Weekend Roundup: The BlockNet, Funding Continues for Payment Processors, and Chinese Miners Are About to Eat Everyone’s Lunch

1. XCurrency Devs Introduce Their BlockNet

A few projects are working to get the various blockchains out there to talk among one another, and XCurrency unveiled the details of its own project Monday, Ian DeMartino reported.

“Every time a coin joins BlockNet, every other coin in the network can use its features. Ideally, this means that the isolated laboratories that altcoins currently serve as can now become a unified testing ground.”

2. China’s Sfards Technology Introduces World’s First Dual SHA256 and Scrypt Miner

On Monday, Diana Ngo reported on some big developments from China’s cryptocurrency mining industry.

“According to a release, [Sfards Technology, Ltd.] conceived the world's first ‘dual-miner machine’ capable of running simultaneously SHA256 and Scrypt. The company said it was planning on launching semiconductors that have ‘reached the new stage of ASIC technology in both power and efficiency.’”

3. Bitnet Announces $14 MM Funding Round / BitFury Invests Undisclosed Amount in GoCoin

We are combining these two stories because they are examples of a larger trend: Capital is pouring into payment platforms right now.

“[Bitnet’s] funding round was led by Highland Capital Partners, a global venture capital firm whose investments include Malwarebytes and fashion startup Rent The Runway. Existing investors also participated in the funding round, one of which is Japanese retail giant Rakuten.”“‘Payment processing is a critical element in stimulating the Bitcoin economy,’ BitFury Capital managing partner Marat Kichikov said in a statement. ‘We are committed to supporting further acceptance and to enabling further adoption of cryptocurrencies. The partnership with GoCoin will allow processing payments in digital currency with our vendors and clients all over the world.’”

4. Lamassu Partners With IdentityMind Global for AML/KYC Compliance

On Thursday, Diana Ngo reported that Lamassu was integrating IdentityMind’s compliance platform into its BTMs.

"’It has always been important for us not to burden the end-users of our machines with a complicated or intrusive compliance solution,’ said Lamassu CEO Zach Harvey. ‘This integration allows us to provide our operators with an affordable and quality solution that fits the Lamassu user experience. It's fast, it's intuitive and it's easy.’"

5. Coinprism Launches a Colored Coins Wallet for Android

Dublin-based Coinprism, which has already created a colored coins platform and blockchain explorer, introduced the first native colored coins mobile wallet on Monday.

“‘End users today often don’t realize the benefits of colored coins compared to alternatives like Counterparty, but they will become more obvious as features such as frictionless mobile payments, micropayment channels and anonymous coin mixing get released,’ Coinprism founder Flavien Charlon said.”

Elsewhere

Đecentralize Magazine is doing a series on blockchain 2.0 technologies. First up are Mastercoin and Ethereum.Money20/20 will launch a European version of its conference in the spring of 2016. [Bitcoin Magazine]Is Travelocity favoring iOS users by intentionally charging them less for hotel rooms? [Engadget]Now we know that 3D printing guns in Japan can get you two years in prison. [The Verge]

Market activity

Bitcoin’s exchange rate against the dollar had been enjoying stabilization at just below the US$400 mark for more than a week … until Wednesday. Since then, the price has dropped by about 9%, finishing the week in the US$350s.

What happened? Well, the peak in number of daily transactions is almost always mid-week; that’s been like clockwork since I’ve been writing the Weekend Roundup. This week, we had dual peaks, the first on Tuesday and the second on Friday, both close to the 81,500 transactions mark.

On Wednesday, exchange trade volume in USD took off, nearly doubling between Wednesday’s figure and Thursday’s figure. Over that same time period, the average price dipped from US$385 to US$364.

That looks like a lot of selling activity between Wednesday and Friday, and it put downward pressure on the price.

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