Blockchains from Non-Idealized Hash Functions
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Rev. Rul. 2019-24 ISSUES (1) Does a Taxpayer Have Gross Income Under
26 CFR 1.61-1: Gross income. (Also §§ 61, 451, 1011.) Rev. Rul. 2019-24 ISSUES (1) Does a taxpayer have gross income under § 61 of the Internal Revenue Code (Code) as a result of a hard fork of a cryptocurrency the taxpayer owns if the taxpayer does not receive units of a new cryptocurrency? (2) Does a taxpayer have gross income under § 61 as a result of an airdrop of a new cryptocurrency following a hard fork if the taxpayer receives units of new cryptocurrency? BACKGROUND Virtual currency is a digital representation of value that functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value other than a representation of the United States dollar or a foreign currency. Foreign currency is the coin and paper money of a country other than the United States that is designated as legal tender, circulates, and is customarily used and accepted as a medium of exchange in the country of issuance. See 31 C.F.R. § 1010.100(m). - 2 - Cryptocurrency is a type of virtual currency that utilizes cryptography to secure transactions that are digitally recorded on a distributed ledger, such as a blockchain. Units of cryptocurrency are generally referred to as coins or tokens. Distributed ledger technology uses independent digital systems to record, share, and synchronize transactions, the details of which are recorded in multiple places at the same time with no central data store or administration functionality. A hard fork is unique to distributed ledger technology and occurs when a cryptocurrency on a distributed ledger undergoes a protocol change resulting in a permanent diversion from the legacy or existing distributed ledger. -
User Manual Ledger Nano S
User Manual Ledger Nano S Version control 4 Check if device is genuine 6 Buy from an official Ledger reseller 6 Check the box contents 6 Check the Recovery sheet came blank 7 Check the device is not preconfigured 8 Check authenticity with Ledger applications 9 Summary 9 Learn more 9 Initialize your device 10 Before you start 10 Start initialization 10 Choose a PIN code 10 Save your recovery phrase 11 Next steps 11 Update the Ledger Nano S firmware 12 Before you start 12 Step by step instructions 12 Restore a configuration 18 Before you start 19 Start restoration 19 Choose a PIN code 19 Enter recovery phrase 20 If your recovery phrase is not valid 20 Next steps 21 Optimize your account security 21 Secure your PIN code 21 Secure your 24-word recovery phrase 21 Learn more 22 Discover our security layers 22 Send and receive crypto assets 24 List of supported applications 26 Applications on your Nano S 26 Ledger Applications on your computer 27 Third-Party applications on your computer 27 If a transaction has two outputs 29 Receive mining proceeds 29 Receiving a large amount of small transactions is troublesome 29 In case you received a large amount of small payments 30 Prevent problems by batching small transactions 30 Set up and use Electrum 30 Set up your device with EtherDelta 34 Connect with Radar Relay 36 Check the firmware version 37 A new Ledger Nano S 37 A Ledger Nano S in use 38 Update the firmware 38 Change the PIN code 39 Hide accounts with a passphrase 40 Advanced Passphrase options 42 How to best use the passphrase feature 43 -
Blockchain & Distributed Ledger Technologies
Science, Technology Assessment, SEPTEMBER 2019 and Analytics WHY THIS MATTERS Distributed ledger technology (e.g. blockchain) allows users to carry out digital transactions without the need SCIENCE & TECH SPOTLIGHT: for a centralized authority. It could fundamentally change the way government and industry conduct BLOCKCHAIN & DISTRIBUTED business, but questions remain about how to mitigate fraud, money laundering, and excessive energy use. LEDGER TECHNOLOGIES /// THE TECHNOLOGY What is it? Distributed ledger technologies (DLT) like blockchain are a secure way of conducting and recording transfers of digital assets without the need for a central authority. DLT is “distributed” because multiple participants in a computer network (individuals, businesses, etc.), share and synchronize copies of the ledger. New transactions are added in a manner that is cryptographically secured, permanent, and visible to all participants in near real time. Figure 2. How blockchain, a form of distributed ledger technology, acts as a means of payment for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are a digital representation of value and represent the best-known use case for DLT. The regulatory and legal frameworks surrounding cryptocurrencies remain fragmented across Figure 1. Difference between centralized and distributed ledgers. countries, with some implicitly or explicitly banning them, and others allowing them. How does it work? Distributed ledgers do not need a central, trusted authority because as transactions are added, they are verified using what In addition to cryptocurrencies, there are a number of other efforts is known as a consensus protocol. Blockchain, for example, ensures the underway to make use of DLT. For example, Hyperledger Fabric is ledger is valid because each “block” of transactions is cryptographically a permissioned and private blockchain framework created by the linked to the previous block so that any change would alert all other Hyperledger consortium to help develop DLT for a variety of business users. -
Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation
Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation Third Edition Contributing Editor: Josias N. Dewey Global Legal Insights Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation 2021, Third Edition Contributing Editor: Josias N. Dewey Published by Global Legal Group GLOBAL LEGAL INSIGHTS – BLOCKCHAIN & CRYPTOCURRENCY REGULATION 2021, THIRD EDITION Contributing Editor Josias N. Dewey, Holland & Knight LLP Head of Production Suzie Levy Senior Editor Sam Friend Sub Editor Megan Hylton Consulting Group Publisher Rory Smith Chief Media Officer Fraser Allan We are extremely grateful for all contributions to this edition. Special thanks are reserved for Josias N. Dewey of Holland & Knight LLP for all of his assistance. Published by Global Legal Group Ltd. 59 Tanner Street, London SE1 3PL, United Kingdom Tel: +44 207 367 0720 / URL: www.glgroup.co.uk Copyright © 2020 Global Legal Group Ltd. All rights reserved No photocopying ISBN 978-1-83918-077-4 ISSN 2631-2999 This publication is for general information purposes only. It does not purport to provide comprehensive full legal or other advice. Global Legal Group Ltd. and the contributors accept no responsibility for losses that may arise from reliance upon information contained in this publication. This publication is intended to give an indication of legal issues upon which you may need advice. Full legal advice should be taken from a qualified professional when dealing with specific situations. The information contained herein is accurate as of the date of publication. Printed and bound by TJ International, Trecerus Industrial Estate, Padstow, Cornwall, PL28 8RW October 2020 PREFACE nother year has passed and virtual currency and other blockchain-based digital assets continue to attract the attention of policymakers across the globe. -
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa a Comparative Summary of the Reception and Regulation of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa
Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa A comparative summary of the reception and regulation of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa 2018 Baker McKenzie, Johannesburg IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The material in this report is of the nature of general comment only. It is not offered as legal advice on any specific issue or matter and should not be taken as such. Readers should refrain from acting on the basis of any discussion contained in this report without obtaining specific legal advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue. While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate and up-to-date information on laws and policy, these matters are continuously subject to change. Furthermore, the application of these laws depends on the particular facts and circumstances of each situation, and therefore readers should consult their lawyer before taking any action. Information contained herein is as at November 2018. CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................1 GEOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................... 2 COUNTRY PROFILES ..................................................................................................................... 3 1. Botswana ................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Ghana .........................................................................................................................................................................4 -
How to Not Get Caught When You Launder Money on Blockchain?
How to Not Get Caught When You Launder Money on Blockchain? Cuneyt G. Akcora1, Sudhanva Purusotham2, Yulia R. Gel2 Mitchell Krawiec-Thayer3, Murat Kantarcioglu2 1University of Manitoba, 2 UT Dallas, 3 Monero Research Lab 65 Chancellor Circle Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3T 2N2 [email protected], fSudhanva.Purushotham, ygl, [email protected], [email protected] Abstract transactions and circumvent existing AI-based money laun- dering techniques. Our insights, however, are intended not to The number of blockchain users has tremendously grown in assist criminals to obfuscate their malicious activities but to recent years. As an unintended consequence, e-crime trans- motivate the AI community for further research in this area actions on blockchains has been on the rise. Consequently, public blockchains have become a hotbed of research for de- of critical societal importance and, as a result, to advance veloping AI tools to detect and trace users and transactions the state of art methodology in the AI-based cryptocurrency that are related to e-crime. money laundering detection. We argue that following a few select strategies can make In the remainder of this paper, we first identify tech- money laundering on blockchain virtually undetectable with niques that can be used by criminals to launder money on most of the currently existing tools and algorithms. As a re- blockchain and then empirically show why these techniques sult, the effective combating of e-crime activities involving would be effective in hiding patterns used by potential AI cryptocurrencies requires the development of novel analytic models. methodology in AI. 2 Related Work 1 Introduction The success of Bitcoin (Nakamoto 2008) has encouraged Cryptocurrencies have emerged as an important rapidly hundreds of similar digital coins (Tschorsch and Scheuer- evolving financial tool that allows for cross-border transac- mann 2016). -
New Technology Day
New Technology Day ISSA Report: Infrastructure for Crypto-Assets: A Review by Infrastructure Providers SIX - Urs Sauer, ISSA Working Group Chair “DLT – Principles for Industry-Wide Acceptance” A look back • Symposium in 2016 Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as a main focus • At SIBOS 2016 in Geneva, under the leadership of NSD and Strate, 12 CSDs met for the first ever “pre-SIBOS CSD DLT Workshop” • A core working-group of NSD, Strate, NASDAQ and SIX established itself • DCV (Chile), Caja de Valores (Argentina), SWIFT and SLIB joined the group and published via ISSA the product requirements for: "General Meeting Proxy Voting on Distributed Ledger“ in December 2017 2 Current working group members 3 Observations on DLT developments 1 Incumbents (FMIs & brokers, etc.) moves • Bringing traditional market activity onto distributed “New” ledgers market players Native e.g. Binance, coinbase • Starting tokenization of assets and payments tokens 2 • Aiming to achieve resource efficiencies and increased transparency and simplicity along the value chain 2 “New” market players moves FMIs and brokers Tokenization Traditional e.g. NYSE, Nasdaq, GS, 1 of assets + • Bringing public-blockchain assets to the traditional Assets SIX full value chain on universe of investors distributed ledger • Leveraging their digital market infrastructure and services for the traditional asset space threatening/ Traditional Model Digital Model disintermediating of incumbents business models 4 Source: SIX, Oliver Wyman 1 DLT plans by traditional market infrastructure -
The Lightning Network - Deconstructed and Evaluated
The Lightning Network - Deconstructed and Evaluated Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Anti-Terrorist Financing (ATF) professionals, especially those working in the blockchain and cryptocurrency environment, may have heard of the second layer evolution of Bitcoin's blockchain - the Lightning Network, (LN). This exciting new and rapidly deploying technology offers innovative solutions to solve issues around the speed of transaction times using bitcoin currently, but expandable to other tokens. Potentially however, this technology raises regulatory concerns as it arguably makes, (based on current technical limitations), bitcoin transactions truly anonymous and untraceable, as opposed to its current status, where every single bitcoin can be traced all the way back to its coinbase transaction1 on the public blockchain. This article will break down the Lightning Network - analyzing how it works and how it compares to Bitcoin’s current system, the need for the technology, its money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) risks, and some thoughts on potential regulatory applications. Refresher on Blockchain Before diving into the Lightning Network, a brief refresher on how the blockchain works - specifically the Bitcoin blockchain (referred to as just “Bitcoin” with a capital “B” herein) - is required. For readers with no knowledge or those wishing to learn more about Bitcoin, Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos2 is a must read, and for those wishing to make their knowledge official, the Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium, (C4) offers the Certified Bitcoin Professional (CBP) designation.3 Put simply, the blockchain is a growing list of records that can be visualized as a series of blocks linked by chains. Each block contains specific information - in Bitcoin’s case, a list of transactions and their data, which includes the time, date, amount, and the counterparties4 of each transaction. -
Blockchain Implementation Method for Interoperability Between Cbdcs
future internet Article Blockchain Implementation Method for Interoperability between CBDCs Hyunjun Jung and Dongwon Jeong * Department of Software Convergence Engineering, Kunsan National University, Gunsan 54150, Korea; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +82-(063)-469-8912 Abstract: Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a digital currency issued by a central bank. Motivated by the financial crisis and prospect of a cashless society, countries are researching CBDC. Recently, global consideration has been given to paying basic income to avoid consumer sentiment shrinkage and recession due to epidemics. CBDC is coming into the spotlight as the way to manage the public finance policy of nations comprehensively. CBDC is studied by many countries. The bank of the Bahamas released Sand Dollar. Each country’s central bank should consider the situation in which CBDCs are exchanged. The transaction of the CDDB is open data. Transaction registers CBDC exchange information of the central bank in the blockchain. Open data on currency exchange between countries will provide information on the flow of money between countries. This paper proposes a blockchain system and management method based on the ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry for exchange between CBDCs that records transactions between registered CBDCs. Each country’s CBDC will have a different implementation and time of publication. We implement the blockchain system and experiment with the operation method, measuring the block generation time of blockchains using the proposed method. Keywords: CBDC; CBDC exchange; ISO/IEC 11179; CBDC interoperability blockchain system Citation: Jung, H.; Jeong, D. Blockchain Implementation Method for Interoperability between CBDCs. Future Internet 2021, 13, 133. -
Blockchain Consensus: an Analysis of Proof-Of-Work and Its Applications. Amitai Porat1, Avneesh Pratap2, Parth Shah3, and Vinit Adkar4
Blockchain Consensus: An analysis of Proof-of-Work and its applications. Amitai Porat1, Avneesh Pratap2, Parth Shah3, and Vinit Adkar4 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT Blockchain Technology, having been around since 2008, has recently taken the world by storm. Industries are beginning to implement blockchain solutions for real world services. In our project, we build a Proof of Work based Blockchain consensus protocol and evauluate how major applications can run on the underlying platform. We also explore how varying network conditions vary the outcome of consensus among nodes. Furthermore, to demonstrate some of its capabilities we created our own application built on the Ethereum blockchain platform. While Bitcoin is by and far the first major cryptocurrency, it is limited in the capabilities of its blockchain as a peer-to-peer currency exchange. Therefore, Ethereum blockchain was the right choice for application development since it caters itself specifically to building decentralized applications that seek rapid deployment and security. 1 Introduction Blockchain technology challenges traditional shared architectures which require forms of centralized governance to assure the integrity of internet applications. It is the first truly democratized, universally accessible, shared and secure asset control architecture. The first blockchain technology was founded shortly after the US financial collapse in 2008, the idea was a decentralized peer-to-peer currency transfer network that people can rely on when the traditional financial system fails. As a result, blockchain largely took off and made its way into large public interest. We chose to investigate the power of blockchain consensus algorithms, primarily Proof of Work. -
Aquareum: a Centralized Ledger Enhanced with Blockchain and Trusted Computing
Aquareum: A Centralized Ledger Enhanced with Blockchain and Trusted Computing Ivan Homoliak;yz Pawel Szalachowskiy ySingapore University of Technology and Design zBrno University of Technology ABSTRACT database is equivocated, thus completely undermining the security Distributed ledger systems (i.e., blockchains) have received a lot of of the entire system. Finally, centralized systems are inherently attention recently. They promise to enable mutually untrusted par- prone to censorship. A ledger operator can refuse any request or a ticipants to execute transactions, while providing the immutability transaction at her will without leaving any evidence of censoring. of the transaction history and censorship resistance. Although de- This may be risky especially when a censored client may suffer centralized ledgers may become a disruptive innovation, as of today, from some consequences (e.g., fines when being unable to settle they suffer from scalability, privacy, or governance issues. There- a transaction on time) or in the case when the operator wishes to fore, they are inapplicable for many important use cases, where hide some ledger content (e.g., data proving her misbehavior). On interestingly, centralized ledger systems quietly gain adoption and the other hand, recently emerged public distributed ledgers com- find new use cases. Unfortunately, centralized ledgers have also bine an append-only cryptographic data structure with a consensus several drawbacks, like a lack of efficient verifiability or a higher algorithm, spreading trust across all participating consensus nodes. risk of censorship and equivocation. These systems are by design publicly verifiable, non-equivocating, In this paper, we present Aquareum, a novel framework for cen- and censorship resistant. -
Slide Presentation
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO BLOCKCHAIN NANCY LIAO ’05 JOHN R. RABEN/SULLIVAN & CROMWELL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR YLS ASSOCIATE RESEARCH SCHOLAR IN LAW “BLOCKCHAIN” HAS MANY MEANINGS “To understand the power of blockchain systems, and the things they can do, it is important to distinguish between three things that are commonly muddled up, namely the bitcoin currency, the specific blockchain that underpins it and the idea of blockchains in general.” The Trust Machine, THE ECONOMIST, Oct. 31, 2015 “BLOCKCHAIN” HAS MANY MEANINGS Phone Blockchain • The idea of a • The idea of phone network blockchain • A specific phone • The specific network (e.g., blockchain that AT&T) underlies Bitcoin • A specific use of or another coin the phone network offering (e.g., fax) • Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency WHAT IS BLOCKCHAIN? A technology that: permits transactions to be gathered into blocks and recorded; cryptographically chains blocks allows the resulting ledger to be in chronological order; and accessed by different servers. WHAT IS A DISTRIBUTED LEDGER? Centralized Ledger Distributed Ledger Client A Node A Node E Node B Client Client B Bank C Client D Node D Node C • There are multiple ledgers, but Bank holds the “golden record” • There is one ledger. All Nodes have some level of access to that • Client B must reconcile its own ledger against that of Bank, and ledger. must convince Bank of the “true state” of the Bank ledger if • All Nodes agree to a protocol that determines the “true state” of discrepancies arise the ledger at any point in time. The application