Major Japanese messaging app LINE has signed a memorandum of understanding with local financial giant Nomura Holdings to form a blockchain alliance, a press release reveals on Wednesday, Jan. 30. Nomura, which provides investment, financing and related services to individual, institutional and government customers, LINE and LVC Corporation, which oversees messenger's digital asset and blockchain business units, will sign a formal contract by the end of March 2019. The three partners are considering establishing a financial alliance focused on blockchain. More details will be announced closer to the date, according to the press release. LINE and Nomura have successfully partnered …

There are thousands of pump-and-dump groups on popular messaging apps, a study conducted by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) revealed Dec. 18. Pump-and-dump is the fraudulent practice of perpetrators encouraging unwitting investors to buy an asset to inflate its price artificially, and then selling it when the price gets high enough. This practice is not new, Cointelegraph having reported last year about Telegram groups organizing pump-and-dumps. The newly published data, however, “suggest that [the pump-and-dump] phenomenon is widespread and often quite profitable.” According to an article on the study, published by Bloomberg Dec. 19, the researchers have identified 4,818 …

According to mathematician Meni Rosenfeld, Israel is a Bitcoin “forerunner.” With large numbers of users in the country, the number of startups and merchants continues to grow. Rosenfeld says: “I think the Bitcoin community in Israel is more coherent than in many other places in the world, which can be attributed to the small size of the country. Everyone is in driving distance from anyone else, so its much easier to breed communities that actually meet up and cooperate.” Among the list of Israel-based startups, Bits of Gold — in which Rosenfeld is an investor — GetGems and Polycoin lead …

California is discussing a license for businesses in the cryptocurrency sector, leading to fears of a NewYork-style BitLicense proposal. Victoria, Australia to auction off US$7.1 million in bitcoin after a Silk Road dealer has his assets liquidated. Privacy-centric messenger app Wiper pulled from Chinese app store after including Bitcoin payment option, and much more news that happened on March 15. California proposes to ban unlicensed Bitcoin businesses Despite making bitcoins legal for transactions back in 2014, the state of California is now debating the introduction of bill AB 1326, a proposal to ban any unlicensed Bitcoin businesses. Strongly reminiscent of …

The social messaging app Wiper added a built-in bitcoin wallet last month, enabling instant transactions among contacts, as well as basic wallet functionality. Bitcoin integrated Wiper is most often compared to SnapChat, but unlike that popular app, it isn't entirely focused on vanishing messages. Wiper, unlike SnapChat, doesn't delete messages by default. Instead, users can decide when to delete messages from both their phones and the recipient's phone. Adding a bitcoin wallet in the app couldn't be simpler. Hit a few buttons, set a four digit pass code, write down the backup phrase and you are good to go. It …

When sending payments, popular services PayPal and SWIFT allow users to attach private messages that add an explanation about the payment. Before now, bitcoin services haven't supported this feature. However, CoinSpark just launched a tool that works that accomplishes this for bitcoin transactions. They open sourced this tool so that developers can implement the feature in their own applications. These messages, inserted as metadata on the blockchain, give context for the transaction. Users can explain that a transaction is payment for a loan, for instance, or payment for a bet. The message can come in a variety of forms, whether …

First there were social networks, then came Bitcoin. Then Bitcoin 2.0. Now, directly over the horizon, comes a new platform—a “social network 2.0” called Gems. This social network and messaging app is similar to Facebook and WhatsApp, but its developers have designed it with crucial differences. Gems will be decentralized, and it will reward its users for its success. Five years after the invention of Bitcoin, the latest innovators are building applications that work on top of the Bitcoin protocol and that make use of Bitcoin blockchain technology. One of the largest contenders in the Bitcoin 2.0 sphere is Counterparty, …