Japan's new licensing for 11 bitcoin exchangers

As China is withdrawing from bitcoin trading, operating licenses have been issued to 11 bitcoin exchanges by Japan's Financial Services Agency (FSA) 

The new Japanese law established bitcoin as a legal payment method and is now enforcing new ruling regarding security guidelines for cryptocurrency exchanges.

The licensing enforces certain operational requirements for the exchanges. These include: the verification of customer identities, the segregation of customer accounts and high standards for cybersecurity.

The new regulations are intended to protect investors from fraud and cyber crime, while supporting financial technology innovation.

The registration places several requirements on the companies, such as building a strong computer system and checking the identity of users to prevent money laundering.

Japan is currently uniquely proactive in its cryptocurrency regulations.

Bitcoin payments may be accepted at over 260,000 stores in Japan by this summer as result of partnerships between bitcoin exchanges and major retailers.

Coincheck, which holds most of the bitcoin payment market share in Japan, will bring Bitcoin payments to shops that use AirRegi, a point-of-sale app developed by Recruit Lifestyle, by this summer.

Using AirRegi customers can simply scan the barcode displayed on the app to pay with bitcoin. Coincheck will then process the transaction, converting the bitcoin into yen.

It was also very recently  reported that Japanese banks are considering setting up their own digital currency called the J-Coin.

Japan already had over 4,000 locations accepting bitcoin and considering the tax incentives and the new favourable regulations the country is expected to have a positive impact on consumer confidence and growth of the domestic virtual currency market.

As for the new regulations and licensing the exchange firms are reacting very enthusiastically.

Quoine, one of the 11 bitcoin exchange firms to receive a license said that they are aiming "towards the healthy development of the cryptocurrency industry within Japan and on a global scale."

"Japan has been exploding with demand for both bitcoin trading as well as virtual currency services," said Bitflyer's CEO, Kano.

"The FSA's approval for bitFlyer to operate as a Registered Virtual Currency Exchange, and the agency's openness and forward thinking regulation could not come at a better time for the blockchain space."

Lifehack Finders Nice to know:

Blockchain is a digital leger that is dispersed across networks. It is used in the cryptocurrency space to securely record every transaction between users.

Deep Web Datamining

Top acadamic research states that more than 99% of the entire World Wide Web internet traffick remains hidden in the Deep Web.

To illustrate the difference in accessibility to data and information; this means tens of trillions of pages opposite to the mere billions on the surface of the "regular" internet.

The reason for the difference in finding deep websites or not finding them, lies in the programming and functionality of regular search engines; they are simply not made to browse the Deep Web effectively.

Datamining the Deep Web creates more chances for success because it includes any website that cannot be detected by the Google, Yahoo and other similar search tools (‘crawlers’) to search the internet for sites to fill its results pages.

The Deep Web excists mainly of database-driven websites, and any part of a website that’s past a login page. Going into the Deep Web you can reach temporary sites, sites that are blocked (by local webmasters) and even sites with special formats.

Datamining as appealing as it may seem in the Deep Web is an impossible endeavor to do by hand, because of the vastness of the available data.

There are some bots today however, that can work around the problem and it is worth the effort to do some homework before you begin.

Here are the names of some helpful tools to remember, when considering datamining in the Deep Web:

Tor: short for The Onion Router
 
HiWE (Hidden Web Exposer)
Stanford's prototype engine

Infoplease

PubMed

University of California's Infomine
 
BrightPlanet’s Big Data Mining tool: the Deep Web Monitor

The MAS (Multi-agent Information System) a newly proposed deep web data mining algorithm, currently being further developed by researchers from Hebei University in China.

Lifehack Finders Nice to Know:

Keep in mind that Tor (although widely known and used) does not use Javascript, making it difficult for analytics software to mine.

Bitcoin 2009 - 2017 overview

Bitcoin current worth $1,022

Bitcoin started 2017 with a bang, jumping above $1,000 for the first time in 3 years time. Since 2016 Bitcoin had a 125 percent climb and with this climb it defeated all other known bank currencies by far.

Bitcoin for those who still wonder, is a type of cryptocurrency that has no central authority and is not a part of any banking system, rather Bitcoin relies on thousands of computers across the world that validate transactions. By these transactions they are adding new bitcoins to the system making it a non- personal monetary but rather a digital monetary currency.

Currently the worth of 1 Bitcoin is $1,022 on the Europe-based Bitstamp exchange, This is the highest value, since the end of 2013.

Meanwhile in Venezuela, one of the countries suffering from hyperinflation, the largest Bitcoin exchange in the country called SurBitcoin is back operating at full capacity. The present economic collapse, failing banks and a 1600%  inflation forecast for the coming year will make Bitcoin the only stable and invest worthy asset in Venezuela in the near future.

Lifehack finders Nice to Know: we will follow up this article shortly with a tips and tricks list on how to start mining for Bitcoins and the latest updates on the internet about how it is done.

Hyperinflation creates new chances for Bitcoin

TradingEconomics which provides a service that compiles inflation rates, states that 14 countries have inflation levels above 18% currently. 10 of these countries are rising at press time. Half of these 10 countries have the economical and technological ability to introduce bitcoin as a safe-haven asset, possibly as soon as in 2017.

Lifehack finder's Nice To Know: Google searches for Bitcoin are up over 400% in Venezuela over the past week. A popular online travel agency 'Destinia' has officially begun to accept bitcoin payments exclusively in Venezuela.

Victor Oliva, Head of the Transportation Department at Destinia stated: "Venezuelans not only have many difficulties leaving the country, however also in paying with credit cards, as they can only do so in the local currency. Giving priority to Bitcoin as a payment method could be of help." This decision was made in light of recent financial crisis in Venezuela.