be.