Day: December 7, 2017

As the price of Bitcoin reaches its most vertigo-inducing figure to date, few in the space would consider giving up a portion of one of their coins for something as trivial as a computer game. I mean, digital cats are one thing, but the latest Call of Duty, or Fifa? Nah, better hold onto those precious satoshis to see if super-bull John McAfee is even half right with his million dollar price call. It’s just as well that the majority of folks are well and truly in the hold camp too as online video games market Steam has announced that they will no longer accept Bitcoin for use as a payment method.

The platform, which is by far the most popular way to buy new games for the PC, announced Wednesday that they were ceasing all payments using Bitcoin. In a statement on their website, they claimed that with the current volatility in price, it was difficult to use the world’s best performing cryptocurrency in a business sense:

“Historically, the value of Bitcoin has been volatile, but the degree of volatility has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days. This creates a problem for customers trying to purchase games with Bitcoin. When checking out on Steam, a customer will transfer x amount of Bitcoin for the cost of the game, plus y amount of Bitcoin to cover the transaction fee charged by the Bitcoin network. The value of Bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain period of time so if the transaction doesn’t complete within that window of time, then the amount of Bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change. The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.”

It’s understandable from a business point of view. If you were to transfer around $20 of Bitcoin to the website for a game, and it takes two hours to confirm on the network, that’s enough time for the value of the BTC sent to be radically different by the time Steam can do anything with it. Naturally, as they’re trying to run a business, rather than an investment fund, this is problematic.

Steam cited another reason for their revoking of Bitcoin services too: the high cost of transactions. It’s understandably difficult to get someone to voluntarily send a payment if a large percentage of said payment needs be included as a fee. The increase in interest in Bitcoin has led to a situation where users are forced to up their fees to get the network to recognise and process their transaction.

This leads to an interesting dichotomy. Do you include a large fee, and pay way over the odds for the goods or service you’re buying but at least you’ll ensure that the value will be more likely to be correct when it arrives with the vendor? Or, do you scrimp on the fee, and risk the value of what you send being completely mismatched with the initial price? It’s understandable that these issues are causing difficulties to vendors such as Steam.

Steam didn’t completely dismiss Bitcoin, however. They did concede that if the volatility calms down, and transaction fees lower, they would consider reintroducing the payment method. For now, however, it remains more problematic than convenient to include it. Therefore, Steam users must revert to using more traditional payment methods. Let’s face it anyway, it makes a lot more economic sense to use a currency that is guaranteed to lose value (like the dollar) for day to day purchases, whilst saving that super-rare digital gold for a rainy day?

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Bitcoin’s most recent rallies have been great for holders and for greater awareness of the cryptocurrency itself. However, between sell orders and buy orders, with new money entering and leaving the market, Bitcoin’s price has become incredibly volatile again. While there is opportunity in volatility, it makes for a complex situation in regards to payments. Citing this, Steam recently announced it will suspend Bitcoin as a form of payment.

Steam Forgoes Bitcoin, for now

As a gamer and a Bitcoin enthusiast, I cannot express how excited I was a few years ago when Steam introduced Bitcoin as a payment option (though my purchase back then seems far more expensive now; such is life). This changed the game – pardon the play on words. A company facilitating a massive number of daily Bitcoin transactions was exactly what the network needed.

However, in a recent blog post, Steam has since announced it will stop accepting Bitcoin payments. The announcement was effective immediately.

The first reason cited for this change is that Bitcoin has become excessively volatile during its recent bull run. Even when using BitPay as a third party to settle Bitcoin transactions, there apparently were times when customers were either over or undercharged for their purchases. Bitcoin’s block times and confirmations meant that sometimes the price would drastically change while people waited for payments to clear.

Due to those discrepancies, the second problem of transaction fees arose. Sometimes, customers would have to send additional Bitcoin to settle the remaining amount, which of course incurred a second round of transaction fees. Whether or not these individuals were using SegWit-enabled wallets is not the point; making anyone pay a transaction fee for the same product more than once is ludicrous. I can understand why Steam was looking to protect the customer on this one, even if their decision is disappointing.

All is not lost, however. The company’s blog post contains language which suggests that it may revisit this issue as prices stabilize. My worry is that other companies will follow Steam’s lead and disable Bitcoin payments during bull runs, or never reintegrate support. I appreciate them looking out for the customer, but it is rather discouraging for the world of peer-to-peer digital cash.

A humble suggestion

This all may illustrate one of the better arguments for third party intermediaries supporting altcoins. It is a case of a business responding to a market, citing volatility and fee concerns. Perhaps providing customers with alternative payment options may be best here? There are already cries in the comment thread of the blog post asking for all manner of coins to be added, including Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and Dogecoin, to name a few.

I think that would be a splendid idea, actually. It could show off the utility of other cryptocurrencies and introduce a bit more competition into the cryptocurrency sector. More competition is always a good thing, and yet – until recently – we’ve all been rather okay with Bitcoin being the primary payment option when it comes to cryptos. Perhaps more options will help invigorate innovation among all coins in general.

Barchart and Brave New Coin (BNC) have announced a partnership that will see Barchart publish BNC’s cryptocurrency market capitalization and reference data, along with its proprietary crypto trading analysis and news. The announcement comes as the price of Bitcoin and a number of other cryptocurrencies is hitting all-time highs — and the confirmation by both CME Group and Cboe Global Markets that they will be launching Bitcoin futures in December has further spiked investor interest in cryptocurrencies.

Bulgarian authorities seized more than 200,000 bitcoins from criminals back in May, an amount which now has a total value of more than $3 billion.

RxEAL, a new platform for secure rental deposit storage on Ethereum blockchain, has just launched its token presale.  RxEAL aims to solve the problem of the growing number of security deposit disputes, by providing a simple way to create smart contracts and offering a decentralised dispute resolution. Currently, the company’s main focus is on real estate and automotive rental markets. The token presale will remain open to investors until the 31^st of December 2017; the actual ICO will start on the 31^st of January and will last until the beginning of March.

A REAL-LIFE SOLUTION TO A GROWING PROBLEM

More people than ever before are involved in real estate, car and other rental transactions, resulting in more disputes about security deposits every year. A significant amount – almost 50% – of all security deposits globally are subject to disputes that destroy value for everyone — both lessors and their lessees. 6,000,000,000 EUR are annually lost due to disputes in the UK alone.

“Our mission with RxEAL is to have a world where no security deposit is disputed. To create more value for shareholders of lessors and also benefit the lessees. Using blockchain technology, this can be done in a secure, simple and accessible way,” says Dmitris Orlovs, co-founder and the head of business strategy of RxEAL.

The RxEAL platform is a solution for eliminating the growing number of fraud cases in rental transactions associated with unfair withholding of funds from the security deposit at the end of the rental agreement. Within the RxEAL platform, users are able to generate smart contracts based on terms both parties have agreed on. The contract will ensure that the deposit amount would be stored securely on Ethereum blockchain throughout the course of the agreement. In the event of a dispute, the platform will provide a decentralised and independent arbitrage conducted by qualified members who earn RxEAL tokens for resolving the dispute. The RxEAL approach eliminates the possibility of breaching the contract terms, hence solving the issue of trust associated with rental deposits.

THE LATEST WAY TO PROFIT FROM REAL ESTATE

With many new ICO projects emerging and many not making it to the top, industry experts say that RxEAL is an accessible future solution, which is understandable and realistic enough to consider investing in it.

Janis Murmanis, partner at Timbero Latvia Ltd construction company, is convinced that: “This is an innovation for the industry that is in a constant need for upgrades and solutions to resolve long-standing problems, from which one of the biggest is, in fact, deposits. RxEAL is simple and accessible in its mechanics, which makes it the latest way to profit from the always-great real estate industry,”

To find out more, visit the RxEAL official website: https://rxeal.com

Dates:

Presale: December 4^th, 2017 at 12:00 UTC
Presale ends: December 31^st, 2017 at 12:00 UTC or upon reaching the presale cap.

*Presale participants can buy RXL tokens with 100% bonus at a fixed rate of 0.00125 ETH.

Start date: January 31^st, 2018 at 12:00 UTC
End date: March 2^nd, 2018 at 12:00 UTC or upon reaching the token sale hard cap.

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I think we were all impressed by IOTA’s recent bull run. This obscure cryptocurrency went from zero to crypto-hero after forming some strategic partnerships. Its most recent price increase put it among the top five cryptocurrencies, displacing favorites like Bitcoin Gold, Litecoin, and Dash.

This was only to be expected

IOTA, its team, and its holders should be extremely excited about its recent performance. It is terribly impressive. The cause of this recent price action is also worth being very proud of: IOTA is teaming up with a number of huge tech firms, including Samsung and Microsoft. Whenever collaborators as large as those are announced, you usually can expect good things from a project.

While this is all exciting, I would wager that it is not the last time we see a cryptocurrency explode in value because of strategic partnerships. In fact, that’s one of the greatest things about cryptocurrency: It may be young, but it is far from immature.

What I mean to say is, no one in cryptocurrency was surprised by an asset exploding, but some may have been surprised that it was IOTA. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts have almost become desensitized to huge runs like this one. We have seen ETH and BTC gain and lose up to 20% of their value in a matter of hours. We regularly see coins no one knew about explode onto the scene in spectacular fashion. Hell, we’ve even seen virtual cats cripple an entire network.

However, this desensitized crypto-self can still get excited – and crushed, if the market ticks downward. A five dollar MIOTA was surprising, but a 90% gain in crypto isn’t unheard of; in fact, some expect it.

It is expected because so many believe these assets to be undervalued, and heavily so. I tend to agree. Let’s take a look at Bitcoin, for example. This crypto has the promise to bank the unbanked and be peer-to-peer digital cash. Current usage – while hard to truly know – probably puts the network somewhere around 30 million users and counting. That is nothing compared to the billions of unbanked people around the world. Even if Bitcoin expanded to cover 1 billion people, its price growth would likely be commensurate.

I do not pretend to be an expert in markets, nor would I suggest anyone see me as one, but the general sentiment in the cryptocurrency community is that there is still significant growth to come.

So while few may have seen this coming, most expect some market players to explode in value like IOTA has done.

Extending the virtues of decentralization to universal freelance empowerment where employers place a much higher emphasis on technology and automation, rendering the traditional work schedule nearly obsolete is providing more convenient and effective service delivery processes across the globe.

Working from everywhere

Companies hire people from all over the world while maintaining operational efficiencies and reducing costs. The digital world allows for a company to hire a software developer from Brazil, a user experience designer from England, and community manager from India. This is a major advantage to both parties: task performers are no longer bound by geographical location and task posters are able to hire from the global talent pool.

Even though the freelance marketplace has experienced huge adoption and the existing platforms enjoyed significant patronage, the current marketplace structure with is dominated by centralized platforms still leaves room for more convenient and effective services.

With companies like Fiverr, Taskrabbit, Upwork, and Mechanical Turk having their workforces distributed throughout the world, the setbacks that arise from transaction fees and relatively slow speeds of transaction leaves room for better developments and experiences.

A more effective system

Blockchain as a decentralized ledger whose functions are secure, transparent, fast and effective offers an unmatching solution that enhances the transaction and procedural performance of the global freelance ecosystem.

By using the STORM Token, StormX Inc in partnership with leading industry players such as QTUM, Jaxx, Kyber Network, ZenCash and Bancor is creating a platform that improves the efficiency and compatibility of the freelance marketplace, making it possible for anyone at anytime to earn from anywhere across the globe.

StormX, Inc. has a strong history of success amassing over 1 million downloads across 187 different countries through its application, Storm Play. The platform is powered by an underlying ERC-20 token that will facilitate transactions within an opt-in, secured, gamified marketplace, that will eventually be run by blockchain based smart contracts on Ethereum. These token are currently available to the public in a crowdsale which closes on December 7 2017.

A team that delivers

The performance and success so far of the STORM Token can be linked with a robust technology which is not only backed by established companies, but also enjoys the support of top industry experts in its advisory team. These experts include the likes of Bill Shihara of Bittrex, Anthony Di lorio of Jaxx & Decentral, Jeff Pulver of Voip Vonage and Tom Bollich of MadHive, among others.

Blockchain technology and decentralization continues to open up more opportunities, creating room for improved innovation empowerment of humankind. The use of tokens as tools for secure transactions and effective liquidity is a blessing that the world will appreciate for a very long time.

Storm Token ICO is finishing within the next day, so participants need to hurry.

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In the stiff-competition crypto market, T.V is getting major Exchanges support. When a convenient idea is crystallizing into a project and gets early Exchange attention, the promises are merely bright. It’s the story of Ti-Blockchain’s project. A tale of combining the best of both worlds.

Project at a glance

Ti-Blockchain is a public Blockchain ecosystem development platform that harnesses the capabilities of Ethereum and Storj into user-ready applications. The latter are intended for solving problems in the financial sector, in education, health care, source tracing and information sharing, and the list goes on.

As of press time, Ti-Blockchain is developing a proprietary ERC-20 Token on the Ethereum Blockchain: it’s branded T.V for “Ti-Value”.

The token utilizes the Blockchain encryption signature and time dimension to authenticate commodity information. In other words, it can verify the report, trace the source and record the evaluation while serving as a fuel (or a cryptocurrency) of the Ti Blockchain.

In fact, a cutting-edge transparent Blockchain technology will incentivize the creation of a healthy market while promoting integrity, and protecting copyright information. The stakes are high and numerous, and so are Ti-Blockchain’s business opportunities.

We are talking about high-performance EBP (Enterprise Blockchain Platform), eliminating businesses’ fear of the application of Blockchain technologies, and translating abstract Blockchain technologies into a series of visual, configurable and user-friendly tools. The project’s purpose encompasses curbing Blockchain development costs and enriching the up and coming digital socio-ecological model.

Ongoing Business Projects

Solid and growing, the Ti-Blockchain team has already harvested the fruits of its dedication:

Jiuzhaigou TV-based Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. application is set up and running, for the notorious wine planting project. The big announcement is pending formal cooperation contract signature with Jiuzhaigou. Such an event would present Ti-Blockchain in mass media, and is expected to raise a wide public attention. The signing is expected to take place during the official wine-planting project kick-off ceremony.

Further, from fine wine, Ti-Blockchain is targeting social media through the upcoming kg.com.

T.V will be the value circulation medium in the overall structure of the website. In other words, T.V Token will lead the value transference commands on kg.com.

To boost T.V Token market cap, Ti-Blockchain team is in the process of partnering with top-shelf game development companies to build mini-games fueled by T.V. This would allow users to trade token as during recreational activities.

Furthermore, a T.V traceability mall branded “Pupu”, has been tested and will be officially launched in the near future. The first product sourcing application would trace the wine of the Jiuzhaigou project. Other traceability applications primarily target some of China’s National Intangible Cultural Heritage Commodities and would have their applications harvested in Tourism and Culture preservation.

Ti-B expected to go mainstream

The project is promising by all means, and materializes the hopes and dreams of a young yet accomplished team.

Early support and adoption came from “P.Z” of China’s huge Litecoin community. In fact, PZ’s multi-currency wallet supports T.V token. Many more wallets are expected to follow in the near future, giving users more choices of stable feeless cold storage options.

Trading Exchange approval

For value creation, the team is partnering with major crypto-exchanges. As a matter of fact, T.V tokens started on the RADAR wallet on November 3^rd, 2017. RADAR is a digital wallet based on the RADAR Blockchain and supports RTXP global digital financial protocol.

More about EXX

Partnering with zb.com, EXX is already up and running, and starting to attract an eager Asian as well as International audience. Operated by EXX Group Limited, EXX is an abbreviation of Exchange X. It offers cryptocurrency trading such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. It was September 2017 and is currently based in Hong Kong. The growing Exchange is listing T.V token already on its platform, while pending further development and official quick-start. One thing is sure, every success condition has been settled down by the Ti-Blockchain Team. And success might be just around the corner.

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