Day: August 15, 2017

This will be a major test case for Blockchain technology as China is currently the second largest economy in the world and a leader in Blockchain development.

New charges have been filed against a former Secret Service agent previously plead guilty stealing bitcoins during the Silk Road investigation.

Despite HBO paying $250,000 in Bitcoin to hackers who stole “Game of Thrones” scripts, more television shows were stolen from the network.

Many industry players are expecting that Bitcoin will experience the same price growth as Litecoin following SegWit activation. Who’s ready for $8,000 Bitcoin?

So, the correction is here but don’t panic. As we noted in this morning’s coverage, we were well overdue a near-term correction in the bitcoin price and so long as wider markets don’t panic and sell off their longer-term holdings in anticipation of a deeper decline, everything will be all right. We managed to jump … Continue reading Bitcoin Price Watch; Hedging The Decline

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The value of all Bitcoins in circulation has grown by quite a margin these past few years. Going from a worthless cryptocurrency to a disruptive financial force has been a powerful experience for everyone who has followed Bitcoin since the early days. Moreover, we have seen other popular currencies emerge as well. Amazingly, the current overall cryptocurrency market cap is greater than the sum of broad money in the 64 poorest countries in the world. In other words, all of cryptocurrency is worth more than one-third of the countries on this planet combined.

Cryptocurrency Should Never be Underestimated

The people who ignored cryptocurrency over the past few years will receive a wake-up call very soon. In fact, the value of all cryptocurrencies combined has taken on such proportions that it is difficult to remember none of these currencies had any value a decade ago. In fact, most of the cryptocurrencies in circulation today did not even exist a few years ago. A lot has changed in the world of money, to say the least.

At the time of writing, the total cryptocurrency market capitalization is nearly US$139 billion. Earlier this year, that number was hovering well below the US$60 billion mark. A lot of money has been poured into cryptocurrencies these past few months, and it looks like the overall bullish trend will not be relenting anytime soon. There is still a lot of volatility in cryptocurrencies, but things are slowly falling into place on a global scale.

Bitcoin is still the clear market leader. Its own market cap is nearly half that of the overall cryptocurrency market at the moment, and no competitor has even come close. This also goes to show that without all of those other currencies, the cryptocurrency market cap would be half of what it is right now. There is a clearly defined relationship between Bitcoin and all of the alternative cryptocurrencies in existence. So far, this system seems to be working quite well, despite the challenges encountered along the way.

Looking at the bigger picture, the total cryptocurrency market cap is larger than the sum of the stock of broad money in 64 countries around the world.  That may not say much to the average person, but it means all cryptocurrencies combined are worth more than one-third of all of the countries combined right now. This is quite a milestone for this “fake internet money” some people so readily dismiss to this very day.

This list of 64 countries includes regions with which many readers may not be familiar. There is a lot of poverty in the world today and the graphic above illustrates that point perfectly. Most of the countries on this list are located in Africa and Middle America, which comes as no real surprise. It also includes nations such as Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, Belize, Georgia, and Barbados. These are not the biggest countries in the world, but they suffer nonetheless from the same old problems caused by the current financial ecosystem which need to be addressed.

As of August 14, Bitcoin has surpassed the US$4,150 mark for the first time, yet this may very well be only the beginning of its full growth potential over the next few years. Other currencies such as Ethereum, Dash, Monero, and Litecoin are only just starting to shine as well. In a few years from now, we could be talking about multi-trillion dollar cryptocurrency market caps. If that were to happen, cryptocurrencies combined would easily surpass the sum of the stock of broad money in over 50% of the world’s countries, if not two-thirds.

All of this goes to show cryptocurrency should not be ignored. Even though not everyone will invest in Bitcoin or altcoins — nor should they if they haven’t first done their research — it is a good time to start paying attention to this industry. Cryptocurrencies may not displace traditional currencies anytime soon, but they are certainly making a lot of waves right now. It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves over the coming years.

Rumors are flying about Ripple’s China expansion. Ripple elaborated on plans for the country, and shut down speculation they’re working with Alibaba.

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Cappasity has created a system for using and sharing 3D content for AR/VR applications and is planning an ICO in the coming months.

Zug, Switzerland and Boston, MA — August 15, 2017 — Ambrosus, the world’s first trusted blockchain-based ecosystem for the supply chain, today announced a partnership with pharmaceutical pioneer Trek Therapeutics, PBC (Trek) to apply integrated sensors coupled with blockchain-based technology to pharmaceutical drug manufacturing in Trek’s clinical development program. This announcement comes as blockchain industry heavyweight Jaron Lukasiewicz joins Ambrosus as Strategic Advisor.

Combining high-tech sensors, blockchain, and powered by smart contracts, Ambrosus is building the world’s first publicly-verifiable, community-driven ecosystem to ensure the quality, safety, and origins of essential products, such as medicine, food and commodities. As part of the collaboration, Ambrosus will conduct pilot projects with Trek to monitor the quality, safety and integrity of all stages of the pharmaceutical manufacturing process.

Trek Co-founder and CEO Dr. Ann Kwong said, “Currently the pharmaceutical manufacturing process is highly regulated by pharmaceutical manufacturers and by regulatory authorities in an extremely labor-intensive and expensive manner. We hope to partner with Ambrosus to create a continuous monitoring and tracking system that will be less labor intensive, less expensive, and more transparent to all parties with a stake in quality pharmaceutical manufacturing.  Our goal is to develop a system that is robust enough that Trek can submit data to support our manufacturing application for regulatory approval of our drugs from the FDA and EMA authorities.”

“Additionally, patients currently have no way to ascertain the quality of the medicines they ingest. Trek believes it is important to be able to demonstrate to patients that while our drugs are affordable, they’re also of the highest quality,” Dr Kwong added.

Ambrosus Co-Founder and CEO Angel Versetti said, “Following the successful implementation of the Ambrosus protocol in global food supply chains, we are delighted to now apply our blockchain protocol to help ensure the quality, safety and integrity of another vitally important product – pharmaceuticals.”

Trek Therapeutics, PBC is a privately-held, public-benefit corporation developing treatments for serious infections. Its mission is to provide cost-effective, affordable, and accessible medicines to treat patients that suffer from infectious diseases and commercialize them for global populations. Since the company’s founding in 2014, Trek has raised US$10M in Series A funding. Trek’s management team and board of directors is comprised of seasoned drug-development executives from Vertex, Schering Plough/Merck, Pharmasset/Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Roche, Celgene Global Health, Idenix, and Genzyme.

“Trek is focused on developing safe, novel medicines for infectious diseases at affordable and accessible prices. The pharmaceutical supply chain encompasses many phases and a multitude of stakeholders, requiring responsible parties to seek new methods of guaranteeing the quality and integrity of critical products. As Trek continues their mission to develop pharmaceuticals for budget-constrained patients across North America and Europe, our partnership will help to develop protocols to provide transparency and quality assurance during each phase of the process,” added Versetti.

As part of the pilot projects, Ambrosus’s protocol will work to verify and track the entire manufacturing chain from the primary chemical starting materials through multiple steps of synthesis, purification, and verification of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API); followed by formulation of the API into drug product; packaging, labeling, storage, and shipping to clinical trial sites.

“Backed by a superb core team of developers, advisors, and researchers, Ambrosus’ protocol will provide the transparency necessary in our manufacturing process to help ensure the integrity of supply chains. With our commitment to providing affordable high quality medicine, we believe this partnership could revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry quality control of manufacturing at every stage from plant to patient,” Dr. Kwong said.

Joining the Ambrosus team as an Advisor is blockchain luminary Jaron Lukasiewicz. Speaking on the announcement, Versetti added: “Ambrosus is excited to welcome Jaron Lukasiewicz as our Strategic Advisor. As a highly-respected blockchain industry figure we are eager to utilize his invaluable expertise as we lead up to our September token sale and beyond.”

Jaron  Lukasiewicz  has  been  a  notable  bitcoin  and  blockchain industry  figurehead  since  2012. Lukasiewicz  founded  and  served  as  CEO  of  Coinsetter,  a  New  York  City-based  bitcoin exchange,  which  was  acquired  by  Kraken,  the  world’s  largest  digital  asset  exchange  in  Euro volume,  in  January  2016.  The  sale  was,  at  the  time,  the  largest  M&A  deal  in  bitcoin  history. Lukasiewicz  also  served  as  CEO  of  Cavirtex  (Canadian  Virtual  Exchange),  the  oldest  and largest  Canadian  bitcoin  exchange,  which  was  also  acquired  by  Kraken  in  2016.  Since  the acquisition, Lukasiewicz has served as an active advisor to several blockchain companies and blockchain investment funds in addition to his role as the CEO of WRKFLOW.

Jaron Lukasiewicz said: “I am excited about the future of the Ambrosus project and equally the team  behind  it,  who  together  carries  decades  of experience  in  their  target  markets.  Ambrosus can  become  a  fundamental  technology  utilized  in  sectors ranging from  food  to  pharma, stretching  the   boundaries of what  blockchain  technology   can   accomplish   in   real world applications.”

About Ambrosus

Founded in 2016 by Angel Versetti and Dr Stefan Meyer, Ambrosus is the world’s first publicly–verifiable and community-driven system to assure the quality, safety, and origins of products such as food and pharmaceuticals. Officially endorsed by SQS (Swiss Quality and Safety Association), Ambrosus boasts the support of significant global bodies and associations including the United Nations, EPFL, the Crypto Valley Association, and financial backing from the Government of the Canton of Vaud, Switzerland.  

With an underlying ERC20-standard token called Amber, Ambrosus will complete a tokensale in September 2017 that will serve to fuel the development of the Ambrosus ecosystem.

For more information, or to see technical papers for Ambrosus sensors, marketplace and non invasive analytics, visit www.ambrosus.com.

About Trek

Trek Therapeutics, PBC is a private, clinical stage public benefit corporation developing treatments for serious infections. Its mission is to profitably develop affordable and accessible medicines to treat infectious diseases and to commercialize them for global populations starting with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Its commercial strategy is to price their treatment regimen low enough to include the majority of patients infected with HCV who cannot afford the expensive treatments available today. Trek is currently raising Series B financing to support the completion of its Phase 2a program and initiate its Phase 2b studies.  Trek is examining the possibility of a listing on the Euronext Growth and other markets. For further information, please visit http://www.trektx.com/.

Media Contact:

Lawrence Chiu

Marketing Assistant

TokenMarket Ltd.

[email protected]

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release 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.

Top Cryptocurrencies Price Review and Predictions.

Cryptocurrency has always been intriguing to governments around the world. This is not for their own gain, but mainly because crypto is often perceived as a major threat to their economic and political power. A new foreign sanctions bill signed by President Trump could spell a very difficult future for cryptocurrency as a whole. Under the law, specific foreign governments are asked to monitor cryptocurrency circulation to combat terrorism and illicit financial trends.

New U.S. Law is Problematic

Every time a new piece of legislation is signed and turned into law, there is reason for concern. This has been especially true in the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency as of late. The so-called Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act may bring a lot of problems to the cryptocurrency world in the near future. Among other things, the law covers anti-terrorist financing and combating illicit finance trends. It also touches on cryptocurrency in its current form, which is considered an illicit finance trend.

As a result of the new law recently signed by President Trump, several foreign governments are required to take action by monitoring cryptocurrency circulation within their borders. The countries affected by this directive are Russia, North Korea, and Iran. Two out of those three would not seem to be causing significant problems for cryptocurrency, as neither Iran nor North Korea is particularly active in the Bitcoin industry. 

The exception is Russia, a country which has finally shown some appreciation for cryptocurrency in recent months. With the new law in place, the Russian government would effectively have to crack down on cryptocurrency usage once again. Although the U.S. proposal was designed to help counter terrorist financing, there has never been any evidence of cryptocurrency being used to successfully fund such operations. For some unknown reason, governments are still eager to connect the two topics.

It is certainly true that cryptocurrencies have created new money flows which remain largely unregulated. That is a problem for any government, even though it has become clear that regulating cryptocurrency is a futile effort. The only thing governments can do is go after the companies who facilitate such transactions, including exchanges and brokers. Even then, cryptocurrencies can still be traced in a peer-to-peer fashion without relying on centralized platforms subject to governance.

The recently passed law calls for discussion of trends in illicit finance including forms of value transfer such as cryptocurrencies. Additionally, it requires the collection of data regarding cybercrime or other threats that may be identified by the U.S. government in the future. This is not the first time we have seen such a directive, as a similar proposal was made by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in May 2017.

All of this goes to show that the U.S. government is willing to attack cryptocurrency as a whole. Specifically, the country continues to impose its vision on other nations where Bitcoin can make a big difference, such as Iran, Russia, and North Korea. Having a global currency that could remove the need for the dollar is understandably a significant concern for the U.S. It will be interesting to see how this law impacts cryptocurrency in the future if at all.