Day: January 14, 2018

After finishing 2017 up ~1300%, Bitcoin (BTC) is down from all time highs. The cryptocurrency’s market cap now stands at US$229 billion, with US$3.95 billion traded in the past 24 hours. Trading volume should begin to increase again as traders return from their year end celebrations.

Bitcoin Price Key Highlights

• Bitcoin price continues to tread sideways and is still hovering around the bottom of its descending triangle on the 4-hour chart.
• Price looks ready for a bounce off support as a double bottom is forming.
• Bitcoin has yet to break past the small reversal pattern’s neckline around $14,000 before confirming the climb.

Bitcoin price can’t quite seem to gain bullish momentum to climb up to the triangle resistance, but buyers are still defending support.

Technical Indicators Signals

The 100 SMA is below the longer-term 200 SMA to show that the path of least resistance is to the downside. In other words, the bottom of the triangle is more likely to break than to hold.

Stochastic is turning higher, though, so bulls could still regain control of bitcoin price and push it back up for a test of the triangle resistance at $15,000. This is also close to the 200 SMA dynamic inflection point, which might hold as resistance.

RSI is also on the move up to indicate that buyers have the upper hand. However, if both oscillators hit overbought levels and turn back down soon, sellers could make another attempt at pushing bitcoin price below the triangle support at $13,000. Note that the triangle is around $6,000 tall so the resulting drop could be of the same height.

Market Factors

Dollar demand has once again picked up late last week when US CPI and retail sales came in mostly in stronger than expected. Headline CPI came in line with estimates of a 0.1% uptick while the core reading beat expectations with a 0.3% gain versus the estimated 0.2% increase.

As for bitcoin price itself, this particular cryptocurrency seems to be losing ground to its altcoin rivals on the lack of volatility. Alternative digital currencies are offering higher potential returns and are much cheaper, after all.

Besides, the crackdown in China and South Korea is once again threatening volumes and global activity in bitcoin.

The post Bitcoin Price Technical Analysis for 01/15/2018 – Still Stuck in a Triangle! appeared first on NewsBTC.

As Nigeria prepares for general elections next year, youths across Africa seek a greater voice. Various Blockchain groups are seeking to empower this generation, educating them on the digital currency Dash and other projects. #BLOCKCHAIN

Using Bitcoin to send donations is a well-worn and proven concept, and 2017’s unprecedented bitcoin gains have enabled various early adopters to launch philanthropic endeavors.Wikileaks became the first to take advantage of bitcoin for donations in 2010, and has championed its use ever since. The first rush of mainstream charities accepting donations was in 2015.

This week in bitcoin was all about Korea, although every week in bitcoin is all about Korea. Markets dropping? Blame Korea. Markets soaring? Credit Korea. Zero fee trading sends a pointless altcoin pumping? You bet it comes from Korea. While real news, fake news, and news whose legitimacy is a matter of dispute emanated from the east, there were big stories breaking stateside, like the Miami bitcoin conference that can’t take bitcoin.

Also read: The Bitcoin.com Podcast Network Presents: This Week In Bitcoin

You Heard It Here First

We’re not prone to back slapping at news.Bitcoin.com, as smugness is never a good look. It would be fair to say however that a lot of this week’s biggest bitcoin stories started here before being picked up by the mainstream media, including European bank Nordea banning employees from owning cryptocurrency. Welcome to Miami where your dirty crypto’s no good, we reported, in another scoop, after the city’s annual bitcoin conference stopped accepting bitcoin, citing fees and congestion.

Bitcoin haters had a field day with that one including famed economist Paul Krugman, which gave us an opportunity to dredge up his most famous quote for posterity:

By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

That one never tires. It wasn’t just bitcoin conferences that declared they were no longer handling bitcoin; Microsoft also announced that it had stopped accepting bitcoin for similar reasons, before reneging and declaring that it’s now accepting bitcoin again. Glad we’ve cleared that one up.

Korean Gloom and Japanese Cheer

There were so many stories emanating from South Korea this week in bitcoin it’s hard to know where to start. It all started with officials urging other nations to support them in curbing crypto trading, and from there morphed into the country’s banks being forced to stop serving South Korean crypto exchanges. For more information on South Korean developments – as well as those originating in Brazil, Venezuela, and Japan – our trusty scribe Kevin Helms has got you covered. It was he who broke this week’s most uplifting story, about Japan’s virtual currency girls, writing:

Their songs incorporate reminders, advice, and warnings related to cryptocurrency trading. The girls receive their salaries in bitcoin and the show’s tickets and merchandise are also sold for the cryptocurrency.

You love, you lose. Another story from the east was that of Malaysia issuing a cease and desist order on the Copycash ICO. These events are becoming commonplace now, and not just in Asia; a few days ago the SEC suspended trading in a dubious blockchain firm with no product. It would be fair to say the prevailing mood in bitcoin this week was one of uncertainty, with developments in Asia, as always, dictating market sentiment.

Rumors of China banning bitcoin mining and South Korea shutting down exchanges for being complicit in money laundering have abounded. Despite these stories having been refuted or at least shown to be exaggerated, the fear has manifested in the markets, with bitcoin dropping to around $13,000 at its lowest point, and many of this year’s most hyped altcoins – ripple, tron, and stellar – losing as much as 25% of their value.

Ripplets were still seething over last week’s story about XRP gateways freezing customer funds, and thus didn’t take kindly to Monday’s piece on vaporware – cryptocurrency projects with market caps worth billions of dollars but no working product – in which tron, ripple, verge, and cardano were pilloried. That was this week’s second most popular story, second only to one about bitcoin diamond casually doing a 40x – and then predictably plummeting.

Release the Kraken

On Thursday, Kraken went down and then stayed down for no less than 40 hours while it chased down a pesky bug in the system. Upon its return, Kraken promised fee-free trading for all by means of apology. 48 hours since returning to life, Kraken still hasn’t enabled withdrawals however. It wasn’t the only exchange to experience problems this week. A number of cryptocurrency exchange oddities have surfaced lately, although the craziest tales, as always, come from the weird and wonderful world of ICOs.

There was the story about the porn ICO CEO who did a ghost with contributors’ funds, and, in the same article, the tale of Dadi’s demise. That ICO was being shilled as one of the hottest tickets in town until it emerged that, like Tron, large chunks of its white paper had been plagiarized. Desperate not to be left behind, Kodak also plunged itself into the ICO game and yet another stagnant company invoked the blockchain word to give itself a lift.

The trouble with all this ICO madness is that applying rational thinking to projects doesn’t always work. This week, for example, the Peatcoin ICO was launched, promising “Tokenized investment in peat processing and extraction”. It would be easy to dismiss the project out of hand, as this writer did with Dentacoin earlier this year. The trouble is, the dental industry’s proprietary token now has a $2.5 billion market cap that fleetingly placed it higher than Zcash earlier this week. What a time to be alive.

See you next week for more strange stories from the world of bitcoin. In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the new Bitcoin.com podcast (just click on the embed link above). It rocks. You rock. We all rock.

What was your favorite story from this week in bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Keep track of the bitcoin exchange rate in real-time.

The post This Week in Bitcoin: Kraken, Korea and a Whole Lotta Crazy appeared first on Bitcoin News.

The bitcoin charity Pineapple Fund has already donated $1 million to aid in the testing of MDMA as a treatment for PTSD. It is now challenging the cryptocurrency community to donate more, and pledged to match donations up to $4 million.

Also Read: Pineapple Fund Donates $5 Million in Bitcoin as Seed Capital for the Poor

Curing PTSD with MDMA

Pineapple Fund, the $86 million bitcoin charity, has announced it will double the value of every donation to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) until March 10th, up to $4 million. This is meant to help the non-profit research organization reach its funding goal needed to begin Phase 3 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in patients with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The pledge comes after the fund has already donated $1 million to this endeavor.

Pine, the anonymous bitcoin whale behind the fund, commented: “I believe we, the cryptocurrency community, can fully fund Phase 3 trials. Prescription MDMA could be a gift to this world from the bitcoin community. Let’s make MDMA medicine a reality, and give the gift of an enjoyable life to those suffering from PTSD. If you believe that psychedelic drugs can have incredible therapeutic potential, then I believe this is one of the highest impact projects today.”

New Money, New Ideas

This donation shows another example of how, the redistribution of wealth from old money to early adopters of technology via the rise of bitcoin is creating a positive change in the world.

Mainly known as an illicit party drug under the names Ecstasy, Molly and others, MDMA still doesn’t have any accepted medical applications and is deemed illegal for personal use in most countries. While some established charities would have difficulties associating themselves or their donors with such an experiment, a fund created by an anonymous person will have no such qualms.

Other recent Pineapple Fund donation recipients include: Quill, which got $1 million to help them develop a new open source educational model that teaches kids critical thinking and science comprehension; Possible, an organization delivering integrated and scalable healthcare in Nepal which also got $1 million; Software Freedom Conservancy, home to projects like Git, Homebrew, QEMU, and Selenium; and Wings for Conservation, which is providing aerial support against elephant poachers in Chad. Last month the fund also donated $5 million to test universal basic income in Africa.

What other good causes should the bitcoin community should get behind? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section.

The post Pineapple Will Match up to $4M in Bitcoin to Test Curing PTSD With Psychedelic Drug appeared first on Bitcoin News.

5 reasons why a mainstream blockchain product is the next big thing:

All the buzz and noise about Bitcoin in this last year has made me understand one thing: I must start earning in crypto. Maybe some of you readers are big, smart asses and you have your impressive portfolio of investments.

But I am in my early 30’s after a divorce that didn’t leave me much, I don’t even have the smallest amount to invest and enjoy this world of crypto and blockchain. I only have my skills, which I will tell you more about later, and I guess that like me- there are many, many millions out there in the world.

So, I went out searching for the perfect blockchain product, platform, or ICO, and I promised to myself (and to my new girlfriend that was impressed by my knowledge in crypto) that I’m not coming back without the perfect guide, and at least 1 or 2 findings.

As someone that studied and assessed the crypto and blockchain space deeply in the last year (one of my strongest abilities) and read almost every piece of information, watched all the leading Youtubers and Webinars in the crypto world and investigated dozens of startups in this sphere, or ICOs, I understand one thing; “The king is pretty much naked.”

So, I’m here to talk about the fact that most of the projects seem massive and unclear.

Most of these crypto projects don’t even have any existing products, and it all sounds so complicated. It’s exactly what I don’t need, and I recommend for you to follow my lead in getting involved in mainstream blockchain products. That is how I came up with the brilliant headline of this article.

After all, blockchain and crypto should make our lives better, open our lives to new opportunities, and really ease the transfer of payments and information. The accessibility level should be increased, so why the hell is it so complicated and not user-friendly? Why can’t I start earning in crypto tomorrow?

So, in this pile of noise and clutter, I definitely found some pearls of wisdom that made sense and fit the simplicity and rationality I was looking for. Two platforms that easily integrate crypto into daily life are Steemit and Vanywhere. Steemit is an existing content-driven medium that allows users to earn crypto for their submissions. If you have a knack for creating content, it could be a good platform for you. By submitting original work related to different topics, users can become of the community.

Secondly, Vanywhere is a soon to be launched skill-sharing platform that enables Skillers to earn in crypto, that is simplified and accessible, even for crypto beginners. Vanywhere has found a way to break the barriers of complicated entryways for cryptocurrency simply by creating a platform where you can share your skills in different verticals like cooking, styling, yoga, etc. All you need to start earning in crypto on the app are your skills or subjects that you’re very well informed about. Additionally, users can become part of the platform by seeking out “Skillers”, whether you need assistance from top travel influencers to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. The Skillers and users interact through live video, voice call, or chat, and Skillers are paid in digital currency. For instance, I have become somewhat of a crypto expert and I’ve also developed impressive cooking skills. Both of these skills are showcased on Vanywhere. Also, the app is seamless and has its own token called VANY which offer perks for users and rely on an ecosystem. The market capital for these products are out of this world, and I feel a bit embarrassed for not recognizing the potential beforehand. These platforms have found a way to bridge the gap between technology and crypto, and extend into functions of daily life.

To summarize, here are the top 5 ways that mainstream blockchain products will be the next big thing:

1. Anyone with a skill or marketable ability can start earning crypto
2. You don’t need to invest in cryptocurrency to actually start earning it
3. Easy, simple technology make the platforms efficient and user-friendly
4. Soft entrance to the crypto community with other like-minded users
5. Finally, something you can use and understand that doesn’t make you feel dumbfounded about this whole crypto, blockchain phenomenon

Simplifying and “idiot-proofing” these processes will make it easy for everyone to start earning crypto and expand into the world of digital currency. Blockchain products for dummies are the next big thing.

Vanywhere.com– The Vanywhere token sale will take place in Q1 2018.
Steemit.com– Steemit’s platform is currently available.

About the author: The author is a freelancer and a crypto-enthusiast who is interested in finding new ways to secure gigs and get paid in cryptocurrencies instead of fiat. 

Disclaimer:  The statements, views, and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of NewsBTC.

The post Blockchain for Dummies, sorry, for Idiots. appeared first on NewsBTC.

2018 continues to be kicking off on the wrong foot for Bitcoin as another poor week draws to a close. Regulatory pressure seems to have finally caught up with the rocketing asset #ANALYSIS

There are many different blockchain and cryptocurrency projects worth keeping an eye on. For novice enthusiasts, all of this information can quickly become overwhelming. To them, a project like New Economy Movement – or NEM – may make little sense on paper. However, there is a good reason why this project’s currency has been surging in value over the past few weeks. The NEM project is pretty complex, yet everyone can see its future potential.

What is New Economy Movement all About?

The NEM project mainly focuses on creating a smart asset blockchain which can effectively perform under a serious workload. Although smart assets issued on a blockchain are nothing new, most public blockchains struggle to make any meaningful impact in this regard. Especially when it comes to applications outside of the cryptocurrency space, most public blockchains are not all that appealing right now. NEM, on the other hand, provides a fundamentally streamlined method of pushing blockchain technology beyond its limits, so to speak.

Achieving such a goal will not be easy by any means. Currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum would love to scale to NEM’s level, but it is doubtful they will ever be capable of doing so. Competition in the blockchain world can often lead to new ideas. The New Economy Movement team built and coded their platform from the ground up with a strong focus on scaling and speed. At the same time, they had to “compromise”, as this is not a permissionless open blockchain by any means. Instead, the team opted to create a permissioned private chain to deliver industry-leading transaction rates.

There are actually two NEM blockchains in existence. One is the private permissioned ledger, and there is also an open public blockchain at users’ disposal. Both blockchains are entwined without compromising the stability or throughput of either ecosystem. More specifically, both blockchains can interact with one another without any problems. This allows businesses to build real-world applications and smart asset systems. Gaining access to both private and public blockchain technology with minimal development is rather appealing to a lot of companies right now.

Do keep in mind the public NEM blockchain is the one which people can access through regular network nodes. The permissioned, private NEM blockchain must be run on one’s own servers. It’s interesting to see projects offer choices, as they know not every business wants to explore with open and transparent technology from day one. More importantly, businesses can implement either blockchain solution without having to worry about integrating existing business logic processes. It is a rather versatile system which caters to both cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts.

NEM also has its own consensus algorithm which is vastly different from that of most cryptocurrencies. More specifically, it uses proof-of-importance, a technique quite similar to Google’s PageRank. Preventing attacks against the network or any of its transactions is the top priority for this team. Moreover, PoI is far superior at scaling and offers a high degree of energy efficiency at the same time. Network nodes – either for private or public blockchain purposes – are capable of running on any type of hardware one could imagine.

Obviously, there is a lot more to NEM than can be explained in a brief article. The website lists a lot of intriguing use cases for this blockchain technology, including the option of creating one’s own PayPal. Moreover, NEM’s technology can also be beneficial to the Internet of Things, thanks to the ioNEM initiative. The possibilities are virtually limitless when it comes to NEM, regardless of whether it’s used for public or private purposes.

Discover an interview with fintech connector – John Patrick Mullin. Crypto community, online courses, China and other issues discussed. #INTERVIEW

Blockchain is gaining momentum in a number of growing industries. Because of the rise in popularity of Bitcoin, Blockchain technology has proven useful in the financial arena. A growing number entrepreneurs are utilizing Blockchain to transform a number of industries.

Blockchain is known for driving greater transparency and security across the digital information ecosystem. Armed with this knowledge many startup companies are beginning to implement use cases for the nascent technology.

This has caused a heightened awareness around the technology in areas stretching from payments to public policy. As popularity grows, the need for more information and training will increase as well. Learning how these industries are using Blockchain to advance their companies is becoming more and more accessible with more events and conferences happening every day.

Impacts on a global logistics

The transfer of goods, service and value drive the way humans exist. This important reality of life is accomplished through communication flow and logistics. CEO of Shipchain, John Monarch, believes that the logistics sector employs more people than any other industry. Due to the natural growth over time, it has required innovative ways to scale in order to handle the growth of the shipping and logistics needs.

Monarch said, “Connected devices revolving around the Internet of Everything (IoE) need a higher level of security. Blockchain technology is a matchless solution in this regard because it provides the best protection through distributed ledgers, advanced encryption, smart-contracts and reduced intermediaries. As a result, this will tackle corruption, ransomware, theft, premium-fees and tracking issues.”

His estimates predict that more than $50 billion per year could be saved just in the beginning, and after maturity, as much as $500 billion annually when Blockchain networks are implemented on a mass-market level.

Blockchain’s key role

Efficiency isn’t the actual selling point of Blockchains for the logistics industry, according to Monarch. Plenty of other options outside of Blockchain can provide more efficient systems. What Blockchain does offer, however, is a way “to make systems more transparent, more robust and less dependent on intermediaries.”

When there is a change of ownership, tracking this information becomes an issue as it relates to the chain of custody. One example of this is how a car’s history is tracked as noted by Christopher Bates, COO of Bitland:

“It is pretty important to know if a car has been in a major accident and has frame/structural damage,” he says. “If there was an immutable accessible record that kept track of the car history, there would be no way a car salesman could sell a car that had been extremely damaged.”

Bates also explained the problem as it relates to ownership of land. In some places, land titles are tracked on paper only or by one individual. Fraud happens in situations like these because the land can be sold two to three times without truly knowing who the real owner is.

Providing safety

There is a constant battle over the imperfections of shipping. Tracking the chain of custody when it is passing through so many hands begins to break down. There is no perfect way to find who is responsible for the break in the chain. Bates observes:

“The issue therein is that since they are mutable, shipment records can be hidden or erased completely to the detriment of the people at large. Governments are able to hide their black budget spending by erasing shipping records or preventing records from being issued at all.” 

Blockchain fixes this issue by implementing technology that decreases the potential of malicious action and creates better transparency with immutable record-keeping.

Creating new opportunities

 As Blockchain technology continues to find traction among industry insiders and new markets, the potential for adoption continues to grow as well. Of particular note are new startups and existing businesses that are conducting Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). This model of decentralization provides a way for Blockchain technology to enter various industries.

Arcade City is a startup up company similar to Lyft and Uber. They are now facilitating all of their transactions through a Blockchain system. They are providing their drivers the freedom to establish their own rates with Blockchain tracking all of the data. This will appeal to drivers who would like to build up their own business instead of being controlled by a corporation. They can build their own customer base, determine rates and offer additional services (deliveries and roadside assistance).

This is just one example of many new ICOs who are starting to take advantage of the Blockchain technology. The movement of putting freedom and control into the customer’s hands will be an upward trend that many will begin to use to their advantage. ICO provides industries with a platform to offer tokens to pay for services. It is a great way to establish the capital for a new company while providing services to your customer base.

The post Blockchain Technology Is Changing the Logistics Industry appeared first on NewsBTC.

Scorum is a breakthrough sports media platform built on the Graphene Framework that will reshape the fan experience for sports lovers all over the world.

The platform already has prototypes of its integrated services and will open a crowdsale on January 14.

With over 1 billion fans making over 8.5 billion visits to sports websites every month, the time is now to harness the merits of blockchain technology and build a more sustainable fan community. By setting out a transparent and fair rewards system coupled with features that fans engage in and enjoy, Scorum has positioned itself at the cutting-edge of the latest transformation of sports and social media.

The Scorum Platform brings it all together

With rewards in Scorum Coin (SCR) Tokens and an internal currency for the blogging ecosystem (Scorum Power (SP) Tokens), fans on Scorum will enjoy these core services:

1) A Sports Optimized Blogging Platform (UI preview available)

The home of stunning sports content, the blogging platform is the place for sports writers of tomorrow to publish their work and build an audience that values their talent. No editors, no deadlines, no corporate sponsors to cater to. Just a sleek design, easily integrated stats visualizations, efficient editorial tools and cryptocurrency rewards curated by fans.

2) Advanced Sports Statistics Center (Check out MVP)

Sports coverage wouldn’t be the engaging industry it is today without the keen interest in stats and sports data that fans share, analyze, and dissect. An in-depth stats center is part of the Scorum platform. All fans will enjoy the latest updates from events around the world.

3) Commission-free Fantasy Sports Leagues (Check out beta version)

Scorum’s daily fantasy sports leagues offer competitive fans a chance to use their SCR in the zero-fee fantasy sports platform. Starting next week fans can enter the first competition to win signed prizes from UEFA CL Champ Alex Hleb. Once the blockchain and wallet are published in March, ScorumDraft players will be able to buy-in and win SCR tokens!

4) Commission-Free Betting

Where allowed by local gambling regulations, Scorum will offer sports bettors a commission-free exchange to place peer-to-peer bets with SCR tokens. This, along with the fantasy leagues, will not be a revenue source for Scorum, rather they bolster the utility of SCR tokens among the fans. Pro sports bettors will naturally migrate to a commission-free solution and Scorum has teamed up with SiGMA to offer its betting solution for third-party implementation.

Top Athletes Support Scorum

From NBA Champ Timofey Mozgov to EUFA Champions League Champ Alexander Hleb to NHL All-Star Nikita Kucherov, Scorum has the support and advice of some of the greats in a variety of sports. Athletes of all levels will have a new way to connect with their supportive fan base through the social aspects of the Scorum blogging platform.

The Solid Technology behind Scorum

Built on the Graphene Framework, Scorum aims to make the transition into the world of cryptocurrency seamless and stress free for sports fans. The high transaction speeds and reliable delegated proof-of-stake consensus has proven successful in other projects and are ideal for Scorum’s high-traffic ambitions.

The blockchain developers at Scorum have implemented the capability to make atomic swaps directly to the Scorum blockchain from any cryptocurrency that also supports them. To see all the work of Scorum developers, check out Github.

SCR Tokens Crowdsale

To further fund the development, marketing, and launch of Scorum, SCR tokens will be sold during the crowdsale from January 14th to February 11th. There is a hard cap of 20 million SCR created and 18.6 million will be available for the public to buy.

Don’t miss out on the cryptocurrency that will be a game-changer for the sports industry.

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.