Day: July 17, 2017

The success of any business plan relies on faith in your model and others’ willingness to adopt it. This is especially true for cryptocurrencies and the ocean of projects funded by ICOs. One project that is doing particularly well for itself is Dentacoin. It has recently partnered with dental clinics in Europe and is showing no signs of slowing down.

Yet Another Dental Clinic Implements Dentacoin

The Dentacoin token pre-sale helped the project develop the flagship of their operation, the Trusted Review Platform. It is in a working state -though still under development-, but partner clinics will be able to begin using Dentacoin in their daily business now. This paves the way for other clinics to adopt it in the future. They will be able to see how effective Dentacoin and its Trusted Review Platform are.

The first clinic that partnered with Dentacoin was SWISS Dentaprime. They implemented the Dentacoin token as a form of payment and also used it as a client loyalty program. SWISS Dentraprime recently issued a report outlining how much they enjoyed using Dentacoin as part of their practice. In it they outline why they believe that everyone in the dental industry should be using Dentacoin. This is because Dentacoin was both a way to obtain meaningful customer feedback and also reward customers for giving that feedback. Dentacoin’s first partner also mentioned how excited its clients were to use Dentacoin. In fact, receiving Dentacoin was more exciting to patients than receiving gift cards and vouchers in Euro. Explaining what Dentacoin was and how to use it also fostered a closer relationship between the clinic and the patients. The clinic feels that Dentacoin makes the overall user experience better.

A second clinic recently began implementing Dentacoin in their day to day as well. London’s F3T Dental Clinic partnered with Dentacoin after learning about SWISS Dentaprime’s positive experiences. They also use Dentacoin as a payment method and a client rewards program. This clinic is extremely excited to being using Dentacoin’s Trusted Review Platform, since it is tamper resistant and automated. The Trusted Review Platform is not censored, it rewards and encourages customer feedback, its reviews can be trusted, and its community is global. All of these things mean the platform will help solidify the clinic’s online presence, reach new potential patients, and integrate Dentacoin into their business even more. Dentacoin is playing a role in the future of the clinic and of the entire dental industry as we know it.

The future of Dentacoin and the future of dentistry seem to be linked. As more practices adopt Dentacoin for payments, rewards, and reviews, others in the industry will see the power the blockchain for their clinics as well. These two early reports show how Dentacoin is improving the lives of patients and making dentists smile.

SWISS Dentaprime’s Report: https://www.dentacoin.com/blog/report-implementation-of-dentacoin-as-a-currency-in-first-partner-clinic/

F3T Dental Clinic to use Trusted Review Platform: https://www.dentacoin.com/blog/second-clinic-in-london-implemented-dentacoin/

One thing many seem to forget is that Ethereum no longer has an immutable blockchain, which is kind of the whole point of the blockchain. When the Ethereum network split into ETH and ETC, Ethereum itself became a mutable fork of the original blockchain, whereas Ethereum Classic is still the original chain as it was created many years ago. A lot of people have taken a liking to Ethereum Classic lately, and they are looking for good mining pools. Below are some of the options certainly worth checking out.

6. Coin-Miners

The Coin-Miners Ethereum Classic mining pool operates on the PPLNS scheme. They base payouts on the pay-per-last-1000-shares scheme, which means users will be compensated fairly for their contributions. It does appear this pool struggles to gain traction among miners, though, as it has no active online miners according to the site statistics. This makes it ideal for new users to start mining here and help decentralize ETC mining in the process.

5. Suprnova

If there is one mining pool nearly all cryptocurrency enthusiasts are familiar with, it is Suprnova. The mining pool has always supported popular cryptocurrencies, and Ethereum Classic is no exception. Unfortunately, the pool shows no hashrate for ETC mining right now. Even so, it is certainly a mining pool worth checking out by new ETC users, since Suprnova has a solid reputation in the cryptocurrency community.

4. MinerGate

MinerGate has quickly become a household name for cryptocurrency miners. The pool also supports Ethereum Classic, among other popular cryptocurrencies. In fact, their ETC pool is currently hashing away at around 8GH/s, and rewards miners based on the PPLNS scheme. This is quite common among mining pools these days. Considering the total hashrate of the ETC network is over 7.6 Terahash, MinerGate is still one of the smaller Ethereum Classic mining pools.

3. EthTeam

Even though a lot of people talk about EthTeam as a go-to Ethereum Classic mining platform, the pool’s hashrate is only 9.35GH/s. That is not all that impressive, but they are still one of the more active pools across Reddit and social media. This means users who run into some unforeseen issues should have no problem getting in touch with an EthTeam representative. EthTeam has servers in Germany and the US, and pays out users on a pay-per-share basis. There is also a 1% pool fee.

2. Epool

Epool has quite a lot of potential, even though its total hashing power is only 33.4Gh/s. That is quite low compared to Nanopool, yet the pool has some big miners pointing their hardware to Epool right now. In fact, the top miner has a hashrate of 2.03 GH/s, with the smallest miner still providing 7.42MH/s. This shows that Epool is an Ethereum Classic mining pool to anyone and everyone. They have stratum servers in both the US and Europe.

1. Nanopool

One of the biggest mining pools in the Ethereum Classic ecosystem is Nanopool. They are currently responsible for over 1.25 TH/s of the total network hashrate, which is very impressive. With nearly 5,000 miners and around 12,000 workers, Nanopool has quickly become one of the fan favorites among ETC miners. Nanopool also supports a fair few other cryptocurrencies, making them one of the powerhouses of alternative cryptocurrency mining.

Working Beta? Check, Open-sourced code? Check, Team Background? Check. Learn more about the efforts Opus has made to decentralize the music industry.

Opus is the world’s first fully decentralized music sharing platform that aims to tackle the $40 Billion industry issue of music sharing at a protocol and infrastructure level.

(Quote here from COO mateusz mach: “I’m disappointed with how musicians are treated nowadays in the music industry, that is exactly why I decided to invest in the Opus foundation”)

Mega-corporate music streaming services such as Spotify and Youtube pay peanuts to artists. On youtube for instance, artists need to have at least 4.2M fans to even afford living at minimum

wage. (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube) Opus breathes new live into this industry by cutting out all the middleman. On Opus, artists can list their songs at any price they feel is comfortable and rest assured that they will receive all of the revenue, now and forever.

Opus is an infrastructure level solutions that uses IPFS as a storage layer for music and Ethereum as a logic/transfer layer. Such a system, according to Opus, enables rapid scalability and significantly reduced gas costs. The Opus team, consisting mostly of Developers and tech-minded people, has already built the basis of such a system. There is a Public Beta that you can try on their website (http://bit.ly/opusmusic123)

(Quote here from CTO Chenhao Xu: While there are some music-related blockchain solutions, none of them have a working Beta that demonstrates blockchain based music-sharing, or a solid business plan that can capture the mainstream music listener.)

Opus is starting a crowdsale in order to raise funds to continue development and implement additional feature such as a DAO and Artist bounty system within the blockchain. The presale has already begun and will end sometime around July 22 with an additional crowdsale to follow suit. There is a Hard cap of $20M on this crowdsale ($18M due to reduced ETH prices). Part of the funds will be used to further develop the platform (45%), to market and promote it (25%), and to pay for artists (13%) and operations (10%). A small amount will also be used for legal fees (7%).

Opus, from a both a technical and a business perspective, appears to have a strong business plan, working product, and a great team, and It’s a definite crowdsale under the radar for people who are looking for a long-term stake in the crypto scene.

Opus website: http://bit.ly/opusmusic123

The post Ether Price Analysis: Are We Heading to $100 Support Level? appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The $7m hack of CoinDash’s ICO has resulted in an offer by the startup to help offset the losses.

Source

The Kazakhstan government has announced its intentions to make the country host to “the most favourable business climate” for cryptocurrency and fintech companies. The announcement comes from Kazakhstan’s Astana International Financial Center (AIFC), which plans to operate in collaboration between Deloitte, Waves, Kesarev Consulting, and Ukrainian law firm Justcutum in order to develop a “highly progressive regulatory framework” for blockchain and cryptocurrency companies.

Also Read: Kazakhstan Warms Towards Bitcoin as Local Currency Freefalls

AIFC is Aiming to Become the Most Favorable Cryptocurrency and Fintech Country in Region

Kazakhstan has announced that the AIFC will work in partnership with Deloitte and Waves to develop a permissive regulatory apparatus for cryptocurrency, blockchain, and fintech businesses. CEO of the AIFC Authority, Nurlan Kussainov, stated that the “AIFC aims to become a most favorable fintech jurisdiction with an open ecosystem and the most progressive regulating framework. We thank our partners for the support given to our blockchain regulatory development initiative. In the next phase of the project, our working team will be looking at widening the participation to include other industry stakeholders”.

The news comes less than a month after the national bank of Kazakhstan unveiled its plan to issue bonds backed by the development of “a mobile application for the population to conduct transactions for the purchase and sale of securities on the basis of blockchain.” The app is intended to facilitate the sale of bonds directly to investors and without commission, with officials hoping that low transaction costs and fast settlement times will attract scores of retail investors.

“The “Creation of an Enabling Regulatory Environment for Blockchain Projects Is Currently Crucial”

Artem Tolkachev, Director of Legal Services for Technology Projects at Deloitte CIS, described the development of permissive regulatory frameworks for blockchain and cryptocurrency as necessary in order to empower innovation within the industry. Tolkachev stated that the “creation of an enabling regulatory environment for blockchain projects is currently crucial and is included to the agenda of the most innovative economies around the world. [Deloitte] are glad to be a part of the created consortium and to participate in a regulatory development process.” Deloitte has also recently partnered with the Singaporean government to trial issuing Singaporean dollars via distributed ledger technology.

Kazakhstani officials recognize that the virtual currencies pose unique challenges to classical law, emphasizing that lawmakers should not develop a juridical framework that will undermine the dynamism and innovation of the cryptocurrency industries. Head of Juscutum, Artem Afyan, described the ICO industry as “new, dynamic, and extremely difficult for classical law”, and as “as a perfect opportunity to create a new jurisdiction, which would be most favorable for crypto projects in the world”.

This apparent enthusiasm for cryptocurrency on the part of the Kazakstani government appears to be matched by the domestic trading population, with Kazakh Localbitcoins’ listings showing record-breaking volume in recent weeks.

Do you think that Kazakhstan will be successful in becoming a regional cryptocurrency and blockchain investment hub? Share your thoughts in the comments section below

Images courtesy of Shutterstock

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A popular bitcoin developer conference is set to hold its fourth installment at a famed California university in November.

Source

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: This Bear Still Has Some Bite Left in It appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The post BitPay CEO Stephen Pair Talks Bitcoin Hard Forks, SegWit2x and Sidechains appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

It seems July 17 has initiated the beginning steps towards Segwit2x activation as the code has been released and miners who supported the “New York Agreement” (NYA) have started running the new BTC1 software.

Also read: A Brief Glimpse Into the Lives of Chinese Bitcoin Miners

Miners Begin Running the New Segwit2x Software

As the price of bitcoin dropped to new lows this weekend, some bitcoin proponents were patiently waiting for the promised BTC1 software. Now it seems in a short period of time the bitcoin ‘community’ may see the protocol Segregated Witness (Segwit) activated as the mining community has begun to signal BIP91. The proposal BIP91 is a combination of Segwit2x and BIP148. The version 1.14.4 code has been pushed to the repository by the Segwit2x working group, and a few mining pools have already started running the protocol. The China-based Bitmain technologies announced their support via Twitter by stating;

All of our bitcoin mining pools will start running the new Segwit2x software today  

Other mining pools signaling and mining BIP91 blocks include Bixin, Antpool, BTC.com, Bitfury, and Bitclub so far. Now spectators are waiting for other pools like BTCC, F2pool, Slush, and a few others to join. Back in June Bitcoin.com reported on how a vast majority of the hashrate was signaling their initial support for Segwit2x. Miners running the new BTC1 software and currently signaling BIP91 means that if enough hashrate reaches over 80 percent and continues for a 336 block period, Segwit will “lock in”. If all is successful, this will then lead to another 336 block period that will activate the Segwit protocol on the main chain.

Bitcoin Community Sentiment  

It’s still a bit early and hard to gauge the overall sentiment of bitcoiners, but there are definitely a lot of individuals on forums and social media who support the Segwit2x plan. For instance, Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures revealed he favored Segwit2x adoption on July 17 via the investor’s blog.

“I am for the Segwit2x proposal and hope that we see it broadly adopted later this month,” explains Wilson. “There is a chance that doesn’t happen, and a user activated soft fork (UASF) could be used to force Segwit into the market. I personally hope that a user activated soft fork doesn’t happen as it would create a lot of turbulence.”

Rootstock Chief Scientist, Sergio Demian Lerner also states his opinion of the Segwit2x compromise revealing he doesn’t believe the intention is to “fire core programmers,” which is one of the conspiracies that has been spread around the community.

“In my humble opinion the New York Agreement wanted to start from Bitcoin Core 0.14 because the group wants core to keep leading Bitcoin,” explains the Rootstock developer and initial creator of the Segwit2x proposal.

It doesn’t try to be the next core — If NYA intention was to dump Core, they would have started from BU or Bitcoin Classic or they would have removed the witness discount

Further Sergio Demian Lerner details that he knows Segwit isn’t perfect but he doesn’t think perfection is obtainable anyway.

“I audited Segwit in 2016. Found problems. Code far from perfect. HOWEVER I DO support Segwit because I don’t believe in perfection,” says the Rootstock engineer. “You have to know the actual code in detail to say you know Segwit. That’s the problem with Segwit. That’s a community fault.”

Many Others Just Want This All to Be Over

There are still those who vehemently disagree with the progression of BTC1 and are showing sole support for either UASF or UAHF, vowing never to compromise. However, gauging sentiment via Twitter or Reddit forums is a horrible metric, and the only things that matters now in this debate are the actions from the network’s participants, rather than mere internet chatter.

People are also discussing the next step of the Segwit2x plan after the Segregated Witness protocol is implemented, which is the 2MB hard fork. The hard fork subject is also a contentious topic, and people are wondering if NYA participants will still support the hard fork after Segwit gets implemented. If Segwit2x continues to be agreed upon then exactly 12,960 blocks (~3 months) after Segwit activates — The hard fork will commence.

Now if mining pools continue to do what they agreed upon in regards to the NYA plan and other miners join in then the implementation of Segwit will likely happen soon.

What do you think about Segwit2x? Are you in favor of this compromise? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, XBT.eu, and Bitcoin.com.

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