IBM: Blockchain Cooperation with India’s Telecommunications Providers

IBM wants to prepare Indian telecommunications providers for the fourth industrial revolution. The responsible regulatory authority TRAI has also recognized the potential of blockchain and DLT.

While crypto currencies have a hard time in India, the government around Prime Minister Narendra is very sympathetic to blockchain technology. Modi not only wants to push the cooperation of the BRICS states in this area; in addition, the World Economic Forum in Maharastra opened a „Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution“ in October.

Indian interest in distributed ledger technology has also brought technology giant IBM onto the scene. The US company is currently working with Indian telecommunications companies on blockchain solutions for the country’s huge telecommunications market.

This Bitcoin code was reported by The Economic Times on 12 December

„We have completed the proof of concept and pilot Bitcoin code projects with all major telecommunications providers and with TRAI in this Bitcoin code area, Sriram Raghavan, CTO of IBM India and South Asia, told the Economic Times. TRAI, or The Regulatory Authority of India, is the Indian regulatory authority for telecommunications. It met with the companies involved on 10 December to discuss the next steps. A TRAI official told the Economic Times:

„[…] Telecommunications service providers are now in the process of updating their providers.“

First Step of the Bitcoin code

Both IBM and TRAI have so far been silent about which Bitcoin code providers are meant by this. In the coming months the first Bitcoin code and/or DLT products are to come on the market. First, the national Do-Not-Call database is to be converted to DLT. Customers who do not want to receive calls from telemarketers can register their telephone numbers there.

One thing is certain: the telecom companies of the subcontinent can certainly tolerate a fresh cell cure. Despite its immense size, the Indian mobile phone market is not considered to be very lucrative. The reason for this is the low prices. However, there is still enormous growth potential in the area of network coverage. 70 percent of India’s population lives in rural regions. Only 58 percent of the country is covered by the telecommunications network.

Bitcoin Price: Slight Upwind, NASDAQ Plans Futures

Bitcoin: The leading crypto currency by market capitalization is recovering slightly. In the last 24 hours, it recorded a plus of seven percent. As usual, most Altcoins such as XRP from Ripple, Ethereum and Stellar are following suit. At the same time, NASDAQ announces the launch date for Bitcoin futures.

Bitcoin news: The bank coin follows suit

As usual, the Altcoin market is oriented towards the mother of all crypto currencies and follows suit. Ripples XRP currently stands at just under 0.38 US dollars and has risen by 5.8 percent in the last 24 hours. In the weekly Bitcoin news as in the monthly course the XRP course sank however around 14 and/or 16 per cent. Read more about it: https://www.geldplus.net/en/bitcoin-news-trader-review/

The Bitcoin price is recovering slightly, at least within the last 24 hours. Ultimately, it is a matter of opinion: if one had spoken of a price drop at a rate of 4,000 US dollars two months ago, it would have shown a slight upswing today. Bitcoin felt this in the morning hours of 28 November and currently stands at 4,100 US dollars. In the course of the week, on the other hand, it would be exaggerated to speak of recovery – here it is still ten percent minus that the share price had to put up with. In the last 30 days, however, the BTC/USD pair lost 36 percent.

Bitcoin news about Ethereum, our problem child

Course-technical problem child in the Top 3 of the Bitcoin news is probably still Ethereum. The Ether price on the 24h chart could increase by eight percent. A week ago, however, it was still 14 percent higher in the Bitcoin news, a month ago even by 40 percent. Vitalik Buterin’s head birth currently stands at 117 US dollars.

Hash War finished: BCH attracts
Bitcoin Cash can also grow after the end of the Hash Wars – the daily chart shows a plus of almost nine percent. BTCH is currently at 205 US dollars with a weekly minus of 16.8 percent and a monthly minus of 52 percent.

Stellar Lumens (XLM) gains momentum
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is also currently up 6.4 percent per day. This puts the Stellar exchange rate at 0.145 US dollars. In the course of the week this is 23 percent minus and in monthly retrospect 32 percent which the XLM rate would have to take.

Bitcoin: Overstock misses expectations

Throughout the year, the company had published several forecasts. In the first year of Bitcoin acceptance, CEO Patrick Byrne mentioned expectations of USD 10-15 million, and even USD 20 million in 2014.

Bitcoin news generated sales of $3 million

Throughout the year, onlinebetrug had published several forecasts. In the first year of Bitcoin news, CEO Patrick Byrne mentioned expectations of $10-15 million, and even $20 million in 2014.

Judd Bagley, Communication and General Manager of Overstock Cryptocurrency Group, confirmed that the company had anticipated Bitcoin’s revenues to exceed $3 million:

„Even though we are proud of the sales figures and that customers are paying in Bitcoin, we still expected higher revenues.
Overstock recently announced that more than 11,100 customers paid in Bitcoin on the US and international websites.
The announcement comes in the midst of a period of bad headlines about Bitcoin’s price performance by major publishers. Currently, we are hearing more and more about the depreciation of Bitcoin against the US dollar in 2014.
Overstock became one of the largest Bitcoin accepting companies in the world in January. The acceptance on the part of Overstock aroused the interest of many other companies who followed suit and now accept Bitcoin.

Sluggish international sales figures of Bitcoin formula

Bagley pointed out that the overall lower than expected Bitcoin formula was due to international distribution. According to Overstock, international customers generate weekly „several thousand“ dollars. However, the company expected at least 7,000-8,000 US dollars, as is also the case on the US website about Bitcoin formula.

Nevertheless, Bagley stresses that individual international customers tend to spend more than the average US citizen.

„An interesting observation is that average purchases are unusually high at $400-500 per order,“ Bagley says. „So a few people on the international website make big purchases, even if they only do it four to five times a week.

Overstock did not say how much of the $3 million could be attributed to international business. However, the company had already reported a turnover of 1 million US dollars in just 2 months in March. At that time a payment with Bitcoin was only possible in the USA. These figures also suggest that the Bitcoin payment of „only“ $2 million over the next 10 months must have decreased over the year.

Strong metrics
Although Bitcoin’s sales did not fully meet expectations, Bagley stressed that Overstock had seen significant profits.50% of Bitcoin customers had never placed an order with Overstock.com before and there was no trace of the Bitcoin support tearing down.

„It’s impossible not to exaggerate how important Bitcoin is to the company. Just for winning new customers in this highly competitive market,“ says Bagley.

Bagley estimates that the average customer acquisition for a single customer in the e-commerce industry is approximately $20. With the integration of Bitcoin alone, the company has been able to save around USD 200,000 so far.

ETH course analysis – Are we coming from the downward channel?

The share price recovered slightly. Temporarily a week maximum of 739.46 euro could be reached. Even if a slight upward trend could form, Ethereum moves sideways since reaching the weekly high and tests a resistance at 700 Euro.

The price for Bitcoin trader has risen this week

After last week’s crash an uptrend was formed for the Bitcoin trader, which is currently running into a resistance at about 700 Euro. The most important support is at 636.21 Euro, the most important resistance at 739.46 Euro. As also in the case of Bitcoin trader recovered well, moves however up-to-date sideways: The Ethereum course oscillates around the EMA100 and tried several times to rise over 700 euro. So far, this has only worked out sustainably on 10 February. On the positive side, however, the share price has been following a tentative upward trend since 7 February. Together with the development of the maxima since 3 February, the share price is moving in a triangle-like formation in which support and resistance converge. A positive breakout from this formation would be desirable, as we are moving close to the resistance of the downward-channel (marked violet) since mid-January.

The MACD (second panel from above) is just above zero. Furthermore, the MACD line (blue) currently rises above the signal (orange).

The RSI (third panel from above) is at 53 and thus neutral.

The price estimates presented by the crypto trader are not recommendations to buy or sell

Overall, the situation is neutral – as one would expect with the current sideways trend as seen here: Crypto Trader Review 2018 » Full Scam Check. Similar to last week, the behavior of the price at the downward-trends is interesting: A breakthrough through the blue resistance of the triangle-like formation would pave the way to crypto trader prices beyond the violet-marked downward-channel.

The support is defined by the blue upward-trend and is at 636.21 Euro. Falling below this level would mean an end to the existing upward trend. Should the price fall even lower, another interesting support line would be the EMA 840, which currently stands at 565.18 Euro. This corresponds to the EMA20 on the weekly chart, which is why breaching it for more than a week would be a warning signal for further downward movements.

The resistance is described by last week’s maximum price and is at 739.46 euros. A rise above this value would not only confirm the upward trend, the downward channel would also be tested. Another resistance is described by the price before the big fall and is 796,324 Euro.

Extension of speculation period for crypto currencies to 10 years?

The following article is a summary of CryptoTax’s elaboration on the extension of the speculation period for cryptoassets. It was written by Klaus Himmer, CEO and Co-Founder of CryptoTax. Further information on this topic can be found at www.cryptotax.io.

The background to the debate is the wording of Section 23 (1) sentence 1 no. 2 sentence 4 EStG:

„In the case of [private] assets within the meaning of sentence 1, the [speculative] period is increased to ten years if they are used as a source of income in at least one calendar year.

Since a grammatical interpretation leaves little room for interpretation, it is widely held that this provision also applies to crypto currencies.

The extension of the speculation period – an anti-abuse provision

The extension can be traced back to the 2008 Corporate Tax Reform Act and was introduced on the basis of tax-saving models – so-called container leasing models. Special purpose vehicles sold containers to private investors and offered them rental contracts and often a fixed surrender value at the end of the lease term. The investors generated rental income with the containers, which for tax purposes represents income from other services within the meaning of § 22 No. 3 EStG, as containers are also regarded as private assets. The investors were able to reduce the rental income by a so-called deduction for container wear and tear (AfA).

This is intended to reflect the depreciation of the asset and is measured on the basis of the normal useful life. The useful life is generally determined by the individual circumstances of the asset. In order to facilitate the procedure in practice, there are additional flat-rate data for types of assets in so-called depreciation tables of the Federal Ministry of Finance. Transport containers therefore have a flat-rate useful life of ten years.

The income from other services within the meaning of § 22 No. 3 EStG can thus be reduced annually by the flat-rate depreciation of ten per cent of the acquisition costs of the container, which regularly did not correspond to the actual wear and tear of the containers and was shown by the fact that the agreed surrender value was considerably higher than the tax book value.

Does it make sense to apply it to crypto currencies?

However, the lump-sum depreciation usually only has a temporary effect, as a discrepancy between the tax book value and the actual market value is taken into account at the latest when the asset is sold as part of a private sale transaction by adjusting the acquisition costs accordingly. Since, prior to the 2008 Corporate Tax Reform Act, sales of private assets were tax-free after one year without exception and the depreciation discrepancy was therefore not taken into account for tax purposes, such container leasing models became attractive investment and tax-saving models.

The extension of the speculation period to ten years was intended to make such models unattractive and thus constitutes a tax avoidance regulation. A teleological interpretation of the standard, taking into account the intention to legislate, thus clearly shows that the extension of the deadline cannot be applied to non-depreciable digital assets.

In the social media and other information media, there has recently been increasing discussion as to whether the holding period for income generation through the use of Bitcoin, ether or other crypto currencies should be extended from one year to ten years. Income can be achieved with cryptoassets by different possibilities. On the one hand, users can actively participate in the block discovery processes. Through the various consensus protocols, staking can also be used in addition to mining to generate passive income.

Furthermore, decentralized network nodes based on a remuneration structure can also generate income. Crypto currencies such as Dash, PIVX or Zcoin have implemented master nodes in the existing system for this purpose. Since these sources of income are at the same time an essential basis for the functionality of the blockchain-based systems shown, a tenfold increase in the holding period in Germany would have a dampening effect on the spread of these innovative technologies and thus on Germany as a technology location in addition to the effect on the investment behavior of investors.