Day: November 18, 2017

Correlations between traditional finance and cryptocurrency are not hard to find these days. Investors want exposure to Bitcoin but without most of the risks. Speculation on the Bitcoin price is their main objective first and foremost. New investment vehicles on Switzerland’s Six Exchange AG may provide the solution people have been asking for. It allows investors to profit if the Bitcoin price dips while limiting loss risk at the same time.

Betting on the Bitcoin price is always a major gamble. Some people may call it “investing”, but it is gambling of the purest kind. Enough shorts against Bitcoin can easily trigger a price decrease. However, there is always a certain risk associated with this process, as cryptocurrency markets are unpredictable. Two Swiss companies have come together to create a new mainstream solution. Their product can be traded on Six Exchange AG. It provides investors with “bearish” opportunities. Rest assured there will be some great interest in this product moving forward.

A New Mainstream Speculative Bitcoin Price Vehicle

More specifically, the demand for Bitcoin certificates is increasing. This is especially true in Switzerland, for some unknown reason. While speculation on price increases is common, the market can swing the other way as well.  Giving investors an option to hedge their positions or go short in a mainstream fashion is pretty interesting. Vontobel AG claims this is the best decision given current market demand. An interesting approach, although the success remains to be determined.

Providing this opportunity to regular investors is pretty significant. It will introduce more people to the world’s leading cryptocurrency as well. If all of these people go short, the momentum may turn against Bitcoin. It may not impact the price right away, though. Given the price gains during 2017, opening a short seems logical. Then again, the Bitcoin price set a new all-time high earlier this week. A very unpredictable market to take advantage of, that much is certain.

The most interesting aspect is the limited loss potential. This new vehicle has a multi-month maturity. At the same time, investors can exit early like any other instruments. It remains to be seen how much interest there will is in this new product, though. Initial feedback seems to be positive, which is to be expected. We see more crossovers between traditional finance and Bitcoin these days. That can only be considered to be a positive trend, all things considered.

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock

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The first ever LedgerX long-term bitcoin futures option pegs the cryptocurrency price at $10,000 by next December.

Blockchain business in Slovenia: laws, opportunities, and prospects. How beneficial is the country’s environment for investors and startup organizers? Is this ecosystem developed, and what do the laws say? These issues will be revealed by speakers of Blockchain & Bitcoin Conference Slovenia.   

Among the invited speakers:  

• Jure Pirc, the President of Blockchain Association Slovenia
• John Collins, Head of Red Flag USA – Global communications and strategic consultancy
• Yuri Sidorovich, the Managing Partner and Forensic leader for Deloitte’s Adriatic Region
• Matjaž Slak, Evaluations Team Lead at Cofound.it
• Vit Jedlicka, President of Liberland
• Aleks Bozhinov, Business Coach. Serial Entrepreneur. Ex-Googler

The conference will allow participants to discuss stages of the blockchain and cryptocurrency acceptance in Slovenia, prospects of their integration in various business, financial, and government control areas, as well as the legal regulation.

One of conference novelties is a startup speech: each participant of the innovation exhibition will be able to make a brief presentation of their projects in the conference room. It is an excellent opportunity for startups to be heard and for investors to find prospective projects for investing.

The conference will include a panel discussion about the blockchain regulation in Slovenia. Guests will be able to listen to opinions of government officials, leaders of the Blockchain Association of Slovenia, and consulting company specialists.

Date of the event: December 12.

Venue: Dunajska cesta 18, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia (Ljubljana Exhibition and Convention Center)

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Even though the opinions on Bitcoin Cash are divided, the cryptocurrency is maturing pretty quickly. Some people often claim liquidity is the most important aspect of a cryptocurrency. Whether or not that is true, remains to be seen. One thing that is certain is how BCH is listed on a lot of exchanges right now. Things have evolved pretty well for a currency not too many people gave a fighting chance in the early days.

Looking at the list of exchanges supporting Bitcoin Cash, there are some big names. Bittrex, Kraken, OKex, Bithumb, Korbit, and Binance are just some of the examples. This list has grown steadily over the past few months. Moreover, it is expected this list will keep on growing for some time to come. Demand for BCH is reaching new heights every other week right now. Filling this demand will not be easy without sufficient liquidity.

Things are Looking Good for Bitcoin Cash

With Changelly and ShapeShfit on board as well, obtaining BCH is pretty easy. There is also a LocalBitcoinCash platform, which works similar to LocalBitcoins. The ecosystem is firing on all cylinders right now, that much is rather evident. How all of this will evolve in the next few months, remains to be seen. The momentum is in favor of this altcoin right now.

One thing still lacking somewhat is cryptocurrency debit card support. Although not a pure way to spend BCH, it would make Bitcoin Cash more usable. Bitcoin users have benefited from such debit cards for several years. There are rumors a few companies are looking into adding BCH support as we speak. So far, it seems rather quiet on this front, but things are always changing behind the scenes.

In the end, exchange support is one thing. Getting merchants on board is something else. Although a few companies accept BCH payments, there is no “game changer” in this regard yet. If BitPay were to get on board, things could get very interesting. There are a few alternative solutions available, such as Rocktr, although it is rather expensive. It is an interesting altcoin to keep an eye on for many different reasons. Things may turn out very different from what most people would expect.

Header image courtesy of Shutterstock

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Fred Ehrsam, co-founder of the popular cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and GDAX, believes that virtual reality could be blockchain’s “killer app”. The Merkle decided to list those projects which are combining these two swiftly advancing technologies.

Decentraland

Decentraland’s blockchain-based world redefines the concept of blockchain data as a form of ownership. As the “first virtual platform owned by its users”, Decentraland wants its users to grab a VR headset and use a web browser to immerse themselves in a 3D interactive world.

On the Decentraland platform, LAND ownership is maintained via Ethereum smart contracts. Each parcel has unique (x,y) coordinates, an owner, and a reference to the content description file. The reference points to files that render the content for each parcel, stored on the battle-tested BitTorrent and Kademlia DHT networks.

Decentraland foresees a virtual world in which new content can be spatially explored and discovered.

Indiesquare

Indiesquare created Bitcoin VR, a game on the Steam VR gaming marketplace. Bitcoin VR enables players to walk around the Bitcoin blockchain – denoted by vector-esque graphics – and see transactions processed through their headsets. The simulation of live Bitcoin transactions takes place in a setting called “Forest of Satoshi”, and players can even prune the network with a bow and arrow.

Using the first VR Bitcoin block explorer, geeky Bitcoiners can now see a real-time Bitcoin transaction happen in VR. The Bitcoin transactions fall from the sky in the form of gems, and one can either grab them to see transaction details or shoot them with a bow and arrow.

Voxelus

This single multiplayer VR game takes place in a 3D environment. Gamers can hold 3D assets on the Voxelus marketplace called Voxels. These convertible digital assets can be converted into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether on the Uphold platform. The digital token unit, earned by uploading content and selling it on the marketplace, can even be used to buy equity stake in a company. Voxelus was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Halsey Minor, who also started CNET and Salesforce.com. He wants Voxels (VOX) to even be used to buy equity in privately-held Voxelus Inc.

AR Token

This decentralized AR/VR ecosystem for the exchange of 3D content was launched by a well-known player in the space, Cappasity. This company is known for 3D digitizing audits, as well as applications for augmented and virtual reality. Cappasity is building a platform to enable AR/VR/3D content generation. Each content file is assigned an ID or a hash stored on the blockchain to prevent copyright infringement. Once a content transaction has been completed, its details will be processed to a smart contract protocol.

Nanome (Matryx)

Nanome’s main business is the design of VR interfaces for its pharmaceutical clients. It’s based at the University of California at San Diego, and its Calcflow, Nano-Pro, and Nano-One products are already in use by the world’s largest research and development labs.

The company is hoping to bring its suite of VR products to the blockchain with its decentralized collaboration platform, Matryx. MTX tokens will incentivize collaboration on the platform. The company’s early focus is on the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

A pharmaceutical company, university or government will be able to post a bounty on the Matryx platform. Users can then find or be assigned the bounty in VR, and design and submit solutions. The winning designer will be compensated at the end of each competition-style round. The pharmaceutical company and solution designer will share in the revenue.

There is lots going on in the world of virtual reality and blockchain. There’s even a group dedicated to the topic on Facebook.

Paris – PikcioChain, the Blockchain-based exchange for personal data, has been integrated into BNP Paribas’ prestigious fintech accelerator run in conjunction with innovation platform, Plug and Play, at Station F, the world’s largest startup campus.

BNPP/PlugandPlay have welcomed PikcioChain into the programme’s Fintech cohort to further develop its innovative solution for the secure storage and exchange of valuable personal data.

“Over 400 businesses applied for a place on BNP Paribas’ fintech accelerator programme, so to have been one of the ten selected for a three month placement is a huge boost and confirmation of the quality of Pikcio’s Blockchain-based personal data solution,” said Didier Collin de Casaubon, CEO of MatchupBox, the company behind PikcioChain.

“We’ve been developing PikcioChain for over three years and are just days away from the launch of Pikcio Tokens. These tokens will hold the smart contracts that regulate data exchange within PikcioChain and also act as a means of monetizing personal data.

“With the launch in mind, there’s no doubt that the award of a place on the accelerator programme couldn’t have come at a better time for us.”

KYC and much more

During the three month placement, the team at Pikcio will work with BNP Paribas to develop a pilot project that solves a number of issues relating to the portability of data for KYC and customer onboarding purposes.

As a data portability solution, Pikcio is format-agnostic and is offered as a ‘plug and play’ platform that businesses can integrate quickly and easily into existing systems. This versatility means it is capable of being used for a wide range of situations and for various purposes beyond KYC.

“Pikcio’s flexibility means it can be used across industries and for purposes as diverse as KYC or medical data exchange, all the way through to the trading of data for marketing purposes,” said Didier Collin de Casaubon.

“It’s with this versatility in mind that we’re already talking to BNP Paribas about using PikcioChain in other applications across different business lines within the bank.

“Thanks to our proprietary Blockchain technology and our ‘use cases’ templating approach, we’re able to provide testable solutions that can be deployed very quickly, enabling our clients to scale up easily to cope with the complexity of the data they want to manage.

“As the EU’s GDPR regulations come closer to implementation in 2018, organisations in all sectors need to find solutions that can verify personal data, store it securely and at the same time, provide incorruptible audit trails. PikcioChain has been designed to do exactly this, and does it so well that it has caught the eye of the team at BNP Paribas.”

As well as the further development of Pikcio during the accelerator programme, Didier and his team have also been preparing for the launch of PikcioTokens (PKC) on 24 November. As PKC is not primarily designed to be a cryptocurrency, MathcupBox is also considering raising further capital through a traditional equity sale.

More information about PikcioChain and the upcoming launch of PKC can be found on the PikcioChain website and by joining the conversation on Telegram: Join the conversation on our Telegram group: https://t.me/joinchat/FnQXtxIUPkLYFKcSnD5JsA

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.

Two Japanese companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange have recently expanded their cryptocurrency operations into South Korea. One has partnered with a local company to launch a bitcoin exchange with a plan to add merchant services. The other held an ICO to develop a crypto exchange after launching a mobile game which allows users to earn bitcoin.

Also read: Bitcoin-Based Ethereum Rival RSK Set to Launch Next Month

Bitpoint Korea

Remixpoint Inc (3825.T), which operates the bitcoin exchange Bitpoint in Japan, recently launched a cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea called Bitpoint Korea.

To launch this exchange, the company partnered with a Korean company called Sys & Tech which develops Forex margin automated trading systems. “In this business tie-up, we supply virtual currencies and liquidity to the virtual currency trading system, while Sys & Tech will be responsible for [its] operations including marketing and customer correspondence. We will revitalize the Korean virtual currency market,” Remixpoint claimed.

Cryptocurrency services offered through the partnership include an exchange, spot transaction services, and money transmission services. The exchange currently supports BTC, BCH, and ETH. For further expansion into the Korean market, the company plans to provide merchant payment solutions to retail stores in the near future.

Metapsplus’ Coinroom

Headquartered in Tokyo, Metaps Inc (6172.T) is an app monetization platform which uses artificial intelligence and big data to maximize app revenue and optimize campaign performance. Its Korean subsidiary, Metapsplus Inc, develops mobile advertisement platforms.

The subsidiary raised approximately 1.1 billion yen in a token sale last month to develop and operate a cryptocurrency exchange called Coinroom, which it recently beta-launched. Coinroom currently lists BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC and the company’s own token called pluscoin (PLC).

Prior to launching Coinroom, Metapsplus launched a mobile game called Dig Land which it says players can earn bitcoin from. The game is available in 141 countries, the company detailed. Characters in the game dig minerals buried in the ground using various equipment and receive rewards in-game. The company says that there are several ways to earn bitcoin within the game including digging minerals and solving puzzles.

Competition and Regulatory Environment

The Korean won is currently the third most traded currency for bitcoin by volume, behind only the Japanese yen and US dollar. Bithumb is the country’s largest bitcoin exchange with about 70% of domestic bitcoin market share, followed by Coinone and Korbit. Last month, a platform with over 110 cryptocurrencies beta-launched. This platform, Upbit, is operated by Kakao Stock, a stock trading platform based on the country’s most popular chat app Kakao Talk.

While both Japan and South Korea are among top countries for cryptocurrency trading, they have very different regulatory environments. Japan has made bitcoin a legal method of payment, whereas South Korea is still working on its regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. In addition, Japan does not have specific laws governing initial coin offerings (ICOs), while Korea has banned them.

Do you think more Japanese companies will expand into South Korea? Do you think they can gain some market share? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Bitpoint, and Metaps.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

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While automation and technological innovation should be embraced rather than opposed, they are not foolproof solutions by any stretch of the imagination. Arresting criminal suspects based on information provided by a computer program is not acceptable. A UK human rights group has expressed concern over these practices, claiming that such systems are “advisory” rather than “necessary”.

Police and Algorithm-based Tools

It is evident there are a lot of exciting developments taking place in the world of algorithms and artificial intelligence. Not all of this change is considered positive, which is only to be expected at this point in time. More specifically, when it comes to law enforcement agencies arresting and detaining suspects based on information provided to them by a computer program, there is every reason to balk. That’s especially the case if such programs tell police that certain individuals “may be offenders” in the absence of credible evidence to back up those claims.

So far, we have seen various law enforcement agencies all over the world show a keen interest in taking computer algorithms into account when arresting perpetrators. This is a very fine line to walk, as algorithms are not 100% correct whatsoever. While it is commendable that police experiment with new technologies, such analyses always have to be taken with a grain of salt. Identifying potential suspects based on computer software alone is not the answer; that much is evident. If false positives are generated, innocent people will often not only be arrested but also locked up for an extended period.

Over in the United Kingdom, a human rights organization is arguing with MPs over the potential implications of this new technology. The organization is very concerned about the discriminatory nature of these algorithms. Profiling potential perpetrators based on their location, gender, and past behavior is not an exact science. With the number of such algorithms rising at a rapid rate, it is only prudent that MPs take the time to evaluate their potential repercussions.

Police in Durham, England are using this sort of algorithm right now. The algorithm helps the police decide whether or not a given suspect should be kept in custody. It’s a very strange approach, considering a software tool can’t always have all the facts. The Harm Assessment Risk Tool uses historical data to classify suspects as low, medium, or high-risk individuals. While this novel approach is pretty interesting, it is not necessarily the right way to go about things.

For the time being, Durham officials claim this algorithm only serves an advisory role first and foremost. Not everyone may agree with this statement, though, as it may not be all that easy for humans to go against guidance rendered by the algorithm. There will always be some form of bias to contend with, and that particular aspect should not be overlooked by any means. Regardless of statistics, there is always a chance of being wrong, as the information used to render a “verdict” may be incomplete, biased, or simply incorrect.

One main selling point of these algorithms is that they allow users to do more with less. Indeed, they may prove to be a valuable tool for law enforcement agencies in the sense that they free police up to do actual police work. This double-edged sword is not all that easy to wield by any means. Initial tests of this particular tool have been pretty positive, but they should always be put in the correct perspective.

In efforts to kick-start the acquisition of virtual assets and develop their 3D marketplace, ViMarket has just announced at ICO Forward in NY, the pre-sale of its ethereum based digital currency “ViTokens” from December 7, 2017.

New York NY, November 18th, ViMarket is pleased to announce that the pre-sale of the company’s digital currency ViToken, an ethereum based cryptocurrency, is all to get underway on December 7.  The crowdsale of ViTokens will allow access to the utility tokens at a significant discount compared to the expected retail price. ViMarket’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) has been scheduled to start from December 1st, after the completion of the presale campaign.

A 3D marketplace that allows users to create and share virtual reality (VR) experiences, ViMarket promises to bring about a much-needed breakthrough in the global e-commerce ecosystem. The VR technology utilized by ViMarket is utilized in online games to offer unprecedented confidence and value to the shoppers while making a purchase from any of their internet connected devices.

With its proprietary editor, ViMarket allows users to create interactive, photorealistic VR simulations regardless of their professional experience or training. At present, the primary areas of focus for ViMarket are the real-estate and interior decoration sectors. However, very soon, it is expected to include fashion, automotive and ultimately all e-commerce verticals.

ViMarket encourages users to become “visionaries” by purchasing the virtual version of their contemplated purchase using ViTokens, and simulate the ownership before deciding to purchase the Real-Life (RL) product. This is achieved through simple, easy to use tools that allow customers or “visionaries” to recreate environments within which the product would be utilized, then comparing the product against other choices, thereby reducing “shopping cart abandonment’, estimated to cost online retailers up to $6.2 Trillion annually. 

The most significant value proposition offered by ViMarket comes in the form of its proprietary “ViToken” virtual currency that allows users to purchase the virtual version (“virsion”) of the things they are interested in. This virtual “try before you buy’ feature represents real economic value because owning the virsion of an item entitles the owner to a specific discount on the purchase of the RL product from the “Merchant Sponsor” selling the item on the platform.

“ViTokens, therefore, are exponentially more valuable than their cost to shoppers who are seriously considering purchasing an item.” says Kant Jain, the chief visionary and the Director of ViMarket.

ViMarket has recently engaged David Drake, and his firm LDJ Capital, as the lead board advisor for their upcoming Initial Coin Offering. Mr. Drake is a noted blockchain advocate with over twenty-five years of experience in supporting and developing technology, media, telecommunications, real estate, hospitality, cleantech, energy and social impact projects. 

“I’m extremely excited and honored to be involved in such a potentially disruptive solution for e-commerce” said Drake, in an interview filmed at the NASDAQ stock exchange and available on the ViMarket’s ICO site, Vimarket.io.

About ViMarket

ViMarket is a 3D marketplace that allows users to create and share virtual reality (VR) experiences, using any device connected to the Internet. These creations can be personal or for business and are created using ViMarket’s proprietary editor which allow users to create interactive, photorealistic VR simulations with no professional experience or training. Currently the company is launching focusing on the real-estate and interior design space, but is expanding quickly to include fashion, automotive and ultimately all e-commerce verticals.

Website: http://www.vimarket.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.

Cross-chain atomic swaps have been of great interest to cryptocurrency users for some time now. In most cases, these swaps are performed between different blockchains using old-school techniques. Lightning Labs has announced it has come up with a new way to facilitate Lightning cross-chain atomic swaps between Bitcoin and Litecoin. It’s a major development, to say the very least.

A new era of Cross-chain Atomic Swaps

It is always interesting to see how cryptocurrency enthusiasts and developers approach the concept of exchanging value in a decentralized manner. We are still a far way off from performing decentralized exchange solutions in the world of cryptocurrency. In fact, that may never come to fruition in any significant way unless newer technologies are adopted in the long run. Lightning Labs claims it has come up with such a solution.

More specifically, the Lightning Labs team has performed a Lightning cross-chain atomic swap between Bitcoin and Litecoin. This particular test took place on both testnets, rather than the main blockchains. Although that may seem like taking a step back, it is important to test this technology first rather than “bork” it on the mainnet right away. Both Bitcoin and Litecoin have implemented SegWit, making both networks capable of performing these atomic swaps.

Being able to swap between different cryptocurrencies is a pretty significant development, to say the very least. If this technology ever gains sufficient traction, it will effectively render centralized exchanges useless in the long run. Being able to exchange various coins without intermediaries, excessive fees, or the need for an order book is huge. A fair few developers are working on bringing this technology to market in the very near future.

This marks the first time we have seen cross-chain atomic swaps related to Lightning technology. A high-speed decentralized network for anonymously sending payments was one of the main reasons why Lightning Labs got involved with all this in the first place. Moreover, traditional on-chain atomic swap solutions will not facilitate instant payments whatsoever, as there may be delays of up to one full hour. That is not acceptable by any means, but there is no other solution readily available as of right now.

Lightning Network technology creates a few new opportunities when it comes to cross-chain atomic swaps. For one, the Lightning Network boasts a special payment type referred to as Hashed Timelocked Contracts. They allow Lightning payments and even atomic swaps to be performed in a very different manner from regular on-chain swaps. These contracts allow any party to cash out at any time as long as they broadcast their swap commitment transactions to the blockchain.

With Lightning payments, both parties to a transaction will effectively become sender and receiver for the same atomic swap. All users must have a payment channel active on each chain involved in said swaps. In the case of the Lightning Labs test, the users needed access to both the Bitcoin and Litecoin testnets. As a result, every such atomic swap will either succeed or fail instantly. It is a major development in this area, although a lot of internal testing still must take place over the coming months.

In a recent interview with Chris Trew, head of Stratis, and Krushang Patel, head of communications, I discovered how Stratis’ Masternode system within their Breeze Wallet is going to work – and it’s exciting to see what they’ve created.

(In full disclosure, I own, stake, and have profited from Stratis, and I personally believe they’re an up and coming superstar in the crypto world)

Here’s an analysis of Tumblebit, including the pros and cons:

If you own 25,000 Stratis or more, you can earn staking rewards. To earn staking rewards (i.e. “free Stratis”), all you have to do is hold 25,000 or more Stratis in your QT (core) wallet, and keep a synchronized full node running on your computer. Although the amount of Stratis you can stake is variable, for each 25,000 Stratis you hold, you’ll stake / earn approximately 1 Stratis per day.

To be clear, if you hold 100,000 Stratis, you’ll earn approximately 4-6 Stratis per day.

Stratis has recently opened up another tier of rewards for holders of 250,000 Stratis or more – masternodes. By running a masternode, you can earn additional benefits above and beyond staking rewards of 12-15 Stratis per day:

Masternode owners can provide a Tumblebit™ service, acting as a Bitcoin tumbler. A Bitcoin tumbler allows users to send or receive Bitcoin in a more anonymous fashion, because your transaction is mixed, or ‘tumbled’ with dozens of other transactions of the same amount / size, obscuring whose Bitcoin came from where and was sent to where.

Imagine I had a black box, and 20 different people all put in 1 Euro. I shook the box, then told 20 other people to pick out 1 Euro each. Assuming the serial numbers or other identifying information were not previously known (this is far easier with Bitcoin), you couldn’t tell that “your” Euro went to a specific person, but the intended recipient would still receive their 1 Euro as agreed. In this way, you could anonymously send or receive money – this is what Tumblebit™ promises to do for Bitcoin (and other crypto) in the future.

As a masternode owner, here are benefits:

• You earn 1% of all Tumblebit™ transaction fees, which, over time as transaction volume grows, will likely double the value of your staking rewards, or possibly a lot more
• There will be a very limited number of masternode owners, which will keep your transaction revenue high.
• You’re helping to provide people with a way to send or receive Bitcoin in a trust-less, anonymous, and private way.
• You can continue to stake AND receive Tumblebit™ fees. In fact, your Stratis never needs to leave your QT wallet. Soon, you’ll be able to keep your Stratis on a hard wallet and run a masternode as well.
• Your IP address is hidden from prying eyes, because masternodes that help tumble transactions do so through the TOR (the onion router) network.
• You may not incur liability for tumbling Bitcoin (although I’m not an attorney and you should always consult legal counsel for advice) because all transactions are encrypted and unknown to you, the tumbler.
• The fee to allow you to send / receive Bitcoin anonymously is minimal – 1% of the transacted amount.
• If you’re an enterprise client, such as an exchange or financial services business, you’re a honeypot for hackers who want to steal your money. By tumbling incoming and outgoing transactions from customers, you can potentially reduce a hacker’s ability to sniff your traffic and steal from you, due to the encryption, anonymity of tumbling, and IP obfuscation of the TOR network.
• You can receive tumbled Bitcoin without having to have Stratis’ Breeze Wallet – you can use your own preferred wallet, if you wish.
• You can use Stratis’ Breeze Wallet as a secure Bitcoin and Stratis wallet, from which you can send your Bitcoin through a tumbler, even if you don’t run a masternode (more tokens supported soon in the Breeze Wallet)
• Coming soon, you’ll be able to invest money in ICOs (again, check with legal counsel) in a more secure way, using Tumblebit™. Stratis is soon to launch an ICO platform that allows companies to create and promote their ICOs and accept tumbled Bitcoin (possibly tumbled Ethereum soon).

Although these features are awesome, there are some drawbacks that, in fairness and full disclosure, I need to point out:

• Tumbling takes time – to ensure that ‘enough’ transactions are tumbled at the same time to preserve anonymity, privacy, and a trust-less environment, sending or receiving a tumbled transaction takes 10 blocks to confirm (10 minutes per block * 10 blocks = 100 minutes on average to send or receive a tumbled transaction)
• To keep transactions anonymous, you can send or receive increments of 0.1 BTC only at this time – this will soon change and be expanded to other denominations
• You must pay an extra tumble fee of 1% of your transaction, but this is a small price to pay for anonymous, private, and trust-less transactions that were the promise of Bitcoin since its inception
• To tumble your BTC, you must first send your BTC to a Breeze Wallet, then tumble it – an extra step. To receive tumbled BTC, this is not required.
• Not only must you have 250,000 Stratis, but you must also pledge and hold 5 BTC in your Breeze Wallet to qualify to run a masternode. Yes, this process is expensive, but worth it, if you believe in Bitcoin and crypto and its promise of anonymity, decentralization, peer-to-peer transactions, and more.

To find out more about Stratis token and their ongoing and upcoming projects, including Breeze Wallet, Masternodes, their ICO Platform and more, visit www.StratisPlatform.com, join their slack, telegram channel, and find them on social media.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

It turns out karma is a very real thing. Not too long ago, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a tool for money laundering and made some other less-than-flattering comments about the world’s leading cryptocurrency. Karma has come a-knocking for Dimon’s institution, as one of its subsidiaries has since been sanctioned for money laundering and violating supervision laws. Perhaps they should have used Bitcoin after all?

JPMorgan and Money Laundering

It is always funny to see banks try to label Bitcoin as a tool used by criminals to facilitate fraud, money laundering, and even terrorist financing. In the end, however, these activities are always facilitated by banks and other financial institutions first and foremost. The involvement of Bitcoin in any of those areas is virtually non-existent right now. JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon may feel otherwise, but that is his opinion alone, by the look of things.

Things took an interesting turn yesterday when one of JPMorgan’s subsidiaries was charged with money laundering. FINMA, the Swiss financial regulator, handed down this punishment on the Swiss subsidiary of the major bank. Moreover, it found evidence indicating the subsidiary had “seriously violated supervision laws.” It is not the first time this institution has found itself in hot water over money laundering and the violation of supervision laws either.

The new sanction imposed by FINMA involves due diligence in connection with money laundering standards. As a matter of fact, JPMorgan Chase was found to have participated in such activity several months ago. Since then, the bank has done everything it could to prevent this news from being shared with the public. What drove its decision to do so, and how this was possible in the first place, both remain big unknowns at this point in time.

What we do know for certain is that the Swiss subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase was actively engaged in criminal money laundering. It’s a disturbing development for one of the world’s biggest banks, especially given the recent comments by Jamie Dimon on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In response, the firm claims to have made “constant enhancements to our AML program.” It is evident this organizations has a lot of skeletons in the closet, and it continues to cover its tracks whenever possible.

All of this raises the question as to whether or not JPMorgan Chase tried to use Bitcoin as a tool to circumvent Swiss anti-money laundering regulations. If so, it shows the banks should be blamed for using Bitcoin in an illegal way. Bitcoin itself is not regulation-agnostic, as users make the final decisions as to how to spend their money in the end. Rest assured the Bitcoin community will have a few interesting things to say about this incident involving JPMorgan Chase, even though it is “only” the Swiss subsidiary which is at fault here.

Money laundering is a very serious offense that needs to be punished as such. There is no valid reason for any bank or other financial institution to partake in this illegal activity, let alone do so willingly. Had this been done using Bitcoin, the government would have easily traced the transactions and everything would be out in the open. It’s a very dubious decision on the part of JPMorgan; that much is evident.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the chief investment officer of the world’s largest wealth management company, UBS Group AG, has declared his scepticism of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For Mark Haefele, the lack of government regulation over Bitcoin is a cause for concern, as is the size of market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies in general. He stated that the sum total of all cryptocurrencies is “not even the size of the smaller currencies” that UBS would allocate portfolio space to.

The UBS Group AG officer also stated that there were risks inherent with Bitcoin that did not affect other currencies. These made the company adding portfolio allocations to cryptos unlikely anytime in the near future. Haefele highlighted the damage that a terrorist attack funded by Bitcoin could do to the market, particularly if it happened on US soil:

All it would take would be one terrorist incident in the U.S. funded by Bitcoin for the U.S. regulator to much more seriously step in and take action. That’s a risk, an unquantifiable risk, Bitcoin has that another currency doesn’t.

He also mentioned the oft-repeated concern of high-finance folk that cryptocurrency could easily be used for money laundering. This, he feels, is a situation that’s “unlikely to persist forever”. Clearly, Haefele thinks that greater government regulation is on the way soon which could detract from one of the main value propositions of BTC.

He concluded with some general thoughts on investing in cryptocurrency, hinting that it was essentially impossible to determine where the top could be. For him, this is a negative quality as there is no clear exit point for investors. For proponents and supporters of cryptocurrency, however, the practically limitless upside potential is what attracts them to the space. In Haefele’s own words:

The thing that always strikes me about these, quote unquote, investments is not really when you would get into it but when you would get out of it. So how do you know when to get out of a bitcoin investment?

The post Mark Haefele of UBS Group AG: Bitcoin Not “Considered a Viable Currency to Invest In” appeared first on NEWSBTC.

On November 18, 2017, Pulsar Venture Capital, an international early-stage venture fund and business accelerator, started a 30 million dollars ICO sale of Pulsar tokens (“Pulsars”) to raise funds for investing in reliable and high-yield projects in the tech industry.

The initial Pulsar token price is 1 US dollar and payment is accepted in Bitcoins (BTC) or Ethers (ETH). The minimum contribution is set at 1 ETH.

A discount system is applied for the first buyers of Pulsar tokens: 15% off on the first day, 10% off on the second day, 5% off during the first week, and 3% off until the end of the second week of the ICO. The coin offering will end on December 12th, 2017. Pulsar Venture Capital is one of the first to conduct an ICO campaign in accordance with the US Securities and Exchange Commission rules and regulations. This means the new token sale is open to US investors. Furthermore, it will enable Pulsar to be openly traded on the exchange.

Part of the funds raised through the ICO will be invested in 29 highly efficient and profitable projects in the USA, Eastern Europe and South-East Asia, which Pulsar VC has been working with for a few years now. All crowdsale participants will get shares in these portfolio companies.

Thanks to the professionalism of the Fund’s experts and consultants, as well as via cooperation with foreign partners such as Google Ventures and 500 Startups, the current Pulsar Venture Capital’s portfolio has increased by a factor of 4.5 over the past four years.

For example, the Fund’s investments in Ratelsys, a producer of aerospace and radar systems and developer of equipment for the wireless industrial IoT, have provided the return of 1167%. Investments in Pinscreen Inc, the developer of an application for creating personal 3D avatars on social media, have generated 1020% return for Pulsar VC, due to a higher company valuation by investors.

Based on the ICO outcome, the Fund plans to invest in over thirty projects in the most promising areas, including telecommunication, new materials, “Internet of Things”, and more.

“We target investments in projects that have significant market potential and 10x profitability – explains managing partner of Pulsar Venture Capital Pavel Korolev – over years of work we’ve created one of the best systems for working with startups on the market and reliable partnership with strategic corporations and leading investors. All of this provides us the opportunity to exit earlier, while creating high returns from the investments. We make successful exits, making 12-25x returns.

The ICO mechanism will allow us to unite the opportunities of a crypto-fund with the expertise of a venture fund. We invite you to partner and invest with us with best-in-class startups”.

Today, investments in startups pay multi-billion dividends to venture funds worldwide. Analysts are certain that decentralization and transition to blockchain technology will increase these revenues at least twofold. For example, Michael Jackson, the former COO of Skype and a current partner at Mangrove Capital Partners, a venture company, having analyzed 204 ICOs, concluded that a “blind” investment in a blockchain startup generates an average return of 1320% for the investor. However, due to legal and technical challenges, such investments today continue to be the privilege of only a few large investors.

“Both our team and I, are confident that investments in disruptive innovation should be accessible not only to professional investors, but also to all those who believe that new technology can transform our world for the better,” Pavel Korolev says. “Pulsar ICO – it is this opportunity that combines modern cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies with classic venture capital. Join us!”

Pulsar Venture Capital is an early-stage venture fund, competency center, and business accelerator, creating an environment favorable for innovative projects and developing knowledge-intensive and technology companies. The Pulsar Venture Capital’s headquarters is located in Kazan, the Fund’s representative offices operate in the USA, Ireland, UAE.

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.