The secret Swiss mountain bunker where millionaires keep their bitcoins

Quarz correspondents visited the secret repository of the bitcoin-company Xapo in the Swiss mountains. 

The Xapo bunker is a former military bunker, dug in a granite mountain near the eastern side of the Lucerne Lake. It was built in 1947, and during the Cold War was used as the secret office of the Swiss army. Its precise location is secret, and access is limited by security measures

The founder of Xapo is the Argentinean entrepreneur Wences Casares, and it is said that thanks to him first bitcoins were acquired by Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman. The company does not disclose the number of bitcoins stored in the bunker, but it is known that the deposits of some customers are estimated at millions of dollars. A bitcoin vault doesn’t store actual bitcoin units. Technically, what’s being stored are private, cryptographic keys. Getting unauthorized access to such private keys is equal to robbery, and it is not surprising that the company takes the highest security measures. The bunker itself is guarded by the company called Deltalis, which has a data center of about a thousand square meters. Server racks for storing keys are located at a depth of 320 meters inside the granite mountain.

The entrance to the bunker is a concrete façade. Inside there is a waiting room, where each visitor is carefully checked - whether he is recorded for a tour, as well as his personality. Visitors in the reception are photographed and a biometric pass is being issued. After that, the visitor enters a narrow cylinder of bullet-proof glass, the size of a telephone booth in which it is closed, until the operator opens the door from the opposite side. The data center itself is small. There is a cooler and one more door. What is behind this door is inaccessible to anyone except the employees of Xapo. It's already forbidden to take pictures there. 

Is it not too much of security? “We are under attack 24/7,” said Carlos Rinzi - the head of Xapo security, referring to the terrorists and hackers he designed the vault to guard against. “This is not a race. It is a chess game. You have to think about the opponent’s next movement. You can never relax.”

Behind the Scenes of Advanon. Interview with Founder and COO – Philip Kornmann

ABOUT ADVANON

Advanon was founded by three young entrepreneurs who got to know each other at Google in Dublin. Advanon's mission is to provide simple and fast funding, enabling companies to leverage their full growth potential. The founding team is supported by experts with many years of experience in technology and finance.

On the Advanon Online platform, SMEs can quickly and easily get funds for their open receivable accounts from investors. Waiting time of 30-120 days on payment receipts from customers is gone.

Compared to traditional factoring companies, Advanon has no minimum funding requirements, no blocking periods, and the cost of financing is transparent and does not include any hidden fees.

Advanon is a financial intermediary officially authorized by FINMA (directly subordinated financial intermediary, DUFI) and is thus obliged to comply with the Money Laundering Act (AMLA).



INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP KORNMANN - Founder and COO


Why did you, Stijn, and Phil decide to start Advanon?


There are a few reasons why we decided to start Advanon together. One of the most important reasons was, and still is, that we want to have an impact on how SMEs are getting access to financing. All three of us had experienced, either by ourselves or through family and friends, the challenges that many SMEs have with managing their cash flows and the difficulties they have to go through when applying for financing through traditional institutions. We simply set out on a mission to change the situation and support SMEs in their financing challenges in the smartest possible way.

Since the overall economy has improved over the last few years, the issue has developed from simply not getting access to financing, to finding a financing setup that is easy to get access to and fits well into the processes of the company. So another reason for us starting Advanon was to challenge traditional financial products, and to work on making them more user friendly through innovative technical solutions.

Lastly, a third reason was that we saw a gap in the market. It was simply a good idea that had the right timing


What does a typical day look like?


I am an early-starter and normally arrive at the office around 7 am. After having brewed the first cup of coffee I take the time to inspect our different KPIs, what the general trend is, and if there is something standing out that we need to analyse further. Since our start we have been very focused on data, and are constantly improving on how we are working with it. Everyone has access to multiple dashboards giving good overviews of various aspects of the business, which also allow for deeper analysis of the numbers. Starting the day by looking the KPIs allow me to assess if some new initiatives have to be fitted into the days agenda.

It is difficult to say how the rest of a typical day looks like as they tend to differ quite a lot. Some usual elements are a couple of internal meetings with project groups or teams related to specific issues, and external meetings with partners or clients.

Luckily, everyone within the organisation is striving to keeping the meetings few and concise, so there is plenty of room for me to work on different topics such as process improvements, new product solutions, or other topics that we at Operations are handling.


What do you enjoy the most working at Advanon?


The thing I enjoy the most with working at Advanon is that I can constantly see a very high level of ambition from our team and to feel that I am apart of it. We are constantly striving to improve our business and the services that we are providing to our clients. Team members are coming up with ambitious ideas on a daily basis and are not hesitating to roll up the sleeves pursuing them. It is an environment that creates a strong drive within me to keep on improving whilst feeling full of energy.



Sourse: blog.advanon.com



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Coinbase has launched live phone support for customer trust and safety cases, as a result +100k Users during the last 48h

Coinbase announced a new service - phone support for customers of the platform.

As stated in the company's blog, this step was part of an overall strategy to improve the quality of customer support and turn Coinbase into the most reliable and easy-to-use platform for exchanging digital currencies.

From now on, customers can call +1 (888) 908-7930.

At the initial stage, phone support will be available from Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 17:00 PT (-7: 00 GMT), and staff will be ready to assist in such matters as:

- Security
- Verification
- Limit increase

At the same time, it is noted that telephone support does not cover issues related to the status of buying or selling digital currencies, the status of deposits or withdrawals, and the history of accounts. On these issues, users, as before, should use the ticketing system.

In early September, the number of Coinbase users reached 10 million people. At the same time, according to the latest data, only for the last 48 hours the number of new registrations on the platform was about 100 thousand.

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Amazing bitcoin project supporting climatechange research

The Harvest project, created by the American Julian Oliver, makes it possible to use wind-energy (Harvest uses a 700W wind turbine) to mine cryptocurrency, "the earnings of which are used as a source of funding for climate-change research". The project is intended to demonstrate the importance of combating climate change.

Now Harvest is at an exhibition in Stockholm. Cryptocurrency which have been already mined will be divided between three non-profit organizations at the end of the exhibition.

"In the future, hundreds of such windmills can be set up in different areas," said Julian Oliver.

Read more: https://www.cryptolook.io/single-post/2017/09/19/Wind-energy-used-to-mine-cryptocurrency-to-fund-climate-research

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TenX bank cards will not work outside the EU

Holders of bank cards of the Singapore project TenX, who are not residents of the European Union, will not be able to use them after October 16 2017. This was stated by the company's representatives in its official blog.

What exactly happened?

Since TenX does not (yet) have a banking license​ - every active TenX card currently in circulation is issued by a card partner who is actually licensed to issue cards, namely, Wave Crest Holdings Limited.
In late-August 2017, WaveCrest informed TenX that they would no longer issue and maintain Visa® Prepaid Cards to cardholders outside of the European territory.

WaveCrest’s new policy does not change anything for cardholders in the European territory. Cardholders outside the European territory with active TenX cards will not be able to use their cards from 16 October 2017 onwards.

Plan B

However plan B has been already prepared: TenX is onboarding alternative card issuers who can issue cards outside of Europe. They’re currently targeting a November 2017 launch for these new cards. Cardholder outside of Europe affected by the WaveCrest change, can receive these new TenX cards free of charge.


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Central Bank of Malaysia is planning to provide guidelines on cryptocurrency by year-end

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) is planning to issue guidelines on cryptocurrency by year-end, said Governor, Tan Sri Muhammad Ibrahim.

"We hope that by year-end, BNM will be able to come out with some guidelines on cryptocurrency, particularly those related to anti-money laundering and terrorist financing.We want to ensure that there is a clear guideline for those who want to participate in this particular sector," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Global Symposium on Development Financial Institutions here, today.

Cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and control the creation of additional units of the currency. Cryptocurrencies are used primarily outside existing banking and governmental institutions, and exchanged over the Internet. While these alternative decentralised modes of exchange are in the early stages of development, they have the unique potential to challenge existing currency and payments systems.

As at June 2017, total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies exceeded US$100 billion (US$1=RM4.19), recording a daily volume of more than US$6 billion.

As a reminder couple of days ago BIS (Bank of International Settlements) said that "the world’s central banks can’t sit back and ignore the growth in cryptocurrencies"

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BIS: World's Central Banks Can't Ignore the Bitcoin Boom

The world’s central banks can’t sit back and ignore the growth in cryptocurrencies as it could pose a risk to the stability of the financial system, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

It said central banks will need to figure out whether to issue a digital currency and what its attributes should be, though the decision is most pressing in countries like Sweden where cash use is dwindling.



Institutions need to take into account of not only privacy issues and efficiency gains in payment systems, but also economic, financial and monetary policy repercussions, the BIS said in its Quarterly Review.

Read more on:

https://www.cryptolook.io/single-post/2017/09/18/Worlds-Central-Banks-Cant-Ignore-the-Bitcoin-Boom-BIS-Says

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