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Binance resumes services in India after seven-month regulatory halt

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Binance logo on smartphone screen

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has resumed operations for users in India after a seven-month hiatus imposed by local authorities for “illegal” operations in the country.

Stock market he said On Thursday, the corporate registered as a reporting entity with India’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), a government agency that oversees financial transactions.

India blocked nearly a dozen offshore cryptocurrency exchange services, including Binance, Kraken, Kucoin and Mexc, late last 12 months on the advice of the FIU. The FIU said offshore exchanges must register locally to comply with the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing framework.

The FIU’s decision comes after a gaggle of local cryptocurrency exchanges filed a grievance with the Indian Finance Ministry, alleging that they were losing customers to non-compliant foreign cryptocurrency exchanges.

Binance’s website and mobile apps are back online in India. Binance said in an announcement that compliance with the Indian regulator marks the nineteenth regulatory milestone for the corporate.

“Our registration with FIU-IND marks an important milestone in Binance’s history,” Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, said in an announcement.

“Recognizing the vitality and potential of the Indian VDA market, aligning with Indian regulations allows us to tailor our services to the needs of Indian users. It is a privilege to extend the reach of our cutting-edge platform to this growing market, supporting the continued evolution of VDA in India.”

Despite India’s status as a key offshore destination for global tech giants, its cryptocurrency market stays relatively underdeveloped. Over the past five years, the Reserve Bank of India has been putting significant pressure on banks to distance themselves from cryptocurrency firms, while the federal government’s implementation of strict tax rules has significantly dampened local enthusiasm for digital assets.

Coinbase stopped accepting customers from India in 2023 after the corporate faced what it described as informal pressure from India’s central bank.

These regulatory and financial hurdles have effectively hindered the expansion of the Indian cryptocurrency ecosystem. The recent hack of WazirX, an area exchange and estranged Binance partner, where nearly half of its reserves were lost, was one other major blow to the efforts of local entrepreneurs who had been advocating for a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment in the country.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Musk’s amended lawsuit against OpenAI names Microsoft as a defendant

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Elon Musk’s lawsuit was filed against OpenAI, accusing the corporate of abandoning its non-profit mission withdrawn in July, simply to be there reborn in August. Now in corrected criticismthe lawsuit names recent defendants, including Microsoft, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and former OpenAI board member and Microsoft vice chairman Dee Templeton.

The amended filing also adds recent plaintiffs: Neuralink executive and former OpenAI board member Shivon Zilis and Musk’s AI company, xAI.

Musk was considered one of the unique founders of OpenAI, which was tasked with researching and developing artificial intelligence for the advantage of humanity, and was originally founded as a nonprofit organization. He left the corporate in 2018 after disagreements over its direction.

In the criticism, Musk’s lawyers argue that OpenAI is “actively trying to eliminate competitors” like xAI by “extracting guarantees from investors to not finance them” He also allegedly unfairly advantages from Microsoft’s infrastructure and expertise in what Musk’s lawyer describes within the lawsuit as a “de facto merger.”

“xAI was harmed by, among other things, … the inability to obtain computing power from Microsoft on terms nearly as favorable as OpenAI … and the exclusive exchange between OpenAI and Microsoft of confidential competitive information,” reads the criticism filed late Thursday in a federal court in Oakland, California .

Hoffman’s position on the boards of Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as a partner on the investment firm Greylock, gave Hoffman a privileged – and illegal – view of the businesses’ activities, the criticism alleges. (Hoffman stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2023.) Greylock invested in Inflection, notes Musk’s general counsel, a man-made intelligence startup that Microsoft acquired earlier this 12 months — and which, in response to the criticism, could reasonably be considered an OpenAI competitor .

As for Templeton, whom Microsoft briefly named a non-voting board observer for OpenAI, the amended filing alleges that she can have facilitated agreements between Microsoft and OpenAI that violated antitrust rules.

“The purpose of the directorate merger prohibition is to prevent the sharing of sensitive competitive information in violation of antitrust laws and/or to provide a forum for coordinating other anticompetitive activities,” the criticism says. “Allowing Templeton and Hoffman to serve as members of OpenAI…. management undermined this goal. “

In addition to Microsoft, Hoffman and Templeton, California Attorney General Rob Bonta was named as a defendant in Musk’s criticism. Bloomberg reported this month, OpenAI is in talks with Bonta’s office in regards to the technique of changing the company structure.

According to the amended criticism, Zilis, who stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2023 after roughly 4 years as a member, is taken into account an “injured employee” under the California Corporations Code. Zilis has repeatedly raised concerns about OpenAI’s internal dealings which have gone unheeded – which the criticism says are broadly much like Musk’s concerns.

Zilis has close ties to Musk, having worked as a project director at Tesla from 2017 to 2019 and likewise led research on Neuralink. (Neuralink is Musk’s brain-computer interface enterprise.) She can also be the mother of Musk’s three children, Techno Mechanicus, and twins Strider and Azure.

The 107-page amended criticism includes the bizarre detail that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman proposed that OpenAI sell its own cryptocurrency in January 2018 before it ultimately decided to change to a capped-profit structure.

“Please note, I have spoken with part of the security team and there have been many concerns regarding the ICO and possible unintended consequences in the future,” Altman wrote in an email to Musk dated January 21, 2018, in an attachment filed with the amended criticism. could be seen. ICO, or initial coin offering, is an unregulated way of raising funds for cryptocurrency corporations. “I want to emphasize the need for confidentiality, but I think it’s really important that we get buy-in and give people a chance for early assessment.”

Musk email against OpenAI ICO Altman cryptocurrencies
Image credits:Toberoff and Partners

Musk allegedly rejected the thought of ​​selling cryptocurrencies. “I have considered an ICO approach and will not support it,” he wrote in an email response to Altman and OpenAI founders Greg Brockman (now OpenAI CEO) and Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI’s former chief scientist), the exhibit shows. “In my opinion, it would just cause a huge loss of credibility for OpenAI and everyone associated with the ICO.”

The essence of the lawsuit stays unchanged on the plaintiffs’ side: OpenAI benefited from Musk’s early involvement in the corporate, and yet it abandoned its nonprofit commitment to make the outcomes of its artificial intelligence research available to all. “No amount of clever design or excess of creative deal-making can overshadow what is happening here,” the criticism reads. “OpenAI, Inc., co-founded by Musk as an independent charity committed to security and transparency… is (rapidly) becoming a wholly-for-profit subsidiary of Microsoft.”

OpenAI sought to dismiss Musk’s lawsuit, calling it “noisy” and baseless.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Hit-Boy and D’USSÉ partners in a limited AR edition

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Hit Boy, D’Usse

D’USSÉ’s limited edition makes Grammy Award-winning producer Hit-Boy a presence at your holiday parties.


D’USSÉ Cognac has partnered with Grammy Award-winning producer Hit-Boy to create a special AR experience that can bring the “SICKO MODE” hitmaker to your front room this holiday season.

This augmented reality (AR) experience, called “The Set”, allows anyone who purchases a D’USSÉ VSOP holiday gift box access an exclusive AR DJ performance by Hit-Boy so as to add splendor to the vacation celebrations. This marks D’USSÉ’s first step into technology and its largest investment thus far in technology-enabled experiences.

The D’USSÉ VSOP Holiday Gift Box includes a 750 ml bottle of D’USSÉ VSOP and a QR code that unlocks access to “The Set” AR experience. After scanning the code with a smartphone, recipients can activate Hit-Boy’s realistic AR filter behind the DJ booth, directly in the event space.

From there, users can select a cocktail to match the mood of the party – whether it’s a D’USSÉspresso Martini or a Spicy Sidecar – and Hit-Boy will respond with custom playlists it’s curated for every drink. With a new-age digital experience, “The Set” brings Hit-Boy to the center of this 12 months’s holiday celebrations.

“Music is the universal spirit of the holidays,” Hit-Boy he said in a statement. “You can’t celebrate without it. But just like collaborating with artists, it’s about finding the right energy.”

“D’USSÉ and I wanted to spread the right atmosphere and had a lot of fun playing with AR technology to provide fans with a unique experience,” he added. “After scanning the QR code, the AR filter will allow me to go to your holiday pendants and separate my favorite songs for the celebration. We hope you enjoy “The Set” wherever you and your family members are this holiday season.”

Partygoers can interact with “The Set” by positioning themselves “beside” or “behind” the DJ booth in AR mode. The filter also lets you take photos, so you’ll be able to quickly share the fun together with your family members or on social media. With the added option of connecting speakers, this immersive visual and audio experience makes Hit-Boy the last word headliner for any holiday party this season.

The D’USSÉ VSOP Holiday Gift Box is offered now in stores nationwide and at dusse.com (MSRP $50).


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
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Bluesky claims that 1 million people have registered on the platform in the last 24 hours

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Bluesky’s UK surge has had little impact on X

Bluesky said this on Thursday night Over 1 million people have registered on the platform over the last 24 hours, making this one among the busiest days for the company. This also meant that the social network crossed the overall mark of 16 million users.

The platform’s announcement comes hours after Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said Threads had seen greater than 15 million registrations in November. He added that over the last three months, the Meta-owned platform has recorded 1 million registrations per day.

Bluesky also had teething problems Thursday as some users were unable to make use of services because one among the company’s ISPs had a cable issue that combined with other network problems, in accordance with Bluesky developer.

Over the past few months, the decentralized social network has seen a gradual influx of users amid various events reminiscent of the X ban in Brazil, moderation issues at Threads, and the recent US election results. After the announcement of the results of the US presidential election, over a million recent people registered on the platform inside per week, the company said on Tuesday.

At the time of writing, a surge in Bluesky sign-ups over the past 24 hours has put the app at the top of the list of free apps in the US App Store, followed by ChatGPT and Threads.

Bluesky might be smaller than Threads, which has over 275 million energetic users, and Elon Musk’s X. However, the platform’s CEO Jay Graber published earlier this week that Bluesky has more involvement than X.

(*1*) she said separate post.

Last month, Bluesky said it had raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Blockchain Capital with participation from Alumni Ventures, True Ventures, SevenX, Darkmode’s Amir Shevat and Kubernetes co-founder Joe Beda. On the product front, the company said it plans to launch subscriptions.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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