Your Daily Crypto News on Steemit August 09, 2017

IOTA to help trace families of refugees!
Australia accepting BTC as official currency?
Internet consultant of Putin makes Russia a mining power!

The IOTA Foundation will work with the non-profit relief organization REFUNITE, which has the largest database for missing persons.

REFUNITE is active in more than 25 countries and is helping to find the lost family members through wars and conflicts. The organization was founded in 2009 by Christopher Mikkelsen and David Sonstebo, who then helped an Afghan refugee find his family after fleeing the Taliban.

This case has motivated them to build up a cross-border database that collects and links the data of missing persons. In order to record and verify this data, a blockchain solution is now to be implemented.

Instead of the Ethereum blockchain, as with many other auxiliary projects, the blockchain technology from IOTA (The Tangle) is now to be used. This offers significant advantages in contrast to classic blockchains, since the Distributed Ledger Technology used offers an extremely scalable solution. This is necessary since REFUNITE is currently helping more than 700,000 refugees find their families.

Another advantage is that the transactions do not cost any fees, which is especially attractive for an NGO with little financial resources. IOTA could also be of interest to refugee projects that are still based on the Ethereum blockchain.

David Sonstebo explains:

Christopher Mikkelsen notes:

According to the local Sydney Morning Herald, two senators in a wider appeal called on the government to better integrate the blockchain technology and their representatives.

Leading the project are Liberal Senator Jane Hume and Laboratory Senator Sam Dastyari. They argue that Australia should proactively use crypto currencies and blockchain technologies. As part of this effort and to push the project forward, Hume and Dastyari have formed a group called the Parliamentary Friends of Blockchain. Among the proposals, a call for the Australian Central Bank is to be introduced with its own crypto currency.

Senator Sam Dastyari notes:

He stressed that Australia is risky to be suspended if it is not working on the development of its own official crypto currency and the use of blockchain. As early as this year, the Reserve Bank of Australia has set up an internal working group focusing on blockchain technology.

At the present time, however, not all members of the Australian Parliament are to extend the use of crypto currency for the project. Bill Shorten, who heads the Australian Labor Party, gave a speech in June asking for tighter controls on the use of Bitcoin in the country.

The company of the Internet consultant of Russia's President Vladimir Putin wants to invest in crypto-mining. Thanks to microchips used in Russian satellites, an ICO and the country's low energy price, the company sees the potential to generate 30 percent of the global hash rate in Russia.

Dimitrij Marinichev, the Internet consultant of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, has announced the RMC's ICO ("Russian Mining Company") in a press conference. The RMC tokens can be purchased with Bitcoin or Ethereum, and 18 percent of RMC's Mining revenues are distributed to their owners. The ICO is to flush 100 million dollars into the cash register of the company, with which the development of mining chips is to be financed. BitFury's Mining chips and particularly economical microchips developed for Russian satellites are to be used for this purpose.

Click on the link below to see the RMC's ICO:
http://rmc.one/

Marinichev stated that Russia had the potential to provide 30 percent of the global mining hazards. A presentation by RMC indicates that Russia generates about 20 gigawatts of excess energy. At the same time, Russia has the world's most favorable electricity prices. At 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour, electricity in Russia is significantly cheaper than in the Mining Supermarket China. The fact that this has been used by the Russians for a long time to be massively used for crypto-mining shows, among other things, the far-reaching demand for graphics cards in Russia. RMC would like to continue to exploit this location advantage by making the mining hardware still to be developed nationwide in private households.

With RMC, a new powerful actor in crypto mining can emerge. The prerequisites seem to be ideal with the extremely favorable energy prices and support from the government. The announcement shows that Bitcoin Mining has already become a state business. The Mining in China is rumored to be supported by the Communist Party, and it is a half-open secret that BitFury has excellent links with US and other NATO governments and is also working with them. In addition, John McAffee, an extravagant software millionaire and libertarian politician in the US, is planning to build the world's largest mining center in North America. Anyway, the US and Canada are becoming increasingly popular locations for bitcoin mining equipment, as the cost is low, but the service is good.

With RMC, Russia is probably also in the competition for sovereignty over the money of the future.