Overstock subsidiary Medici Ventures is investing in VinX , which is making a blockchain solution that monitors the ingredients of wine on their journey between the vineyard and the glass, according to reports. The idea is to enable wine futures to be sold and traded on a secure platform, with the goal of preventing fraud by monitoring a wine’s provenance “at a cost bearable to the industry,” according to an announcement from the company. Overall, it is estimated that 20 percent of the world’s wine has labeling that is counterfeit.
In other news, SBI Holdings and Ripple created a money transfer app which has launched, Coindesk reported. The service, which can be accessed through both Android and iOS devices, enables users to use a quick response (QR) phone or their telephone numbers to send money. As it stands, users can only remit money between accounts at SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Resona Bank and Suruga Bank in the Japanese yen as well as foreign currencies.
And a federal judge for a federal court has ruled that a cryptocurrency in a case is, in fact, a commodity, TheNextWeb reported. A statement noted that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “sufficiently alleged” that MBC was “a commodity under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).” That is, the agency alleged that MBC “is a virtual currency and it is undisputed that there is futures trading in virtual currencies (specifically involving Bitcoin).” Furthermore, the statement noted that commodities include “a host of specifically enumerated agricultural products as well as ‘all other goods and articles …and all services rights and interests…in which contracts for future delivery are presently or in the future dealt in.”
On another note, bitcoin automated teller machine (ATM) manufacturers are eyeing Argentina as a market for their products, TheNextWeb reported. To that end, the country might have 30 bitcoin ATMs prior to the close of the year and more than 1,600 before next year’s end. The moves comes as the Argentinian peso has fallen 50 percent against the U.S. dollar in 2018, and one bitcoin firm has noted that the devaluation of the currency has brought a jump in bitcoin transactions.
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