Day: December 13, 2017

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: Bitcoin Rests at Tipping Point Before Deciding Next Move appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen called bitcoin a “highly speculative asset” during her final press conference today

If the November and December crypto bull market and flurry of institutional attention have taught us anything, it’s that Bitcoin and its cohorts are red hot going into 2018. Mainstream exposure has ignited public interest in cryptocurrency, and financial institutions can’t wait to get their hands into the market. Meanwhile, governments are scurrying to accommodate crypto and its markets in their regulatory frameworks, as all signs point to 2018 as being blockchain’s year of adoption and regulation.

All Eyes on Crypto

Bitcoin continued its healthy uptrend today in the wake of the CBOE futures listing, as the market continues to show its optimism entering 2017’s home stretch. Investor confidence is so strong that CBOE’s Bitcoin Futures ($XBT) traded over 800 contracts within two hours of its launch; that’s a healthy US$12,000,000. Futures-buying traffic was so high, in fact, that CBOE’s website crashed as a result.

The massive interest in CBOE Bitcoin Futures is intriguing in its own right, but it’s part of a larger pattern. In recent months, mainstream investors, businesses, and governments have taken an increasing interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. We’re starting to see cryptoassets receive traditional investing treatment and corporate adoption of the blockchain, and this leaves governments with the task of formally accommodating a previously unregulated market.

Blockchain Meets Traditional Market, Big Business

Every day, news articles tell the same story with a different tone: institutional interest in Bitcoin is on the rise, and it’s quite literally bringing the market with it. Conventional financial organizations have begun to tap into Bitcoin’s investing potential, making it more accessible to the general public.

We’ve seen this most recently with CBOE Bitcoin Futures, but CBOE was just the first to the punch. The CME Group is slated to launch futures trading starting December 18, and NASDAQ has plans to provide futures for its NFX market sometime in 2018. Such formal market integration is not confined to the US either. In Japan, for instance, the Tokyo Financial Exchange plans to launch its own Bitcoin futures “as quickly as possible,” according to CEO Shozo Ohto.

For Japan, Bitcoin futures seem to fall in line with business and enterprise acceptance of blockchain in general. For example, GMO Internet Group, Japan’s largest internet provider, recently announced that it will begin providing employees with the option to be paid their salary in Bitcoin. This news comes at a time when 37 Korean and Japanese financial institutions, including SMBC and Resona Bank, will experiment with remittance payments using Ripple and its token, XRP.

Governments Respond with Regulation

As cryptocurrencies begin mingling with traditional markets, many governments have taken steps to regulate these previously unregulated financial assets. While some may view these regulations as a hindrance, some believe that they contribute to crypto’s overall growth.

And once again, Japan is contributing to this growth. Since September, the Japanese Financial Services Agency has registered and approved 15 cryptocurrency exchanges for public trading, while making it clear that only these 15 exchanges will be legally permitted to trade cryptoassets.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the launch of Bitcoin futures has prompted two companies to apply to launch Bitcoin exchange-traded funds: the REX Bitcoin Strategy and Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF and the VanEck Vector Bitcoin Strategy ETF. Both ETFs hope to launch sometime in the new year.

These are just a few examples of how governments are responding to crypto’s rise to public prominence. The UK has plans to up its own regulatory ante, the Philippines has rolled out a game plan for handling ICOs, and Russia may be turning to cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions on oil trading.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that 2018 will be a defining year for blockchain technology. As we enter the new year, cryptocurrencies will likely continue to make waves with a sea of public and institutional attention, and we’ll be eager to see how adoption takes shape and how governments react to crypto’s arrival in the mainstream.

The supposed ring leader of an international cyber crime scheme has lost his appeal against his extradition to the US. Alexander Vinnik of the now defunct BTC-e exchange is wanted on 21 counts of money laundering and other offences in the United States. Some of the illegal funds go right back to the infamous Mt. Gox compromise scandal in 2013. The other charges relate to drug trafficking and computer hacking.

Vinnik was arrested whilst holidaying in northern Greece this July. He’s one of seven Russians indicted by the US this year for charges relating to cyber crime. According to American authorities, he masterminded the laundering of over $4 billion using Bitcoin. He denies the allegations against him, stating that he was never the operator of BTC-e, but rather their technical consultant.

He faces extradition to the US where he would have to defend himself against the counts of money laundering against him. He denies responsibility and has appealed to the Greek authorities to deny his deportation. Today, however, he lost his case.

Vinnik also faces additional charges in his native Russia. These are much less severe being as they amount to around 10,000 euros fraudulently obtained. It is not uncommon for Moscow to attempt to step in when one of their nationals is wanted by the US. Since his arrest, Vinnik has agreed to be returned to Russia but adamantly refutes the charges he faces in the States. However, the Greek Supreme Court rejected his appeal earlier today.

Things are looking bleak for Vinnik, certainly. However, all is not lost yet for him. The final decision over where he’ll end up being sent to stand trial is up to the Greek Justice Minister. It’s typical that they step in when such disputes arise. Whether he’ll be returned to the his native land or face a lengthy jail sentence in the United States remains to be seen.

Image: PixaBay

The post Alexander Vinnik of BTC-e Loses Extradition Battle appeared first on NEWSBTC.

The South Korean government is considering a range of policy options in order to curb what it called an “overheating of virtual currency speculation.”

We have seen a lot of companies use browser-embedded mining scripts to piggyback on visitors’ user resources. In virtually every case, such scripts are used to mine Monero, a very popular altcoin with a strong focus on privacy and anonymity. One thing no one would have expected is how Starbucks has embarked on such an undertaking as well. Or more specifically, the company’s in-store WiFi provider has done so. It’s a very troublesome development for Argentinian coffee lovers, to say the least.

Starbucks and Monero Mining

It is somewhat disconcerting to learn that people can’t even connect to a free WiFi network at Starbucks without having their computer resources used for nefarious purposes. More specifically, anyone connecting to Starbucks’ free WiFi network in Argentina may have noticed their computer slow down considerably. This is only normal, as the WiFi provider at Starbucks locations throughout Argentina somehow implemented a Monero mining script on the coffee giant’s rewards site.

As you would expect, there are plenty of risks associated with using public WiFi hotspots. They are anything but secure, and it now seems some of them even hijack computer resources. That is simply unacceptable, even though Starbucks itself is not to blame for this incident. Granted, it could have monitored the situation a bit better, but it also trusts third-party service providers to handle its free WiFi infrastructure. Unfortunately, it seems that trust wasn’t justified in this case.

For the time being, it remains a bit unclear how this was possible in the first place. We do know the Coinhive script was embedded on the Argentinian Starbucks reward website. This was discovered in Buenos Aires, although it is possible that locations in other cities were affected as well. Noah Dinkin, who discovered the problem, noticed a ten-second delay when connecting to the free Starbucks WiFi network, which gave the script a brief period in which to mine Monero using a visitor’s computer resources.

All of this goes to show one should be wary when it comes to free WiFi networks these days. Although there is usually a catch when using such a connection, the tradeoff can be quite steep. That’s especially true when a site mines Monero with one’s computer without displaying a warning or letting one opt out. It is a very problematic situation, which goes to show the concept of in-browser Monero mining is still quite popular in a lot of places.

Starbucks has yet to issue an official response to this news. It is evident the coffee giant may not be actively involved in the mining process, but it will certainly be scrutinized for its connection in this regard. After all, it is the company’s Argentinian rewards site which was used to mine Monero, and the company should have sole access to the backend. That doesn’t appear to be the case, though, and it is unclear whether the script in question has been removed.

The Argentinian Starbucks rewards site is only the latest in a growing list of platforms affected by hidden Coinhive scripts. Other entities affected include Showtime Networks, UFC Fight Pass, and a few others. Moreover, there is growing concern about these miners continuing to run in the background even after users have left the site or closed their browser. It is a very disturbing trend, yet it’s one that will probably continue for quite some time to come.

Bitmora is building a next-generation cryptocurrency exchange and is encouraging the public to join them on their development journey starting today.

Bitmora is a crypto-to-crypto exchange being developed with the intention of fixing any and all issues current exchanges face today. From overhauling outdated platforms to eradicating the complete lack of customer support faced by traders, Bitmora is here to provide a much needed update and is ready to set the new industry standard.

Bitmora is not a traditional pop-up exchange. Rather than immediate release, Bitmora is giving the community the opportunity to participate in the building process. By investing as little as $10 through the choice of 20+ different coins, grants exclusive voting rights for suggestions provided by our user base. The more a person invests, the more say they’ll have on whether or not a suggestion is implemented by our development team.

Unlike other exchanges, Bitmora is vocal and supportive of Blockchain technologies and its development uses. Their team actively campaigns for widespread adoption of the Blockchain in both the financial sector and fintech startups. Before going public, members of the Bitmora team spent over eight months gathering feedback on what the community needs in an exchange. Active on over 10 of the largest Bitcoin forums, and connected to industry leaders, they have built a strong database of upgrades that they believe this community deserves. Investing in the Bitmora funding campaign gains exclusive access to the beta on day one. This will be a one-of-a-kind opportunity to test out a ground-breaking exchange and while trading with little to no fees.

Is Bitmora going to lay the groundwork for the future?

Bitmora is of the belief that decentralized exchanges are the future, but understands the strong demand for a centralized system by investors and traders who don’t want to take on the cumbersome task of using and maintaining wallet keys by themselves. Bitmora is launching under the law of centralization, but our long-term goal is decentralized migration; beginning with optional private key importing and exporting, and eventually providing lone control over private keys. This transition will be 100% optional and will be determined by the user according to their expertise level.

Beyond decentralization, Bitmora will launch the first ever international Crypto-Exchange phone support system, with live operators ready to provide assistance for any issue experienced. Our account specialists will not be outsourced by 3rd parties and will undergo specialized training in the database systems and network infrastructure backing our exchange after passing a rigorous background test.

Bitmora will utilize a revolutionary fee system that will allow the user to choose the fees they pay. Presented with a choice between a fixed or percentage based fee system, users will find that they are almost always able to benefit from the flexibility provided by having two options. Percentage based is the traditional system exchanges utilize and include Taker and Maker fees of around 0.20% per transaction. The Bitmora percentage fee will be lower than this, and traders will be even more excited to realize the benefit of our fixed based fee system, which features a taker fee of 0.03%, a maker fee of 0.01%, with an additional flat-rate $7 fee. This splits normal fees in half if trading over $10,000.

The funding campaign of Bitmora explained

Bitmora will not be releasing an ICO. While Bitmora strongly agrees with the use of ICO’s by decentralized fintech companies, it finds it both counter-intuitive and counterproductive to utilize a coin offering itself; for starters, Bitmora is centralized, furthermore, Bitmora has no intention of being anything other than the best exchange on the market, at this time an ICO does nothing to further that goal.

Rather than an ICO, the Bitmora funding campaign will be structured like an original crowdfund, with payouts beginning no later than 3 months after the official opening. A fixed percentage of 30% will be set aside from Bitmora’s monthly revenue to be redistributed to funding campaign participants. Depending on the investor tier, monthly payouts can continue for 12-18 consecutive months.

For more information, please visit us at

Website: https://bitmora.com/

Whitepaper: https://bitmora.com/whitepaper.pdf

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bitmora_inc

Slack: https://bitmora.herokuapp.com/

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.

We’re proud to announce the newest members to our advisory board, a cluster of individuals with expertise spanning blockchain, technology, banking, marketing, data analysis and entrepreneurship.

Their experience in Blockchain, VR and other prominent technologies over the last many years will be instrumental to us as we begin our journey of taking DenCity to masses. Each and everyone of our advisors have been one of the most prominent figures in their respective fields and we hope that our team at DenCity will be able to learn a lot from their expertise and experience over all these years.

Please meet the new board members below and give them a warm welcome.

Anshul Srivastav

Anshul is a global technology leader who has been instrumental in driving technology transformations for businesses in the range of multi-Billion USD as revenues. He has been a key player at organizations which have been on an average 30% growth year on year in a career spanning almost two decades . His experience has been around taking up strategic technology initiatives, architecting, delivering and managing it at an enterprise level.

He has several notable career accomplishments, wherein he has led, created and launched the key ecommerce, mobile and business intelligence initiatives for world’s #1 insurance brand AXA in the fastest growing emerging markets of Asia. Currently in a leadership role as Chief Information Officer, leading the IT Strategy, Technology Transformations, Analytics, software delivery, architecture and Cloud for Union Insurance (UAE and Oman) across all lines of Business (Life, General (P&C) and Health Insurance) Creating and Driving big strategic Initiatives aligning through IT transformation to deliver business value.

Simon Cocking

Simon Cocking is the founder of Irish Tech News, which boasts, which boasts, hundreds and thousands of visitors every month. It is often referred to as Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch. Irish Tech News was a winner at Irish Web Awards 2014 in best Science & Technology category and also a winner at 2016 Littlewoods Best Ireland Blog in Digital & Technology category.

On seeing the cryptocurrency boom, he founded CryptoCoinNews, which helps people stay in touch with what is going in the cryptocurrency world. Simon is one of the top 50 influencers in the cryptocurrency world and serves on the advisory board of many popular blockchain startups.

Apart from this, he writes regularly for top publications such as Sunday Business Post, Irish Times, G+D, Dublin Globe, Tweakyourbiz, UCD Innovation Academy, Digital Skills Academy blog and IBM Blog.

He is highly respected influencer on twitter with more than 115,000 people following and looking up to him for advice on the platform.

Michael Street

Mike Street has a passion for emerging media, technology & social innovation. Having spent 15 years in the digital space, Mike Street has worked with top-tier brands such as Time Magazine, Rémy Martin, Oscar de la Renta, Lexus, Turner Broadcasting, Toyota, AARP, McDonald’s, Disney, OWN TV, Tequila Avion, and BET Networks. Mike Street is also the host of the popular podcast SmartBrownVoices, which was featured on iTunes.

Outside of office, Mike Street is the founder of TechFam, a 4000+ member organization with the purpose of helping minorities enter into technology, startup, and STEM positions. He is also the owner of the popular Facebook page Harlem NY with 114,000+ followers.

Stylianos Kampakis

Stylianos Kampakis is a member of the prestigious Royal Statistical Society and the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies. He is also a prominent educator in data science running online and in-person courses on the subject.

He has a very diverse background with degrees in Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Statistics, Economics and a PhD in Computer Science. DenCity team will be seeking his guidance for employing data to taking the platform to masses and providing a personalised experience to its users.

The new advisors join previously announced board members Dean Barozzi, Juha Jarinen and Rafael Stoppa. You can have a look at them here.

The post Welcoming Newest Members Of The DenCity Advisory Board appeared first on NEWSBTC.

People seemingly like to issue existing cryptocurrencies and digital assets as ERC20 tokens on top of the Ethereum blockchain. There is very little to gain by doing so, other than tricking novice cryptocurrency users into buying these crappy tokens. It seems there is a fake IOTA token out there which runs on top of the Ethereum blockchain. So far, there has only been one transaction associated with this token.

Beware of the Fake IOTA Token

We have seen a lot of interest in the IOTA currency over the past few weeks. Its value and market capitalization have grown beyond belief, and it seems criminals and scammers are looking to take advantage of this trend. More specifically, someone has created an ERC20 token on the Ethereum blockchain which is labeled as MIOTA, and which contains the same supply as IOTA does. Thankfully, there is no value associated with this token, nor has this token ever been purchased.

It is unclear why people keep issuing existing currencies as ERC20 tokens, though. We have seen quite a few of these attempts in the past, yet everyone should know which one is real and which is fake. If you find “Bitcoin” in the form of an ERC20 token, you should automatically know it’s not the real deal. The same goes for most ERC20 tokens which are issued under the same name as an existing cryptocurrency.

With IOTA joining this list of scammy ERC20 tokens, things have certainly gotten worrisome. The legitimate IOTA – which uses the MIOTA unit of account – is not based on Ethereum technology whatsoever. That wouldn’t do it any favors either, as it is evident Ethereum is still incapable of scaling properly whenever major network activity occurs. IOTA aims to solve this with its DAG implementation, though it’s unclear if it will be successful in this regard.

For the time being, it is important to remember that there is a fake IOTA token out there which should be avoided. It seems most people have already done so, as there is only one outgoing token transfer associated with this smart contract. Someone out there received 2.858 million tokens, although it is unclear why anyone would want them in the first place. It is possible we will see some form of an ICO selling these tokens in the future, although it remains to be seen why anyone would want to take that route.

Moreover, it is unclear why anyone would call this token MIOTA and call its supply IOTA. It is evident there are some strange things going on with this contract in its current form, yet no one knows what the background story is here. This will not be the last time someone tries to trick investors into buying fake ERC20 tokens which resemble actual cryptocurrencies, though. This business model has proven to be somewhat lucrative in recent months, and the various schemes may well have been orchestrated by the very same people.

It doesn’t appear as if this smart contract is taking the spotlight away from the real IOTA, though. That is a good thing, as people should only pay attention to the real thing and ignore everything else. It will be interesting to see which currency these folks try to bring to the Ethereum network next. The cryptocurrency world gets weirder and weirder by the week; that much is evident.

New York prosecutors have filed charges against a man alleged to have been involved in the theft of more than $1.8 million worth of ether.

Most of the blockchain startups choose to launch an ICO bounty campaign before or after their ICO launch. An ICO bounty campaign in the ICO world is an offer given by the startups which gives the individual ability to receive compensation (usually tokens) for doing marketing tasks such as signature campaign, social media campaign, and others specified in the bounty program.

ICO Bounty programs are usually found on Bitcoin forums and now on ICO Bounty Hunt. ICO Bounty Hunt is a new site where you can find active bounty campaigns that are available and most suited for your your requirements. You can find all the information you need to know about ICOs and with their bounty campaign list.

This website is updated regularly with the new ICO bounty campaigns. This will be very useful to those who are ICO bounty hunters, whether you are a noob or an expert hunter. You can find the bounty campaigns offered by each ICO listed in the site.

You can filter ICO Bounty programs down with the following filters:

Signature Campaign, in this campaign you can earn bounty through posting a signature with code created by the ICO company.

Social Media Campaign, participants can get rewards by re-tweeting, sharing, posting, liking, and other way of spreading the official posts of the ICO.

Referral Campaign, you can get a bounty for every invite.

Translation & Moderation Campaign, this will give the participants token by translating the ICO’s whitepaper, landing pages, ANN threads, and also moderating and managing the local thread.

Content Creation Campaign, in this campaign, the participant can gather bounty through writing blog posts or video posts about a certain ICO.

There are also other ICO bounty campaigns that aren’t really used by ICO companies just like reporting bugs and having pre-sale registration.

With ICO Bounty Hunt you can quickly check which ICOs are offering bounty programs that match your requirements. This means you don’t need to waste time reading through threads only to find out that they don’t even have a content creation program.

To learn more more and get updates on the latest ICObounty campaigns, visit ICO Bounty Hunt.

Links:

https://icobountyhunt.com

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.

IOTA price drops following the company’s clarification that it is not officially partnering with Microsoft. The cryptocurrency has been overshadowed by Litecoin, which overtook it as the fifth largest by market cap.