Day: January 12, 2018

Chinese web search giant Baidu has launched its own blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) platform based on its own technology.

It is evident the term “Bitcoin” has become so much more than a designation of the world’s leading cryptocurrency. For many companies, it has also become a marketing gimmick these days. More specifically,  KFC Canada feels now is the best time to introduce a Bitcoin-related product. Their limited-time offer Bitcoin Bucket is an interesting creation in this regard. It can even be delivered to one’s doorstep in select regions.

It is important to note KFC Canada currently has no plan to accept Bitcoin payments. Nor will they embrace other cryptocurrencies until further notice. All they aim to do is get a piece of the Bitcoin hype and sell some more products. There’s nothing wrong with using popular trends for one’s own marketing purposes. In fact, it may bring some more positive exposure to Bitcoin as a whole. It is an interesting move by KFC Canada, although it remains to be seen if anyone even cares.

Free Bitcoin Marketing Courtesy of KFC Canada

With the Bitcoin Bucket, KFC Canada has created a rather interesting precedent. They are the first major fast-food chain to create a Bitcoin-themed product. Although it can’t be paid for in BTC directly, it’s still an interesting concept. The Bitcoin Bucket is not necessarily something one hasn’t seen before either. It contains chicken tenders, waffle fries, Med Side, Med Gravy and 2 Dips. All of this is presented in a convenient bucket for the price of CA$20.

For the time being, it is unclear how long this item will be available. Limited offers like these often disappear pretty quickly. There’s also the question as to whether or not KFC Canada will get a lot of orders for this bucket. Other than a marketing gimmick, there is nothing related to Bitcoin whatsoever. It may have the Bitcoin logo on the front, although that seems highly unlikely at this point. Turning Bitcoin into a marketing gimmick can be a positive move for the cryptocurrency ecosystem overall.

Sadly, the Bitcoin Bucket will not come to the rest of the world. It’s unclear why KFC Canada is the one to release such an item, though. Bitcoin hasn’t made the biggest of impacts in Canada at this point. Then again, a free marketing trend is a gift horse we shouldn’t look in the mouth. In the worst case, very little “buzz” is created because of it. The best possible scenario would see KFC Canada spark more public interest in Bitcoin. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved, even if it’s just temporary.

The post KFC Canada Introduces a Limited-Time Offer Bitcoin Bucket appeared first on NewsBTC.

From Microsoft to The North American Bitcoin Conference, businesses are starting to do U-turns on Bitcoin as a viable payment option #ANALYSIS

In a rather surprising turn of events, it seems the XRP price is slowly starting to mount a comeback all of a sudden. More specifically, the XRP price has taken a major beating in the past two weeks, but the momentum is slowly turning in favor of Ripple’s asset once again. With a value of over $2, things certainly look pretty solid right now. Given all of the market volatility taking place, it is still too early to speak of a major comeback, though.

XRP Price Momentum may Turn Bullish Again

No one can deny all cryptocurrencies are going through a very rough patch right now. More specifically, there is no stability whatsoever, and $50bn market cap swings are not all that uncommon whatsoever. This also means most currencies will go up or down in value in quick succession, which creates both buying and selling opportunities. In the case of Ripple’s XRP, things have not gone smoothly by any means. The all-time high of over $3.5 is very far away, and we may never see it again.

More specifically, there is some solid XRP price momentum taking place right now. Although all of these gains can easily be wiped out in the coming hours, things are looking rather positive right now. To put this into perspective, the XRP price has gained 13.74% in USD value and 13.63% in BTC value. This latter aspect is rather interesting, as that seems to be the most important market for Ripple’s digital asset right now. If Bitcoin tanks in value – like it has been doing steadily for the past few weeks – the XRP price will struggle quite a bit as well.

At the same time, we often see the XRP price go up when Bitcoin suddenly drops in value. It is evident for everyone to see these currencies are not competing with one another, but they are intrinsically linked regardless. How this will affect the XRP price in the future, remains to be determined. For now, it seems to work out quite well, as it is good to see the XRP price peak above $2 once again. There is still a very long road to recovery ahead, though, but one has to start somewhere.

With over $5.68bn in 24-hour trading volume, things are certainly looking up for Ripple and their XRP asset. This trading volume had taken a bit of a hit in the past week, but things are finally looking up again. With this strong volume, it becomes even more obvious cryptocurrency enthusiasts want to diversify their portfolio first and foremost. Although XRP isn’t a cryptocurrency it can be traded against Bitcoin on virtually most big exchanges. The Bitcoin price isn’t doing too well, this altcoin will become a lot more popular in the near future.

Unsurprisingly, Korean exchanges reign supreme when it comes to XRP trading platform. More specifically, Bithumb generated over $2.1bn in volume, which represents nearly 38% of all trades worldwide. Coinone is in second place, with 8.81% of all trades. Binance is the first non-Korean exchange on the list with their XRP/BTC market. Bitfinex is the first non-KRW fiat currency market with $4489.4m in volume. An interesting situation, even though Korean prices have no influence on the global market average any longer.

Whether or not the XRP price will succeed in surpassing $3 again, remains to be determined. Right now, that seems highly unlikely, although some weird things have happened in the cryptocurrency world before.  Until the Bitcoin price shows some movement again – or people finally stop using it as the default value metric for other currencies – no major shakeups should be expected. Then again, this is the most unpredictable financial sector we have seen to date. Anything and everything can happen yet it remains to be seen how it affects the XRP price moving forward.

Sberbank, one of the largest banks in Russia, has built a blockchain laboratory to develop and test blockchain-based solutions.

PressCoin plans to fix the news business with a Blockchain-based approach to building internal markets for content, traffic and engagement #SPONSORED

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), the beloved US-based fried chicken chain, has started to accept bitcoin from its customers.

KFC’s Bitcoin Campaign

For a limited period of time, KFC is selling a bucket of fried chicken for $20 presented in a bitcoin-themed container demonstrating the price of the fried chicken bucket at the time of the sale. For instance, at the time of reporting, $20 is equivalent to $0.0011204, and upon the request of a delivery, KFC embeds the amount of bitcoin equivalent to the price of the bucket of fried chicken onto the container.

While KFC Canada does not intend to integrate bitcoin as a permanent and long-term payment method as of current, the company has introduced its bitcoin campaign to address the rapidly increasing demand for bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market in general.

The strategy of KFC Canada to implement a unique campaign involving one of the fastest evolving technologies and forms of money in bitcoin has been massively successful, as the company obtained significant mainstream exposure from the media and social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Throughout the limited offering of bitcoin-themed fried chicken buckets, KFC consumers can utilize BitPay’s payment processing service to purchase the signature KFC fried chicken with bitcoin.

In total, the bitcoin-themed bucket of fried chicken costs just over $27, including the $20 price of the bucket itself, taxes, and shipping fee. Inclusive of bitcoin transaction fees, which are averaging at around $5 on major blockchain wallet platforms like Blockchain and Trezor, the KFC bitcoin-themed fried chicken bucket costs over $30.

Given the current state of the Bitcoin network and its underlying scalability issues, it will be difficult for any large-scale commercial fast food chain to accept bitcoin as a payment method. But, in the future, the integration of second-layer solutions could allow restaurants to enable bitcoin payments, if transaction fees can drop below $1.

Second-layer and off-chain scaling solutions including Lightning and Ethereum’s Plasma are capable of processing near-instant payments with significantly low fees. As such, in the long-term, fast food conglomerates like KFC accepting cryptocurrencies as major payment methods is a possibility.

McDonald’s and OmiseGo

In late 2017, McDonald’s Thailand partnered with OmiseGo, the Ethereum blockchain-based payment processing platform, to process payments of McDonald’s online orders using the immutable blockchain network of Ethereum.

Already, McDonald’s Thailand is processing large volumes of credit card payments on the OmiseGo blockchain network. The integration of McDonald’s Thailand of OmiseGo enables the company to seamlessly integrate cryptocurrency payment methods, if the company decides to address the growing adoption of bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital currencies.

“The consumer’s experience begins right when they place the order online, and payments is a critical component of that experience. Offering highly secure, seamless payment options across all platforms and devices is key to delivering a seamless experience for McDonald’s customers.” said Jun Hasegawa, CEO & Founder of Omise.

The adoption and integration of blockchain technology by fast food chains like KFC and McDonald’s will drastically increase the awareness of millennials in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, which have evolved into a major asset class.

The post KFC Canada Has Started to Accept Bitcoin For Cryptocurrency-Themed Fried Chicken appeared first on NewsBTC.

Cryptocurrencies emerged as a leading tech in 2017, but 2018 may find them merging with other technologies to become even more ubiquitous.

So who exactly are the ultra rich and what is the smart money? As detailed in Credit Suisse’s 2017 global wealth report, the ultra rich are the 150,000 people worldwide who sit at the very top of the international wealth pyramid, with a net worth in excess of US$50 million.

Japanese e-commerce and entertainment giant DMM Group has launched its crypto exchange, supporting 7 cryptocurrencies and 14 trading pairs. The group is also preparing to launch another crypto exchange in the Spring aimed at inexperienced investors.

Also read: South Korea Urges 23 Countries, EU, and IMF to Collaborate on Curbing Crypto Trading

DMM’s Crypto Exchange Launched

Japanese internet and entertainment conglomerate DMM Group has launched a cryptocurrency exchange under the brand name DMM Bitcoin. The platform began trading on Thursday January 11.

To commemorate the grand opening, the exchange is giving away 1,000 yen (~$US9) to all customers who open a new account during the campaign period between January 11 to March 11.

Customers can trade on their PC or use an Android or iOS app. The platform supports bitcoin (BTC), litecoin (LTC), ether (ETH), ethereum classic (ETC), nem (XEM), bitcoin cash (BCH), and ripple (XRP). Fourteen currency pairs are available for trading. In addition to the 7 coins trading for yen, 7 crypto-to-crypto trading pairs are offered; they are ETH/BTC, ETC/ETH, XEM/BTC, XRP/BTC, LTC/BTC, ETC/BTC and BCH/BTC.

According to DMM’s announcement, the exchange is using a trading platform provided by Simplex Inc. called “Simplex Cryptocurrency.” This platform offers trading tools for general investors, business management systems, and a dealing system.

Simplex has been providing securities and FX trading systems to major banks and financial services companies such as SBI Holdings, GMO Group, Nomura Securities, Matsui Securities, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Bank, and Money Partners Group. The company recently started offering a cryptocurrency trading system and DMM Group is its first customer for the new service.

Another DMM’s Exchange Coming Soon

In addition, a subsidiary of DMM Group is launching a new cryptocurrency exchange. Next Currency Inc announced earlier this week that it has filed with the Japanese financial authority to register a new exchange called Cointap.

Planned to launch this Spring, Next Currency described, “Cointap is a service that allows you to easily buy and sell virtual currencies from smartphones,” adding that it is “best suited for those who want to start virtual currency transactions such as bitcoins.” Furthermore, the company claims:

Since virtual currency exchanges so far are centered on services for people with knowledge and investment experience of virtual currency, they are fashionable but difficult to understand and difficult to use.

Citing that there are many inexperienced investors who do not know how to buy or sell, the DMM subsidiary explained Cointap will be tailored for investors entering the market for the first time.

What do you think of DMM Bitcoin exchange and Cointap? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Simplex Inc, DMM Group, and Cointap.

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