Day: January 20, 2018

Everyone has had a genius business idea at some point or another. Most ideas come from looking around and identifying ways life could be made better. That’s the ground-level of creating a successful enterprise. However, as good as an idea may be, there is a lot that needs to be done before it can become a reality.

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Several technical and time-consuming steps need to be fulfilled to get a project out of the paper and into the real world. These often require skills and a financial investment that could refrain people from setting up their own company. Can you imagine a world where those things are not a barrier in the way of great innovation?

It was bearing those constraints in mind that Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services (TBIS) created a solution that will not only revolutionize the Internet but will also change dramatically the way companies operate, and facilitate the creation of new enterprises.

Enterprise-oriented solutions

Titanium is offering a solution that runs IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) on its own dedicated Ethereum Blockchain. The system allows clients to set up an enterprise level infrastructure from anywhere, through any device. Using an intuitive platform, users can get virtualized routers, firewalls, servers, storage and databases for their companies. Besides being the easiest and quickest way to put together those infrastructures, this is also the most efficient, safest and cheapest solution available for companies.

As it runs on the Ethereum Blockchain, the system is immune to DDoS and other address specific attacks. It is also prepared to maximise uptime of all devices, applications and services, by running autonomous “healing” actions when faults are detected. If any device falters, the operation will be transferred to a network of redundant nodes.

ICO still going

As a way of paying for the services that it supplies, TBIS has created the BAR token, which can be purchased on the ongoing ICO, the first ever to be Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and Better Business Bureau (BBB) accredited. BAR is being sold at an exchange rate that is pegged to the USD value of ETH.

The ICO has been launched on Jan. 1, 2018, and it should go on for approximately 60 days unless the hard cap is reached before that time frame. Of the 60 mln BAR that have been created, only 35 mln (60 percent) will be sold. BAR will be a deflationary currency. No more tokens are going to be created in the future and all unsold tokens will be burned.

The team

The project is being developed by an experienced team of experts in fields like Blockchain Technology, Business Management, and Internet Network Infrastructure Management. Leading it is Michael Stollaire, who is no stranger to the business since he has founded EHI, a technology consultancy specializing in Enterprise Infrastructure Management.

Besides his expertise, Mr. Stollaire is bringing with him a strong client portfolio, which includes small and medium enterprises, as well as household names like Apple, Microsoft, Intel, PayPal, or General Electric.

Fire Lotto is a revolutionary lottery that uses the Ethereum smart contracts to create a transparent and trustworthy system. The platform offers huge jackpots and fast payouts, greatly benefitting players on the platform.

Fire Lotto is a blockchain-based lottery platform that blends new-age technology with tried and tested conventional systems to create a familiar yet superior offering. The platform offers attractive payouts, with a whopping 70% of the funds collected from ticket sales being collected in a prize pool. The initial prize pool has a size of $1 million.

The Fire Lotto prize pool is not limited to $1 million and can soon increase by multiple folds, depending on the number of players buying tickets. If there is no winner the end of any draw, the prize pool will be rolled over to the next draw. It will continue until there is a winner. The platform adopts a transparent payout process and the use of Ethereum smart contracts eliminate the possibility of fraud.

All winnings will be paid almost instantaneously from the prize pool.

How it differs from Other Such Projects

The objective of this projective is to create a fair lottery, accessible to anyone in any part of the world. They will ensure that the prize pool is large, and the payouts are fast. The autonomous platform cryptographically stores all the data and records on a public, decentralized blockchain. It implements a Random Number Generation (RNG) method based on Bitcoin decentralized protocol to ensure fool-proof fair interaction on the platform.

Details of the Token Sale

The token sale will take place in several stages:

• The private presale started on December 15, 2017, and ended on January 15, 2018.
• The pre-ICO started from January 15, 2018, and will last until February 15, 2018.
• The ICO will be launched on March 15, 2018, and end on April 15, 2018.

100 million tokens are to be released by the developers. Of this, 77 million will be offered at the ICO.

Important Facts about the Lottery

• It is a decentralized platform will everything based on ETH smart contracts
• It will start with 4 lottery games
• Winnings are paid automatically after every draw
• The starting price for lottery tickets is $2
• More lottery games will be added in future
• The token symbol is FLOT

How does it Work?

To participate, users can choose the “draw lottery” or the “instant lottery”. The instant lottery is a wheel of fortune that that has 21 numbers. Bets range from 0.007 ETH upward with coefficients ranging from 2 to 20. If the player guesses correctly, the bet will be multiplied by the chosen coefficient.

For draw lottery, there are three types — 5 of 36, 4 of 20, and 6 of 45. Players will get to pick one, buy a ticket, and guess the numbers. The draws take place every 6 hours. The winnings are based on the numbers guessed correctly.

More information about Fire Lotto and its ongoing crowdsale is available at – https://firelotto.io/

 Media Contact : [email protected]

 

The post Fire Lotto: An Awesome Blockchain-Based Lottery, Token Presale Underway appeared first on NewsBTC.

Drone technology has always been intriguing to industry experts and enthusiasts alike. In fact, it seems the idea of using drones in the real world may finally become a lot more appealing in the near future. Over in Australia, two lifeguards have successfully used a drone to rescue two swimmers. It is widely considered to be the world’s first success for this specific technology. It is good to see drones get some positive attention, as most of the media headlines are always rather negative.

Drone to the Rescue in Australia

When someone starts a discussion on drones, the conversation will eventually turn to mass surveillance at some point. That is not entirely surprising, as most people consider drones to be flying devices with cameras mounted at the bottom. Capturing and recording real-time pictures and videos have become a major appeal as far as these devices are concerned, even though they are also considered to be rather privacy-invasive by the average consumer. It’s not all bad when it comes to drones conducting surveillance, though.

In Australia, for example, two young swimmers were recently rescued by a drone. That’s not because the drone hoisted them out of the water, mind you, but the flying device played a critical role in the operation. Two teenagers were seemingly struggling with the current at Lennox Head Beach in New South Wales. After a passerby alerted the lifeguards, they deployed a Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver drone, which comes with an inflatable float for swimmers to cling to. No one ever hopes to have to deploy this technology in a life-or-death situation, but the proof is in the pudding.

Thanks to the quick deployment of this float, the two boys were able to be rescued by the lifeguards. In fact, both children managed to swim back to shore with the help of this float, which just goes to show how valuable this technology can be. Both youngsters were extremely exhausted but suffered no injuries, other than getting a good scare. It is good to see the Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver drones making positive headlines in this regard.

Sources claim this was a “world first” rescue operation carried out by a drone. Whether that is entirely true may be subject to debate. Regardless, no one can deny that the drone was a key player in ensuring both swimmers made it out of the water alive. It was able to deploy the float far quicker than lifeguards would have been able to reach the swimmers. From that perspective alone, the technology clearly works as advertised. We can only hope it doesn’t have to be deployed too often in the future.

Considering that death by drowning is still a very real problem in Australia, these drones can be pivotal in saving more human lives. Australia is a notorious place when it comes to swimming incidents, mainly because people tend to swim outside of the designated areas. When that happens, it only takes one strong current to tug them away from the beach. Swimming against the tide is a very difficult endeavor, even for trained athletes. If such swimmers are not rescued quickly, they will eventually drown. A total of 291 people lost their lives due to drowning between July 2016 and July 2017.

For the time being, Westpac’s parent company has not issued any official comments on this incident. It is evident the Little Ripper Lifesaver is an interesting piece of technology which may make a big impact on a global basis. We can only hope to see drones make more positive headlines in this regard. Technology can be useful when it is deployed correctly, rather than used for mass surveillance or political agendas.

How many websites have you visited today? How many messages have you sent? Are you streaming a video or some music right now?

Chances are you use a lot of data without even realizing it. The thing about using data is that you’re creating data too. When you visit a website, you submit to other users of the internet data about your browsing habits. When you send a message on Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, or Skype, every aspect of how you communicate is recorded and stored on servers located all around the world.

Given the number of people who are using the internet nowadays, a huge amount of data is being created every single day, minute, and second. In fact, each minute of 2017, 156 million emails and 16 million text messages were sent, 46,200 images were uploaded to instagram, and 452,000 tweets were tweeted. That’s a lot of data.  

And this data is useful. In the most basic sense, it helps social media and other platforms to match you with information, entertainment, businesses, and products that would interest you the most. Now, finding things to read, watch, buy, and do, is getting easier than ever.

However, it’s really about time for big data to do something that will truly improve people’s lives. It’s time for big data to revolutionize healthcare.

And eHealth First (www.ehfirst.io) is at the forefront of this movement.

A lot of medical and healthcare data exists, and today it is almost all digitized. This “big data of medicine” includes several huge corpuses of information.

First, there is the medical literature. Since the rise of modern medical science, hundreds of thousands of articles and books have come through the academy and been published – and later uploaded online. Second, there are medical records – millions of detailed doctor’s notes that contain information about diagnoses and treatments are saved on servers in hospitals and clinics everywhere.

eHealth First, a company founded by a group of top physicians and computer and medical science experts, has figured out how to gather, process, and analyze data in order to increase healthcare access and human longevity.

The eHealth First platform consists of two applications:

The first application is an easy-to-use mobile app that enables users to indicate and track the basic indicators of health, including the user’s biological age and level on the frailty index. Additionally, it offers assessments of various body systems. At the end of the process, the user will receive a list of recommendations from the system — as well as offers for additional diagnostics, laboratory tests, and medical consultations — based on the screening.

The second application is a knowledgebase of medical literature, built to give physicians and other healthcare professionals easy access to the information they need to treat their patients.

An IT platform, eHealth First can be used by developers to develop many types of healthcare apps.

At the core of both these applications are AI algorithms that enable natural language processing, for quick reference of medical data.

The other key technology of eHealth first, of course, is the blockchain.

Within the platform, a large amount of medical data will be stored on distributed ledgers. This means that medical information will not be stored on some central server only, but rather everywhere on the net. Data is doubly secure because it will be encoded, and only accessible by the right people – smart contract technology ensures it.

What’s more, blockchain storage of medical data means that it can be accessed anywhere. Whether you use eHealth First in California, Thailand, Argentina, or Latvia, you can be sure that your data is safe and only accessible by you.

The eHealth First ICO

EHF is currently in the private placement stage of its ICO and is seeking initial investments.

The ICO is set to take place during the first part of 2018.

For more information visit www.ehfirst.io

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.

A lot of things are happening in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency right now, and no one can keep tabs on everything. VeChain is one of those projects which seemingly emerged out of nowhere and is now the 25th largest cryptocurrency by market cap. No one will deny that any blockchain-based project is of great interest to the world, although there are some questions as to what sets VeChain apart exactly.

The Idea behind VeChain

It is not all that easy to come across information which describes what VeChain does exactly. According to its website, VeChain is the world’s leading blockchain platform for products and information. That is a vague statement which echoes a fair few companies in the blockchain industry right now. Leveraging the blockchain to build a trust-free and distributed business ecosystem doesn’t explain much either. It does appear the team focuses on scalable solutions, which is a positive note.

VeChain Under the Hood

As one would expect, most people are interested in finding out whether or not VeChain has a working product. After all, a lot of blockchain-based ventures are nothing more than a proof of concept at this stage. With VeChain, things are very different, in a good way. A total of three products have been developed using this blockchain, all of which seemingly focus on entirely different markets. It’s good to see companies explore use cases outside of the financial sector these days.

Firstly, there is an API gateway service, which is used by a Chinese company in connection with importing goods. We have seen people explore the option of using blockchain in the supply chain industry, and this seems to check some of the boxes in this regard. Additionally, VeChain is used by PricewaterhouseCoopers for “third party services”, which is another major validation of what this technology is capable of.

Last but not least, it seems VeChain also plays a part in the Liaoning Academy of Agricultural Sciences’ distributed data storage. All of these projects are pretty significant in their own way, although they may not necessarily be all that appealing to the masses. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the long run, but so far, it seems VeChain is doing exactly what it advertises. Bringing the blockchain to the masses is still a very steep challenge, to say the least.

What’s in Store for VeChain?

As is always the case with blockchain-based projects, one has to wonder what the future holds for VeChain. It seems the project will soon undergo a major rebranding to VeChain Thor Blockchain. This means the existing VEN tokens will be converted to VET tokens. Moreover, there will be a proof-of-authority consensus model to ensure future developments are aligned with the vision of the VeChain Foundation. Additionally, there will be nodes and masternodes, albeit in very limited fashion. It’s an interesting turn of events which may or may not have a positive impact on this particular project.

Decentralization is occurring in almost every other online service industry. We have new startups for decentralized music platforms, decentralized data verification and now decentralized video sharing platforms are also in the limelight. The idea is to move away from the centralized server-based model in the world right now that is employed by Youtube, Vimeo and other online video platforms.

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While the idea itself and the extent of decentralization has always been a major talking point, several different models of platforms are emerging. Viuly is one of them and rather than just promising futuristic progress just for the sake of its’ token offering, Viuly seems to be delivering something holistic.

Viuly’s Aidrop Campaign

Viuly’s long term commitment involves engaging the larger cryptocurrency spectrum in its’ development efforts. It was for this reason that instead of an instant-cash based approach like a Token Sale, Viuly instead airdropped most of its tokens directly to Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets. The more Ethereum or Bitcoin users had, the more coins they were likely to get, subject to an an upper cap.

With this airdrop, more than 458 million VIU tokens were airdropped to 1 million Ethereum users and more for bitcoin. The platform connected to the Ethereum Mainnet a month ago and with the listing on the OKEx, token holders can now trade in VIU tokens directly.

Over 250,000 users have already registered on the network after the airdrop and are now using the innovative platform for buying advertisement credit or for simply watching videos. It is often said that the once the token is listed on one exchange, the rest of the exchanges soon follow.

Viuly Tokens Commence Trading on OKEx Exchange

One of the biggest challenges of any new token-based platform is to get registered on an online exchange for trading purposes as it reaffirms its’ status in the crypto community. Viuly is now being traded on OKEx and anyone can sign up for buying/selling in the coin.

The token is now listed on two other major exchanges including Bit-Z, and EtherDelta. It is expected that within some time, the token will be available for trading on almost all major crypto exchanges around the world. Currently, it is available for trading in both Ethereum and Bitcoin trading pairs. The currency is already trading in multi-million ranges per day on these exchanges and we can expect bigger and better things as the platform matures and improves.

ETH Holders can Claim VIU tokens

Many ETH users might not be aware that they are eligible for useful new VIU tokens that are programmed into the Ethereum blockchain using the ERC-20 token structure. If a user had maintained a balance of mere 0.01 ETH in his wallet at the time of the airdrop campaign around November 5, 2017, He is most likely to have received the VIU tokens.

If a users’ Ethereum was in an exchange, they can contact the exchange support regarding the airdropped tokens. All Viuly token holders can participate in the online video sharing platform regardless of the amount accumulated and help make it better.

Learn more on Viuly’s website: https://viuly.com

When it comes to initial coin offerings and Bitcoin ETFs, the SEC still has a lot of work ahead. Sorting through all of the filings and projects takes up valuable time. It also allows cryptocurrency enthusiasts to get their hopes up, as no ETFs have been approved at this point. To the contrary, the SEC has asked that all cryptocurrency ETF filings be withdrawn altogether. It is a very disappointing development, but it’s one that most people saw coming from miles away.

No Future for Bitcoin ETFs?

When it comes to Bitcoin ETFs, there are certain risks the SEC must take into account. First of all, there is the lack of regulation and cryptocurrency guidelines in the United States. Without a legal framework in which to operate, it is highly unlikely that any ETF filing will be approved in the near future. This has not prevented companies from trying, mind you, but there is no reason to think any of them will be even remotely successful.

Secondly, cryptocurrency markets are notorious for their price volatility. Although this can be said for any investment vehicle in the world, cryptocurrencies tend to swing up or down by very large amounts. Just this week, the Bitcoin price fell from US$13,000 all the way to US$9,200 and is now back at US$11,775. Such wild swings make it nearly impossible for the SEC to approve exchange-traded funds associated with any of these markets. Even though public interest in cryptocurrencies is on the rise, the volatility will remain a big risk for quite some time to come.

As a result, the SEC has publicly issued a notice to anyone who wishes to file a proposal for a Bitcoin ETF. It notes that the growth of cryptocurrencies and related products has spurred an interest in offering registered funds holding these new digital products. Unfortunately, there are too many investor protection issues to warrant the approval of such investment vehicles. It is not the first time the SEC has given these reasons to reject ETFs, nor will it be the last. It is unfortunate, but no one really expected anything else at this point.

For the time being, this public document touches upon some key aspects of Bitcoin ETFs which need to be clarified. The valuation of such funds is a big problem which will need to be addressed. Every service provider will have to implement policies and procedures in order to value such products, which will not be easy. Moreover, the SEC also raises the potential for “forked” currencies and how they would affect such investment vehicles. These concerns are more than warranted, as hard-forked currencies have seemed to pop up all over the place lately.

There are also concerns regarding liquidity, custody, and arbitrage. Again, all of these topics apply to other investment vehicles as well, but cryptocurrency is a completely different animal in this regard. It is an entirely new form of money which cannot be “filed” under any existing template the SEC may attempt to maintain. As such, an open dialogue between the government agency and industry experts is direly needed. Once all of the issues and pitfalls can be addressed in a proper manner, Bitcoin ETFs may finally be ready for approval. Right now, that is far from the case, for obvious reasons.

It is evident the SEC is not closing the door on Bitcoin ETFs by any means. However, for all the filings this organization receives, none seem to address any of these key concerns. In a way, this may be the first step toward creating a proper guideline framework for all cryptocurrency-related ETFs. There are very specific requirements which need to be addressed, but until that is done in a satisfactory manner, there will be no approval of Bitcoin ETFs whatsoever. At least now everyone knows where everyone stands, which is a step in the right direction.

Young Europeans could ask the President of the European Central Bank questions about Bitcoin and Blockchain. #ADOPTION

Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading is direct dealing between two parties without the involvement of any third party in between. Similarly, OTC investment is direct investment in shares and securities without the involvement of a regulatory body in between. For a long time, OTC trading was the singular most popular way of making trades and OTC investment was the only way of making investment in new ventures.

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It wasn’t until the development of big banks and huge stock exchanges that payment often began to involve an intermediary. This trend continued till the exchange system took over the world and the over-the-counter investment (whether digitally or manually) became heavily regulated and thus problematic for investors.

How will OnPlace Boost Over-the-Counter Investment?

Since P2P transactions and investment are the cornerstone of the blockchain and smart contracts revolution, it is easy to see that the new assets have a big role to play in the future of the OTC investment and trading as they enable reliable P2P transfer of funds and smart contracts that allow automatic fulfillment of agreed terms. So, a new platform for the promotion of OTC investment is a perfect application of crypto technologies. OnPlace, a new OTC investment platform, aims to use its new approach for the funding of fastest growing small and medium tech companies in the world without the role of a governmental body bearing down on the two parties.

Customers can trade assets belonging to different startups and companies directly on the new OnPlace platform. Without the usual red tape, a fledgling company can raise a lot of funds through the new platform. The shares of the companies are transformed into tokenized smart contracts for each individual entity and the platform guarantees customer shareholder rights.

According to OnPlace’s portfolio on Tokendesk.com:

“We can say with absolute certainty that investment into private IT companies has become one of the most reliable ways to get a high return percentage on investments in a relatively short period of time. “

PATS Protocol

OnPlace’s Private Assets Tokenization System (PATS) is an approach used by the OnPlace platform to convert OTC assets from IT companies into tokenized assets for investment purposes. At first, the interested company aiming for releasing tokenized assets has to follow several steps starting with the establishment of a Marketplace Opportunity Window (MOW).

A selection of assets to be tokenized is done based on the criteria and communal discussions of crypto-investors. This is followed by tokenization and then circulation of these assets in the trading circles. The tokens are supported by their life cycle protocol that allows decentralized control by the token holder community.

Furthermore, the decentralization of audit and integration of management principles on each tradeable assets is ensured by the protocol. So, OnPlace has gone to lengths for the purpose of establishing a private and safe solution for the OTC field.

OnPlace’s Future Roadmap and Token Generation Event (TGE)

The platform has been in development since 2016. It initially registered in Russia but has since moved to the USA and become a corporate entity. The platform raised over $900,000 in seed round and has since released a closed alpha version for the early backers. More than $1 million was raised during the first wave of individual backers.

A pre-sale and TGE is slated for Q3 of 2018 for putting their new coins in circulation. The coins will populate the platform and will become the staple currency on it which will be used for trading OTC shares.

Learn more about OnPlace – https://onplace.io

Almost everyone in the world knows by now that John McAfee is quite bullish on cryptocurrencies. More specifically, he made some interesting price predictions which will either come true or force him to eat his male parts. For the time being, McAfee advises everyone to “calm down” during the current bear market, as things will eventually bounce back. That’s solid advice, but most veteran cryptocurrency traders know all too well that these dips occur every single year. There is absolutely zero reason to be worried about the markets right now.

Solid but not Exceptional Advice from John McAfee

It is never fun to see the cryptocurrency markets collapse in a matter of two days. Going from a combined total market cap of over US$730 billion all the way down to the low US$400 billion range was certainly an interesting experience. Most people hope they will never live to see it happen again, but rest assured January 2018 will bring us more of the same. After all, such dips can be found on every chart when looking at January of a specific year. As to why this keeps happening, the opinions are somewhat divided right now.

John McAfee is a valuable voice of reason when market dips like this one occur. He immediately took to social media to calm everyone down. It was a noble gesture, even though the message has probably fallen on deaf ears. After all, the markets remain in a very uneasy state days after the fact. It is doubtful any statement made by John McAfee will change that all of a sudden. New cryptocurrency users tend to panic when things like these happen because all they see is the short-term price change.

When looking at the bigger picture, however, the recent market dip is nothing to be overly concerned about. The industry’s total market cap is 34 times higher than it was at the start of 2017. Although we had a crazy end to 2017, a lot of the year’s gains were subsequently wiped off the table. That was rather interesting, but not entirely unexpected. There is still plenty of dumb money in crypto, as people tend to invest in currencies that are worth pennies in the hopes of striking it rich. Very few of these projects have any real-life value, though.

Everyone Relax! The Crypto dip was caused by Mike Bell of JP Morgan claiming Governments could ban cryptocurrencies. Well … how? This is the same company that called BTC a fraud. It's a bank FFS. They are rightfully terrified of what we are doing. But it can't be stopped.

— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) January 16, 2018

According to John McAfee, the recent cryptocurrency dip was caused by Mike Bell of JP Morgan Chase. Bell claimed that governments could ban cryptocurrencies. It is evident that such statements are false, as no one can tell people not to use or trade cryptocurrency. Moreover, Bell works for a company which called Bitcoin a fraud, even though Jamie Dimon was forced to swallow those words less than a month later. The conflicting opinions on cryptocurrencies are certainly out there, but not everything is true.

John McAfee is extremely confident that his Bitcoin price prediction of US$500,000 per BTC will hold up. At the time of writing, one BTC was valued at US$11,800, indicating there is still a very long way to go. Moreover, McAfee isn’t too concerned about any cryptocurrency-related taxation guidelines either. In his humble opinion, this is the “problem of the government and not mine”. It’s a very true statement, although it once again echoes something everyone with a brain should know by now.

It will certainly be interesting to see what the future holds for all cryptocurrencies. Nothing has changed in recent months, other than Bitcoin becoming slower and even more expensive to use. Other cryptocurrencies have emerged, although virtually none of them have any real-life use cases right now. The markets have not behaved rationally for quite some time now, nor will they in the future. One thing’s for sure: John McAfee remains bullish and will continue to promote whatever currency can make him quick money.

Matchpool has announced a 50,000 USD development challenge, in which entrants develop an MVP QTUM app for Matchpool’s platform. A winner of the challenge will be announced on February 18th, 2017. After a successful launch, community and connections network Matchpool seek to develop their Asia outreach, developing the QGUP model specifically for this market. Asia is formidably important within the cryptocurrency market and Matchpool endeavours to expand operations in this huge market region. Matchpool believe running a competition to develop an app will provide them with sufficient coverage.

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The contest is called “QTUM Dev Challenge.” It is expected that experienced developers from all over the world will take advantage of this rare opportunity to compete alongside the best in the industry. Matchpool is looking to develop a social app. Recognising the importance of social media and how pervasive it is in everyday life. Viral marketing and platform basis is the way to go. Matchpool has shared some specifics of the platform they would like to see:

• Paid “in-app” services
• Multiple forms of cryptocurrency accepted including $QGUPs
• Fully designed and operational
• Multilingual (Japan / China / Korea )

The team that develops the best MVP for the app will win a $50,000 cash prize as well as 5% of all QTUM tokens. The competition is already live, having started on the 8th of January and will run up to the 8th of February. Once the MVP is complete the 50,000USD prize will be paid in 4 monthly payments upon MVP delivery.

The Matchpool vision is to create and give everyone matchmaking tools that incentivise positive connections between all of us all over the world. Matchpool uses cryptocurrency as its payment method. This will aid the community in providing value to the entirety of the network. We will offer products that provide solutions for community owners to run successful businesses.

QTUM is a blockchain project that was created with the intention of facilitating the inter-connectivity of other mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The Qtum Foundation has recently announced that it will be combining its efforts with ‘360 Blockchain Research Center’ and BTN Foundation in a bid to create China’s first ever blockchain laboratory.

This collaboration will aim to promote the continued development and commercialization of blockchain technology. Previous to this news QTUM recorded a rise in value from $26.67 USD on December 17, 2017, to $56.06, capping off an increase in the value of 189% within 24 hours.

Cryptocurrency users all over the world are pleased to see the markets head back in the right direction as of right now. This is good news for currencies which lost a lot of value, such as EOS. More specifically, The EOS price dripped all the way down to $8, after setting an all-time high at $18.05 not that long ago. Reclaiming this lost territory will not be an easy feat, but it seems the EOS price is slowly moving back up as we speak.

EOS Price Eyes that $15 Target

One of the golden rules of cryptocurrency is how one should never panic sell, unless you are still in profit. Anyone else falling victim to panic selling at a loss is throwing money away. Cryptocurrency markets are inherently volatile, and every big rise is followed by a big dip. That dip is then followed by another steady rise, which is how things go virtually every single time. The EOS price is no exception in this regard, even though a drop from $18 to $8 is quite steep in this regard.

More specifically, there are people who sold EOS at $8 or slightly more just  a few days ago. Had those people held their coins, they could now sell them for $14.4 each without doing anything but being patient. Everyone with a brain knew all cryptocurrency markets would recover, regardless of what the Bitcoin price is at that time. In the case of the EOS price, it is only $4 removed from its all-time high, recovering over half of value lost in just two and a half days.

Every time someone sells cryptocurrency, there is someone else buying it for that specific value. Anyone bought bought in at an EOS price of below $10 will be in big profit already, and it seems there is a lot of room left for future gains as well. Although reaching a new all-time high may not happen quickly, it seems the EOS price is poised to do so at some point in the very near future. Reaching a value of $20 isn’t unfeasible whatsoever, but the markets will remain unpredictable first and foremost.

Additionally, EOS has over $2.18bn in 24-hour trading volume, which is rather impressive. A lot of altcoins would give an arm and a leg for this kind of volume, but EOS seems to generate it without too many problems right now. If this trend keeps up, we will see the EOS price above $15 rather soon and the market cap will eventually start to climb toward $10bn again. A very interesting situation well worth keeping an eye on.

Not surprisingly, the vast majority of EOS trading volume – over 64.7% even – comes from the Bithumb exchange. Considering how this exchange is virtually irrelevant to the rest of the world, it makes Huobi the largest exchange for Western traders. Their volume is very similar to that of Bitfinex and Binance. Of these three platforms, Bitfinex is the only one with an actual USD pair to inject fresh capital into this altcoin market. It is good to see a USDT pair in there as well, though.

For now, it remains unclear what the coming days will bring for the EOS price. A price increase seems likely if this trend keeps up, but we may very well see a major retrace of all cryptocurrencies come Monday. It is almost impossible to make any sense of the cryptocurrency markets right now, even though the momentum is clearly in favor of prices going up in the near future. It’s not unlikely EOS may be one of the first altcoins to set a new all-time high after the recent Big Dip.

The GDAX trading platform has become a lot more popular over the past few months. There are several reasons for this growth, including the general influx of new cryptocurrency traders. The company has also been looking for ways to integrate Bitcoin Cash. European users have had to wait for access to a euro market due to insufficient liquidity. That wait is almost over, as the market will go live on January 24.

BCH-EUR Market is Coming to GDAX

Ever since GDAX announced support for Bitcoin Cash, there has been a lot of excitement among BCH users. More specifically, there is genuine interest in this alternative version of Bitcoin, mainly because it is both cheaper and faster to use. As a result, the “airdropped” currency has soared in value, even though it is far away from its all-time high right now. With all cryptocurrency markets recovering, prices will eventually go back to normal, though.

The launch of BCH trading on GDAX has not been without its issues, mind you. The trading had to be halted within the first 24 hours because people were clearly manipulating the price. Those matters have finally been resolved, as BCH-USD trading is available on the platform once again. So far, it seems to be generating a fair amount of volume, though it’s nothing spectacular. The exchange is still a more than welcome addition to the list of trading platforms supporting fiat gateways for BCH.

One thing clearly lacking, however, is a BCH-EUR market. GDAX offers EUR-based markets for all other currencies it currently supports, yet Bitcoin Cash is not one of them. The company decided not to offer this market due to a clear lack of liquidity. It was a rather interesting decision at the time, although everyone knew it was merely a temporary measure. At that time, there was no indication if and when such a market would ever be added to GDAX.

In a recent tweet, the company announced this new fiat currency trading pair would go live on the platform on January 24. It is great news for all Bitcoin Cash supporters, even though Europe is a very small market for all cryptocurrencies these days. It is far less significant than the USD and KRW markets right now. Even so, more liquidity related to fiat currencies can never be considered a bad thing. There are very few options when it comes to BCH/EUR trading right now.

In fact, the only other exchange offering this market is Kraken. Its BCH/EUR market generated US$22.6 million in volume over the past 24 hours, which is not spectacular. It will be interesting to see if GDAX can do better in this regard once its new market goes live. Some competition among fiat currency exchanges is definitely a good thing, as there is a growing need for such solutions. The European cryptocurrency markets will need to expand at some point, and GDAX may be the platform that facilitates that.

For the time being, we will have to wait and see how all of this affects the Bitcoin Cash price in the future. The cryptocurrency markets are still experiencing some bearish momentum after the onslaught earlier this week. Slowly but surely, things are heading back in the right direction, but there is still a lot of work to be done. We can only hope no one will try to manipulate the new market’s order book once trading goes live.

The topic of cryptocurrency regulation has been kicked around multiple times now. No two governments share the same opinion on this topic. As a result, we see fractured attempts at either legalizing or banning cryptocurrency in specific nations. France and Germany will propose their joint Bitcoin regulation at the upcoming G20 summit. Efforts like these ultimately serve no purpose, as cryptocurrency cannot be regulated by any government or entity.

Another Attempt at Regulating Bitcoin

One would expect governments around the world to get the point after a while. Despite numerous attempts all over the world, no one can regulate cryptocurrency, by definition. There is no centralized authority, no CEO, and no overarching company controlling all of these decentralized networks. It is uncanny how governments still think they can impose rules in this regard. France and Germany certainly feel it is their mission to regulate cryptocurrencies in the near future. It is likely those efforts will be in vain once again.

These two European nations have come up with a joint analysis of the risks linked to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. As a result, they will propose some form of regulation to put these issues to bed. For now, no one knows for sure if this means cryptocurrencies will be legalized or completely banned. The latter scenario would have no real impact anyway, as people will trade cryptocurrencies regardless of governmental approval.

This proposal will be submitted to their G20 counterparts at the next summit in Argentina in March. One would expect these global leaders to address the real problems in the financial world such as banks opening fake accounts with customer information, widespread money laundering, and so forth. It is good to see them pay some attention to Bitcoin as well, although it remains to be seen what all of this entails exactly.

Considering that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies made a big impact throughout 2017, such regulatory measures were bound to surface sooner or later. It is evident there is a lot of hype and speculation associated with these markets. The risk of financial loss is very real; that much no one will deny. At the same time, the same can be said for any other form of investment in the world as well. Everything is a risk in life, and cryptocurrencies should not be treated any differently.

If there is one silver lining in all of this, it is how the proposal is aimed at “reducing the risks” rather than banning Bitcoin and everything else that falls into the same category. This seems to hint at more regulatory measures for exchanges and other trading platforms first and foremost. All of these companies already verify users’ identities and impose limits on how much cryptocurrency users can buy per day. It is unclear what more such companies could do, but we will have to wait until the next G20 summit to find out what France and Germany have in mind.

This news is interesting for another reason as well. The ECB and IMF have both made it clear they do not intend to regulate Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency anytime soon. Neither entity feels it is its place to do anything about these markets since they cannot be controlled. France and Germany are going in against the wishes of both of these institutions, which may create some friction down the line. An interesting future lies ahead for all cryptocurrencies, regardless of what governments may decide to do about this industry.

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