Day: October 21, 2017

Even though Bitcoin and Ethereum are two very different projects, they are often mentioned in the same breath. Given the fact how both are the top two cryptocurrencies, that is no real surprise whatsoever. Bytether is a team working on a new solution to create a cross-chain fork of Bitcoin onto the Ethereum network. An intriguing venture, although its use case remains a bit unclear for the time being.

Bytether is Interesting, but Still Strange

It almost seems as if everyone wants to fork Bitcoin for one reason or another. This doesn’t mean every one of these forks will be successful or introduce something new, mind you. Bitcoin Cash has made its point very clear and is still around as an altcoin. Bitcoin Gold still has very little support and will conduct a premine of sorts. SegWit2x is around the corner, which may be the biggest challenge for Bitcoin to date. An interesting future awaits as far as that project is concerned.

This brings us to Bytether, a different kind of Bitcoin blockchain fork compared to anything else we have seen to this date. More specifically, the project is designed to create a  1:1 cross-fork of the Bitcoin blockchain onto the Ethereum network. More specifically, the team copies the Bitcoin blockchain and reissues it on Ethereum, although it remains unclear what the real purpose behind this decision is. We do know there will be a new currency associated with this chain, as it will not be Ethereum-based Bitcoins whatsoever.

Instead, we will see the Bytether currency be created, with a total supply cap of 21 million. This is an ERC20 token issued without going through an ICO at first, which is good to see. Moreover, this new token will benefit from all the technical advantages Ethereum has to offer, as well as maintain the new characteristics of Bitcoin. The team calls it “the new Bitcoin”, which is pretty ludicrous at this point in time, though.

Users interested in this currency will need to verify their Bitcoin address through the Bytether website or by using MyEtherWallet. Users will receive BTH at a one-to-one ratio compared to current BTC holdings at the time of the “fork. However, there is an optional referral program as well. People who successfully spread their referral code to others who use it will receive more currency from the ‘growth pool”. It sounds like a very unusual scheme, to say the very least, and has all of the characteristics of a new airdrop. That doesn’t mean BTH will have any value whatsoever, though.

Although the Bytether approach can be considered to be rather novel, the last thing we need is another Bitcoin clone.Bytether claims they will do things differently, though, as they want to create a vastly superior currency than Bitcoin ever will be. There is no reason to have a Bitcoin equivalent on the Ethereum network, as that is not what Ethereum is designed to provide. Especially not if the entire supply of this new token is created out of thin air and distributed based on BTC holdings and a referral program.

Whether or not Bytether will succeed, remains to be seen. It is an idea very few people will get behind, other than for reasons to claim some tokens and potentially take advantage of the referral incentive. Other than that, it remains highly doubtful Bytether will ever be used for anything other than speculation. That alone can make it worthwhile to some people, but the general community will dismiss this idea as another attempt to ride Bitcoin’s coattails.

When two years ago I found a report by the experts at McKinsey & Company stating that about 2 billion people across the globe today had no access to banking or other basic financial services, I was shocked. Not because it’s the obvious violation of human rights but because that’s mean that global economy is … Continue reading MicroMoney: Financial Inclusion to the Global Economy for Everyone

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Bitcoin to the moon! What does it mean for other cryptocurrencies?

Cajutel Sarl, a Swiss-owned telecom company is building infrastructure to help all individuals in West Africa gain access to high-speed internet at affordable prices. The company is set to achieve it by building the non-existent infrastructure from scratch to provide a long-term solution. Cajutel has decided to adopt the cryptocurrency market as a modern way to raise the much-needed investment for its ambitious project. In the process, the company has created the first ever solar DAO in Africa.

Cajutel is a Guinea-Bissau, West Africa based company that has chosen to initially focus its efforts in the local region before expanding across the continent. Through its project, Cajutel aims to provide connectivity to a majority of the 1.7 million population who presently don’t have access to the internet. The lack of connectivity has severely impacted the region’s GDP, per capita, literacy and human development index.

Cajutel is building the infrastructure from the ground up to bring reliable high-speed broadband internet at affordable prices to West African people. It will bring education and business to the region while giving millions of users first time access to the wealth of knowledge that exists online.

In West Africa, “personal internet” is almost non-existent. In cases where it exists, the connection is very slow, unreliable and expensive. There are only two mobile operators, both of which focus almost exclusively on voice communication and not 3G or 4G. The only reason these carriers are providing data connections is that they are required to do so by the law.

In the current scenario, there is zero incentive for them to make the connection fast enough to use or cheap enough to afford. These systems are not worth saving or improving. Instead, Cajutel is starting from the ground up, building an entirely new system that will be far superior in every conceivable way. To achieve it, the company will require significant upfront funding, but as the project falls in place, it will ultimately open up so many opportunities that just don’t exist under the current system. The entire Cajutel infrastructure will be solar-powered, making it more sustainable and economical over the long run.

ICO Structure

As a part of its fundraising initiative, Cajutel has launched the crowdsale of its CAJ tokens. The Cajutel (CAJ) token sale live from August 18, 2017, at 08:30:00 (UTC). The platform’s tokens are governed by ERC20-compatible smart contract on Ethereum blockchain. CAJ tokens can be acquired directly by sending ETH to the smart contract address is listed on https://cajutel.io and the CAJ tokens will automatically appear in your wallet (make sure you use a wallet which is capable of holding tokens).

As a part of its crowdsale, Cajutel has authorized the creation of an additional 780,000 shares, of which 720,000 will be offered for sale to the ICO participants and the rest 60,000 will be allocated for bounties and to cover advertisement costs. The telecom operator has set the maximum cap for CAJ tokens at 1,780,000 where existing shareholders will retain 1,000,000 tokens, and the remaining will be used in token sales, bounty and advertising payouts. The maximum cap will remain fixed until shareholders agree to issue more shares. Each CAJ token will represent a share in the platform.

The ICO will be held in five distinct phases. The first two phases will offer 10,000 tokens each for sale and the price of each token during the first and second phase is set at 0.05 ETH and 0.075 ETH respectively.

The third, fourth and fifth phases will involve the sale of 100,000, 200,000 and 400,000 tokens at a unit price of 0.10 ETH, 0.15 ETH, and 0.20 ETH respectively. The CAJ Ethereum based tokens will act as share certificates and carry the same rights as any other stocks including dividends. The value of the token is thus backed by the company’s asset and earnings.

Learn more about Cajutel at – http://www.cajutel.gw/
Enter the ICO website – https://cajutel.io
Cajutel whitepaper – http://cajutel.gw/whitepaper.pdf
Join the Slack channel at – https://cajutel.slack.com
Follow Cajutel on Twitter – https://twitter.com/cajutel
Cajutel on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cajutel.sarl.7
Cajutel on Telegram – https://t.me/cajutel
ICO Started 2017-08-18 08:30 UTC
ICO Ends 2017-11-18 08:30 UTC

Media Contact
Company: Cajutel
Contact Email: [email protected] | an[email protected]
Contact Phone: +41786677333
Website: http://www.cajutel.gw/
Location: Bissau, Guinea-Bissau |
Roeschenzerstr. 27, 4058 Basel, Switzerland

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.

I was at a large bank’s wealth management conference recently, where the CEO was being quizzed about various areas including a lot about technology and FinTech. He made several statements that I noted with interest:“Roboadvisory services improves our speed-to-market and human productivity, but does not replace humans. In particular, I can see that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning makes it far easier for us to comply with and implement regulations and deal with regulatory change in the back office.”

US regulators have been keeping a close eye on Bitcoin and the darknet over the past few years. More specifically, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently voiced some major concerns regarding both topics. Additionally, he’s concerned over the use of “encrypted networks”, which seemingly hints at an impending crackdown on services such as Telegram. 

US Attorney General has Many Concerns

In a way, it is anything but surprising to see Jeff Sessions comment on Bitcoin and the darknet. While the latter item has been a thorn in the side of many people over the past few years, it has proven pretty much impossible to shut down completely. That being said, we have seen some of the more prominent darknet marketplaces disappear in recent months due to police investigations. Some battles have been won by law enforcement, but the overall war is still going in favor of the darknet right now.

No one can deny criminals are using the darknet to buy and sell guns, illegal substances, hacking tools, and stolen information. As a result, this is how most people see the darknet. Changing this business model will not be easy by any means, yet Sessions feels that some type of effort must be made in order to crack down on this activity. Especially the use of Bitcoin on the darknet is of great concern to the US Attorney General.

Whether or not this means we will see government-issued Bitcoin regulation in the US remains to be seen. There have been several warning signs that this will be the case sooner or later, although nothing has been officially confirmed whatsoever. That may explain why Bitfinex is so eager to get out of the US market, although its issuance of USDT tokens has also raised a lot of questions. Creating a digital US dollar without the consent of the Federal Reserve is a very touchy subject, to be sure.

While Sessions may be voicing concerns over Bitcoin and the darknet, it remains to be seen what he plans to do about it. No one is surprised that some people in power don’t like either concept simply because they are novel and can’t be controlled. That is only to be expected, as they represent a radical change from how traditional financial services and marketplaces work. Bitcoin doesn’t necessarily facilitate crime on the darknet, though. More importantly, most worldwide illegal activity happens in plain sight through the use of fiat currencies.

Surprisingly enough, a lot of darknet users are also growing concerned over the use of Bitcoin. More specifically, the world’s leading cryptocurrency has no privacy or anonymity traits to speak of. It is a pseudonymous currency, but that isn’t good enough for people who take their privacy and anonymity seriously. Monero is making a lot of headway in this regard, as it provides darknet users with everything they need in order to remain anonymous online. Some marketplaces are even ditching Bitcoin in favor of XMR these days.

For the time being, it remains to be seen how things will play out in regards to possible regulation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. There are some interesting developments on the horizon in the US, although they are all subject to speculation first and foremost. Jeff Sessions’s comments are not surprising by any means, but they also don’t hint at future developments. Regulation of cryptocurrency will become prevalent in the US sooner or later, as it is something that can’t be avoided by any means.

ATB Coin is already present on the HitBTC Exchange, the 4th leading сrypto-exchange of the world with $160,500,000+ daily trading volume.

HitBTC allows traders examine the best features of ATB Coin which include high speed, the highest level of security and other advantages. The new cryptocurrency starts its way of changing everyday life to the better.

Among the most significant ones are:

Segregated Witness allows to optimize the place in the block with the list of transactions, due to which the number of transactions in one block, in comparison with the majority of other existing popular cryptocurrencies, increases several times, respectively, increasing the speed of transactions;

ATB Offline Codes – a unique solution for ATB Coin developers. The idea is that the user can dispose of any amount that is on the balance due to the presence of only a specific identifier (special code) that can be written on a sheet of paper, printed, or simply photographed. The main promising field of application for ATB Offline Codes is instant payments in the real sector, when it is enough to have the recorded code, and make payments anywhere without getting access to the Internet and a direct wallet. An additional advantage of the technology is the possibility of “cold” storage coins, which has the maximum level of security, because in this form the wallet “on paper” exists without access to the Internet.

Lightning Network provides an opportunity for ATB Coin users to  almost instantly make an unlimited number of transactions between users with a reduced commission, without waiting for confirmation from the blockchain network;

Proof-of-stake (PoS) is the protocol used to confirm transactions of cryptocurrency, which is characterized by its environmental friendliness and does not require the use of energy resources for coin mining. When using this method, the algorithm for generating blocks with transactions does not depend on the capacity of the equipment, but with a greater probability the block will be generated by that account with the greater current balance;

Each party in a transaction gets benefits. For HitBTC it is going to be market expansion and notable rise in trading volumes. ATB Coin is able to offer its users trading on a reliable and stable platform.

Read more about the project and download a wallet on the official website.

ATB Coin

40 Wall Street, 28th floor

New York , NY 10005

https://atbcoin.com/

+1 (886) 337-3940

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.

It seems there are some positive developments relating to in-browser cryptocurrency mining. After a lot of negative news initially, it seems we now have some projects that are taking the right approach. More specifically, Inwemo shows it is possible to conduct “webmining” as it should be done. An opt-out feature is certainly appreciated, for obvious reasons.  

Inwemo is a Different Breed of Webmining Script

No one will be surprised to learn that the CoinHive script has quickly become the most hated piece of JavaScript code in the recent history of the internet. Every site mining Monero using visitors’ CPU cycles is using this script, mainly because it is very simple to integrate. Additionally, we have recently seen criminals embed this script on legitimate websites. Every time a story related to webmining comes around these days, CoinHive will seemingly be mentioned in the same breath.

That is not overly positive for Monero either, mind you. Being associated with illicit and illegal activities is never a good selling point for popular cryptocurrencies. Then again, it is how Bitcoin became the world’s leading cryptocurrency not too long ago. Thankfully, it seems some developers are working on ways to make webmining possible while letting users opt out at the same time. We direly need more concepts like this one, to say the very least.

Inwemo is one such solution. This implementation can be integrated in a few easy steps. Users can sign up for an account to get a personal dashboard. They will then receive the code for the script, which must be added to the website in question. Visitors can then choose to support the site by donating CPU cycles, or simply opt out of the feature altogether. It is an interesting way of presenting people with the choice they should always have been allowed to make in the first place.

Although it’s not mentioned explicitly, the service solely focuses on mining Monero, which makes sense.  Additionally, the Inwemo team claims their webminer can be used even by people who do not wish to turn off Adblock, which could make it a lucrative tool for most website owners to integrate. Traditional advertising models are slowly losing steam, and new options have to be found sooner or later. Webmining may be the go-to solution in a few years from now.

Do keep in mind using the Inwemo service is not free by any means. As is to be expected from a third-party service provider, it charges a service fee. In this particular case, the fee is pretty steep. Users will give up 22.5% of all earnings in exchange for using this code. This makes CoinHive a lot more appealing, to say the very least. However, it seems users will soon be able to enjoy USD and EUR payout options as well, which is rather intriguing.

Whether or not convenient services such as this one will ever be embraced by the masses remains to be seen. There is certainly a market for webmining tools, although not everyone will actually use this method for more than a few days. Right now, this revenue model is still in the very early stages, and the initial consumer feedback on webmining has been anything but positive. Whether or not that situation will ever change remains to be determined.

San Francisc, Oct 21, 2017 – BitStarz player hits pay dirt as he got a $48,374 payout when playing the popular slot Diamond Cats.

Winning big is all about luck and timing, and one lucky player at BitStarz sure has the purrfect blend of both as he landed his second big win in just a few months!

Not too long ago, the player in question decided to take on the evil witch of the popular slot Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. After a few spins on the reels, he walked away with over $64,800, which is not too bad for a day of witch hunting.

Even though that game is quite terrifying, our player is no scaredy cat, and speaking of cats, yesterday he made a first deposit since his previous massive win, and played the favorite slot of all crazy cat ladies: Diamond Cats!

To his surprise, he almost immediately hit a 1,000x multiplier and walked away with 10 BTC ($48,374), which is more than an average salary for a year (or enough to feed a cat for 503 years). At the end of the day, they say diamonds last forever, so Diamond Cats might live forever too.

Bitstarz.io offers games of several different providers in a hybrid multi-currency environment and is one of the leading bitcoin casinos on the market, always on the front line of releasing new and exciting games. They’re also top-ranked among over a thousand casinos on the world renowned casino review site AskGamblers.

The Marketing Manager of BitStarz, Srdjan Kapor commented,

“Some people might think that just because you’ve won in the past, it means you can’t win again. Well, this is clear proof that it isn’t true. Big congratulations to our lucky winner and I’m excited to see if he manages to win big again soon!”.

About BitStarz

BitStarz, is a well-established boutique casino and was first to offer wagering in both Bitcoin and major international currencies. BitStarz has more than 850 games in its portfolio and are most known for their lightning speed cashouts with an average payout time of 10 minutes, as well as their personal customer service agents. It holds a gaming license issued from Antillephone N.V., based in Curacao.

For more information, please contact Srdjan Kapor at [email protected]

Press contact:

Srdjan Kapor

Marketing Manager

[email protected]

www.bitstarz.io

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Smart contracts have become incredibly popular over the past year or two. While most people associate these with Ethereum, other platforms and currencies utilize similar technology. One individual recently used BitBay’s trustless smart contracts to sell a few acres of land. It was a very risky venture, but things turned out just fine.

Smart Contracts Remain a Risky Endeavor

Any project or currency claiming to have “trustless” smart contracts will be scrutinized sooner or later. Most of them have no solid evidence to back up such claims in the first place. In the case of BitBay, that situation has come to change. One person recently decided to use its smart contract technology to sell five acres of land. A lot of money was involved in the transaction, which meant the technology had to hold up or a financial hangover would be the end result. Thankfully, it seems things turned out OK.

There are plenty of reasons as to why people wouldn’t trust smart contracts for such a purpose. First of all, we have seen multiple projects fail due to errors in their contracts. Secondly, there is no trustless solution to speak of right now. A lot of transactions linked to smart contracts go as planned, but there is always that fear of something going amiss. BitBay seems to have cracked the code in this regard, although other people’s mileage may vary when it comes to its “trustless” smart contracts.

Similar to Ethereum, BitBay is a cryptocurrency with smart contract technology. It also provides a decentralized marketplace which lets anyone in the world sell anything and everything with relative ease and full anonymity. This project has been around for quite some time now, yet it seems to fly under most people’s radars. The creation of smart contracts occurs through BitBay’s user interface, which makes it somewhat easy to set things up. It’s very similar to how most people create Ethereum contracts these days.

Although it only takes a few clicks to create said contracts – there is no coding involved – it’s not necessarily trustless by default. More specifically, the trustless aspect comes in the form of the decentralized marketplace where these smart contracts are visible. Both buyer and seller must deposit a fixed amount of money into an encrypted account. Anyone trying to cheat will cause both deposits to be destroyed. It is a double-deposit escrow system, which is pretty nifty in its own regard.

Even with this technology in place, it is still up to both parties to conduct due diligence. One should never trust strangers on the internet, for obvious reasons. In this particular case, the buyer was perfectly legitimate and made quick work of signing the paperwork associated with the property. The money then changed hands and both parties were happy.

This doesn’t mean everyone in the world should now be flocking to BitBay. However, it shows there are trustless features to be found in various cryptocurrencies. Always do thorough research, especially when looking to buy or sell very expensive items. Moreover, with a booming smart contract auditing industry, success stories like this one will eventually become far more common – that is, assuming there is another marketplace technology capable of supporting such contracts in the first place.

October 21, 2017, Singapore – As its $30 million token distribution event verges on becoming a social movement, the ethical lender to the unbanked MicroMoney Intl. generated $1 million during just a 12-hour period today, another step closer to fulfilling its mission to include two billion people into the global financial system.

During the course of today, led mainly by token swaps in its core market of Southeast Asia, MicroMoney’s AMM token pre-distribution campaign generated $400,000 in executed transfers and $500,000 in additional commitments, bringing a total number of executed swaps to $1,756,734 and a total number of AMM transactions pledged by Oct. 17 to $5 million.

Kicked off Sept. 15, AMM token pre-distribution campaign has a minimum swap threshold valued at $10,000 and a soft cap of swaps valued at $2 million. The actual token distribution campaign starts Oct. 18, with a soft target of $15 million worth of swaps, and a $30 million hard cap.

“We are very pleased at the exuberance of our token holders as they embrace MicroMoney’s social mission,” said Anton Dzyatkovsky, MicroMoney co-founder. “AMM token is emerging as a symbol of independence and individual self-determination for millions of the unbanked in Southeast Asia and around the world.”

World Bank’s Global Financial Initiative estimates that over 2 billion adults, almost a third of Earth’s population, have never been banked in their lives. The most affected regions are Asia, Africa, and Latin America where about 65% to 80% of the adult population is unbanked.

Today, banks are not able to approve first loan applications for billions of these people due to absence of credit history and records. A thriving business in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka with 100,000 registered users and 40,000 loans issued this year, MicroMoney breaks this vicious cycle by lending to the unbanked and thus creating credit profiles banks could use, a breakthrough made possible by productisation of the proprietary blockchain-based Decentralised A.I. Neural Network Scoring System.

Currently valued at $1.85 million, MicroMoney provides social lending services with no collateral or paper-based document requirements. MicroMoney plans to use attracted funds to expand to Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and Nigeria, launch its blockchain credit bureau and add over 100,000 previously unbanked customers, thus including them into the global financial system.

About MicroMoney

Founded in 2015, MicroMoney International (micromoney.io) is a global fintech company offering financial services for the unbanked in the emerging markets, and access to the unbanked audience for banks, trade, and financial organizations. MicroMoney is a fast-growing company valued at $1.85 million, with over 85 employees in six international locations.

MicroMoney makes lending decisions using a proprietary, A.I. algorithms and neural networks-based mobile scoring system. MicroMoney’s lending process doesn’t require any collateral or paper-based documentation. MicroMoney collects customers’ opt-in mobile phone data to establish potential borrowers’ credit score. MicroMoney uses the score to generate credit profiles, stored with MicroMoney Blockchain Credit Bureau, which in turn shares this data with financial institutions worldwide. For more information or to register your exchange please visit: https://micromoney.io/

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.

There is a growing need for decentralized exchanges in the world of cryptocurrency. Not only do these platforms remove intermediaries from the equation, but they are also less burdened by Know Your Customer and anti-money laundering laws. Most cryptocurrency users just want to exchange value without problems. Whether or not ERC dEXCHANGE will be of great help in this regard remains to be determined. The platform sounds rather appealing on paper, though.

Another Decentralized Exchange Model Surfaces

If there is one area of cryptocurrency in which one can’t have enough competition, it has to be the decentralized exchange sector. More specifically, there are still very few businesses embracing the decentralized model when it comes to exchanging value. That is not entirely surprising, as centralized platforms tend to make a lot of money doing what they do. However, they are also being scrutinized more now than ever before, regardless of their physical location.

Moreover, customers are increasingly asking for decentralized business models. Every traditional exchange is a custodian of customers’ funds, which means they effectively control the money one entrusts them with. It is far from an ideal situation, but that shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone either. Slowly but surely, we are seeing decentralized projects come to fruition, although the “killer app” has not been created yet.

The team behind ERC dEXCHANGE thinks they have what it takes to make decentralized exchanges the new norm. That is much easier said than done, mind you, as one doesn’t create such solutions overnight by any means. Interestingly enough, this particular project uses the 0x protocol, which is specifically designed to facilitate decentralized trading for ERC20 tokens. ERC dEX positions itself as a 0x Relayer by hosting an order book filled with users’ orders in a decentralized manner.

To be sure, ERC dEXCHANGE is still in the very early stages, as the private alpha test is currently underway. Right now, the developers are still working on a proper trading interface. It needs to be as intuitive as possible, rather than a horrible visual representation of the concept’s possibilities. Moreover, the engineers are prioritizing the removal of stale orders, which is something most centralized exchanges deal with on a daily basis. Plus, there needs to be an API to hook up to, as it will serve to maximize liquidity.

Farther down the road, ERC dEXCHANGE has some bold ambitions. Whether or not it can succeed is anybody’s guess. The 0x protocol certainly opens up a lot of new opportunities for exploration. It seems lending, short selling, and trustless derivatives are some of the team’s future plans. None of these features will be easily integrated into a decentralized platform, though. There is still plenty of work to be done before this idea becomes even remotely feasible.

It will be interesting to see how many projects will use the 0x protocol in the future. Decentralized solutions are the future of cryptocurrency, as they will put all bank and government woes behind us once and for all. If there is no centralized entity to control or scrutinize, there will be far less “noise” generated by governments and financial institutions. It will be interesting to see what the future holds in this regard.