Inshorts

Czech National Bank attitudes positively towards cryptocurrencies. According to the article on the Czech National Bank website, Vice-President of the CNB, Mojmir Hampl states, that there is no need to be afraid of bitcoin and other independent currencies. According to him, the cornerstone of the economy is the dynamism. Hampl thinks that the economy requires more unorthodox policies. Prague is a home to a strong community of cryptocurrency supporters, many users of digital currency see it as a viable alternative to the current monetary system. 

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One of the largest commercial banks of Thailand, Kasikorn Bank (KBank) will use blockchain technology to digitize the financial contracts. As coindesk reports, Thailand-based commercial KBank is planning to digitize the letter-of-guarantee contracts, instead of paper-based letters. The bank will refer to a new blockchain solution developed with IBM. With this act, the bank aims to provide more transparent and secure service for its’ clients. As the process takes time, Kbank is planning to digitize 35 percent of total amount of the contracts by end of this year. 

Swissquote joined the fury of crypto world. Swissquote announced the launch of bitcoin trading service. As coinidol reports, Swissquote, leader of the Switzerland’s online banking service announced its partnership with Bitstamp, to offer BTC exchange with Euro and USD. The CEO of Swissquote, Mark Bürki explains that the company step through the world of bitcoin and they need a partner that they could rely on. Now, Bitstamp is providing a full-stack solution for all of Swissquote's requirements. Company has its headquarters in Gland, Switzerland and offices in Zürich, Bern, Dubai, Malta, Hong Kong and London.

WikiLeaks now accepts contributions via Zcash and Monero cryptocurrencies. According to Coindesk, Wikileaks, a non-profit media-group has stated on its twitter, on starting to accept two privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies as donations. Thus Wikileaks has expanded the list of supported cryptocurrencies to four, now it is Bitcoin, Litecoin, Zcash and Monero. These cryptocurrencies were selected after the survey in which over 12 thousand users participated. Should be noted that cryptocurrency donations are becoming more popular, as wikileaks bitcoin wallet has already received over 26,000 transaction. 

Blockchain will keep education data safe. As reported by Coindesk, Sony and IBM has designed a new educational blockchain solution for sharing and saving student records. The product is supposed to be launched by Sony next year. According to the announcement, SONY is considering both primary and higher educational establishments to be users of the new product. Masaaki Isozu, the president of Sony Global Education claimed that the technology has potential in every sector and the educational is no exception. As noted in the statement, Sony will continue exploring the use of blockchain in different fields. 

Chile is still far away from issuing its cryptocurrency. As coindesk reports, the head of National Bank of Chile, Mario Marcel, gave a speech in the UK on June 29. His speech touched the subjects of the blockchain and distributed ledger technologies for financial sector use. He explained that even though the creation of the digital currency may be beneficial, still such a digital currency launch is likely to take a long time given the technical challenges and may still be many years away. As it’s known, some other countries, like England and Canada have already issued its own cryptocurrencies. 

Disclaimer. These videos are brought to you by CoinIdol.com in partnership with Koles Coin News Channel. This information is provided by a third-party source and should not be viewed as an endorsement by CoinIdol. Readers should do their own research before investing funds in any company. 

Bitcoin conquered the $4,200 mark. According to the charts of Coinmarketcap, this price was set in the morning of Sunday, August 13. The bitcoin’s market capitalization exceeded $68 billion. Analysts noted the increased investors’ interest for bitcoin, after it has successfully survived the fork on August 1. Among other favorable factors are the upcoming activation of the SegWit protocol and the increased demand for the cryptocurrency on the Japanese markets. Bitcoin has demonstrated more than 300% growth, as at the beginning of the year its price was less than $1000. The price predictions of the bitcoin experts vary, converging to the fact that bitcoin will retrace the stages of gold in its cryptocurrency evolution, becoming in time a costly benchmark, rather than a small change.

The European Union is developing fintech technology, keeping the security of the existing infrastructure. In January 2018 the Revised Payment Service Directive (PSD2) will be adopted. It is aimed at protecting the consumers’ rights and strengthening the competitive market. According to this new regulatory document, financial services will be provided not only by banks. These rules for providing access to banking API are already used by some startups, which are able to connect to banking data, verify accounts and access transactions in real-time. This new PSD2 guidance pays a lot of attention to blockchain technology which will help to better protect financial data and enable banks to provide transactions in real-time. 

Bank of America applied for new patents tied to blockchain. As CNBC states, Bank of America (BOA) applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) for 3 types of patents regarding the blockchain technology. The first patent simply would allow BOA to authenticate user and transaction information through a blockchain system. The second patent utilizes a distributed ledger system that monitors and verifies user identities on a network. The last one is about the system that monitors changes in user history at a specific timeline and creates a “map” of the user and his history. This act shows that BOA is going to heavily invest in bitcoin and blockchain technology.