Inshorts

Philip Hammond believes fintech will change the way people do business and how they access their money. Speaking at the International Fintech Conference in London the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that FinTech provides consumers with better services, more choice, and lower costs. Hammond is sure that London can’t remain the number one fintech spot without reaching out to other businesses and countries to ensure a strong sector that continues to grow.

Mining pool F2Pool supports SegWit activation. One of the biggest mining pool F2Pool signalled for absolute support of Segregated Witness protocol and urged its activation on bitcoin as soon as possible. Earlier the pool creator Wang Chun stated that SegWit may become a catastrophe, however, according to the survey results, fifty six percent of respondents voiced support of protocol activation. F2Pool states that the issue of bitcoin blocksize extension will be put off. Miners hope that bitcoin will evolve and can’t wait to become witnesses of the bitcoin miracles.

Blockchain is listed in the UK government grants. The British research agency "Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council" which distributes government grants, announced that 6 million pounds will be allocated for seven blockchain projects. The amount of grants will vary from four hundred twenty to six hundred seventeen thousand pounds. Seven new projects will explore the possibilities of digital technologies in such areas as energy, health, banking and policy-making.

The bets that the bitcoin price will fall have surpassed bets that it will rise on the thirteenth of April. The last time such event occurred in February 2016. According to Joseph AdinOlfi's article published on MarketWatch, this tendency shows that the bitcoin scaling discussion is not over yet. Traders lose confidence in the cryptocurrency due to continuing debates over how to upgrade bitcoin software to allow the network to process transactions more quickly and efficiently.

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Indian retailer Future Group establishes new ‘consumer and digital lab’ on blockchain. The ‘Future C&D Lab’ will focus on leveraging new innovative technologies for solutions in the consumer space. The developments in artificial intelligence, big data analytics, Internet of Things and robotics will also be encouraged alongside blockchain technology. The aim is to enhance retail experiences in areas including payments and unique customer identification. The lab will host a common space that encourages collaboration between multiple teams, startups and companies working on these technologies. 

Hackers from North Korea stole more than a hundred million won in bitcoin each month for two years. Cyber criminals began from stealing about forty million won worth of bitcoin from South Korea in 2013. After that the team of hackers have secured more than a hundred million won in bitcoin every month till 2015. North Korean hackers did it as part of efforts to increase the country's hard currency. 

Hong Kong crypto exchange takes forced measures. One of the largest crypto exchanges Bitfinex ceased to perform deposit operations in fiat currencies since eighteenth of April. Company asked customers to avoid sending incoming facilities to their accounts until further notice. This forced measure has been implemented due to the fact that earlier American bank Wells Fargo stopped processing transfers from Bitfinex’s Taiwanese banks, thereby blocking the possibility of withdrawing funds from the cryptocurrency platforms.

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Bitcoin market cap and user base are larger than most fiat currencies of small countries in Central America, Africa and Europe. The userbase of bitcoin is larger than many countries including Norway and Finland. The market cap of bitcoin is higher than the majority of fiat currencies in the world. Bitcoin has a higher market cap than the currencies of Mongolia, Bolivia, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Laos, Sudan, Senegal, Nigeria and more. Blockchain, a popular bitcoin wallet platform, recorded over 6 million new users in the past 12 months.

Russia may recognize bitcoin in 2018, with full transaction monitoring. According to the interview of Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev for Bloomberg agency, the authorities hope to recognize bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2018 as they seek to enforce rules against illegal transfers. A decision on whether it will be treated as an asset, cash or security is due in mid-2017. Moiseev added that the central bank and the government are developing a joint position on digital currencies.