Helperbit opens to altcoins, from today donations accepted also in Ethereum, Litecoin and many other cryptos

Thanks to the integration of the instant exchange Flyp.me, announced in September with the press release, the donation via altcoins is now operational.

The exchange, which has increased the number of supported altcoins to 15, allows donations in Ethereum, Litecoin, Dash, Zcash, DogeCoin, Syscoin, PeerCoin, BlackCoin, GridCoin, FairCoin, GameCoin, Decred, Flyp Token, Pivx and CreativeCoin. .

The service has also recently announced the SegWit support for Bitcoin and Litecoin.

Following a simple and guided procedure, it is possible to select the reference cryptocurrency and to send the chosen amount to the project we care most about. Once the service has received the cryptocurrency, the entire conversion operation is carried out automatically within few minutes, allowing the donor to follow the change in real time and the sending of the equivalent bitcoin amount to the final recipient.

This integration allows beneficiaries to not mandatory open a wallet for each currency, but to collect all the contributions as if they were donating  bitcoin and to offer the transparency of economic flows on a single blockchain, aggregating all the information.

Italian Parliament

Helperbit launches the blockchain-based platform for transparent donations in the Italian Parliament

Rome, 29th November 2017 – Donate in a transparent way, knowing exactly how the funds have been spent and tracking the money in real time, may seem utopian, but today it is real.

Helperbit announces the public launch of the platform for transparent donations at the event “Financing the social sector with Blockchain” held at the Italian Chamber of Deputies at Palazzo Montecitorio. The service offers the possibility to donate to non-profit organizations that create social projects and bodies involved in emergency management, providing certified financial transparency.

The financial flows can be monitored and tracked through Blockchain, while donations can be made by credit and debit card or directly using bitcoin.

For individuals, the advantage of getting access to the platform is twofold: in addition to track their funds, registered single users can receive donations from all over the world if they are affected by a calamity. Indeed immediately after a natural disaster, registered people that live in the devastated area are automatically shown as potential beneficiaries.

The startup helped Legambiente to raise 9.5 bitcoins (over 50,000 euros at the current exchange rate) for the “The rebirth has a young heart” campaign, designed to help young entrepreneurs affected by the earthquake in Central Italy. Other NGOs have already subscribed to the platform, including Associazione Crocerossine d’Italia Onlus, World Arctic Fund E.V., Emergenza Sorrisi Onlus, China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation, Swiss Re Foundation, SOS Terra Onlus, BlockchainEdu,  Comitato Aperto Emergenza Homeless – Un sacco di Vita and La casa di sabbia – Onlus.

Guido Baroncini Turricchia, CEO at Helperbit, commented: “Blockchain is the key element of a system that aims to shape the whole charity world and on the wave of this change Helperbit wants to become a point of reference, developing new tools to facilitate access to technology to everyone.”

The charity sector has new ambassadors today: all those donors who will believe in a transparent and efficient way to drive donations and want to increase the social impact of their contribution will be part of this revolution.

 

Contact

info@helperbit.com

parliament

Blockchain and ICO, crypto conference in the Italian Parliament

Yesterday the third conference about cryptocurrency and blockchain has been hosted in Montecitorio’s Aldo Moro room at the Chamber of Deputies, lower house of Italian parliament.

The conference has been organized by Member of Parliament Marco Baldassarre, already involved in crypto environment, and follows the two previous meetings where the Italian crypto associations (Assobit, Blockchain Education Network Italia, Bitcoin Foundation Puglia) and other startups operating in the bitcoin world showed their work.

In the first session the speaker was Stefano Capaccioli, President at Assobit and co-founder at Coinlex, who highlighted the legal and regulatory aspects of ICOs, Initial Coin Offering, new forms of crowdfunding made through the issuing of tokens or coins.
This disruptive phenomenon led to € 1.13 billion raised through ICO investments only in the first 6 months of this year, compared with € 235 million raised through Venture Capital. Since the nature of this tool has not yet been defined, the legislative approaches of the states are different. Capaccioli therefore described the position of the US SEC, Singapore monetary authority, Canadian and Chinese authorities and the issues still unsolved.
The second speaker, Andrea Medri, told his experience as entrepreneur in the crypto sector. Medri is the CFO at The Rock Trading, the longest ever bitcoin exchange, active since 2011.

In the second session the speakers were Claudio Parrinello, Federico Tenga and Guido Baroncini Turricchia.
The first one is working with 4 other entrepreneurs, who have already had startup experiences, for the launch of UNICO, a project that aims to recreate the digital scarcity of collectibles. The startup is starting an ICO on the Slovenian platform cofound.it.
Federico Tenga, COO at Chainside, described the story of their startup and the services offered (taxi payable in bitcoin), focusing more on why they chose to not do an ICO. According to Tenga, there are problems that often are underestimated by those who develop these initiatives, in particular the maturity of the blockchain infrastructures on which the project is based does not offer the adequate guarantees and, considering the business aspect, many projects force the issue of new tokens even if it is not necessary. However, this tool is considered interesting and powerful.
In the end, Guido Baroncini Turricchia presented Helperbit, the startup that uses the bitcoin blockchain to bring transparency in the charity field. The platform allows to monitor the flow of economic flows and is a tool developed to face opacity and inefficiency, in order to rebuilt trust in donors.
The CEO at Helperbit illustrated the charity fundraising managed by Legambiente, that raised over € 30,000 in bitcoin. These funds were addressed to young entrepreneurs affected by the earthquake in Central Italy and thanks to the blockchain it is possible to analyze how the money was spent. Turricchia also focused the attention on the issues linked with the launch of an ICO, highlighting the security aspects, the money and time needed, the market and the token model.

This conference is an important openness that Italian politics gives to entrepreneurs that work with innovative technologies, even at international level. Hopefully the dissemination path in the Parliament will continue with this perseverance and regulators will acquire the knowledge necessary to deal with future decisions with the right awareness.

The live streaming, which was viewed by more than 3000 people only during the event, is available at this link (Italian): https://www.facebook.com/ecodaipalazzi/videos/vb.902415833206624/1418920911556111/?type=3&theater

flyer conference

Helperbit partners up with Flyp.me to boost altcoin donations

Partnership Flyp.me
Rome, September 25th, 2017 – Helperbit srl is pleased to announce the new partnership with Flyp.me, that will allow donors to use new payment methods. The integration of Flyp.me will enable donations in the Helperbit platform by paying in ETH, LTC, DOGE, DASH, FAIR, GAME, DCR, ZEC, SYS, PPC, BLK, GRC and other cryptocurrencies that will be added by Flyp.me, thanks to the proposals and votes of Flyp.me (FYP) token holders.

In Helperbit the exchange process will be instantaneous and no further registration will be required. Once the desired cryptocurrency is sent, the amount will be changed in Bitcoin at the current exchange rate and a direct transaction to the selected beneficiary will be visible, allowing real time tracking of the donation.

Both development teams are working to finalize the integration between the platforms, after having already successfully completed the first altcoin donation in the testnet environment.

The integration will be completed in the coming weeks, with the official launch of this new tool.

Guido Baroncini Turricchia, CEO at Helperbit, states: “Considering the growing role that altcoins play in digital market, we believe that these communities deserve the opportunity to support social initiatives with their own cryptocurrencies, maintaining simultaneously the same level of traceability and transparency; the main goal of Helperbit is to improve and extend the donation service, in order to reach more and more people in need and this is possible thanks to the integration of these innovations.”

Francesco Simonetti, CEO at Flyp.me, states: “We are proud to collaborate with Helperbit by providing the integration with our exchange service. We believe it is key to help NGOs to accept donations in cryptocurrencies and thanks to Flyp.me and Helperbit this will be possible with 13 cryptocurrencies. Flyp.me is now crowdfunding through its ICO following which an increasing number of cryptocurrencies will be added.”

About Helperbit
Helperbit srl is an innovative Italian startup, VAT 13844091002, which allows donors to donate to NGOs or those affected by an emergency and track the flow of economic flows using blockchain technology. The startup was selected for the Blockchain Space acceleration program, won several Italian and European competitions (iBank Challenge, Graz Blockchain Startup Contest, GTEC Blockchain Contest, D10e Startup Contest) and has been selected among the 100 innovative projects for the UN World Humanitarian Summit.
https://helperbit.com

About Flyp.me
Flyp.me is the instant accountless exchange with 50% profit sharing and distributed policy-making. It is already live with 13 cryptocurrencies and 169 trading pairs. No registration, email or ID verification needed: only the user’s crypto address. Flyp.me has also released a permissionless API to allow businesses and developers to accept payments in 13 cryptocurrencies.
Flyp.me is launching its ICO 28th September to increase the reserves the exchange keeps for each cryptocurrency, improve the current service, integrate decentralized asset platforms and R&D in 2nd layer solutions.
https://flyp.me

Contacts
info@helperbit.com
hello@flyp.me

mistral partnership

Helperbit enables Bank Card donations with Blockchain traceability


Rome, September 19th, 2017 – Helperbit srl announces that partnered up with Mistral Pay Ltd and The Rock Trading Ltd. The collaboration enables Helperbit to widen donation traceability services by adding a new payment method, but maintaining transparency and monitoring provided by the blockchain.
This new solution can boost the widespread adoption of blockchain for transparency purposes, even for people who are not practical with these new technologies but who have a Credit, Debit, or Prepaid Card.
The process is very simple, similar to classic online payment procedures; through an intuitive interface the donor is guided step by step, without the need to know and manage bitcoins.
The tool is already available in the Italian earthquake relief fund: https://helperbit.com/donateit

From now on, it is possible to donate by Credit, Debit and Prepaid Card through the regulated payment institution Mistral Pay. Thanks to The Rock Trading exchange service, the donation is automatically changed in bitcoin and immediately sent (subtracting acquiring and conversion costs specified at the time of payment) directly to the chosen beneficiary. The whole operation lasts the technical time required to confirm the transaction by the bitcoin network, so the wait is minimized.

Guido Baroncini Turricchia, CEO at Helperbit, stated: “The collaboration with Mistral Pay and The Rock Trading will bring the platform closer to a larger number of users by increasing the volume of donations for the benefit of the projects in Helperbit.”

Andrea Medri, CFO at The Rock Trading, commented: “We are happy to work with this worthy project. We believe it can bring benefits to the charity sector and demonstrate a positive use of blockchain technology, that is good for the whole community. ”

About Helperbit
Helperbit srl is an innovative Italian startup, VAT 13844091002, which allows to donate to NGOs or those affected by an emergency and tracking the flow of economic flows using blockchain technology. The startup was selected for the Blockchain Space acceleration program, won several Italian and European competitions (iBank Challenge, Graz Blockchain Startup Contest, GTEC Blockchain Contest, D10e Startup Contest) and was included among the 100 innovative projects for the UN World Humanitarian Summit.
https://helperbit.com

About Mistral Pay
Mistral Pay Ltd is a private limited liability company incorporated pursuant to the Maltese Companies Act (Chapter 386 of the Laws of Malta). Mistral Pay’s registered office is Ground Floor, Europa Centre, St. Anne Street, Floriana, FRN9011, Malta. Registration number C 63632.
Mistral Pay is a licensed Payments Institution regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA) under the European Payments Services Directive that provides global electronic payment solutions to banks, credit unions, transaction-intensive financial services companies and the general SME sector. Mistral Pay is a member of the Portman International Holdings group. Portman International is a European financial services group and traces its origins to 1986 in London, England.
http://www.mistralpay.com

About The Rock Trading
In 2007, “The Rock Insurance Co.” was born as a virtual insurance company in Second Life, the first of its kind. In 2010, it changed the name in “The Rock Trading” with a section dedicated to fund management and currency exchange. It is one of the oldest active bitcoin exchange, active since June 2011. New currencies have been added (such as Litecoin, Namecoin and others) and in May 2013 it became a Ripple gateway and an official XRP reseller.
In July 2013, The Rock Trading becomes a Limited Liability Company, registered in Malta and founded by Andrea Medri (CFO) and Davide Barbieri (CTO).
https://therocktrading.com/

Contacts
info@helperbit.com

Huge success for Blockchain in main Italian Television RAI

Great success last friday night for #Codice, the first Italian TV program entirely focused on Blockchain and cryptocurrencies. The one-hour show was on the main channel, Rai Uno, at 11.30 pm and registered 9.22% share of total viewing, reaching the 1st position in the Italian most popular hashtags list in Twitter for that night.

The journalist Barbara Carfagna, in collaboration with Giuseppe Giunta and Barbara Gasperini, interviewed many italian blockchain entrepreneurs and startuppers, including some foreign bitcoiners such as Roger Ver and Jon Southurst.
We can consider this as the first important message for the Italian audience to raise awareness about the evolution of money and to make people part of an ever-expanding digitalization. The journalist used a simple language to analyze the mechanisms behind these complex technological innovations. There were also interesting incentives for the viewers to reflect on economic, technical and social aspects.
The stories clearly showed the core view of that revolution; furthermore the comparison between international case studies (Japan, Estonia, Israel, China) and Italy highlighted that, despite there are some difficulties here, this country can contribute too to the spread of the blockchain, thanks to some forward-looking entrepreneurs.
In the closing part, Banca D’Italia and ABI (Italian regulators) gave a more critical point of view talking about cryptovalutes, but we still have some doubts about their real knowledge of these topics.

The next episodes will talk about cybersecurity, digital humanities, work, artificial intelligence and smart cities.

The programme is available in streaming on RaiPlay:


Read about how Helperbit is using Blockchain to bring transparency in charity sector: https://blog.helperbit.com/en/2017/02/21/norcia-protagonist-of-transparency/

A step towards transparency and an help for Alessia

After the shocks of 24th August and 30th October the earthquake emergency has not yet ended, more than 11,000 people are still assisted by Italian Civil Protection and there are still problems related to reconstruction.

Helperbit immediately decided to support the relief with its digital tools and the first step was the support to Legambiente in the development of the first bitcoin fundraising in Italy. Thanks to this initiative, the NGO raised 9.5 bitcoins (over 20,000 € at the current exchange rate), distributing its first tranche to young entrepreneurs affected by that disaster and offering full transparency of economic flows.
The team continues to work to improve the Helperbit’s pilot phase and today the platform offers a brand new service! From this week, in addition to the classic donation to an NGO, there is also the possibility to donate directly to a legal entity. In the specific case, we are talking about a local company, also affected by the earthquake in Central Italy, which manages a 2-of-3 key multisignature bitcoin wallet.
The company meets the requirements of Legambiente and for this reason it received from the NGO a € 5000 donation in bitcoin (here the transaction) converted directly into € through exchange. In addition to this, Alessia, the owner of the company, has started a campaign to receive further support in buying agricultural machinery: find out here how to donate for this cause!

You can consult the available public material and the budget needed for the machinery. As in this case the purchase will be made after the donation and it will be made in local currency, the invoice will be uploaded later in the blockchain. This is not a request of refund for something bought before, but a different process: the transparency is guaranteed as the bitcoin address is public and unique, while it is possible to see in blockchain all the donations received and the amount spent with its own proof of spent.
This initiative allows Helperbit to show the first part of the core platform and further expand the case study started in late 2016, helping in the distribution of approximately 30% of the total amount raised by Legambiente.

The creation of bitcoin wallets and projects is offered at no additional cost by Helperbit. We invite nonprofit organizations, associations and entities involved in emergencies or social issues to sign up directly through the online form. Teamwork is needed to increase transparency!

Support Helperbit and the causes you care for, use together the technology to serve those who are in need!

Norcia protagonist of transparency

Today is a very important day for Helperbit.
Two months ago we started the collaboration with Legambiente to support the reconstruction after the earthquake in central Italy. In addition to traditional fundraising in euro, Helperbit has provided the infrastructure to create their multisignature bitcoin wallet; in parallel we supported the Bitcoin based charity campaign, with the aim to offer an international tool and  more transparency than traditional fundraising methods.

To fully exploit the potential of Blockchain we not only offer the opportunity to verify the amount raised, but, as planned, we go a step further, developing a notarization service.

Ilaria and Lorenzo, owners of Società Agricola Etiche Terre S.S., less than a year ago moved on the hills of San Pellegrino di Norcia to start the production of saffron, garlic and black truffle, but the earthquake in central Italy has taken away everything they had.
Thanks to the charity campaign “The Rebirth has a young heart” they can benefit of the raised donations, restarting the interrupted dream to build there one of the most important plants of saffron in Italy.

Few hours ago those farmers have uploaded the first invoice on our platform, activating a refund request to Legambiente.

Legambiente, after checking on Helperbit’s platform the correctness of the request, has transferred an amount in Bitcoin equal to the value in € of the refund: the operation, which is visible in the public Blockchain, also contains the proof of expenditure, with a cryptographic reference (hash function) to the invoice. The document certifying the request and the transaction are now inextricably linked in the immutable and decentralized public register, giving the opportunity to verify the sender, the recipient and the justification, offering a higher level of transparency and increasing the active participation of the donors, aware that now they can know precisely how they spend the funds.

So we have completed the first study case of Blockchain verified traceability, managed autonomously by Helperbit users.

When the platform will be completely live, donors, organizations and affected people will interact even more and with many analysis tools.

Invoice to be refunded: https://hbprivatebe.helperbit.com/api/v1/media/58aadc662c8adb0048f5d4cc
Hash of the document: 196bd8a188d4bc51c0617061f728be8816bbf84cc2423e468847854d4dbf545c
Transaction with proof of spending: https://chain.so/tx/BTC/89d961c2540b63c2164bdec02e591f6321a4f6ba0b8804a8eafa041fbf83ab61

 

Tag: #earthquake #studycase #bitcoin #transparency #norcia #legambiente #blockchain #audit #charity #traceability #auditability

Swiss re donated 5 bitcoin to Legambiente, here are the final beneficiaries

Nowadays there is no peace for the areas affected by the Central Italy earthquake, but there are people that want to restart and give new life to those lands. The testimony of the Bosco Torto guys, a farm based in S.Pellegrino in Norcia, is an important symbol of hope. They will be the first beneficiaries of the Bitcoin charity campaign managed by Legambiente Onlus.

The funds increased rapidly because Swiss Re Foundation and Swiss Re Center for Global Dialogue donated 5 bitcoin during the event “Blockchain: How insurers are building up trust by breaking down barriers” in Zurich.

From Barcelona to Legambiente, 365 days of Helperbit

Here we are for an analysis of the 12 past months. 2016 characterized by significant events and full of surprises, that leaves us with the awareness that we have already achieved important results, but we can do even more in 2017.

timeline

We lived in Spain the first months, occupied by the acceleration period in Barcelona at BlockchainSpace, with the resulting foundation of the company on April 19th in Rome, while the entire year was marked by numerous commitments, in total over 30 events and conferences in 10 different countries.

In particular, the selection of Helperbit in the top 100 innovative projects that attended the World Humanitarian Summit organized by the United Nations in Istanbul is very significant, we are pleased to have shown positive uses of Bitcoin at that international level. Don’t forget the tour in the United States, which this summer has given us the opportunity to present the project overseas during many events in New York, Washington, San Francisco and San Diego.

We received also many awards, both in Italy and abroad: the victory at the D10e startup contest in Amsterdam, the GTEC Blockchain Innovation Award in Berlin, the most recent Blockchain Startup Contest in Graz and the second place at ABI contest in Milan.

The last topic is the huge media coverage received, with more than 50 quotes or articles about Helperbit, including  Il Sole 24 Ore, Nasdaq and TechCrunch.

recap testate

The earthquake in central Italy is definitely the event that emotionally impressed us more, highlighting the harsh reality, motivating us to increase our efforts for the realization of the project and further increasing our sensitivity to these issues, key points in the vision of Helperbit.

This however was a starting point for us, because after the tragedy we had the opportunity to start the collaboration with Legambiente, the first major non-profit in Italy that accepts Bitcoin, and to open the first fundraising campaign in Bitcoin with multisignature technology; the funds are addressed to the campaign, “The rebirth has the young heart”, focused on helping young farmers that live in the areas affected by the earthquake.

DCIM102MEDIADJI_0014.JPG

A sincere thanks to those who supported and still supports the project, with the aim of repeating a similar path the next year and achieving more ambitious goals.

 

Happy New Year!

 

Helperbit Team