Business damaged by Bitcoin Cash civil war sues in U.S. Federal Court, action alleges takeover of cryptocurrency network by china-backed players

Miami, FL. – In a lawsuit filed on Thursday December 6th in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, United American Corp. a Florida Company, petitioned the court for emergency injunctive relief citing losses stemming directly from the Bitcoin Cash fork that began on November 15, 2018, and asserting that a team of conspirators involved in what many are calling the “Bitcoin Cash Civil War” worked with the knowledge and support of the Chinese government to stage a premeditated hostile takeover of this popular cryptocurrency platform.

The litigation, being handled by a team of attorneys led by Brian Miller, of the powerhouse Miami-based law firm Akerman, alleges there was “a scheme by a tight network of individuals and organizations designed to co-opt the cryptocurrency market for Bitcoin Cash, effectively hijacking the Bitcoin Cash network, centralizing the market and violating all accepted distributed and decentralized standards and protocols associated with Bitcoin since its inception.” It claims this scheme caused “a global capitalization meltdown of more than $4 billion and caused many American and Canadian coin holders to suffer financial damages.”

Since 2017 United American Corp. has moved heavily into the development and implementation of blockchain and blockchain technologies and invested in the deployment of over $4 million of infrastructure towards that end. Those investments can be greatly imperiled by changes in the Bitcoin Cash network brought about by the alleged scheme, changes that have altered the fundamental economics of the business.

The lawsuit moves against multiple defendants: Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, Bitmain Inc. Bitmain Technologies LTD. Bitmain Technologies Holding Company, Jihan Wu, The Kraken LLC, Jesse Powell, Amaury Sechet, Shammah Chancelor and Jason Cox.

This legal action will seek to prove that specific key actors, including some of the biggest US-based and international names and entities in the digital currency world, have been operating with the support of the Chinese government to centralize the Bitcoin cash network resulting in Chinese entities now having established dominance over this important segment of the cryptocurrency market with proprietary software checkpoints and instituting other means of control over the system.

“We want the future of cryptocurrency in general and Bitcoin Cash in particular to live up to the tremendous potential of the Satoshi white paper’s original vision,” said Lawry Trevor-Deutsch, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for United American Corp. “We envision a future led by an open, democratic and collaborative community fostering innovation and freedom. No entity or group of entities should seek to seize control of this platform for their own narrow interests or create rules that inhibit new competition and future technological innovation. That’s what this lawsuit is about.”

For additional information on the alleged Bitcoin Cash takeover scheme click here.

Contact:

Maurizio Passariello

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(786) 285-6398 mobile

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China’s financial watchdog determines STOs are illegal

First, there was the initial coin offering (ICO), which has run into more problems than anyone could have imagined. Then, an alternative was created that would reportedly be safer and more legitimate than the ICO, the security token offering (STO). Already, STOs are falling out of favor and China has wasted no time to let everyone know that STOs won’t be allowed. 

Speaking during a recent wealth management forum hosted by the Municipal Bureau of Finance (MBF), the bureau’s chief, Huo Xuewen, stated that STO fundraisers are illegal. He warned, “I will issue a risk warning to those who promote and issue STO tokens in Beijing. My advice is to only engage in such offerings when the government has legalized them.”

In an STO, crypto tokens are offered for sale in order to raise capital. This is similar to the ICO model, but what makes the STO different is that it allows the token purchaser to earn a piece of the profits of the company. 

China was one of the first countries to implement a complete ban on ICOs. The country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), issued its ban in September of last year, which caused a number of exchanges to halt their operations. As has been shown, 86% of the ICOs launched last year are now trading below their initial value. If it weren’t for controls in place to deal with ICOs, the amount of money misplaced would be astronomical. 

China is also looking to rid the crypto ecosystem of airdrops, free distributions of digital tokens. The country asserted that airdrops were nothing more than an action meant to circumvent ICO restrictions. Regulators have also moved to hold accountable those ICO projects that have moved out of the country, but which still target Chinese investors. The VP of the PBOC, Pan Gongsheng, said at the time, “Any new financial product or phenomenon that is not authorized under the existing legal framework, we will crush them as soon as they dare to surface.”

These actions may be seen by some as nothing more than an attempt on the part of the government to control the crypto ecosystem. They’re correct – to a point. The idea isn’t necessarily to control the entire spectrum but, rather, to allow it to grow in accordance with financial regulations and guidelines. The only way to get rid of the “Wild West” mentality that is keeping cryptocurrencies from reaching greater adoption is through controls. Since some – too many – scammers and even crypto developers have already proven that they don’t have to follow ethical or moral guidelines, the only way to bring them under control is through regulations. 

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Crypto’s future appears to be headed east

I just do not believe there to be a more pro-Western thinker than myself. Granted, I am a creature of the West, a cultural chauvinist of the highest order. Western society, far from a plague to be overcome, is a gift to all humanity: literature, art, film, architecture, cuisine, philosophy, even religion. The Enlightenment and its resulting liberality I count as monumental achievements for the species.

That written, of all the places to flower a crypto revolution in an otherwise mostly closed society, China was for sure not high on my list. Asia is such a loose word, and doesn’t mean much but it will have to do for the purposes of this particular column. The stereotype here in the United States is of cultures and nations repressed, controlled, still fighting for basic freedoms at least politically.

And that appears to be true on some level, as any cursory look at a given Eastern or Asian country would reveal. They often lack the liberality of migration, of allowing others “in” to their societies. Speech is a careful freedom, and does not seem to be a Right in the way we imagine. All of that, and to say nothing of the political struggles for more democratic participation.

George Gilder

“Only in China! After 40 appearances in nine days in four cities,” famed futurist George Gilder explained in a social media chat, “I return exhausted and edified by this nation of engineers and entrepreneurs, all inspired by the U.S. Silicon Valley example, now wilting in green Marxism and demented diversity politics.” Gilder’s latest book, Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy (Gateway Editions, 2018), a follow up to his Scandal of Money, has since been released in China, and he gave a series of talks in support.

We were to do an on-camera interview in Las Vegas this Summer at the annual Freedom Fest (I ended up with a lovely and very impromptu discussion with Jeffrey Tucker), but instead spoke from an ironically weak internet connection hideaway in the Berkshire Mountains (I in Southern California). Days away, as of this writing, from his 79th birthday, he’d come back from a morning run, as I recall, and was eager to talk about his latest book. About to hit 80, and the dude runs marathons (plural) throughout the year. Jesus.

His entire life has him in close proximity, Gump-like, to the movers and shakers of American politics and business. He’s written speeches for Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, Richard Nixon, along with dozens of well regarded books on a variety of subjects. He was one of the key figures who developed supply-siders’ ascension to the White House by way of the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. He was said to be President Reagan’s most quoted intellectual.

China? Really? Yes

Gilder received push-back on his assessment after he returned from China recently. The country, he responded, “thrived by reducing govt spending by 80 per cent (to a level lower than the U.S. as a share of GDP) and refusing to float their currency.”

When a few folks commented the Chinese might’ve picked up hints from his supply-side days, Gilder confirmed he believed progress began “after I visited in 1988 and urged them to ‘let a billion flowers bloom.’ I also told them to lower marginal tax rates. It was Bob Mundell, though, who told them not to float their currencies, and was rewarded by having the University of Finance in Beijing named after him. I was just made an ‘esteemed honorary professor’ at Shenzhen University of Technology. Voodoo marches on, in China, and underlies their economic miracle,” he wrote, using the famous George HW Bush’s characterization of Voodoo economics to describe supply-siders.

When another commenter listed grievances against the country, Gilder asserts, “China has increased its power and wealth by a factor of 10 or more since the Maoist days. Regardless of what we do, at a minimum they are going to be dominant in Asia. Objecting to

‘island building’ in the Spratlys or naval clout in the South China seas, or foreign aid (‘hegemony building in Africa’), or infrastructural prowess (no problem with finding ‘shovel ready projects’), their ‘art of the deal’ with Western tech companies for whom they do most manufacturing, [complaining] at all this shows an incomprehension of China’s earned position as a great power.”

Undignified, hypocritical, and quixotic

“We can change our own behavior but we probably cannot change China’s determination to be number one in Asia,” Gilder assured. “Attempts to stop them are undignified, hypocritical, and quixotic and a distraction from the war against industry being conducted in the U.S. on every campus and environmental cult and blue state office,” insisting the U.S. has far more of its own problems to tend than fretting over China.

Ultimately, in order to survive, he believes “the U.S. and China are destined to collaborate. Gratuitous trade conflicts based on ‘trade gaps’ are just self-defeating, particularly for us with most of our high tech manufacturing in China and Taiwan exporting to the U.S.”

Perhaps the biggest slur against the industrious nation is the charge it is merely faking, a Potemkin village at scale. And while some of that is no doubt true too, China is easily one of the most entrepreneurial economies going at the moment. It accounts for three times the initial public offerings (IPOs) than that of the U.S. When Taiwan is brought into the picture, whose business folk have pointed a majority of their investments at the mainland, greater China makes most of the world’s high tech goods.

Economically retarded, politically repressive, socially manipulative

“Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.,” Gilder notes, “is the only mass producer of 7 nanometer chip geometries for the new Apple cellphone. Yes, the new government is economically retarded in some ways, politically repressive and socially manipulative. But the magnificent previous leadership under Deng Xiaoping et al provided a real foundation for an utterly solid trajectory of growth with an ever diminishing government spending as share of GDP (now at around 19 percent well below [the U.S.]). The new generation, unlike [the U.S.], is anti-socialist and throngs to their ‘free zones,’ which as I discovered in Shenzhen, have to be seen to be believed.”

He ends with a plea of sorts, an appeal to sanity. “It is foolish to deny the feats of the Chinese economy and the proliferation of entrepreneurial businesses, particularly in my areas of current focus, electronics and cryptocurrencies. For better or for worse, China is on a path to be the world’s largest and most powerful country. Making them an enemy is a suicide trip,” he concluded the chat.

South China Morning Post recently announced, as if channeling Gilder, “Hong Kong’s new regulations for cryptocurrencies have security at their heart, specifically the safeguarding of digital assets from theft or loss.” It might appear heavy handed, but the subtext is one of tacit acknowledgement crypto is here to stay, and that its people are clamoring for digital assets.

InVault

Third party custodians are key to institutional adoption in the wake of exchange hacks and wallet insecurities. “InVault,” the SCMP write, “a Shanghai-based start-up, claims to be the first such digital custodian to take advantage of the new licensing requirements to launch its services in Hong Kong.” It already holds about a million ETH on the mainland, and this new license will allow it to begin automated services next month.

They’re looking internationally as well, becoming leaders in the protection of crypto assets. CEO Kenneth Xu told the news agency, “We believe that globally, custodians for cryptocurrency assets will be regulated and operated under a trust licence.” Using the models of Coinbase and BitGo, they’re to be a kind of trust agency, a form of insurance.

“Xu said InVault is in discussion with two ‘mid-sized’ insurers which potentially could provide coverage that could be included as part of its custody services,” SCMP reports. “He said the biggest challenge for insurers today is how to accurately measure the risk profile of a custodian, and its internal systems, to price the cryptocurrency insurance premium accordingly.” It’s yet another step, albeit a quiet and unsexy one, in the country’s business culture to get economic’s future right. China! I would’ve never guessed.

C. Edward Kelso is a financial technology journalist. Follow him on Twitter.

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School principals in China busted mining crypto at work

Two enterprising principals of a school in China were found to have been using school resources to mine Ethereum (ETH), according to reports emerging in local media.

The principals were taken to task over the theft of electricity and processing power, which resulted in significant disruption to systems within the school over a period of several months from July to November.

According to reports from the HK01 network, the alarm was first raised at Puman Middle School in Hunan province when it was noted that school computers were making more noise than usual—even during school holidays and close days.

It was also noted that IT networks in the school had been running much slower than their usual pace, while the school’s energy consumption had almost doubled in just a few months.

The general manager at the school initially thought the problems were being caused by overuse of air conditions systems. However, it was subsequently discovered that senior management had installed no fewer than seven computers, set up specifically to mine ETH on school resources.

An investigation found that school principal, Lei Hua, and vice principal, Wang Zhipeng had installed the computer system worth $7,000 to mine the cryptocurrency, costing the school somewhere in the region of $2,165 in electricity over the period.

According to media reports, the principal had initially installed the system at home before becoming frustrated by the extent of the energy bills he was incurring as a result. The principal has since been removed from his post, with the vice principal reprimanded and given an official warning for their part in the swindle.

This is far from the first time an employee has attempted to use the resources of their employer for mining cryptocurrency. Back in March, employees of the Florida’s Department of Citrus were found to have used work resources for mining cryptocurrency, while employees at the Louisiana Attorney General’s office were also implicated in a similar scam.

While it might not seem as significant as other forms of workplace theft, mining cryptocurrencies in this way can incur significant energy and computing costs, which are ultimately illegitimately billed to their employer. These are just some of the high profile few that have been caught so far; however, it seems likely that this is a problem that will continue at workplaces worldwide, as crypto mining becomes more lucrative and accessible.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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BTCC to shut down mining pool

After four years running strong, BTCC is shutting down its cryptocurrency mining pool. The cryptocurrency exchange launched its operations in 2014 and has indicated that the current market is not conducive to continue operations. It added that all mining servers will be turned off on November 15 and the BTCC Pool will cease to exist “indefinitely” after November 30.

In preparation to the closure, BTCC is asking all miners using the platform to transfer their hash power to other options prior to November 15. Any outstanding profits from previous operations will be paid out “in time.”

According to an announcement on the company’s website, “Today, we regret to announce that due to business adjustments, the BTCC pool will shut down all mining servers on November 15 and will cease operations indefinitely from November 30. In order to avoid unnecessary losses, please miners to complete the power switch before November 15th, and bind the mining revenue address before November 20th, we will release the profits of all miners in time.”

This past June, BTCC entered into an agreement to sell 49% of its stake in BTCC Pool to a financial service firm out of Hong Kong, Value Convergence Holdings. That deal was purported to generate as much as $17 million to BTCC when consummated, but no information has ever been produced that the deal was signed.

BTCC Pool covered around 1.1% of Bitcoin Core’s (BTC) hash power in June, according to statistics provided by blockchain.info. However, according to the most recent information, the percentage of hash power controlled by the pool was not enough to even register on the blockchain.info scale.

BTCC was previously known as BTC China. It was one of the first, and one of the longest continuously running, crypto exchanges in China. When regulators began to crack down on crypto trading in September of last year and stopped all trading, the company took a huge hit and was sold to a Hong Kong-based blockchain investment fund this past January. The new owner relaunched the exchange in July and has plans to introduce its own digital currency.

This may not be the end of the BTCC Pool. It ended its announcement by telling website visitors, “[We] will see you again!”

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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China to begin regulating airdrops

As China continues to move toward wider regulation of the cryptocurrency industry, it now has its next target in sight. The country’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), is going to start taking a harder look at airdrops, which the bank describes as being nothing more than initial coin offerings (ICO) in disguise.

The PBoC published (in pdf) its 2018 financial stability report last Friday, in which it turned to the same worn-out arguments against ICOs and crypto trading. Once again, it called out the risks of financial fraud associated with cryptocurrencies and the number of pyramid schemes found in the space. Of course, nothing like that ever happens in the fiat financial world.
An airdrop is a type of cryptocurrency distribution made for free to a large group of crypto wallets. It is used to offer rewards for a particular activity or to help promote the crypto project.

The bank asserts that airdrops are an attempt to circumvent regulations created for public token sales. It claims that they offer free assets to investors and that companies use market speculation to inflate their coin’s value to increase their profits.

Despite an attempt to thwart ICOs in the country, the PBoC says that the number of airdrops is climbing. It wants to implement an “early detection” system and is pushing for regulators from around the world to provide a significant increase in oversight.

The financial report also delves into rise of crypto firms deciding to move overseas because of the strict regulations and how they use foreign intermediaries to invest on behalf of Chinese investors. It also warns against what it sees as a prevalence of fraudulent whitepapers and crypto projects that are only disguised as “blockchain innovation,” but which are not at all blockchain companies.

As crypto opponents routinely do – and which has already been proven to be false – the bank also brought up the use of crypto for money laundering and terrorism financing. It would appear that the authors of the report based their conclusions on data that was relevant maybe a year ago.

Bringing the report to a close, the authors bragged about the bank’s actions against the crypto space over the past couple of years. It referred to a PBoC report from 2013, Notice on Precautions Against the Risks of Bitcoin, and its complete ban on ICOs from September of last year.

As much as the bank would like to try to convince the public, crypto is not illegal in China. A recent case in Shenzhen that was sent to arbitration found that crypto is a property and, as such, is legal. Arbitrators in the case asserted, “There is no law or regulation that explicitly prohibits parties from holding bitcoin or private transactions in bitcoin, [only warnings to] the public about the investment risks. The contract in this case stipulates the obligation to return the bitcoin between two natural persons, and does not belong to the [Sept. 2017 ban].”

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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China wants public input on proposals for blockchain regulation

Authorities in China have floated draft rules on blockchain projects for public consultation, in a process that is expected to run until November 2.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched its consultation phase this week, with new regulations it says are designed to protect companies, investors and the general public from blockchain projects.

At the same time, the proposals aim to foster the development of blockchain technology, and the emerging industries around distributed ledger technology in China. However, the plans have already drawn criticism from some in the sector, over concerns the measures could stifle innovation and development.

The proposals will require real-name accounts and registration for all blockchain projects, with a requirement that user data is held and made available for inspection for up to six months.

According to CAC documentation, the new rules oblige blockchain service providers to work with the authorities in the supervision and inspection of user data.

“Blockchain-based service providers should work with the authorities to carry out supervision and inspection, and provide the necessary data and technical assistance,” it noted.

Blockchain companies will also be expected to register with the authorities within 10 days of formation, with licenses contingent on proper user data recording, monitoring and reporting.

The CAC also said there would be a greater emphasis on self-regulation blockchain, saying it would implement measures for the “industry to strengthen self-regulation and set up industry standards, educate service providers, and promote the industry credit rating system.”

With early feedback mixed, it remains to be seen how the consultation will influence the final proposals. But with blockchain regulation firmly in the sights, it looks certain that conditions for blockchain businesses in China could be set to become tighter in the near future.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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Blockchain startups to face new regulations in China

The Internet censorship agency of China, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has released the draft of a framework it intends on introducing to regulate the blockchain industry in the company. The draft, “The Regulation for Managing Blockchain Information Services,” was published last Friday in order to give the public the opportunity to provide comments before the regulations are officially implemented.

If the framework is accepted as it is written, would apply to any entity in the country that is considered to be a blockchain information services provider. It would also be the first time that rules overseeing the industry have been introduced.

Per the CAC, a blockchain information service provider is defined as an “entity” or “node” that provides information services to either the private or public sector using blockchain technology.

The draft set of rules spans 23 articles. One would require that any blockchain service provider register with the CAC within ten days of launching services. Another states that the providers must register their names, industry fields, server addresses and service types with the agency. The information would be made available to the public and the CAC would investigate the companies annually to ensure that nothing has changed.

The exact types of blockchain companies that could be affected by the rules was not identified. However, some blockchain experts in the country have indicated that the proposals would most likely have an impact on “supernodes” of specific blockchain networks.

Mining pool BTC.TOP’s fonder, Jiang Zhuo’er, posted on Weibo, “For example, each of the 21 supernodes of the EOS network is operated by a company or an individual. As such, they must be fully compliant [with this regulation].”

Other sectors could be held to the new rules, as well. The draft proposal indicates that highly regulated fields – education, news reporting and publishing, pharmaceuticals – would be required to obtain licenses from authorities before registering with the CAC.

In addition, service providers could not use the blockchain to “produce, duplicate, publish, and disseminate” information prohibited by current laws. All service providers would also be obligated to adhere to Know-Your-Customer (KYC) guidelines, including the collection and reporting of national identification numbers and/or cell phone numbers. “Service providers must store the logs and content published by users of their blockchain services for six months and provide this information to law enforcement when required,” details the new policy.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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Energy-stealing crypto miner faces jail time in China

A man in China has been ordered to spend three years and six months behind bars over charges of mining cryptocurrency using stolen power from a local train station, local news outlets reported.

Authorities said Xu Xinghua, of Datong in China’s northern province of Shanxi, successfully mined 3.2 BTC—worth an estimated 120,000 yuan or $17,400)—as of April. His crypto mining operations, which involved 50 crypto miners and three electric fans, were allegedly powered by electricity stolen from one of the factories at the Kouquan Railway. Xu reportedly ran up an electricity bill of 104,000 yuan ($15,000), according to reports.

The Datong Railway Transport Court confiscated Xu’s mining rigs and also ordered him to pay the 100,000 yuan ($14,500) fine, cnBeta  reported. Xu was sentenced for his “miner theft case” last September 13.

Xu is the latest crypto-related case to have faced the wrath of the Chinese government, which has been relentlessly after crypto miners who it claims have been or are looking into illicitly using the country’s power supply. Recently, reports surfaced that China’s internet finance regulator, the Leading Group of Internet Financial Risks Remediation, has ordered local governments to “guide” crypto mining operations into making an “orderly exit” from the business. This comes on the heels of reports that the Chinese government is looking at limiting electricity supply to crypto miners.

The regulations, however, have yet to stop illegal crypto mining operations in China. In April, six people were reported to have stolen electricity from their local power grid to mine cryptocurrency. Two months later, a man was arrested in Anhui province on charges of stealing power of 150MW and running a bill of 6,000 yuan ($930) daily. According to reports, the man’s mining operation included 200 computers, which he used to mine BTC and ETH.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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Chinese state bank issues $1.3B mortgages on blockchain

The Bank of Communications, a bank owned by the Chinese government, has successfully issued mortgage-backed securities worth over $1.3 billion on infrastructure powered by blockchain.

In one of the biggest moves of its kind to date, the bank used an independent blockchain platform called Juicai Chain to issue the securities, worth a total of 9.3 billion yuan ($1.3 billion), China Securities Times reported.

Through the platform, all parties to the underlying loan are trackable, and can manage their cash flow as well as performing a number of other business operations on the blockchain. According to local press reports, the hope is that the system will improve security, limit risk exposure and improve the efficiency with which mortgage backed securities can be issued.

The technology also allows instant verification of the authenticity of the assets, as well as providing several other key benefits to would-be investors in these securities.

China has been notoriously hardline on cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings (ICOs), effectively banning outright a large portion of activity in the cryptocurrency sector. However, conversely, the Chinese state is regarded as an increasing supporter of blockchain technology, with several notable deployments by government-backed organisations in the country.

Back in July, the Agricultural Bank of China issued a loan worth $300,000 on the blockchain, while in September, Chinese authorities signaled they may be willing to accept blockchain data as admissible evidence in legal cases.

The system pioneered by the Bank of Communications is one of many blockchain developments around real estate and real estate-backed securities, and the expectation now is that their successful launch will inspire similar moves from other financial institutions.

As reported in local media, Juicia Chain was first launched by the bank back in June, with initial due diligence beginning in August. Going forward, the digital mortgage base will now be opened to a number of intermediaries including law firm Zhonglun and global professional services company PricewaterhouseCoopers.

With the Agricultural Bank of China and the Bank of Communications accounting for the fourth and fifth largest banks in the country respectively, the new platform is now likely to have a significant effect on the way similar securities are issued in future.

Note: Tokens on the Bitcoin Core (segwit) Chain are Referred to as BTC coins. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is today the only Bitcoin implementation that follows Satoshi Nakamoto’s original whitepaper for Peer to Peer Electronic Cash. Bitcoin BCH is the only major public blockchain that maintains the original vision for Bitcoin as fast, frictionless, electronic cash.

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