Weekly news roundup: Monday January 21
Here’s a selection of interesting recent news from the crypto-space.
As usual, this is not a complete roundup of recent crypto news, but a selection of news that ChainRift Research editors have found especially interesting.
Samourai Wallet has disabled some features — Stealth Mode, SIM Switch Defense, and Remote SMS Commands — due to “new extremely restrictive policies Google has decided to introduce.” The developers say:
“We applied for an exemption with Google months ago, which was rejected days ago, despite our argument that removing such functionality would cause users who rely on those features to be less secure and more exposed… In the coming months we will expand our distribution model to include self hosted APK downloads and inclusion in the open source F-Droid app store. These versions will all include the Stealth Mode, Remote SMS, and SIM Switch Defense features.”
Self-hosting independent versions of the app seems to make a lot of sense. It’s up to Google to decide what they allow in their Play Store, but it must be up to users to decide what to install on their Android phones. One problem is that the vast majority of Android users don’t know how to install applications that aren’t in Google’s Play Store, but it seems likely that most Samourai users do.
Blockchain technology company Currency.com is launching a fully-functional trading platform for tokenised securities, “which allows investors to trade, invest in, and benefit from exposure to, real-world financial instruments by directly using cryptocurrencies.”
Currency.com is the first blockchain business to be licensed by the High Technology Park (HTP) in Belarus following the adoption of the Decree #8 “On the Development of a Digital Economy.”
BitPatron is “a direct response to Patreon’s proclivity to censor content on the platform,” Bitcoin Magazine reports. Patreon, a popular platform that permits supporting creators, has been accused of censoring political positions, notably by Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. It will offer a similar crowdfunding platform as its predecessor, but will allow users to support creators with bitcoin.
Tangem, a company that develops “smart banknotes for digital assets,” has raised $15 million from SBI Crypto Investment. Tangem’s smart card technology permits storing cryptocurrencies on cheap physical plastic cards (Tangem notes) with a chip and NFC antenna inside. Like Opendime sticks, Tangem cards enable untraceable off-chain physical transactions. SBI President and CEO Yoshitaka Kitao said:
“The Tangem hardware wallet, which is highly secure and affordable, is an important tool to promote mass adoption of digital assets and blockchain.”
The news that Sweden has decided to ditch the Euro and adopt a cryptocurrency developed by Kryptonex is going viral on Facebook. I have seen a discussion with hundreds of comments enthusiastically praising the vision of the Swedish authorities.
Some astute readers remarked that Sweden can hardly ditch the Euro, which the country has never adopted. Yes, this is fake news and a scam that has been ongoing for months and goes viral now and then. I’m sure no ChainRift Research reader will take this seriously and send money to the scammers, but this is a good opportunity to remind that, in this era of viral fake news, it’s important to double-check.
Picture from pxhere.
