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Day: September 6, 2017

Upfiring – Share Your Files on the Blockchain and Earn Cryptocurrency For Doing it

upfiring logoUpfiring is the first decentralized file-sharing application that will allow users to earn cryptocurrency (UFR tokens) for simply sharing their files. These files could be torrents, music, pdfs, and more. The application looks promising. It resembles non-blockchain P2P file-sharing applications in that it will allow seeding and downloading, but has several key technological advantages over its competitors. By using blockchain technology to create a decentralized network and fuel transactions, users are free to spend UFR in exchange for files or accumulate UFR in exchange for their own files.  Files seeded on the Upfiring platform are exclusively available for download within

upfiring logo

Upfiring is the first decentralized file-sharing application that will allow users to earn cryptocurrency (UFR tokens) for simply sharing their files. These files could be torrents, music, pdfs, and more.

The application looks promising. It resembles non-blockchain P2P file-sharing applications in that it will allow seeding and downloading, but has several key technological advantages over its competitors. By using blockchain technology to create a decentralized network and fuel transactions, users are free to spend UFR in exchange for files or accumulate UFR in exchange for their own files.

 Files seeded on the Upfiring platform are exclusively available for download within the Upfiring application. This is carried out through an encryption process, which makes the file unreadable to anyone who tries to download it outside of the application. This ensures users are appropriately compensated their share of UFR for seeding files.

 The blockchain startup announced that its ICO will be held on October 3rd, 2017. That afternoon, UFR will be released for the first time to those who choose to contribute to the crowdfunding campaign. The token will have many uses on the network and may prove to be valuable in the long-term.

Learn more about Upfiring: https://www.upfiring.com

Read the whitepaper: https://upfiring.com/Upfiring_Whitepaper.pdf

Follow on Twitter: @UpfiringHQ

Follow on Facebook: @Upfiring

Join the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Upfiring

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

EROSCOIN Global Payment Solution Announces Crowdsale

EROSCOIN, a new generation cryptocurrency platform being developed for large-scale disruption in payment systems, has recently announced its ICO, starting from October 11, 2017. The crowdsale will go on until November 20, 2017, allowing participants to purchase the native ERO token. EROSCOIN is the result of a year-long team effort and the soon to begin … Continue reading EROSCOIN Global Payment Solution Announces Crowdsale

The post EROSCOIN Global Payment Solution Announces Crowdsale appeared first on NEWSBTC.

EROSCOIN, a new generation cryptocurrency platform being developed for large-scale disruption in payment systems, has recently announced its ICO, starting from October 11, 2017. The crowdsale will go on until November 20, 2017, allowing participants to purchase the native ERO token. EROSCOIN is the result of a year-long team effort and the soon to begin … Continue reading EROSCOIN Global Payment Solution Announces Crowdsale

The post EROSCOIN Global Payment Solution Announces Crowdsale appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Bitcoin Tipping Website Taringa Suffers Major Data Breach

TheMerkle Taringa Data BreachAny website related to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is often a big target for hackers. Although properly secured platforms are protected from major incidents, a successful hack will occur every now and then. Taringa, a Latin American site known for its positive stance toward Bitcoin, was compromised a few days ago. Login details of nearly all its 28 million users were compromised in the process. Happily, it does not appear any Bitcoin funds were stolen. Taringa Data Breach is Disconcerting It is good to see this Bitcoin-related website did not lose any funds, but the data breach itself is worrying. Taringa provides a question-and-answer platform for

TheMerkle Taringa Data Breach

Any website related to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is often a big target for hackers. Although properly secured platforms are protected from major incidents, a successful hack will occur every now and then. Taringa, a Latin American site known for its positive stance toward Bitcoin, was compromised a few days ago. Login details of nearly all its 28 million users were compromised in the process. Happily, it does not appear any Bitcoin funds were stolen.

Taringa Data Breach is Disconcerting

It is good to see this Bitcoin-related website did not lose any funds, but the data breach itself is worrying. Taringa provides a question-and-answer platform for users all over Latin America. It also integrated Bitcoin tipping capabilities quite some time ago, a feature which has been appreciated by most of its user base so far. This feature, which was integrated back in 2015, allowed the company to become the “Reddit of Latin America” in just a few years.

Despite Taringa being compromised, the hackers seemingly did not obtain any Bitcoin balances stored on the platform. The partnership between Taringa and Xapo allows content creators to create digital Bitcoin wallets for use on the platform. Although it is unclear how much money is stored in the platform’s wallets, one would expect criminals to have emptied them regardless. Though that has not happened, it is possible the assailants still have access to the information required to do so.

Rather, it seems the attackers mainly wanted to compromise user data. Those efforts have, unfortunately, been a major success. It is believed all 28 million Taringa users had their personal information exposed to third parties. The breached information includes usernames, passwords, email addresses, and any other personal information the users may have shared with the company. The passwords in question are encrypted, but the associated MD5 encryption takes a few hours or days to crack. That means most users will have their passwords exposed.

Taringa has already issued a public statement explaining how none of the users’ wallet balances have been affected up to this point. Bitcoin tipping sites often have very little money in user balances, for obvious reasons. It is unclear if the Bitcoin tipping feature is still frequently used on Taringa to this day, although some people seemingly still make decent money from it. Users who had their information exposed should be particularly worried, though.

We have recently seen an uptick in phishing campaigns targeting cryptocurrency users. With around 28 million email addresses leaked due to the Taringa hack, all of these people may be targeted in future Bitcoin-related scams. Additionally, many individuals use the same login and password combination for multiple websites. We can only hope affected users have changed their passwords on those sites already. For now, there is no indication as to who was behind the Taringa breach.

All of this goes to show any website dealing with Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies is a target for hackers. It also highlights how companies need to start taking cybersecurity a lot more seriously than they have up to this point. Having your database hacked regardless of stolen funds is not a good sign. It is unclear how this hack will affect Taringa’s reputation moving forward.

Op Ed: Beware the Perils of Over-Regulation for ICOs

Op Ed: Beware the Perils of Over-Regulation

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the gene drug Kymriah for certain types of cancer. However, Kymriah costs $475,000 for one single treatment, Bloomberg reports, which is well beyond being affordable for average patients.

In the U.S., the FDA approval process itself adds billions of dollars to drug development costs, which pharmaceutical companies must then recover, and also adds years to the drug availability timeline. The impression that suffering U.S. patients are required to pay exorbitant drug prices to support over-regulation is difficult to escape.

To operate beyond the reach of FDA regulations, Peter Thiel and other libertarian investors are funding an offshore human clinical trial of a herpes vaccine, TechCrunch reports. Thiel’s move has caused a stormy debate with clashes between opposite positions. See, for example, the opposite takes of DailyBeast and Reason.

There are many other examples of the harmful effects of over-regulation in the health sector, but these matters of life and death are too serious to be used for a political point. However, other sectors can illustrate the ethical and economical problems of over-regulation.

Take, for example, internet gambling, which is illegal in many jurisdictions including the U.S.

It’s worth noting that internet gambling is hugely popular, and the sector moves a lot of money. The ethical objection to making internet gambling illegal is easy to formulate: The adult citizens who want to gamble their own money online should be free to do so.

The economical objection is also easy to formulate: Adult citizens who want to gamble their own money online will find ways to do so, by using offshore service providers if there’s none at home or by going through Tor or a VPN if needed. But, if online gambling providers are forced to move offshore, they’ll take a lot of jobs and a lot of money with them.

This is exactly what has happened in the online gambling sector, with many U.S. providers migrating to more gambling-friendly jurisdictions such as the U.K. Similarly, the Isle of Man government recognized internet gambling as a potential strategic growth sector and established a suitable legal and fiscal framework to attract online gambling and sports betting businesses. As a result, leading operators flocked to the island.

Since those U.S. residents who want to gamble online will do so anyway, the only effect of over-regulating the industry is to take money, jobs and technology offshore.

Actually, this is not entirely correct: Besides moving offshore, the less scrupulous operators also have the option of moving underground. In that case, it would force those who want to engage in totally harmless gambling to deal with a shady or even criminal underworld, which can be dangerous. This same point, which seems perfectly logical, is often made in support of drug liberalization.

Crypto Innovation Takes the Path of Least Resistance

After having introduced light and relatively permissive regulations to attract internet gambling operators, the Isle of Man adopted the same strategy for cryptocurrencies and digital fintech. Switzerland is following on the same path, with the “Crypto Valley” near Zug attracting more and more crypto-fintech operators.

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales are a relatively new crypto-fintech phenomenon that is attracting lots of attention from the press, from old and new businesses, and now from the regulators.

In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a first ruling which outlined that some tokens are to be considered as securities and subjected to rather strict SEC regulations. Other regulatory authorities, such as the Canadian Securities Administrators, are considering plans to follow suit.

On Monday, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and Chinese regulatory bodies banned and deemed illegal the practice of raising funds through crypto-token ICOs, as reported by Reuters. This seems to conflict with recent, much more reasonable statements from the Director of PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute, which could indicate internal disagreement.

The regulators are mainly concerned with protecting gullible citizens from scams, which are inevitably common in the ICO scene. Perhaps the Chinese regulators are just temporarily freezing ICOs until they have a chance to put a sound regulatory framework in place. But it can be argued that, if their intention truly is to ban ICOs outright, then regulators are overreacting in ways that deny useful options to businesses and citizens alike.

According to the SEC and the CSA, only tokens with an underlying utility rather than a speculative investment value alone can escape being considered as securities. But, as always, the devil is in the details. If a token is really useful, its market value will go up, and speculative investors will profit. The question that comes to mind is, at which point does a useful token become a speculative investment? According to specialized lawyers, “the SEC has not provided a clear answer.”

“Obviously not everything that appreciates in value is a security,” notes crypto investor and CEO of 21.co, Balaji Srinivasan, in an insightful CNBC interview. “For example, a house can appreciate in value, but you can (and many people do) buy it for the use value.” But regulators could be tempted to follow China’s lead and consider all useful tokens as securities, which seems to be dangerous overkill.

The SEC regulations restrict investing in privately offered securities to “accredited investors.” But less than 10 percent of households in the U.S. are wealthy enough to qualify as such, and there are other strict requirements as well.

Therefore, if all useful tokens are considered as securities, the ability for creators of value to raise funds is significantly hampered, and average citizens are denied the opportunity to bet on innovative projects that could offer significant returns.

It’s now to be expected that Chinese crypto-token initiatives, including those that are not scams but are really innovative and promising projects, will move offshore and take jobs and money with them. Similarly, should U.S. crypto regulations become more restrictive, many U.S. companies could be tempted to follow the example of Xapo and relocate to Switzerland. Last week, blockchain company ShapeShift announced its decision to leave the State of Washington due to local over-regulation.

Srinivasan’s well-argued thesis is that crypto-tokens will democratize investment, open new fundraising options to businesses and new investment options to the public — including small businesses and average citizens — and turn the internet into the world’s largest “stock” market.

“The regulatory framework will likely eventually accommodate this,” concludes Srinivasan. “Only a few countries need to allow it, and the consequent creation of wealth will be so large that it’ll push many of the rest to have a liberal tokenization regime as well.”

The regulators should take this wise advice into account in formulating reasonable policies for the crypto-token sector, as well as the other sectors mentioned above.

The post Op Ed: Beware the Perils of Over-Regulation for ICOs appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Op Ed: Beware the Perils of Over-Regulation

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the gene drug Kymriah for certain types of cancer. However, Kymriah costs $475,000 for one single treatment, Bloomberg reports, which is well beyond being affordable for average patients.

In the U.S., the FDA approval process itself adds billions of dollars to drug development costs, which pharmaceutical companies must then recover, and also adds years to the drug availability timeline. The impression that suffering U.S. patients are required to pay exorbitant drug prices to support over-regulation is difficult to escape.

To operate beyond the reach of FDA regulations, Peter Thiel and other libertarian investors are funding an offshore human clinical trial of a herpes vaccine, TechCrunch reports. Thiel’s move has caused a stormy debate with clashes between opposite positions. See, for example, the opposite takes of DailyBeast and Reason.

There are many other examples of the harmful effects of over-regulation in the health sector, but these matters of life and death are too serious to be used for a political point. However, other sectors can illustrate the ethical and economical problems of over-regulation.

Take, for example, internet gambling, which is illegal in many jurisdictions including the U.S.

It’s worth noting that internet gambling is hugely popular, and the sector moves a lot of money. The ethical objection to making internet gambling illegal is easy to formulate: The adult citizens who want to gamble their own money online should be free to do so.

The economical objection is also easy to formulate: Adult citizens who want to gamble their own money online will find ways to do so, by using offshore service providers if there’s none at home or by going through Tor or a VPN if needed. But, if online gambling providers are forced to move offshore, they’ll take a lot of jobs and a lot of money with them.

This is exactly what has happened in the online gambling sector, with many U.S. providers migrating to more gambling-friendly jurisdictions such as the U.K. Similarly, the Isle of Man government recognized internet gambling as a potential strategic growth sector and established a suitable legal and fiscal framework to attract online gambling and sports betting businesses. As a result, leading operators flocked to the island.

Since those U.S. residents who want to gamble online will do so anyway, the only effect of over-regulating the industry is to take money, jobs and technology offshore.

Actually, this is not entirely correct: Besides moving offshore, the less scrupulous operators also have the option of moving underground. In that case, it would force those who want to engage in totally harmless gambling to deal with a shady or even criminal underworld, which can be dangerous. This same point, which seems perfectly logical, is often made in support of drug liberalization.

Crypto Innovation Takes the Path of Least Resistance

After having introduced light and relatively permissive regulations to attract internet gambling operators, the Isle of Man adopted the same strategy for cryptocurrencies and digital fintech. Switzerland is following on the same path, with the “Crypto Valley” near Zug attracting more and more crypto-fintech operators.

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and token sales are a relatively new crypto-fintech phenomenon that is attracting lots of attention from the press, from old and new businesses, and now from the regulators.

In July, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a first ruling which outlined that some tokens are to be considered as securities and subjected to rather strict SEC regulations. Other regulatory authorities, such as the Canadian Securities Administrators, are considering plans to follow suit.

On Monday, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and Chinese regulatory bodies banned and deemed illegal the practice of raising funds through crypto-token ICOs, as reported by Reuters. This seems to conflict with recent, much more reasonable statements from the Director of PBoC’s Digital Currency Research Institute, which could indicate internal disagreement.

The regulators are mainly concerned with protecting gullible citizens from scams, which are inevitably common in the ICO scene. Perhaps the Chinese regulators are just temporarily freezing ICOs until they have a chance to put a sound regulatory framework in place. But it can be argued that, if their intention truly is to ban ICOs outright, then regulators are overreacting in ways that deny useful options to businesses and citizens alike.

According to the SEC and the CSA, only tokens with an underlying utility rather than a speculative investment value alone can escape being considered as securities. But, as always, the devil is in the details. If a token is really useful, its market value will go up, and speculative investors will profit. The question that comes to mind is, at which point does a useful token become a speculative investment? According to specialized lawyers, “the SEC has not provided a clear answer.”

“Obviously not everything that appreciates in value is a security,” notes crypto investor and CEO of 21.co, Balaji Srinivasan, in an insightful CNBC interview. “For example, a house can appreciate in value, but you can (and many people do) buy it for the use value.” But regulators could be tempted to follow China’s lead and consider all useful tokens as securities, which seems to be dangerous overkill.

The SEC regulations restrict investing in privately offered securities to “accredited investors.” But less than 10 percent of households in the U.S. are wealthy enough to qualify as such, and there are other strict requirements as well.

Therefore, if all useful tokens are considered as securities, the ability for creators of value to raise funds is significantly hampered, and average citizens are denied the opportunity to bet on innovative projects that could offer significant returns.

It’s now to be expected that Chinese crypto-token initiatives, including those that are not scams but are really innovative and promising projects, will move offshore and take jobs and money with them. Similarly, should U.S. crypto regulations become more restrictive, many U.S. companies could be tempted to follow the example of Xapo and relocate to Switzerland. Last week, blockchain company ShapeShift announced its decision to leave the State of Washington due to local over-regulation.

Srinivasan’s well-argued thesis is that crypto-tokens will democratize investment, open new fundraising options to businesses and new investment options to the public — including small businesses and average citizens — and turn the internet into the world’s largest “stock” market.

“The regulatory framework will likely eventually accommodate this,” concludes Srinivasan. “Only a few countries need to allow it, and the consequent creation of wealth will be so large that it’ll push many of the rest to have a liberal tokenization regime as well.”

The regulators should take this wise advice into account in formulating reasonable policies for the crypto-token sector, as well as the other sectors mentioned above.

The post Op Ed: Beware the Perils of Over-Regulation for ICOs appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

MongoDB Hackers Demand Bitcoin Ransom From Over 26,000 Compromised Servers

TheMerkle MongoDB Hacks BitcoinEven though Bitcoin lacks all of the properties criminals should look for in an anonymous currency, it is still quite popular. The recent wave of attacks against unprotected MongoDB databases illustrates that point perfectly. All of the groups responsible for these attacks have demanded payments be made in Bitcoin. This last wave of attacks saw over 26,000 servers getting hijacked, which is an astonishing number. These types of attacks have been prominent since December of 2016. MongoDB Attacks Continue Unabated If something works just fine, there is no reason to fix it. Cybercriminals operate with a similar mindset; if their

TheMerkle MongoDB Hacks Bitcoin

Even though Bitcoin lacks all of the properties criminals should look for in an anonymous currency, it is still quite popular. The recent wave of attacks against unprotected MongoDB databases illustrates that point perfectly. All of the groups responsible for these attacks have demanded payments be made in Bitcoin. This last wave of attacks saw over 26,000 servers getting hijacked, which is an astonishing number. These types of attacks have been prominent since December of 2016.

MongoDB Attacks Continue Unabated

If something works just fine, there is no reason to fix it. Cybercriminals operate with a similar mindset; if their previous plan of attack was successful, all the more reason to keep experimenting with it. The MongoDB attacks, which started in December of last year, are still a lucrative business model for criminals nine months later. A lot of servers running such databases still are not properly protected against major attacks like these.

These types of ransom attacks against MongoDB databases only work if a database is left open for external connections. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of such databases to be found, which can cause major problems for the companies involved. The assailants will copy the database content, wipe the original content, and replace it with a ransom demand. Considering how most companies cannot afford to lose important customer data, they are forced to pay the Bitcoin ransom as a result.

The recent wave of attacks was a joint operation by multiple hacking crews. One group in particular exposed over 22,000 MongoDB servers through an external connection. Two other groups enjoyed less of a success, although they made 3,516 and 839 victims respectively. As is to be expected, every victim is asked to make a Bitcoin payment. The ransom amounts range from 0.05 BTC to 0.2 BTC, indicating there is a lot of money to be made. Even if only 10% of the victims were to pay up, it would result in a 3,484.5 Bitcoin payday for all three hacking crews combined.

Luckily, it appears the majority of the exposed databases belong to test systems. Others contained production data and a few companies paid the ransom before realizing the criminals did not even have their data in the first place. It is unclear how much money changed hands due to these “bogus” ransom notes, though. Attacks against MongoDB databases have been ongoing for some time now, as over 45,000 databases have been wiped clean since last December. That is a very disappointing and disconcerting number.

Interestingly enough, this type of attack was virtually nonexistent as recently as this summer. With these three new groups emerging and scoring major initial successes, it is not unlikely we would see more attacks against MongoDB servers in the future. Database administrators need to properly evaluate their security settings and blacklist external connections from IP addresses not cleared by the company. It will take a bit of work to set this up properly, but it is direly needed.

These MongoDB attacks are only the latest tool in a growing arsenal of attack vectors maintained by cybercriminals these days. Malware, ransomware, data wipers, bricking tools, and database hacks are just some of the concerns security researchers have to deal with on a daily basis. Companies have to step up their security game in a big way to prevent more issues like these from happening. One cannot simply rely on security researchers in this regard, as it is due time to take matters into one’s own hands.

Bitcoin, ether extend gains to second day – MarketWatch

Bitcoin, ether extend gains to second day
MarketWatch
Bitcoin and ether prices continued to climb on Wednesday, clawing back some of the steep declines over the holiday weekend that were sparked by China’s ban on initial coin offerings. Last weekend, Chinese regulators declared initial coin offerings …

Bitcoin, ether extend gains to second day
MarketWatch
Bitcoin and ether prices continued to climb on Wednesday, clawing back some of the steep declines over the holiday weekend that were sparked by China's ban on initial coin offerings. Last weekend, Chinese regulators declared initial coin offerings ...

Genesis Vision, the Private Trust Management Platform Built on Blockchain Technology, is Ready to Be Launched

genesis visionA market disruptor, Genesis Vision, is proud to announce its forthcoming launch. Genesis vision is the first platform for the private trust management market, built on Blockchain technology and smart contracts. The platform turns to crowdsourcing through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to support its development. The trust management market is growing rapidly every year. According to the Boston Consulting Group report Global Asset Management 2016, the total amount of funds in management is more than $70 trillion In this booming environment, a game changer is ready to be launched: Genesis Vision. Genesis Vision, the unconventional trust management system, uses

genesis vision

A market disruptor, Genesis Vision, is proud to announce its forthcoming launch. Genesis vision is the first platform for the private trust management market, built on Blockchain technology and smart contracts. The platform turns to crowdsourcing through an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) to support its development.

The trust management market is growing rapidly every year. According to the Boston Consulting Group report Global Asset Management 2016, the total amount of funds in management is more than $70 trillion

In this booming environment, a game changer is ready to be launched: Genesis Vision. Genesis Vision, the unconventional trust management system, uses state-of-the-art scientific and technical knowledge to unite exchanges, brokers, traders, and investors into a decentralized, open and fair network, making the financial market even more global.

The ground-breaking platform offers the opportunity to successful traders to globalize their trading strategies by attracting investments from around the world, therefore allowing capital to skyrocket. Its transparency for investing and profit distribution is guaranteed by the smart contract technology that underlies the platform. Investment portfolios are available for any request, and extra security is provided as all managers have a real trading history.

As Ruslan Kamenskiy, CEO of Genesis Vision emphasizes, “Genesis Vision is the next step in Financial Markets evolution.”

Genesis Vision is founded by a highly experienced, well versed and specialized team in financial markets. They combine a cumulative experience of many years in addition to a thorough knowledge of the latest trends. This notorious team has partnered with several large industry representatives of hundreds of brokerage companies  globally.

To support the development of the innovative Genesis Vision, its founders turn to popular crowdsourcing and are ready to launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) campaign. The campaign is scheduled to start on October 15 with lucrative bonuses for the early participants. Genesis Vision’s early investment program will take place in form of options sale, instead of traditional pre-ICO campaign. Options for the first 20% of the maximum options cap guarantee their holders a 30% bonus; the next 30% receive a 20% bonus, and the remaining 50% receive a 10% bonus. Option sale will start on September 15.

For further information about Genesis Vision and to read the whitepaper of the amazing ICO visit genesis.vision today.

About

Genesis Vision, is the first private trust management platform built on Blockchain technology and smart contracts, founded by a team of experts in this field. The platform aims at providing an automated and absolutely transparent system for investing and profit distribution. genesis.vision

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

$85,942 was just won on Dead or Alive at BitStarz Casino!

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2017 – BitStarz player striking gold by landing two separate big wins in an hour! If you’re familiar with old spaghetti western movies, we’re sure you’ve heard the title “A Fistfull of Dollars” before. Well, while playing the cowboy themed slot Dead or Alive slot at BitStarz, one lucky player was able … Continue reading $85,942 was just won on Dead or Alive at BitStarz Casino!

The post $85,942 was just won on Dead or Alive at BitStarz Casino! appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Tuesday, Aug 29, 2017 – BitStarz player striking gold by landing two separate big wins in an hour! If you’re familiar with old spaghetti western movies, we’re sure you’ve heard the title “A Fistfull of Dollars” before. Well, while playing the cowboy themed slot Dead or Alive slot at BitStarz, one lucky player was able … Continue reading $85,942 was just won on Dead or Alive at BitStarz Casino!

The post $85,942 was just won on Dead or Alive at BitStarz Casino! appeared first on NEWSBTC.

What Is Zilliqa?

TheMerkle Zilliqa Blockchain ShardingWith so many different blockchain platforms in existence, it has become impossible to keep track of them all. Zilliqa is a new platform that has attracted a lot of attention with a focus on transaction throughput and sharding. Considering how this project has been in development for over two years, expectations are pretty high. It seems this project is greatly interesting to various companies around the world. Zilliqa Makes Sharding a Possibility A name like Zilliqa would not necessarily be associated with blockchain technology. Then again, the name is catchy. The word Zilliqa means “silicon for the high-throughput consensus computer.” In a way, that perfectly

TheMerkle Zilliqa Blockchain Sharding

With so many different blockchain platforms in existence, it has become impossible to keep track of them all. Zilliqa is a new platform that has attracted a lot of attention with a focus on transaction throughput and sharding. Considering how this project has been in development for over two years, expectations are pretty high. It seems this project is greatly interesting to various companies around the world.

Zilliqa Makes Sharding a Possibility

A name like Zilliqa would not necessarily be associated with blockchain technology. Then again, the name is catchy. The word Zilliqa means “silicon for the high-throughput consensus computer.” In a way, that perfectly describes how most people expect blockchain technology to operate, assuming it can be scaled to the proper levels. This has been a big problem as far as most public blockchains are concerned, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Interestingly enough, Zilliqa is also a public blockchain which focuses on high-throughput and sharding. In fact, it brings various processes and protocols to the table to achieve higher transaction rates than any other blockchain in the world. The developers claim Zilliqa will be able to scale by orders of magnitude, depending on the needs of the people using this solution. That is a rather ambitious goal, though one that is not entirely impossible to achieve.

Other points of focus for Zilliqa include sharding, decentralized apps, smart contracts, and quantifiable security. In a way, it almost sounds like an improved version of the Ethereum blockchain, considering it packs virtually the same functionality under the hood. It also appears the developers created this public blockchain as a way to provide decentralized solutions for machine learning and financial algorithms. So far, the team has conducted one major trial run, which yielded some unexpected results. With a throughput of 1,389 transactions per second, Zilliqa is well ahead of any of its competitors.

Although these results are only the initial benchmark, a second test is scheduled for October 1st of this year. The public testnet for Zilliqa will be released in December, at which time the developers will make their source code public. The main net launch and the first decentralized applications for this blockchain are slated for Q2 and Q3 of 2018, respectively. Many developers will be keeping an eye on these developments in the coming months. If the project can deliver on its promise, Zilliqa may quickly become a favorite blockchain among coders.

It remains to be seen how this public blockchain will handle the concept of sharding. Ethereum developers have been working on a similar solution for some time now, although it does not appear the technology will come to market anytime soon. It is not all that easy to introduce sharding to a public blockchain without undergoing several thorough tests. If Zilliqa can bring one to market first, it may have a competitive edge over Ethereum in that regard.

One thing to keep in mind is how the initial test run used nodes hosted on AWS EC2 instances. There is no real decentralization of this network just yet, although that situation will change over time once the source code has been released to the public. It is good to see increased competition in the world of public blockchain solutions. Zilliqa may very well become a big project in the near future, although only time will tell if the team can deliver on their promises. So far, things look rather promising.

Betting against bitcoin – Financial Times


Financial Times

Betting against bitcoin
Financial Times
There are many today who believe the vertigo-inducing rise in value of bitcoin — up 643 per cent in the past 12 months and more than 4,000 per cent over five years — represents the greatest parabolic bubble of modern times, and one that is primed to …

Financial Times
Betting against bitcoin
Financial Times
There are many today who believe the vertigo-inducing rise in value of bitcoin — up 643 per cent in the past 12 months and more than 4,000 per cent over five years — represents the greatest parabolic bubble of modern times, and one that is primed to ...