The tokenization of assets provides for an increasing merger of traditional and crypto-financial instruments. At the same time, security token offerings (STOs) pose new challenges for regulators worldwide: Which tokens require which regulation? When is a security talk, when is a token an asset?

The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin has addressed this issue in a specialist article. In it, the agency notes a “paradigm shift” as a result of the tokenization of assets in the form of security tokens.

What is an investment?

The Investment Act, to which BaFin refers in the article, defines an investment as

•     Shares which grant a participation in the result of a company
•     Shares in a property that the issuer or a third party owns or manages in its own name for foreign account (trust assets)
•     Partial loans (equity loans)
•    Subordinated loan
•    Participation rights
•     Registered Notes
•    Other investments providing or promising cash settlement in exchange for temporary lending of interest and repayment or assets

The relationship between bitcoin mining and course is commonly underestimated. What role does bitcoin mining play in pricing? Why does the Bitcoin price rise historically in anticipation of a pending halving of the block reward? And is mining worth it for the individual? Investors should know about BTC mining.

The hash rate increases again. Currently, the accumulated computing power in the Bitcoin network is 51.5 million terahashes per second (Th / s). Compared with the mid-term low of around 35 million Th / s in December 2018, a significant increase in the hash rate can be observed in less than half a year.

However, the increase falls into a period when it was still unclear whether the Bitcoin price has already found its bottom. So how is it to be explained that mining farms resume operation without a price signal justifying it?

A new browser add-on now offers the ability to pay via Bitcoin Lightning Network at Amazon and some other online retailers.

The functionality is provided by a plugin for the Google Chrome browser. Plugins for Opera as well as the data-sparing Brave Browser are already being planned.

Behind it lies the payment service provider Moon, who has the service still in the beta phase. The testers had to connect the accounts with the Bitcoin exchange Coinbase.

Security Token Offerings (STOs) have received a lot of attention in recent months. The reason for this is the incredible potential that STOs have in the area of ​​corporate finance. In this guest contribution we explain how both GmbHs, which play an important role in the middle class, and private investors can benefit from security tokens.

The shift from classic corporate finance through stock issuance to STOs that issue digital coins brings a lot of flexibility and speed to the market. This is because, for example, digital tokens can be traded at any time of the day or night. Transactions are executed at lightning speed. In comparison, the settlement of shares in almost all brokers still takes two days.

Bitcoin scaling made easy. Lightning Labs launches the first desktop version of its client on the Bitcoin Mainnet. Users can now download the Lightning Client for Linux, MacOS and Windows. This is another hurdle in the direction of BTC adaptation.

Bitcoin also scales without larger blocks. This underlined Lightning Labs once again with the release of the latest version of the Lightning app for the three major operating systems.

As the US company announced in a blog post, Bitcoin enthusiasts can now access the Alpha version 0.5.0 of the Lightning Desktop Client and download for testing purposes.

The electronics manufacturer Samsung is reportedly planning its own blockchain. The South Koreans also want to emit a token. After the crypto wallet in the latest smartphone flagship S10, Samsung seems to expand its blockchain strategy.

The issue of coins and tokens is becoming increasingly attractive for tech companies. After Facebook had already announced the end of 2018, to publish a stable coin for WhatsApp to sound from the house of Samsung now similar sounds.

As the industry magazine CoinDesk Korea reports, a task force is already working on the development of a blockchain based on Ethereum. In doing so, the medium relies on an unnamed insider source that claims to be familiar with the internal processes.

Together with the Swiss investment company Final Frontier, mining giant Bitfury announces the launch of a joint crypto-fund this week. In the future, Liechtenstein’s main aim is to stimulate the interest of institutional investors in the industry. Meanwhile, observers currently rate the timing of mining investments as favorable.

High electricity prices, strict conditions, logistical challenges, fluctuating yields – Bitcoin mining is constantly fraught with high hurdles and uncertainties worldwide. For a long time, these insurance companies and banks stopped using their money to mine new Bitcoin.

The Dutch mining giant Bitfury wants to meet this now and open the door for investors in the often seemingly mysterious business. This Wednesday, April 24, the company announced together with the Swiss investment company Final Frontier the launch of a joint mining fund. This is to enable investors to participate in the success of Bitfury-operated mining facilities.

As it says in a joint press release, Bitfury wants to lure them with the “world’s lowest electricity and operating costs”.

The size of the fund and the immediate possibilities of the investment left both companies open at times. What is certain, however, is that the fund should be located in the tiny state of Liechtenstein and can already count on the blessing of the responsible tax authorities.

Volkswagen is working with Minespider on a blockchain solution. The pilot project aims to make the supply chain transparent through blockchain technology.

The technology under Bitcoin is – at least among insiders – known to be anything but anonymous. Rather, Bitcoin transactions are pseudonyms; On the publicly available Bitcoin Blockchain, it is easy to keep track of when transactions have been sent between owners. In other words, blockchain technology is transparent. Moreover, since it is immutable (the Bitcoin transaction history is forever committed to the blocks of the blockchain), it is suitable for many non-financial applications.