Bank of Cyprus and Deloitte programme to aid aspiring entrepreneurs Accelerator Aris, A Really Inspiring Space, has grown with the addition of another team.

The latest team, Exal is about developing a decentralised e-commerce platform for small and medium enterprises backed-up by blockchain.

For this, as for its other six teams, Deloitte and the Bank of Cyprus provide support not only with offices but with their advice and guidance.

In this case, Deloitte Moscow is mentoring Exal to facilitate the successful launch of their product, because, as Monica Ioannidou, Aris director and head of Deloitte’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre, put it “we provide expertise, and when we can’t find it locally we find it from abroad.”

The Moscow branch has worked with blockchain for ten years, she explained.

Most times, the residents will get enough from the local team, which is based in a Limassol office.

“We are a dedicated team which provides office space and everyday assistance,” Ioannidou said.

The accelerator, so-called because it shortens the time a new business venture takes from an idea to a product, works with participants whose ideas are innovative and connected to technology.

At the moment, teams are involved in projects such as geological tourism, shipping and e-commerce.

There is no deadline, but an ongoing call for applications. “We encourage more teams to join. We are selective, but when we have accepted a team we keep supporting it. As projects need to be market relevant we help finding investors and customers with the expertise of our company and the bank,” the director said.

Teams are of two to five persons, one of whom must be present in the office every day.

Source: CyprusMail

The government on Monday announced the launch of a long-term industrial strategy policy, aiming to double industry’s share of gross domestic product by the year 2030.

The strategy was unveiled at a colloquium in Nicosia under the rubric ‘Designing the industry of the new era’.

“Our main objective, in implementing our new policy in cooperation with our industrialists, is to gradually raise industry’s contribution to GDP from 7.9 per cent where it stood in 2017, to 15 per cent by 2030,” commerce and energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said in the keynote address.

The colloquium was organised by the commerce ministry in collaboration with the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Keve) and the Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV).

It was attended by European Commission officials.

According to official statistics, in 2017 the industrial sector (not including construction) accounted for 7.9 per cent of GDP and for 8.8 per cent of gainfully employed persons.

The new strategy, as outlined by Lakkotrypis, envisages the creation of a “robust, smart and technologically advanced industry with related services, helping to drive economic growth and prosperity.”

The strategy is based on seven pillars, among which sustainable development policies, ‘smart manufacturing’, digitisation, tapping into EU funds and reducing red tape.

Lakkotrypis said a workgroup has already been established, comprising ministry officials and members of Keve and OEV. It will hammer out an annual programme of actions and initiatives, and the overall policy is to be evaluated on a yearly basis.

Also speaking at the event was Mark Nicklas of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.

“The goal is to revitalise and re-industrialise all of Europe, and no country or region should be left behind,” Nicklas said.

In his State of the Union speech on September 13, 2017, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled the Commission’s Industrial Policy Strategy that aims at ‘empowering European industries to continue delivering sustainable growth and jobs.’

The EU’s strategy falls under the broader Agenda 2030, promulgated at a United Nations summit in 2015. Agenda 2030’s stated goal is to ‘transform the world’ by eradicating poverty and implementing sustainable development.

Source: CyprusMail

Attracting investor interest for the Cyprus Cooperative Bank is a must and a move everyone should contribute in, in order to shield the Cypriot economy, Financial Ombudsman Pavlos Ioannou has said.

Addressing the annual property exhibition, Ioannou said that accumulated non-performing loans were not just a result of the economic crisis but also “a creation of the behaviour of the bank’s main structure” According to him this is why “immediate action is needed.”

Cooperative credit institutions “are no longer cooperative,” he said.

The financial ombudsman, who also expressed his approval of a move by the ministry of finance to attract investor interest in the co-op, said the ministry’s recent steps “constitute well thought out and clever moves” which apart from having shielded the system from various uncertainties and insecurities would create the basis for the privatisation of the bank.

In his address he also noted that everyone should contribute in the effort to have a successful outcome.

Under pressure from the EU Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) to raise provisions against bad loans depleting its capital, the CCB launched on March 19 a privatisation process offering potential investors two options, either acquiring the whole banking entity or acquiring its performing operations and a part of its banking network or its non-performing loans amounting to €6.2 billion which amount to 60% of its total loan book.

Cyprus bailed out the CCB in 2014 injecting €1.5 billion using loans it received from the EU and the IMF as part of the €10 billion financial assistance programme. In 2015 the government injected an additional €0.17 billion to boost the CCB’s capital.

In December 2017 the CCB’s capital amounted to €1.1 billion

Source: CyprusMail

This Tiny Home Was 3D-Printed in Just 24 Hours

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The tax department said on Friday it has mailed taxpayers their individual numbers necessary to register online to pay income and defence tax.

All tax returns starting from 2017 will have to be submitted online through TAXISnet.

Numbers have been sent by post to all active taxpayers registered with the department who are not TAXISnet users.

The department urged taxpayers to register in time on: https://taxisnet.mof.gov.cy

Information on the electronic submission of the income tax return for 2017, as well

as instructions on how to register, will be uploaded on the department’s website (www.mof.gov.cy/tax) at a later stage.

Information and guidance is available on the following contact telephone numbers:

Nicosia 22446215/Limassol 25803717/Larnaca 24803590/Paphos 26804398/Ammohostos 23811856.

Source: CyprusMail

A high-powered Cypriot delegation is in Russia to accelerate the exchange of technologies and boost collaboration on innovation and start-ups. The team will also promote opportunities for Russian investment in Cyprus in research and development, technology, biomedicine and health, education, and energy.

Formalising these aims, Invest Cyprus signed a memorandum of cooperation in Moscow on March 1st with the management of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre. This is sprawling science tech business hub near the Russian capital that is home to hundreds of start-ups and to more than 30,000 researchers. The protocol was inked by Invest Cyprus board member, Kyriakos Kokkinos, and Oleg Dubnov, vice-president and executive director of the energy cluster of Skolkovo Foundation.

The aim is to boost co-operation between the two countries’ governments, businesses and research centres. This is reflected in the composition of the 17-strong Cypriot delegation, which includes representatives from the private sector and leading academics.

The two-day visit begins with a meeting on trade and economic co-operation at Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development in Moscow, with officials and companies from each country giving presentations.

Cyprus and Russia have long enjoyed friendly relations at all levels – political, business and people to people. Russian investment is helping to drive the island’s strong economic growth. In turn, the EU’s easternmost member provides Russian enterprises with a gateway to the bloc, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.

President Anastasiades laid the groundwork for the visit last October when he hosted a dinner in Moscow for sixty of Russia’s most influential and wealthiest entrepreneurs. He assured them that his government would strive to promote measures that would constantly improve the appeal of Cyprus’ investment environment.

Weeks earlier, Cyprus and Russia signed a protocol in Nicosia outlining the possibilities and prospects for expanding cooperation in innovation, industry, medical services, transport, telecoms and information technology.

All these are core areas at Skolkovo, where the Cypriot delegation spent a second day. CIPA delegates, including board member Kyriacos Kokkinos, were to meet directors from these various spheres of activity to examine and discuss the potential for cooperation and for gaining more know-how and expertise in innovation.

The Skolkovo trip also gives the Cypriot party the opportunity to promote the island’s advantages as a base for Russian start-ups. Apart from the island’s EU membership and strategic location, operational costs are substantially lower than in mainland Europe and Cyprus has a competitive, EU-approved tax regime.

A further incentive came last year with the introduction of a fast track visa scheme for non-EU nationals who launch innovative start-ups with high growth potential. Cyprus is already home to a rapidly-growing expatriate and local tech community, with ‘incubators’ and accelerators to provide support.

The Cypriot delegation’s composition reflected the mission’s purpose and interests. It includes representatives from Cyta’s Innovation and Idea Development Centre, the Cyprus and Limassol Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which represent the business community, from public and private universities, and companies from the private sector, including Remedica.

Most Russians they will meet know of the island from friends or relatives in Cyprus, which is home to a flourishing 40,000-strong Russian-speaking business community that sees the island as a reliable partner. Many students from Russian-speaking countries attend universities and medical schools in Cyprus and sun-loving Russian tourists are flocking to the island in ever-growing numbers. They made up nearly a third of last year’s record 3.6 million visitors.

Economic ties date back decades to when Cyprus swapped wine in bulk with the Soviet Union in return for tractors. Russian businessmen arrived in Cyprus in the early 1990s after the collapse of communism. The island provided a first step into the capitalist world. Their path was smoothed by cultural, historical and Orthodox Christian ties, making Cyprus a home from home. Cyprus’ EU membership in 2004 magnified the island’s attractions as a base for Russian enterprises.

Most Russians doing business in Cyprus stayed after the 2013 bail-in, even though many lost uninsured bank deposits. Russian foreign direct investment continued unabated, helping Cyprus to record a remarkable 9.1 per cent growth in foreign direct investment in 2016 and a further 6 per growth in 2017.

Source: CyprusMail

Cyprus and Egypt will be ready in the near future to sign an agreement on a direct undersea natural gas pipeline from Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone to a liquefied natural gas plant in Egypt, Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides said.

The minister, visiting Cairo on Tuesday, said: “We believe that there is a bright future for the cooperation between Cyprus and Egypt in the field of hydrocarbons as our cooperation is based on solid foundations.”

In a joint press conference after the meeting, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said it was important to finalise measures related to the government agreement on constructing gas pipelines between both countries.

In return, Christodoulides said Cyprus was working towards accomplishing this, in line with the set timetable.

The two ministers highlighted the excellent relations between the two countries and agreed to further cooperation in areas such as energy, finance and freight.

Shoukry expressed Egypt’s keenness to continue working with Cyprus and other partners in the European Union on achieving mutual interests, based on principles of mutual respect and non-intervention in the domestic affairs of others.

“Our own intensive exchanges and open channels of communication are a mirror image of the excellent relations Cyprus and Egypt maintain at all levels. They also highlight our strong political will to further extend and strengthen bilateral cooperation, building on the impressive momentum created under the leadership of our two presidents,” Christodoulides said.

Trilateral relations between Cyprus, Egypt and Greece were also discussed, with the suggestion to include more countries.

Christodoulides is expected to meet Egypt’s prime minister and the president of parliament on Wednesday while President Nicos Anastasiades is set to visit Egypt by the end of the month.

Earlier in the day, in an interview with Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm ahead of his visit, Christodoulides said energy cooperation between our two countries forms an indispensable part of our common vision for creating conditions of stability and security in the Eastern Mediterranean.

“We expect that in the near future our countries will be ready to sign an intergovernmental agreement concerning a direct undersea natural gas pipeline from Cyprus’ EEZ to an LNG plant in Egypt. The stakeholders involved are in the process of negotiating the terms of the natural gas sale and the purchase agreements, and hopefully, we will soon have positive results.”

Christodoulides said that during his working visit in Cairo he will discuss bilateral relations, the trilateral cooperation between Cyprus Egypt and Greece, energy issues, the Cyprus problem, EU – Egypt relations, developments in the Eastern Mediterranean, and regional issues.

His visit is also taking place in preparation for the upcoming visit of President Nicos Anastasiades to Egypt.

“It is no secret that both Cyprus and Egypt have common challenges to face in a number of issues and these can only be addressed through joint and coordinated actions,” the Cypriot foreign minister said. “We are particularly happy to observe that there is a momentum in taking our cooperation forward in a wide array of areas, which includes coordination in international fora. Our aim is to further strengthen and deepen our cooperation in all areas of common interest.”

Asked how Nicosia will deal with a possible Turkish drilling in Cyprus’ waters, he said Cyprus was working to prevent such activity which will constitute another serious violation of international law, as well as a clear indication of Turkey’s unwillingness to contribute to the settlement of the Cyprus issue.

Source: CyprusMail

EXPERT TAKE

In our Expert Takes, opinion leaders from inside and outside the crypto industry express their views, share their experience and give professional advice. Expert Takes cover everything from Blockchain technology and ICO funding to taxation, regulation and cryptocurrency adoption by different sectors of the economy.

If you would like to contribute an Expert Take, please email your ideas and CV to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Given all the negative press that Bitcoin has to fight against, the arguments in favor of Bitcoin may sometimes be lost in all the noise. So let’s have a look at the typical attacks on Bitcoin and how the community could respond to them.

The price of Bitcoin is too high

Despite being down more than 60 percent from its all time high, the price of 1 Bitcoin - around $7,000 at the time of writing ($7,116 at press time - Cointelegraph) - still deters many people from entering the market. Even though Bitcoin is on the main page of many online newspapers since mid-2017, most people still do not know they can buy a fraction of a Bitcoin. So let’s set the record straight: 1 Bitcoin can be divided into 100 million satoshis (the smallest Bitcoin unit). Just because one cannot afford a full gold bar - which are $600,000 a piece - does not mean one cannot buy a gold coin or invest as little as $126 through a Gold ETF to get exposure to gold. The same thing can be done with Bitcoin.

Assuming a world population of 7 bln people, it means that there are 300,000 satoshis available per human being, or 0.003 Bitcoin. Since several studies have estimated that 3 to 4 mln Bitcoins have been lost in the early years, the true number is probably closer to 220 - 250,000 satoshis per person.

This problem led to an exuberant rally at the end of 2017, when all the coins below $1 suddenly started going up as many thought they were “cheap”. As each coin has a different supply, the price of one coin is irrelevant, what matters is the market capitalization of the outstanding supply and whether a particular coin has a future or not. Since this rally, most of these coins have gone down 80 percent + as these increases never made sense in the first place.

Remember that there are more millionaires in the world than there will ever be Bitcoins, so the price of 1 Bitcoin will soon not be the right metric, but rather 1 mBTC (1 thousandth of a Bitcoin) or even 1 satoshi. The current market capitalization of Bitcoin is $120 bln, while the US Dollar M2 Money Supply is $14,000 bln and the value of all the gold ever mined is $8,000 bln, so there is still plenty of upside left. At $7,000 per Bitcoin, the price of 1 satoshi is  0.007 US cents - at this price anyone can invest.

The price of Bitcoin is too volatile to invest any money in it

There is no debate that the price of Bitcoin is very volatile, but it is so for good reasons. For the first time in the history of mankind there is a cryptographically secure, decentralized currency not backed by any central bank nor any physical asset. It would actually be even more surprising if Bitcoin were already stable. The volatility issue will likely sort itself out with time when the market capitalization of Bitcoin becomes comparable to that of the assets it is competing with - fiat currencies or gold - or if it goes to zero!

Cryptocurrencies are the most volatile and speculative asset class in the world, so if you invest in Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, you should know what you are in for and you should only invest what you can afford to lose. Investing only what you can afford to lose gives you something very valuable: time. If you have time, then you will never be forced to sell when the price is low and you can weather market cycles, including severe downturns.

Bitcoin is bad for the environment

When Bitcoin started being mined by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009, mining it could be done on a simple laptop and it took on average 10 minutes to mine a block just like it does today. The Bitcoin algorithm is such that it automatically adjusts the difficulty of the cryptographic puzzle that miners have to solve to validate a block and receive the reward such that it always takes 10 minutes to mine a block on average. The more resources are added to the Bitcoin network, the higher the difficulty. This difficulty is what makes the Bitcoin network the most powerful and hence most secure on Earth.

The reason miners have invested billions of US dollars in specialized mining equipment is because Bitcoin is so valuable - it is not as a result of an increase in the number of users nor the number of transactions. As long as Bitcoin is valuable, companies will invest in mining equipment to get the reward that comes with successfully mining a block. These miners consume large quantities of electricity to run their operations, and this is what has been heavily criticized. But since the cost of electricity is the main operating cost for miners, they are always looking for cheap electricity around the world. Electricity is cheap where there is a surplus of it, and this usually happens in countries that have large renewable resources, so the net impact of running a mining operation in a country that has excess hydro capacity for example may not be as bad as what has been written.

At $7,000 per Bitcoin, the current annual cost of the Bitcoin network is $4.6 bln, and a sizable portion of it spent on electricity bills. But what the Bitcoin network provides for this cost is a Blockchain that is unhackable by any existing computer or technology on the planet.

While Bitcoin has been targeted by environmentalists, the legacy fiat system is not perfect either. A lot of resources are also dedicated to running datacenters, building and powering bank branches and printing banknotes just to name a few.  The US Federal Reserve alone spends $700 mln a year just to print dollar bills. What makes Bitcoin an easy target is simply that it is relatively easy to figure out how much electricity it consumes.

40 percent of All Bitcoins Are Controlled by 1,000 people

Another myth is that supposedly 40 percent of Bitcoins are held by only 1,000 people. The reality is that this is pure speculation. What we know for sure is that there are currently 24 mln Bitcoin wallets. However, one person may have hundreds of wallets while one wallet may hold Bitcoins belonging to thousands, or millions of people, which makes any analysis of the concentration of wealth among Bitcoin holders quite impossible.

The two wallets holding the most Bitcoins have been identified as being the cold wallets of Bitfinex and Bittrex, but someone looking a the raw data would simply infer that the owners of these two wallets are billionaires, while the Bitcoins in these wallets belong to thousands or millions of clients of these exchanges. Coinbase alone claims to have more than 10 mln users. When you trust an exchange with your Bitcoins - you should not - the exchange does not create a wallet specifically for you on the Blockchain, it simply allocates some of the Bitcoins that have been deposited with them from one user to another one.

On the other hand, most wallets create a new address every time there is an incoming transaction. This means that someone with a hardware wallet would have received 5 times 0.2 Bitcoin will own 1 Bitcoin spread over 5 different addresses. There is no way to know that these 5 addresses actually belong to the same person. The heavy concentration of wealth in the Bitcoin world may or may not be a reality, but convincing evidence has yet to be produced to close the debate on this point.

Bitcoin Is used to buy drugs and for money laundering

With Bitcoin, every single transaction is public, which is not exactly ideal if you are looking to engage in illegal activities. Two reports were recently released claiming that only 1 percent of all Bitcoin transactions were used for money laundering or  44 percent for illegal activities. Needless to say there is no consensus on this issue.

The problem with using Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency for illegal activities is that you cannot do much with those yet if you have acquired them illegally. If you are running a large illegal operation and you suddenly decide to collect Bitcoins instead of cash, how are you going to pay for your expenses? You will most likely need to go through an exchange to get good old fiat currency in exchange for your cryptocurrencies, and you cannot do this anonymously as many exchanges follow Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) procedures when registering users. This is where criminals using cryptocurrencies will get caught as law enforcement agencies are monitoring these exchanges. So cash will probably remain the currency of choice for criminals for the time being.

Bitcoin transactions are slow and expensive

Ever since the SegWit soft fork got implemented about 6 months ago, the theoretical maximum number of transactions per second increased from 5 to 7 per second to close to 20 per second, or 1.7 mln per day. This number is of course very far from what it should be to compete with the legacy payment systems. But it has never been the objective of the Bitcoin Blockchain to record every single transaction. Many of the smaller transactions could be recorded off chain, and this is precisely what the upcoming Lightning Network will make possible.

The whole Bitcoin network has been designed around incentives. Fees are necessary to prevent spam attacks on the network. Without fees any malicious attacker could simply send millions of tiny transactions just to fill up the blocks and paralyze the system. The fees make sure that the most important transactions - those for which high fees have been paid - are processed first. And even if it takes a few blocks to get a transaction validated, it is still much faster than a wire transfer that may take up to 10 days (in the case of international wire transfers).

A long road ahead

Most people still misunderstand what Bitcoin is and how it works, and it is going to take time for them to figure it out. When the internet went mainstream more than 20 years ago, many people did not even see the point of having an email address as they did not know anyone who had one. Bitcoin and cryptos in general are there. Bitcoin adoption is still increasing - even in the middle of a bear market which saw the price of 1 mBTC fall from $20 down to $6 - and it is all that matters. Bitcoin has had its fair share of booms and busts in its 9 years of existence, but what makes Bitcoin different from other bubbles is that even though its price went down many times, it has always recovered, at least until now.

The views and interpretations in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Cointelegraph.com and the World Bank.

Source: Cointelegraph

Perfume Bottles

Vintage perfume bottles take on new life as vessels for fresh spring blooms.

Candy Chicks

Decorate your Jordan almonds for a sweet addition to your Easter table.

Spring Centerpiece

Feel free to leave this pretty vase on your dining table for the rest of spring.

Easter Egg Tree

This beautiful spring tree is decked out with Easter eggs for the perfect holiday centerpiece.

Egg Name Settings

Write out little name tags for your Easter guests on colorful eggs

3D Easter Name Tags

Impress your family members with these fun Easter egg name tags that you can reuse year after year.

Set the Table

Let fresh flowers and spring's pretty pastels inspire your celebration table. Put a rabbit ear napkin ring made from felt at each place setting, then add a few sweet chicks and bunnies around the table.

Painterly Eggs

Download our watercolor images template, and print onto Grafix Rub-Onz Transfer Film. Tip: You may need to select the photo paper setting on your printer. Follow package instructions to transform images into adhesive decals, then apply to eggs by rubbing with your fingers or the flat end of a wine cork.

Bunny Ears Napkins

1. Use scissors to cut a 1½" section of paper-towel tube.

2. From white or pink felt, cut a 6¼" x 2¼" rectangle and hot-glue it around the cardboard ring.

3. Download the bunny ear template here. Make the outer ear shapes with felt that matches the ring color, and the inner ear shapes with the other felt color.

4. Sandwich a 4" piece of pipe cleaner between the inner and outer ear shapes, letting about ¾" stick out of the bottom; hot-glue to secure. Pinch the bottom corners together and secure with hot glue; hold until dry. Repeat this step for the other ear.

5. Attach the ears to the felt-covered ring, about ½" apart, by hot-gluing the exposed pipe cleaner to the top of the ring. Cover the pipe cleaner segments with a small piece of matching felt; hot-glue to secure.

6. Once dry, bend the ears to make them stand upright, then push a napkin through the ring.

Source:WomansDay

NEWS

The first user mobile wallet built for the Bitcoin’s Lightning Network (LN)launched April 4 marking a further milestone for the technology.

Eclair wallet, released by technology startup ACINQ, is available for Androidusers from the Google Play Store.

Devices running version 5.0 or newer of the operating system can now send Lightning payments, which should notionally cost a fraction of regular Bitcoin network fees and confirm almost instantly.

“The Eclair Wallet is a next generation, Lightning-ready Bitcoin wallet. It can be used as a regular Bitcoin wallet, and can also connect to the Lightning Network for cheap and instant payments,” ACINQ describes its product on Github.

“This software is based upon eclair, and follows the Lightning Network standard.”

The release is just the latest in a series of major steps to mainstream adoption LN has made since the start of the year.

March saw the protocol’s first mainnet product implementation go live, with several more user-oriented tools since coming online from private developers.

The growth in options has been made possible due to SegWit technology gaining acceptance on the Bitcoin mainnet in 2018, this being a highly desirable background to allow LN to function at its best for Bitcoin.

Source: Cointelegraph