Japan receives a self-regulatory body for its cryptocurrency exchange industry; the formal agreement was reported by Japanese news outlet Asahi Shimbun; the agency will be called the Japanese Cryptocurrency Exchange Association (JCEA) - Link
ConsenSys proposes building ERC-948 on top of ERC-20 tokens; this comes in a move to facilitate future subscription-based transactions; the service uses a smart contract that can be used to withdraw tokens from users, and users approve the contracts for an unlimited amount of time and allowance - Link
Power Ledger and Japan’s second-largest electricity utility Kansai Electric Power announces partnership; the partnership will center on trialing peer-to-peer renewable energy trading in Japan; it should also reduce energy-related transfer costs - Link
Bitcoin Cash expands mining options; the BCH currency has announced that it is now available as a native mining option for all Bitcoin (Sha256) contracts; the news comes from the hashpower provider Genesis Mining - Link
San Marino, sometimes referred to as the ”world’s oldest republic”, is reportedly planning to become a hub for blockchain-innovators; this move comes in a partnership with the Estonian-based Polybius; legislative work to create the legal framework will begin immediately - Link
The Chinese city of Shenzhen will launch a $79.2M blockchain fund; this comes following the $1.6B government-backed blockchain fund the Chinese city of Hangzhou set up earlier this month - Link
Coinbase’s lawsuit regarding money laundering association is preparing jury trial; the class-action lawsuit was filed by the law firm Silver Miller, and will be held in open court rather than a private boardroom; Coinbase is accused of not sufficiently preventing an ex-cryptocurrency exchange CEO from withdrawing his company’s users’ money - Link
Martin Lewis, founder of consumer help-site MoneySavingExpert, to sue Facebook for defamation; the lawsuit is intended to stop a series of fake cryptocurrency adverts by scammers, which have erroneously used Lewis’ name and picture to further sales - Link
The distributed ledger technology company IOTA launches a new update to the Trinity Wallet; the update will prevent copied text from being available on the iOS Universal Clipboard and will improve address QR scan processing and error handling - Link
The BitPay Checkout application receives a significant update for faster and more secure payments; the update will reportedly make it even easier to pay in-store using the app, which allows brick-and-mortar stores to accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash payments - Link