Day: November 5, 2017

Day one of Scaling Bitcoin 2017 presented a change of pace for an event that grew out of the network’s technical contention.

There are some interesting things in store for the Monero community. One of the things a lot of people are excited about is multisignature support. This feature has been in development for quite some time now, but a major breakthrough was achieved earlier this week. It appears the Monero multisignature implementation is currently being tested as we speak. A merge with the main code is imminent, although no official date has been announced yet.

Monero Multisig Support is Coming Soon

In the world of cryptocurrencies, it is somewhat surprising to see so few currencies benefiting from multisignature technology. Bitcoin has had this feature for as long as most people can remember. In the case of Monero, however, the developers had to start from scratch due to the very different infrastructure they are working with. This explains why this solution has been in development for so long. There is still no official mainnet release date at this time, though, as there is still a lot of work to be done in this regard.

To put things into perspective, some changes have been made to the Github repo for Monero’s multisig development. Until two days ago, they had the “DO NOT MERGE” tag associated with them. That indicated the developers were far from having a working product. All of a sudden, however, this tag was removed, which seems to indicate a lot of progress has been made. Moreover, Moneromoo – the person responsible for the multisig implementation – has asked the community on IRC to test and review this implementation in the near future.

It is important to note that Monero’s multisignature development is a project funded by the community itself. Unlike other cryptocurrencies with major financial backing, the Monero community put together the funds necessary to ensure the longevity of this anonymity-oriented cryptocurrency. These efforts are paying off in spades right now, as 2017 has been a pretty solid year for Monero already. Even more growth is expected to occur in the coming weeks and months.

The main benefits of multisignature technology for Monero are on par with other currencies. More specifically, 2-of-3 multisig can be quite useful to businesses of any kind. Online stores with third-party vendors will benefit from it as well. Keeping money safe for all parties is a big development, to say the least. Whether or not we will see “more” than 2-of-3 multisig for Monero remains unknown, although it is certainly a possibility.

Moreover, the darknet marketplaces have been holding off on accepting Monero until multisignature technology is fully developed. With this project now entering the testing phase, things will surely head in the right direction. It is certainly possible we will see more darknet markets drop Bitcoin support entirely and go all-in on Monero. When the darknet flocked to Bitcoin, we saw the latter’s adoption and price increase dramatically. The same may very well happen to XMR, although it is still too early to speculate.

Altcoin development has certainly shifted into higher gear this year. Most of the currencies in existence have no real purpose, but a few of them will actually stick around for the long run. Litecoin and Ethereum are on that list, for obvious reasons. The introduction of multisignature support for Monero will make it another contender to keep an eye on. The future’s looking bright for all XMR supporters, even though no official timelines have been made public as of yet.

Initial coin offerings have become very popular over these past few months. Dozens of new projects attempt to raise money every single month. We asked a few ICO teams why they decided to take this particular approach rather than seek VC investment. Their answers are pretty interesting to take note of.

10. CrowdWiz Co-Founder Slavena Savcheva

“Up until now, it wasn’t possible for people like you and me to participate in the traditional funding round; this unique option was mainly available to VCs and other investment parties. Also, the VCs are entitled to shares in the company, whereas crowdfunding allows the control to remain in the hands of the founders. In the case of CrowdWiz, due to VC structure, companies are relying on a sole decision maker and are completely missing the crowd knowledge factor. It has been scientifically proven that this is the most accurate method in lots of areas. Lastly, with crowdfunding, there is proof of the demand for the product/technology.”

9. Winding Tree CEO and Founder Maksim Izmaylov

“Decentralized projects by definition must have their ownership as widely distributed as possible so there is no centralized control. That is why crowdfunding is the only way to fund decentralized protocols.”

8. Blackmoon CEO Oleg Seydak

“One of our main value propositions is to bring together the ‘best of both worlds’ for both crypto and traditional asset managers. Set a benchmark in the industry. Thus, we see that crowdfunding via an ICO (or token sale) would attract more crypto investors who have a clearer understanding of the advantages blockchain technology can bring to the industry. Traditional funding is a complicated form of achieving results, not to mention that it would limit the number of crypto investors who would be able to participate.”

7. Jelurida Co-Founder Lior Yaffe

“In our case, Jelurida did not have any significant stake in the NXT pure proof of stake token. Our new innovative parent/child chain architecture named Ardor required a new parent token which we distributed free of charge to existing NXT holders during 2016 and a child child token called Ignis of which 50% will be distributed to existing NXT holders by the end of December. We sold the other half of the Ignis token in our crowdfunding campaign in order to finance the development of this groundbreaking technology.”

6. CarFix Co-Founder Vladimir Lupenko

“ICOs currently present a unique opportunity to raise non-dilutive capital to build technological infrastructure such as blockchain platforms to create significant value for various stakeholders of the core business: customers, partners, shareholders.  Token purchasers, when making decisions about token acquisition, need to assess the fundamental value drivers that underpin the token appreciation potential.  Value created for stakeholders is typically an indication of token price growth potential.”

5. Narrative Founder Ted O’Neill

“If we had gone with traditional VC funding, the company may have had strong capitalization, but the users would not have participated in or had the same level of impact on that value.  By utilizing a Token Sale, we allow our future users to drive the value and participate in the success of the network.  Since our network is all about user autonomy and rewarding active participants, a Token Sale perfectly aligns with the objectives of the project.”

4. Colu CEO and Co-Founder Amos Meiri

“It’s true, we could have raised VC funding, but we decided to issue a token for two reasons: When building a location or community-based business that is essentially a marketplace you have a chicken and egg problem. What should you tackle first – supply or demand? If you built a community in one location, how do you scale that? How do you scale to 20 communities in parallel? We knew we needed to raise a big round, or find a business model that will help us create a network effect. The CLN model provides both.”

3. Vanywhere COO and Founder Itay Shechter

“There’s no denying that issuing a token is a great way for companies to raise funds to achieve their goals. But that alone isn’t our reason for doing it. Having our own token allows us to use smart contracts that benefit our users in a variety of ways, from our rewards program, to our reputation system, dispute process and more. We’re building an ecosystem, economy and brand, and having our own token allows us more control over our brand and its value and values than if we were tied to an existing currency. Issuing our own token also gives other people who believe in our vision and platform the opportunity to take part in it and help build the next big thing.”

2. Zen CEO and Co-Founder Adam Perlow

“The coins act to subsidize miners and serve as a focal point in the system. Allowing people to buy the coins and fund development subsidizes development and aligns the interests of everyone in the system. We can’t use an existing token due to the lack of the deterministic nature required for inflating the supply curve.”

1. Bancor Co-founder Guy Benartzi

“An ICO was the best path given our Foundation’s mission. It is especially useful when you seek to build a non-profit ecosystem that can support many for-profit players, such as the Internet or Ethereum. As Bancor is seeking to create a new standard for cryptocurrency protocols, this mechanism was best able to provide us with both the capital to build out the technology and bring in as many participants as possible to be a part of seeding the ecosystem.”

It is good to see some different opinions on why ICOs make more sense than VC funding. This new business model opens up a lot of opportunities, yet it also creates certain risks. Whether or not these businesses made the right decision in choosing to go with an ICO business model remains to be seen. Governments all over the world are still scrutinizing this industry whenever possible. An interesting future lies ahead, though; that much is evident.

Political uncertainty in the Middle East has risen to an all-time high, with Saudi Arabia arresting the richest Arab in the world, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Could this result in a shift to Bitcoin, the digital safe haven, in the Middle East?

After months of closed development, the team behind the open source Xenio project have released version 0.2 of their blockchain source code, the first in a planned series of tiered releases of the greater Xenio software suite. The Github is available at: https://github.com/xenioplatform/go-xenio/

Xenio is a decentralized peer-to-peer gaming distribution platform and blockchain. It allows game developers to sell games directly to gamers with no commission, and using the Xenio platform, developers can create tokens for their game licenses and in-game digital assets. Xenio runs on its own dedicated game-optimized blockchain, utilizing smart contract technology for provably fair game statistics and trustless transactions on the integrated game asset marketplace. The newly released code is capable of running the production version of the Xenio blockchain, which has already been running in stealth mode for months.

Starting features of Xenio include:

• Masternode system for game server operators to earn XNO by hosting games, based on a custom consensus protocol called Proof-of-Networking
• A dedicated game-optimized blockchain with smart contracts and token capabilities
• Blockchain-stored game statistics for open analysis and provably fair matchmaking
• Token creation functionality for game licenses and in-game assets (weapons, skins, in game currency, etc.) allowing optional transfer of assets to other gamer accounts
• XNO transaction fee sharing, paid to all connected nodes, including gaming clients
• Fully decentralized P2P system and multi-OS consumer client with no central server authority or corporate interests
• Direct to consumer game publishing with no commission charges
• Multicurrency payment support – gamers can buy games through the user client with XNO, Bitcoin, or a number of other payment methods not just cryptocurrencies
• APIs and SDKs using modern languages for developers to easily integrate their games
• Offline client key management means no servers need to be trusted to create a new account or sign in to the system
• End-to-end encrypted chat system from within the client
• Open source model enables the community to contribute to the platform directly

To find out more about Xenio, please visit: https://xenio.io

The white paper is available at: https://xenio.io/assets/whitepaper.pdf

The Github is available at: https://github.com/xenioplatform/go-xenio/

The Xenio ICO is currently in the Early Presale phase, and registrations are now open.

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.

Even though almost all altcoins are losing value at the moment, there is one currency which has successfully bucked the trend. It is not Bitcoin Cash for once, as that party is seemingly over for the time being. Instead, we are seeing the Ethereum Classic price going up by leaps and bounds. It’s an interesting development, especially considering that the Bitcoin price has been setting new all-time highs every other day throughout the past week.

Ethereum Classic Price Surpasses $13 Again

While most investors try to buy some Ethereum every now and then, the immutable version of this currency is often overlooked. Ethereum Classic has mostly the same technology under the hood as Ethereum, with one big difference separating the two. Whereas Ethereum has a mutable blockchain – which has been purposefully modified and manipulated before – Ethereum Classic does not. When it comes to immutability, Ethereum Classic is superior to Ethereum, even though the price doesn’t reflect that at all.

More specifically, the Ethereum Classic price is a lot lower than Ethereum’s. Even at its current value of US$13.25, ETC is still a very small altcoin when compared to Ethereum. It is a bit unclear why this hasn’t evolved in a positive direction for ETC this year, despite the currency receiving some good exposure from Grayscale Investments. Instead, the Ethereum Classic price has been on a bit of a roller coaster this year, to say the very least.

In early January of this year, one ETC was valued at US$1.67. That’s a pretty low level, although everything was valued very differently back then. An initial uptrend manifested in May, and the current all-time high was reached over the summer. Ever since, the ride has gone mostly downhill for ETC. Just last week, the Ethereum Classic price dropped below US$10, albeit only briefly. Right now, that same ETC is worth US$13.25, thanks to a 9.32% increase over the past 24 hours.

This price movement hasn’t been driven by much in the way of trading volume either. While US$238 million in 24-hour volume is a lot higher than some altcoins in the top 10 right now, it is not exactly spectacular either. Then again, this shows how little money can make a meaningful impact on this market. Whether or not that is a good thing is up for debate. Right now, it has led to some solid increases, although they may only be temporary in nature.

No one will be surprised to learn that the recent Ethereum Classic momentum has been mainly driven by Korean speculators. Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit are all generating a lot more volume than any other cryptocurrency exchange. In fact, these three platforms alone generated 73% of all ETC trades during the past 24 hours. It seems that this is another pump-and-dump cycle similar to the one we saw with Bitcoin Cash last week. If the ETC price pump lasts for a few days, we may even see a new all-time high for this currency.

It is hard to tell what will happen with the Ethereum Classic price moving forward. There are a lot of uncertainties in this regard, as the current momentum is mainly fueled by speculation and a pump. This doesn’t mean Ethereum Classic has no inherent value on its own, but it seems people are far less excited about it these days. That situation may change at any given moment, which is part of what makes cryptocurrency so appealing.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have changed the way that we think about a lot of things: banking, finance, peer-to-peer payments, and so forth. One area that some in the community may have thought about is how useful cryptos could be as emergency funds. I received a request to write an article about cryptocurrencies for use in emergency funds and bug out bags, so I decided to take the opportunity to explore something that not everyone knows about.

Cryptocurrency in a Bug Out Bag

Some of you may be familiar with the concept of a bug out bag, or a sort of emergency exit package. For those of you who may not be as familiar, a bug out bag is a prepared bag that individuals pack for a future scenario where they may need to move (or “bug out,” hence the name) at a moment’s notice. As I understand it, these bags need to be light, portable, and compact.

Often, these bags include clothing, travel documents, food, cash, and other necessities. The idea is that, should the need arise, one can not only move quickly but also be prepared for almost any scenario.

Many readers will likely see where this is headed, but I wanted to explore the idea of replacing cash – in whole or in part – with cryptocurrencies. What are the advantages and disadvantages that cryptos can provide in this sort of instance?

One of the most obvious advantages is space and weight. Cash can be heavy and cumbersome, especially if one hopes to pack enough to make it worthwhile. Cryptos could be reduced down to the size of a hardware wallet, or even a humble paper wallet. This would leave more space for other essentials in a portable bag.

Another benefit is that while not anonymous, the pseudonymity associated with cryptocurrency can be appealing for someone who may be looking to change location. Speaking from a purely empirical point of view here, those funds would need to be secured outside of exchanges and the like if one wished to truly remain under the radar.

However, there are some significant disadvantages to using cryptos in one’s bug out bag. The first of these has already been hinted at. KYC laws could significantly hinder one’s ability to keep their crypto bug out assets separate from his or her identity, as is the aim of those laws.

The second disadvantage is a fairly big one as well: not everyone accepts Bitcoin. People are – for now, at least – more likely to accept cash than cryptos. Go to any neighborhood bar and try paying with a card, let alone Bitcoin, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Anyone with a bug out bag or considering using one would be at the mercy of merchants’ discretion to take cryptos should they replace their cash with cryptos.

Moreover, it also may be easier to lose that paper wallet or hardware wallet than it would be to lose cash, depending on the individual.

I hope this article was a fun little venture into something a bit different. I’ve never known anyone who had a bug out bag, but it seems like an interesting concept where cryptos may have a place. If you yourself have one prepared, does cryptocurrency have a place in yours?

It has become somewhat difficult not to repeat ourselves as far as the Bitcoin price is concerned this week. After a solid week overall, the Bitcoin price has reached its third all-time high of the past few days. With the value now sitting firmly above the US$7,500 mark, there is no way of telling when this party will end. Some people still feel BTC is vastly undervalued, which is a somewhat plausible assumption.

The Bitcoin Price Soars Past $7,500

Any expectations or predictions people may have made regarding the Bitcoin price earlier this year have been thrown out the window by now. Most year-end predictions pegged the value per Bitcoin at well below US$3,500. That particular milestone was reached successfully a few months ago. In hindsight, it seems that was only the beginning of what was to come for the Bitcoin price.

The past week especially has been filled with major milestones for the Bitcoin price. Not only did we surpass US$7,000 for the first time, but we also broke through the US$7,500 barrier. That in itself is pretty amazing, even though the vast majority of trading has revolved around speculation rather than the inherent value of Bitcoin. Then again, no one can accurately claim to know the real value of Bitcoin. Nor do we know if it should be expressed in terms of fiat currency either.

As of right now, the Bitcoin price is sitting at a level very few people ever expected to see. One Bitcoin is worth US$7,582 at the time of writing, which is a lot higher compared to January of this year. The year 2017 has been amazing for Bitcoin in the price department, although there is still a very real chance we will see a correction sooner or later. Especially with SegWit2x around the corner, volatility will only become more prevalent.

With the Bitcoin 24-hour trading volume still holding firm at US$2.3 billion, the demand for the world’s leading cryptocurrency isn’t diminishing whatsoever. That in itself is rather intriguing, especially considering that the weekend is usually a less-than-interesting time of the week for cryptocurrency trading. These past two weekends have proven to be very different as far as Bitcoin trading is concerned.

For the time being, Bitfinex remains the biggest exchange in terms of Bitcoin trading volume. Bithumb and bitFlyer round out the top three, as has been the case virtually every day this past month. Fiat currency markets are dominating the charts once again, as they represent eight out of ten trading pairs in the top 10 right now. The euro market is still lagging behind by quite a margin, though that has become rather common these days.

All things considered, the Bitcoin price remains a remarkable metric in the world of finance. For the time being, everyone should be excited about how things have evolved. However, one should be wary in light of the coming correction, as there will be a lot of blood on the streets. That is, assuming we will see a correction, rather than a straight push to US$10,000. Right now, anything is possible, especially where the Bitcoin price is concerned.

LiveEdu.tv is launching an Initial Coin Offering (ICO). LiveEdu is building the next-generation online learning Lynda.com fully decentralized on the blockchain. They want to disrupt the $46 billion online education market with smart contracts. Unlike many ICOs they have neither product development risk nor team risk as they already have a working product and an established team working together for two years.

There is the official pre-sale from Monday Nov. 6th to Nov. 20th and a public sale from Nov. 21st to Dec. 15th. The pre-sale will be closed as soon as the pre-sale hard cap of $500,000 is reached. The public sale will close within 48hrs of the first $4M dollars being raised.

Currently, there is no online education platform which teaches college students and professionals who have passed the beginner stage how to build real products from beginning to end. The solution is LiveEdu – a live and video tutorial learning platform where content creators teach learners how to build real products from the fields of programming, game development, data science, design, VR & AR, AI and cryptocurrencies. Their product has already been used by over 1,000,000 people from 194 countries including USA, Europe, China, Russia, Korea, Brazil, and MEA. More than 13,000 streamers (content creators) have created over 200,000 hours of video content.

LiveEdu is led by founder and CEO Dr. Michael J. Garbade. Their core team members are the same since launch; Alex Zhukov, and Ilya Toka and Muhammad Shoaib.  They are a young team of business guys, educators, backend engineers, frontend developers and tech marketers with work experience from Amazon, General Electric, Photobucket, Rebate Networks, Lashou and Mail.ru.

EDU tokens can be purchased directly using ether (ETH), bitcoins (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), fiat (USD/EUR), or indirectly with other coins via Shapeshift. Bonus starts from 25% to 50%. There is huge bonus for large volume purchases this week.  Contribute in the pre-ICO now and get a huge bonus!

Visit the official website and social media pages. Their telegram group or Email is the fastest way to communicate with the LiveEdu team.

Official ICO Website: https://tokensale.liveedu.tv/

Email: [email protected]

Telegram: https://t.me/liveeduico

Blog: https://medium.com/liveedu-ico

Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/liveedutv

Media Contact

Contact Name: Dr. Michael J. Garbade

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 speaking with a friend of mine in traditional finance recently and we began to talk crypto. He and I discussed the merits of both industries, exploring what each could learn from the other. I wanted to share some of what we discussed here.

What Traditional Markets Can Learn From Cryptos

One area that my friend was particularly vexed by was the amount of young people purchasing cryptocurrencies. He feels that young people are far more interested in purchasing cryptos for investment purposes than they are willing to open up a brokerage account, or even an IRA. He may be right in thinking this. There is a disturbingly high number of Americans – young and old – who are financially illiterate.

The cause of this is up for much debate, but one reason why I think cryptos have an edge with young investors is simply because they have not yet built up capital. Let me explain. To open a brokerage account and be able to really do anything with it, you need something called a “margin account.” This means that the trader only needs to put up a percentage of the necessary capital to hold a position. This is opposed to cash accounts where any position held must be backed fully. However, “hitting margin” for most trading platforms requires a liquid value of at least US$2,500. Considering that some studies show about 70% of Americans have less than US$1,000 to their name, the possibility to invest properly in the traditional markets is just unattainable.

Here’s where crypto thrives, and may be one of the reasons young people flock toward it. I can take the five dollars in my pocket, walk over to the Bitcoin ATM on my corner, and suddenly I’m in the crypto market. It’s that simple. While I may need to provide KYC information for exchanges if I want to buy or sell larger amounts, it is not necessary that I do so.

In short, the barrier to entry for crypto markets are just so much lower than they are in other markets. This is something that traditional markets should do their best to rectify if they hope to attract investment by younger people or those with lower capital.

What Crypto Can Learn From Traditional Markets

I’ll admit, I am a bit biased. I write for a cryptocurrency website, I hold cryptocurrencies, and I love the idea of cryptocurrencies. That being said, I can recognize that the traditional market does a few things right. For one thing, its taxes are way simpler, in my opinion. Though the blockchain makes it very easy to prove how much I bought at what price, then extrapolate gains or losses for tax purposes from there, it is just not nearly as convenient as getting the massive end-of-year tax report that broker platforms provide – though The Merkle has some great resources for doing your crypto taxes.

I also feel the sheer number of options for investing in traditional markets provides better opportunities to diversify one’s portfolio. Often, the price of alts is tied to the price movement of Bitcoin. This is not always the case, but it is enough of a trend that it makes me worry sometimes. This is why I think that adding options and futures trading on even more platforms (and I realize that some already do) would benefit the ecosystem.

Finally, I think that somehow people just “get” fiat currency markets more easily than they do crypto markets. The cryptocurrency markets should consider educational promotions so that potential investors better understand how cryptos work. If some are held back from investing because they follow Warren Buffett’s advice to not invest in things they do not understand, then we should be trying to help people understand.

This is not, nor should it be taken as, investing or trading advice. Always do your own independent research.