Day: September 14, 2017

There are three possible reasons for Bitcoin’s price hitting its three-week low of 3,300 levels, likely a correction rather than a crash

NEW YORK – Sept. 11, 2017 – Today, COBINHOOD, a next generation cryptocurrency service platform launched. The launch, signaled by the company’s ICO (available Sept. 13, 2017) will see COBINHOOD bring the world’s first zero-fee, high-frequency cryptocurrency trading platform to traders around the globe. COBINHOOD was founded by Popo Chen, the original founder of ‘17 … Continue reading COBINHOOD Launches; Announces Zero-Fee, High Frequency Cryptocurrency Exchange Platform and Initial Coin Offering

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Japanese digital services firm GMO has divulged additional plans for its forthcoming cryptocurrency mine

Ryan Kennedy is accused of using highly sophisticated strategies to steal from unsuspecting Bitcoin users, using proceeds to live in luxury

A Bank of England researcher wrote earlier this week that a central bank digital currency would need “extraordinary” levels of resilience to work.

Countries around the world have been contemplating how to best handle cryptocurrency ICOs and token sales in general. In most cases, these tokens are considered securities, subject to regulatory scrutiny. The United Kingdom is one of the countries actively keeping close tabs on these projects. Its Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently issued a warning on initial coin offerings, although there is no indication of impending regulation whatsoever.

UK’s FCA Warns About Cryptocurrency ICOs

More governments are warning the public about the dangers associated with initial coin offerings these days. Ever since the SEC made its intentions clear, other governments have been rather quick to announce somewhat similar stances. Although there is only one country taking an active approach in this matter, it is not unlikely we would see similar measures in other nations moving forward. Whereas China is leading the way with rather harsh action, the UK is taking a more cautious approach for now.

Britain’s FCA recently issued a public warning regarding initial coin offerings.  These kinds of warnings have been issued for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the past. However, this warning clearly states that people should only invest in an ICO if they are experienced investors, and that they need to be “confident in the quality of the initial coin offering project.” The latter point is pretty interesting, given that there is very little reason to immediately trust an ICO in the first place.

This warning also serves as a reminder that people who invest in such token sales need to be fully prepared to lose all of the money they invest. There is a very real chance that a lot of these ICO projects will eventually collapse. When that happens, there will be no recourse or legal action to be undertaken for people living in the United Kingdom. That is assuming no new regulation is introduced in the future, which remains somewhat uncertain at this point in time.

Things are still in a state of flux for ICO regulation in the United Kingdom. The FCA notes that most of these initial coin offerings are not regulated and lack investor protections. Most ICOs will eventually fall outside of the regulated space, but that does not mean they do not constitute securities or engage in certain activities subject to regulation. This does hint at how eventual ICO regulation in the UK may be rather light, although it is a bit early to tell for sure.

There are certain positive aspects of regulation in the UK which could benefit ICOs in the long run. There is a high level of regulatory cover and governance in the country. This would make it more straightforward to provide an ethical and correct approach to token usage and activities related to said tokens. Whether or not more ICO projects will pursue this option remains to be seen. Some countries will be more open to this business model than others, and the UK is one of the friendlier places for the time being.

All of this goes to show there is a lot more to a cryptocurrency ICO than creating the tokens themselves. While that is an important aspect of this business model as a whole, there are also moral and ethical features to take into account. Project teams should never try to cut regulatory corners. Although that may not be the primary objective for any of these token sales, it does appear some are doing exactly that. It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.

There is a bill going to its final vote in the California state legislature this Friday and it could be a huge win for consumer privacy. Consumers in California may soon retake control of the data that broadband providers – such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon – collect on them. While this bill will only affect California consumers, it may just be the beginning of consumers waking up and empowering themselves again.

California’s Broadband Privacy Bill

The story of this bill is fraught with lobby attempts to crush it by large telecommunications companies. In fact, this bill almost never saw a vote because of the efforts of those companies. It took constituents being loud to make their voices heard. They wanted a vote on this bill. Because of the efforts of these California citizens, the state legislature moved forward with the bill and it will be voted on this Friday.

While overwhelming public support for the bill may have gotten it to the floor for a vote, it just barely made it. This is yet another demonstration about how our republic can be too easily influenced by corporate actors against the interest of citizens. Using their money and legal trickery, lobbyists for the ISP and telecommunications industry attempted to smother this bill in its crib. If it were to die in committee, then it would never have to be voted on. This would have been their best bet considering how in favor of privacy protection the vast majority of citizens are.

Luckily, the Rules Committee moved it forward and we will see a vote on this. It is predicted to pass. The final version of this bill is extremely similar to the regulations regarding privacy that the FCC just repealed. This means Californians would have to give their ISPs permission to use the data collected on them. It appears that it is up to states to protect our privacy interests if the Federal government will not. It does go further as well by banning pay-for-privacy schemes ISPs have attempted in the past.

Why This is so Important

The United States FFC, under the Trump administration, has made it abundantly clear that they side with corporate interests over the rights of citizens. Federal consumer protections are either non-existent or quickly being dismantled under the leadership of Ajit Pai. No citizen benefits from having their rights taken away from them, this only helps the large telecommunications companies further exploit your personal data and privacy for financial gain. For these reasons, it is dire that citizens make their voices heard by not only the Federal government but also local governments. If the Federal government is unwilling to preserve the rights of its citizens, state governments have to pick up that slack.

Hopefully what California is doing will create a sort of ripple effect and other states follow suit. Your data and your privacy should be yours. Remember, many of these companies already charge you for the privilege of using their infrastructure. You are buying a product and service from them, they should not make you their product.

As this story and others concerning data, privacy, and net neutrality arise, we will continue to inform our readers.

Continued market turmoil traced to Chinese regulatory pressure has sent bitcoin’s price tumbling more than $500.

Bitcointalk is a message board where people talk about cryptocurrencies. Here are 5 intriguing facts about the forum.

A project called Hacken is building a dedicated currency and community for white hat hackers. The project aims to protect ethical hackers and provide them with the opportunity to develop their skills in a legal way.

What is a White Hat Hacker?

Too often today we hear about cybercriminals and hackers operating in the own world. Hackers are portrayed as malicious actors, hellbent on stealing your information and your money. This is especially true in cryptocurrency, since this ecosystem has been targeted by many hackers since its conception. However, not all hackers are criminals and, in fact, many of them are on the front lines against those criminals. They are called “white hat” hackers and use their skills to discover vulnerabilities. Many of them participate in bug bounties or penetration tests and are compensated for discovering the exploits in a system. They are an absolutely necessary part of good product development. Companies would much rather have ethical hackers breach their system and provide the opportunity to fix it than dealing with a live product being exploited.

What is Hacken?

Hacken is a community and dedicated cryptocurrency for white hat hackers. The project’s team wants to encourage and foster a connection between the blockchain and the cyber security community. This also includes promoting and furthering ethical hacking and legitimate research into computer systems and software.

It is also a place where clients can purchase tests of their products or systems. The findings along with the rest of the testing process are time-stamped on the blockchain on their certificate. These certificates are unique to each project and the fact that it resides on the blockchain means that it cannot be altered.

This is especially helpful for smaller and medium sized companies who may not have the same budget as larger companies. Hacken provides affordable and and quick vulnerability testing, meaning that these smaller companies no longer have to throw caution to the wind when launching new products.

Cyber-security Startup Incubator and Cyber-security Analytics Center

Hacken wants to facilitate excellent cooperation and connections between the cyber-security world and the blockchain. For this reason, they have committed themselves to create the Cyber-security Startup Incubator and the Cyber-security Analytics Center. They will create a team of analysts to perform fundamental cyber-security research along with auditing and monitoring new cyber-security products. This is huge.

Their main areas of research will be blockchain security, its vulnerabilities, and what countermeasures may look like. They will also focus on big data analytics and visualization in the cyber-security world in addition to cryptography. Protecting data and ensuring secure communications is greatly important to the team.

Hacken Pre-sale

The project is holding a token pre-sale a few days from now, and interested parties can find information about that on their website. Their white paper and one pager are helpful in better understanding the ecosystem and project as a whole.

Here is their website: https://hacken.io/

Their One Pager can be found here: https://hacken.io/common/files/HackenOP.pdf

Here is their whitepaper: https://hacken.io/common/files/HackenWP.pdf

This is a sponsored post and does not necessarily reflect the views held by any The Merkle employees. This is not investment or trading advice. The responsibility of due diligence rests solely on you.

The Monero community has been patiently waiting for major upgrades to the protocol. Most of these changes were introduced in the recent Helium Hydra release, although there are a lot of new features and services on the horizon which are not part of that update. The Monero developers have also released a GUI wallet for the new update, as the wallet needed to undergo some major changes as well.

Helium Hydra GUI Binaries are Here

Given the recent development updates and upgrades presented by Monero’s Helium Hydra release, the GUI binaries required some additional time. While it is not overly difficult to run the Monero client from a command line, having a graphical user interface makes the concept a lot more straightforward for both novice and advanced users alike. The GUI binaries have now been officially released and they are fully compatible with Helium Hydra.

Monero developers released the GUI binaries for every platform one could ask for. Windows – both 32-bit and 64-bit – as well as Linux and Mac OS X are all supported at this point in time. Interestingly enough, there is also a solution for ARM devices, which means that people can use the command-line tools for this wallet on smaller devices such as a Raspberry Pi as well. That latter point is pretty significant, as it shows the Monero developers aim to provide support for as many devices as possible.

Do keep in mind these binaries represent the first non-beta version of the Monero GUI. Every version up to this point has been a beta “test” of some sort to collect more community feedback. It will be interesting to see how the community responds to the new releases. It is certainly true a lot of people have been waiting for these binaries and will be more than eager to explore what the new GUI can do for them.

All of this goes to show the Monero ecosystem is preparing for what the future may bring. A fork will occur on September 15th to accommodate some of the changes introduced by Helium Hydra, which will require an overhaul of the existing protocol. With these new binaries, everyone can fully prepare for that fork without having to worry too much. Although some people may feel the binaries were released precariously close to the fork deadline itself, this should not cause any major issues whatsoever.

The biggest selling point of this new release is how the synchronization with the blockchain has been sped up significantly. With a new GUI to accommodate those changes, it becomes even more apparent how much things have evolved. No one likes to sit around for hours or days for the blockchain to sync properly. With these brand-new GUI binaries, users can see the improved syncing procedure and how much faster it is these days. All things considered, it is a more than valuable update in every way.

Over the next few months, we will see mobile and hardware wallet support for Monero as well. Not too much is known about these projects at this time, other than that the hardware support will be enabled through Ledger hardware. Mobile wallets will subsequently be made available for Android and iOS. No official release dates have been set at this point, but things should come together in the next few weeks and months. There are some interesting changes on the horizon for Monero.