Day: February 11, 2018

There is a growing need for faster and better blockchain solutions. As we have seen in the past with major cryptocurrencies, blockchain scalability has proven to be very problematic. The High-Performance Blockchain claims it will alleviate most of these concerns in the coming months. With a novel hardware and software architecture, the project certainly takes a different approach. Now is a good time to explore whether or not this project has any long-term potential.

What is the High-Performance Blockchain?

From the get-go, it becomes evident the High-Performance Blockchain tackles the concept of scalability from a completely different angle. Rather than just looking at the software side of things, the project also tackles the hardware aspect. To realize the optimal performance of blockchain applications, things will need to change in the near future. As such, this team is building an architecture which uses thousands of CPU and FPGA resources to create a more versatile and scalable ecosystem.

But how Does it Work in Real Life?

There are a few aspects of the High-Performance Blockchain project to take into account. First of all, there is the chip-level acceleration engine which provides accelerated hardware chips to power this entire ecosystem. Secondly, the software side of the High-Performance Blockchain is integrated with the new dedicated hardware accelerated engine and focuses on depth and scaling customization. Third, the project claims it can produce a throughput in the millions of transactions without any major problems.

While all of this sounds pretty amazing, it is difficult to come by any real information regarding the technical aspects of either the hardware or the software side of High-Performance Blockchain. While the team mainly focuses on blockchain integration for real-world business cases, it remains to be seen how their chips will operate and how their algorithms are created. It seems the High-Performance Blockchain project is closely connected to the NEO infrastructure, which could introduce some interesting developments down the line.

It also seems the High-Performance Blockchain project has its own currency, which is known as HPB. With a total supply of 100 million coins and 22.216 million coins in circulation as of right now, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for this currency. So far, however, there is no clear use case for this token. It is listed on one or two smaller exchanges, but other than trading based on speculation, HPB served no purpose at the time of writing.

What Comes Next for High-Performance Blockchain?

Building the High-Performance Blockchain infrastructure will take a lot of time and money. As such, the roadmap is filled with milestones which the team aims to achieve in the coming years. A testnet version of this project will be launched at some point in 2018, which will undergo further improvements for several months. The actual mainnet will launch in Q2 of 2018 if things go according to plan. However, the official version will not go live until mid-2019 at the earliest. This is a project worth keeping an eye on, but there are still a lot of questions which need to be answered.

Binance resumes cryptocurrency trading, says image released by McAfee was fake. #ANALYSIS

The crypto industry may be struggling to move past all the emphasis on price alone – but tangible progress is being made on the technology today.

Blockchain technology can be used for many different purposes. One of the use cases worth exploring is immutable and scalable data storage. That is precisely what the Bluzelle project is all about. This “next-gen database protocol” focuses on the decentralized internet and its associated applications first and foremost. While that sounds impressive on paper, it’s time to dig into the nitty-gritty of this project.

What is Bluzelle’s end Goal?

When it comes to decentralized applications – or dApps, as they are often called – centralized infrastructures are insufficient. Not only are cloud-based databases not the right way to go, but they also cause major scaling concerns for the entire industry. As such, Bluzelle wants to combine the best of the sharing economy with the token economy. Anyone can rent out excess computer storage space while dApp developers can use this space to store and manage their applications’ data.

How Will Bluzelle Achieve This Goal?

Under the hood, Bluzelle contains an interesting collection of various technologies. First of all, the data pieces are stored in groups of nodes, also known as swarms. This helps remove any concerns regarding a central point of failure, which is still a very real threat in the world of cloud computing. After all, a cloud is just someone else’s computer or server.

Secondly, Bluzelle claims to use an algorithm which is capable of providing boundless scaling. By storing the dApp data using a unique network model, it can provide scalable database servers regardless of the demand. As long as there are enough people sharing their excess storage space with Bluzelle, storing vast amounts of data will never be a problem.  

All of these features are coupled with a dynamic performance solution. Bluzelle prides itself on being able to dynamically adjust the number and location of nodes sharing data to reduce request times. This will also help improve the overall performance of the ecosystem as a whole. The company has already built blockchain technology for firms such as Temenos, HSBC, Microsoft, and BT. It is evident there is a growing need for scalable blockchain-based data storage solutions.

What About the BLZ Token?

As is the case with all blockchain ventures, Bluzelle has its own native currency known as BLZ. This token can be exchanged for database services, and it can be earned by users who offer their computing resources on the database storage side of things. It is also possible to trade these tokens on some cryptocurrency exchanges, but their primary use case involves database storage. This token has nothing to do with file storage whatsoever, and it is important to distinguish between the two.

What Comes Next for Bluzelle?

Building out the infrastructure required to serve as a distributed database for dApps will not be easy. A minimum viable product is expected to be revealed in April of this year. Further improvements and technical additions will be made throughout the rest of 2018 and all of 2019. Some of the upcoming features include smart contracts, mobile apps, proof of stake requirements, and Sybil attack tolerance. Rest assured the next few years will be pretty interesting for Bluzelle, although there is a ton of work still to be done.

It has never been easier to become an investor, with multiple options available in the market – whether it is stocks, bonds, forex or even much more exoticly structured products. What product is the right fit for you depends on your personal risk appetite, your willingness to look the other way when markets turn against you, geographical exposure and so on. The financial crisis of 2008 was a good reminder that euphoric sentiment can turn in a blink of an eye and if you are not careful at managing your risk exposure, you risk not only wiping out the profits you made over time but in some cases even more than that.

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Such market conditions can also give rise to fraudulent market activity, as scammers prey on those looking to recover their losses by presenting ideas with high returns. There have been numerous cases over the years where regulators, alongside police investigators uncovered long running scams in seemingly legitimate financial schemes. One of the most prolific schemes in recent years was the Madoff investment scandal.

While the crypto market might still be in the early stages of development, there is nothing to prevent fraudsters and hackers to try and exploit vulnerabilities, both against investors and the technology networks which underpin the markets. Most recently, a Japanese exchange was subject to a malicious attack which resulted in a loss of $530 million USD in cryptocurrency (in what has been one of the biggest ever thefts of digital money). Although the exchange took steps to return the funds to users, other cases did not end so well at all. However, what if there was a solution to combat this?

The team behind Escroco has filled the gap in the marketplace with an innovative product that aims to connect investors with borrowers in a way that lowers risk and maximizes profit. The two-part platform allows borrowers to create investment packages before presenting it to the investors, while investors are then presented with verified investment packages. All sounds straightforward, but what happens when things go wrong?

The investor involved in such situation will still be compensated with the initial deposit of the borrower as well as other benefits from the platform, while the disclosure of borrower’s identity will be made if the investor shows interest in prosecuting or enhancing the trace. This then is a huge step forward in what is still perceived to be a very risky market for novice and even seasoned investors. While the regulators are yet to implement any measures to combat illicit activity, there is now a blockchain based solution for a real life crypto-based problem.

The Escroco (ESC) token was created using the Wave Blockchain technology, designed in the way that benefits investors and borrowers alike. Now, the team is announcing a cash airdrop (Escroco Cash Airdrop or ESA), where the new token will be worth $1 which the holders will get for free at the ratio of 4:1 (4 ESC get 1ESA). Only those who keep their coin on a waveswallet.io will be able to get the new coin and the date of the airdrop is to be between 15 Feb -25 Feb.

All cryptocurrency markets have been shaken up to their core once again. Even though things looked a lot worse several hours ago, most losses have been recovered in the process. As of right now, we still see a lot of markets in the red, which will not change all of a sudden either. One of the biggest “losers” is the IOTA price as of right now, a sit has dipped by as much as 11.37% over the past 24 hours. It is evident this trend is not overly positive, but things will eventually return to normal.

IOTA Price Takes Another Beating all of a Sudden

With all of the cryptocurrency markets dropping in value over the past 24 hours, the first question that comes to mind is why this is happening right now. It is pretty difficult to explain why things tend to go in this direction over the weekend, even though yesterday was a pretty solid day for the most part. Cryptocurrency markets will always be incredibly volatile, and that situation will not come to change in the near future, by the look of things. For those willing to take a small gamble, there’s some good money to be made when dips like these occur.

Looking at the IOTA price, it is evident things have gone from bad to worse throughout 2018. Similar to other cryptocurrency markets, the IOTA price has taken a very steep tumble from its previous all-time high. In this case, the price went from $4.85 to $1.15 in a matter of weeks. For now, it seems the current negative trend will continue for the foreseeable future, even though there was a small uptrend to $2.1 earlier this week. A lot of those gains have already been wiped out again, as the IOTA price is currently valued at $1.73.

Whether or not this IOTA price will return to $4 and more in the near future, remains to be seen. All of the markets are still reeling from their previous dip, which effectively crashed most markets by as much as 50% in three days. Recovering such losses in quick succession will be rather difficult, as any noteworthy gain will automatically be met with a brief correction shortly after. For the time being, we will have to contend with this volatility first and foremost, but there is some profit to be made from timing the price swings accurately.

With $55.75m in 24-hour trading volume, there is no real demand for IOTA as of right now. it is a trend we see across most altcoin markets this week, yet no one knows for sure why that is the case exactly. One would expect speculators to buy the dips and hope for price improvements along the way. Unfortunately, it seems most people focus their attention on the top three cryptocurrencies these days, and leave everything else in the rearview mirror.

With the majority of IOTA’s trading volume originating from the Bitfinex exchange, there is some fresh capital entering the ecosystem as we speak. Given the current IOTA price trend, one could also say how people are cashing out to fiat currency once again, yet it remains to be seen which side of the story is effectively true. Coinone and Binance complete the top three of exchanges ranked by IOTA trading volume, which makes for a rather interesting mix.

With all of this negative pressure disrupting the cryptocurrency markets once again, it has become evident the long-term road to recovery will not be without challenges. Nor should anyone expect anything less, as people will take profits whenever they can. It has always been the most solid strategy and there is no reason to think this situation will come to change in the near future. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for the IOTA price, but if the market can recover, reaching $2.5 will happen a lot sooner than expected.

The exponential growth in crypto markets, especially over the course of 2017, means that even the mainstream media is now covering various events and biggest market announcements. Some of the highlights include the crackdown of crypto trading by various governments, widespread criticism of Bitcoin by financial community (although that has since changed somewhat), the introduction of Bitcoin futures market and the volatility of returns of Bitcoin and other products. The price swings are not for the fainthearted and while the allure of excessive returns drive more and more people to the market, this volatility is becoming hard to rein in, especially as the ICO market matures.

Even though choosing a crypto asset to invest in is not difficult enough, investing in a currency is made more complex by numerous warnings by pundits that a lot of cryptocurrencies are either fraudulent or do not deliver any value to people buying tokens. Late last year, Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum, said that many of the sales are used to back high-quality projects, but there have been a lot of copycat projects where people copy all the same materials (and) don’t intend to deliver any value to the people buying the tokens. While another prolific name in crypto space, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, pointed out that “…a lot of what’s happening in the ICO market is actually fraud, and I think that will (eventually) stop”, while also adding that many investors are now suing token issuers.

But it is not just fraud that crypto investors are afraid of – given the digital nature of the asset class, hacking is also considered to be one of the biggest threats. Most recently, a Japanese exchange has lost $530 million in cryptocurrency because of hacking. In this case, the worst outcome has been averted by the exchange which said it would return about 46.3 billion yen or $425 million of the virtual money it lost to hackers. However, other cases did not end so well.

However, the team behind Escroco has filled the gap in the marketplace with an innovative product that aims to connect investors with borrowers in a way that lowers risk and maximizes profit. One of the key parts of the project is the insurance product. This covers the loss of an investor in the case of borrowers exiting from the market, irrespective of whether this was caused by bankruptcy or by fraudulent activities. While the loss prevention scheme does minimize the risk of outright loss, not all cases of loss get 100% reimbursement, as this is based on investment ratings.

The Escroco (ESC) token was created using the Wave Blockchain technology, designed in the way that benefits investors and borrowers alike. Now, the team is announcing a cash airdrop (Escroco Cash Airdrop or ESA), where the new token will be worth $1 which the holders will get for free at the ratio of 4:1 (4 ESC get 1ESA). Only those who keep their coin on a waveswallet.io will be able to get the new coin and the date of the airdrop is to be between 15 Feb -25 Feb.

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