Day: October 14, 2017

Freedom Streaming has announced its token sale of FDM Tokens to fund the development of a censorship-resistant and anonymous live streaming platform. Live streaming has become a multi-billion dollar industry and is becoming more and more popular each and every day. The emergence of smart mobile devices and easy accessibility to the internet has made … Continue reading Freedom Streaming Announces an ICO for the First Uncensored and Anonymous Live Streaming Platform

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Robots come in many different shapes and sizes. They will one day serve a whole slew of purposes, most of which will not result in job losses whatsoever. Particularly in the agricultural sector, robots can prove to be valuable allies. One farm in San Carlos, California is letting robots grow crops as of right now. It is a venture of the Iron Ox startup, although one wouldn’t necessarily think of it as a farm in the traditional sense.

Iron Ox Does Farming Differently

Unlike most places where people grow food, this particular farm in San Carlos is not your typical venture by any means. There is no soil, greenhouse, or even a machine to work the land and harvest crops. In fact, it looks like a regular brick-and-mortar location which could just as easily be an office like any other. It is inside where the magic happens, as Iron Ox has been experimenting with robot-driven agriculture for some time.

More specifically, there are two robot farmers on the premises as of right now. These two machines take care of a hundred different plants, which can yield some surprising results. The company got a lot of attention back in 2016, mainly because it doesn’t focus on creating artificial food. Instead, it is farming in a new and technology-oriented manner. In fact, the company is confident it can provide any type of vegetable or fruit like you would find at a farmer’s market.

Reaching such an ambitious goal will not happen overnight, but Iron Ox is making solid progress already. More specifically, the company is looking to establish a network of autonomous and robot-operated greenhouses in the vicinity of major US cities. Additionally, it will attempt to invest in a fleet of trucks to deliver its products on the same day to ensure everything is as fresh as it can be. One of the benefits of this venture is that Iron Ox can provide communities with fresh food while keeping its carbon footprint on the low side of the spectrum.

To give one example, the robots “employed” at this location can successfully grow and harvest lettuce. While this is not the most exciting vegetable in the world, going from an empty building to a fully operational small farm in four months is pretty impressive. All plants take around six weeks to mature. Co-founder Brandon Alexander is confident that one square-acre farm of this type can provide the same yield as 30 acres of traditional farmland over the course of a full year. It’s a rather ambitious plan, but one that certainly has a lot of potential.

Whether or not this can be seen as the natural evolution of farming remains a big question. It is certainly true there are fewer and fewer human-operated farms out there every year. Moreover, the low prices and high costs associated with this demanding profession have made agriculture a lot less appealing. Despite some major progress in terms of expansion, growing crops hasn’t evolved much in the past fifty years. Additionally, a lot of waste still gets generated in the process of farming, which could “easily” be solved using this robot-oriented approach.

All robots utilized by Iron Ox use artificial intelligence to work the full area of an individual greenhouse. Two robots are used to transport plants over to a robotic arm, which plants seeds and checks for diseases, among other things. For now, the company mainly focuses on lettuce and basil, but more crop types will eventually be supported. Large-field crops are not worth the time and hassle for now, but that is to be expected. It is an interesting take on things that may eventually benefit our society as a whole in a few years’ time.

It is evident a lot of people would love to have bought cheap bitcoins. Even early adopters would have liked to have a bigger stash of BTC. However, in those days, spending BTC was also a lot more difficult. There has been a period during which one BTC wasn’t worth anything. The Bitcoin pizza is … Continue reading Funds Spent During Original Bitcoin Pizza Day is now Worth $57m

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The digital currency community in Russia has been facing uncertainty for the last few months due to the government’s passive-aggressive stance toward possible regulation. Now, it seems that despite recent statements condemning cryptocurrencies, bitcoin mining might become a legal endeavor for those who are interested.

Bitcoin mining to exit the legal gray area

Not long ago, there were numerous reports that Russia was planning to fully legalize and subsidize mining throughout the country. However, it is important to point out that bitcoin mining in Russia has occupied a legal gray area due to the lack of regulation. Moreover, the reasonable cost of electricity made home-mining operations profitable.

Now, following the country’s crackdown on digital currencies, and after reports that access to exchanges might be banned in the future, it seems the government wishes to regulate mining activities as well. A crackdown began a few days ago, when President Vladimir Putin warned of the serious risks that digital currencies bear, such as terrorism financing, money laundering, and tax evasion.

Those declarations don’t make much sense, considering that the government – along with the Institute for Internet Development and the Russian Association of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency – has reportedly already laid out plans to make electricity costs more bearable for miners through government subsidies.

Many observers believe that the plan was more of a way to encourage miners to register with the government. By doing so, mining will become more profitable, and miners will be required to abide by stricter regulation, be more transparent, and of course, follow tax laws. In return, this will theoretically reduce money laundering and tax evasion carried out by bitcoin users who prefer to mine.

It remains unclear whether the government will follow through with its subsidization plans. Either way, regulation for miners will be drafted and most likely become obligatory in the near future.

Based on these developments, what do you personally think about Russia’s recent changes in its attitude toward digital currencies? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Hard fork fears? No worries–a single winner will emerge. It will probably be the SegWit2x chain.

In Canada, the mining industry has seen some significant growth as of late. Especially when it comes to gold mining, there is still a lot of money to be made. Even so, some companies are pivoting their business models from mining gold to mining Bitcoin and altcoins. Vancouver-based Hive Blockchain Technologies, Inc is worth keeping an eye on in this regard.

Mining Gold is Passe, it Seems

Plenty of people dream of mining gold, for obvious reasons. Due to its scarce nature and high market value, a successful gold mining operation can quickly turn into a lucrative business. It does involve a lot of hard work – mainly manual labor – and it requires a ton of money just to get started. Even then, there is no guarantee of success whatsoever, which means a lot of people will lose money in the process. Still, the allure of finding a gold vein woos a lot of people to this day.

Even experienced gold miners like Frank Giustra are keeping an eye on cryptocurrencies, though. This new breed of mining money has been attracting a lot of attention of late. Especially now that one Bitcoin is worth about four times as much as an ounce of gold, mining operators are increasingly contemplating switching from gold to cryptocurrency. The latter still requires a significant upfront investment, but the manual labor is kept to a minimum as computers do all of the hard work. Overall, it appears to be a far more lucrative venture right now; that much is obvious.

It is not entirely surprising, then, to learn that Giustra is one of the many people backing a Vancouver-based cryptocurrency mining initiative. The company goes by the name of Hive Blockchain Technologies Inc, and it is one of the first publicly traded stocks to provide exposure to cryptocurrency mining. This news comes at a time at which investors are looking for exposure to cryptocurrency valuations through CFDs and ETNs. Exposing such people to the mining process in this way is an interesting, albeit justifiable course of action. Under a previous name, the company used to be involved in gold mining operations. 

It has to be said, Giustra’s decision has proven rather prudent so far. As an early backer, he’s successfully netted a 633% return on his investment as of right now, as the Hive shares are shooting up in value. After the initial share sale brought in CA$30 million, the company’s market capitalization has grown to around CA$553 million. That’s quite significant growth, considering this was mainly achieved well ahead of the current Bitcoin price rise. It is evident investors know where the real money is made, and cryptocurrency is the market to keep an eye on in every way possible.

Importantly, Hive has a first-mover advantage in this industry. Up until now, there have been virtually no companies exposing investors to cryptocurrency mining earnings. The company entered the space at a most opportune time, considering the trading of Hive Blockchain Technologies Inc only began on September 18th. Such spectacular growth in just a month should not be overlooked by any means.

For the time being, Hive only mines Bitcoin by the looks of things. However, the company will mine different cryptocurrencies moving forward. It also plans to purchase a second Genesis Mining data center in the near future. Plus, it will buy more mining hardware in both Iceland and Sweden, which should open up a lot of new and exciting opportunities. It is evident the cryptocurrency mining industry is firing on all cylinders right now and a lot of people want to be a part of it. It will be interesting to see how this market evolves in the coming months and years.

Whilst US policymakers dabble in bureaucracy, the European-based Dentacoin Foundation takes action for affordable dental care by aligning interests of industry, doctors and patients.

As of Monday, 9th October 2017, Dentacoin is accepted as means of payment from CruisAIDer, a European company, specialized on digitalization of dental clinics in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. “CruisAIDer will accept Dentacoin as payment for the Powercart but we are already looking at other ways and possibilities to integrate Dentacoin-technology into CruisAIDer’s workflow, products and services”, says Simon Sostmann, CEO of CruisAIDer. “Making the international acquisition of parts more efficient means we can cut prices with the supply chain moving much quicker”, adds Sostmann. “The dental industry is highly decentralized when it comes to parts and materials – we rely heavily on effective transfer of funds to increase productivity and live up to the fast-paced demands of our clients. Up until now we were stuck having to change between currencies to source the materials we need to manufacture our CruisAIDer Powercart for Intra-Oral scanning. In my opinion, Dentacoin is not only the future of the entire dental industry, it is what lies ahead for all connected supplementary industries. I wish we had this tool handy when we started out. Making the international acquisition of parts more efficient means we can cut prices”.

Dentacoin is the first Blockchain solution created for the global dental industry. This one-of-a-kind business model uses the current state of the existing industry and introduces solutions to specific problems. The mission of Dentacoin is to improve dental care and make it accessible for everyone worldwide.

“This is a huge step towards our greater mission”, comments Philipp Grenzebach, Co-Founder and Business Developer at Dentacoin Foundation. “For the short time of operation, Dentacoin has been accepted as means of payment in two European dental clinics, SWISS Dentaprime and F3T London and is now acceptable means of payment for an innovative product. The CruisAIDer Powercart is of essential use to dentists, orthodontists and maxillofacial surgeons to optimize every aspect of daily routines in clinics and practices, in the meantime improving the patients‘ treatment experience. Having a partnership with yet another European company, which strongly believes in digitalization and efficiency only proves the strong potential and opportunities which lay ahead of Dentacoin.”

Dentacoin Foundation is an organization which was established in Q1 of 2017. It is concentrated on improvement of dental healthcare and creating equal access to high quality dental treatments to all individuals, despite of income and economic status. Dentacoin Foundation has attracted hundreds of individuals from the dental industry, finance, marketing, Blockchain, insurance and banking sectors, who work together towards developing a unique concept with a global scale.

Dentacoin is developing a number of blockchain-based tools, as well as introducing two innovative dental clinic concepts, technologically advanced and highly efficient, developed as future business models for the global dental industry. Among the tools of Dentacoin are a Trusted Review Platform (already up-and-running), Dentacare Mobile App (app for creating healthy dental habits), DentaVox webapp (market research platform) , Dentacoin Assurance (dental insurance model), a Trading Platform for dental care products, materials and equipment and a Database for medical records. All tools have blockchain integrated functionalities and are served by a custom ERC20 token, also named Dentacoin.

Dentacoin token has already distributed over 303 billion coins and maintains a rank in the top 100 cryptocurrencies on Coinmarketcap. For anyone wanting to join this global movement and buy Dentacoin, you can do this on the official Dentacoin ICO page until the end of October 2017.

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DIGI Token is one of the prominent cryptocurrency platforms at the moment, trying to create an entire ecosystem including a revolutionary marketplace for the digital goods segment. We, at NewsBTC caught up with the founder of DIGI Platform — Faisal Ghaffar to know a bit more about what they have set out to achieve. We … Continue reading Faisal Ghaffar, Founder of DIGI Token Talks About the Platform on NewsBTC

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There are many consequences of China’s recent cryptocurrency regulatory measures. One positive impact is the fact that China is no longer a factor in regards to Bitcoin’s price, which set a new all-time high this week. At the same time, the country’s central bank plans to go ahead with RMBCoin, which will be China’s own central bank digital currency. This news is anything but surprising, as it seems to have been the plan all along.

RMBCoin is here to stay

When the Chinese government announced its crackdown on ICOs and CNY trading for cryptocurrency exchanges, it was evident all of this was done as part of a bigger picture. More specifically, the government is seemingly planning to focus its attention on RMBCoin once again. This concept has been around for nearly two years now, even though it remains to be seen if it will be a viable project in the long run. After all, a lot of countries want their own national digital currency, and every single one of those currencies will be issued and controlled by the national central bank.

In the case of China, that means the People’s Bank of China will be in full control of RMBCoin and its issuance. That’s not necessarily something to look forward to, even though the government feels it is the only viable approach for the time being. Considering that the PBoC has no plans to legalize bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies right now, it only makes sense for it to focus further on a central bank digital currency.

Local news source Yicai confirms those sentiments, even though it remains to be seen how things will play out in this regard. It seems public cryptocurrencies are of little interest to the PBoC due to “an inherent lack of value.” It is always ironic to hear such statements coming from a central bank, as these institutions are notorious for creating helicopter money backed by nothing but an empty promise to honor the value of a piece of paper. Cryptocurrencies are assigned value due to scarcity and the free market, which is something no central bank digital currency can or will ever achieve whatsoever.

While it is true that Bitcoin and most altcoins are subject to severe speculation, the same goes for most other investment vehicles approved by the PBoC. Bonds, stocks, and even foreign currencies are all subject to speculation as well. Cryptocurrencies are a lot different from these entities, as they cannot be controlled by an overreaching government. It is this aspect which causes concern for the PBoC, as it stands to gain nothing whatsoever from legalizing cryptocurrencies.

Moreover, China is home to the Digital Currency Research Institute. This entity was formed earlier this year, with a strong focus on blockchain-based digital currency research and development. It seems RMBCoin is the institute’s primary focus for the time being, although that doesn’t mean this is the only concept the group is exploring right now. Then again, very little is known about this initiative or its research at this point in time.

As one would expect, the PBoC claims a central bank digital currency is backed by “sovereign credibility.” This is another far-fetched sentiment from a government known for being anything but transparent or forthcoming when it comes to critical and credible information. While RMBCoin may appear to be a worthwhile venture right now, it remains to be seen how things evolve in this regard.

Blockchain platform BitRent announced a revolutionary solution in the area of new-built property: commercial and residential property shared investing at an early stage of construction and total control over construction process in real time by means of modules and structures chipping. The company operates on blockchain technology and smart-contracts protocol. BitRent platform’s mission is to make real estate investing easy, transparent and profitable all over the world.

These days leading companies monitor construction processes basically in manual way, which results in slowdown in the process and working cost rise. BitRent platform enables solving these issues by applying a symbiosis of the following technologies—BIM open modeling, computer aided monitoring at all stages using RFID chips, green standards as well as open opportunity of share participation in the most promising commercial and residential properties at early construction stages using cryptocurrency.

BitRent makes investing in commercial and residential shared-equity construction a clear, transparent and predictable process for common users worldwide with the use of smart-contracts.

Blockchain’s decentralized system gives the opportunity for companies not only to control construction processes in a better way, but also to reduce transaction expenses of investing in shared-equity construction. Everyone at BitRent believes that this platform will change the status quo for blockchain technology in the area of new-built property investment. All technologies introduced by the company are meant to ultimately change the way constructions and investments are treated.

BitRent creates the world of affordable real estate

Blockchain platform facilitates monitoring of commercial and residential property construction. BitRent entitles investors from across the world to take part in shared-equity construction at any stage and makes it possible to receive highly-profitable dividends.

Investors are able to:

1. Invest any amounts of money in real estate without minimum entry threshold.
2. Control construction process in online mode.
3. Receive dividends upon completion of construction/commissioning of a facility.
4. Monitor a project up to both its dismantling and complete module disposal.
5. Receive data on free area or items of commercial property.

Total online control over building

BIM (Building Information Modeling) technology will be actively applied during construction of new projects. This technology optimizes construction and maintenance processes allowing all participants to monitor a project at any stage—from architect’s free-hand sketches to maintenance operations of finished buildings and structures disposal.

BIM collects and processes architectural, engineering, technological and economic information on construction. The building itself and all related structures are viewed as one undivided unit. The user receives a 3D model that can be easily monitored via smartphone. Besides that, all 3D model changes are within your finger’s reach.

As early as the design stage, an investor will be able to see how profitable a building may be within shared-equity construction. It is said that real estate items, having self-generated power supplies, heating and water, are regarded as both profitable and promising.

In years to come all real estate items will be adapted to specific climate conditions. Houses that do not comply with environmental safety requirements will go down in value. Besides, such buildings risk to be left without any communication means in the course of natural disasters. BIM technology will prevent investors from buying such areas.

Blockchain investing in real estate

BitRent issues tokens whose holders are entitled to equity participation and right to possess property published on the platform.

“We aim to make real estate world better, technologically simpler and greener. This will help to reduce both resources consumption and CO2 emission intensity, thus, creating favorable conditions for EE (Energy Efficiency), shared-equity construction and property capitalization all over the world via cryptoeconomics,” they say at BitRent. “We strive for changing real estate world market and rising capitalization of cryptocurrency to $10 trillion.”

Contacts:

[email protected]

http://bitrent.io/

https://youtu.be/HE9oLBbdAl0

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Ethereum’s Geth has re-released its Byzantium hard fork software after spotting a bug. But low adoption is concerning with the fork so close.

The Pirate Bay recently made headlines due to its in-browser cryptocurrency mining venture. Although this test only ran for one full day, it was a pretty interesting development which set off a shockwave of copycat ventures by other sites. It turns out the platform is mining cryptocurrency once again, but users can no longer opt out at this point in time. It’s a very strange development, although no one should be entirely surprised by it either.

More Cryptocurrency Mining for The Pirate Bay

It is evident the people who operate The Pirate Bay have been looking for new ways to make money. Traditional advertisements are not an option, as virtually no company wants to be associated with the world’s largest torrent site. Donations are an option, but it all depends on how much money people are willing to contribute on a regular basis. Cryptocurrency mining provides a viable alternative in this regard, even though the concept will be met with a lot of resistance regardless.

Using a website visitor’s computing resources to mine cryptocurrency is an innovative concept. However, it should only be implemented if users can either turn it on themselves, or at least opt out. The current implementation on The Pirate Bay doesn’t allow for either of these options, which will cause a lot of scrutiny for this platform, to say the very least.

As a result of this mining implementation, people who visit The Pirate Bay will notice a spike in their CPU usage rather quickly. Although that is not necessarily worrisome – most people don’t stay on the site for long – it does constitute an ethical issue in this regard. Moreover, Cloudflare recently suspended a website using a similar mining model, and it is not unlikely The Pirate Bay may lose its DDoS protection as well. It would be rather odd to see such action taken over a feature no one really wants in the first place.

Considering how most ad blockers will prevent this script from running on the website, the forced integration makes even less sense right now. It is not unlikely we will see more of these ad blockers being installed and used in the long run. Particularly if more sites decide to pursue this business model, the tide will slowly turn in favor of non-ad experiences altogether. After all, we have seen multiple sites embrace this model as of late.

This new move does indicate the previous cryptocurrency mining test by The Pirate Bay was pretty successful. That in itself is a good sign, as it shows there is some good money to be made from in-browser mining. For now, the company isn’t that by any means, though, and it remains to be seen how this will evolve in the future. Moreover, the site is running the script in conjunction with traditional banner ads, which is somewhat surprising.

It remains to be seen how long this tactic will be pursued by The Pirate Bay. While it is commendable the team is trying to bring some attention to cryptocurrency, their way of approaching the concept will create a lot of bad blood, to say the very least. Until an opt-out feature is implemented, plenty of people will avoid this platform for obvious reasons. It is also unclear why there is no such option as of right now. Failing to inform users in this regard is not a positive development whatsoever.

As Cryptocurrencies have become more popular, the profit margin on mining them has dramatically shrunk. The level of difficulty has increased exponentially which in turn incurs more costs.

However, the profit margins can be increased from significantly lowering the expense of electricity to mine, as well as cutting out other side expenses. But, it is not always that easy to directly profit from mining done on your own accord.

There does seem to be a way though for those interested in mining to get in on this facet of cryptocurrency. It comes from Ice Rock Mining who have an interesting approach to minting new cryptocurrency coins.

Taking it Underground

Ice Rock Mining is using an old Soviet Bunker, situated in Kazakhstan, to set up a large mining operation that it believes will be able to efficiently mint different cryptocurrencies at a cheaper rate.

The advantage of taking the cryptomining operation underground, into this bunker, is that the usual expenses, such as mining, cooling, and even rent and maintenance of the mining housing are dramatically lowered, and in some cases negated.

Ice Rock Mining have procured the bunker and as such do not have any overheads when it comes to rent, and because the makeup of the bunker is essentially just rock, there is very little maintenance.

Ice Rock Mining also believe they have the perfect ecosystem for their 4,600 ASIC rigs in the tunnels of the mine as the temperature remains constant at 12 degrees throughout the year, helping the mining operation stay cool and efficient.

They are also situated alongside a hydroelectric power source which provides them with some of the cheapest electricity around. The state they are paying $0.03 per/kWh of power.

So, with all these cost-cutting methods in place, what does it mean for those wanting to mine their own cryptocurrency who are not in possession of a Soviet-style bunker?

Open for Business

Ice Rock Mining is looking to combine a few facets of cryptocurrency in order to enact a business. They see that there is the opportunity to share their mining space with others who also want to profit on their large margins. They are creating an ICO to make this happen.

Ice Rock Mining allows for investors, as well as miners, to take part in their ICO as people can either buy their tokens – ROCK tokens – in the style of normal cryptocurrencies, holding onto them as they grow in value.  

However, they also offer mining packages which will allow individuals who cannot profit in mining take advantage of their set up through cloud mining. Essentially, people will be able to buy a package that suits them where they own space in the mine to mint different coins.

Making it Profitable Again

Because mining Bitcoin, especially, is hardly profitable for casual miners at home, Ice Rock Mining is trying to offer an alternative method of mining, through cloud mining, but additionally, they hope to make cloud mining profitable as they have managed to increase their margins through cost-cutting measures.

What Ice Rock Mining is accomplishing is seemingly taking the costs of mining, and mitigating them through the use of an ideal underground space. Electricity and cooling costs are extremely low and rent is negated as they own the entire cave system. By allowing the investor to be a part of this, the margins are naturally much larger than competitive cloud mining operations.

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