Cryptopia, New Zealand’s new cryptocurrency trading platform, has announced that it is to list both EOS and Lisk (LSK). Currently neither are available to trade against fiat, whether US or NZ dollar, but trading pairs against BTC, LTC and DOGE have been added.

Lisk allows developers to create blockchain applications in the JavaScript language while EOS creates an infrastructure for distributed applications (dapps).

A string of good news has helped EOS consolidate its position in the top 5 of all cryptocurrencies. Social trading platform eToro added it as a trading option in April while last weekend the price hit hit an all time high with excitement growing in the community for the launch of the EOS blockchain, expected next month.

Lisk has also been added to the Abra trading app, along with NEM, Verge, NEO and Monero. Abra claims users from 75 countries, with highest trading volumes coming from  US, UK, Philippines and Canada.

More good news for Verge (XVG)

In further evidence of Verge’s progress, Indian exchange bitbns has added XVG to its trading options.

.@vergecurrency

Verge fans! BIIG news for you all.

We are excited to announce that XVG is now listed on @Bitbns, #cryptocurrency #XVG https://t.co/UIdJG6ku9t

— Bitbns (No, not giving away ETH) (@bitbns) May 5, 2018

Bitbns, which describes itself as “India’s only exchange to trade 36 digital assets” announced Verge’s launch with a contest. The highest volume trade of the day will win ₹ 5K in XVG, with another ₹ 5K available for the day’s largest depositor.

Meanwhile the VergeFam is mobilising to secure more exchange listings. Canadian exchange CoinField plans to add 10 new coins this year and is reaching out on Twitter to help them decide which 10. The current contest is a two horse race between Tron (TRX) and Verge, two of the cryptocurrencies with the most devoted fanbases.

CoinField is adding 10 new coins in 2018. Which coins would you rather to be listed first? (Retweet this poll to help us get more feedback)@SiaTechHQ @vergecurrency @EOS_io @Tronfoundation #siacoin #VergeCoin #Vergecurrency #EOS #TRON #TRX #verge

— CoinField Exchange (@coinfieldEX) 30 April 2018

At time of writing Verge has 45% of the votes with Tron close behind with 41%. Voting closes tomorrow.

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It’s only been a month since Switcheo, a decentralised exchange powered by the NEO platform, launched its MainNet. Impressively, they’ve managed to implement enough changes generated from user feedback to prepare a TestNet for a second major release.

Switcheo Exchange v2.0 TestNet will be going live on the 8th of May, with the MainNet version being launched a week later.

Improvements scheduled for v2.0 include several UI upgrades related to the transaction window. More substantially, though, this version of Switcheo will come complete with immediate trade confirmations. The current version takes at least 30 seconds for the NEO blockchain to confirm a trade and the client may not update for a full minute.

While being decentralised is an obvious draw-card for Switcheo, a full minute before trade confirmations may have turned some traders off. Also, as soon as the immediate execution and confirmation of trades is supported, trading bots could make use of the exchange, which means higher volumes and more liquidity could be on the horizon.

Ivan Poon, CEO of the Switcheo Network, has said:

At Switcheo Network, our main purpose is to build a Decentralized Exchange with an intuitive user interface, while hiding all its complexity behind it. Allowing our users to trade as if they are on a Centralized Exchange.”

If everything goes to plan with the v2.0 TestNet, it seems they could be very close to fulfilling this purpose.

Switcheo boasts being the world’s first multi-chain decentralised exchange. It supports the trade of NEO, GAS and all NEP-5 tokens.

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Just hours after the surprise reopening of the BitGrail exchange it has been ordered to close by “a deed by the court of Florence”.

In February 2018 Italian exchange BitGrail revealed that “unauthorised transactions” had resulted in a loss of $170 million of Nano. As a “precautionary measure” the exchange stopped all exchange deposits and withdrawals.

Victims of the theft banded together to launch a lawsuit to recover whatever funds they could. According to BitGrail, actors involved in the lawsuit were attempting “extortion” of the exchange. In a statement BitGrail said that “various bad actors have tried to take advantage of the situation by creating fake usernames to collect funds and also lawsuits that do not help victims”.

The exchange argues that a lawsuit is “the worst possible outcome for everyone involved, especially the victims” as it may force BitGrail into bankruptcy and “lead to years in court and liquidation of the assets”. Instead the BitGrail team argues that they have “worked extensively to create a fair solution to our users” who have become “victims of unforeseen circumstances that were beyond our control”.  

Yesterday the exchange announced that it was reopening on May 2nd, with “markets and withdrawals will be operating for all coins, except for NANO/XRB”. The NANO/XRB market was planned to start on a future date.

However, within hours of its reopening this morning, the exchange abruptly shut down all trading, announcing on Twitter that the exchange was closed “pending future notice”.

We have temporarily disabled the BitGrail exchange pending further notice.

— BitGrail Exchange (@BitGrail) May 2, 2018

According to the exchange’s news section, they were notified today of “a deed by the court of Florence” demanding “immediate closure of BitGrail”. The exchange will be shuttered “until a decision is made by the courts, about the precautionary suspension request made by the Bonelli law office on behalf of a client”. That decision is due May 16th.

BitGrail notes that though it doesn’t “agree with this decision”, it is “obliged to respect the law and to suspend any BitGrail business immediately”.

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In an official press release today, the London Block Exchange (LBX) has announced it has listed Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Ethereum Classic (ETC) on its platform and are available for trade directly with the British Pound.

The exchange is not only popular with regular consumers but institutional investors too, which may be of great benefit to both ETC and BCH, as previously both coins have been out-of-reach for those looking to invest directly with the Great British Pound (GBP).

The LBX opened in November 2017 primarily for over-the-counter (OTC) trades, an industry term for the exchange of large amounts of assets processed off-exchange, but has been on-boarding retail customers recently after further developing its own trading application in line with KYC/AML protocols.

The two new additions bring the total coins listed to six, the remainder being Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Ripple (XRP), which was only added a few weeks ago.

Benjamin Dives, CEO and founder of LBX has confirmed that the inclusion of BCH and ETC was a result of high customer demand.

Since launching, we’ve proven incredibly popular among UK crypto-enthusiasts, given our low cost trading and excellent app. We’re now strengthening the fact we offer more coins than most popular exchanges and are listening to the community in deciding which coins we will list.” 

LBX is the sole multi-currency exchange operating in the United Kingdom and also boasts being the only native exchange with on-shore banking support. These listings mark the first time either cryptocurrency has been available for direct trade in a GBP pairing.

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COBINHOOD, the world’s first zero-fee cryptocurrency trading and exchange platform, has announced that  IOTA trading pairs will be listed on May 4.

Only the deposit and trade of IOTA tokens will be enabled initially, with supported trading pairs being between Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Tether (USDT). Two weeks following live trading, withdrawals will be enabled.

IOTA is the first open-source distributed ledger that enables completely fee-less microtransactions whilst providing data integrity solutions for machine-to-machine communications.

The Tangle, the network IOTA tokens are integrated with, is famously not a blockchain, but a stream of individual transactions entangled together. It is claimed that the efficiency of the Tangle will grow over time as more transactions are processed and more participants join.

This will mark the first new listings for the COBINHOOD platform in the month of May, the second being DENT, listed a few days after on the 7th, and will only be available for trade with Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC).

Dent (DENT) is an ecosystem developed for the decentralized exchange of mobile data around the world. Users of the Dent marketplace can buy, sell and donate their mobile data.

A fully-fledged Dent marketplace would eliminate expensive roaming fees associated with the consumption of mobile data, as the exchange would support instant international trade.

COBINHOOD, not to be confused with popular traditional stock-trading app Robinhood, is the seventh biggest exchange for fee-free cryptocurrency trading in the world, averaging a volume of around US$2 million every day. It was launched in December 2017.

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WIIX, which stands for Worldwide Integrated Interlinked eXchange, is South Korea’s latest cryptocurrency exchange and it’s opening its digital doors very soon.

It has been in a closed beta test for the majority of April, but come May 1, the rest of the world will be able to try out the new exchange. WIIX wants to increase accessibility to digital assets and decrease the volatility of associated digital money, and it’s doing it via a three-pronged coordinated solution:

A cryptocurrency payment app

A prepaid crypto-only debit card

A point-of-sale system

Integrated with the exchange is their own native token, WIIX Coin (WIIX), which was made available in February of this year through an ICO with a total supply of 2.1 billion.

Alongside WIIX Coin will be WIIX Pay. WIIX Pay is much like Tether (USDT) in that it is tied to the the value of the fiat currency distributed by the country in which the registered user resides. It is understood that a variety of fiat currencies will be supported, including the US dollar, the Korean won, the Euro and the Japanese Yen. But unlike Tether, WIIX Pay can be used to settle retail transactions using their preloaded debit card.

Most interestingly, the prepaid WIIX Card can make payments at any store that accepts MasterCard or Visa. This feature, combined with WIIX’s proprietary point-of-sale terminals designed with retailers and merchants in mind, could rapidly increase adoption of small and large scale businesses still wary of cryptocurrencies and their associated volatility. Remember, all transactions using the WIIX Pay debit card must use WIIX Pay tokens, which is tethered to fiat value.

WIIX Coins must also be used to purchase WIIX Pay tokens, while holders of WIIX Coins will receive revenue from transactions on the platform.

Initially supported cryptocurrencies for trading will be Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dash (DASH), Litecoin (LTC), Monero (XMR), Ethereum Classic (ETC), ZCash (ZEC), Iota (IOTA), Bitcoin Gold (BTG) and WIIX Coin (WIIX).

The bases for all trading pairs will be Bitcoin, Ethereum or WIIX Coin, much like the Binance system which most are familiar with.

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Earlier this week we reported that Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, had hinted at the implementation of a “broom” that would allow users to finally convert their small fractions of various cryptocurrencies, colloquially known as dust, leftover from trades, into something useable.

We can confirm that the functionality is now live.

The prevalence of dust for cryptocurrency traders has been a thorn in many a side since cryptocurrency trading began, so the inclusion of a ‘digital broom’ to sweep them together into something useable will be a relief to almost everyone who has ever made a trade on Binance.

Dust is leftover from trading assets that cannot be exchanged as a fraction, but only as a whole token or coin. This accounts for a huge percentage of the cryptocurrencies currently available for trade. Previously, this dust could only really be exchanged if there was a supported pairing for the particular coin/token and Binance’s native crypto, BNB, and only if the exchange allowed trading in fractions.

Now, however, users can simply click through the Funds menu on the Binance website to Balances and select Convert to BNB, where they will be able to select all assets currently held with a valuation below 0.001 BTC and immediately convert them to BNB tokens.

Depending on the number of different cryptocurrencies previously held, it may just a full BNB or enough to power a few low-fee trades!

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On Friday, Zhao Changpeng (CEO & Founder, Binance) visited Bermuda. Indeed, this was no holiday (despite what the Bermuda shorts might suggest), as the Binance CEO signed a significant MOU and partnership with the Bermudan Premier and Minister of Finance, David Burt. The signing ceremony – covered by a leading Bermudan news service – was open to the press; both Zhao and Burt took questions afterward.

Binance Giving $15M, New Exchange, Head Office

In a bold pledge that exhibits how bullish Zhao is on Bermuda’s ability to cultivate a flourishing blockchain ecosystem, Friday’s MOU saw the Binance Foundation and Binance Labs (incubator program) commit up to US$15 million for injection into the Bermudan domestic economy. The former will use up to $10 million to sponsor local university-level training in blockchain technology, whilst the latter has pledged up to $5 million “for investments in new Bermuda-based blockchain companies.”

The Bermuda government and the regulatory bodies are one of the most approachable, most reasonable, and most forward-thinking bodies on the planet.”- Zhao Changpeng

Through the partnership, Binance has also proposed to develop a Digital Asset Exchange in Bermuda “as soon as practicable.” Also, Binance plans to establish its global compliance head office in Bermuda. This will create no less than forty local jobs; at least thirty of these positions are to go to Bermudians.

Bermuda Leads ICO Law

Upon signing, the Premier declared it a “historic day for Bermuda.” MPs of the island nation will soon return to Parliament, and high up on the agenda will be to debate the Companies and Limited Liability Company (Initial Coin Offering) Amendment Act 2018.

“Bermuda will be the first country in the world to pass legislation that will comprehensively govern the issuance of initial coin offerings in this jurisdiction.”- David Burt

Show Me The Money

Indeed, a company opting to invest $15 million in a foreign economy is rarely seen, especially when that company is not yet one year old. The question on everyone’s mind, then, is how on earth is Binance Group already able be liberally invest in basically any project they deem suitable?

The answer has everything to do with the market they operate in. Indeed, Binance leads a crypto asset industry that is astonishingly lucrative. At Friday’s press conference, the Bermudan Premier stated that Binance had “a market capitalization of US$1.3 billion.”

Deutsche Bank:

Branches .             –  2434
Employees .           – 98720
Years in Business   – 148
USD Quarter Profit – $146m @binance

Branches                – 0
Employees .           – 300
Years in Business . – 1
USD Quarter Profit – $ 200m

— Ran NeuNer (@cryptomanran) April 27, 2018

Clarification On Legal Dispute With Sequoia Capital

In the joint press conference, Zhao was asked whether the company’s “ongoing legal dispute” with Sequoia Capital could cause Binance to delay their promised contributions to the Bermudan economy. Zhao informed the journalist that “the Hong Kong High Court has already rejected it and have ordered Sequoia to pay for our legal fees.” Zhao referred the media to the April 26 announcement, where the Binance Legal Team elaborate on this ruling.

Asked if Binance was dealing with any other pending litigation, Zhao replied, “not that I know of, no.”

Frequent Flyer

It seems that roughly every other day, the Binance leader finds himself in another country, mingling with governments and industry leaders en route to not only expanding his world-leading cryptoasset exchange – the native platform for the ~US$1.63 billion market-valued Binance Coin (BNB) – but to accelerate global adoption of cryptocurrency and distributed ledger technology.

Indeed, preceding Bermuda were various international trips that proved equally worthwhile for Mr. Changpeng, including Malta, Togo, Uganda, and Taiwan. The latter was also visited by Justin Sun (CEO & Founder, Tron Foundation) earlier this week.

Had the rare privilege of a photo with Mr. President of Togolese Republic Faure Gnassingbé (center), Athena Yu (from left), Helen Hai (Binance Foundation), He Yi(cofounder), me, Ben (Binance Labs). This is before Uganda. pic.twitter.com/jWoo8s8KGu

— CZ (@cz_binance) April 24, 2018

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The internet’s first multichain decentralized exchange (DEX), Switcheo, has issued security guidelines to its users in wake of the recent hijacking of MyEtherWallet (MEW) as a result of a Domain Name System (DNS) hack.

The heist, which saw over US$150,000 worth of Ethereum tokens siphoned from users wallets, occurred over two hours on the 24^th of April. Only users whose computers were set to use Google’s public DNS servers, which is a default for many, were affected.

The Switcheo platform, built on the NEO blockchain for trading NEP-5 tokens, NEO and GAS, has responded by claiming that the attack on MEW would not have been successful if the developers had implemented HSTS policies, otherwise known as HTTP Strict Transport Security headers.

Such headers make HTTPS mandatory by the users browser and disallows them from bypassing warnings, such as the one displayed to users while MEW’s DNS listing had been set for redirction to a malicious version of the ad-hoc wallet service.

To heed these warnings would have meant the prevention of having their funds transferred to another wallet upon successful login.

The Switcheo platform has confirmed it already is using the HSTS headers. The company further detailed their extensive series of measures to void the abuse of DNS infrastructure, which has become increasingly common.

They also revealed a recent contract signed with world-renowned security firm HackerOne, who are managing Switcheo’s vulnerability reward/bug bounty program. This results in the Switcheo exchange being continuously audited for weaknesses in security.

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