Day: December 23, 2017

Most people are well aware of how China isn’t exactly known for freedom of speech. Especially in the online world, accessing the information you need there is a big challenge. Until recently, it was possible to bypass most limitations through a VPN connection. However, the government has begun arresting and sentencing VPN service providers. One Chinese entrepreneur received a jail sentence of five and a half years for providing such a service.

Chinese VPN Provider Faces Massive Jail Sentence

With the Chinese government cracking down on VPN providers, it is only a matter of time until more people get arrested and receive jail time. Although the use of a VPN is normal in the rest of the world, it is illegal in China as of this year. Anyone using such services or reselling VPN access to third parties can be arrested and thrown in jail. It is a very sad development in the world of free speech, but rest assured we will only see more of these invasive measures in the future. One Chinese entrepreneur was recently sentenced for selling VPN access to others.

More specifically, Wu Xiangyang was handed a jail sentence of five and a half years. That seems awfully steep for simply reselling VPN services, but the Chinese government isn’t taking this matter lightly. In fact, it will continue to crack down on virtual private networks, its users, and the service providers. In an ideal world, the Chinese government would like to see VPNs destroyed in China, as it doesn’t want consumers or corporations to evade the Great Firewall any longer. It’s a disturbing development, but one most people saw coming from miles away.

Wu was also fined 500,000 yuan for this violation. Although a fine of nearly US$76,000 is somewhat negligible compared to the jail sentence, it only confirms how the government will go about its business moving forward. It has to be said that Wu ran his VPN service without an official license and has been a major vendor since 2013. His arrest in Q3 of 2017 made some media headlines, and he may very well be made an example of.

With the Communist Party trying to keep Chinese internet users from seeing sensitive content that might change their worldviews, a very problematic situation is created. In a normal scenario, anyone would be able to access the information they seek and be allowed to make up their own mind. China has always been averse to this idea, and it will continue to introduce measures to ensure people can’t view “material deemed subversive or obscene”.

As one would expect, the ban on VPNs has not been well-received in China. Millions of individuals and corporations can no longer operate at full capacity. It even disrupts Chinese academics and students, which is never a positive side effect. At the same time, this VPN crackdown is only one part of the political games taking place in China. Things will only get worse from here on out unless solutions are created which can’t be blocked by the government.

Do keep in mind Chinese officials will introduce government-approved VPNs in the future. These tools will not necessarily allow people to access their desired content, and they will log all information passing through their connections. This is the second time someone has been sentenced for selling VPN access in China, but it certainly won’t be the last.

During the last couple of years, the popularity of digital currency casinos has increased considerably, given the wide variety of benefits being offered to players. Many people believe that bitcoin is the perfect currency for online casinos, and recent statistics show that the market agrees with the opinion.

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Based on this, back in April 2017, a research study had shown that approximately 4.5 billion in Bitcoin has been wagered in online casinos since the year of 2014. If we were to take into account amounts wagered in other digital currencies, the market capitalization of crypto casinos would be even higher.

For those who do not know, apart from numerous bonuses, cryptocurrency casinos offer several other benefits when compared to traditional, fiat-based online casinos. These include, but are not limited to:

1.    Verifiable game results, via provably fair protocols – numerous crypto casinos offer a provably fair feature, which users can utilize in order to verify whether their roll is authentic, or has been messed around with.
2.    Lightning fast transactions – both deposits and withdrawals on crypto casinos are bound to be quick. Most casinos require transactions to have one confirmation on the blockchain network, prior to allowing users to wager the funds. In general, this can take anywhere between a few seconds to a couple of minutes, based on the digital currency of choice. Withdrawals on the other hand are often processed instantly. Users no longer have to wait for days before being able to play, or withdraw their funds.
3.    Low fees and house edges – digital currency casinos have been proven to have some of the lowest fees and house edges on the market. In fact, most of the times, there is no fee associated with either deposits or withdrawals.
4.    Player anonymity and worldwide access – concerned with your personal information when gambling online? This often isn’t a problem with crypto casinos. Many casinos automatically register user accounts when accessing the websites, and do not require personal information such as email, name, or address of its players. This anonymity also allows users located in countries where online gambling is forbidden to access and play on casinos. Do keep in mind the fact that some crypto casinos, especially those which utilize games licensed by casino game developers may have stricter rules.

Apart from these benefits, most cryptocurrency casinos grant players access to a wide variety of entertaining games, many of which tend to be extremely rewarding for wise players.

INFOCASH is a hotel – Restaurant management system and global payment platform that is on mission to bring era of digitalization to business and real life.

Infocash Ecosystem has maximized functions with the launch of ICC – a secure, borderless and decentralized cryptocurrency. Infocash aims to build a digital ecosystem for the future. ICC would lay a foundation and ecosystem, where we foresee massive growth and potential not just for 1 or 2 years from now, but for decades into the future. Infocash is leading the way in innovation and will be changing the economic social landscape of digital media and communications worldwide.

ECOSYSTEMS

InfoLending is an investment channel which pays daily profit to investors with interest changing related to trading bot and volatility software.

InfoExchange is a place for trading and coins converting. The platform is protected from hackers and upgraded regularly to provide the best experience for its users.

InfoWallet is the best secure e-wallet where investors can store their ICC and other coins, send and receive cryptocurrencies instantly and reward annual interest as respecting for your trust in our project.

InfoNews is a channel where updates last news related to cryptocurrency market, blockchain, Fin-tech, etc.

InfoBooking is including hotel – restaurant management system and global online booking market where connects traditional booking channels and is integrated Blockchain in data storing and AI technology in voting evaluating.

InfoPay is an international payment service that applies the essence of online payment model and integrates advanced technology. With InfoPay, there will be no border and distance, no middleman nor cash.

ICO AND TOKEN

ICC is presentative coin of Infocash project which will be used as payment unit among the infrastructures. ICC is also a potential coin which is planning to be listed on many exchanges following the project’s roadmap.

ICO will be organized by auction from Dec 24, 2017, to Jan 23, 2018 with start price is $0.3-0.9. For more information, visit website

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With increased public awareness of Bitcoin and altcoins, many new faces have recently entered the crypto scene for the first time. Of course, new traders will make many bad decisions, and for the most part, they will improve with time and experience. However, a number of these mistakes are common, and can easily be identified and avoided.

Ignoring Market Cap

Ignoring market capitalization is a pretty common issue that seems to persist almost universally among new traders. The mistake is that these traders look at the price of a coin, not its market cap, to decide whether or not to buy it. They look at coins like Ripple and Cardano as “cheap” and undervalued investments because they can buy so many units for so little. The mindset is that if Bitcoin could rise from such small amounts to where it is now, then surely these other coins could show returns of at least a fraction of those of Bitcoin.

Of course, this is an inherently illogical way to approach investing. While the price per coin is low, there are tens of billions of coins in circulation. These coins are not cheap or undervalued – they are already worth billions of dollars! The alternative is simply to assess coins by their market cap, not price, to determine what offers a strong buy. Look for coins with lower market caps than its competitors.

The Best Traders are Full-Time?

There is a misconception among both new traders and some more experienced ones that the best traders are interacting with crypto markets all day, every day. Beyond this, they think that to compete for optimal returns, they, too, must trade full-time. This is simply not the case. While some traders (mostly day traders) do spend dozens of hours per week, and some are wildly profitable, this is not the norm or even the best approach.

In reality, the most profitable traders are often the ones who research small projects and find ones with huge potential, buy in, and wait. With practice, it only takes a couple of hours to find a truly stellar project. Spending a handful of hours each week researching coins will equip you with enough knowledge to create a portfolio of potentially massive winners. From there, it’s a matter of doing less, not more. Have patience, and exponential profits can be enjoyed.

X Coin is Better than Bitcoin

In this day and age, most projects are technologically superior to Bitcoin. Asserting that a particular coin will inevitably moon because its specs are better than Bitcoin’s is simply naive. Of the more than 1,300 cryptocurrencies listed on CoinMarketCap, hundreds can do more than Bitcoin, and can do what Bitcoin does better, faster, and cheaper. The fact of the matter is that people do not buy Bitcoin for its tech. If they did, then Litecoin, Vertcoin, even Dogecoin would be worth much more than BTC.

To accurately determine if a coin’s technology is undervalued, compare the value of the coin to its competitors or similar coins. From there, compare the respective hardware. Does a coin have a lower market cap than its competition, despite having stronger tech behind it? Then it is undervalued. If this isn’t the case, then perhaps it’s not.

While these are a few examples of common mistakes often made by inexperienced traders, they only represent a segment of the many misconceptions out there. To improve oneself as a trader, the best strategy is to remember advice as it is given, and simply learn from one’s experiences. No trade is a bad trade when there is a takeaway from the outcome. Learn from mistakes, and a method to all this madness can be found.

December 22, 2017 – MATRIX AI Network today launched the MATRIX project, a new generation Blockchain that leverages the latest AI techniques to revolutionize the cryptocurrency landscape. With a fusion of Blockchain and AI technology, MATRIX has built a revolutionary cryptocurrency that supports significantly boosted transaction speed, superior accessibility to general users, enhanced security under malicious attacks, and highly flexible operations.

“The MATRIX intelligent Blockchain is a game changer in Blockchain technology,”, said Owen Tao, CEO of MATRIX.

“MATRIX differentiates itself from previous Blockchains by offering breakthrough technologies in building AI-enabled autonomous and self-optimizing Blockchain networks, which feature multi-chain collaborations and decoupling of data and control blocks”.

As a result of the extreme congestion on both the Bitcoin and Ethereum Networks, ICO investors or contributors have faced significant challenges with cryptocurrency transfers which causes substantial hitches in trade transactions. The MATRIX Blockchain, via a unique dynamic hierarchy generation mechanism, enables the delivery of a superior transaction speed with the goal being to outperform the VISA system and deliver a remarkable throughput of 1million transactions/second.

MATRIX also aims to majorly combat and reduce cases of cryptocurrency fraud and theft with reports of such incidences increasing over the past few months. Earlier this year, January, 1 BTC (Bitcoin) had an average value of $969. Eleven months later, 1 BTC is set to break through the $20,000 barrier. With alternate coins also exploding in a bullish digital currency marketplace, individuals with dishonest intentions have also crowded the crypto space, adding more menace to the digital currency market.

The DAO attack has also demonstrated how smart contracts can be exploited and MATRIX has equipped its Blockchain with a powerful AI security engine that can identify bugs and vulnerabilities in smart contracts.

The MATRIX Blockchain also offers an ease-of-use to the Blockchain community, allowing a user base which is 3500 times bigger than that of Ethereum to design smart contracts without having programming expertise. With the MATRIX Blockchain, smart contracts are easily implemented with natural languages, and its more extensive use guarantees the liquidity MATRIX tokens.

MATRIX offers a flexibility that is welcome to Blockchain technology and by the crypto community. MATRIX provides a higher flexibility that affords the dynamic adjustment of parameters as required to adjust to the ever-changing and improving cryptocurrency market needs.

With most Blockchain projects having to deal with the hard fork community splitting and digital asset devaluation challenge, MATRIX offers evolutionary parameter optimization without triggering hard fork while also offering the intelligent integration of public and private chains with AI-based coordination.

MATRIX AI Network Timeline

September 2016 – Project Inception
January – May 2017 – Successful sculpturing of Blockchain design
Sep 2017 – First edition AI testing
Q1 2018 – MATRIX Initial coin offering
Q2 2018 – MATRIX Initialization
Q3 2018 – Light Speed Network Launches
Q4 2018 – AI-secured Intelligent Contracts
Q4 2019 – Mining & More Apps

 For more information:  

Business White Paper: http://bit.ly/bizwp
Technical White Paper: http://bit.ly/technwp
Visit our website: https://www.matrix.space
Email us: [email protected]
Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MATRIXAINetworks
Follow us on Twitter: @matrixainetwork

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Chances are, you would have heard a fair bit about Bitcoin in the mainstream news recently. This is probably due to the fact that as of right now, one Bitcoin equals over $15,500 and that figure reached an all-time high of $19,783 on December 10, 2017. The cryptocurrency has been around since 2009 and to add to the mystique surrounding those pesky little gold ‘coins’, the creator of Bitcoin is unknown and only goes by the rather conspicuous alias, Satoshi Nakamoto. With the monumental rise that Bitcoin has been enjoying recently, it has been estimated that Satoshi may well be sitting on a fortune of around $5.8 billion. In other words, if any of your colleagues have randomly decided to buy a yacht or a recently deserted Caribbean island then befriend them immediately.

With a number of big-name brands such as Microsoft and Paypal now accepting payment by Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency is rapidly diversifying its portfolio and Mr. Nakamoto is doing an excellent job of making sure that he has his fingers in every virtual pie possible. If you want more evidence of the world going bonkers for Bitcoin then look no further than Lottoland, who have recently set up the world’s first Bitcoin lottery, where users can set up a Bitcoin wallet, pick 6 numbers and then simply watch their winnings being transferred directly into their nominated bank account right before their eyes.

Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are largely popular with consumers because they effectively cut out the middleman in most transactions and represent a swift, secure method of transferring payment. Due to the fact that Bitcoin exchanges are discrete and anonymous, they cannot be traced back to a third party and as a result, another major benefit of using Bitcoin is that it’s impossible to add sales tax onto any purchases made with the cryptocurrency. If that wasn’t enough, Bitcoin has actually been sent into space (no, really) and the whole journey was recorded on a GoPro camera. It’s also estimated that the FBI owns around $120 million worth of the cryptocurrency after shutting down the operations of Silk Road and obtaining the founder’s assets. Pretty cool or what?

The remarkable growth that Bitcoin has enjoyed in 2017 continues to polarize experts, with some suggesting that the cryptocurrency is a virtual bubble waiting to burst, whilst others suggest that the sky is the limit as long as the currency is properly taken care of. Skeptics will of course point to the recent decline in value as an indicator that Bitcoin has effectively reached its financial ceiling and that it will struggle to emulate the sort of growth which has seen it featured on virtually every major news outlet across the world. Simply put – the truth is, no-one really knows for sure and when you factor in that Bitcoin only was worth a meager $807 this time last year, it becomes clear why it’s so difficult to predict what the future holds for the cryptocurrency. As Socrates so succinctly put it, “I know that I know nothing.” That just about sums up how we all feel about Bitcoin at the moment.

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In a sudden change of sentiment, Goldman Sachs has started to entertain the idea of having a Bitcoin strategy. While plenty of exchanges and ETFs have taken steps to get involved in this burgeoning sector, Goldman Sachs is the first major bank to consider opening up a market on Wall Street.

A Change in the Institutional Tide

Only a few months ago, Goldman Sachs was leery of the cryptocurrency market and its flagship star, Bitcoin. In October, the firm’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, tweeted that Goldman Sachs was still undecided on how it should approach the young and volatile assets. Come November, however, Blankfein noted that the banking giant was warming up to the idea of embracing the trend.

Now, it appears as though Goldman Sachs is getting ready to grab the cryptocurrency bull by the horns. As reported by Bloomberg, the banking firm has begun forming a cryptocurrency trading desk, with the purpose of opening up its own markets for the digital assets. After working through security and storage logistics, it hopes to have these markets live by June of 2018.

This development makes Goldman Sachs the first mover on Wall Street to consider subsuming crypto into legacy markets. The bank has yet to decide which of its divisions will oversee the new markets, but it’s considering handing over responsibility to its currencies and commodities unit’s systematic trading mechanism. The latter conducts electronic transactions, so it seems like a logical fit.

The Rise of New Asset Classes

This past month, Goldman Sachs has been one of many institutions that have cleared trades on CBOE’s Bitcoin futures market. It appears as though these futures have opened the floodgates for a variety of crypto-specific assets, and Goldman Sachs is looking to fill market demand.

“In response to client interest in digital currencies, we are exploring how best to serve them,” Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally said in a statement.

As we delve into the new year, legacy financial institutions will likely continue to get their hands on Bitcoin and its crypto posse. With the looming possibility of ETFs and even more futures contracts entering the scene, expect plenty of players to take up crypto’s mantle. Even amidst the ongoing mass correction, there’s plenty in the way of anticipation going into 2018.

MyEtherWallet founder Taylor Monahan knows a thing or two about blockchain users, arguing they’re not ready for the early blockchain tools of today.

It’s been over two weeks since the largest U.S. options platform, the Chicago Board of Trade (Cboe), launched its bitcoin-based futures products. Now over the past week, the firm has applied for six individual exchange-traded funds (ETF) and is waiting for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval.

Also Read: Popular Chat App Kakao’s Exchange Upbit Claims Number One Spot in South Korea

With Bitcoin Futures Well Underway Cboe is Positive it Will be Approved to List Bitcoin-Based ETFs on the Bats BZX Exchange

Cboe joins the growing list of companies that are now optimistic U.S. regulators will allow bitcoin-based ETFs. Just recently news.Bitcoin.com reported on Vaneck, and Rex applying for ETFs with the SEC. Moreover, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) wants to list Proshares ETFs on the stock market as well. According to public filings with the SEC, the options exchange Cboe wants in on bitcoin ETFs too, and hopes to list six different type of products on the Bats BZX exchange.

The following ETFs are have been submitted to the U.S, regulator which include the Rex Bitcoin Strategy, and the Rex Short Bitcoin Strategy funds. Alongside this, Cboe has introduced four more funds called Graniteshares Strategy, Graniteshares Short, the First Trust Inverse, and the First Trust Bitcoin Strategy. The ETFs will not resemble the ETF product the Winklevoss have proposed to offer, but rather the Cboe ETFs will be directly correlated to its futures markets.

Cboe Planned to Reapply for the Bitcoin ETFs After Futures Contracts Built Liquidity

The application for the Cboe ETFs sent to the SEC department follows the two weeks worth of futures markets held on Cboe’s global market platform. Cboe’s CEO, Ed Tilly told the press on December 4 that they would apply for the ETFs once the futures markets were well underway. Mr. Tilly told Reuters at the time:           

Once liquidity builds in the Cboe bitcoin futures contract and the exchanges are able to show how their oversight of the underlying market works, Cboe plans to reapply with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a bitcoin ETF.

In addition to Cboe’s markets, other competitors have entered the bitcoin derivatives space as well, as Ledger X has been processing bitcoin options for quite some time, and CME Group has recently launched its futures. Further in 2018 Nasdaq plans to list its own bitcoin-based futures products. Essentially, if there’s enough demand and firm’s like Cboe continue to show regulators they are practicing regular oversight the SEC may be more inclined to approve the recent bitcoin ETF filings.

What do you think about Cboe applying for six different exchange-traded funds? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Cboe, and Pixabay. 

Bitcoin.com is ramping up our tools section with a variety of useful Bitcoin-related applications. There’s a price converter, paper wallet generator, a faucet, and a verifier to validate messages using the Bitcoin blockchain. We’re pretty excited to introduce these new widgets and tools so our visitors have the best resources to navigate the Bitcoin landscape.

The post Options Giant Cboe Applies for Six Bitcoin-Based ETFs appeared first on Bitcoin News.

It is evident the next few days will be very interesting for all cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Especially where the XRP price is concerned, we may not have seen the last of this bull run just yet. In fact, it seems the XRP price is preparing to move towards $1.25, which may even extend to $1.40 if there’s enough momentum. A very interesting turn of events, that much is rather evident.

XRP Price Remains Uber Bullish

For the people who had assumed the XRP price would start to decline due to the recent Bitcoin drama, things have worked out very differently. In fact, the XRP price was, by far, the most resilient market in the top 50 ranked by Coinmarketcap. Although there was a small decline to speak of, no major losses were recorded when everything was said and done. This is a good sign, especially for those who hold Ripple’s native asset as part of their portfolio.

As of right now, we see an XRP price of $1.19 according to CMC. That is quite a strong value, although it is not the all-time high. To some people, it still seems strange to consider Ripple’s asset being worth more than $1 per token, but there is a lot of merit to this project. Banks will far more readily embrace Ripple instead of cryptocurrencies in the coming years. In fact, the latter part may never happen, for all we know. Instead, banks will oppose any cryptocurrency-related activities whenever they possible

With this new 11.44% increase in USD value, things are looking rather solid for the XRP price. There’s also a near 2% gain over Bitcoin, although it remains to be seen if that trend will hold up. Most assets and altcoins tend to lose BTC value when the Bitcoin price is rising again. Then again, this trend has not been all that apparent in recent weeks. It would be good if all other currencies stopped relying on Bitcoin or get dragged down with it.

With over $3.11bn in 24-hour trading volume, Ripple’s XRP remains one of the hottest trading markets right now. It is absolutely amazing to see how this digital asset is gaining so much traction throughout 2017. Although this is not the final push we will see in the coming week, it remains to be seen how high the value can go. Some experts still stick to their $2 prediction, although that seems highly unlikely to most cryptocurrency users. Then again, stranger things happen every other day it seems.

In an unsurprising turn of events, Bithumb has maintained the lead in terms of XRP trading volume. Coinone and Korbit are also in the top 10, albeit in far less spectacular fashion. Poloniex successfully generates the second-highest amount of trading volume, although they are not too far ahead of Bitfinex. Three of the top five trading markets are fiat currency pairs for XRP, which is pretty interesting to keep an eye on. It seems both Bitstamp and Kraken are also heating up in terms of EUR-based trading volume.

It is still unclear what the future may hold for the XRP price. While there is a lot of bullish sentiment right now, cryptocurrencies are never stable markets whatsoever. Anything can happen in quick succession, especially when it comes to markets with a lot of trading volume. For now, all platforms successfully value XRP at over $1, but it only takes one hour of manipulation to drop this average by 10% or more. Rest assured a lot of people will keep a close eye on this market.