Episode 199 - HUGE Chinese ponzi scheme, New Zealand’s CryptoSalaries, Moscow’s blockchain and more

Join us on another Flagship Friday for your weekly dose of crypto news, shenanigans and goings-on! This week we talk about New Zealand's new step towards adoption, as it legalized using crypto as payment for employees, Moscow's Ethereum-based blockchain designed for transparently functioning city services, and Binance's coins listed for its US platform. Also, Brent never fails to remind us that there are more douchebags in the crypto scene other than Craig Wright, Karim just CANNOT stop buying Cardano and Adam almost died. Twice. Honestly.

Dive into the cryptoverse with us on this week's Flagship Friday. 

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Rapid Fire

- Bullish or Bullshit - Mark Cuban sees gold & BTC as the same thing: https://coinworld360.com/billionaire-mark-cuban-sees-gold-and-bitcoin-as-being-the-same-thing/
- And now Dallas Mavs accept Bitcoin, the 2nd NBA team to do so behind, the Kings who were accepting BTC in 2014. Mavs will be using BitPay
- Binance unveils the coins that will be available on it's US exchange https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-considering-support-for-30-tokens-for-us-customers 

- New Jersey has started a Blockchain Initiative Taskforce: https://www.publish0x.com/bitcoinz-news/new-jerseys-blockchain-initiative-task-force-vote-confidence-xknwvk 

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- Barclays ends partnership with Coinbase: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-barclays-coinbase/barclays-ends-partnership-with-cryptocurrency-exchange-coinbase-sources-idUSKCN1V40ZV 
- Relationship began in March last year when Coinbase was expanding in Europe
- Was mean t to make it easier for users to deposit and withdraw pounds to buy/sell crypto
- Neither company was down to comment
- Barclays declined to comment, while Coinbase did not respond to ***repeated*** requests for comment
- Common problem for crypto, one survey showed 3/4ths of crypto businesses in Britain have to bank overseas
- Even firms that don't handle digital coins, like web designers, just for being crypto associated

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Crypto Around the World

- New Zealand just became the first country to legalize salary payments in cryptocurrencies: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/new-zealand-legalizes-cryptocurrency-salaries-including-bitcoin-2019-8-1028442320 
- legally allow companies to pay salaries in cryptocurrency starting September 1
- The country's tax agency ruled salaries and wages may be paid in cryptocurrencies
- so long as the preferred digital coin is pegged to at least one standard, or fiat, currency.
- also requires that the crypto of choice be directly convertible into a standard form of payment.
- Excludes self-employed workers from switching income into crypto
- Moscow to Develop a Blockchain System for Transparent City Services: https://www.coindesk.com/moscow-to-develop-a-blockchain-system-for-transparent-city-services 

Moscow officially looking for a contractor to build blockchain system to host city's administrative services

Announced auction to build ethereum-based system, 57m Rubles ($850k)

List of services & specs

- Issuance of documents (property owners, residents, etc)
- Allocation of slots at city's farmers markets
- Will use proof-of-authority and max capacity of 1.5m simultaneous viewers (pop 12m)

They expect it to take 60 days to build once contractor has been chosen & contract signed

IT Department said it wants to increase confidence in Moscow's electronic services by boosting transparency using blockchain

Also integrated with other experiments Moscow city gov is undertaking, like "Active Citizen" which lets residents express preferences on matters such as locations of new bike paths, street decor, city events, etc

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THAT'S A SCAM

- PLUS Token, the biggest Chinese Ponzi scheme has scammed 70k BTC and 800k ETH: https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1161686134314848256?s=20 
- Dovey Wan reported it. PlusToken started in mid 2018 and a "high yield return". Total scammed is about $3B!
- Core team were tracked down by police 2 months ago and will likely be in jail for decades
- Exchanges can't do too much bc Chinese exchanges are closed and Chinese police can't work with exchanges because it's not legal in China.
- Was reading an anecdote about this - apparently some lady was selling stuff in her shop and taking it or BTC, and tried to convince the user to join because she got 8% on her money every month.

https://twitter.com/DoveyWan/status/1161693110214090752?s=20 

- CipherTrace Report says $4.26B was stolen in exit scams so far this year: https://ciphertrace.com/q2-2019-cryptocurrency-anti-money-laundering-report/ 
- $124M was stolen from exchanges and infrastructure in Q2, bringing YTD total to $227M.
- $851M was "lost" by Bitfinex before.
- Those numbers are based on when the theft happens, and thus the values are even higher .
- We can thank PLUS Token for 2.9B of that big number.
- Also in the report that's interesting - XMR is only used for 4% of dark markets and even less for ransomware attacks. Oddly Doge is 5th most used in dark markets.
- The report has a cool list of summary of big events relating to overall market in Q2.
- Report mentions the big effect of a new Financial Action Task Force (FATF) rule which requires crypto transactions of more than 1k to have identifying information, and speculates there is a way to secure the data except when law enforcement wants it.

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Mailbag

intechnicolor (discord)

just want to ask, as I'm not entirely sure where to ask this, but has anyone had any luck or experience with crypto cards? I'm looking for essentially the equivalent of a debit card. Does it exist yet? I've come across Ternio a few times in my search, as well as (for better or worse) Coinbase's Shift

Tune in for the answer! ;)

Rants

-Just a reminder that Roger Ver is also a pos.

-Things getting so much better

 

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