Day: October 10, 2017

If the Chinese government indeed gets into the cryptocurrency market, an earthquake will happen.

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Earlier this week, Vanuatu became the first sovereign nation to accept bitcoins in return for granting citizenship through its DSP Citizenship Program.The Chairman of the Vanuatu Information Center (VIC) – which oversees Vanuatu citizenship applications –  Geoffrey Bond, had sent an official request earlier this month seeking permission to accept bitcoin as a form of payment. Andrew Solomon Napuat MP, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, affirmed the decision last week. 

The recent trend of websites installing cryptocurrency miners to harness visitors’ processing power has taken a more positive twist, a report says.

An interesting sea change is flowing through China as we speak. Although the country is still the biggest powerhouse when it comes to Bitcoin mining, multiple operations have reportedly shut their doors in the past few weeks. It is thought a lot of individuals will sell their ASIC hardware and move on to other ventures. If there is any truth to these claims, China may become an afterthought in the world of cryptocurrency sooner or later.

What is Going on With Chinese Bitcoin Miners?

Ever since the main Bitcoin exchanges in China halted CNY trading, there has been a lot of confusion and fake information emanating from the country. A lot of mainstream media outlets continue to claim China has banned Bitcoin, even though that is not the case. Cryptocurrency trading is still taking place in the country as we speak, and mining operations are still active. That is how it would seem, anyway, but TechBang claims the latter situation is changing in a rather surprising manner.

More specifically, the news outlet claims a lot of miners have shut off their hardware as a result of a “crackdown”. That would be rather surprising, considering both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash still see plenty of hashpower devoted to them right now. China is still the largest mining country for cryptocurrency right now, but it appears this may come to change in the near future. A lot of Bitcoin mining machines have been discovered on CyBTC, a second-hand auction site.

Additionally, it appears there is an influx of cryptocurrency mining-related graphics cards being sold right now. This latter point has nothing to do with Bitcoin mining, as GPUs are mainly used to mine popular altcoins. While it is not unusual for people to be selling off GPUs right now, there seems to be little reason to actually do so. It is uncanny how some media outlets still assume GPUs are used for Bitcoin mining in 2017.

That being said, there is a shift taking place as we speak. Some of the remote regions of the country where electricity is cheap have seen a lull in Bitcoin mining activity. Ordos in Inner Mongolia has been considered a hotspot for Bitcoin mining activity since 2014. Things have certainly quieted down there a lot, as mining facilities are seemingly being dismantled. Although this information has to be taken with a grain of salt, it does appear things are slowly being shut down in Mongolia as we speak.

Moreover, it appears similar issues are affecting the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan as we speak. China’s harsh stance toward Bitcoin isn’t doing anyone any favors; that much is certain. However, a lot of insiders claim this stance is only temporary and things will return to normal sooner or later. Whether or not that is the case remains a big unknown for the time being.

In the end, it wouldn’t hurt to see China lose its dominant position in the Bitcoin mining space. The “centralization” issue has been a topic of substantial debate for quite some time now. For a decentralized currency, the majority of mining operations originate from one country which is not known for its transparency whatsoever. Meanwhile, the government has been doing everything it can to distance itself from cryptocurrency.

The first deputy governor at the Russian central bank has indicated that they will block access to Bitcoin exchanges, causing Bitcoin price to crash briefly by $600

Swiss-based Multimedia development company Viuly is proud to announce that blockchain firm Krypton Capital have put 150,000 EUR towards the development of the project. This deal is timed perfected to strengthen Viuly’s pre-ICO, which begins on October 10th, 2017. Viuly is aiming to be the world’s first decentralized blockchain-based video sharing platform.

The Viuly Alpha has just been launched and is available at Viuly.io

With Advertizing at the forefront, the online video industry is valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and Viuly is aiming to lead this industry into new territory. Viuly’s mission is to revolutionize the todays video sharing industry with the implementation of blockchain technology.

The Unique platform will offer an unrestricted space for users to advertise, and post all manner of content, whilst earning rewards in the process.

Viuly aims to offer the world an alternative to the current centralized status quo, in which large companies, advertisers and a select few Individuals reap massive profits. Today’s video sharing platforms are also somewhat restrictive in terms of content, and they do not reward normal everyday users. The Viuly platform will leverages the benefits of blockchain in a bid to disrupt the current video sharing industry, through decentralized content distribution, tokenized payments and transparent processes.

Viuly aims to reward not just a few big names but all users on it decentralized video sharing network. Content authors stand to receive as much as 65% of the total advertising revenue earned from the platforms videos, while users can earn up to 40%. Unlike the current system advertisers will benefit hugely, receiving a commission-free decentralization.  

Vuily’s fully decentralized platform is Built on the IPFS protocol, allowing a distributed network of data storage without a shared control centre, and eliminating any single point of failure. This will enable any user across the globe to use their disk space for video storage, in exchange for VIU tokens. The platform will also nullify censorship giving users access to unrestricted and unfiltered content.

The platform’s native system be one of pre-moderation in which the users themselves will have the power to determine if the content adheres to an agreed set of ethical standards. Users with the highest rating will be randomly selected for the task of moderating the content and will be alerted by the platform when a potential violation is detected. If the moderators confirm a violation, the content in question is immediately deleted, and the Author who posted it will receive a decreased profile rating.

The Viuly (VIU) Token and Fundraising

The Viuly platforms native token is the VIU token, which runs on Ethereum blockchain, offering full transparency and anonymity. To stimulate organic growth in the value on the VIU token Viuly have guaranteed that no token will be reissued after the crowdsale has completed. The Viuly ICO has attracted financial backing to the tune of EUR 150,000 from Ukraine-based blockchain investment firm Krypton Capital, for further development of the project.

This recent backing is a positive sign for the project, as Krypton Capital have a history of establishing successful partnerships with companies to help progress values and revenues together. The Viuly Pre-ICO launch is set for October 10th, 2017, to raise sufficient funds to further develop their unique video sharing platform. The main ICO will run from November 1st to 15th. A maximum of 550 million VIU tokens are up for offer at a base rate of 1 ETH = 2,000 VIU.

Learn more on the Viuly website and by reading the Viuly whitepaper.

The Team

Viuly benefits from the vast experience of its founding team, with specialists in corporate management, blockchain business, marketing development, promotional strategy and project development. It also relies on support from an established financial technology advisory.

Ruslan Popa, Founder and CEO

Ruslan Popa has more than 12 years of experience creating and managing IT start-ups. He has served as CEO of several payment service providers, including the likes of RuPay, Qiwi and Rompay Solutions. Popa has an excellent track record of producing quick results and high financial performance in the companies he managed.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ruslanpopa

Silviya Martirosyan, CMO

Silviya Martirosyan built her reputation as a strong and creative leader, launching and promoting some 30 projects in retail, corporate and financial sectors both at federal and regional levels. Martirosyan comes with six years of experience directly managing a team of nine sector experts. With her background in business administration and strategic management, she brings strong communication skills and solid marketing acumen to Viuly.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/silviya-martirosyan-6b09b444

Aleksey Vasyanin, CDO

Aleksey Vasyanin spent more than a decade helping companies to create and structure their corporate profiles. As a project management expert, he helped create, structure and develop partner networks in a highly competitive telecom market. Skilled in e-commerce solutions, VAS services, financial planning and content production, Vasyanin also excelled at optimising business processes and personnel management.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksey-vasyanin-54600048/

Yuriy Chayka, Advisor

Yury Chayka delves into his rich experience as an entrepreneur and investor to help develop Viuly’s vision. He is President of the Ukrainian E-business Association, ideologist and founder of Fintech Cluster.  He is also the founder of Ukraine’s first mobile wallet, MobiPay and co-founder and partner of fintech solutions provider Finovate Studio. He founded a slew of payment systems including RBKMoney, Autopay, Interkassa, MoneXy and mWallet.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuriychayka

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Abu Dhabi wants to protect their citizens from the dangers of ICOs, but they are open to letting the digital currency market flourish unhindered.

Ripple (XRP) has broken out of it’s sideways consolidation, and retraced the entire breakout. The cryptocurrency’s market cap now stands at US$25 billion, third overall, largely based on its ~100 billion XRP supply.Unlike most cryptocurrencies XRP does not use a Proof of Work or Proof of Stake consensus algorithm but instead uses consensus. For this reason, there are no available mining or staking statistics, but figures are available for transactions per day, which have declined since the beginning of 2017. Most of these transactions represent the OfferCreate function, or currency exchange.

Taiwan will not regulate cryptocurrencies or initial coin offerings, following pro-Bitcoin Japan in fostering the growth of blockchain technology and encouraging economic growth.

In a joint session of Parliament and the Cabinet on October 6, 2017, chairman Wellington Koo of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission announced that Taiwan would move to support the adoption of cryptocurrencies within the country and adopt a friendly stance toward blockchain technology development.

The announcement came in response to a request for clarification from Nationalist Kuomintang Party congressman Jason Hsu, who had queried Koo regarding Taiwan’s official stance on cryptocurrencies. In the address, Koo stated that Taiwan would refrain from following in the footsteps of China and South Korea, which have both implemented outright bans on cryptocurrency activity.

Koo’s statements echo Congressman Hsu’s recent suggestion that embracing blockchain technology could assist Taiwan in encouraging economic growth and catalyzing innovation. Hsu has indicated that Koo’s declaration could pave the way for the successful passing of the Financial Technology Innovation Experimentation Act, a legislative proposal designed to create a deregulated “FinTech sandbox” for cryptocurrency and blockchain startups.

“Just because China and South Korea are banning, doesn’t mean that Taiwan should follow suit – there is a huge opportunity for growth in the future. We should emulate Japan, where they treat cryptocurrency as a highly regulated, highly monitored industry like securities.”

The proposal appears to be the legislative realization of a 2016 white paper released by Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission that argued for increased “efforts in the research and development of blockchain technology application” in both the public and private sectors.

Taiwan’s rapidly developing blockchain and cryptocurrency technology industries are set to benefit greatly from the impending legislation. Maicoin, Taiwan’s only digital currency exchange platform, currently boasts more than 25,000 users — or almost one in 1,000 citizens of the island nation.

Maicoin’s sister company, AMIS, has entered into a partnership with Microsoft to create Asia’s first blockchain consortium, which has already established relationships with Taipei Fubon Bank and Taishin International Bank. Recently, a number of offshore cryptocurrency exchanges have positioned themselves to enter Taiwan’s emerging market, including Japan-based Bitpoint and Hong Kong’s Tidebit.

Ripple has added nine new members to cross-border payment solution RippleNet, bringing the number of clients over 100.

Bitcoin companies have a difficult decision to make right now. With the upcoming SegWit2x hard fork, tough calls are on the horizon. Not every company wants to support this solution, for obvious reasons. Xapo has explained their stance o the blog earlier this week. Rather than clearly picking one side of the other, the company … Continue reading Xapo Will Support the Chain With the Most Accumulated Difficulty

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Inside Japan’s largest energy firm, one man is looking to blockchain to decrease the country’s reliance on nuclear – and prevent another disaster.

An official from Russia’s central bank has said his institution will back efforts to block access to websites selling cryptocurrencies in the country.