Day: November 9, 2017

Bitcoin Gold could launch as early as Sunday, per an announcement from its development team.

It’s been a crazy week for cryptocurrency enthusiasts as the digital asset ecosystem is still reeling over the canceled Segwit2x fork that was expected to take place on the Bitcoin network next week. Over the course of the past few weeks leading up to the planned 2MB Segwit2x hard fork, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) markets have doubled in value after hovering around $300 per BCH for weeks. Now the market has stabilized around the $625 region as the BCH network participants prepare for their own fork that’s just four days away.

Also read: Bitpico Claims Segwit2X is Still Alive Despite All Evidence to the Contrary

Bitcoin Cash Network and Markets Remain Vigilant After the Canceled BTC Fork Event

The Bitcoin Cash network is thriving as the decentralized currency’s value has spiked quite a bit over the past few weeks. At the moment the price per BCH is hovering around $625 as markets currently command roughly $830M worth of daily trade volume. The price of BCH has allowed it to hold the third highest market capitalization at $10.4B just below the ethereum market cap. BCH markets are still seeing lots of trade volume from the South Korean won, as the currency typically captures around 49 percent or more of the daily volumes. The exchange rate stemming from BCH currently makes it the third highest digital asset trade volume within the cryptocurrency landscape. The exchanges trading the most BCH include Bithumb, Hitbtc, Bitfinex, Bittrex, and Korbit.

Miners Have Started to Signal Intent to Fork the BCH Network

As the currency’s network hard fork approaches, the BCH chain is 8100 blocks ahead of the BTC chain. BCH this week is operating at 8 percent of the current BTC difficulty, and it’s 3.4 percent more profitable to mine BTC. Mining profitability and its fluctuations may change after the BCH network reconfigures the Difficulty-Adjustment-Algorithm (DAA). BCH miners are now signaling their intent to activate the fork and the change is estimated to occur around 2 pm EDT depending on hashrate speed.

Bitpay Prepares Users for the Bitcoin Cash Consensus Change

Because the fork is drawing closer the Atlanta-based company, Bitpay, has announced to its wallet users its plans for the BCH hard fork. The firm explains that with any blockchain protocol change it must always ensure that customer funds will be safe.

“For the November Bitcoin Cash protocol change, Bitpay and Copay wallets will follow the bitcoin cash chain with the most accumulated difficulty — With current miner signaling, this means that our wallets will be compatible with the new rules activated by the bitcoin cash mining majority,” explains Bitpay.

We don’t currently have any reason to think that this hard fork will be contentious or will result in a blockchain split for bitcoin cash. Users can continue to receive and send bitcoin cash transactions from their wallets up to, during, and after the hard fork protocol change.

Kim Dotcom Asks His Fans Which Cryptocurrency Will Dominate — BTC or BCH?  

Also this week the notorious Kim Dotcom started talking about bitcoin cash with his 671,000 followers. Dotcom asks his fans, “By 2021 which of these two is going to carry the larger volume of Internet payments?” With just 11 hours left remaining for the poll bitcoin (BTC) is leading by 64 percent and bitcoin cash (BCH) has 36 percent.

Overall the BCH community seems pleased with the currency’s growing ecosystem and many supporters believe next week’s fork will be smooth. With Segwit2x gone and the rest of the cryptocurrency competition constantly nipping at BTC’s heels many spectators will be focused on bitcoin cash.

What’s your thoughts on bitcoin cash at the moment? Do you think the hard fork approaching will be smooth? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Poloniex. 

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The post Bitcoin Cash Markets Remain Resilient As the Network’s Upgrade Approaches appeared first on Bitcoin News.

No one had imagined the surge in popularity of cryptocurrencies when Bitcoin came to the scene in 2009. The cryptocurrency scene has grown and so has the technology behind these digital currencies. Blockchain based technology is being adopted by banks, financial institutions, companies and even small businesses. Different cryptocurrencies have emerged which offer various benefits.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

There are block based currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum and non block based systems such as Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). In the DAG space there are further currencies like IOTA and Byteball. In this universe of blockchains, interoperability remains the missing panacea.  There is an increasing need for a cryptocurrency that cuts across various platforms, allows the movement of data and value seamlessly and provides a high level of security to its users. HCash an Australian-Chinese collaborative effort now promises to do just that.

What is HCash?

HCash is a cryptocurrency that will act as a sidechain for both block and non-block based blockchains. In simple terms, it will allow for transactions of both data as well as value (money) to happen between systems that can’t really exchange both easily at the moment. In this way HCash will also act as a Hive or even as a decentralised exchange. Security has been given due consideration by HCash. They are going to adopt Zero Knowledge Proof technology so as to achieve bi-directional encryption and protect user privacy. A mixed Proof of Work and Proof of Stake model will be adopted by HCash that will allow users of HCash to participate in decision making. There are other features that make HCash appealing as well like the DAO governance model that they have adopted and the ability to use both public and private addresses. HCash also allows holders to transfer unlimited times with a limited block size, irrespective of the speed or amount of transfer. A complete understanding of HCash works can be gained by reading the whitepaper that they have released.

A New Standard of Value for the Future

HCash is working to create a new standard of value. A new world in which information and value will finally flow unrestricted. The currency will allow the creation of a better blockchain that will help fuel development of applications that allow for a secure and decentralised way of conducting transactions. The fact that HCash is free from constraints that other cryptocurrencies suffer from like block validation time, make the currency attractive to users who like near instantaneous transactions. Limited token supply which is pegged at 84 million may contribute to future value of the currency itself.

The main feature of HCash is the fact that it allows for transactions to happen across blockchains but the cryptocurrency has other applications as well in different fields. HCash can be deployed in the FinTech, Industrial Internet, Big data and Artificial Intelligence as well as the Internet of Things (IOT) landscapes. In fact HCash based applications have already started emerging where it is being used as a part of Hyperchain Blockchain Technologies. Examples include the ENT Payment System which has been designed by the HCash Team that allows for secure interaction between fans and entertainers. Hyperpay, an Australian digital payment project is also using HCash.

Leading Quantum Computing Researchers Join HCash

The creators of HCash have made it future ready by incorporating post-quantum cryptography. HCash will be able to survive the rise of quantum computing. Four leading experts in quantum computing from the University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University Research Centre in Quantum Science and Technology and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University will lead research in developing a quantum attack resistant HCash. The experts are: Gavin Brennen, Associate Professor at Macquarie University, Miklos Santha,  Director of  Research at CNRS an Troy Lee, Associate Professort at Nanyang Technological University along with Dr. Marco Tomamichel, Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney. The focus on quantum computing assumes great importance as there is a US$ 160 billion incentive for attackers with access to quantum computers to destabilise the entire basis of security of cryptocurrencies. The four experts have previously authored a whitepaper investigating the advantage of quantum computing against cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The whitepaper even projects possible timeframe of the materialisation of such a threat. The four experts joining HCash will give the currency protection against any potential threats in the future.

New Coins for Old

At some point in the future there will be a token sale that will allow investors to gain access to Hshare. This currency is a precursor to Hcash and can be redeemed on a Hshare exchange or Hcash official team with Hcash on any online Hshare exchange. After approximately 10 months all acceptance and replacement will be completed and Hshare will be destroyed. Ultimately investors will be able to gain HCash. The open source code for Hshare ensures that there is transparency and users can confirm that the number of Hshare released is the same amount as the Hcash number specified in the whitepaper. In the end it will be market forces that determine the future of HCash but given the number of features that the cryptocurrency may offer and that it will allow in the future seamless exchanges between blockchain, it does have the potential to be a currency of choice for many cryptocurrency enthusiasts and even others who are yet to discover the joys of using digital currency.

Competition is heating up in the world of decentralized trading platforms. Projects focusing on peer-to-peer trading are of special importance to keep this industry alive and moving forward. It seems the SingularDTV team is on the right track in this regard, as it recently announced the SingularX platform. It’s an interesting creation, even though it seems somewhat limited in its functionality.

SingularX Decentralizes Intellectual Property Trading

People who have kept tabs on the SingularDTV project will know the team is working on some interesting products. Their Tokit product allows anyone in the world to tokenize his or her content and creations. Those who specialize in creating intellectual property of any sort will especially benefit from this particular solution. It remains to be seen how many people will actually use this service in the future, though.

To complement the Tokit service, SingularDTV recently unveiled a decentralized peer-to-peer trading platform for tokenized intellectual property. SingularX, as this platform is known, has now officially launched and is ready to be used. While it may sound like any other trading platform supporting digital tokens, there are some big differences. Empowering content creators is still the main purpose of the platform, but things work a bit differently under the hood as well.

More specifically, all of the transaction fees generated through SingularX are captured in the SNGX tokens. Most people know of SNGLS, which is the native token of the SingularDTV project as a whole. However, there is also a SNGX token which is part of the SingularX platform. Anyone who owns said tokens will automatically earn revenue from additional fees generated by the decentralized platform. It is unclear just how much money people stand to make from this particular venture, though.

It is one thing to put all this down on paper, but proving this tokenized ecosystem can be successful is something else entirely. In reality, there may not be a great appeal to this service. Only time will tell what the fate is of SingularX and any related projects. For now, however, it is best to keep an open mind. It is also worth noting the SNGX tokens have yet to be released to the public, and there is no indication when this will happen either. Having the platform up and running first before issuing the tokens is a rather interesting approach, though.

Some people may notice that EtherDelta and SingularX do not look all that different from one another. In fact, there are quite a lot of similarities between both platforms, as SingularX took inspiration from EtherDelata. As it happens, the creator of the latter platform consulted on the creation of SingularX over the summer of this year. It is good to see interested parties come together to create new solutions. Indeed, collaboration is key in the world of cryptocurrency and digital tokens.

While the SingularX platform as a whole sounds pretty interesting in its own right, it remains to be seen how popular it will actually be. In a way, its success hinges on that of Tokit. The synergy between these two platforms could yield positive results, but it may turn out to be a big burden as well. Only time will tell what the future holds for SingularX.

Ethereum is no stranger to coding crises and wallet mishaps; remember the bug back in July that allowed $30 million of Ether to be stolen from a popular Ethereum wallet client? Well it has happened again, and to the same Parity wallets that were compromised earlier this year.

A vulnerability resulted in the freezing of money in all Parity multi-signature wallets deployed after July 20^th when a developer ‘accidentally’ hit a vulnerable patch of code. Some estimates are as high as $280 million in Ether that can no longer be accessed or used by Parity users.

The company has been battling to recover its reputation from a previous code breech which allowed hackers to steal 150,000 ETH in July. The original embezzlement would have been a lot worse were it not for the actions of white hat hackers who helped to recover an additional 377,000 ETH.

Following July’s hack the company issued a patch for the exploit deploying a new library contract with the intention of fixing it. The new code contained another flaw which converted the wallet to a multi-sig wallet which can have ownership taken over.

The parity team made this blogpost to explain the situation:

“Following the fix for the original multi-sig issue that had been exploited on 19th of July (function visibility), a new version of the Parity Wallet library contract was deployed on 20th of July. However that code still contained another issue – it was possible to turn the Parity Wallet library contract into a regular multi-sig wallet and become an owner of it by calling the initWallet function. It would seem that issue was triggered accidentally 6th Nov 2017 02:33:47 PM +UTC and subsequently a user suicided the library-turned-into-wallet, wiping out the library code which in turn rendered all multi-sig contracts unusable since their logic (any state-modifying function) was inside the library.”

The company went on to state that no funds can be moved out of the multi-sig wallets and $152 million in Ether is believed to have been frozen.

Memories still linger from Ethereum’s darkest days of the DAO attack last year which resulted in the theft of $60 million of Ether. This exploit does not affect Ethereum as a whole but it has raised security concerns amongst the community. Fingers are now being pointed at the security of Ethereum and its smart contract coding language, Solidity. Some serious questions will be asked and it is likely that Parity could lose a large portion of its customers, if they ever get their crypto back.

The post Bugs Freeze Accounts Holding $280m worth of Ethereum Tokens appeared first on NEWSBTC.

The sports betting industry is plagued with various problems ranging from high fees to delayed payouts, complicated registration process, amount opacity, governmental control, and data storage. It is no wonder some players would rather risk it all with shadowy bookmakers, fueling an illegal market worth about $400 billion.

Blockchain technology offers an unprecedented degree of freedom, security, and accessibility by eliminating intermediaries and ushering new levels of transparency across a distributed and tamper-proof network. Leveraging this technology, EtherSport, a decentralised sports betting platform, aims to revolutionise the betting industry by providing a secure and safe platform for betting. To this end, EtherSport offers a simple and easy to use platform that guarantees players’ anonymity, safety, and prompt payouts while providing transparency of all financial transactions and the absence of hidden withdrawal fees. The platform does not have limits for the payoff nor centralized determination of the payoff coefficient, which is the norm for bookmaking companies from all over the world. Players on the platform are free to personally choose the coefficients when betting against each other.

The EtherSport network is based on Ethereum and powered by smart contracts. Traditional lotteries and bookmaker companies tends to waste a lot of manpower on betting validation and payouts and due to the inefficiency of the system and human factor, this often leads to the possibility of various fraud schemes. Smart contracts in EtherSport protocol eliminates these flaws and irregularities, acting as a secured and trusted escrow element within the network. By keeping all betting history on the blockchain, the network automatically ensures that there is a fair and distributed system of accountability for all users. The platform also guarantees unlimited winnings, with no limitations on betting amounts

EtherSport will launch its lottery 11 for testing early into Q1 of 2018. This will allow for preliminary, unsimulated testing. Shortly after this, Lottery 11 will be released fully, allowing users to wager ESC tokens on events. By Q2 2018, P2P betting will be enabled, whereby players can bet against each-other.

EtherSport ICO

EtherSport blockchain platform is launch-ready. However, in order to generate funds for marketing and promotion, the platform will conduct an ICO for its native ERC20 Ethereum-based token – EtherSportCoin (ESC).

ESC is the default token for purchasing lottery tickets on the platform. It can also be used as a way to earn (15% of the money raised from each lottery), or as a speculative commodity to trade on major exchanges. 100,000,000 ESC tokens will be created for market circulation, with 70% of these being distributed within the pre-ICO period (November 13th to November 19th) and the main ICO (November, 20th, to December, 20th). Soft cap for the campaign has been set at $500,000

EtherSport will invest the funds received during ICO in fully developing the project, implementing features and establishing a global marketing campaign. EtherSport platform will be launched regardless of what the ICO generates.

The EtherSport team has years of experience in the lottery and bookmaker industries. The project’s developers were one of the pioneers in terms of working with the blockchain and smart contracts.

To learn more, visit the EtherSport website.

The big news of Tuesday night is that the Parity wallet has been exploited once again. It is the second time the second-most popular Ethereum wallet has suffered from such a big issue. Around half a million ETH is currently frozen due to this bug. It is not a good sign for the Ethereum ecosystem by any means. However, it is doubtful we will see another bailout by the developers at this crucial stage.

Parity is Becoming a Liability for Ethereum

It is always easy to point blame in one direction or another. While finger-pointing won’t help anyone, it is also necessary to point out how issues like these are caused in the first place. Parity is one of the more popular Ethereum wallet clients to date. Surprisingly, it has dealt with two major exploits already, the latest of which is of grave concern. With around half a million ETH currently locked up as a result, things aren’t looking all that great by any means.

Unfortunately, our multi-sig is among those frozen. @ParityTech is working on the situation and will provide updates when available.

— Polkadot (@polkadotnetwork) November 7, 2017

As one would expect, this news affects ICOs as well. It seems the Polkadot ICO, for one, has had its funds frozen. It is unclear how big the total damage will be, as there are still reports coming in. All of this goes to show that Ethereum is a technology not suited for mainstream usage in its current form, as some issues still need to be worked out. This is to be expected in the early stages of development, though.

Trive CEO David Mondrus commented on this ordeal as follows:

“While Ethereum is a great language and platform, it’s important to remember that it’s still very early in its development and issues like this will arise. Diversification of funds, people, technology, and locations is key.”

This latest critical vulnerability was first discovered by Jincor CTO Andrey Degtyaruk, according to our sources. It is evident a lot of people are all too aware that bad things can happen to Ethereum users and wallets on a moment’s notice. Although bugs like this one are pretty rare, they certainly highlight some of the critical issues in the underlying infrastructure. For its part, Parity has issued its two cents on the new vulnerability and how it plans to move on from here.

According to the team, anyone with assets in multi-sig wallets deployed after July 20th may have suffered from this bug. The new Parity client deployed on this date included a fix for another multisignature issue reported a day prior. Someone has triggered this new exploit – probably accidentally – and made all multisig contracts unusable. It is impossible to move funds out of the affected contracts for the time being. A new update to fix this issue should be released soon, even though no official ETA has been provided yet.

Some users are already speculating that the Ethereum developers will have to perform another DAO hard fork to resolve this problem. It is still too early to say that is the only viable course of action at this stage. Assuming there is no other option, however, rolling back the blockchain for the second time in a few years would send major shockwaves throughout the Ethereum community. After all, the Ethereum blockchain already has a precedent for not being immutable whatsoever. For now, it is up to the Parity team to come up with a less invasive solution than a rollback.

Germany’s top finance regulator has issued an investor warning on initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The Blockchain and its associated technologies and uses have piqued the interest of everyone from Bitcoin newbies, Wall Street bankers, but probably more importantly, entrepreneurs and developers.

The application and usage of Blockchain technology, as well as tokenization, is rightly being touted as the next technological wave that will disrupt and revolutionize the technology space as we know it.

With this being known and widely accepted, it begs the question why there is not a mass uptake of businesses and start up latching onto the potential of the Blockchain. But the truth is, utilizing the Blockchain successfully is still a difficult and time consuming operation.

There are many different legal regulations to try and tip-toe around. There is the difficulty and launching and maintaining an active token ecosystem through an ICO, which can also detract from the core business. And there is the development and implementation issues too.

Simplifying tokenization through Simple Token

Simple Token has come to the fore as a potential option for simplifying the process of getting developers onto the Blockchain and utilizing the technologies power. The idea is that Simple token can act as a foundation of a Blockchain business for a company to build upon, rather than building from scratch.

Simple Token allows companies to create, manage, and launch their own branded digital token based on Simple Token, allowing them the use of side chains and the Blockchain ledger for its multiple uses.

This thus allows the company to utilize the Blockchain, have their own form of digital token, but there is none of the afore mentioned difficulties that come with minting their own coin.

Powered by their OpenST Protocol, Simple Token believes that allowing companies to stake their new branded token upon their Simple Token, the company then has an open scalable side Blockchain which functions in a cryptographically auditable manner.

Closing the gap

Because this new technology exists and is making great strides, there is already an arms race of sorts for companies to try and squeeze the most out of it. However, not all companies have the resources or the know how to even enter the Blockchain.

To this end, Simple Token is looking to be the bridge that crossed the gap, allowing any developer or app builder to be a part of the Blockchain revolution. This pushes out the level of ambition and ingenuity and allows for companies to not be left behind.

The technology is burgeoning and growing every day with no one knowing its true limits or reaches However, but opening it up further, and simplifying the process, Simple Token could well be pushing the limits even further.

With more innovations being given a chance to use the Blockchain without the hassles and drawbacks, there can be further growth and development of the scope of the Blockchain.

The post Simplifying Tokenization: A Bridge to the Blockchain appeared first on NEWSBTC.

Every once in a while, new technology emerges and completely transforms the way humans live. During the dot-com era, the buzzword “internet” had all of the spotlight. It was growing extremely fast and spreading globally. Millions of people has joined the movement and funded everything related to internet technologies, from marketplaces to internet content distributors, such as broadcast.com.

At that time, people had absolutely no doubt that this was a total-game changer and that the sector was floated with capital, and venture capitalists began fighting each other for investment opportunities. In economic terms, the supply of capital ­­­­­exceeded the supply of proper investment opportunities; too few companies shared too much capital, which led to a crash and market crystallization.

Below is a pattern that occurred during the dot-com era:

1.    Revolutionary technology arrives and becomes available to consumers (internet).
2.   People become aware of how impactful it is and direct their resources towards the new technology.
3.   Investors start funding every team which has at least minimum experience related to a new thing and an idea (white paper)
4.   Other people see how easy it is to raise a capital because it is something new. The supply of investment opportunities is still low, and more teams with their ideas (white papers/business plans) join the movement. However, they are competing with already existing teams for capital, so they add prototypes to their presentations. Now we have teams with white papers and teams with prototypes/MVPs joining the competition.
5.   News on a “revolutionary technology” is already a mainstream and capital is already in, therefore the supply of it is slowing down. Entrepreneurs still see it as an enormous opportunity, so they continue flooding in. Supply/demand equilibrium starts reversing: companies/investment opportunities are joining faster than capital. New teams are looking for investments and it is now not enough just to have a white-paper or prototype — they need to have a client base and validated idea/market.

And here we see an investment ladder of new emerging technologies:

• Teams with white papers
• Teams with white papers and prototypes.
• Teams with a validated idea and a client base, because the market is maturing

As we can see, most internet-related start-ups are in the last phase. In order to get funding, they must have a validated idea and a client base. Invalidated business ideas have an extremely high chance of failure due to lack of market relevance.

And what does all of this have to do with the blockchain sector?

It follows a similar pattern:

• Teams with white papers join the game: golem, firstblood, melon-port, iconomi, etc.
• Teams with white papers and prototypes come in, even if most of the prototypes are not really functioning: bancor, status, aragon, and pretty much almost every crypto project today.
• Finally, teams with a validated idea and a client base arrive: OmiseGo

Now, let’s check how similar the pattern is to the dot-com era:

• Blockchain will change the entire economy, just as the internet did: Check
• Blockchain is in the mainstream news: Check
• In the last 12 months, capital from investors flooded in faster than proper investment opportunities with validated ideas: Check
• More companies with a validated business model and a client base are joining the game: Check

It’s time to crowdfund actual start-ups with validated business ideas and a verified client base, not just white-papers.

And that’s exactly who we are. Check out our already-functioning business raising funds through the blockchain — Pressco.

What is Pressco? It is an e-commerce platform that allows communities and companies to start their own clothing and merchandise brand by reducing their initial costs to absolute zero.

Pressco already run 60+ online shops in markets such as Germany, France, Canada, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and now is looking for Series A investement (hard cap:7000ETH) through the blockchain.

Find out more, visit Pressco webpage http://www.pressco.io

Telegram: https://t.me/joinchat/F-JF5BGwBZqXYOD-2vLHGg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PresscoICO/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Pressco_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.

Communications lead at Parity said the team will not push for an emergency hard fork to recover some $150 million in locked-up ether funds.