Bitcoin Daily: Unicas Opens Physical Crypto Bank Branch In India; Mayor Eyes Investing 1 Pct Of Miami’s Reserves In Bitcoin

Indian FinTech Cashaa and the country’s United Multistate Credit Cooperative Society teamed up to launch what they say is the world’s first cryptocurrency bank branch through a joint-venture bank called Unicas, according to a release.

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    The new brick-and-mortar branch is located in Jaipur and the backers say they hope to add 14 more in January 2021 and 100 more in other areas over the next two years.

    The backers wrote in a post announcing the branch opening that among its features will be giving customers the ability “to transact in cryptocurrency and (Indian rupees) through a single account.”

    The operation also will provide traditional banking services, according to the backers.

    “This will allow us to build, scale and offer customized financial and crypto products for the local Indian markets,” said Unicas Chief Executive Dinesh Kukreja said in a prepared statement.

    In other news, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, a nonstop social media cheerleader for the notion of building a high-tech ecosystem in South Florida, publicly embraced exploring using cryptocurrency to store some government financial reserves and blockchain to secure processes such as online voting.

    In response to reports the state’s chief financial officer liked the idea of exploring storing 1 percent of government reserves in cryptocurrency, Suarez tweeted: “We have a great CFO that minds the public treasure but is forward thinking on blockchain and crypto technology…”

    AMBCrypto reported Wednesday (Dec. 30) that the idea of putting 1 percent of Florida’s state-owned cash in cryptocurrency was initially advanced on Twitter and that Suarez has publicly called for legislation that would put Florida on the “vanguard” of crypto-friendly government jurisdictions.

    Meanwhile, BitGo Inc., a provider of digital wallets to high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors, has paid the federal government $98,839 “to settle its potential civil liability for 183 apparent violations of multiple sanctions programs,” the U.S. Treasury Department announced Wednesday (Dec. 30).

    The Office of Foreign Assets Control stated in announcing the deal: “As a result of deficiencies related to BitGo’s sanctions compliance procedures, BitGo failed to prevent persons apparently located in the Crimea region of Ukraine, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria from using its non-custodial secure digital wallet management service. BitGo had reason to know that these users were located in sanctioned jurisdictions based on Internet Protocol (IP) address data associated with devices used to log in to the BitGo platform.”

    The government added: “BitGo failed to implement controls designed to prevent such users from accessing its services and… BitGo did not voluntarily self-disclose the Apparent Violations and that the Apparent Violations constitute a non-egregious case.”

    The transactions at issue totaled less than $10,000 and involved about 180 people, according to the government. The government also stated in its announcement that “mitigating factors” in BitGo’s favor included the company’s “relatively small” size, clean track record for at least five years before the potential violations, cooperation with investigators and investment in systems to prevent future similar incidents.

    Among the changes, according to the government, are that BitGo hired a chief compliance officer and “screens all accounts, including ‘hot wallet’ accounts, against (the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, including blocked cryptocurrency wallet addresses identified by OFAC.”

    Elsewhere in the cryptocurrency world, some leading industry players are fighting a federal move to expand anti-money-laundering regulations that have applied to banks handling cash since 1970 to exchanges handling cryptocurrency, Cryptonews and other media outlets report.

    If the U.S. Treasury follows through with enacting the regulation after a comment period expires in the coming weeks, crypto exchanges will have to report transactions valued at $10,000 or more. Among the government’s arguments for expanding the policy is the use of cryptocurrency in crimes such as the distribution of ransomware.

    Industry leaders, according to published reports, are complaining that the government’s 15-day comment period is too short and that the new regulations would make it hard to send funds to poor people without formal physical addresses.


    MIT Student Invents Breakthrough Art Restoration Technique

    artwork

    Ever since he was a child, Alex Kachkine has been fascinated by paintings. He would visit museums and was drawn in by the visual art depicted in landscapes, historical figures and religious scenes.

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      “Anytime I visit New York City, the first place I go to is the art gallery,” Kachkine said in an interview with PYMNTS. “It’s been a lifelong passion of mine.”

      Such adoration naturally means Kachkine would look to acquire art works of his own. But with a limited budget, the MIT graduate researcher with a discerning eye instead bought damaged oil paintings he could restore.

      “I ventured into art conservation around 10 years ago when I realized that you can’t buy a Monet reasonably,” Kachkine said. “But you can, even with the limited income I had back then, buy damaged paintings. And I realized that I could take one of those damaged paintings, restore it, and then I would have a really nice painting.”

      Kachkine knew that restoration is manually laborious. The painting has to be cleaned of debris and any past restoration efforts have to be removed as well. Then, the damaged parts in paintings have to be manually painted while staying true to the artist’s style.

      This typically means months to years of painstaking work. Kachkine did it the traditional way at first, but thought there must be a better way. So, he invented a method using artificial intelligence (AI), transfer paper, printers and varnish. His paper describing the technique is published in the journal Nature.

      Kachkine said his method greatly speeds up restoration: In repairing a 2-foot by 2-foot painting, “The Adoration of the Shepherds,” from the late 15th century, he spent 3.5 hours compared to 232 hours it would normally take to do it manually. That’s faster by 66 times.

      Source: “Physical restoration of a painting with a digitally constructed mask,” Nature

      Taking the cleaning time into account, his method would speed up the entire restoration process by four to five times, Kachkine said.

      Around 70% of paintings in institutional collections are not displayed in public due in part of the cost of restoring them, according to Kachkine’s paper. Therefore, restoration efforts typically center around the most valuable pieces of art with the rest left buried in storage.

      Kachkine said various AI models are able to generate images of damaged paintings as they would look fully restored. But these would exist only virtually. He said his technique is the first to translate the digital restored image into physically restoring the actual painting.

      “This is the first time we’ve been able to take all of those digital tools and actually end up with a physically restored painting from them,” he said. “And it’s so much faster than doing these kinds of restorations by hand.”

      How Gen AI Helps Restore Paintings

      The process begins with cleaning the artwork of debris and old restoration efforts. Once cleaned, the painting is scanned to produce a high-resolution image. Kachkine then uses a variety of Adobe-integrated digital tools, including convolutional neural networks and partial convolution models, to reconstruct missing regions.

      Once the digital restoration is complete, a transparent film mask is printed with the reconstructed imagery. This laminate consists of nine ultra-thin layers, including a white backing for color vibrancy and laser-printed pigments. The result is an overlay that sits precisely on the original painting, with printed colors covering only the damaged areas.

      “It’s thinner than human hair,” Kachkine said, adding that the film is removable using standard conservation solvents, preserving the artwork underneath.

      The ethical implications of this method were also central to Kachkine’s design. He developed algorithms that determine which regions to restore based on how human vision perceives color and contrast.

      “We really only select the damages that human vision is sensitive to,” he said. “You can tell what areas have been restored and which have not. That’s really important from an ethical standpoint in conservation.”

      At first, Kachkine said he wasn’t sure how his method would be received. But he was gratified to see broad interest from conservators, cultural institutions and private equity firms. He also has a GoFundMe page.

      Kachkine said he is now collaborating with the Italian Ministry of Culture on restoring frescoes in earthquake-damaged chapels in Tuscany.

      His dream painting restoration job would come from the Italian Renaissance.

      “There are a number of Italian paintings, especially around the Renaissance, that have very bright colors” such as Raphael, Kachkine said. “I’d love to be able to restore one of those [paintings] where before restoration, it would be very difficult to appreciate all of the fun colors that might emerge and the interesting textures that are there.”

      “That’s the dream,” he said. “It might take a little bit before I could get my hands on one, but I’ll keep trying.”

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      Photo: MIT graduate researcher Alex Kachkine looking at a painting. Credit: Alex Kachkine