INVESTORS3
Home Blog Page 596

Crypto AM Sets Sail As Crypto Coast’s Educational Oar

By
Sponsored
-
0
Crypto Am Sets Sail As Crypto Coast’s Educational Oar
Crypto Am Sets Sail As Crypto Coast’s Educational Oar

Crypto Am Sets Sail As Crypto Coast’s Educational Oar

Wednesday 28th February saw the inaugural release of Crypto AM, a fortnightly magazine show. As the educational oar of the newly-launched Crypto Coast, Crypto AM sets sail to become the leader in demystifying the world of crypto and blockchain as we envision a world where this complex industry is understood by the masses.

In lay terms we explain what exactly this revolutionary technology could potentially mean to everyday living. We do this through discussing topics that are familiar to most of us and we see how applying blockchain technology could improve the industries that surround them.

Each episode is dedicated to a particular industry. Reuben Godfrey, co-founder of Crypto Coast, is often asked to explain blockchain technology. For the layperson to understand the complexity of blockchain, Reuben uses coffee as a relatable industry which can benefit from the technology’s application. With Shane and Cillian of Moyee Fair Chain Coffee being natives of Ireland, it was a no-brainer to start the show with coffee taking center stage.

Crypto AM is distinguished by its unrivaled team of academics, entrepreneurs, investors, ICO advisors, coders, researchers, philosophers and journalists, sharing opinions that are both sound and unbiased. It is the most comprehensive show ever to be made within the crypto and blockchain sector.

To foster audience engagement, Crypto Am has a variety of segments: panel discussions, the latest news, market analysis, ICO reviews and a look at some of the biggest worldwide industry events from roaming correspondents.

An episode is published every second Wednesday of the month at 7pm GMT and 2pm EST on Crypto Am Youtube channel.

Upcoming episodes will focus on money, health, happiness, family and love.

For further information about Crypto AM please visit https://www.cryptocoast.org/cryptoam.

 

Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Altcoins, ICOs, And Tokens Explained For Newbies

By
Abel Colmenares Napolitano
-
0
Blockchain Icon
Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Altcoins, Icos, And Tokens Explained For Newbies

BLOCKCHAIN

What is a blockchain?

The blockchain is a greatly distributed ledger where you can record, with security, everything you want to fix in a stable and secure way without a mediator. The data is in a  distributed network, called nodes or servers. In this network, where the nodes are connected to each other through a peer-to-peer (P2P) system, the nodes use a consensus protocol to confirm that each data is verified and performs new operations. Each node can record data without compromising privacy since the information is encrypted.

Why is it called blockchain?

The name originates from how this system continuously grows a list of records, called ‘blocks’, which are linked like a ‘chain’ and secured using cryptography.

It can also be called ‘distributed registration technology’ because the information is distributed among all, although the popular (and simple) term is blockchain.

Blockchain main features and key points:

  • Advantages: blockchain is the backbone of Bitcoin and is the first technology to allow simultaneously all of the following components: resistance to censorship, decentralization, absence of trust in third parties, globality and neutrality.
  • Bitcoin: It is the first case of usage of the blockchain, but nowadays there are a large number of projects that use blockchain technology for other purposes. Example: Ethereum.

CRYPTOCURRENCY

What is a cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrencies are a form of digital payment based on cryptography that guarantees and verifies transactions that are carried out anonymously and recorded in a distributed ledger. The use of cryptography and the blockchain gives cryptocurrencies its three essential characteristics: security, decentralization and anonymity. Example: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and DigitalCash (or DASH).

Why are they called cryptocurrencies?

The word cryptocurrency comes from the amalgamation of ‘cryptography’ and ‘currency’. Cryptography is one of the main characteristics of blockchain technology. They are digital currencies, alternative currencies, and virtual currencies because of their value.

Although they are called coins, legislation has a tendency to treat them as ‘assets’, or rather, as ‘crypto assets’.

Cryptocurrency main features and key points:

  • Security: the use of cryptographic functions in the value transactions that are inserted in the blockchain solves two of the main problems that appear in other digital currencies: the double expense (the same unit or fraction of the currency can be spent more than once) and counterfeit currency (unauthorized coins), which can ‘sneak in’. Once the transaction is encrypted together with a timestamp and entered in a block of transactions, the balance sheets of the issuer and the receiver are irreversibly modified. As new blocks are added with new transactions which are cryptographically linked to the previous ones by means of a cryptographic function, the security of the transactions is increased.
  • Decentralization: this is an attractive characteristic, since the existence of central authorities or intermediaries to validate and authorize transactions is not necessary because the cryptocurrencies have multiple nodes to verify and authorize them.
  • Speed: the confirmation speed is much higher than conventional systems, where there is always a period during which the transaction can be rejected.
  • Anonymity (or pseudo-anonymity): it is not necessary to make an exhaustive identification or transfer multiple private data; it is enough to have a wallet in which the cryptocurrencies are maintained, and from which they are issued or received. This gives the advantage of not having to give more data than necessary when making a transaction.
  • Bitcoin: this was the first decentralized cryptocurrency that was created and the one that made it possible for a more diverse ecosystem of other cryptocurrencies and tokens.
  • Algorithm: there are cryptocurrencies that work with the same algorithm; the SHA-256 algorithm is used by Bitcoin, Digibyte and Peercoin. There are other currencies that work with other algorithms modified from the SHA-256 or different, such as the Ethash algorithm used for Ethereum and Expanse. Another example of Algorithm: Equihash used for Zcash and Bitcoin Gold.

ALTCOIN

What is an Altcoin?

The term ‘Altcoin’ was used to determine those cryptocurrencies that emerged from the development of Bitcoin’s open source by adding features that make them distinct from it. In Coinmarketcap, 1,523 cryptocurrencies and tokens other than Bitcoin exist today, which shows the creativity and diversity that open software development can create.

Why are they called Altcoins?

The word Altcoins is an amalgamation of ‘alternative coin’. They are ‘alternatives’ because they are not Bitcoin. They are ‘coins’ because they also are cryptocurrency (with a blockchain) like Bitcoin.

Altcoin main features and key points:

  • Forks: cryptocurrencies that derive from the Bitcoin source code are also known as “forks”. Examples of this are Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Cash.
  • Innovation: many of the new currencies appear with useful purposes for the end user and use a mining algorithm different from Bitcoin as part of their innovation. Examples: Ethereum uses the Ethash algorithm, Litecoin the Scrypt algorithm, Monero uses CryptoNight, Zcash uses Equihash, and Decred uses Blake 14r.
  • Decentralization: many Altcoins are attempting to decentralize aspects of our daily operations. Example: Ethereum Smart Contracts.

ICO

What is an ICO?

ICOs are a form of business financing that is currently acting as a financing mechanism that is disctinct from a traditional round of financing. Through ICOs, the company offers the market, not shares, but ‘tokens’, and its investors pay with digital currencies, such as Ethereum or Bitcoin; and is all made through blockchain. It is becoming a method of financing that reaches important figures: between March 2016 and March 2017 different startups raised more than $300 million through ICOs.

Why are they called Initial Coin Offering or ICOs?

Projects raise funds based on the facilities of blockchain technology and smart contracts, offer discounts or bonuses for the purchase of tokens in the initial stages of the project. 

ICO main features and key points:

  • Duration: the ICO starts at a certain date, and is available for a specified period of time.
  • Offer: each ICO has a maximum and a minimum number of tokens to sell; the minimum being the contribution necessary to make the project viable, and the maximum is when all available tokens are sold.
  • Bonuses and discounts: through ICOs, preferential prices of tokens can be obtained with bonuses or discounts for the purchase.
  • White paper: As a part of the process, companies usually present a white paper, which explains in detail the business model, the platform, and the technology that the company will use for the project. It gives information about the distribution of the token offer, the use of the funds, and the people involved in the project.
  • Information: to have simplified information of the ICO, you can enter the ICO website, review information in ICObench or access quality ICO reviews on our website.

TOKEN

What is a token?

In the digital world, issuing currency is a capacity that, so far, goes beyond central banks. Although its definition originates in the physical world, it has been modified within the blockchain sector to add value to various projects. According to William Mougayar, author of the book The Business Blockchain, a token is:

“a unit of value that an organization creates to govern its business model and give more power to its users to interact with their products while facilitating the distribution of benefits among all its shareholders.”

A token is nothing other than a new term for a unit of value issued by a private entity. The revolution of “tokenomics” describes how certain goods and rights, which, by their own intrinsic characteristics could not be traded, can dematerialize through tokens and be traded with total freedom; without any limitations other than the ones that are inherent to these tokens.

Why are they called tokens?

Tokens in blockchain allude to our traditions of using currencies. Throughout the history of mankind, tokens have been used for various reasons, including as substitutes for official currencies (in case of shortages) that could be exchanged for real coins and are limited to their area of influence. Another example outside the governmental scope: a token can be seen represented in casino tokens which, although they are substitutes for real money, these are valid exclusively within the confines of the casino.

Token main features and key points:

  • Value: has a value accepted by a community and is based on blockchain (like Bitcoin).
  • Platform: the vast majority of existing tokens currently operate on the Ethereum blockchain using a standard known as ERC 20.
  • Utility: The tokens will serve for what the person or organization that designs and develops decides.

CONCLUSION

The main difference to be taken into account between cryptocurrencies and tokens is based on the structure of both. While cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Altcoins) reside in their own blockchain, tokens operate on a blockchain, facilitating the creation of decentralized solutions, applications or platforms.

ICO Interviews: Multiversum Bringing The Fourth Generation Of Blockchain

By
CryptoCoin.News TV
-
0

This week we had the pleasure of hosting Andrea Taini, the founder of blockchain technology company Multiversum.io, in an interview over Skype. Hosting this interview was our resident CryptoCoin.News anchor Dave Young. So what exactly is Multiversum and what use does it have?

Next generation of blockchains

Multiversum is a new ICO that uses fourth generational blockchain technology to serve a number of needs. Bitcoin was undoubtedly the pioneer of cryptocurrency and the blockchain movement and it represented the first generation of blockchain technology with all its various clones and forks, all of this based on the proof of work algorithm for transaction validation. What came next was the second generation of blockchain with Ethereum leading the charge, implementing smart-contract-enabled blockchains and allowing easy tokenization of assets. What will hopefully be achieved in the third generation of blockchain is to solve the speed, scalability and the energy consumption issues that plague blockchain.

The fourth generation of blockchain is something that Multiversum.io want to see go far beyond previous generations. It is important for them to fabricate something that achieves faster and more scalable solutions but at the same time is streamlined enough to be competitive from a business point of view. The existing chains of data are conventional blockchains and are not really flexible enough to be appropriate to fulfill or exceed corporate needs.

The new generation of blockchain introduced by Mulitiversum will be a brand new system that features different types of data, related to a multidimensional structure. A huge advantage for them will be their lighting fast transaction speed which will be less than 0.2 seconds, transferring funds across wallets at a rate that is among the fastest in the world. The scalability of Mulitversum is also quite attractive, with up to 64,000Tps on a 64 core server, this works out to be 1,000 Tps/core. The already tried and tested model of Proof of Stake (PoS) will be replaced by Proof of Integrity (PoI) a cryptographic proof of server code. The environmental tax and energy consumption of blockchain technology is definitely something that is always in the back of our minds but it soon may be a thing of the past as a Multiversum transaction will have almost completely insignificant cost and will have close to zero environmental footprints.

Enough theory, what about Andrea Taini and the Multiversum team behind him? Andrea has an impressive amount of experience in the fields of IT and software development, having worked with large companies including IBM, KBC, and Ericsson. Andrea was first exposed to the world of blockchain in 2010 when a colleague of his offered him 5000 Bitcoin for 1000 Euro, an offer that he declined and by his own admission was the loss of the “biggest possibility” of his life.

I’m sure we can all sympathize with this mistake, with the fear of missing out being so strong these days. The second time Andrea was exposed to blockchain was during the time he worked with Alexandre Borovic of Universe, they were working on an eco-environment project and wanted to create an anagraphic system on blockchain. The work on this project led him to discover the complexity of blockchain and in turn led him to become engrossed in the theory behind it.

Multiversum is going to Pre-ico on starting on the 1st of March 2018 and will be continuing on until the 31st, selling their MTV token. They have a target of $65,0000 and will have 141,000,000 tokens circulating.An airdrop of undistributed tokens will occur twice a week, this will start 2 weeks after the end of the ICO and will last 18 months. There will bonuses in the Pre-ICO that are ranging from 25-35%, scaling based on the contribution amount. The soft cap for the main ICO in question will be $5,000,000 and it will also feature a hard cap of $65,000,000. Something which we hope to highlight in this ICO that really impressed us was the fact that Multiversum.io will be donating 1% of the funds that they raise to charitable organizations. This may not seem like a lot at first glance but if they reach their targets then 1% is no joke and could really do some good.

Recently we saw the Pineapple Fund feature heavily in our news show Altcoins This Week donating huge amounts of Bitcoin to worthy causes around the world. To date, they have donated over $53 Million worth of Bitcoin to various charities because as they have said: “once you have enough money, money doesn’t matter.” The Pineapple fund have sort of led the way for Bitcoin charity and it’s good to see that a few their values are rubbing off on Multiversum.io.

Wrapping things up we would just like to wish Multiversum.io well on their journey to global blockchain domination. It is clear from their product offering that they are in a position to impact the world of cryptocurrency, and if they can execute their project correctly, they are bound to experience a lot of success. Their goal encapsulates the correct amount of ambition and practicality, riding the 4th generation of blockchain is something that if they can achieve, will mean huge things for them and for the blockchain sphere itself. If their offering interests you, head over to Multiversum.io and have a read for yourself.

 

How To Protect Yourself From Homograph Spoofing Attacks

By
CryptoCoin.News
-
0
How To Protect Yourself From Homograph Spoofing Attacks
How To Protect Yourself From Homograph Spoofing Attacks

by Lucas PenzeyMoog, Director of Strategy at Emerging Insider Communications

Copycat websites aimed at stealing your login credentials are nothing new in the crypto space (or the internet at large). These sites are usually subtle URL misspellings that could be missed at first glance, such as replacing a 1 for an l. This type of phishing is most effective when users search for exchanges on a search engine and click what seems to be a legitimate link (hint: never do this). You then enter your credentials on the fake site and within minutes your coins are gone.

Conscientious crypto users and veterans in the space know to protect themselves, but as crypto goes mainstream there are large amounts of inexperienced users falling into these traps. However, there’s a more sophisticated URL hack that can trip up even the most experienced users if they’re not careful. It’s called a homograph spoofing attack, and it’s downright evil.  

Check out the image below from Reddit user u/Games_sans_frontier. Can you spot what’s out of place?

How To Protect Yourself From Homograph Spoofing Attacks

No, those aren’t specs of dust on your screen. It’s a scam website that’s trying to imitate one of the most popular exchanges in the world. The fake URL takes advantage of the fact that Unicode allows for visually similar characters that are actually from different alphabets. When looking closely at the example above you can see the dots, but some characters are literally identical. For example, the Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic lowercase “o” are identical to the naked eye, but have distinct Unicode representations of U+03BF, U+006F, and U+043E respectively.

This above site even has an SSL certificate that enables the reassuring green text that says the site you’re visiting is what it says it is. However, all it’s saying here is that you really are connecting to the fake Biṇaṇce.

Homograph spoofing is not a new phenomenon. A 2001 paper by Evgeniy Gabrilovich and Alex Gontmakher, titled ‘The Homograph Attack’ first described the issue in detail. To prove their point, they were able to register a microsoft.com domain name that used Cyrillic characters.

So how do you protect yourself? The easiest way is to manually type the URL every time you visit an exchange and then create a bookmark. Never google an exchange and click on the first link. Even more importantly, never click on links sent to you by email. If Coinbase says you need to login to review your activity, exit the email and type in the address manually and then review your activity. These links could also make you secretly download malware as well as directing you to a spoof website.

You can also adjust your browser settings to turn off support for IDN (internationalized domain names), but most browsers usually display IDNs in Punycode (a way of representing Unicode characters using only the limited character subset of ASCII supported by the Domain Name System). Chrome extensions like Punycode Alert can alert you when a site is displaying a URL that contains Punycode characters so you can act accordingly.

The first step in stopping scammers is to expose their strategies. Always be vigilant when logging into exchanges and wallets, and approach every website and email with skepticism. The blockchain itself may be incredibly secure, but accessing the blockchain can be anything but.

 

Dell EMC Seek To Accelerate Digital Transformation With Blockchain Technology

By
CryptoCoin.News
-
0
Dell Emc Seek To Accelerate Digital Transformation With Blockchain Technology
Dell EMC Forum. Photo Chris Bellew /Fennell Photography Copyright 2017

By Catherine Doyle, Enterprise Sales Director, Dell EMC Ireland

The value of Big Data

In today’s digital era, business success is increasingly tied to extracting value from data. With data being the new currency fueling digital transformation, exploiting its untapped potential is now a critical pathway to success for all organizations, in all sectors: data is the foundation for fostering growth and innovation.

However, many businesses in Ireland face some fundamental obstacles in harnessing the power of data, many of which relate to the nature of the data itself. Big Data appears to be restricted by access, authenticity and, above all, monetization challenges.

Although our data has significant worth, organizations can have issues unlocking that value because they don’t have ownership of it.

Innovative technologies are helping to overcome barriers to succeeding in digital business, and it is difficult to find a technology with more ramifications for Big Data than blockchain.

Utilizing blockchain

For Dell EMC, blockchain opens up a world of opportunity in relation to Big Data. Sharing data through blockchain technology can not only help in unlocking new enterprise value for organizations, but it can also address three of its unresolved challenges: controlling data, ensuring data credibility, and building universal exchanges.

The greatest value blockchain brings isn’t in what it is, but what it enables.

Through decentralization, blockchain enables the equitable access to data for all parties involved in a transaction, leading to quicker data acquisition, quality, sharing, governance, and ultimately analytics. Blockchain’s digital transaction register removes the need for data integration from all systems, at all points, putting the power of data back in the hands of customers and organizations.

Fostering digital transformation and disruption

In leveraging data to the full through the adoption of blockchain technology, entrepreneurs and industry leaders are creating new business models, modernizing business processes, and transforming existing business operations to outperform their competition. And the results have been impressive.

Businesses have witnessed better collaboration for data exchange that have accelerated the development of smart cities and is transforming mainstay industries such as healthcare and financial services.

Digitizing health records on blockchain, for example, provides patients and care providers with secure access to medical data. In using blockchain technology in the agriculture sector, a trustworthy traceability system is fostered from the farmer to the consumer.

But this transformation has not always been seamless. New blockchain-enabled start-ups are causing significant disruption in the financial services sector by giving customers access to cryptocurrencies and reducing the number of intermediaries involved in payment transaction processes. This has led a to significant reduction in transaction costs, faster transfers, and enhanced transparency for all those involved in the payment chain.

Banks and insurance companies are now responding to this change and understand the need to become disruptors, rather than be disrupted. CIOs across the banking sector are increasingly leveraging blockchain technology to accelerate IT transformation. Recent reports suggest that by doing so, eight of the world’s largest investment banks could, on average, make savings of up to 30%.

Transformation partner

For organizations throughout Ireland, in and beyond the financial services sector, Dell EMC is dedicated to unlocking the growing value of data.

We’ve developed a set of services which help organisations to determine when and where blockchain can add most value to their business, from identifying opportunities for its use in application development, to creating a modern IT infrastructure that supports its adoption.

With the added business value of blockchain due to reach €2.5 trillion by 2030, a new dawn with immense possibility is on the horizon.

Meitu Founder Opposes China’s Stand Against ICOs And Mining

By
Ali Raza
-
0
Meitu Founder Opposes China’s Stand Against Icos And Mining
Meitu Founder Opposes China’s Stand Against Icos And Mining

Cai Wensheng has openly criticized the Chinese government’s move to ban ICOs and mining in the country over a concern that it could lead to China losing its significant presence in this developing market.

China placed a ban on ICOs and exchanges in October 2017. The news came as a shock to the entire world since China was the largest trader in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. The move was intended to increase regulatory stronghold on cryptocurrencies and their operation and prevent common internet users and investors from fraudulent businesses. However, Meitu Founder Cai Wensheng says the move isn’t a bold or smart one.

Wensheng said that China is a hub of the world’s Bitcoin mining, and he is quite right. He said around 80% of the total mining for Bitcoin is done by hardware in China, and cracking down on miners in China could prove damaging for the Chinese economy. He said that China should instead use the surplus power it has to mine more Bitcoins and continue to assert its dominance in the market. The coins mined can then be sold to other countries like Japan, USA, etc. If the government decides to continue their shakedown of Bitcoin ICOs and mining, then miners will potentially migrate overseas and will have to spend a lot in foreign currency exchange instead.

Cai Wensheng is of the opinion that ICOs are important because they allow ordinary investors to fund projects that could give them huge returns. Without ICOs, the opportunities are quite limited for them. As for the problems surrounding Bitcoin, he simply stated that it is along the lines of challenges faced in every business. Any new technology or idea is bound to face obstacles around every corner, but one cannot put their hands up in resignation every time it happens. It’s just a part of the process, and the cryptocurrency wave will ride through these problems as well.

Asked to expand on the matter, he was quick to compare the crypto frenzy with the dot.com bubble of the late nineties. While Wensheng conceded that only a few companies of the many who made Initial Public Offerings back then are still in existence, he said that even if a few cryptocurrencies survive and one of them goes to the heights of Amazon, then that would be victory enough.

The total world’s Bitcoin mining is done by eight major mining pools, six of which operate out of China. It is clear that China enjoys dominance in the market, which Meitu founder, Cai Wensheng, feels should not go to waste. He insists that increasing the regulations on this sector will probably be counter-productive and the decision is one which government officials will regret in the future. The challenges that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies face are not that different from other businesses. Price fluctuations in the economy happen for many reasons, but that doesn’t mean there should be an outright ban on a currency, according to Wensheng.

Why Litecoin Is Emerging As The Dark Web’s Next Dominant Cryptocurrency

By
CryptoCoin.News
-
0
Why Litecoin Is Emerging As The Dark Web’s Next Dominant Cryptocurrency
Why Litecoin Is Emerging As The Dark Web’s Next Dominant Cryptocurrency

By Andrei Barysevich, Director of Advanced Collection at Recorded Future

 In mid-2016 members of the cybercriminal underground began discussing their growing dissatisfaction with Bitcoin as a payment vehicle. In light of this, Recorded Future conducted an extensive, and manual, analysis of 150 most prominent message boards, marketplaces, and illicit services to see what the cybercriminals had earmarked as the next major cryptocurrency player, and why. This analysis led to the unexpected revelation that Litecoin is surpassing other cryptocurrencies as the preferred payment vehicle and, after Bitcoin, currently stands as the second most dominant coin on the dark web.

Dissatisfaction with Bitcoin

The rise, and falls, of cryptocurrencies isn’t just something that those of us in the industry have been tracking. Interestingly, Recorded Future noticed an increase in the frequency of discussions among members of the cybercriminal underground regarding the functionality, security, and usability of cryptocurrency. The majority of members seemed to be sharing their growing dissatisfaction with Bitcoin as a major payment vehicle.

The recent upsurge in popularity of Bitcoin among household users, speculators, and institutional investors around the world, has placed an enormous load on the blockchain network, causing larger payment fees. Due to this, Bitcoin payments have become economically infeasible.

As with any business agreement, speed of payment completion is crucial, and this is especially true for the dark web. With its inherent risk of transacting and distrust among its members, any delay, no matter how minor, increases the risk of being scammed. The prospect of having to wait for up to 24 hours to confirm their transactions, as well as the chance of having to pay exuberant payment fees on small transactions, many of which cost between $50-$300, has rendered Bitcoin payments unusable in dark web.

Consequently, cybercriminals are moving to alternative payment methods.

Geographical differences

As with many things, different groups, depending on their location, have their own personal preferences. For example, Eastern European criminals are more proactive in the implementation of alternative payment options compared to the English-speaking communities. Furthermore, the research unveiled which cryptocurrency each group prefers.

It seems Russians favor the accessibility and convenience of Litecoin, due to its more diverse and established supporting infrastructure, whilst English-speaking members focus more on security, therefore leaning towards Monero’s built-in safety features.

Litecoin gains popularity

Contrary to what Recorded Future learned by observing the chatter between criminals over a series of weeks, Bitcoin appears to remain the gold standard in the dark web, with all vendors still accepting it as payment. Nevertheless, Litecoin has emerged as the second most popular currency, with 30% of vendors willing to accept it.

History of Litecoin

Introduced in 2011, Litecoin is the second oldest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, and was intended to be a superior version of this. Litecoin’s core technology is an improved version of Bitcoin’s. It conducts transactions faster, resulting in significantly lower commission fees and a larger number of coins being mined, whilst piggybacking off an extensive Bitcoin infrastructure.

Nevertheless, despite all its advantages, Litecoin does not offer any additional security. Just like Bitcoin, Litecoin transactions are entirely transparent.

Predictions

On reflection, I’d expect that the cryptocurrency diversification trend will only intensify, with Bitcoin losing its place as a dominant dark web payment method in the next six months to a year. However, despite likely having a much smaller market share, Bitcoin will remain one of the main payment instruments on the dark web. It is clear that Litecoin, swiftly followed by Dash, in addition to Bitcoin will stand as the everyday payment currencies of the dark web. But this comes with a warning, as the rise of these payment methods simultaneously occurs amongst the general population, malicious tools such as ransomware will also continue to evolve to take advantage of the mainstream trend.

 

Register Fast For Block2thefuture On Board USS Hornet – Ticket Sale Price End Today

By
Sponsored
-
0
Register Fast For Block2thefuture On Board Uss Hornet – Ticket Sale Price End Today
Register Fast For Block2thefuture On Board Uss Hornet – Ticket Sale Price End Today

“Over 100 speakers and 3 days of awesomeness” are promised aboard the USS Hornet, for the inaugural Block2TheFuture conference 2018 – but hurry, the sale price for tickets is closing soon!

When and where is it on?

Alameda CA, April 4th to 6th. Most notably, it will be taking place on the USS Hornet, a 1942 Naval Aircraft Carrier.

How many years has it been going?

This is the first Block2TheFuture event. This event will be building on a similar one held in Santa Monica, in October 2017, and aims to engage the Bay Area community.

What was the inspiration to start it?

To create a conference for those curious about blockchain technology, ideas & our future. This event is primarily for the community to engage with the blockchain technology, learn, meet, and foremost connect with one another.

What exciting things can people look forward to?

Kids will get free entry, and will be free to stay on the USS Hornet overnight (if accompanied by parents), attendees can explore the key ares of the ship and the historical naval aircraft on board, as well as gain access to free Bitcoin. There will also be free beer, chicken tikka masala, and over 100+ prominent speakers in the blockchain field. This will also be the first time that kids are actively being engaged with at a blockchain event.

What opportunities are on offer for those attending?

All attendees will have access to all speaking sessions as well as breakfast & lunch. Depending on the package chosen, attendees will also have the chance at a free Bitcoin (fractional BTC), collectible T-shirt, collectible goodie bag, three books, collectible metal badge & more.

Who will be speaking?

All-in-all over 100 speakers will be presenting at the event, including:

– Tim Draper (DFJ)

– Brock Pierce (Entrepreneur)

– H. E. Ehlil Ahmad Hakimi, Finance Minister of Afghanistan

– Dr. Larry Sanger (Everipedia and Wikipedia co-founder)

– Anthony Pompliano (Full Tilt Capital)

– Aubrey de Grey (SENS – Cure Aging)

– Justin Newton (NetKi)

– Kavita Gupta (Consensys)

– Armin Ibrahimi (Shocard)

– Lily Liu (Earn)

– Liz Steininger (Least Authority)

– Tone Vays, Paul Walsh (MetaCert)

– Stan Miroshnik (Element Group)

– Howard Marks (Start Engine)

What tips would you give to people attending to get the most out of it?

The goal of Block2TheFuture is for all attendees to understand the current status of technology is not how mankind will move forward. We want attendees to become aware of the technology and have four to five actionable steps that they can take home and implement right away.

How can people book tickets, and when does it usually sell out?

Tickets can be found on their website here:

https://www.block2thefuture.com/

Tickets will likely sell out by the end of March, and there are three different ticket tiers/package options.

Could Declining Prices Actually Be Increasing The Value Of Cryptos?

By
CryptoCoin.News
-
0
Could Declining Prices Actually Be Increasing The Value Of Cryptos?
Could Declining Prices Actually Be Increasing The Value Of Cryptos?

By Eliman Dambell

The interpretation of value can be described as relative and based on several factors, individual perception being one. The crowding of individual opinions has seen a larger narrative drawn in the understanding of general value, whether it be monetary, sentimental or material.

In the world of cryptocurrency, as it relates to early participants, value was initially based on change and the potential for a revolutionized alternative to the current fiat monetary system, which some see as failing. As those early hopes for cryptocurrency began to see a rise in promise, the chances of change increased, as did the monetary value associated to them. This brought in a secondary type of participant, who sees value as based on bottom-line earnings.

As a result, Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and Litecoin (which I describe as the four horsemen) are engulfed in financial market speculation, with traders and investors betting on which will be the biggest proponent of the change on which cryptos were founded.

This market speculation has now given birth to a third value proposition: stability and maturity. In financial markets, what we saw in the early days of cryptos were ultimately straight line charts which were extraordinary. “No market goes up and up and up” they said, “it’s a fraud” they said, however with the recent market correction in 2018 where values of BTC and others fell 60%, we are seeing these markets mature, providing traders data on which to use in decision making.

Could Declining Prices Actually Be Increasing The Value Of Cryptos?

This decline in 2018 has enabled the implementation of what traders know as technical analysis on several of these markets. Previously, and prior to the fall in monetary value, traders and speculators had little indication regarding where prices may go. There was no relativity, as everything was happening for the first time. Now we have what only time can provide, which is history, and the hope of if repeating itself is a fundamental element in the process of placing a well-informed trade.

The chart above encapsulates this; having the ability to use technical analysis has allowed us to paint a relative picture on the price action within BTCUSD. The two horizontal lines are known as support and resistance, or floors and ceilings in the market. These ultimately allow traders to see areas where the price of a market consolidates by having these caps. Support is seen as the point where the markets stop in a falling market, and resistance is the area where prices refuse to go over in a rising run. Currently we see $6,090.75 as the floor, with the next resistance point sitting at $11,118.23 and a historical ceiling of $19,807.24.

Using these simple tools, which weren’t previously credible as there wasn’t enough history to support the use of technical analysis, now allows traders to take educated guesses on where they believe prices will end up based on their historical movements. We now know the historical high, where there wasn’t a clear one before, we now know the support point or floor in the market where we didn’t before. When markets were falling and filled with prominent nervousness from speculators saying prices were heading to zero, we now have a point where a hard ground in price value seems to have been established, providing greater confidence.

In looking forward, those optimists hoping for another historic run in price action are likely looking beyond $19,807.24; pessimists who see this as a fraud with no inherent value might be looking at activity below $6,090.75. However in the immediate future we are approaching a resistance level of $11,118.23 in BTCUSD. Some state that, if broken, this will trampoline the markets to the heights we saw in early December. Similar patterns can be seen in some of the other Crypto horsemen.

So the question now is: has this vision we have obtained due to the market selloff put us, as speculators, in a more favorable position to guess future value? If so, then it can be argued that, although we are still far from their historical price valuations, cryptocurrencies have never been as valuable as they are today.

CREDITS – THE FUTURE OF BLOCKCHAIN

By
Sponsored
-
0
Credits – The Future Of Blockchain
Credits – The Future Of Blockchain

Have you ever noticed how fast the world is developing? Each discovery speeds up the progress and pushes bright minds to find out something new. The gaps between the inventions of breakthrough solutions are less and less visible. Cost of using new technologies keeps getting lower. A smartphone for 100 dollars can do more than a 15-year-old computer, 4G is faster than expensive network connections a few years ago, and comparing time-consuming paper reports with modern accounting systems is a silly idea.

Banks and various financial institutions are profiting simply by transferring money from your account to the seller’s account. For each transaction, they charge their own commission promising in their turn to work properly and honestly. In fact, we’re being imposed an interest rate, insurance, and unnecessary services, which increase the total service cost taking the advantage of the situation that looks like a monopoly. There are lots of banks, but they all work in the same manner and with the same efficiency.

And then comes Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies that offer the same services, but cheaper and more transparent. A 200-year-old banking system with its ideal working mechanisms is successfully confronting blockchain and cryptocurrencies that are under 10 years of age. However, unlike conservative banks and states, developers of cryptocurrency don’t like the principle of ‘we are not changing anything while it is working’ and regularly improve their products.

CREDITS blockchain proposes a new system: a good competitor to bank accounts and printing machines. It employs decentralized blockchain which makes it the fastest and most convenient one in the marketplace. But most importantly, CREDITS is designed to create services for blockchain systems using self-executing smart contracts.

The main problem of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies is the low speed and capacity. There is no mining in CREDITS, so the speed of blocks is limited only by the power of the servers in the network. A number of random nodes form a ‘white list’ of transactions upon validating a new ‘Registry’ blockchain, and master nodes include them in the new blocks. You can carry out hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with the average speed from about 0.01 seconds depending on the condition of a communications network, and this is thanks to the division of labor between the nodes.

The second problem of cryptocurrency is the unstable exchange rate. For example, Bitcoin grows because people see the growth and invest money, thus pushing the further growth. And top businesses rightly believe that the only way to get benefits from mining is to produce the appropriate equipment.

The third problem is the lack of clarity. Most people who have heard about cryptocurrency do not understand how and why they should use it knowing that there are bank transfers well-tested over the years.

CREDITS blockchain platform solves both problems:  it is not created to earn on mining or for rapid speculations. It is a new technology, that can change the world of finance and our lives. Why would people want to buy CREDITS cryptocurrency? Because they can use it to purchase smart contract services for a low transaction fee.

The implementation of CREDITS blockchain platform can reduce the impact of the human factor and the cost of many services: сheap international transfers, instant transaction execution, and full security of your money. Checking revenue, documents, and certificates with automatic algorithms without disrupting privacy and disclosing personal information, simplifying and cheapening any monetary transactions, smart-contract based investment insurance, and crowdfunding instead of borrowing loans at huge interest rates: this is the future with CREDITS blockchain platform.

From Darya Merkusheva

1...595596597...662Page 596 of 662

LATEST NEWS

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

© CryptoCoin.News