Day: February 12, 2018

Distributed ledger technology is currently being used to heavily disrupt the energy market, with platforms such as Power Ledger running studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of decentralized peer-to-peer energy trading. SunContract, a token in the crypto industry which is only recently beginning to receive exposure, is improving on the existing energy trading paradigm and is currently targeting the European market with plans to eventually expand outside of the European Union.

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Aiming for a platform release in April 2018, SunContract is an energy trading platform that leverages the transparent, immutable nature of blockchain technology to optimize power distribution. The current energy distribution paradigm is heavily centralized, with energy retailers and wholesalers participating in an oligarchy that negatively affects consumers.

With the SunContract ICO finished and SNC tokens now trading on multiple high volume, top 10 exchanges, The SunContract team have completed the final stages of their Q4 2017 roadmap commitments and are putting up finishing touches towards the democratization of the energy distribution monopoly.

What is SunContract?

SunContract allows independent power producers such as homeowners with solar power equipment installed on their homes to connect with power consumers. Both parties are able to connect and trade with each other directly through a decentralized mobile app.

While the concept of tokenized, decentralized energy distribution is an established use case in the world of blockchain technology applications, there are several key features that differentiate SunContract from other platforms.

SunContract is the very first peer-to-peer energy trading blockchain platform to launch a finished product, and is focused on launching in Europe— a region with highly liberalized energy trading regulations. Legislations are therefore not going to be a hurdle in the journey of this Slovenian company.  Also, as the platform is based in Slovenia, which is an extremely crypto-friendly country, the SunContract development team benefits from a significant amount of governmental support. They have even been seen at the World Economic Forum, being accompanied by the Slovenian Prime MInister – Dr. Miro Cerar.

For investors, SNC is a tunique token with a lot of potential as well. It has a very low total supply (~100 million tokens) compared to similar companies in the energy industry, and is currently priced at a fraction of the price of most other energy tokens.

How SunContract Works

The SunContract platform works in a streamlined, agile fashion. Based on the Ethereum ERC20 standard, SNC tokens function as tradable crypto assets that represent value in the form of “digital electricity”.

In the current power distribution paradigm, a homeowner that is able to generate power is forced to sell excess power to large trading companies at a non-negotiable price. SunContract makes it possible for power generating individuals to join a “Pool” via the SunContract app, selling surplus electricity at competitive rates in return for SNC tokens.

Similarly, individuals seeking to purchase power are able to join the Pool and access a competitive market environment in which they are able to select the best rate possible when purchasing power. SunContract provides a succinct explanation of the tokenomics of their proposed system in a clearly-defined white paper, available on the SunContract ICO site.

The SunContract Platform Release

SNC tokens are already trading at high volumes ahead of the SunContract platform release in April, and can be traded on HitBTC, OkEx, and Huobi. In a unique move, SunContract is offering investors the opportunity to participate in the SunContract “Pioneer Program”, which will be limited to a small group of only 1,000 supporters.

SunContract Pioneers will be offered a range of exclusive benefits, including: Access to the platform when it is released – before everyone else, VIP status at their launch event which they claim will be attended by distinguished dignitaries, preferential treatment with regards to investments into photovoltaics, and permanently lower transaction fees on purchases from SunContract’s partner companies such as  SONCE Energy. More information on the SunContract Pioneer Program can be found on the platform website.

Legislators all over the world are keeping a close eye on cryptocurrency. With the global demand for Bitcoin rising once again, we can only hope to see more use cases for the world’s leading cryptocurrency. It seems that is finally happening in the state of Arizona right now. More specifically, its state senate passed a measure allowing residents to pay their taxes with Bitcoin.

Another Notch in crypto’s belt

People can rarely use Bitcoin for the things they really need to pay for. From a luxury goods perspective, spending Bitcoin has never been easier than it is today. When it comes to regular services and goods, however, things are not as clear-cut right now. In fact, most bills can’t be paid in Bitcoin without using an intermediary service. It is anything but an ideal situation, but things will not change overnight.

In Arizona, however, state legislators are more than happy to give Bitcoin a fair shot. It is a bit unclear where this sudden positive momentum came from, but cryptocurrency enthusiasts will consider this to be a major victory regardless. With the approval of Senate Bill 1091, Arizona residents can now officially pay their taxes with Bitcoin. It is also possible to use other cryptocurrencies officially recognized by the state. This is a rather surprising development, yet one the cryptocurrency industry needs now more than ever.

The bill was originally submitted earlier this year and has undergone a few small revisions. Nothing major has been changed to the wording, yet legislators wanted to make sure all bases were covered. It is evident accepting Bitcoin payments for state taxes is a risky venture, especially given the Bitcoin price volatility these days. Even so, Arizona’s officials evidently think now is a good time to get involved with cryptocurrencies. This may very well herald a major legislative shift when it comes to Bitcoin.

Making Bitcoin a legal option for paying taxes owed in Arizona comes at a rather surprising time. Over the past few years, cryptocurrency has mainly been associated with criminal activity, hacking, and illegal content. While all of those stereotypes still exist to this day, it seems people are slowly considering the benefits of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Arizona is positioning itself as a major Bitcoin hub with this senate bill, which will have some interesting consequences.

As one would expect, Senate Bill 1091 divided Arizona’s legislators into two camps. Taxpayers using Bitcoin are still at risk of the Bitcoin price dropping all of a sudden. This reiterates the need to use a payment processor capable of converting these payments to fiat currency on behalf of Arizona. After all, the state isn’t willing to hold on to this volatile form of money for long, even though there is a lot of upside potential for Bitcoin right now.

While granting Bitcoin legal status is a big step in the right direction, the bill has yet to pass its biggest hurdle. More specifically, the Arizona House of Representatives has yet to look at this bill and render their verdict. It is evident this bill could set an interesting precedent, but until it’s officially approved and enacted, there will be plenty of opposition from officials all over the world. It only takes one government to take such a positive course of action to trigger a domino effect.

A remittance firm based in Abu Dhabi has inked a new partnership with distributed ledger startup Ripple. 

Escroco releases a new token and launches an airdop for the token holders #SPONSORED

If you cannot decide which of the over 300 strains of marijuana  to buy, the ‘Budbo app’ will not only help you, but its powerful data analytics engine gets smarter every time you use it. This improves the quality and efficacy of the cannabis you use. Over 100,000 users are contributing data via the app launched in 2016.

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The popular app curates different types of cannabis products for users, including strains, edibles and concentrates. You choose what effects you want from your cannabis—pain relief, relaxation, creativity, and so on.  Budbo determines which strains have the properties you desire and automatically generates a list of dispensaries where your preferred cannabis is sold.  Meanwhile, Budbo is collecting valuable market intelligence by having you ‘Puff’ or ‘Pass’ as you explore the various strains being offered.

This market intelligence will be shared by Budbo with market researchers, growers, labs, product developers and dispensers, to help them better understand the preferences, trends and demographics of the markets they deal in.

Budding Cannabis Connoisseurs

While some recreational users are connoisseurs of the quality of their pot, others are less choosy. For those who use cannabis as an alternative treatment for pain, mental illness (PTSD, depression) or other conditions, obtaining the right quality and strain (THC/CBD ratio) is of paramount importance.

Dispensary Sold Cannabis is valued for its low side effects and lack of synthetic drugs. In fact, unlike painkillers, depressants and other drugs, cannabis has been associated with no deaths on record. Maintaining and improving the quality of cannabis products is key to expanding its uses. A pure product is an important marketing point, but like all drugs some cannabis has been found to have illegal or unreported ingredients.

How do you know if your cannabis is really ‘homegrown’? Knowing where your hemp comes from is paramount to guaranteeing its quality and efficacy. China, where half the world’s hemp is cultivated, is also a major exporter of ‘no name’ drugs. Some of these drugs have been found to have illegal ingredients.

The blockchain provides a trackable and unchangeable record of transactions for the cannabis industry. Budbo makes all facets of cannabis production and sales fully transparent and traceable utilizing smart contracts on Budbo’s immutable ledger. GPS-tracking identifies the origin of products and ensures they are delivered on time. Within this tokenized cannabis market accessible by the Budbo Token, all industry participants are able to more efficiently share data and leverage Budbo’s aggregated cannabis market intelligence.

A Global Hemp Community

The Budbo blockchain is the first industry supply chain to track the cannabis life cycle on a global scale. Over time, the data intelligence provided by Budbo will contribute to more defined product categories and branded products—the Tylenol and Prozac of pot for example.  Budbo makes cannabis consumers part of this market data gathering and thus product development through its Budbo mobile app, which collects thousands of data points on cannabis usage, preferences and trends.

Unlike traditional drug development, in the Budbo ecosystem cannabis users are not merely guinea pigs who are eventually served up a pill—a black box of sorts. On the Budbo blockchain, which is essentially a scalable and transparent database, the test results for THC and CBC levels, growing processes, strain profiles and other statistics are available to all community members, not only big industry players. This safer, more inclusive way of developing drugs should produce better drug outcomes. Treatment outcomes for depression and PTSD, as well as many other conditions, will also be made available on the digital ledger.

The Budbo ICO

As a holder of Budbo tokens, you can vote on how this new self-governing community operates, including which decentralized applications to develop. The currency of exchange in the Budbo blockchain community is the Budbo token ($BUBO). A total of 150 million tokens are currently for sale. The price, starting at $0.025 increases over five tiers, so early birds will gain cheaper access to the global cannabis market.

Crypto markets take a break from erratic swings, BTC, ETH prices remain steady #NEWS

The three European Supervisory Authorities have released a warning on the risks involved with investing in cryptocurrencies.

We are closing in on the end of the European session in the bitcoin price and it’s time to put together a strategy that we can use in an attempt to draw a profit from the market on any volatility as and when it plays out tonight. In this morning’s analysis, we said that we were looking for an upside break to validate some degree of bullish momentum near term. We did get the break but have subsequently seen price weaken somewhat and we are heading into the session this evening from a slightly depressed position as compared to our entry points early this morning.

With that said, however, the fact that we are seeing volatility is enough in and of itself to give us something to look forward to moving forward so, let’s get some levels in place. As ever, take a quick look at the chart below before we get started so as to get an idea where things stand and where we are looking to jump in and out of the markets according to rules of our intraday strategy. The chart is a one-minute candlestick chart and it has our primary range overlaid in green.

As the chart shows, then, the range that we are looking at for the session this evening comes in as defined by support to the downside at 8570 resistance to the upside at 8636.

We are going to looking out for a close above resistance to validate a bullish entry towards an immediate upside target of 8750.

A stop loss on the trade somewhere in the region of 8600 flat will ensure that we are taken out of the position if and when things turn against us.

Looking the other way, if we see price close below support, we will enter short towards a downside target of 8500. A stop loss on this one in and around 8600, again, looks good from a risk management perspective.

Charts courtesy of Trading View

The post Bitcoin Price Watch; Riding The Volume Waves appeared first on NewsBTC.

Blockchain companies continue to attract a lot of venture capital, even in 2018. Even though not every blockchain-oriented project will succeed, there are some high expectations when it comes to the Dfinity Foundation. With over $61 million invested in this firm so far this year, the company will have to deliver on its initial promise. Connecting computers around the world through a blockchain to create an “internet computer” sounds very ambitious and almost impossible.

The Dfinity Foundation has Bold Plans

There are quite a few projects in the world of blockchain technology which focus on distributed computing. Whether it is SONM with its fog computing, Golem, or iExec, many companies see merit in combining global computing resources with a blockchain. The Dfinity Foundation is no different in this regard, as it envisions a future in which the world’s computers will be connected through a blockchain to create so-called “internet computers”. It is a very daring and bold venture, but it seems investors believe this company will succeed.

There are millions, if not billions, of computers around the world today, and if one considers tablets and smartphones to be computers, that number will only grow over time. Using all of these resources in a connected manner has not been done before. Instead, people see computers of all kinds as personal entertainment or work devices first and foremost. As a result, there is a lot of excess computing power which could easily be harnessed for various tasks. Decentralizing the internet is one of those ventures people have talked about for some time now.

The Dfinity Foundation claims it can make that happen. By applying a new form of cryptography to public blockchain technology, the team is confident their solution will not only be convenient, but also scalable. A private test of this network took place in late 2017. The end result was rather shocking, as the new blockchain is over 600 times faster than the Ethereum blockchain.

Considering that Ethereum is designed for building applications and scaling, this result came as quite a surprise to all parties involved. Even so, it is only a glimpse of what the Dfinity Foundation hopes to achieve. Now that the company has secured $61 million in VC funding, they can continue to build their platform and transform the world of global computing as we know it today. With this open-source protocol, anyone in the world can become part of the public network and help developers build applications to make use of all this computing power.

While some people may question the benefit of an internet computer, it certainly has a lot of potential. A public cloud service competing with the likes of Amazon and Alphabet can only be welcomed with open arms. Moreover, this business model can thrive due to its low fees and near zero-cost infrastructure requirements. After all, the hardware is sourced from all over the world, even though “farms” need to be rewarded for their participation in one way or another.

For the time being, the $61 million in funding will be used to support developers who build applications for the Dfinity Foundation ecosystem. The team is also excited about the prospect of building an infrastructure capable of supporting millions of businesses without any central point of failure. Only time will tell if things ever get to that point, as there is still a lot of work to be done by the Dfinity Foundation.

An Icelandic lawmaker has suggested imposing a new tax on the bitcoin miners that are flocking to the country.