SEC Starts to Battle Unruly Crypto Hedge Funds 1883

This week, on the same day, two United States regulating bodies — the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and its ruling organization the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — reported filing objections against non-compliant crypto players who made some false statements regarding their businesses.

While the SEC barely needs any introduction for those who follow the crypto industry, FINRA might seem unfamiliar. FINRA is a private, non-federal agency, although it is overseen by the SEC. It regulates one specific part of the securities industry in the U.S.: brokerage firms doing business with the public.

What makes the news particularly interesting is that both agencies seemingly extended their purviews, as FINRA targeted a questionable crypto security and the SEC turned its attention to funds managing virtual currencies. And as the icing on the cake, a New York federal judge ruled that U.S. securities laws were applicable for dealing with crypto fraud allegations — all on the same day, Sept. 11.

FINRA has filed a complaint against a Massachusetts resident Timothy Tilton Ayre. The watchdog charged him with securities fraud and the illegal distribution of an unregistered cryptocurrency called HempCoin (HMP) (not to be confused with the company of the same name that trades THC tokens).

Here’s brief background: In April 2016, Ayre started advertising HMP as “the first minable coin backed by marketable securities” and a security backed by common stock, arguing that every 10 coins represented one share of his public company Rocky Mountain Ayre Inc. (RMTN).

Ayre’s HempCoins premiered on exchanges C-Cex and Yobit. More than than 81 million HMP coins were mined in late 2017 and traded on the aforementioned platforms. Currently, HMP is not listed at any exchange and its market cap totals a modest $104,463, according to CoinMarketCap. Ayre’s cryptocurrency has also seemingly erased all of its social media presence, while its former website reroutes to some unrelated content.

Thus, in the recent complaint, FINRA states that Ayre’s claims were “fraudulent, positive statements about RMTN’s business and finances.” As Ayre never attempted to register the coin, FINRA chose to charge the RMTN president with the unlawful distribution of an unregistered security.

In the press release, FINRA reminded that anyone named in its complaint can file a response and request a hearing. If the agency confirms there were violations, Ayre might face a fine, censure, suspension or be barred from the securities industry altogether.

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House of Rare disrupts investing and trading of scarce collectibles, launching the first asset-backed NFT marketplace on Concordium blockchain 3812

The Concordium blockchain will be used to launch House of Rare’s asset-backed NFT marketplace for fine spirits, leveraging Concordium’s novel ID framework to ensure that end user have the necessary attributes for the purchase for vendors legal compliance, such as age and jurisdictions.

House of Rare pioneered real item-backed NFTs with their first collection – RAREtequila. The collection consists of 777 NFTs, each redeemable for a bottle of highend limited edition tequila. The future plan is to branch out into the world of fine wine, champagne and cigars as additional assets in the near future.

Noticing the legal nature of these assets the marketplace will be developed on the Concordium blockchain to leverage the user friendly and privacy conserving Concordium ID-Layer, to achieve compliance with local authorities. Zero-knowledge proofs will help to verify whether customers are old enough to purchase alcohol in their country of residence while protecting personal data.

Users and collection creators will have a full suite of features to their advantage that will facilitate a personalized and joyful experience on the marketplace. Each House of Rare NFT has a real-life 1:1 item, fully redeemable by the buyers. The trustworthy custody of these assets will be transparently disclosed. Collectors are thereby ensured their NFT has real-life value and is scarce. This is a crucial aspect that will provide security for collectors. Furthermore, House of Rare will offer full collection integration. This means that collectors have full customizability and whitelisting options on sites of collection creators.

Miguel Ortiz, CEO of House of Rare, says: “We decided to develop on Concordium because of its network structure. The ID-layer ensures that the end user has the necessary attributes for the purchase and is located in a jurisdiction where we can sell our products. The decentralized approach and privacy measures adopted by Concordium made it an obvious choice for us.”

“Asset-backed NFTs are the future of NFTs, unlocking fractional ownership, liquidity, and value transfer by linking real-world assets to digital ownership and expanding the universe of tokenized assets. Our partnership with House of Rare will tap into the huge potential of asset-backed NFTs,” says Torben Kaaber, Head of Commercial at Concordium.

Øverlay, the first RegDeFi token launchpad on Concordium ready for mass adoption 3888

The Beta-test whitelisting of Overlay, the first Regulated Decentralised Finance (RegDeFi) token launchpad on Concordium, has been successful. +800 more whitelists are filled!

Overlay and Concordium partnered with the goal to help protect users from fraud within a decentralized structure and currently around 300 testers have helped Overlay in getting ready to go live. More are joining every day as testers receive Overlay token $OVL, USDC and CCD in advance.

Testers access the project, stake $OVL, get a tier rank determined by the amount of $OVL held, and deposit USDC at the same time. Whether or not they can invest in the project will be decided by a smart contract lottery after two weeks. The probability of winning the lottery increases depending on the Tier rank. Nevertheless, USDC will be returned to those who do not win the lottery.

Concordium, the only layer-1 blockchain with a built-in self sovereign ID framework, enables Øverlay to combine the benefits of Centralized Finance (CeFi) with DeFi (Decentralized Finance), to provide a secure and flexible platform for capital raising through IDOs.

Concoridum’s zero-knowledge proof and ID layer, ensures the integrity of fundraising activities and Overlay’s compliance with regulations worldwide. Its IDO platform is designed to be user-friendly, allowing projects to easily launch and manage their fundraising activities.

In addition, Øverlay provides a fast and easy onboarding process and distribution of project tokens, along with a lucrative tier model and OVL credits, with staking also available. The platform is fully community-driven and the perfect choice for projects looking to raise capital and for investors looking for investment opportunities in the DeFi space.

Øverlay’s use of decentralized technologies ensures that funds are secure and protected from fraud, meanwhile its community-driven nature enables a robust ecosystem that supports projects and investors alike.

The platform also offers a flexible, performance-based token distribution model that incentivises early adopters and rewards long-term participants. Øverlay will continue to evolve and improve, with regular updates and new features aimed at enhancing the user experience and driving innovation in the DeFi space.

Wirex Wallet Becomes World’s First Non-Custodial Wallet Without Seed Phrase Vulnerability to Launch Stellar Blockchain 3702

Wirex has become the world’s first non-custodial wallet without seed phrase vulnerability to launch the Stellar blockchain. The addition will see XLM and USDC on Stellar added to the Wirex Wallet.

Today’s integration adds to the eight other blockchains already available on the Wirex Wallet, including BTC, ETH and AVAX. With over 5 million users of the Wirex custodial app, the company launched theWirex Wallet in December 2020. It offers users complete control over their cryptocurrencies and NFTs, utilising multi-party computation (MPC) technology without seed phrase vulnerability to address security concerns with traditional crypto wallets. An unparalleled user interface allows built-in cross-chain swaps and direct access to popular DeFi protocols.

With over 100+ tokens available to buy, exchange and sell in the platform, XLM and USDC were strategically chosen as the next listings on the Wirex Wallet. USDC is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US dollar with one of the largest market shares, whilst XLM is the native coin to Stellar used for transaction fees within Stellar blockchain.

Wirex and Stellar have been partnered for some time, sharing a goal of democratising access to crypto. Together, the two companies developed insightful research reports into crypto user behaviour to understand needs better, whilst in October last year, Wirex announced the launch of USDC on Stellar on their app on-stage at the Stellar Development Foundation’s Meridian event in Rome.

Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex, said: “We’re delighted to work with Stellar to develop another world’s first across our platform, solidifying our reputation as an innovator. Integrating this complex non-EVM blockchain is a huge milestone for us, and is important in enabling more customers to access the benefits of more cryptos in a trusted and secure environment within the Wirex Wallet.”

XLM and USDC on Stellar will be available from today in the Wirex Wallet.

About Wirex

Wirex is a worldwide digital payment platform and regulated institution that has forged new rules in the digital payments space. In 2015, the firm developed the world’s first crypto-enabled payment card that gives users the ability to seamlessly spend crypto and traditional currencies in real life.

Founded in 2014 by CEOs and co-founders Pavel Matveev and Dmitry Lazarichev, Wirex was created to make the digital economy accessible to everyone. With over 5 million customers and rapid expansion into new territories, including the US, Wirex is uniquely placed to support and promote the mass adoption of a cashless society through creative solutions. To reflect the growth of the metaverse, throughout 2021, the company has continued to expand their offering into the CeFi and DeFi sectors.

wirexapp.com

Bitcoin of America Announces New ATM Kiosk Feature BillPay 3786

Bitcoin of America today announced BillPay, a new service offered through self-service ATMs. BillPay allows customers to pay utility bills through Bitcoin of America’s ATM kiosk, making paying bills more convenient. As an added bonus, if customers need cash, they have the option to easily sell their cryptocurrency, receive cash, and use it to make bill payments to their utility companies. Companies that can be paid through BillPay include Comed and Nicor. BillPay is currently available to customers using Bitcoin of America’s virtual currency kiosks in Illinois and Texas. This feature will be coming available to more states soon. Bitcoin of America is the first to offer bill payments through its ATM kiosks.

“We run our company to be valuable and to be a well run company for the long term”, says William Suriano, CLO at Bitcoin of America, on the success and innovations of the company.

Features and benefits of BillPay include:

  • Utility bill payment through BOA’s ATMs
  • Ease of selling cryptocurrency for cash to pay bills
  • Convenience of self-service bill payments

About Bitcoin of America

Bitcoin of America is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. The company ensures fast and hassle free transactions through their ATM machines, and offers industry-leading customer support. For more information about Bitcoin of America, visit https://www.bitcoinofamerica.org/.

LYOPAY Launches LYOPAY Pro – A Payment App Connecting Traditional Finance with Digital Currency 4691

LYOPAY, the ecosystem of crypto-friendly products, announced the launch of LYOPAY Pro, an innovative payment with cryptocurrencies and fiat money, available in 150 countries. LYOPAY Pro aims to provide a crypto-friendly app with integrated fiat currencies which, in enhancement to LYOPAY, will be available to multiple countries around the globe beyond Europe.

This futuristic app is built by LYOPAY to strengthen the financial services for people and empower them with global economic prosperity through financial inclusion. LYOPAY Pro aims to increase financial freedom around the globe, where access to money, both fiat as well as digital, is easy, fast, and flexible.

The mission of LYOPAY Pro is to facilitate the users with services that help evolve the financial systems that promote the adoption of cryptocurrency through the buying, selling, and transfer of crypto and utilizing the digital currency in their everyday lives.

The app enables the facilitation of multi-fiat and multi-crypto currencies as well as a payment card that would support the user’s preferred fiat currency together with crypto within it. This allows for a seamless adoption of crypto payments within the mainstream preference of fiat payments, going beyond borders and across the geographies the user may originate from or travel to.

LYOPAY Pro with its exclusive features enables people and industries to adopt financial innovation. Let’s take a look at what this innovative payment application offers:

Digital Banking

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulated platform with 24/7 support provides the following services.

Available six IBAN accounts are provisioned which enable digital banking services with unlimited balances. Since the six accounts are live at the same time and available to transact, there is no need of converting those currencies, and no need of deactivating a fiat wallet.

Crypto Wallet

Exciting features of the LYOPAY wallet are. Quick and simple wallet to external wallet transfers, sell your crypto for a traditional currency with access to some of the best rates. One simple rate for buy and sell. No hidden margin built into our prices. Fund your account by transferring your crypto from other wallets, or by using a debit / credit card or bank transfer Unlimited account and load limits Seamlessly spend your crypto globally with LYOPAY Pro debit card.

Cryptocurrencies

LYOPAY users have the ability to buy sell and trade in 9 different cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Tether (USDT), BAT, Paxos (PAX), USD Coin (USDC) and EOS

Travel and Concierge Services

As a member of the exclusive LYOPAY Pro, you can enjoy unparalleled luxury concierge services for all your holiday, shopping, reservation, entertainment, travel, transport, health and informative needs. The best part is that the travel offerings come at discounted rates, so that you get more than what the market offers. Make the most of your day with LYOPAY Pro!

Rewards

Enjoy the convenience of making payments in a secure and streamlined way with LYOPAY Pro. In addition, you will receive even more rewards when you make purchases from top brands in the US, Canada and beyond. Enjoy exclusive discounts from your favorite brands and make the most of your shopping experience.

Branded Physical and Virtual Cards

LYOPAY Pro includes a range of branded physical and virtual cards for your ease. These include:

  • Standard – Explorer
  • Aluminum: Titan
  • Gold Plated: Signature
  • Solid Gold: Excellence
  • SEPA and SWIFT Transfer

Experience easy money transfer and exchange with IBAN accounts, including debit cards and virtual cards. SEPA and SWIFT transfer also included for a wider coverage and reach.

Compatible Currencies

Compatible currencies will be USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, JPY and PHP.

About LYOPAY Pro

For more information on LYOPAY Pro, visit https://docs.lyopay.pro/ and explore the world of financial innovation. LYOPAY Pro is now available on Apple Pay and Google Pay. Download today and get started with your journey to financial freedom. Download the LYOPAY Pro App and Become a Part of The Bigger Picture. It’s all about being a part of the global economy, and this is exactly what LYOPAY Pro helps you with.

MicroCloud Hologram (NASDAQ: HOLO) Develops 3D-BIM Blockchain NFT Technology 4291

MicroCloud Hologram Inc. (“HOLO” or the “Company”), a Hologram Digital Twins Technology provider, today announced its development of a 3D-BIM multi-user collaborative design solution based on blockchain NFT technology. The solution is the result of the Company’s independent research and development, which is conducive to further improving the Company’s intellectual property protection system, maintaining its technological leadership, and enhancing its core competitiveness.

HOLO applies blockchain NFT technology to achieve highly reliable and traceable data management through the distributed ledger and consensus mechanism. Each block in the blockchain contains two hashes, the “current block hash” and the “previous block hash.” The latter block is linked to the previous block by the “previous block hash” to form a chain. Any slight modification to the block information will result in a change to the block hash. Therefore, if someone tries to tamper with a block in their local blockchain ledger, the block will be identified by other blockchain nodes due to a hash mismatch. And no single blockchain node can manipulate all the data in the blockchain. The blockchain can guarantee the security and trustworthiness of the data by keeping identical, immutable, and traceable copies of the complete data in each node.

The model developed by HOLO uses blockchain NFT technology to store drawing design information to protect designers’ copyright interests and incorporates IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) to ensure the reliability of drawings. The model is designed with a circular division mechanism to solve the problem of synchronizing drawing information when multiple people collaborate on designs. The model adopts SDT (Syntax-Directed Translation) method to realize 3D holographic drawing updates for construction projects and reduce the redundancy of blockchain information. The availability of multi-user collaborative design can effectively ensure the reliability of the drawing and reduce the redundancy of blockchain information, thus achieving copyright protection for the designer.

The data storage under HOLO’s blockchain NFT technology framework adopts a hybrid storage model. Blockchain ensures the security and reliability of the data stored on-chain. Using blockchain to store summary or design information and storing 3D-BIM drawing files off-chain (because blockchain is not suitable for directly storing large files such as 3D-BIM drawings, which will create greater data redundancy) and partitioning and encryption under the IPFS distributed file storage protocol can ensure the authenticity and trustworthiness of the stored files.

HOLO’s solution addresses the security, consistency, redundancy, and copyright issues of current 3D-BIM multi-user collaborative design in mapping by using blockchain NFT technology, which mainly solves the following problems that exist in traditional methods.

HOLO uses the on-chain and off-chain collaborative storage method of blockchain NFT and IPFS to preserve data security and trustworthiness. Mutual trust and supervision among 3D-BIM drawing designers are achieved through a consensus mechanism to improve data reliability. At the same time, data security can be ensured through the tamper-proof function of blockchain NFT.

In terms of information fusion and consistency, HOLO adopts a circular division mechanism to avoid the problem of information synchronization during the design process and ensure the consistency of 3D-BIM drawings among designers,

HOLO applies blockchain NFT’s SDT method to achieve incremental updates of 3D-BIM drawings. It uses blockchain information records to provide reliable proof of copyright and safeguard the copyright interests of designers, solving the problems of information redundancy and copyright issues of 3D-BIM drawings.

HOLO developed a multi-user collaborative design solution for 3D-BIM drawings based on blockchain NFT (on-chain) and IPFS (off-chain) storage. The solution stores encrypted drawing data through a collaborative approach, which ensures data security, reliability, and integrity while improving the scalability of the blockchain. In addition, the solution uses a cycle division mechanism to avoid the problem of synchronizing information during the design of 3D-BIM drawings. It adopts the SDT method to achieve efficiency in incremental updates of 3D-BIM drawings, reduces information redundancy, and applies the blockchain to record designers’ incremental design information to provide designers with an accurate copyright basis. HOLO’s blockchain NFT technology-based 3D-BIM multi-user collaborative design solution will provide users with a secure and efficient model.

HOLO has been developing and exploring deep in the field of blockchain NFT and digital twins technology based on numerous holographic data modeling, simulation, and bionics technologies. HOLO has built a repository of holographic digital twins based on blockchain NFT technology, which holographic developers and designers rely on. HOLO’s blockchain NFT technology-based digital twins repository integrates holographic bionics and simulation digital models, as well as various holographic technologies such as holographic spatial positioning, motion capture, and hologram synthesis, and is open to all users. HOLO provides customized holographic digital technology integration services based on blockchain NFT technology for corporate clients with tailored business needs.

About MicroCloud Hologram Inc.

MicroCloud Hologram Inc. engages in the research and development, and application of holographic technology. MicroCloud Hologram provides its holographic technology services to its customers worldwide. MicroCloud Hologram also provides holographic digital twin technology services and has a proprietary holographic digital twin technology resource library. MicroCloud holographic digital twin technology resource library captures shapes and objects in 3D holographic form by utilizing a combination of holographic digital twin software, digital content, spatial data-driven data science, holographic digital cloud algorithm, and holographic 3D capture technology. MicroCloud Hologram technology services include holographic light detection and ranging (LiDAR) solutions based on holographic technology, holographic LiDAR point cloud algorithms architecture design, technical holographic imaging solutions, holographic LiDAR sensor chip design, and holographic vehicle intelligent vision technology to service customers that provide holographic advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).