Kulpan Borabaeva

Understanding Coincheck

Coincheck began operating in 2012 under its parent company, Rejupress. It first offered basic exchange services until rolling out payment and lending systems in 2016.

Coincheck made headlines in January 2018 when hackers were able to transfer $534 million worth of NEM, a cryptocurrency, out of their digital wallets. These wallets were “hot wallets,” meaning they were connected to the Internet (as opposed to “cold wallets,” which allow offline storage of a cryptocurrency). When Coincheck executives announced that the theft had occurred, the news sent cryptocurrency prices tumbling. The company indicated that it would reimburse its customers for their losses.3

Coincheck is not yet available for U.S. residents to use due to regulatory issues.

In April of 2018, Coincheck was acquired by Monex Group, Inc., an online brokerage with a significant footprint in the financial world. It operates retail brokerages in Japan, the U.S., China, and Australia. In 2019, Coincheck was approved by the Japanese government to again operate as a cryptocurrency exchange.

How Does Coincheck Work?

The Coincheck exchange matches the bids and offers of customers, with the settled price representing the lowest price the seller is willing to accept and the highest that a buyer is willing to pay. Customers can deposit fiat currency in order to conduct transactions.

Coincheck does not charge a transaction fee, but it does charge fees for deposits and withdrawals. The fee amount depends on the currency that transfers, withdrawals, and payments are being made in. Fees are also levied on executed swap orders. Fees for transferring cryptocurrencies are denominated in the token that is being transferred. For example, if you used Bitcoin, your fees would be charged in bitcoin.4

In addition to offering exchange services, Coincheck also operates Coincheck Payment. This service allows businesses to accept payments in bitcoins. For e-commerce websites, Coincheck Payment uses an API to handle transactions. Retailers can also use Coincheck Payment by downloading an application. Businesses must create an account, complete SMS authentication, submit identification documents, and download the application.5

Coincheck Developments

Coincheck continues to expand its exposure to markets. In March 2021, Coincheck started Coincheck NFT, the first NFT marketplace in Japan. In March 2022, Coincheck announced it was merging with Thunder Brige Capital Partners IV, a special purpose acquisition company. It will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker CNCK.6

In May 2022, the exchange announced it had acquired "Otherdeed" land within a metaverse project called Otherside from Yuga Labs, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT creators. Otherside is a metaverse gaming experience where non-fungible token owners can turn their NFTs into playable avatars. Coincheck intends to offer the NFT on its NFT exchange.7

Regulatory Concerns

Japan has been far more open to the use and development of cryptocurrencies than many other countries. The country has one of the world's most progressive regulatory climates for cryptocurrencies. It has recognized Bitcoin and other digital currencies as legal property under the Payment Services Act since April 2017.8

Japanese users can pay their gas and electric bills with their Coincheck app and account. They can also lend cryptocurrency to the exchange and earn a maximum of 5% interest.9

After Coincheck was hacked, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) launched an investigation into the company, resulting in the conclusion that Coincheck did not have a license from the FSA at the time of the theft.3

Under the Payment Services Act, the FSC required that all cryptocurrency exchanges in the country implement strict know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) policies. The exchange has since registered and complied with FSC regulations.

Outlook for Coincheck

Coincheck's future is unclear, similar to other exchanges and cryptocurrency-related businesses. The cryptocurrency market is volatile because it is still establishing itself. Non-fungible tokens and other blockchain-related assets may or may not hold value or persist into the future. Considering this, Coincheck appears to be taking steps to remain relevant in a young industry.

By going public on a U.S. exchange and entering the metaverse playing field, Coincheck is signaling that it believes it should expand its product and service base to meet market circumstances and future developments. Many large, established tech corporations like Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet are working to create the Metaverse and the next generation of the web—it makes sense for an exchange to position itself to try and take advantage of developing technologies.

Is Coincheck Safe?

Coincheck is safe in that the exchange is licensed and regulated by Japanese regulatory authorities.

How Do You Use Coincheck?

To use Coincheck's services, you need to create an account and deposit funds into your account. You can then buy and sell cryptocurrency on the exchange.

Does Coincheck Have a Coin?

Coincheck is an exchange and doesn't have a cryptocurrency, blockchain, or coin of its own. The exchange offers about 16 cryptocurrencies and a growing list of NFTs on the marketplace.

Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”) is highly risky and speculative, and this article is not a recommendation by Investopedia or the writer to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual's situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein.

Blockchain technology is getting lots of attention from enterprises but almost all existing blockchain standards are not able to meet the requirements of an enterprise level solution. Some of the initial requirements of a blockchain solution required by enterprise are high transaction throughput & latency, effective governance, confidentiality and computational efficiency.

In most of the existing blockchains solutions participants are untrusted. These untrusted participants submit transactions, create blocks and add new blocks in the blockchain using the consensus.

Coco framework is trying to simplifying consensus and reducing duplicative validation by creating a trusted network on nodes, where participants identities are known and controlled. Coco framework is compatible with any blockchain protocol, intially starting with Hyperledger Sawtooth, Ethereum, Corda, and Quorum. Coco framwork will provide following advantages for creating enterprise ready solutions:

1. Throughput and latency approaching database speeds

2. Richer, more flexible, business-specific confifentiality models.

3. Network policy management through distributed governance.

4. Support for non-deterministic transactions

5. Reduced energy consumption

These are achieved in Coco framework by the use of Trusted Execution Environments also known as TEEs. Intel’s SGX and Windows VSM will be used for the creation of trusted execution environment.

Lets explore the Coco architecture:

Validating Nodes: Distributed network of trusted nodes, running Coco framework & blockchain protocol. Used to verify the identity of participanting nodes in the network and validate the code using TEE at runtime.

Coco interface: A gateway for the end user to interact with VNs.

Coco cores: An interface between the end user and all other functionality within the VNs.

Persistent store: Ledger state is stored here

Coco configuration state: Used to create network constitution

Blockchain core and adapter: All transactions or smart contract are executed here, blockchain protocol are integrated in Coco system using this.

Coco architecture

There are two types of actors in the Coco network. Both use a private/public key pair and identified using X.509 certificate within the Coco network.

Members: Members are the governing bodies of a consortium and defines the set of rules for the Coco ecosystem. Members run VNs and define initial configuration of a Coco network. Any chances in the network like modifying underlying rules, adding new members will be done by a vote caste by existing members.

Participants: They have no operational control on the network and can be added by the members by voting process. Participants can transact on the network and run their own VMs.

End user transaction flow

Coco network includes a membership list(list of all approved actors), VN list (list of all approved validating nodes in the network), code manifest (specifications of Coco framework versions, blockchain protocols, all approved code that can run within the Coco network.), TEE manifest (specification of all approved execution environments) and voting policies.

Workflow for an application transaction.

The Coco Framework is designed to support pluggable consensus algorithms — with plans to initially integrate Paxos-like consensus algorithms and Caesar consensus, an algorithm from Microsoft Research.

Microsoft selected 2000 transactions from the public Ethereum network to feed through the prototype. In general, transaction rates were roughly 100 times faster than for a non-Coco-enabled protocol.

This shows that Coco framework will be a game changer for enterprise blockchain solutions as it have the high throughput and latency.

In this article i have tried to cover the important part of Coco framework by using the Coco white paper as reference. It is supposed to release this year. I will update you with implementation details when it becomes available for public use.

Gemini is a cryptocurrency exchange located in New York, USA. The trading platform is available to both private and institutional investors.

Note that from the first days of its creation, it has proven itself on the positive side and earned a good reputation. The project was created by twin brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.

To date, these are the first official "bitcoin" billionaires. Their litigation with Mark Zuckerberg received wide public publicity. The brothers claimed that the idea of the social network Facebook was stolen from them. The trial ended with a settlement agreement, under which Zuckerberg paid Winklevoss compensation in the amount of $ 65 million.

Gemini cryptocurrency exchange was established in 2015. Initially, the platform focused on institutional investors.

At the same time, over time, private users also received the opportunity to conduct auctions. After a year of work, the management announced that it plans to expand its audience.

So, today, Gemini is available for use in countries such as the USA, Canada, Great Britain. Private individuals and companies from the Asia-Pacific region can also carry out auctions.

During the implementation of this project, the main task of the developers was to create a completely safe and secure platform.

To do this, Chem Paya, who was in the past, the head of the Airbnb security service, was involved in the project.

In addition, he participated in the process of creating Google Wallet.

The developers have implemented the following security levels:

• Multisignature.

• "Cold" storage of digital currency.

• Geographical distribution.

• Specially designed computers.

It is worth saying that multi–signature is one of the main parts of blockchain technology, which allows you to ensure the protection of transactions.

When cold storage of funds is carried out, most of the crypto fund is stored on devices that do not have a connection to the World Wide Web.

At the same time, computers are located in different regions of the country.

It should also be noted that the developers of the security system decided to use computers that were designed in a special way. They allow you to store the cryptocurrency keys necessary to gain access to encrypted data.

Protection of user accounts is provided by two-factor authentication.

It must be completed by each user during the registration process.

To do this, you need to specify your phone number.

Features of Gemini

A distinctive feature of Gemini is that only two crypto funds – bitcoin and Ethereum - can be traded on the resource.

At the same time, this restriction does not affect the daily turnover in any way.

The available indicators make Gemini one of the best in the world.

Unfortunately, the management is not yet focused on the Russian-speaking audience of users. Therefore, the interface of the trading platform is English. Gemini actively cooperates with the fairly profitable and popular Echo Fox gaming sports franchise.

The purpose of this partnership is to attract digital assets to the sports sphere.

Note that the Winklevoss brothers set themselves the task of introducing BTC into absolutely all spheres of human life.

Account registration

The account registration process is complex and multi-step.

This was implemented in order to ensure data security.

To register, you need to go to the official Gemini website – gemini.com and click on "REGISTER".

As soon as the user enters his name, e-mail and password, the process of creating a new account will automatically start.

It is necessary to perform the following actions:

Specify the location and phone number required for two-factor authentication.

The bank account required to deposit funds to your account. There are no other ways to replenish the account.

Identity verification. The user needs to upload their ID card or passport. Most often, identity verification takes several days. Such a need is due to the fact that the management wants to adhere to US legislation on taxation.

Deposit and withdrawal of funds

This platform allows customers to directly "get" dollars into their account, as well as withdraw them.

To do this, during the registration process, you need to link your bank account to your account.

Crediting and withdrawal to fiat are carried out without commissions. At the same time, it is necessary to know that banks can charge fees for such transactions.

Buying and Selling a Crypto Fund

As already noted, the exchange has support for only two crypto assets: BTC and ETH.

Thus, three currency pairs are available when trading:

• Bitcoin / USD;

• Ethereum / USD;

• Ethereum / Bitcoin.

 Auctions are available around the clock. Work can be temporarily suspended only if maintenance is 
carried out on the resource. About this, users are notified in advance.

The following types of orders are offered:

• Market;

• Limit;

• Maker or Cancel;

• Immediate or Cancel.

Commission and limits

Users can deposit up to $500 per day and no more than $15 thousand per month to their account.

Crediting of digital currency is not limited.

When withdrawing funds, the limits are as follows:

• Up to $ 100 thousand per day.
• No restrictions on Wire transfer.
• No restrictions on the withdrawal of the crypto fund.

When bidding, it is necessary to pay a fee, the amount of which does not exceed 0.25% of the amount.

Reviews of Gemini

The management is doing everything possible to ensure that customers are satisfied with the work of the platform. The service is almost instantaneous.

Unlike most similar projects, there were situations when employees canceled deals.

This was explained by the fact that traders were playing a "dishonest game".

Speaking of technical support, it responds very quickly.

All the problems that arise are solved without any problems.