The initiative for cooperation between the Slovenian government and the company Viberate was launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos, when Secretary of State Tadej Slapnik and Viberate's COO and co-founder Vasja Veber sat around a round table under the auspices of one of the most prominent development companies in the field of blockchain technology. The panel discussed the importance of corporate-government cooperation in blockchain technology development and the creation of friendly ecosystems that encourage the creation of innovative companies. At a working meeting, the representatives of Viberate, InsurePal, ICONOMI and SunContract presented their activities to the President and the Ministers and explained the obstacles to their operations in Slovenia. They underlined the areas in which the government can help make the country friendlier to such companies.

For this reason, Prime Minister Miro Cerar, Minister of Economic Development and Technology Zdravko Počivalšek and a number of State Secretaries attended a working meeting in Viberate's premises last week. Together with several other successful domestic blockchain start-ups, they discussed the benefits and pitfalls of this technology and the goal of making Slovenia more attractive to blockchain companies at home and abroad.

Slovenia was always willing to become a technology-friendly country. Many governments have referred to Slovenia as the Silicon Valley of Europe, but so far there has not been a major breakthrough in this area. Now, however, it seems that with the advent of blockchain technology, the country is approaching this ambitious vision. The government of Miro Cerar is increasingly aware of this.

What will Slovenia get from the Slovenian Blockchain Alliance?

At the event, the recently established "Blockchain Alliance CEE" interest group was presented, which aims, among other things, to enable a stronger penetration of new markets and to facilitate the presentation of Slovenia as a global blockchain destination. The Economic Interest Alliance will also raise awareness, provide education and advise companies embarking on a blockchain path. At the presentation of the alliance, Matej Gregorčič, general director and co-founder of Viberate, said:

Slovenia is small country that covers an area of 20.273 km² in the Central European region and borders with Austria, Italy, Hungary and Croatia. With a significant geostrategic position, it connects Balkans and Eastern Europe with the West.

There is more: with only a little over 2 million people, Slovenia has delivered a one-of-its-kind result: the country has the highest number of successfully finished ICOs per capita.

With all the knowledge, ideas, business connections and informal business alliances accumulating on such a small, but extremely significant area, the only logical next step is to formalize the alliance and set the route to the common goal.

The Swiss start-up Volinex had started to find a debit card solution for cryptocurrencies. It wanted to respond to the problems that the crypto-community caused by the loss of license of WaveCrest by the credit card provider VISA. Now, however, Volinex itself has to stop its business.

At the beginning of January, there was a big cry in the crypto community: from one day to the next, almost all providers of crypto-debit cards, such as Bitwala or TenX, were experiencing considerable problems, which meant that the cards offered no longer existed could be used. One of the reasons for this was that the credit card provider VISA had withdrawn its license to activate the cards from its issuing bank WaveCrest, which is responsible for the European Bitcoin debit cards.

The problems at WaveCrest called the Swiss startup Volinex on the plan. On January 14, Volinex started offering its crypto credit cards and offered a total of 100,000 Volinex cryptocards. The Volinex platform wanted to provide a wallet from which cryptocurrencies in euros and US dollars can be sold at current prices. From there, the money should be loaded on a debit card, in the long term, it should also be possible to put money on a linked IBAN account and make transfers directly from a crypto account. The startup also held a pre-ICO of the VNX token, which started on December 15, 2017 and was due to expire on February 28.

Now the project has found a sudden and premature end. As the team behind Volinex announced on the project's website, Volinex ceased its work immediately after a long struggle "against unsubstantiated fraud, legal regulations, hacker attacks and the FIAT world," as Volinex puts it. Unfortunately, ultimately, all major credit card issuers would have opted against Volinex's vision and another crypto engagement.

As the reasons for the premature failure, the Volinex team is mainly responsible for the recurrent scam allegations against the project. Thus, towards the end of the planning by hostility near-untenable conditions prevailed, even physical violence should have been threatened the employees of Volinex. The supposedly hostile attitude of many national governments is also cited as justification.

For those who have already invested in Volinex cryptocards as part of the pre-order, a refund will be provided.

Litecoin has climbed to its highest level in over a month, bringing its market capitalization in excess of US $ 10 billion to market for the first time this year. With this, the "silver coin" succeeds for the first time since December in 5th place of the crypto currencies. There are several reasons for the upswing.

The crypto market resembled much of the year so far of a closed bay, in which the flood lifts all ships alike, the subsequent low tide, the collective fleet but also collectively back on the ground of the facts. Occasionally, outliers - positive as well as negative - made a name for themselves, but the basic thrust remained the same. Finally, the market movement stopped almost entirely and stabilized at just over $ 400 billion in market capitalization.

Now Litecoin sets out to break the prevailing sideways movement since late last week. In the last 24 hours, the cryptocurrency has gained more than 30% - one third of its previous market value. The price is now above the $ 200 mark and has a market capitalization of $ 11.5 billion. A side effect of the increase in Litecoin relative to the other top 10 coins is the recapture of fifth place. Cardano claimed this for himself.

Reasons for the Price Increase

Essentially, there are two reasons that indicate such a sudden increase in the coin. One reason is the announcement of the upcoming Litecoin Hard Fork, which will lead to the emergence of a new cryptocurrency called Litecoin Cash. Similar to the Bitcoin hard fork that resulted in Bitcoin Cash, investors are hoping for split free money.

A second message affecting the Litecoin network was the announcement of LitePal for this year and the imminent launch of LitePay. Both Litecoin-based platforms are aimed at payment processing and are designed to make the entire Litecoin transaction process easier.

In a blog post on Monday, Alex Simons, Director of Program Management at Microsoft, shared his vision for decentralized digital identities. The Blockchain should help to regain control of their own data.

Microsoft wants to work for digital identities that not only provide more privacy and security, but also put control in the hands of the principal. According to Simons, blockchain technology is suitable for enabling distributed IDs (DID). Ideas for using blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies have been developed in the last 12 months. Microsoft Product Identity Division Product Manager Ankur Patel has presented the results and the resulting principles.

Data Processing Today vs. Digital Identity Tomorrow

Patel sees a need for a digital identity in the modern way of life, where digital and physical reality merge. This should increase both security and privacy in both realities. Especially those people who still live without proof of identity, should benefit from the freedoms that can bring a digital ID with it. This includes the control over your own data. Currently, these are distributed to many providers by agreeing to data usage for apps and other services. By agreeing to their data being collected, used and kept, users lose control over what exactly happens to their data. Time and again headlines about data breaches and identity theft on the front pages of daily newspapers. This should be prevented by means of an encrypted digital hub (in German about "node"). Users should be able to store their identity data on it and thus be able to control access:

Microsoft's Guidelines for developing DIDs

For the development of a decentralized identity (DID), Microsoft has developed guidelines that explain how our data is currently handled. Above all, they show what needs to be changed in order to digitize and decentralize identity data.

Ankur Patel explained:

Traditional identity systems are designed primarily for authentication and access management. To decentralize the data, the authentication should be made through certificates. These attestations are assertions that are validated by other entities, thereby proving aspects of identity. This prevents the transmission of a flood of data and only reveals what is really relevant. Especially apps that offer features that are tailored to their users then only receive the data that the user wants to pass on. Patel emphasizes that a stable decentralized identity system accessible to all can only be achieved through open source solutions. Therefore, Microsoft has been involved for a year in the Decentralized Identity Foundation (DIF). As part of this, the participating organizations jointly develop decentralized identifiers (DIDs). Specifically, this is a W3C specification that defines a common document format for describing the state of a decentralized identifier. In addition, the DIF works on identity hubs and a server that is supposed to solve the DIDs via blockchains. Furthermore, credentials should be checked for a W3C specification by defining a document format for encoding DID-based credentials.

Step by Step

The Microsoft Authenticator app can already be used today to prove its own identity. As a next step Microsoft wants to experiment with decentralized identities. These should be integrated into the app. The user should then be able to decide whether he wants to use the Microsoft Authenticator as a user agent to manage identity data and cryptographic keys. However, only the ID is anchored in the blockchain, the identity data meanwhile lie in a non-visible Microsoft hub outside the blockchain and are coded with the cryptographic keys. However, whether it all works as Microsoft imagines can not be tested in theory. Therefore, Patel is already asking users for help and feedback.

Indian crypto exchanges plan to create a common user database for their clients and their transactions. The data of the customers would be connected either with their Aadhaar-ID or with a tax number. The country's government continues to work actively to regulate cryptocurrencies.

User Database for Crypto Trader

According to media reports, crypto exchanges are interested in creating a user database. According to the Economic Times, this will "help users create and maintain a record of transactions in real time". The seven exchanges aiming for this goal are members of the Blockchain and Crypto Currency Committee of the Internet and Mobile Association of India.

Ajeet Khurana, head of the committee, emphasized that "this is one of the proposals that we are making to the Commission of the Government, which is investigating cryptocurrencies". Another representative of the industry explained:

The Aadhaar ID is a 12-digit identification number that every Indian receives based on his or her biometric data. This is the world's largest biometric identification system. It had 1.19 billion users in November of last year. The PAN is a 10-digit number that identifies individuals, families and businesses that need to pay income tax. This is issued to Indian citizens and foreigners with valid visas.

The members of the committee want to submit the proposal as early as next week. The government is expected to release its position on cryptocurrencies in March. It is expected to use an authority to oversee the crypto market.

India's Crypto Regulation

Last week, Khurana said the Indian government would work to establish clear framework guidelines for cryptocurrencies and their exchanges.

He estimates that about five million Indians use or have used cryptocurrencies in the past. "And this number is growing," he emphasized.

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