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Betkurus.com Receives $670 000 VC investment, Launches Instant BTC-to-Fiat Deposits




Now Bitcoin-to-fiat deposits will become easy for the customers as Betkurus.com has launched a platform wherein they can get the service. Launched in October 2014 by Curacao-based DigitalSport Entertainment; Betkurus.com is one of the few licensed Bitcoin gaming platforms in the world which has moved towards providing complete Bitcoin solution.

Nonetheless, the confidence of the company has gone up, specifically after it received $670 000 VC investment in parent company DigitalSport Entertainment by Hong Kong-based payments provider CoinMatrix. Moreover, as now this leading licensed Bitcoin gaming platform has launched revolutionary instant Bitcoin-to-fiat deposits, the customers will have good time.

Betkurus which provides next generation gaming experiences including live casino games, a binary options platform, and online sportsbook with live video streaming for more than 10 sports, is quite optimistic about the new service. It says that it is pleased to announce the launch of instant Bitcoin-to-fiat deposits.

This has been made possible by a partnership with Hong Kong-based payments provider CoinMatrix. Also, as DigitalSport Entertainment N.V. has raised $670,000 from CoinMatrix to develop its product line in an effort to gain significant share of the Bitcoin gaming market; estimated to be worth $320 million globally in 2015, the expansion of services was on the radar.

According to the press release from the organization Coinmatrixs payment platform converts BTC into USD and other fiat currencies automatically in real time. Thus, this allows customers to maintain their account balance, and bet in the currency of their choice. Nonetheless, Betkurus is the first Bitcoin gaming operator in the world to offer this feature.

The New Service Will help Betkurus Expand the Reach of Bitcoin

Moreover, as it is giving players the near instant, no bank account needed benefits of Bitcoin combined with the price stability of fiat, if they so choose. Also, as cryptocurrency is still not much popular in gaming, the decision by the company will further help it reach to the new section of the customers who wish to have access to Bitcoin.

Thus, this is not an obstacle for players anymore who enjoy the convenience of a Bitcoin deposit, while still playing in USD. Nonetheless, Betkurus.com provides the largest volume of sports events in over 50 different sports covering more than 20 000 in-play events every month so far unprecedented on the Bitcoin sports betting market.


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Anthony Watson, Ex CIO of Nike to Join Bitcoin Startup BitReserve




Top ex-employees of the top companies are joining Bitcoin startups and even existing Bitcoin companies; the new name to the list is the former Chief Information Officer of Nike, Anthony Watson. According to the sources he has taken a new job with a Bitcoin startup company called BitReserve. He will be the President and COO of the company and will be based in Los Angeles.

The sources also reveal that although it was believed Watson might follow up Nike with a go in the entertainment business, this mark a return to the banking business for the 37-year-old. Coming with diverse and rich background in banking and retail sector, he is expected to contribute heavily to the fortunes of the Bitcoin startups.

Anthony Watson’s CV is rich with experience working with giants. Before he became the Chief Information Officer for Nike, he worked as Managing Director & CIO of Europe Middle East Retail & Business Banking and of Global Operations at Barclays Bank PLC. He was also Chair of the EMERBB Operating Committee.

A lot of Bitcoin companies are trying to bring in people from diverse background with special packages and offers. Looks like Los Angeles is the place Watson would like to work from as according to him what he thinks is so revolutionary here is that it can allow people to trade in any commodity; for instance, right now it’s metals, but it could be cocoa beans.

He will be Operating from L.A.

He says that his broader vision is much bigger than digital currencies though. Nonetheless, though much has been made of his recent decision to leave Nike, buzz is that Watson had a bit of culture shock moving from the heady world of jet-setting London. Bitcoin on the other hand suits his radical thoughts/interests like being openly a gay and advocate of LGBT rights.

He is someone who was featured in Fortune’s most recent “40 Under 40” next to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, tells a lot about his potential. Like any other young achiever he also believes that people perform their best when they’re happiest and content in their personal lives.
He says that he could have been happy working for another big company, and working in another city than L.A., but this gives him the opportunity to live and work in multiple cities.


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Morgan Stanley investment manager Jacob Dienelt to Join Bitcoin Startup




Jacob Dienelt, Morgan Stanley investment manager is joining Factom, a Bitcoin technology company. With such stalwarts joining Bitcoin startups, it looks crystal clear that they see a lot of potential in Bitcoin ecosystem – this is indication of better days.

Nonetheless, as Factom is hiring the Morgan Stanley investment manager Jacob Dienelt as its head treasurer, the company says that his vast experience will be extremely useful. Incidentally, Dienelt co-founded the paper Bitcoin wallet company Lazzerbee while working at Morgan Stanley, where he had been for almost a decade.

The announcement from Factom declares that Jacob Dienelt most recently managed a team of futures specialists in the bank’s private wealth business. Talking to media professionals Dienelt said that after two years travelling to Bitcoin conferences, mining, and running a paper wallet company, he is glad to have found a home in the space.

Moreover, as new startups are trying to attract the assets from other successful financial solutions providers, they definitely are going to benefit from such moves. Dienelt is the latest example of so-called Bitcoin 2.0 firms poaching talent from Wall Street. Another example is of Blythe Masters, former head of commodities trading at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

People from Fortune 500 Companies Joining Bitcoin Startups

She became chief executive of Bitcoin trading firm Digital Assets Holdings LLC. Similarly, former New York Stock Exchange Chief Executive Duncan Niederauer became an advisory director at Bitcoin derivatives exchange Tera Group. Now it has to be seen how much difference that the experienced professionals bring to the Bitcoin companies.

Though there is not much to know about Factom, the official website says that it is distributed, decentralized protocol running on top of Bitcoin. Meaning, nobody controls it, but that it is software that people all over the world run to make the protocol work. Nonetheless, Factom.org is releasing and maintaining the software.

However, the software is open source, and anyone is free to use it for any purpose. The website says that Factom is a method of creating an immutable audit trail and it is also a mechanism to communicate changes in a system. If your application needs a central server to coordinate processes, you might be able to eliminate the central server in favor of using Factom.

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Developers compete for $70,000 worth of prizes at Second Bitcoin Hackathon




Coinbase has announced the second edition of its Bitcoin Hackathon wherein it is going to award developers $70,000 worth of prizes. There will be total five winners out of which one will have a chance to win a spot in a*BoostVC accelerator class. The company says that it is an effort to incentivize*more Bitcoin and Blockchain applications.

Nonetheless, the announcement page from the company says that it is looking for “apps which highlight new use cases for Bitcoin, making Bitcoin easier to use for wider audiences. Your app can be Bitcoin-focused, or it can use Bitcoin technology to power the user experience. The goal is to have a product that is demonstrates a new use case for Bitcoin or simplifies the BTC use.

Elaborating the ‘App Criteria’ the official page of Coinbase says, the hackathon basically looking for creativity, usefulness, and execution. Regarding creativity it says, it is about finding a new use case wherein the developers don’t just create another wallet but an app that makes Bitcoin easy to use, and show off new use cases that aren’t possible with existing payment methods.

Similarly, talking about usefulness, it says that it is about making Bitcoin’s use easy. The judges at Hackathon will be looking for apps that make Bitcoin more approachable for a mainstream audience, how Bitcoin can go viral, or reach 100M new people in the coming years. Bitcoin is still not reaching to the people and a huge majority is still not using them.

Aim is to expand the Reach of Bitcoin

Regarding ‘execution’ the official page from Coinbase says that here the developers will pay attention to details and functionality. The judges will be looking for apps that work well and should be clear that the developers care about providing a good user experience. However, the organizers of Bitcoin hackathon say they are not requiring polish or perfection.

John Yi, a Product Manager at Coinbase says that basic products like consumer wallets and merchant tools are more broadly adopted than ever, but they have only scratched the surface of Bitcoin’s full potential. Apart from members of the Coinbase team, Adam Draper of BoostVC, Chris Dixon of Andreessen Horowitz, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, and Gavin Andresen, the Chief Scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation are going to be the judges at the event.

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JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon Shows his Worry about Bitcoin



In his annual letter to shareholders this week, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon showed his concerned as he feels the traditional banking world is facing huge competition from Bitcoin. He warned investors and those in the banking industry that “Silicon Valley is coming.” This definitely is important as he runs America’s biggest bank, knows what he talks about.

Jamie Dimon says that there are hundreds of startups with a lot of brains and money working on various alternatives to traditional banking. However, the ones that investors read about most are in the lending business, whereby the firms can lend to individuals and small businesses very quickly and — these entities believe — effectively by using Big Data to enhance credit underwriting.

Talking about Bitcoin in the latest shareholder letter, Dimon even went so far as to acknowledge the competitive threat posed by Bitcoin and other payment alternatives. He says that investors have read about Bitcoin, merchants building their own networks, PayPal and PayPal look-alikes.

Adding further he says in the letter that payments are a critical business for the company and it is quite good at it; however, according to him there is much for us to learn in terms of real-time systems, better encryption techniques, and reduction of costs and ‘pain points’ for customers. His indication definitely is towards Bitcoin becoming a one-stop fast global transaction.
Bitcoin is emerging as a major challenge for traditional banking services providers; however, it does not aim to replace them; rather, it aims to work side by side. A major focus area of Bitcoin companies is to provide banking services to unbanked sections of people living in the faraway lands of Africa and Asia as well as Latin America.

Bitcoin and Tech Startups are Reducing ‘Pain Points’

No doubt a number of startups have come up over the last couple of years that are transforming the way transactions are being carried out; however, it is still too early to predict that they will replace the traditional banking. Nonetheless, Dimon admits that they are very good at reducing the ‘pain points’ in that they can make loans in minutes, which might take banks weeks.
He is indicating that the company is going to work hard to make its services as seamless and competitive as the ones from Bitcoin and other technical startups that are transforming the way transactions are being carried out.


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Optimal Payments (OPAY) Offering Bitcoin as a Payment Option for Customers




How Optimal Payments (OPAY) could be left aside when most of the payment services providers are going for Bitcoin. Following the announcement of its bid to takeover payment processing rival Skrill, Optimal Payments (OPAY), the leading global provider of payment processing services, is now enabling customers to pay Bitcoin.

The company says that it has added the Bitcoin to its broad list of available payment options to help the customers have additional payment option. For the purpose, it has entered into an agreement with Bitcoin provider and payment processor BitPay Inc. The partnership between the two companies is expected to make transactions easy for the customers.

Nonetheless, OPAY’s e-wallet and online global payment processing arm NETELLER is now offering customers, including online gambling players, the payment option of using Bitcoin for their real money online payment transactions. The payment method entails exchanging a customer’s virtual Bitcoin currency into any of NETELLER’s numerous currency offerings.

According to the official sources from OPAY the processing method therefore lessens the risk of price volatility associated with the virtual money. Additionally, the Bitcoin payment method enables merchants, including online gambling facility operators, to accept a form of cryptocurrency that they can immediately convert into their preferred legal tender.

Nonetheless, the NETELLER website makes it clear that the Bitcoin deposit payment services for online gambling accounts are available in all countries except the US. It also informs that NETELLER users can link their prepaid Net+ MasterCard to their respective Neteller accounts, which include an option to use Bitcoin deposits in recharging the prepaid or debit card.

Saving Transaction Fees

Also, as most online gambling operators feature NETELLER’s services as one of their available deposit payment and withdrawal methods, the message from the company clears it further that almost all Internet-based online betting and gaming facilities can now accept Bitcoin payments. Thus, the thrust is to make it easy for the customers to pay Bitcoin.

The partnership with BitPay also means the customers would be able to save while paying. The agreement gives customers cost savings of up to five percent through the elimination of fees related to currency conversions and cash advances.

Nonetheless, as BitPay, Inc. asserts that in contrast to other payment options that necessitate manual data input to complete a payment transaction, the use of Bitcoin saves time especially when the service is rendered in more than a hundred countries across the globe.


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The New Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation Invites Suggestions from Redditors




Though /u/bruce_fenton has been on /r/Bitcoin for more than a year now, it was for the first time that he posted as the Executive Director of the Bitcoin Foundation. As a newly appointed Executive Director he is now looking for suggestions and ideas from his fellow Reddit users and for that he posted this on /r/Bitcoin.

In the post he says, “The Board of Directors of the Bitcoin Foundation appointed me as the new Executive Director this week – one of my first tasks is to reach out to as many corporate and individual foundation members, members of the community and other stakeholders for ideas and suggestions about how the Bitcoin Foundation can best help Bitcoin.”

In the post he admits that the Bitcoin Foundation, like the Bitcoin space itself has had its fair share of turmoil; however, it has tried to solve most of them. For instance, right now it has a fully 100% member elected Board of Directors, new leadership and a fresh start going forward. The post to get fresh ideas from /r/Bitcoin users seems one attempt to look fresh.

The long standing complain from a lot of /r/Bitcoin users that a protocol like Bitcoin does not need an organization at all also came to his post wherein he says that this is of course true. However, he added, “We also don’t need podcasts or speakers or books or organizations of any kind either. But the bar we should set is not what Bitcoin needs to work but whether or not something can be a benefit to Bitcoin and its growth.”

Wants to Focus on the Future

Bruce Fenton believes that the Bitcoin Foundation can be a valuable asset to Bitcoin in the coming years. He appreciates the passionate individual members and high quality corporate members and a board with some of the most accomplished people in the space. He also mentions about the factors that let the Bitcoin Foundation down among Bitcoin supporters.

He says, “A combination of factors including losses on some activities, high expenses and a falling Bitcoin price has reduced the foundation’s capital. In the coming weeks I’m gathering a full picture of our internal resources and finances and with all activities will be as transparent as possible without violating the privacy of any member.”

However, he promises that he is not going to dwell on the past as much as focus on where the Bitcoin Foundation is now and what it can do in the future to most effectively benefit this space.


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Renowned Bitcoin company Coinbase recently wrote down its views about the Bitcoin regulations introduced by the North Carolina legislature last month.

The Californian Bitcoin wallet company, which also operates as a regulated exchange in half of the US, had some good things to tell about the legal framework designed by the aforementioned state. It thoroughly acknowledged North Carolina for improving a done-to-death Money Transmission Act (MTA) that, in its latest form, would promote innovation and regulatory efficiency.

Throughout the blog, there were references to NC’s approach to introduce certain amendments that would directly benefit the small startups, a thing that most of the other US states had failed to propose. One of these MTA amendments were about reducing the burden of young companies by making them liable to require only one license to operate. Coinbase further acknowledged NC MTA to rely on FinCEN framework rather than on the uncertain AML rules.
Excerpt:
“Both state and federal regulators have an interest in preventing financial crime, but duplicative or inconsistent Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules will cause unnecessary inefficiencies or redundancies for both regulators and businesses.”

A latter part of their online journal highlighted MTA’s sufficient in handing consumer risks that have often been associated with the Bitcoin industry, thanks to a number of scandals in past. The proposed digital currency regulatory framework asks startups to “obtain insurance coverage to address cybersecurity risks inherent in certain business models.” Something similar was said by an insurance veteran Ty Sagalow last month, who wondered if the insurance companies were ready to insure a risk-oriented technology like Bitcoin.
Coinbase though stated:
“Reasonable states can disagree on whether regulation of certain virtual currency businesses is necessary in the first place, and if it is necessary, how to implement that regulation and with respect to whom. But to the extent states view money transmission regulation (or similar substitutes) as the right avenue for regulation, here’s why NC’s approach is a good one.”


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UltraPlay Ltd, the Bitcoin Gambling Market, Launches the 2nd generation Betradar





UltraPlay Ltd has brought in the 2nd generation Betradar powered UltraPlay betting software. Launching the betting software this month the company promises that players would have access to a variety of innovative features, such as Progressive and Mystery Jackpots, partial and full bet cash outs, AI suggestive betting modules, etc.

Additionally, as there is a brand new mobile betting interface, a lot of players who wish to bet using their mobile phones can prefer it. Some other features in the 2^nd Generation Betradar include a full risk management and trading console, CMS and various player retention tools that players would like when placing their bets.

Nonetheless, the press release from UltraPlay Ltd says that as usual, the new UltraPlay 2.0 also supports over 200 of the World’s currencies and various crypto currencies such as Bitcoin. Jeff Tang, Director of UltraPlay Asia claims that he is excited about the new software and hopes that it will be able to cater to larger operators, who have their own trading teams.

Moreover, as the 2^nd generation Betradar makes UltraPlay Ltd the first to launch on the new platform will be an existing Asian facing operator, as well as a Bitcoin oriented operator, a lot of positive reviews are coming up. Interestingly, UltraPlay Ltd has developed a special turn-key iGaming package as well.

The iGaming package includes all of the things a player needs to create a complete gaming website. Currently, the company offers Online Casino, Sportsbook and Lottery solutions. Also, with the help of a full team of expert programmers who can customize any part of iGaming solution to fit players’ vision, the company is well prepared to accept potential challenges.

Online Bitcoin Gambling Space is Expanding

Nonetheless, UltraPlay Ltd says that it will also create a custom design package to give players’ online gambling business a unique style of its own. As the growth in the online Bitcoin gambling space is going up, this company wants to cash in on the opportunities as well and for that it brings innovative solutions.

UltraPlay Ltd believes that due to Bitcoin’s accessible nature players from all over the globe can play, bypassing conventional banking structures and the rigorous ID requirements of traditional online sports gaming platforms. Additionally, as this is low barrier of entry for both Bitcoin casino operators and gaming players in the online Bitcoin casino space is a large factor.

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Bitcoin Conference Prague to be Held on 14th May

Prague is going to hold the ‘Bitcoin Conference’ on 14^th May which is expected to attract Bitcoin enthusiasts from around the world, particularly from the Europe. The organizers claim:

Bitcoin Conference Prague - what to expect ?

• Conference covering the latest and hottest topics of the year: forecasts, analysis, best deals for work with cryptocurrencies;
• Exhibition area - an opportunity to get acquainted with the market leaders, innovative products and to obtain first-hand information. Everything that can help your business become more successful will be presented there;
• Start-up Alley - new ideas and new offers. The most unexpected and interesting solutions that will touch your feelings!

What will be discussed:

• Bitcoin 2015 - what to expect and what to be afraid of
• Blockchain - future prospects
• Cryptocurrency Security - myth or achievable reality
• Investment climate - where you can make fortune
• Legislative regulation - international experience
• Bitcoin in gambling

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