Day: October 20, 2017

The Dark Web became a passing focus of Attorney General Jeff Sessions in testimony before the Senate this week.

Cryptocurrency enthusiasts of all kinds will have come across the name Palm Beach Confidential in the past few weeks. A lot of altcoin traders and speculators associate this group with having made some good calls on which coins to buy at opportune times. Now would be a good time to take a closer look at what this group actually does and why it should – or shouldn’t – be trusted. Always do your own research, though.

What is the Deal With Palm Beach Confidential?

Most cryptocurrency users will be all too familiar with the concept of “groups” advising people to buy or sell specific cryptocurrencies at predetermined values. A lot of people are actively looking for a reliable trade group in order to make a profit. In most cases, finding such a group comes at a price, as membership costs can be quite expensive. Cryptocurrency-oriented groups often charge up to one Bitcoin in annual membership fees.

However, it seems that groups outside of the cryptocurrency world are also starting to make their presence known as of late. One of these groups goes by the name Palm Beach Confidential. Over the past few weeks, the group has been advising traders to buy specific cryptocurrencies. So far, most of their calls have worked out quite well, as they predicted price increases for NEO, OMG, XLM, and a few other coins. While that is potentially a case of beginner’s luck, plenty of people have put their faith in this particular group.

To be more specific, Palm Beach Confidential advises members to buy specific cryptocurrencies through a newsletter system. According to its website, this newsletter costs US$200 on its own, or can be accessed as part of the Palm Beach Confidential subscription service for US$3,000. The latter option is very expensive, but the cost can be earned back pretty quickly with one or two smart altcoin investments at an opportune time. In fact, it may pay itself back in just one day, depending on how the market evolves.

While some people might classify this newsletter as a classic pump-and-dump device, it remains to be seen if that is the case. Most of the recommended coins are evidently being held by its members for the time being, even though the newsletter will supposedly advise people on when to sell as well. There doesn’t appear to be any “dump” action taking place whatsoever, but rather profit-taking at the best possible moment. As more people hop on this bandwagon, an interesting situation is created, though.

Rest assured there will be a lot more people paying close attention to what Palm Beach Confidential is doing in this regard. Cryptocurrency is a booming market where profits and losses can occur at any given moment. Money can be earned and lost in the blink of an eye without the proper knowledge. Not every call made by these “advisory” groups will be the correct one, mind you, but so far, it seems this entity has a solid track record.

That doesn’t mean everyone should pay lots of money for this newsletter and blindly follow its advice. It only takes one horribly wrong call to lose everything. Trust takes ages to build but can be taken away in mere minutes. Always conduct your own research before making any investments in cryptocurrency or other financial instruments. Taking other people’s advice is not the best course of action by any means, although it may yield some nice profits at certain times.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology has used bitcoin’s blockchain to issue digital diplomas to over 100 graduates as a part of a pilot project.

In the time of J-Coin and MUFG Coin, senior Japanese finance figure Nobuyuki Hirano is excited about crypto’s data potential.

UK-based SportyFi will disrupt the sports financing market by setting up a blockchain-based platform for fans and small investors. This will give up-and-coming athletes the opportunity to overcome the final hurdle before their career takes off. To set up the platform, SportyFi will launch the SPF Token Crowdsale on November 14th, 2017, with a hard cap of $16 million.

October 15, 2017, London, United Kingdom: London-based tech start-up SportyFi look for the back of the net with an innovative blockchain-based financing ecosystem. SportyFi will launch the Smart Manager Platform and the SportyFi Professional Fund, which will enable donations, detailed sponsorship smart contracts of various types, as well as complex investment smart contracts, where an athlete, a club or another sports organization will offer a long-term deal for a share of future income or other revenue stream in exchange for an upfront cash injection. This will surely address many of the liquidity issues present in the sports industry today.

The platform will enable a wider community to invest in sport, an industry worth USD 620 billion with constant growth. By disrupting the existing model for financing participants in sport, SportyFi will open a new chapter in the sports industry, democratizing sports investment. The platform is already in development and on schedule for a Q1 2018 launch.

Supported by a team which includes legendary international footballer Roberto Carlos, along with Olympians, NBA players, and Sports Officials, SportyFi looks set with the right backing to smash world records in disruptive technologies, and bring the right opportunities to the players that truly need them the most. Roberto comments below:

“I’m very happy to support SportyFi, which will work with young athletes at the most crucial point in their career and will give fans and small investors the opportunity to support them. Let’s find the next superstars together!”

Of course, professional sport today carries high barriers to entry – both for athletes, and small investors. Up-and-coming athletes at the outset of their professional careers face a lot of issues when it comes to funding training and participation in global events. The same goes for many sports clubs and organizations which face severe financial and liquidity issues. This is the basis of SportyFi’s creation of value – and the team knows all too well how many opportunities could be created for young athletes, which represents an opportunity for them too.

SportyFi Token Crowdsale

To fund this amazing project and bring athletes, financiers, and organizations closer together, SportyFi is holding a Token Crowdsale (ICO) on the 14th November 2017, running for a total of up to 17 days.

Headline Figures:

• • Token Crowdsale starts on 14th November 2017
  • SportyFi will be creating a total of up to 200,000,000 tokens
  • Hard Cap $16,000,000 USD
  • 10% bonus available to:
    • Participants who contribute within first 72hrs
    • Participants who contribute >100ETH

Token distribution:

• • Up to 134,000,000 SPF Tokens (67%) will be distributed to the contributors in the SPF Token Crowdsale
  • Up to 36,000,000 SPF Tokens (18%) will be distributed to the Founders and Team
  • Up to 20,000,000 SPF Tokens (10%) will be distributed to the Advisors and Ambassadors
  • Up to 10,000,000 SPF Tokens (5%) are intended for future incentives for fast growth (i.e. future strategic partnerships)

Below can be found the LinkedIn profiles of the lead team:

Co/Founder and CEO Marko Filej: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markofilej/
Co-Founder Simon Zgavec: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-%C5%BEgavec-8ba9075/
Co-Founder Tomaz Cepon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomaz-cepon-a293a245/
CTO Amir Huskic: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirhuskic/

For more information, visit – https://sportyfi.io/

Download the Official SportyFi Whitepaper Here https://sportyfi.io/SPORTYFI-Whitepaper.pdf
Follow SportyFi on Bitcointalk here – https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2211728.0
Find SportyFi on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SportyFi.io/;%20
Follow on Twitter Here https://twitter.com/sportyfi_io;%20
Telegram https://t.me/joinchat/GUbaVgxVD7B-T6FtTD_W6g;%20

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.

What is sharding and why it could facilitate a major breakthrough in solving Blockchain’s scalability crisis.

Tezos is one of the cryptocurrency ICOs which has received a lot of attention of late. After raising around US$232 million in short order, there are plenty of people with incredibly high expectations for this project. So far, it seems things are not exactly going according to plan, as an internal power struggle is diminishing the project’s chances of success. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened, to say the very least.

Tezos Power Struggle is Problematic

No one can deny any cryptocurrency ICO raising over US$200 million is bound to run into some trouble sooner or later. In the case of Tezos, the issue may have far more negative consequences than most people realize right now. It seems there is a difference of opinion between the team itself and the head of the foundation they set up. While establishing the Swiss Foundation was a smart decision at the time, it has since introduced a major roadblock impeding the project’s future forward progress.

Indeed, the trading of the Tezos coins that were issued during its ICO will not commence anytime soon. It may even take until early 2018 for that to happen. CoinMarketCap did add Tezos to its list of assets, but the site makes it clear these are the “pre-launch” coins (or IOUs) being traded. Any value associated with this token in its current form should be ignored for now, as it doesn’t represent the actual value of Tezos tokens. More specifically, these tokens have no value right now, since no one can actually trade them in standard fashion.

Any investors looking to get rid of their Tezos coins right now will be entering panic mode sooner rather than later. After all, the project raised US$232 million quite some time ago. Not being able to trade ICO tokens before the end of the year would be considered to be a major setback, for obvious reasons. For a company valued at US$232 million, a delay like this one could prove to be incredibly costly. Then again, there were plenty of warning signs that some of these “massive” ICOs would blow up eventually.

It is evident the management structure of this particular ICO raises a lot more questions than answers right now. Putting a lot more intermediaries in place to partake in the decision-making process means there are a lot more roadblocks and opinions to deal with on a day-to-day basis. For some unknown reason, not all people who make up Tezos management see eye-to-eye when it comes to trading the ICO tokens and moving ahead with the project. That is rather unusual, though not entirely surprising either. An untested management structure will always result in issues one way or another; that much is certain.

It is also interesting to see two of the original Tezos founders admit they have made several mistakes along the way. While it is evident this new form of doing business is susceptible to error from time to time, one wouldn’t expect it from a team raising almost a quarter of a billion dollars. Their objective now is to have Johann Gervers, the president of the Swiss Foundation, removed as quickly as possible, although it remains to be seen if that will happen.

For the time being, the Tezos project is a powder keg waiting to explode. All of the money raised during the ICO is in the hands of the foundation and stored in a bank account. For now, the team is working on converting funds from virtual currencies into fiat currencies without crashing the markets. It’s an interesting situation to keep an eye on, although a lot of investors will be getting incredibly restless as we speak.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the founders of Tezos, the Ethereum-based blockchain project which previously had raised $232 million from its initial con offering (ICO) have engaged in a legal battle over the ownership of the project. By far, Tezos, the blockchain project endorsed by billionaire investor Tim Draper, has run … Continue reading Fight Breaks Out in $232 Million Project Tezos, Centralization Issue Which Buterin Warned

The post Fight Breaks Out in $232 Million Project Tezos, Centralization Issue Which Buterin Warned appeared first on NEWSBTC.

A lot has happened since the inception of the blockchain and subsequent rise of Bitcoin, not to mention countless other cryptocurrencies. The growth of the industry has been quite exponential indeed, and it doesn’t look like things are going to slow down anytime soon. But despite its growth, transactions that occur on the blockchain are … Continue reading Brickblock: The Go-to Platform for Trading Real-World Assets on the Blockchain

The post Brickblock: The Go-to Platform for Trading Real-World Assets on the Blockchain appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank (ECB), has said that cryptocurrencies are not “mature” enough to be regulated.