Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 4 April 2017
Hot on the heels of yesterday’s round-up, here’s more bite-sized blockchain and Bitcoin news. Featuring TaaS, Living Room of Satoshi and Bitfinex.
TaaS, the “first-ever” tokenised closed-end fund dedicated to blockchain assets, will partner with two cryptocurrency exchanges, Livecoin and Kuna, to offer its tokens for trading starting on 28 April.
Investors will be able to trade TaaS tokens on these exchanges after the conclusion of TaaS’ initial coin offering (ICO), which runs until 27 April. So far, the TaaS ICO has raised more than $2.67 million from 1,259 investors globally. Well, at least they give specifics. TaaS is incorporated in Singapore, with offices in Kiev and San Francisco.
In Australia, let’s enter the Living Room of Satoshi (LRoS) – yes, that’s the company’s name and as you guessed is inspired by Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious creator of Bitcoin.
LRoS has now added support for Ethereum, which means users can pay bills and everyday expenses with that, and of course Bitcoin. The Brisbane-based firm offers free BPay facilities in Bitcoin for consumers. According to its website, more than 19,000 businesses in the country accept payments using BPay.
As Banking Technology reported last year, about $72 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen from the Bitfinex exchange platform in Hong Kong. Nearly 120,000 units were pilfered making it the second-biggest security breach ever of such an exchange.
Bad news over and welcome good news. Bitfinex says it will shortly be redeeming 100% of all currently issued and outstanding BFX tokens. This will be the final redemption of BFX tokens created in August 2016. After these redemptions, no BFX tokens will remain outstanding; they will all be destroyed. The firm says it has achieved “full recovery in just eight months”.
