Day: July 10, 2017

Are criminals too stupid to use bitcoin? That is what a July 4 European Union report suggested. This will not strike many people as obvious, though. One of the most common concerns touted by governments about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is criminals will use them to fund their activities. 

Also read: The Reason Why Bitcoin Miners Dedicate Time to Mining Empty Blocks

The EU’s commission Staff document detailed, “While they (criminals) may have a high intent to use due to VCs characteristics (anonymity in particular), the level of capability is lower due to high technology required.” This low level of capability implies criminals lack understanding of cryptocurrencies and have little technological acumen.

Financing Terrorism with Bitcoin Requires IT Expertise and Tech Skills

After the report mentioned the low incidence of criminal use, it added terrorists may try to use “virtual currencies” like bitcoin to finance some operations. The report said the level of anonymity of virtual currencies provides a modicum of risk, because it plays into the hands of terror cells and other nefarious organizations. In other words, people with violent intentions can use these currencies in a secretive way to fund bombing campaigns or other violent activities. It currently seems unlikely, however, considering the technology is still developing/emerging, the report stated.

“It is nevertheless important to mention that being currently a developing technology requiring IT skills and expertise, virtual currencies are not necessarily easy to use and the number of transactions is still quite low.”

Regulation Vulnerability in the EU

The biggest fear the EU report pointed out centered on the regulation status of bitcoin and other “virtual currencies.” The fact that these cryptocurrencies are essentially unregulated means there are few reporting and tracking mechanisms in place. The report concluded since suspicious transactions cannot be monitored, are borderless, international, anonymous, and no one has duty to report strange activity to the Financial Intelligence Unit, the risk of vulnerability for financial terrorism remains high.

The inherent risk exposure is also very high due to the features of the virtual currencies (internet, crossborder and anonymity). Finally, the sector is currently not organised well enough to receive guidance or relevant information on AML/CFT requirements. Consequently, the level of TF vulnerabilities related to virtual currencies is considered as significant/very significant (level 3/4)

Are criminals too stupid to use bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Hello and welcome to News BTC’s Market Outlook July 11. DASH/USD DASH continues to be volatile as the Monday morning trade was to start selling again. We’re below the $200 level, but I see a significant amount of support near the $180 level below. While it is choppy, and a bit negative looking, I think … Continue reading DASH/USD and LTC/USD Technical Analysis July 11, 2017

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Hello and welcome to News BTC’s Market Outlook July 11. ETH/USD Ethereum rolled over during the Monday session, reaching towards the $222 level. It now looks as if we may go looking for $200 underneath, which should be much more supportive due to the large, round, psychologically significant nature of that level. In the meantime, … Continue reading ETH/USD and ETH/BTC Technical Analysis July 11, 2017

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Hello and welcome to News BTC’s Market Outlook July 11. BTC/USD Bitcoin fell a bit during the Monday session, in rather quiet trading. It appears that the $2400 level continues to offer support, but we are starting to form an descending triangle, which is a bearish signal. It’s likely that we may try to break … Continue reading BTC/USD and BTC/JPY Technical Analysis July 11, 2017

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Key Highlights ETH price is under heavy selling pressure, and recently broke the $220 and $200 support levels against the US Dollar. There are two bearish trend lines with resistances as $204 and $225 forming on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via SimpleFX). On the downside, an initial support is near $186, followed … Continue reading Ethereum Price Technical Analysis – ETH/USD Nosedives Below $200

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Bitcoin price made a downside break from its triangle consolidation pattern to confirm that sellers are taking control from here.

The post Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 07/11/2017 – Will Bears Take Over? appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Ethereum startup Eros.vision just announced the upcoming launch of a decentralized, censorship-resistant platform where consenting adults will be able to pay and get paid for sexual services.

The platform intends to be the one-stop-shop for the millions of people on either side of this activity who’re looking for a more reliable, safest way to proceed.

Built while taking into consideration the decades of irrational fight against the right of control over one’s own body that came from actors as diverse as governments or religious authorities, the platform takes advantage of two technologies – Zeronet and Ethereum – to ensure 100% censorship-resistance unlike centralized platforms such as Backpage.
The team also came up with a robust, built-in reputation system, as it represented the biggest drawback for this profession prone to abuses from undesirable customers emboldened by a feeling of impunity.

Michael O’Brien, the CEO and co-founder of the company, emphasized:

“As (libertarian) technologists, we realized that this somehow particular yet widely spread activity that is prostitution could greatly benefit from recent innovations such as Ethereum and Freenet-inspired Zeronet. The case of Silk-road and so-called “Dark markets” illustrated how you can improve the lives of both sides (e.g buyers and sellers) when adding a significant amount of transparency and taking back the activity off the street.”

He added: “We also felt that the oldest profession in the world, that persisted and has traveled down through the ages deserved an equally resilient platform, which is now possible thanks to the aforementioned technologies.”

The team is now looking for funding to accelerate the development pace, establish a critical mass of customers on both sides, respect the various deadlines it set with a beta release planned for late August. To this effort, an ICO will be launched on July 10, with multiple platform incentives for future token holders.

In less than 5 days, the final fourth round of ATB initial coin offering will end. There still  is the opportunity to get ATB Coins on favorable terms with 1% bonus. Over 1500 persons have already decided to become investors of the cryptocurrency that pretends to be the fastest and the most secure among analysts.

Great news for registered users who have  invested more than 200 ATB! You can get up to 20.000 ATB Coin credit to your wallet by taking part in Crypto-lottery that will be held on July 11 at 06:00 PM (UTC). Each user gets 1 lottery ticket for every 200 ATB on his account. The larger amount of investment, of course offers more chances to win.

On the website a special page will be created for the lottery, during which the system in 5-minute intervals will randomly select winners.

Prize fund:

1st place. 10.000 ATB

2nd place. 5.000 ATB

3rd place. 3.000 ATB

4th place. 1.500 ATB

5th place. 500 ATB

That’s not all the good news!

Among taking part in ATB Crypto-Lottery , registered users with at least 100 ATB on their account can get bounties through the activity in social media. One can get from 7 to 20 ATB for tweeting, sharing, liking and reviewing the information about ATB Coin ICO! To take part in bounty hunting, sign on https://atbcoin.com and act from your personal cabinet.

A bit more than 4 days left till the end of ICO, so don’t miss your chance to become an investor, lottery winner,  or even a bounty hunter!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any The Merkle employees. This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.

Ethereum developers are working on various improvements to bring the ecosystem back to a reliable state. One of the potential upcoming changes is known as ERC223. It is a slightly different Ethereum-based token standard compared to ERC20 and aims to solve issues the ERC20 standard has unwittingly introduced. The bigger question is how many existing tokens will be redeployed using ERC223 in the future.

What is ERC223 Trying to fix in the First Place?

Ever since the ERC20 token standard was introduced, virtually all Ethereum-based tokens successfully embraced this new standard without any issues. It appears the ERC20 standard has no glaring issues, but there are some drawbacks which need to be addressed. This is where the ERC223 standard comes into the picture.

The ERC20 standard suffers from being unable to handle incoming transactions through a receiver contract. That is not the biggest issue in the world, but it is something developers would like to see addressed. However, the bigger issue is how tokens can be sent to a contract not designed to work with such tokens in the first place. If that is the case, the funds could end up getting lost.

This is a more common problem than you may think. A recent Reddit post indicates roughly $400,000 worth of ERC20 tokens is stuck in limbo thanks to being sent to a “wrong” contract. Issues like these pose a big threat to the overall Ethereum ecosystem. Thankfully, it appears ERC223 will be able to take care of that problem as well, assuming the new standard is approved and introduced in the end.

The ERC223 standard would introduce a new function to the existing ERC20 standard to prevent accidental transfers from being fatal. Instead, there would an option to revert such transactions and eventually even block accidental transactions to random contracts altogether. It is a more than welcome solution to keep tokens from getting lost on the Ethereum network, that much is evident.

Assuming the ERC223 standard will become the new norm, all existing token issuers have some tough decisions to make. Converting from ERC20 to ERC223 is not possible through any convenient manner. Instead, all of the ERC20 tokens need to be redeployed under the ERC223 standard. This also means any trading platform listing said tokens will need to update their information and addresses. It will be a painstaking process, which may mean very few existing tokens will effectively be converted to ERC223 in the future.

A “more convenient” process, as pointed out by Alex van de Sande on Reddit, could be new tokens being created, which are backed by a contract holding the old tokens. This may be the most reasonable option for most projects, but only time will tell which of these options will be implemented. It is equally possible we will see some form of a “name resolution” for Ethereum-based tokens in the future. For now there is not an official course of action just yet.

UK blockchain startup Provenance has raised $800,000 in new seed funding.

Source

There’s no question about how much Uber has grown over the recent years, and with their growth, many little Uber clones have sprouted. They can be well-implemented in some cities, and they may even offer better incentives to the drivers. However, there is nothing really different about them. So, why should you choose them instead of just using Uber, am I right?

Unless… there is a company that is coming in to shake up the entire game — Chasyr.

Chasyr is a company founded by ex-Uber driver Tommy Marquez. Tommy was mainly known in the ridesharing industry as someone that could sign up a ton of drivers at a national level. He did this for awhile around the same time that he was a driver. After that venture, he then got involved with a meta platform for commerce on the blockchain called Swarm City, also known as “the Craigslist of Ethereum.” This is where he is creating Chasyr.

So, what does Chasyr have to offer that is different than Uber?

First of all, they will be able to provide the kind of ride you never had with Uber. Let’s say that you need a ride in your area. Before you request a ride, you will be able to see all of the rides that a Chasyr has ever done successfully and choose one to come pick you up. You will get to make an offer to that driver or a few nearby as well, meaning NO SURGE pricing. But that’s not all… not even close…

On Chasyr, users will need to use tokens for rides. Similar to how one would use tokens for upgrades or purchases in the Pokemon Go app. The tokens used in Chasyr are a cryptocurrency called “SWT” that exist to specifically be used on the Swarm City meta platform where Chasyr will be hosted. An easier way to explain this concept is to imagine that instead of an app having it’s own token on the Apple store, Apple would have an Apple token you could use in any game app. This has benefits to it that Uber will never be able to match.

“Early adopters of Chasyr will be the pioneers of the brand and will need to be open to learning how to obtain SWT. We expect mass adoption to be hard at first because of this, but we will be here to teach everyone how to do so until we can integrate a cc card feature which automatically exchanges fiat for SWT for the users.” Tommy stated.

About those benefits I mentioned…

SWT is now about $3 per a token after starting at just .09 cents each. Once people start to use Chasyr, the price of SWT will continue to rise because of all the transactions happening with the token. To me, that beats any driver bonus Uber would ever offer. Chasyr gives you the opportunity to have a piece of the company just by holding SWT.

The most important benefit of using cryptocurrency instead of regular fiat is that it allows Chasyr to charge a very small fixed fee per ride instead of the 25% or 30% Uber takes from its drivers. That alone is a game changer.

If you are a driver and want to be a part of this amazing ridesharing startup that is just appearing, make sure to check out the Chasyr website to sign up.

www.chasyr.com

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of any The Merkle employees. This is not investment or trading advice, always do your own independent research.