Author: Anna Galvez

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Crypto News

YouTube And Google LLC Mentioned In The Documentation Of A Lawsuit Against BitConnect

According to some court documents filed on July 3rd, YouTube has been added as a defendant in a class action lawsuit against BitConnect. The lawsuit was initially filed on January 24th by six individuals represented by the Silver Miller law firm. The applicants claim that the cryptocurrency investment platform BitConnect issued crypto tokens which were unregistered securities, and obtained additional funds through a wide range of Ponzi Schemes.

The plaintiffs stated that their personal losses amounted to a total of $771,000.

According to Cointelegraph, BitConnect and its affiliated parties published a series of promotional videos on YouTube, which were deemed inappropriate as the material allegedly attracted potential investors to a fraudulent investment scheme. YouTube is said to have failed to declassify and demonetize published videos, exposing “countless” YouTube users to harmful videos and illegally promoting investment.

YouTube and Google LLC involved in a class action lawsuit against BitConnect

BitConnect’s top ten YouTube affiliates posted more than 70,000 hours of raw content, generating about 58 billion hits. The document says that the number of views from several of the affiliate promoters’ videos far exceeded the threshold numbers for the “enhanced” eligibility standards.

In particular, some users reported fraudulent BitConnect activity to YouTube, posting videos with titles such as “How the BitConnect scam works in great detail,” “Craig Grant explains the BitConnect scam” and others.

This case is not about YouTube being the speaker or editor of your website’s content. Instead, the liability is based on YouTube’s inability to act after learning from content published directly on YouTube from the easily foreseeable damage posed by its advertising partners. As the old saying goes, “Sometimes when you sleep with dogs, you get fleas.”

David Silver, Silver Miller law firm, for Cointelegraph

The plaintiffs claim that if YouTube had done a proper search of their databases, it would have removed the harmful videos from BitConnect. Instead, YouTube allegedly accepted an increasing number of videos related to BitConnect, resulting in numerous victims.

The document also refers to Google LLC, which changed its financial products policy to prohibit all ads related to cryptocurrency and associated content due to potential harm to users of Google-owned platforms, including YouTube.

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Crypto News

Augur MainNet And Aeternity MainNet Will Launch In The Upcoming Weeks

The making of Initial Currency Offers (ICOs) has been the way to operate for some of the scammers who have taken the money from the users and have not carried out the proposed projects. However, this is not the general rule, so some initiatives have moved forward with their plans, such as Augur (REP) and Aeternity (AE), which are close to launching their main networks (MainNet).

Augur (REP) MainNet will launch on July 9th

Augur is a platform dedicated to market forecasting. The Augur tokens (REP), in ERC20 format, were created on Ethereum blockchain. The migration of Augur (REP) to the Augur MainNet will take place on July 9th.

As part of the network error detection program, the team behind this initiative is awarding a $100,000 reward to programmers who find significant bugs.

The ICO of Augur was held in 2015 and raised about $5 million.

However, the launch of the Augur MainNet, as disseminated on social networks, has not received much attention from crypto assets due to the loss of interest in this cryptocurrency, lately.

Currently, Augur (REP) has a market capitalization of $392 million and a value of $35 per token. Its highest price was recorded in January of this year when it was worth about $107, and in recent days has had an upward trend.

Aeternity (AE) MainNet will be activated in August

Aeternity (AE), for its part, is designed to create smart and scalable contracts “interacting with information in real time,” as indicated in its White Paper. In September last year, the round of funding for this project, which raised about $37 million, was completed and the ERC20 AE tokens were distributed to users. These tokens were also created on Ethereum blockchain.

Aeternity MainNet will be activated in August of this year, while the Aeternity (AE) tokens in ERC20 format can only be used until September 19th, 2019, so users must change all of them to the new AE cryptocurrency until then.

Aeternity (AE) is currently quoted at $2.54, but its market capitalization is higher than that of Augur (REP), with about $502 million. In May, Aeternity (AE) reached its historical maximum at $5 per token.

The successful implementation of Augur MainNet and Aeternity MainNet will encourage the cryptocurrencies market and the Initial Coin Offers (ICOs), which, only by mid-2018, have already raised more money than in previous years, despite the stricter cryptocurrency regulations.

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Crypto News

Bank For International Settlements (BIS) Criticizes Cryptocurrency Again

The head of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) continued the institution’s critical stance on cryptocurrency, saying it “cannot take over the functions of money,” BIS reported on July 4th.

Bank for International Settlements (BIS) general manager stated cryptocurrency “are not a good means of payment”

In statements to the Swiss daily Basler Zeitung last week, later published by the BIS, general manager Agustin Carstens warned the “young people” against “trying to make money,” referring mostly to the Bitcoin (BTC) mining industry.

Those who have the greatest incentive in the system of this so-called cryptocurrency are those who produce the assets – the miners. This incentive, however, is not compatible with maximizing the utility of money. he told the publication. Cryptocurrency does not serve any of the three purposes of money. They are not a good means of payment or a good unit of account, nor are they suitable as a deposit of value. They fail dramatically in each of these counts.

Agustin Carstens, general manager of BIS

This is not the first time BIS position itself against cryptos

The BIS caused outrage when it published an article on cryptocurrency in June, and the significant media widely reported its highly suspicious view of the phenomenon against the fiat currency. Along with identical concerns about its potential to function as “fiat money,” the article also feared that the massive adoption of cryptocurrency could “stop the Internet” and other controversial claims.

Continuing the story, Carstens, who in turn has on multiple occasions presented himself as against cryptocurrency, said that it would unequivocally not have a “happy ending.”

“You don’t have to beat around the bush like that. It should not be forgotten that central banks have been providing electronic means of payment for decades,” stated Agustin Carstens, general manager Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

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Crypto News

Sberbank CEO Said Governments Will Maintain Centralized Role Instead Of Accepting Cryptocurrency

The CEO of Russia’s largest state-owned bank, Sberbank, Herman Gref, said he still could not foresee that governments would “give up their centralised role” in creating fiat currency as part of their comments on cryptocurrency.

During the Astana Finance Day conference, Sberbank CEO said he doesn’t believe the governments will give up fiat money

Talking to journalists during the international Astana Finance Days conference in Kazakhstan’s capital on July 4th, Herman Gref Sberbank repeated the comments he has made many times about the future role of cryptocurrency in the economy.

“Do I see a perspective of the global use of cryptocurrency as an alternative to fiduciary money? I don’t see it, and I said it many times,” said Herman Gref. “I don’t think the state is willing to cede its centralized role in issuing fiat currency to other decentralized institutions,” he added.

New cryptocurrency regulations in Russia will classify cryptos as separate digital assets

Gref’s words broadly reflect the ongoing metamorphosis of the regulatory status of cryptocurrency within Russia. This week is the deadline for new cryptocurrency regulation to become laws that will consolidate cryptos as a separate digital assets class devoid of legal tender status.

However, Sberbank has begun to increase its interactions with the cryptocurrencies market in the run-up to the new cryptocurrency regulation era, revealing last month its plans to launch a cryptocurrency-based mutual fund previous month.

Sberbank CEO compared cryptocurrency investments with gambling in a statement last week

A week earlier, however, Herman Gref, Sberbank CEO, had gone into the bass, telling local news station Kommersant that he “wouldn’t recommend [buying cryptocurrency] to anyone who didn’t like to play in a casino,” comparing cryptocurrency investments with gambling.

This vision of the Russian Sberbank CEO regarding the cryptocurrency is another evidence that cryptos are not doing very well in Russia.

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Crypto News

Malta Becomes The First Country To Adopt Comprehensive Blockchain And Cryptocurrency Legislation

Malta passed the three bills that will regulate the entire blockchain and cryptocurrency space on the so-called Blockchain Island. The Prime Minister of the country, Joseph Muscat, confirmed in a press conference that the parliament unanimously reaffirmed its decision to approve the three projects, which reach legal status with the names of Digital Innovation Law, Law of Innovative Technology Arrangements, and Services and Law of Virtual Financial Assets.

Malta, officially the first country in the world to have a holistic legislative framework regulating blockchain and DLT technology. We will be the global hub for market leaders in this new sector. Now let’s move on to the implementation of Blockchain Island.

Joseph Muscat, PM of Malta

The Parliamentary Secretary for Digital Innovation and Finance of Malta, Silvio Schembri, then issued a tweet to disseminate the announcement, stating that with the legal status of these three projects, Malta becomes the first jurisdiction to provide full legal certainty in the blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems.

This is the final stage of legislation that will put Malta on the international map of blockchain and kryptonite regulation. There is political consensus on this roadmap and we anticipate that this area will become the pillar of our growth for the next 4-5 years.

Silvio Schembri

Malta adopted three projects that will comprehensively regulate blockchain and cryptocurrency

Malta’s Digital Innovation Act will allow for the establishment of the Malta Digital Innovation Authority (MDIA), which will operate autonomously and independently and will be responsible for all matters relating to technological innovation and its forms of use. In its initial phase, it will only regulate blockchain technology and smart contracts, but will also promote government policies, educate on technological fixes and encourage the advancement, design, and use of innovative technology.

On the other hand, the Law of Innovative Technology Arrangements and Services, which will be in charge of establishing the regulations required by the MDIA to operate with cryptocurrency, it will include registration of service providers, system administrators and auditors, as well as certification of technological arrangements.

Finally, the Virtual Financial Assets Act will establish the regulatory regime of the blockchain and cryptocurrencies market in order to ensure that the fundamental principles of financial regulation are complied with, that the investor is protected and that financial integrity is provided.

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