Swedish iGaming platform provider Bejoynd has partnered with player protection specialist Mindway AI.

Mindway AI employs artificial intelligence to ensure player protection through the precise detection of at-risk and problem gamblers via its GameScanner product.

According to the company, GameScanner is an artificial intelligence solution “based on neuroscience which – fully automatically – identifies problem gambling behaviour with the same performance as expert psychologists.” 

Commenting on the collaboration COO of Bejoynd, Mahmoud Haidar, said:

“It is important for us to take responsibility and to see in what direction the world is going in the iGaming industry. In our collaboration with Mindway, the customers can focus more on the fun parts of gambling but still be responsible.”

While CEO of Mindway AI, Rasmus Kjaergaard, added:

“We are very excited about joining forces with Bejoynd and creating synergy by combining their state-of-the-art software solutions with our award-winning GameScanner. We see our new partnership as a great step towards making sustainable gambling more easily accessible to operators and as a result also to gamblers.”

Last year Copenhagen-based affiliate company Better Collective invested in Mindway AI, acquiring 19.99% of shares for a total of 4 million DKK (€540K), with the option to acquire the remaining shares for a price of 20 million DKK (€2.68M) subject to performance-based conditions. As part of the deal, Better Collective also provided a 4 million DKK (€540K) loan to Mindway AI.

AYO.NEWS says:

With regulatory compliance, KYC, and player protection requirements getting to the point where they can easily overwhelm traditional systems, artificial intelligence offers the promise of an efficient and effective solution, allowing operators to focus on providing the best service, and players to focus on having fun. 

Staying with all things AI, as we reported earlier today, global tech giant IBM has made its first entry into esports, forming an artificial intelligence and cloud computing-focused partnership with Overwatch League. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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Co-founder and former chief technical officer at BitMEX, Samuel Reed, has been released on a $5M USD bail bond. 

As previously reported, Reed was arrested by US authorities last week, after he, Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo, and several corporate entities related to BitMEX were charged with operating an unregistered trading platform and breaking anti-money laundering regulations. 

Reed, Hayes, Delo, and former head of business development at BitMEX, Gregory Dwyer, have also been charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act. If convicted they could each face fines of up to $250K and jail sentences of up to five years. 

If Reed fails to appear in court, he will lose the $5M bond which he apparently paid in cash to the court. 

So far, Reed is the only one to have been arrested, when the US Department of Justice caught up with him in Massachusetts on 1 October. Presumably Hayes, Delo, and Dwyer are keeping as far away from the reach of US authorities as possible – possibly in the Seychelles, where BitMEX’s owner, 100x Group (formerly known as HDR Trading) is based. 

Yesterday 100x Group announced a leadership reshuffle and confirmed that Reed, Hayes, and Delo no longer hold any executive roles with the company. Dwyer, who is not facing as many charges as the rest, has taken a leave of absence and has protested his innocence. 

AYO.NEWS says:

That’s a sizable bond to pay, but the fact he’s even been granted bail at all suggests the courts don’t think Reed is a flight risk. After all, if you can afford to pay $5m in cash for bail, you definitely can’t afford to hire a private jet for a dash to Belize or the Seychelles… right?

So, will Hayes and Delo come back to face the music alongside him? And, will 100x Group fight its corner, or try to quietly distance itself from its founders?

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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Indian cryptocurrency exchange, Unocoin, is close to finalising its Series A funding round, targeted at $5M USD. 

So far the round has been led by Tim Draper’s Draper Associates, with participation from XBTO Ventures and 2020 Ventures. The Series A funding round raises Unocoin’s valuation to $20 million. 

The company says it will use the new capital to bolster its continued growth in India, build a stronger technology team, and enhance its infrastructure and offerings. Developments already in the pipeline are said to include a move into Decentralised Finance (DeFi) with its owns protocols and the implementation of a new AI-based chatbot to improve customer support. 

Discussing the news CEO of Unocoin, Sathvik Vishwanath, said:

“We’ve seen a dramatic increase of crypto adoption in India following the lifting of an industry-wide ban by the Reserve Bank of India enacted in 2018. Customer growth rates have surged by more than 10X in the month the supreme court verdict was announced, accompanied by a 5X increase in trading volume in subsequent months. 

“The funding will help us scale our business further, and give us a strong financial foothold to expand our platform’s offerings. We will double down on our efforts to improve our product features and offerings, which will enhance the overall usability and functionality for our customers.”

While Founder of Draper Associates, Tim Draper, added:

“We were delighted to hear the verdict by the Indian Supreme Court, and we had been tracking Unocoin, the leader in India for Bitcoin for years. We are so thrilled that the stars aligned and we could finally back Unocoin. Every Indian should have a Bitcoin account with Unocoin. It is a great way to do business in a currency that doesn’t devalue over time.”

Founded in 2013, Unocoin has grown into India’s largest BTC-INR trading platform, and also supports LTC, XRP, ETH, BCH, BTG, and various ERC-20 tokens. 

Staying with Tim Draper, earlier this week Los Angeles-based venture studio Draper Goren Holm announced the launch and principal close of its $25M blockchain fund focusing on European Seed and Series A investments. 

AYO.NEWS says:

The Indian crypto industry has been through some trying times, to say the least, over the last few years, but those that hung in there, like Unocoin, are now in a great position to exploit what could be a market with huge potential.

We must tip our hats to Tim Draper too, for putting his money where his mouth is and investing in an Indian crypto company. Back in July 2019, he was one of the most vocal critics of the Indian ban on cryptocurrencies, openly calling the government “pathetic and corrupt.” 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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The Dutch central bank has approved the first crypto business in the country under the recently adopted AMLD5 regulations.

As previously reported, the introduction of the strict new AMLD5 regulations caused a number of crypto related businesses, including crypto derivatives platform Deribit, to leave the Netherlands entirely. 

Amsterdam-based AMDAX BV, (Amsterdam Digital Asset Exchange), offers crypto services to businesses and private investors, and is now fully registered with De Nederlandsche Bank NV (DNB), meaning it can legally process crypto transactions and store cryptocurrencies for Dutch residents.

AMDAX co-founder and director, Valentino Cremona, welcomed the news, saying that the new regulations and legal framework proved that cryptocurrency is a “mature asset class, not for criminals, but for smart investors.”

Other remaining crypto companies in the Netherlands have until 21 November to complete registration with the DNB, or face being shut down. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Hats off to AMDAX for becoming the first Dutch crypto business to jump through what must have been a hell of a lot of hoops! Let’s hope others will be able to do the same before 21 November. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

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Fetch.ai has successfully completed a mainnet integration of Chainlink, the most widely used decentralised oracle network.

The Cambridge-based artificial intelligence lab is building an open-access decentralised machine learning network for smart infrastructure, and is using Chainlink’s Price Reference Data to allow users to verify the price of assets on-chain while also enhancing security against price manipulation. 

Discussing the integration CEO of Fetch.ai, Humayun Sheikh, explained:

“By integrating Chainlink into the Fetch.ai network, we are taking the necessary steps needed to further couple real-world data with autonomous software. This in turn will speed up the adoption of Fetch.ai autonomous software agents and provide the necessary information for them to communicate with sophistication in real-life scenarios.

“By referencing Chainlink’s price feeds on assets and commodities such as Gold and Silver we will be able to enhance the relationship between traders on Mettalex’s first of its kind commodities exchange. Not only will this provide a safeguard against price manipulation but it will also serve as a market reference for the changing prices of the worlds most traded commodities.”

While Head of Business Development for Chainlink, Daniel Kochis, added:

“Any developer building on Fetch.ai will soon have access to smart contracts powered by tamper-proof market price data. AI is an incredibly powerful technology and properly combining it with decentralized computation will require high-quality off-chain data to trigger on-chain logic, which is the exact problem Chainlink solves.”

AYO.NEWS says:

Though this kind of development might not seem like the most exciting news ever, it’s illustrative of the significant progress being made in the background, as the world nears the point where whole industries and sectors will be able to completely rely on robust AI and decentralised infrastructure to massively improve automation, efficiency, and security. 

Staying with AI developments, last week we reported that SingularityNET may be about to replace its native ERC-20 AGI token and Solidity smart contract language in favour of Cardano and Plutus, to enable it to more efficiently scale as it develops its Artificial General Intelligence ecosystem of global AIs that can work together. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

BitMEX operator, 100x Group, has announced a leadership reshuffle following its founders being charged with multiple serious offences in the US. 

As reported last week, the founders of the Seychelles-based group (which was previously known as HDR Trading), Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed, Ben Delo, and Greg Dwyer, have been charged with offences including operating an unregistered trading platform and breaking anti-money laundering regulations. So far, only Samuel Reed has been arrested by US law enforcement. 

In an official statement, 100x Group said:

“Founders Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed have stepped back from all executive management responsibilities for their respective CEO and CTO roles with immediate effect. With fellow Founder Ben Delo, they will not hold executive positions in the 100x Group. Additionally, Greg Dwyer will take a leave of absence from his role as Head of Business Development.”

Vivien Khoo, the group’s former chief operating officer, has replaced Hayes as interim CEO. Before joining HDR in 2019, Khoo was managing director, Asia-Pacific compliance, at Goldman Sachs, and has also served with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. 

Meanwhile, the group’s commercial director, Ben Raddclyffe, has been given an expanded remit, and will now handle client relationships and oversight of financial products. Radclyffe has two decades of experience with outfits like Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Tower Research Capital. 

Despite the legal drama, BitMEX is continuing to operate normally and 100x Group chair, David Wong, has confirmed the company is still planning to complete the introduction of the previously reported BitMEX User Verification Programme. 

AYO.NEWS says:

So far it seems BitMEX isn’t particularly phased by the enforcement actions in the United States, so we presume Hayes and co are probably still lapping up the sunshine in the Seychelles. Regarding the new appointments, putting the company in the hands of a compliance expert is probably a good move! 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020