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A group of judges, lawmakers and industry experts in South Korea are forming a new group aimed to discuss legal issues surrounding blockchain technology. Called the Blockchain Law Society, the group is holding its founding conference on Aug. 24 in the Seoul Central District Court, during which participants will discuss both regulatory issues around blockchain and how to utilize the tech in the legal space. According to a press release published Monday, Jung-yeop Lee, the presiding judge of the district court in the city of Daejeon, founded the organization as an industry-led initiative intended to foster dialogue within the country’s justice and legislative arms, as well as elsewhere in society. “Blockchain Law Society was founded not only to study blockchain technology from a legal aspect, but also to promote interdisciplinary collaborations across diverse areas, such as economics, computer engineering, field business,” the announcement said. Initial topics to be addressed at th...

Zheshang Bank, one of the largest privately held commercial banks in China, has completed the issuance of $66 million securities to investors by using its proprietary blockchain platform. Based on public documents , the bank filed its prospectus to the Shanghai Clearing House on Aug. 13 with a plan to issue securities worth 400 million yuan, or $66 million, that are backed by a portfolio of account receivables from various corporations. According to a report from China Securities Journal on Monday, the bank subsequently  completed the issuance on Aug. 17 and became one of the first institutions in the country to have facilitated transactions for securities backed by a group of assets via blockchain. The platform, called Lianrong, was designed in-house by the bank with the purpose of allowing registered companies to broadcast their account receivable assets to potential investors and to further let them settle transactions of these invoices as a securities in a peer-to-peer fa...

A 21-year-old bitcoin dealer from California is being prosecuted for allegedly committing numerous counts of illegal money transmission and money laundering. According to an announcement from the Department of Justice in the Southern District of California, Jacob Burrell Campos was ordered to be held without bail at a hearing on Friday in connection to the charges. Based on a court filing against him entered on Aug. 8 and unsealed over the weekend, the prosecutors alleged that, from January 2015 to April 2016, Burrell sold about $750,000 worth of bitcoin to 900 individuals in the U.S. via his bitcoin exchange service. The document said Burrell had not registered the exchange as a licensed money transmitter and intentionally failed to implement anti-money laundering measures. As such, he was accused of one count of illegal money transmission and one count of money laundering. Further, the prosecutors said in order to fund his “illegal” bitcoin exchange, Burrell committed a t...

Chinese police from multiple cities have arrested three individuals who allegedly stole bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies worth around $87 million. Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday that the three were busted on Aug. 15 in the provinces of Hunan and Changchun and the country’s capital Beijing after a months-long investigation launched by the police. According to the report, a self-declared victim, identified by the surname Zhang, first filed a complaint to the police in the northwestern city of Xi’an in March, alleging his computer had been hacked and crypto assets worth around $14.5 million stolen. The police investigation, which received assistance from several unnamed internet companies, later located a suspect with the surname Zhou, who they claimed had made a remote attack to transfer the funds from Zhang’s computer. As the investigation continued, the police further identified two alleged accomplices of Zhou that they said were highly experienced hackers. ...

Chinese police from multiple cities have arrested three individuals who allegedly stole bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies worth around $87 million. Chinese news agency Xinhua reported on Saturday that the three were busted on Aug. 15 in Hunan, Changchun provinces, and the capital city Beijing, respectively, after a months-long investigation launched by the police. According to the report, a self-claimed victim, identified by his surname Zhang, first filed a complaint to the police in the northwestern city Xi’an in March that his computer was hacked and lost crypto assets worth around $14.5 million. The police investigation, with assistance from several notable but unnamed internet companies, later located a suspect with the surname Zhou, who allegedly broke into Zhang’s personal computer remotely to transfer the funds. As the investigation went on, the police further identified Zhou’s two other accomplices, who are both alleged to be highly experienced hackers. The police...

The South Korean government will invest over $880 million next year in order to boost the development of innovative technologies including blockchain. According to a government release on Tuesday, deputy prime minister Kim Dong Yeon hosted a ministerial meeting on Aug. 13 to address the administration’s investment plan for innovation growth in the next five years. Data  disclosed on the website of the Ministry of Economy and Finance shows that the government is set to allocate 1 trillion won (about $880 million) in 2019 – an 80 percent growth compared to that in 2018 – for technologies including blockchain, big data and AI. Further, the authority said it will invest a total of $8–9 billion in the same areas over the coming five years. The goal is to “focus on promoting big data and AI, developing blockchain technology to ensure data management security and boosting the sharing economy,” according to the statement. The high-level investment plan doesn’t yet provide...

Y Combinator (YC) has just announced a new China division and its chief believes blockchain will bring long-term advantages to startups, according to a report The Silicon Valley-based seed investment firm, which has incubated notable startups including Reddit, Dropbox and crypto exchange Coinbase, officially announced its entry into the Chinese market in a blog post on Wednesday alongside news that Lu Qi – a former chief operating officer of Baidu – will be in charge of the new arm. In an interview with local media outlet 36Kr, Lu  commented  today that YC China’s main goal will be to focus on startup incubation, talent training and research and development, as well the creation of a non-profit research lab. Lu also discussed blockchain, saying he believes its core features of data encryption and digitization of trust mean it has long-term potential in business. He added that the technology is especially interesting for its provision of different types of ince...

Japanese messaging giant LINE has launched a token venture fund with a capital commitment of $10 million via its recently established subsidiary called Unblock Ventures. The publicly traded firm announced the fund in a release on Wednesday and said it aims to invest in blockchain startups in an effort to boost technological development. While Unblock Ventures, incorporated in Hong Kong in July, will be the fund’s manager, the $10 million capital is solely provided by LVC Corporation, another subsidiary of the LINE group. The company said it expects to increase the total amount of the fund in the future based on the development of the blockchain industry. Today’s launch is part of LINE’s wider push into the cryptocurrency space and comes just a month after it officially started the operation of its cryptocurrency trading platform called Bitbox. It was also announced today that Bitbox has listed TRX – the native token of the June  launched TRON blockchain – as the first ...

Mobile payments firm Square now lets customers buy and sell bitcoins via its Cash App in all 50 U.S. states. The company – which was co-founded by Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey – announced the service expansion through a Tweet on Monday, months after the firm initially rolled out the bitcoin service to investors in the country. As reported by CoinDesk, Square officially launched the bitcoin purchasing option on its Cash App in January following a testing phase started last year. However, the service was not offered in the states of New York, Georgia, Hawaii and Wyoming due to their more restrictive regulations regarding bitcoin transactions. In fact, Coinbase  suspended  its bitcoin buying service in Hawaii last year after regulators in the state imposed a double reserve requirement on the exchange, meaning it would have been required to maintain cash reserves equal to any cryptocurrency funds held for its customers. In March, though, Square expanded t...

China’s Communist Party is moving to make blockchain literacy the norm across public offices with the publication of an explainer for officials and members. Released by the publishing house of the People’s Daily – the party’s news outlet – the book is titled “Blockchain – A Guide for Officials”, according to a report from the Daily on Monday. Starting with an explanation of the origin and features of blockchain, the guide moves onto the current and future applications and challenges the tech brings to the business and legal world. According to the People’s Daily, the goal is to help government officials better understand the concept of blockchain as part of a wider effort to facilitate the development and adoption of the technology. Ye Zhenzhen, head of People’s Daily, writes in the book: “The biggest impact of blockchain lies in its operation mechanism … which seeks to achieve consensus as a way to govern a community. It offers us a brand new angle to think about and resol...

A 22-year-old cryptocurrency millionaire has lost more than 5,500 bitcoins in an alleged investment scam in Thailand – one that drew public attention due to the alleged involvement of a Thai film actor. According to a media report from Bangkok Post on Monday, a group approached and solicited Finnish businessman Aarni Otava Saarimaa in June 2017 over investment in several Thai stocks, a casino in Macau and a new cryptocurrency called Dragon Coin. The group claimed that upon issuance, Dragon Coin could be used at the casino, the report said. They also brought Saarimaa to the Macau casino in order to demonstrate the legitimacy of the project. Saarimaa, who bought into the scheme, transferred a total of 5,564 bitcoins to the group, the report indicted. Having seen no returns months after the investment, Saarimaa filed a complaint to Thailand’s Crime Suppression Division (CSD) in January, together with his local business partner who believed the investment plan was a scam. The CS...