Day: January 3, 2018

When science and technology come together, both exciting and frightening things are bound to happen. A startup known as SuperMeat raises a lot of questions in this regard. It aims to develop lab-made chicken meat which will be labeled as “clean meat”. It’s an interesting concept that warrants further investigation.

The Era of Lab-grown Clean Chicken Meat

It is fairly obvious most consumers don’t want to think twice about what they are eating. More specifically, we don’t care how a chicken was raised, where it was slaughtered, or how it was treated. SuperMeat, an Israel-based startup, acknowledges something will have to change in this regard. The company wants to develop chicken meat inside a laboratory and ensure that it is “clean” at the same time.

While this concept may sound rather vague, the startup has done a lot of legwork already by raising the capital necessary to pursue this opportunity. Although US$3 million in seed funding may not sound like much, it is plenty of money with which to grow chickens in a lab environment. Whether or not SuperMeat will make any sort of impact on the overall market remains to be determined, though. For now, this is considered a niche market of niche markets, even though the concept may become mainstream a lot sooner than people think.

Clean meat is very different from what the name suggests, mind you. The goal is to transform the food industry in such a way that we can focus on food production in a scalable and more sustainable manner. Every piece of clean meat is grown in a lab using real animal cells. In this particular case, said cells are extracted from a chicken. By feeding the cells sufficient nutrients to produce muscle and fat, it becomes possible to create chicken meat.

As is always the case when a discussion revolves around lab-made meat, there are still a lot of questions which will need to be answered. Replacing slaughter animals will not happen overnight by any means, although it is evident this technology may provide a solution our society needs right now. Other benefits include reducing the industry’s environmental impact and addressing foodborne illness. A lot of research is still needed before all of these problems can be addressed, but for now, Supermeat seems to be on the right track to make a positive impact.

Most people are blissfully unaware of the increasing use of antibiotics in farming. Like humans, animals will develop resistances to such medicines sooner rather than later. A never-ending cycle of medicine, disease, and medicine could be created if things were to go awry. Switching over to clean meat is certainly an option worth exploring, although nothing has been set in stone just yet.

It will be interesting to see how Supermeat and its competitors fare in the race to create lab-grown clean meat. Moving away from its initial plan to grow whole organs in a controlled environment is certainly a smart decision. Especially when it comes to scaling such research, starting at the cellular level seemingly makes a lot more sense. Whether or not the rest of the world will agree with and approve of this new way of creating edibles is a different matter altogether.

While the world seems to be busy figuring out how the cryptocurrencies will shape the future, some businesses are doing their best to help the world make use of cryptocurrencies today.

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One of the ways how these companies are making cryptocurrencies accessible in people’s daily lives – as opposed to being merely investment tools – is through online purchases. Yes, we’re talking ordering shoes on Amazon and topping up your prepaid SIM card with the cryptocurrency of choice made as easy as entering your credit card details.

THEBIGCOIN IS EVERYTHING IT SAYS IT IS

The industry is young, the prices are volatile and the future is unclear – no wonder relatively few online retailers have jumped onto the cryptocurrency payment bandwagon. They simply don’t want to take the multiple risks, associated with taking cryptocurrency for their products.

TheBigCoin – one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency payment processors – doesn’t mind taking the risk to connect the two audiences – customers who purchase products in cryptocurrencies and the retailers who are looking to accept those purchases.

TheBigCoin for Consumers

How does it all work? From the consumer’s point of view, you simply copy-paste the URL of a product you’re interested in, enter all of the necessary product details (like color and size) and fill in your shipping data. There’s also an option to skip the shipping address – in case you’re ordering a digital product – which makes the order completely anonymous.

At the end of this short process, you’re given a choice of five cryptocurrencies to pay with – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Monero and Dash – and a unique digital wallet address to transfer your payment to.

At the top of the window, there’s 15-minute timer that starts counting down as soon as you enter the page. See, you have to make your payment before the timer runs out due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrency prices.

TheBigCoin claim that they can process purchases at all online stores or service providers. Indeed, after a few lazy tries with Amazon and Overstock products, we’ve been comfortably convinced that TheBigCoin works with all of the products on a huge number of retail sites.

General thoughts on buying products in cryptocurrencies through TheBigCoin? It’s a new concept, and the fact that it’s entirely anonymous did make us slightly aware of the fact that it’s not your traditional PayPal payment. However, after having read numerous testimonials from customers who’ve successfully made purchases in Bitcoin using TheBigCoin, we’re convinced it’s only a matter of time before the service is established as the go-to spot for Bitcoin purchases.

Therefore, the only two questions we ought to be asking about TheBigCoin are does their service work and, if it does, is it safe? In this case, the answer is yes to both, which makes it a 10/10 for us.

TheBigCoin for Businesses

However, there’s a flipside to the ‘Coin. Many online retailers are just as interested in partnering with TheBigCoin to unlock new target customer groups and increase sales by accepting cryptocurrency payments.

Luckily for business owners, implementing cryptocurrency payments on your e-commerce system is as easy as installing a plugin and setting up your digital wallet. Currently, TheBigCoin is compatible with WooCommerce, Magento, OpenCart, PrestaShop, OSCommerce, VirtueMart, VHCMS and Zen Cart.

The entire process is completed by creating an account on TheBigCoin’s website (no personal data, just an email address and your shop’s name required), and installing the respective plugin on your e-commerce platform. The cryptocurrency payment options will appear among the existing ones shortly on your website, and the only thing left for you to set up will be your digital wallet’s address.

The fees? A modest 0.9% for all of your transactions – the lowest in the market. Compared to the competition, who charge 1% and above for each transaction, and credit card providers, who take 2-3% off every payment, TheBigCoin’s competitive advantage is hard to argue with.

As opposed to many of their competitors, TheBigCoin also offer conversion-oriented payment/checkout pages. The majority of cryptocurrency payment processors still seem to be familiarizing themselves with the concept of UX. TheBigCoin’s payment pages really show how payment page UX should be handled.

The Verdict

TheBigCoin offers a service that is anonymous, safe, and – most importantly – works. It definitely has room to grow and certain features feel a little robust, but in an industry as volatile and young as cryptocurrency payments today, they’ve achieved what many would consider impossible.

The company is an innovator in its field, and uses new concepts and ideas to connect interested shoppers with online retailers. We’re excited to see this company grow and create the future of online purchases.

Thanks to them, the world is offered a real, day-to-day application of cryptocurrencies. Online buyers have the option to quickly and safely buy products in five cryptocurrencies on more than 50,000 retailers’ websites worldwide (big-time names like Amazon and Overstock included), and businesses can open their services up to new, well-paying customers by simply making an account and installing a plugin within minutes. A win-win-win situation, which makes it a strong 10/10 for us.

It’s alt season, y’all. Since the Christmas Crash took place back on December 22, Bitcoin has struggled to regain its former prominence. Crypto’s flagship coin has sputtered in price and lost a significant chunk of its market share, all while the rest of the market has continued a healthy growth pattern after the pre-Christmas dip.

Ringing in the New Year on a High Note

It’s not very often that you see Bitcoin stagnate while the rest of the market is going up. Not even a month ago, analysts were making starry-eyed speculations about Bitcoin’s future, many confident in a US$15,000 valuation by year’s end. This was, of course, during a time when the entire market was in the throes of a bull run that increased crypto’s overall market capitalization from US$200 billion to over US$600 billion in a month and a half. And as we’ve become accustomed to in this wild, wild market, as Bitcoin goes up, alts (usually) follow.

Oh, how times have changed. It now seems like we’re in a new age of altcoin confidence, an era in which alternative currencies are not as tethered to Bitcoin’s successes and failures as they’ve been in the past.

We’re a little over a week out from the flash crash of December 22, Bitcoin is resting at a humble US$14,000, and it’s been trading at between US$13,000 and US$14,000 for the past few days. Meanwhile, Ripple, Ethereum, Cardano, and the top ten’s newest addition, Stellar Lumens, have all peaked to fresh all-time highs in the past week. Meanwhile, the seven-day averages for many of the market’s top 100 are in the green, while some coins have seen gains upwards of 50%.

This recovery has thrown cryptocurrency’s total market cap to new historic levels as well. Yesterday, crypto’s overall net worth eclipsed US$650 billion, overtaking its former all-time high of US$640 billion. Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s market cap is sitting at US$233 billion, a 30% decline from its high of US$333 billion.

In the past, if a correction chipped US$100 billion off Bitcoin’s net worth, the alt market would take a dent with the king of crypto and portfolios the world over would plummet in value.

What’s changed is that over the course of December, Bitcoin’s market dominance dwindled to unprecedented lows. Topping out at a monthly high of 67%, it’s shrunk to 37% at the time of writing, lower than its spread during the alt boom of last summer.

If we compare this share of the market to the beginning of 2017, the difference is staggering. In January of 2017, Bitcoin owned anywhere from 84% to 87% of the cryptocurrency market. As such, it seems entirely logical (if not frustrating) that alts were at Bitcoin’s behest during bull and bear cycles. Bitcoin was steering the ship, so if the market hit a rough patch, the entire market took on water.

As Bitcoin’s market share slips to new lows, however, it’s no longer the only currency rocking the boat. As both Ripple and Ethereum look to climb above US$100 billion market caps, it’s likely that crypto’s star asset will need to learn to share the limelight.

Of course, we have no way of judging how long this alt rally may last or whether or not Bitcoin will retain its market dominance. However, alts are looking particularly confident as we head into the new year, and perhaps this year will usher in a new era of more proportionally-distributed wealth among market assets.

Giga Watt, a startup that held an ICO to fund a bitcoin mining facility, is being sued for allegedly conducting an unregistered securities offering.

Despite decent gains today, bitcoin cash prices could take a hit in the short-term, technical charts suggest.

Bitcoin Cash has been a rather interesting addition to the list of cryptocurrencies. This hard fork still holds a lot of value among the community. Moreover, a new technical upgrade has been introduced by the Bitcoin ABC client developers. As of yesterday, BCH now has its own unique address format. This adds another layer of replay protection to this altcoin. People who upgrade their client should no longer be able to send Bitcoin to the Bitcoin Cash network.

It is good to see developers address some of the problems plaguing Bitcoin Cash. While the hard fork has been successful, some big changes were made already. The mining difficulty algorithm got a nice upgrade several weeks ago. As of this week, the Bitcoin ABC client users have another tool under their belt. The CashAddr implementation has finally gone live. This means client users now have a different address format for Bitcoin Cash. It is one of the biggest lingering issues which had yet to be addressed properly.

Bitcoin Cash Gets a Unique Address Format

More specifically, a lot of people send BTC to the BCH blockchain. This is mainly due to both chains using the exact same address format. It is far from an ideal situation, to say the very least. Bitcoin ABC developer Amaury Sechet acknowledged something had to change several months ago. It took some time to fully develop and test CashAddr, though. With the testing now complete, the feature has been implemented in the Bitcoin ABC client. It is a more than welcome upgrade for all Bitcoin Cash enthusiasts.

This new format prevents users from sending money to the wrong chain. It is something we see with other Bitcoin hard forks as well, unfortunately. Using a different address format simply makes sense. Any coin launching without this protection puts users at risk. That is never an acceptable situation whatsoever. There are other benefits to this implementation of CashAddr as well. It also paves the way for more secure multiparty smart contracts in the future.

For the time being, we have to wait until service providers upgrade their clients as well. Exchanges, wallet providers, and merchants have yet to upgrade their clients. It is pretty interesting to keep an eye on this development, though. If these companies take as long to upgrade compared to implementing SegWit, things are not looking great. Then again, things are always subject to change in the world of cryptocurrency. All things considered, it is a positive change for Bitcoin Cash. Whether or not it will affect the BCH price, remains to be seen.

The post Bitcoin Cash Gets its own Address Format Thanks to Bitcoin ABC Developers appeared first on NewsBTC.

A South Korean law firm has reportedly filed a constitutional appeal over upcoming regulations restricting digital currency trading.

DASH/USD

DASH has been slightly negative during the trading session on Wednesday, but at this point I think we are testing the top of a downtrend in channel. If we can break above the top of the channel, and more importantly the $1200 level, then the market will go much higher. I think eventually we will target the $1500 level. If we break down below the $1050 level, the market will probably continue to go lower.

LTC/USD

Litecoin has been a bit sideways during the trading session as there is no volume. The lack of volume continues to play the market, and although we have been bullish of the last couple of sessions, the $260 level offering resistance. That was previous support, so it makes sense that the sellers may return. I think Litecoin may roll over a bit from here, but I think that the $200 level is a hard floor. Otherwise, if we break above the $260 level, the market probably goes to the $300 level.

Thanks for watching, I’ll see you again tomorrow.

The post DASH and Litecoin Analysis January 4, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

It has been a rather interesting week for fans of Ripple and XRP price speculators. Although most people assumed surpassing $2 was only a temporary measure and would eventually lead to a crash, nothing of the sort has happened so far. In fact, it seems the XRP price is intent on setting a new all-time high and potentially even surpass $3 this week. A remarkable turn of events, that much is certain.

XRP Price run Isn’t Over Just yet

Truth be told, very few people had expected Ripple’s XRP would even surpass the $1 value. When this digital asset reached $0.25, many people felt it was overvalued already, even though that is not necessarily the case. Given the industry Ripple is targeting with their technology and native asset, there is still a lot of room for future growth in the coming years. After all, the banking sector processes trillions of dollars every day and if they can save on overhead costs, they will gladly do so.

Whether or not XRP is the answer to the bank’s problems, remains to be seen. Just like cryptocurrencies, the XRP asset is highly speculative in value right now. It can be traded against cryptocurrencies, which means it is subject to far more price fluctuations than most people would be comfortable with. So far, the XRP price holds its own above the $2 level with relative ease, though. Not many people expected this growth would be sustainable for more than a day, but things have an interesting way of working out these days.

In fact, it seems the XRP price momentum may very well result in a new all-time high sooner rather than later. If this current trend keeps up, there’s no reason to think we won’t see an XRP price of $3 and higher by the time this week is over. After all, we now see an XRP price of $2.75, and the momentum is still very bullish at this point in time. There are no guarantees in the world of investing, though, especially when it comes to cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Thanks to a stunning $4.5bn in 24-hour trading volume, it becomes even more apparent we may see some major XRP price changes in the coming days. It is evident there is a genuine demand for XRP right now, although it remains to be seen whether the demand continues to outweigh the selling pressure. After all, it heavily depends on what Bitcoin does in this regard. So far, Bitcoin has not made any major impression this year, although things could have played out a lot worse as well.

Bithumb is the leading exchange for XRP trading volume right now, which is not entirely surprising. Their lead over Binance and Bitfinex is quite spectacular, although we see four exchanges compete for the number two to four spots right now. Three fiat currency markets in the top three for XRP is quite interesting, especially for a digital asset such as XRP. More fresh money entering the ecosystem will usually lead to further price increases, although it remains to be seen how things will play out for XRP in this regard.

Looking at things from a neutral point of view, it is evident XRP is not done just yet. In fact, we may see its value increase even further in the coming hours and days. If the XRP price were to surpass $3, things will get very interesting, to say the least. Especially as it would automatically mean XRP continues to gain on Bitcoin. Overtaking the world’s largest cryptocurrency in market cap will be quite a challenge, but stranger things have happened last year. These are very exciting times for cryptocurrency and digital asset enthusiasts, to say the very least.

ETH/USD

Ethereum was a bit choppy during the trading session on Wednesday, as we approach the $900 region. There is plenty of support below to keep the market higher though, so on dips I believe that Ethereum offers value, and that we will continue to see a “buy on the dips” mentality. Longer-term, the target is $1000, but it’s going to take a while to get there.

ETH/BTC

Ethereum was flat during the trading session on Wednesday after initially falling. The market looks as if it is trying to continue to go to the upside, and we are currently right in the middle of the Bollinger bands, suggesting that perhaps we could continue to go higher. With a little bit of artistic license, you can form a nice uptrend that the market is following. Ultimately, I believe that the market will bounce and go looking towards the 0.065 handle.

Thanks for watching, I’ll be back tomorrow.

The post Ethereum Analysis January 4, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

BTC/USD

Bitcoin rallied a bit during the trading session on Wednesday, but remains within a serious consolidation area. The $16,000 level above is resistance and the top of the range, so I think that if we were to break above there, the market would probably go looking towards the $18,000 handle. Otherwise, expect a short-term pullback from that area. Massive support can still be found at the $13,000 region.

BTC/JPY

Bitcoin initially dipped a bit during the trading session on Wednesday but recovered slightly. The market looks to be hovering around the ¥1.73 million level, with a support level underneath at the ¥1.5 million level, and resistance at ¥1.9 million. Much like the BTC/USD pair, I think this market may pull back slightly, but it should be a buying opportunity.

Thanks for watching, I’ll be back tomorrow.

The post Bitcoin Analysis January 4, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.