Day: November 4, 2017

Banks and other financial institutions have opposed cryptocurrency for quite some time now. Major entities including Goldman Sachs have remained wary of Bitcoin, even though that situation is slowly changing. In fact, the CEO of Goldman Sachs recently acknowledged there is no reason to dismiss Bitcoin whatsoever. This sudden change of heart comes at an interesting time, to say the very least.

A Change of Heart for Goldman Sachs

Truth be told, Goldman Sachs has been far less aggressive when it comes to opposing Bitcoin compared to some other institutions. It never closed customer bank accounts for buying or selling cryptocurrency, nor has its CEO attempted to discredit Bitcoin as a tulip mania. Other banks, especially in the US, have some conflicting opinions in this regard, but that is only to be expected. It is difficult to keep an open mind when it comes to a new form of money that may make banks completely obsolete in the future.

Moreover, Goldman Sachs has been one of the more interesting banks when it comes to cryptocurrency and digital assets these days. More specifically, Goldman Sachs analysts have actually been advising clients on the Bitcoin price over the past few months. This advice has been well-received by the cryptocurrency community, as well as from institutional investors alike. In a way, this has been an interesting development, as it shows the institution isn’t dismissing Bitcoin whatsoever.

In fact, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein confirmed as much earlier this week. More specifically, he stated that Bitcoin cannot be dismissed by the bank or anybody else, for that matter. While it is true the initial years have been pretty difficult for Bitcoin, no one can deny the world’s leading cryptocurrency is rapidly carving out its own legacy. In particular, the recent Bitcoin price spike has attracted a lot of attention from all industries.

Moreover, Blankfein touched upon how fiat currencies work. He explained that despite the widespread use of paper money, most people aren’t aware that fiat currency is an empty promise by a bank or government to honor the value printed on the paper itself. Whether or not those promises will ever be upheld when push comes to shove remains to be determined. So far, the system seems to work just fine, even though we have seen multiple cracks in the facade as well.

Truth be told, there is no reason for people to remain skeptical about Bitcoin. In fact, the concept of paper money hasn’t been universally received all that well either, which isn’t entirely surprising. A new form of money backed by consensus rather than centralized entities is something else entirely. Whether or not Bitcoin can succeed in this regard remains to be determined. The Goldman Sachs CEO isn’t skeptical whatsoever, even though that doesn’t mean he is a fan of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies by any means.

It is evident something is changing in the world of traditional finance. Bitcoin has been dismissed as a fad for far too long, and the time has now come to finally address the elephant in the room. Bitcoin will not go away overnight, no matter how much some people may want it to. Goldman Sachs is the first major bank to officially acknowledge Bitcoin isn’t going away. Whether or not others will follow suit remains to be seen.

Content creation and cryptocurrency payments go hand in hand these days. There are many reasons for content creators to be exploring this opportunity. Up until now, very few celebrities have tried their hand at experimenting with Bitcoin or altcoins. Björk, one of the biggest artists of the past few decades, is doing exactly that. Her new album, Utopia, can be purchased using any one of several cryptocurrencies.

Björk Sees the Benefit of Cryptocurrencies

It is always remarkable to see how celebrities perceive Bitcoin and altcoins these days. Although most of them have no idea what this new form of money entails exactly, such ignorance can’t be maintained for much longer. Slowly but surely, things are evolving in the right direction, even though there is still a lot of work to be done. After all, cryptocurrencies aren’t even close to mainstream right now, and it will be pretty difficult to change that in a timely fashion.

Everyone was surprised when the news broke about Björk’s new album. That wasn’t because this singer-songwriter had released a new album, as that was known well in advance. However, the choice of accepted payment methods for said album has sent shockwaves throughout the music industry as a whole. Utopia, as the new 14-track album is called, will be made available for purchase on the One Little Indian platform. Again, no real surprise there, as this collaboration has been in place for some time now.

What is different this time, however, is how both entities have partnered with Blockpool. This British blockchain startup will take care of processing all cryptocurrency payments for the new Björk album. Four different cryptocurrencies will be accepted: Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, and Audiocoin. Although this latter currency is a big unknown in the world of cryptocurrency and digital assets, it is a major development for its developers, to say the very least.

It is good to see cryptocurrency payments made possible for mainstream purchases. It doesn’t automatically mean a lot of people will buy the new Björk album with any of these cryptocurrencies, though. There will be a small number of additional sales in the end, and it remains to be seen if this is a venture worth exploring further. Extra revenue is always welcome for any content creator, but no one should expect any miracles either.

We have seen some crossover between artists and cryptocurrency in the past. Louis C.K., for one, released a few bits of content in exchange for cryptocurrency payments not too long ago. While C.K. is world-renowned, stand-up comedy doesn’t have the same global appeal as music has right now. There is no sense in comparing these industries, as they are very different from one another. Having a person such as Björk embrace cryptocurrencies is something that will generate a few media headlines, to say the very least.

We can only hope to see more of these initiatives in the future. Cryptocurrency payments shouldn’t be overlooked by any means, as the opportunities they represent are pretty spectacular. Moreover, there is a global awareness as far as cryptocurrency is concerned. Capitalizing on this momentum should be a top priority for every content creator in the world, although it remains to be seen how things will play out in this regard.

Over the past week, the bitcoin price has surged from around $6,500 to $7,400, as the market continued to demonstrate optimism towards the launch of bitcoin futures exchanges by some of the largest markets in the US such as CME and CBOE.

Several prominent financial analysts including Max Keiser have hinted this week that it is highly likely for the price to achieve $10,000 by the end of 2017, given its current upward momentum and the market’s absolute confidence over the mid-term performance of bitcoin.

“30,000 new bitcoin wallets a day. ETF coming soon. Wall Street just getting started. Regulators waking up to their impotence. Hello $10,000,” said Keiser.

Remember, My target since 2011 when I was the only public figure rec. #Bitcoin at $3, was $100,000.

— Max Keiser (@maxkeiser) October 30, 2017

“Money on the Sidelines” to Bitcoin

Many users and investors have inquired about the significance of the launch of bitcoin futures exchanges by CME, CBOE, and LedgerX. Analysts such as IamNomad have explained that most high profile investors and large-scale retail traders are required by law to invest through strictly regulated channels.

With regulated futures, derivatives, and options exchanges around bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, high profile traders will be able to move “money on the sidelines” such as offshore bank accounts and wealth management products (WMPs) to bitcoin, which could potentially add tens of billions of new capital into bitcoin in the upcoming years.

As Keiser and the LedgerX team noted, Wall Street and the market of institutional investors are only beginning to engage in bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading. Already, without the absence of large retail and institutional traders, the price of bitcoin has surpassed the $7,400 mark. In the upcoming months, if more retail traders engage in the bitcoin exchange market as billionaire hedge fund legend Mike Novogratz has emphasized earlier this year, it will inevitably lead to the bitcoin price surging to new highs and building upward momentum.

As the LedgerX team revealed, in its first week of operation, the institution settled more than $1 million worth of derivatives and options trading around bitcoin.

“We ended up completing swaps and options trades worth over $1,000,000 USD. Crucially, these trades were cleared through LedgerX, which is the only institutional grade, US federally regulated exchange and clearing house for digital currencies. And we are literally just getting started,” said LedgerX.

By the end of 2017, CME and CBOE, two of the world’s largest options exchange market, will provide institutional investors an exclusive platform to trade bitcoin, offering a more liquid platform to swap cryptocurrencies.

Considering the statements of high profile investors like Novogratz who previously claimed that “a herd of institutional investors” are coming to the bitcoin market, it is likely that the $10,000 interim target of Max Keiser can be achieved in the upcoming months, potentially by the end of 2017.

However, in the short-term, a minor correction should be expected, specifically around the period of the SegWit2x hard fork on November 16, as a small portion of investors may allocate their funds into the newly created B2X.

The post Is Bitcoin Price en Route to Reaching $10,000 by the End of 2017? appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Lightning Network technology will introduce a completely new era for cryptocurrency in general. Most people associate this technology with Bitcoin, although Litecoin will have its own version of the Lightning Network as well. As it turns out, Decred’s developers have been working on a similar solution. In fact, any cryptocurrency with SegWit activated on the mainnet can benefit from this technology.

Decred’s Lightning Network is Coming Soon

There have been multiple discussions regarding the Lightning Network over the past year. In virtually every case, these discussions have pertained to Bitcoin’s implementation of LN in the future. In order to bring this technology to Bitcoin users, we first needed Segregated Witness to properly activate. That has been a monumental task, as most people are well aware. However, things are progressing nicely in this regard, even though there remains a lot of work to be done in the coming months.

Bitcoin is not the only cryptocurrency to have activated Segregated Witness over the past few months, though. In fact, the world’s leading cryptocurrency was pretty late to the party in that regard. Litecoin activated SegWit well ahead of Bitcoin, which allowed the former’s developers to create their own version of the Lightning Network. Dubbed aptly the Litening Network, it will allow for micropayments with Litecoin in the near future. It will be interesting to see how different cryptocurrencies “compete” in this regard over the next few years.

It now turns out there is a Lightning Network in development by Decred as well. Even though most people may have ignored this altcoin over the past few months, the currency is quickly making a name for itself. That’s not only because it can be merge-mined with popular altcoins, but also due to its own activation of Segregated Witness. Moreover, Decred’s developers have been working together with the Litecoin team on cross-chain atomic swaps. It is this latter development which will open up a lot of new and exciting doors in the future.

According to a recent Reddit thread, the Decred Lightning Network should be coming to market at the end of this month. That is rather ambitious, although not impossible to achieve by any means. Some of the features were developed on the Decred network with the latest Thunderstruck update, which involved some changes to the consensus mechanism. More specifically, a new vote ID was introduced, which can be set up through the main wallet or a stake pool’s website accordingly.

It is evident that Lightning Network technology is of great importance to the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. Not only will it introduce micropayments for popular currencies, but it will also show the world that instant payments with cryptocurrency are a very real thing. Up until now, even the most popular cryptocurrencies suffer from confirmation delays now and then. Those currencies with much faster block times haven’t succeeded in gaining major traction yet. More competition in the crypto world can only be seen as a good thing, as Bitcoin isn’t perfect by any means.

It will be interesting to see how all these Lightning Networks perform. The developments themselves are pretty interesting to keep an eye on. Once we have multiple LN-capable currencies out there, interoperability becomes the next logical step. The future is looking very bright for cryptocurrencies, especially once political shenanigans are put aside.

Miami – November 4, 2017 – Mirach Capital, a group of family offices holding trophy assets in the arenas of real estate, hospitality, aviation, healthcare, waste management, energy and entertainment, today announced the launch of a USD $200 million dollar crypto-fund. Utilizing quantitative and fundamental analysis to evaluate various Initial Coin Offerings, Mirach intends to identify projects that are grounded in foundational strength with widespread real world applications. Mark Ryan, Chief Financial Officer at Mirach stated “We are cautiously optimistic about cryptocurrencies. With all the hype currently surrounding ICOs, it would be prudent to conduct careful analysis when evaluating these projects. The future seems very bright for the crypto-space with some very exciting projects, however, the path to hell often begins with good intentions.”

Mirach has reviewed a number of ICO projects within the Healthcare, Waste Management, Energy and Retail sectors. Unfortunately, very few projects have been able to demonstrate real world applications thereby enhancing utility of the tokens. Mirach’s landmark investment of USD $25 million dollars in 4NEW Limited, a Waste to Energy treatment facility integrated entirely on the blockchain network demonstrates the commitment the group has towards identifying robust and grounded projects with the appropriate use of blockchain technology. Mirach intends to identify 4 or 5 crypto projects annually that will be funded through its syndicate of family offices.

About Mirach

Mirach is a group of private family offices with diversified trophy assets under management ranging up to $400 million dollars. Industries covered include Real Estate, Hospitality, Aviation, Healthcare, Waste Management, Energy and Entertainment. Mirach has structured various high profile trophy asset transactions ranging from the Plaza hotel in New York to the Grosvenor House hotel in London. They also hold significant investments in healthcare ranging from Urgent Care centers, Pharmacies, Substance Abuse Medical Detox facilities and Mental Health Assisted Living Facilities.
Website: www.mirachcapitalgroup.com

The post Mirach Capital Launches $200 Million Dollar Crypto-fund appeared first on NEWSBTC.

The world’s only visual conversation network will help add financial value to digital art through blockchain technology. Its first digital art collection up for sale is ‘Creeps & Weirdos’ , which was listed this Halloween.

New York, USA, November 4th 2017 – DADA.nyc, a social media network and collaborative platform for artists, announces the launch of its Ethereum-powered digital art marketplace. The marketplace features the first collection of collaborative art made by artists on the DADA platform and should give financial value to digital art thanks to blockchain.

On October 31st the company issued Creeps & Weirdos, a collection of 100 unusual limited-edition drawings made by artists worldwide on DADA, just in time for Halloween. These drawings are available for purchase with Ether cryptocurrency. The collection will have five levels of scarcity, from common to extremely rare drawings, all of which have been curated and priced according to their popularity and where they appear on DADA’s visual conversations.

“People often save or screenshot art online with little consideration of the work that has gone into the art or how the artist is remunerated,” said artist, entrepreneur and DADA founder Beatriz Helena Ramos. “By integrating blockchain into digital art we could reshape people’s views towards digital artwork and with it instill financial value, and create a new market for digital art, helping out artists all over the world”.

DADA decided to incorporate blockchain into its artwork to empower millions of artists worldwide to create wealth. Thanks to blockchain, content creators from all over the world will now have full control of their work and their intellectual property. Collectors will also benefit from the opportunity to invest in the artists by purchasing, owning and reselling digital art.

“The reason I created DADA was because, as a commercial artist, I have worked for some of the biggest brands in the world, yet I don’t own any of the intellectual rights to my work over the last 20 years”, added Ramos. “I have only captured a tiny fraction of the value I created”.

Online art marketplaces are already using Blockchain to issue IP certificates and proof of ownership, but DADA has actually issued a collection of 100 limited-edition original drawings with 16,000 digital assets (tokens) with a unique ID. Each token represents a copy of an artwork for sale, making ownership of digital art more tangible. Each copy is purchased through a decentralized marketplace without intermediaries. All transactions are carried out through smart contracts.  

Like other initiatives to market digital art through blockchain such as Cryptopunks and Rare Pepes, each copy is a unique token that has digitally verifiable proof of ownership and IP protection. This means digital artists could finally start receiving fair remuneration for the artwork they create. DADA aims to reshape the culture of viewing digital art as ‘something for nothing’.

“Yes, you can still make a screenshot of the digital artwork, but now, thanks to Blockchain, it will be like making a photocopy of a dollar bill. The value is in the token associated to the digital print”, Ramos explains.

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.

Star Xu, the CEO of OKCoin, the largest bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange in China, has publicly condemned SegWit2x, describing it as a “shitcoin.”

Xu stated:

“Personal advice is B2X should not be listed. It’s a shitcoin but remove replay attacks protection.”

Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin and former Coinbase executive, agreed with the statement of Xu, criticizing its lack of strong replay protection and the contentious nature of the SegWit2x hard fork.

SegWit2x and its Contentious Nature

Describing SegWit2x and its native cryptocurrency B2X a “shitcoin” is an extreme way of portraying its contentious nature. But, experts and business executives like Xu have publicly condemned SegWit2x because it has been branded as a network upgrade. Based on the initial NYA agreement and the SegWit2x hard fork proposal, it has been made clear that SegWit2x is not an upgrade proposal but a fork specifically structured to lead to a chain split, and the creation of another cryptocurrency.

Despite the decline in support from the bitcoin community, mining industry, and businesses, the SegWit2x development team will pursue the hard fork on November 16. Several executives such as Bitso’s Daniel Vogel expressed his concerns over such lack of consensus in the SegWit2x hard fork, as he stated:

“Given this is a technical mailing list, I would urge everyone to rethink the S2X code from a technical perspective. The code base was written as an upgrade to Bitcoin. I believe there is enough hard data out there to make it clear that S2X is no longer an upgrade. F2Pool backed down Slush Pool was never in ViaBTC said none of their customers are requesting S2X BTC.top said they will just mine whatever is more profitable When do we stop and rethink? When we get to less than 50% hashing power?”

Why is Xu’s Statement Notable?

Some of the major supporters of the SegWit2x hard fork are based in China, such as Bitmain’s Antpool, ViaBTC, BTC.com, and BTC.TOP, which represent around 60 percent of bitcoin’s global hash rate. Xu is the second executive of a leading Chinese cryptocurrency company to publicly oppose the SegWit2x hard fork, apart from Wang Chun of F2Pool.

Whether F2Pool and OKCoin’s criticism of the SegWit2x hard fork in November will trigger the Chinese mining community to stall or reject the Segwit2x hard fork remains uncertain. At this phase of development, it is highly likely that the SegWit2x hard fork will continue as planned, given the support from the four major mining pools and large-scale bitcoin businesses including Coinbase and Blockchain.

However, it is also important to acknowledge that some of the most influential figures within the Chinese bitcoin market have started to speak out against the SegWit2x hard fork.

The post China’s Largest Bitcoin Exchange CEO Publicly Condemns SegWit2x appeared first on NEWSBTC.

It is always refreshing to see joke digital currencies come to market. Although these projects serve no real purpose, the creative side of things is often pretty entertaining, to say the least. SatanCoin is an example of how it is good to poke some fun at the surge of new digital tokens being created every day. After all, “damned are thy mortal coins,” as the site says.

SatanCoin is Quite Dark and Disturbing

In a way, it is somewhat surprising to learn that no one had created SatanCoin prior to a few days ago. Considering that we had seen some of the weirdest coins even before the ICO hype began, one would expect the concept of “Satan” to have been widely explored already. Nothing could be further from the truth, though, which is what prompted the team behind SatanCoin to try their hand at such an undertaking.

It has to be said that the SatanCoin website gives off a very dark and disturbing vibe right off the bat. Even the site’s artwork makes this seem like a digital currency used by masters of the occult all over the world. After all, every “industry” could have its own form of money in a few years from now, and digital currencies certainly present an interesting possibility in this regard.

Every SatanCoin will allegedly inflict infinite pain and suffering upon its owner. While this claim is presumably bogus, the concept is admittedly funny, especially considering that the team claims their creation to be the “perfect Christmas gift”. All holders, it seems, will also be subject to unimaginable misfortune. Unlike most other digital currencies, there are no plans to create any hype for SatanCoin whatsoever, which is refreshing in its own way.

As one would expect, the demonic forces have issued SatanCoin as an ERC20 token. Then again, powering this currency by the “sin and evil of humanity” alone wouldn’t be sufficient by any means. Moreover, an “ICO” associated with this token will run until Christmas Eve, as a way to prepare for a Satanic Christmas. Again, the occult is certainly present as far as this project is concerned. It’s a job well done by the creators, to say the very least.

To keep up the occult vibe, the team has deemed it necessary to issue only 666 SatanCoins. What’s more, each coin is valued at 0.6666 Ether, although this value will not be maintained for long unless it somehow gains traction. There is, of course, a “blackpaper” associated with this project, rather than a traditional whitepaper. As most people are well aware, a whitepaper is associated with Holy and Angelic activities. Such thoughts have no place in the world of SatanCoin, after all.

It does appear the goal is to enable SatanCoin trading on EtherDelta later this year. It will be pretty interesting to see whether or not this new ERC20 token will gain any traction at that point, and it isn’t unlikely whatsoever. We have seen stranger things happen in the world of cryptocurrency over the years. Never dismiss a new currency simply because it may not necessarily appeal to the mainstream. In fact, that is often one of the strengths of a successful currency these days.

Berlin, Germany — November 04, 2017 — REALISTO, a Berlin-based decentralized real estate investing marketplace, has officially announced its November 7 ICO pre-sale and November 15 ICO, which will last one month through December 15. REALISTO’s blockchain-based platform bridges the gap between real estate experts and investors by giving experts a chance to tokenize projects and crowdfund capital from investors around the world, both casual and professional.

The two-sided marketplace will initially launch with curated Berlin properties selected by REALISTO’s team of local real estate experts. These projects will be tokenized, added to REALISTO’s platform and then crowdfunded, providing both sponsors and investors a platform to foster projects globally. ICO participants can contribute Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) to acquire REALISTO tokens (REA) to be used in active real estate investments.

REALISTO Co-CEO, Rouven Rosenbaum, explains, “The inspiration behind REALISTO was to create access to investment opportunities that have so far been fraught with danger and inefficiency for the individual investor. Additionally, it is our goal to provide a stable and reliable platform for real estate experts to capitalize their projects. With REALISTO, you can select what project to invest in, manage your investment on our app, track real-world market value, and then receive proportional returns.”

2018 Product Roadmap Includes Global Expansion and Security

REALISTO ICO funds will be used to implement a transparent and fraud-proof trustee-wallet system that will make misappropriation and misuse of funds impossible. A Data Room will also be provided for investors to view bank protocols and fund activity.

Leonard Zobel, REALISTO Co-Founder, states, “This secure system will be different than conventional real estate investment funds and other ICOs that offer asset-backed tokens. We will use a rigorous system of checks and balances that guarantee the safety of international investors who take a leap of faith and invest in global projects.”

REALISTO will also be expanding globally with projects ranging from commercial spaces to small residential objects, with a carefully curated portfolio mixed with various project types that cater to different investment goals, yield-to-risk ratios, budgets, and more. All projects will be featured on REALISTO’s mobile application that is built on the Ethereum Blockchain, with full-functionality to search and invest in selected projects.

REALISTO ICO Schedule (November 7 – December 15)

The pre-sale and ICO dates listed will occur at 12:00 (UTC) and will be open to Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) contributions:

PRESALE [30% BONUS] [MIN. CONTRIBUTION 5 ETH OR EQUIVALENT IN BTC]

November 7 [12:00 UTC] – November 14 [12:00 UTC]

ICO WEEK 1 [15% BONUS]

November 15 [12:00 UTC] – November 22 [12:00 UTC]

ICO WEEK 2 [10% BONUS]

November 22 [12:00 UTC] – November 29 [12:00 UTC]

ICO WEEK 3 [5% BONUS]

November 29 [12:00 UTC] – December 06 [12:00 UTC]

ICO WEEK 4 [NO BONUS]

December 06 [12:00 UTC] – December 15 [12:00 UTC]

About REALISTO

Founded in 2015, REALISTO is a decentralized, global platform dedicated to crowdfunding the world’s best real estate opportunities. Using blockchain technology, the REALISTO platform allows real estate experts to present unique projects, tokenize them, and offer them as curated investment opportunities. From rental properties to new developments, tokenized investments will be governed by an escrow-backed trust, providing security to high-yield investment projects.

Because there is no minimum or maximum investment requirement, investors can choose which projects to participate in and how much to invest. REALISTO was founded in Berlin by two real estate professionals with hundreds of successful real estate transactions in the Berlin market.

Media Contact: [email protected]

Website: www.realisto.io

Whitepaper: REALISTO Whitepaper

Blockchain technology continues to be of great interest to financial institutions all over the world. Although there is a lot more in the way of speculation than working products right now, that’s slowly changing in South Korea. More specifically, the country’s online banking industry just received a major blockchain-based security upgrade. Amazingly, it is its first major improvement in two decades.

Blockchain Makes Korean Online Banking More Secure

It is evident the blockchain industry could have a major impact on the Korean banking industry as a whole. More broadly, it could affect any financial sector in any country on the planet. It seems South Korea is simply ahead of the curve in this regard, which will come as a surprise to a lot of people. Then again, the Korean online banking sector hasn’t seen any major security updates in two decades.

That in itself is pretty worrisome. Banks are designed to keep customer funds safe at all times, yet they hardly ever succeed in doing so. Without security updates, it becomes all the more difficult for financial institutions to do the job they were designed for. At the same time, the lack of security updates is usually due to a lack of funding or blatant ignorance. It is unclear which was the case in South Korea, but it is good to see an update finally arrive.

This doesn’t mean the new blockchain-based solution will result in visible changes, though. In fact, most consumers won’t even know they are benefiting from the blockchain, which is only to be expected. What they will notice is how there will be a new form of online identification, known as Chain ID. This particular tool was developed by theloop, an industry leader in blockchain-based security. Creating new security standards is the end goal, but doing so will be difficult to achieve, for obvious reasons.

One of this solution’s benefits is that consumers can use the same “certificate” across several dozen banks and securities companies that are part of the Korea Financial Investment Blockchain Consortium. For now, the number of such companies is just 25, although more growth is expected over the next few months and years. Prior to now, personal identification certificates had to be used in conjunction with Windows-only software, which served to make the whole process more cumbersome than it needed to be.

For now, the goal is to introduce Chain ID on mobile devices. Android and iOS support will roll out over the coming days and weeks. Desktop support for Windows and MacOS will follow shortly thereafter. It will be an interesting experiment for this innovative technology, as it is one of the first consumer-oriented projects to come to market in this part of the world. A successful trial could have positive consequences, although there is no need to get ahead of ourselves.

Interoperable blockchain certificates are an interesting development in the world of finance. Although it remains to be seen if this project can be successful, its introduction in South Korea’s banking sector is a pretty big development in its own right. For all the hype surrounding blockchain in the banking sector these days, there is still very little to show for it. That is finally coming to change, by the looks of things.

The CryptoShuffler trojan can replace your wallet address in the few seconds, redirecting your funds away from your wallet. What should you do to protect yourself?

With no central point of failure, dApps are expected to be hack- and censorship-proof while being able to operate in a completely autonomous fashion.

BANKEX sets out to solve inefficiencies inherent in today’s banking system by utilizing Blockchain technologies

BANKEX, the decentralized Bank-as-a-Service enterprise, today announced that their Token Sale Event (TSE) will take place on November 28. Using proprietary fintech solutions, BANKEX aims to bridge the gap between the emerging blockchain sector and traditional finance.

“We hope to have a transformative effect upon traditional finance and investment, micro-financing, real estate, as well as illiquid assets, natural resources, and derivatives markets. This is a large undertaking and will require substantial investment. The market gap is large, the potential is huge, and the aim is clear. We want to bring emerging Blockchain solutions to the established banking sector,” said Igor Khmel, Founder and CEO of BANKEX.

Token Generation Event

Having raised $10 million USD in soft and hard commitments in the first two weeks of its presale and private sale period, BANKEX’s TSE will take place between November 28, 2017, and December 28, 2017. Interested parties can use ETH and BTC to participate in the sale. Capped at $40 million USD for retail investors contributing in both presale and public token sale, BANKEX will sell BKX tokens at a rate of 1 ETH = 500 BKX. Actively working on partnerships with financial institutions to develop pilot projects and proof-of-concepts, BANKEX has frozen a number of BKX tokens for release to institutional clients.

BANKEX CEO Igor Khmel is a fintech entrepreneur with experience in product development, operations, and digital strategy implementation. With an MBA from Stanford School of Business, Khmel’s professional track-record includes professional tenures at prestigious organizations McKinsey, Deloitte, and Citadel. Khmel also founded a fintech laboratory and innovation practice at Sberbank, the largest bank in Eastern Europe.

Deploying smart contracts and powered by the tokenization of assets, the BANKEX platform enables off-balance sheet crowdfunding and chain finance to function on existing infrastructure, creating novel and efficient solutions for banks and other financial institutions.

With compliance and security as top priorities, BANKEX is in close cooperation with cybersecurity firm Group-IB to help mitigate risks at all stages of the token sale. In addition, all participants must go through an in-depth registration process. The privacy of the individual is respected throughout and no sensitive personal information is collected. Once registered, participants will receive an email with instructions on how to proceed with the presale. This email will include the ETH/BTC address that presale contributions should be sent to.

“All resources acquired, during our TSE, will be used to ensure the success of all stakeholders involved in the BANKEX project. We aim to be fully resourced and equipped to fulfil our mission statement and to ensure we continue to grow and expand upon our team of world class employees,” concluded Khmel.

Advisory board

BANKEX’s stellar board of advisors consists of industry experts such as Sergey Sergienko, Founder of Chronobank, Sasha Ivanov, Founder of Waves, Nehemia Kramer, an early stage investor in Ethereum, Chris Skinner, a leading financial markets strategist, Gabriele Colombo, Executive Director of Symphony Foundation, and Peter Cramton, Professor of Economics at Maryland University.

With industry-wide support, BANKEX’S partners include ConsenSys formation Balanc3, Microsoft, Dostavista, a global crowdsourced delivery service that operates in nine countries, Symphony Foundation, a foundation comprised of leading US banks, and the Moscow Exchange, the largest exchange group in Russia. In May 2017 BANKEX was listed by Financial IT’s Pathfinder Ranking as one of the Top-50 fintech companies worldwide.

The oficcial Token Sale is set to begin on November 28 – click here to join it.

About BANKEX

Using standardized Fintech solutions, BANKEX, the decentralized Bank-as-a-Service enterprise, aims to bridge the gap between the emerging blockchain sector and traditional finance. Deploying smart contracts and enabling tokenization, the platform powers off-balance sheet crowdfunding, chain finance and leverages external infrastructure, creating efficient and time effective solutions. BANKEX’s innovative solutions have far-reaching areas of application and are posed to have transformative effects upon traditional finance and investment, micro-financing, real estate, as well as illiquid assets, natural resources, and futures markets.

Website

Whitepaper

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Any inquiries: [email protected]

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.

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Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Review

SaferVPN represents a premium VPN service provider, which offers blazing-fast speeds, superior VPN security, and of course, accepts Bitcoin as a means of payment!

The VPN provider also recently announced a new partnership with Mycelium, a widely used cryptocurrency wallet provider, protecting wallet users with bank-level security and ultimate privacy.

At this moment in time, some of the best features associated with SaferVPN, include but are not limited to one of the fastest VPN experiences available, user friendly design, multiple VPN protocols (such as PPTP, OpenVPN, IKEv2, and L2TP/IPSec), strong, 256-bit encryption, automatic diagnose fixes, 24/7 premium support via live chat and more.

Security

Apart from the 256-bit encryption, the no logging policy of SaferVPN is bound to satisfy all privacy-conscious users, as the service doesn’t attempt to identify its users. Therefore, it does not collect, nor log any form of browsing activity or the IP addresses of its users.  Additionally, the automatic Wi-Fi security feature instantly connects your device to the VPN channel, the second the device connects to an unsecured Wi-Fi connection, hence increasing user privacy. Last but not least, SaferVPN also provides a kill switch feature, which instantly cuts the user’s internet connection on all devices in case the VPN fails to connect, thus hiding all vital information.

Speed

As mentioned above, SaferVPN is one of the world’s fastest service providers. This is achieved through over 700 servers, situated in 35 different locations, offering unlimited location switching, speed and bandwidth. Those who wish to access country-based content can easily do so through the dedicated servers for watching Hulu US or Netflix US.

Compatibility

The service works on most user devices and operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS and even offers an extension for the Google Chrome web browser.

It’s single-click connection makes it one of the easiest VPNs to use. There’s no configuration needed – with one tap or click, you’ll be up and running in seconds!

SaferVPN is also part of the #UnblockTheWeb initiative, and actively helps human rights activists alongside with dissidents by donating free VPN accounts. This way, users living in regions of the world where web access is limited can securely bypass censorship.

Based on everything that has been outlined so far, SaferVPN doesn’t only help users keep their privacy on the web, but also offers some of the best features on the market at an affordable price. Additionally, as it accepts Bitcoin, you won’t even have to share your payment details.