MAR 24 DIGEST: NASDAQ-Powered BTC Marketplace Announced, Russia’s Anti-Bitcoin Law Confirmed for 2015
NASDAQ has agreed to provide the New York-based startup Noble Markets the core technology to power a marketplace for trading bitcoins, Russia’s Ministry of Finance is expected to take measures against the usage of monetary surrogates such as bitcoin, and more top stories for March 24.
NASDAQ to Provide Trading Technology for Bitcoin Marketplace
NASDAQ OMX Group Inc, which owns and operates the NASDAQ stock market, has agreed to provide the New York-based startup Noble Markets the core technology to power a marketplace for trading bitcoins and related digital-currency assets. Noble Markets will use NASDAQ's X-stream trading system, which is used by more than 30 exchanges and marketplaces worldwide. NASDAQ will also provide marketing support.
Russian Ministry of Finance: Anti-Bitcoin Law Will Finally Be Passed This Year
Russia’s Ministry of Finance is expected to take measures against the usage of monetary surrogates such as Bitcoin soon. Speaking at the All-Russian Banking Conference, Deputy Minister of Finance Alexey Moiseev stated that the bill proposing penalties for using “monetary surrogates” will become law in 2015.
Moiseev:
“The law, which provides measures for penalizing the usage of monetary surrogates, will finally be passed this year.”
Former NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer Joins Tera Group as Advisory Director
Tera Group, the operator of bitcoin derivatives platform Tera Exchange, has brought on former New York Stock Exchange CEO Duncan Niederauer as Advisory Director. According to Tera Group, Niederauer will draw upon his international experience to offer the company strategic advice and insight on growth strategies, as well provide briefings on global financial trends.
Christian Martin, Chairman and CEO of Tera:
“Our firm operates with the same client-first approach Duncan has shown throughout his impressive career. By providing the management team and clients with his unique global perspective, he will greatly add to the knowledge and experience of our firm.”
ChangeTip Integrates With Online Comment Hosting Service Disqus
Users of blog commenting service Disqus can now tip each other in bitcoin following the company's integration with San Francisco-based micropayments startup ChangeTip. The news of the integration came after Victoria van Eyk, VP community developer at ChangeTip, sent a tip to a commenter on one of CoinDesk's articles.
Steve Roy, VP of marketing at Disqus, said of the integration:
"Disqus is a service that can be integrated with other popular web services. So it's quite common for us to enable an integration like this. We'll watch how this one evolves and adjust for it accordingly."
Paybase’s Josh Garza Refutes Mt Gox Allegation as ‘Aggressive Claim’ Following Week-Long Funds Freeze
Bitcoin-to-altcoin wallet provider Paybase appeared to be in trouble with reports from users that they have been unable to withdraw funds. After withdrawals were suspended without notice for over a week, one reddit user even accused Paybase to have “gone full Mt. Gox.” Yesterday, Paybase CEO Josh Garza broke the silence in a response to a tweet linking to the reddit thread:
“7 days? Full Mt Gox? That's a pretty aggressive claim. Withdraws have already been going out”
Bitrefill Announces New Remittance System with Celery
The global prepaid mobile top-up service Bitrefill and New York based exchange Celery have launched an integration-based partnership that enables US users to send instant mobile airtime remittances to over 100 countries. The service does not require either the sender or receiver to understand cryptocurrency. Instead, the sender can simply connect their bank account and choose an amount to send in the receiving currency.
Ilya Subkhankulov, CEO of Celery, said:
“This integration uses all of the benefits of bitcoin, but hides the complexities from the user. We just use Bitcoin as settlement rails.”
Three Blockchain Startups Selected for Barclays Accelerator
Bitcoin exchange Safello, bitcoin-based debit card creators Atlas Card, and Blocktrace, which aims to provide blockchain solutions for the insurance industry, have been selected to join Barclays Accelerator in London this spring. The 90-day mentorship-driven program began yesterday.
Frank Schuil, CEO at Safello, stated:
“The selection of Safello, Atlas Card and Blocktrace by Barclays Accelerator, at the very least, signals increased curiosity in the cryptocurrency space […] That is already a major improvement from when we first started with Safello in 2013. We are moving from dismissal to curiosity. Now it is our job to take it to the next level.”
Synereo Kicks Off Crowdsale for its ‘Decentralized Facebook’ Platform
Synereo, a next generation decentralized and distributed social network, has commenced the crowdsale of its information flow currency AMPS. Synereo has been working on their distributed tech stack for over four years and has embarked on this crowdsale to create their next-gen social networking application on top of it. In order to participate in the sale, you need to sign up with your email to receive a BTC address where you will be able to send bitcoin.
WinkDex Introduces Price Widget For iOS and Android
WinkDex has added price widget functionality to their iOS and Android apps. The new widget makes the WinkDex price readily available to mobile users with a simple swipe – hence removing the need to open the WinkDex app each time you want to check the latest average bitcoin exchange rate.
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