Day: November 9, 2017

Despite a serious vulnerability being discovered in ethereum wallet Parity, ether prices have climbed today.

FLUX, a global decentralized gaming ecosystem based on blockchain technology, announces the release of MVP. This is the first solution in the e-sports market that provides decentralized interaction of gamers, viewers and the platform itself. We offer an ecosystem that provides multi-level interactivity of the game process, as well as it gives players numerous new channels of monetization of cybersport achievements that are not available on existing platforms.

Being a platform for competitive games and tournaments, a market for game products, a platform for online broadcasting of games and funding of game projects, our team has decided to follow the MVP release with a Counter Strike: Global Offensive tournament. By participating in it players will be able to win prizes and “game” tokens that will be changed to actual FLUX tokens after the ICO campaign!

“FLUX unites two huge industries (crypto and gaming) and benefits both. The gaming industry is one of the fastest developing industries in the world, but nevertheless its potential is much larger than it seems.” says FLUX CEO Alexandr Sushko, “We see blockchain and crypto currency in conjunction with competently built ecosystem for gamers as an excellent solution for the industry.”

We invite everyone to take part in the token pre-sale starting December 1st, 2017. Note that FLUX supports smart investments with the help of personal escrow which allows investors to keep their project investment process under control and make themselves safe from financial losses. Each investor can withdraw 85% of their funds any time. Escrow is a strong insurance that funds attracted via an ICO are correctly used according to the initial agreements.

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.

Blockchain technology-based ICOs are still in their “infancy,” and the stock exchange is still the best bet for raising company capital: Nasdaq vice chairman.

Governments are attempting to recreate the success of bitcoin and decentralized cryptocurrencies like Ethereum with the development of permissioned ledgers and state-owned digital currencies.

Unfortunately, for governments, centralized cryptocurrencies and permissioned blockchain networks will not succeed and ever secure a fraction of bitcoin’s user base for a simple reason: the lack of decentralization and a peer-to-peer protocol.

Myth of Blockchain

Over the past 12 months, blockchain technology has been marketed as a magical technology behind bitcoin that allows any banking system or financial network to achieve the same level of immutability of bitcoin. However, that has evidently been falsified in the past year, given the lack of success by the blockchain industry in commercializing the so-called “permissioned ledgers.”

Like engineers cannot attach the identical engines used to build high performance aircraft to automobiles because of the incompatibility between the two technologies, blockchain technology behind bitcoin and other public cryptocurrencies like Ethereum cannot be integrated into centralized banking systems.

There exists a myth within the global financial sector that blockchain technology powers the bitcoin network, when in fact blockchain technology merely operates as a database within the bitcoin protocol to store and record transactions. As bitcoin and security expert Andreas Antonopoulos previously explained, blockchain is not the technology behind bitcoin, but one of the four fundamental technologies of bitcoin that needs to synergize with three key technologies to function.

“Blockchain is the technology behind bitcoin. Which is incorrect. Blockchain is one of the four foundational technologies behind bitcoin and it can’t stand alone. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to sell it. Blockchain is bitcoin with a haircut and a suit you parade in front of your board. It is the ability to deliver sanitized clean comfortable version of blockchain of bitcoin to people who are too terrified of actually disruptive technology,” said Antonopoulos.

Citigroup CEO Falsely Believes Governments Can Restrict Bitcoin

At Bloomberg’s Year Ahead summit in New York, Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat stated that governments will introduce digital currencies to compete with bitcoin.

“I don’t think governments are going to take lightly other people coming in and potentially disrupting their abilities around data, around tax collection, around money laundering, around know-your-customer. It’s likely that we’re going to see governments introduce, not cryptocurrencies — I think cryptocurrency is a bad moniker for that — but a digital currency,” said Corbat.

It has been obvious over the past two years that governments are limited in what they can restrict with bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. If governments intend to regulate bitcoin, traders and users will simply migrate to over-the-counter markets, which are significantly harder to regulate. Hence, governments have opted to regulate the space instead, with major markets like Japan and South Korea legalizing bitcoin as a currency and providing necessary regulatory frameworks to deal with the cryptocurrency.

As bitcoin continues to be adopted by the mainstream as a robust store of value and a safe haven asset, fallacious statements intentionally provided by executives and public figures within the traditional financial industry will be rejected by general consumers.

The post Government Cryptocurrencies Won’t be Able to Compete With Bitcoin, Here’s Why appeared first on NEWSBTC.

There is plenty of competition in the world of robotics and artificial intelligence. At the same time, it is not uncommon for employees to move away from their companies and start their own businesses. A few researchers recently decided to leave a firm founded by Elon Musk and go into business for themselves. Their new company will focus on robotics of all kinds. Their first demo involves a robot doing housework, which has been well received by the industry so far.

More Competition in the Robotics Industry

There is always room for more competition in the world of robotics and artificial intelligence. Not everyone agrees with the direction the company they work for is headed. That is only normal, as it is this “disconnect” which often creates new innovation and more wholesome products. Whether or not that will be true in the case of Embodied Intelligence remains to be seen. All its employees have plenty of experience in the field, which will certainly be put to good use in the months ahead.

More specifically, the individuals comprising the upper brass of Embodied Intelligence all used to work for OpenAI, a research lab created by Elon Musk. The team will be looking to focus their collective expertise in whichever direction they decide to head in moving forward. There are dozens of opportunities waiting to be explored right now, as this industry is still in its infancy for the most part.

It seems their main purpose is to conduct further research into the world of robotic automation. This will not just apply to companies and warehouses, mind you. In a perfect scenario, the new company hopes to make everyday life at home a lot better and easier than it is now. That’s quite an ambitious goal, although it is not entirely impossible to achieve either. After all, the company showed a video of one of its robots performing housework during a recent conference. This may be a glimpse of what the future holds for Embodied Intelligence.

So far, the young company has a rather small amount of funding in place to get the ball rolling. More specifically, US$7 million isn’t all that much for a company focusing on AI and robotics. Then again, one has to start somewhere. Previous experience alone is not enough to convince investors to sign on right away, which is only to be expected. With this funding, the company aims to tackle complex algorithms which will allow machines to learn tasks on their own. This is a pretty interesting area of research, to say the very least.

Creating teachable robots will certainly introduce a lot of changes to the world of AI and robotics as a whole. There are some intriguing possibilities waiting to be tapped in this regard. While machine learning has seen some major developments over the past few years, bringing the concept to consumers has proven rather difficult. It is possible Embodied Intelligence will succeed where others have failed, although it is still too early to tell how things will develop. Making robots smarter in general is an option well worth exploring.

In the end, one has to keep in mind that Embodied Intelligence will still compete with OpenAI and many others in this particular industry. It is good to see the new company take a slightly different approach, however. Allowing robots to learn is an initiative that’s quickly gaining traction all over the world. Even organizations such as Google and Carnegie Mellon University are working on similar projects. Automation will be a big part of the future of our society; that much no one can deny.

Reports of 2X’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That’s according to a statement issued by little-known mining group Bitpico. In a defiant message that appeared on a mailing list, Bitpico claimed to control 30% of the network hashrate and to be pressing ahead with the B2X fork regardless.

Also read: Closing the Curtains On Segwit2x and the Following Aftermath

The Zombie Fork That Just Won’t Die

The message posted by Bitpico raised the prospect of Segwit2x being resurrected within hours of being laid to rest. The original statement halting the proposed fork to the bitcoin network, signed by Mike Belshe and five other major backers, unequivocally said:

We are suspending our plans for the upcoming 2MB upgrade.

Bitpico elected to ignore this memo however, averring that they would press ahead with the hard fork nevertheless because “everything is set in motion”. They continued:

Backing down the difficulty right now is a strategy. Wonder why 30% network hash-rate disappeared? It’s ours; the miners that will continue what is set in motion. A handful of humans cannot stop what they have no control over.

The audaciousness of the claim garnered a lot of attention, and opened the door to the intriguing possibility of Segwit2x living on. Closer scrutiny of the little-known Bitpico group reveals a few anomalies however. In particular, their claim to control 30% of the hashrate doesn’t appear to hold up.

Who the Hell Are Bitpico?

No sooner had the name #BitPico begun trending on Twitter than the group’s statement was picked apart and their very identity called into question. It was pointed out that there is little evidence of Bitpico’s existence prior to September of this year, and their claim to own a significant proportion of hashing power seems fanciful to say the least. As Wikipedia might put it, “citation needed”.Regardless of who Bitpico is/are, what’s beyond dispute is that the last-minute cancellation of Segwit2X has created winners and losers. This latter group would have to include those traders who were boldly snapping up B2X futures until a day ago for as much as 0.1 btc. Segwit2X futures crashed by over 85% upon news of the fork being called off. For traders who were long on B2X, Bitpico’s proposal may present a get out of jail card, or at least the hope of some kind of redemption.

Critics of Bitpico’s proposal to revive Segwit2X were swift to attribute the group’s motivation to a black hole they may have futures traded themselves into. Leading up to the proposed split, a number of traders confidently snapped up B2X futures, going so far as to boast of their investment and its likely success.

Drama and FUD Intensifies

On a day that was high on drama for everyone in bitcoin, Bitpico’s statement, which was posted from a Microsoft iCloud address, added another delicious twist to proceedings. Following the cancellation of Segwit2X, numerous exchanges announced that they were monitoring the situation, with Coinbase tweeting that they would “provide an update in the coming days”.

While the vast majority of individuals in the bitcoin community welcomed the abandonment of Segwit2X, there are still those who see the fork, with its promise of bigger block sizes, as an opportunity lost. Bitpico may have been genuine or may simply have been trolling in a bid to spread further FUD. One thing’s for sure: theirs won’t be the last attempt to try and push through another hard fork.

Do you think Segwit 2X still has any chance of happening? Let us know in the comments section below.

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The post Bitpico Claims Segwit2X is Still Alive Despite All Evidence to the Contrary appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Cointelegraph readers disagree with SegWit2x dump, could reappear.

Several high-profile ICO issuers have been affected by the Parity exploit, which has left more than $150 million in ether frozen.

Following the suspension of the Segwit2x hard fork, bitcoin prices rose to new record highs yesterday, before falling to a low of $7,058 today.

A lot of things are happening in the world of cryptocurrency, but nothing good has come of it for the Bitcoin price. In fact, it is thanks to the Bitcoin price drop we see so many different altcoins successfully rise in value again. Especially the NEO price is getting a lot of attention, mainly thanks to it surpassing $32.5 once again.

NEO Price is on the Move

It is quite interesting to see how things evolving in the world of cryptocurrency. Whereas most people expected the Bitcoin price to blaze the trail all the way to $8,000 things have certainly turned out in a very different manner. Altcoins are now forced to go up in BTC value to maintain their USD value. A very interesting trend, although it can still reserve at any given moment. If this trend keeps up, the Bitcoin reign will be over again for a few weeks, if not months.

Although it is still too early to tell whether or not altcoin season is back in place, the NEO price is certainly moving up as we speak. More specifically, this popular altcoin has seen remarkable growth over the past few hours, culminating in a solid 22.29% gain. Do keep in mind this gain is just in US Dollars, as NEO also gained on Bitcoin by as much as 28.03%. This correlation between Bitcoin and altcoins is slowly turning in favor of currencies that aren’t Bitcoin.

Whether or not the NEO price will remain at this level or perhaps even push further, remains to be determined. It is certainly true there is a lot of positive momentum in the altcoin sector right now. In fact, currencies such as NEO are keeping the overall market cap above $200bn, all the while pushing the Bitcoin Dominance Index back below 58.5%. An interesting metric to keep an eye on in the coming days, that much is certain.

The NEO price is also moving up thanks to a pretty solid trading volume over the past 24 hours. With $156.2m in NEO trading volume, things are looking pretty solid. This particular altcoin has a lot more trading volume than most other currencies in the top 10 right now. It also highlights the “pumpy” nature of altcoins in the top 10, as those with lesser volume and normal gains are the ones people often refuse to speculate on. NEO, unfortunately, is incredibly speculative first and foremost.

Surprisingly, Bitfinex is not the biggest exchange in terms of NEO trading volume. Instead, Bittrex is clearly leading the charge with $58.82m in volume. Binance is also in the top three, which is a pretty interesting development. A lot of people are actively converting their Bitcoins to NEO – and other altcoins – right now as they are looking to retain their portfolio’s value in fiat currency. Staying in Bitcoin seems to have the adverse effect right now, but that may change in the very near future.

It is unclear where the Bitcoin price will be heading in the coming days. The ball is clearly in the camp of altcoins, but all good things must come to an end eventually. Moreover, there are a lot of gains for NEO already, which almost seems to indicate this is a pure pump-and-dump cycle. An interesting weekend is ahead of us, that much is evident. No one knows where this trend will end for the NEO price, though, that much is certain.