Day: February 17, 2018

There can never be enough competition in the world of blockchain service providers. Xtrabytes hopes to make a positive impact on this industry in the months and years to come. They focus on providing a modular blockchain platform offering better security, scalability, and decentralization opportunities. It has its own algorithm and consensus method, as well as a native token to be used throughout the ecosystem.

What is the Xtrabytes Modular Blockchain?

There are certain features and aspects of blockchain technology which some users or companies may like, even though they offer no benefits to others. A modular blockchain makes a lot of sense, and Xtrabytes wants to capitalize on this opportunity. This platform is designed to let decentralized application developers create new products and services to shape the future of blockchain technology.

How Does it all Work?

What makes Xtrabytes so interesting is that it has its own consensus algorithm. In this case, consensus is achieved through the proof-of-signature technology known as Zolt. This ensures a system-wide block signature rate of 100% to provide an additional level of security not found in other blockchain or cryptocurrency solutions. Additionally, there is no need for mining operations, which means Zolt is one of the more eco-friendly consensus algorithms in the world of blockchain technology right now.

Xtrabytes also makes use of STATIC nodes. In this case, STATIC is an acronym for Services Transactions and Trust In-Control nodes, which are the backbone of the network infrastructure. Node owners receive transaction and service fees from the dApp modules they host and will host. Moreover, this model is a key pillar of the proof-of-signature consensus mechanism, as all blocks on the network need to be signed by all STATIC node operators accordingly.

There is also the X-Vault service, which is a decentralized data storage module. Data is distributed among STATIC nodes and encrypted to ensure maximum security and privacy. The X-Change decentralized exchange focuses on exchanging cryptocurrencies in a peer-to-peer fashion. Last but not least, Xtrabytes prides itself on being scalable and flexible, as the platform is code-agnostic and compatible across consumer platforms.

The XBY Cryptocurrency

As is usually the case, this platform’s developers have created their own native currency for this ecosystem, known as XBY. The main purposes of this currency include covering network transaction fees, achieving modular services on the network, and serving as a revenue stream for STATIC node owners. Depending on how many dApps are built on top of Xtrabytes in the future, it is certainly possible that this currency will get a lot of positive attention moving forward.

What’s Next for Xtrabytes?

According to the roadmap on the Xtrabytes website, the current focus is on developing core modules and improving the STATIC node model. Some testing still needs to be done in this regard, as the developers want to deliver a bug-free solution. Additionally, there will be a strong focus on marketing efforts as well as introducing external modules not developed by the Xtrabytes team. It will take quite some time for all of these features to come to market, though, but it is clear this is a long-term project first and foremost.

Visa and Worldpay admit fault for accidently charging Coinbase users multiple times for one transaction #NEWS

FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, yesterday published guidelines explaining to organisers and investors how existing financial legislation would be applied to initial coin offerings. The document also details the criteria by which the regulator will judge each fundraising effort. The aim is to dispel uncertainty in the space and should allow investors and organisers alike to act with greater confidence.

A press release accompanying the document stated that FINMA felt the clarity the official guidelines would provide were “important given the dynamic market and the high level of demand”.

Amidst the guidance, the Swiss regulators state that each ICO will be judged independently. There will be no “catch-all” regulation. They admit that “financial market law and regulation are not applicable to all ICOs”. Therefore the Swiss agency will consider the manner in which the tokens issued will be used when deciding which existing legislation should govern a coin offering.

They define tokens in three ways: Payment tokens, utility tokens, and asset tokens.

Payment tokens have no other purpose other than to provide a means of payment. They do not interact with specific applications in any unique way. For the purposes of regulation, they must comply with existing anti-money laundering legislation. They will not be treated as securities.

Utility tokens are intended to provide access to an application or service. There will be no regulation of these tokens. However, it seems unlikely that many pure utility tokens will exist.

Asset tokens are more like securities. As such, they fall under securities legislation. They represent assets in a more traditional sense. If a token provides dividends, it’s an asset token. Likewise, if it represents shares in a particular company. Asset tokens will also fall under civil law requirements. In Switzerland, this is covered by the Swiss Code of Obligations.

FINMA clearly state that hybrid tokens can also exist. From the above guidelines, it appears that most of the existing tokens issued by ICO will fall under more than one of the classifications.

They go on to state that they acknowledge the revolutionary potential of the technology behind ICOs and cryptocurrencies and state that they are participating in the federal government’s Blockchain/ICO Working Group. Finally, they reiterate their warning to investors about the highly volatile nature of the space.

The regulation seems to have been well received in the cryptocurrency community. The price of most tokens and coins have been increasing since the document was released. Particularly notable is ICO platform NEO’s surge in the last 24 hours. The “Chinese Ethereum” quickly added over $1 billion to their market cap according to Coinmarketcap.

Elsewhere, other signs highlighted that the news is welcome. Serial cryptocurrency entrepreneur Erik Voorhees Tweeted that he thought they were “pretty reasonable”:

Big news: Swiss financial regulator issues guidelines for ICOs and securities classification… And they’re pretty reasonable. ‘Crypto nation’ Switzerland issues guidelines to support market https://t.co/CaeGlujQ5G via @financialtimes #bitcoin #ethereum #blockchain

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) February 16, 2018

Such positive regulation out of Switzerland is a big deal. Whilst no one expected a harsh clampdown from the “Crypto Nation“, the clarity that the guidelines will bring to the space should help nurture, rather than stifle, creativity and innovation.

The post Swiss Financial Regulators Publish “Pretty Reasonable” ICO Guidelines appeared first on NewsBTC.

The creators of Telegram filed a notice of exemption with the SEC stating that $850 mln has already been raised for Telegram and their TON platform #NEWS

Digital takes the priority within business advertising efforts. Every company wants to promote itself on different connected devices, but they see the problem of relevance and transparency. Fortunately it can be solved with blockchain technology.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Just think about this two figures: the total market for media and advertising has grown more than $550 billion (Statiscta.com), and since 2016, more than half of It is digital (PwC). It means that businesses all over the world spend more than $275 billion on digital ads of different formats. The scale of the market brought different platforms to life: now we have bidding platforms, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms and different programmatic algorithms, which help reaching “the right person” with your advertisement impression.

But the Reality is not so bright. According to GroupM’s research, about 20% of all digital advertising spending are fraudulent or inaccurate. It means that companies usually throw out about $20 from every $100, showing banners to robots and not interested viewers, and just deceivers. That’s why specialists are looking for new tools to make this process more transparent and trusted.

Blockchain can help

How could it happen, that so large amount of digital ads is fraudulent? The problem is in the number of ads. There are about 2 billion impressions per day globally, and large advertisers don’t even have a chance to control or check every banner, every transaction. The problem is quite similar to double-spending, solved for cryptocurrencies with blockchain. The distributed network can help collecting ratings and history-proof information for publishers and every particular advertisement.

The key feature of blockchain for the future of digital advertisement is smart-contract. Customizing impression parameters, such as personal profile, demonstration time, region, gender and so on, you can be sure to pay only for relevant impressions. Blockchain needs no centralized control center, because the distributed network will guarantee the smart-contract is completed. Only in this case the publisher will receive tokens for the banner.

Moreover, blockchain opens the new horizons for your ad campaign monitoring. The ability to store all the advertisement data is the foundation for ROI calculation, checking, clicks, actions, impressions or views. With blockchain-based advertising platforms buyers could get the feedback from internet users, analyzing their further behavior.

ClearCoin is a pioneer

Today there is an example of successful blockchain ads platform already. The ClearCoin (CLR) company operates with Display, Mobile, Video, Native, Social, Audio, Television, Content, and Search Context formats, getting together agencies, publishers and buyers. With their history-proof ledger as a killer advanage, ClearCoin already has more than 10 000 subscribers and got more than $3 mln investments for the development. It is planned that blockchain-based network will work with up to 100 000 impressions per second, protecting clients from the fraud.

One of the large ClearCoin’s clients has already optimized $140 million wasted advertisement expenses. Spending $2 billion for advertisement, P&G now is implementing a new strategy, supporting fair publishers and supporting with their money the blockchain-based platform development. As more and more transactions will be tracked with such systems, the less risky digital advertisement will become. And it is the future of online marketing.

XinFin’s Hybrid Blockchain ICO was announced last week after launching minimum viable products and ongoing pilot projects with several institutions. The utility coin XDCE offering has now entered its second week.

XinFin, the first of its kind Hybrid blockchain platform is entering into the second week of the ICO for its utility coin XDCE. XDCE is an ERC 20 token that is also 1:1 swappable with the XDC that has utility in hosting masternodes as well as to be used on tradefinex.org platform for Global Trade and Finance beta platform.

“XinFin XDC Masternodes can float tokenized or non-tokenized private subnetworks which can be used by banks, utility companies, communities or enterprises for blockchain enabling and tokenizing their assets. XinFin network is a peer to peer contract platform running on stake based DPOS consensus which can use existing approved payment channels or use XDC as a settlement layer only through approved financial institutions. The architecture makes XinFin fully compliant with laws of the land.” said Karan Bharadwaj, CTO of XinFin.

“TradeFinex.org Platform is the first app launched on the XinFin’s hybrid blockchain platform aimed at bridging the $27 trillion infrastructure deficit globally. It is connecting buyers, suppliers, and financiers through its trusted network of trade associations, financial institutions, policymakers, and regulators,” he added.

XinFin launched the TradeFinex platform at second peer to peer Digital Asset summit organized by Assocham in India and extended the platform to over 450,000 enterprise members of Assocham. Amongst its institutional tie-ups are Global Youth Economic Summit by NM College group that extends the XinFin platform to over 35,000 students of various affiliated colleges. Singapore based Ramco Labs also announced to build hybrid blockchain solutions with XinFin on its XDC01 protocol for global supply chain finance. The upcoming major global expansion includes Canada and Sri Lanka to be announced in the coming weeks.

More information about XinFin is available on the platform’s official website: www.xinfin.org. The XinFin token sale is available at www.xinfin.io. The platform also has an active community on Telegram, Twitter, and Slack. To participate in the Slack community, interested participants can find the invite here.

 

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Instead, we may have something that does what a blockchain does, only faster, cheaper and scalable. It’ll look more like a graph than a linear chain.

CryptoKitties may be the best-known ethereum app, but other games are fast winning users and registering notable volumes for expensive collectables.

ZeroEdge.Bet, a start-up that is building a blockchain based online casino network, is expanding its reach and will be opening brand new offices in London. The move was prompted by the unprecedented growth of the business, ahead of the proposed ICO dates later this year.

The ZeroEdge team is extremely excited to meet fans and followers of the Zero Edge online casino network when their new offices open within the next few weeks. The team, comprising of a range of experts in their respective fields including online gaming, cryptocurrencies, marketing, support, and much more, have put out the welcome mat for gamblers in the United Kingdom.

“This is a great news for us and our community. We are delighted to have our new office in London. One of the reasons for opening an office in London was the access to the skilled job market. Blockchain experts, gambling industry executives, marketing gurus are all there.  Therefore, will be looking to grow our team to help us with our development on every aspect of the business.” – said Adrian Casey ZeroEdge.Bet CEO

UK gambling market is one of the largest in the world.

United Kingdom gambling market size exceeds £14 Billion each year. Zero Edge will launch first blockchain based gambling sites in UK market just after ICO finishes and all Zerocoins are distributed publicly.

It is not by coincidence that Zero Edge has chosen London as one of their main centers of operation. Aside from the fact that London is one of the most popular cities in the world, with a vibrant melting pot of global cultures, it also happens to represent one of the largest online gambling markets in the world.

Residents of the UK love to gamble online and do so around the clock at various top online casinos aimed at the UK market. However, up until fairly recently, UK gamblers have been facing the very same problem as gamblers in other parts of the world – playing at online casinos where, quite frankly, the house edge is out of control!

This is another reason why Zero Edge has chosen London to open their cutting edge new offices, to begin to roll out their plan to absolutely upset the entire online gambling industry with their unique 0% house edge concept, a first in online casino gambling (and gambling in general).

What is Zero Edge and How Does It Work?

Zero Edge online casino network is a brand new, revolutionary way of presenting online casino games to gamblers all over the world. While the traditional online casino focuses on making millions and millions of pounds off of your losses, Zero Edge is doing something entirely new. By offering 0% edge games demand is created for Zerocoin, which raises its value. Profits are made not from players loses, but from increased Zerocoin value. This model will disrupt the online gambling industry. Zero Edge casino is able to offer a true, guaranteed 0% house edge, making online casino games truly fair for the first time ever!

Additionally, ZeroEdge will also provide with an opportunity for entities to build and operate their own games on the ZeroEdge platform. This will allow anyone with minimal technical knowledge to run their own games and earn from the increased value of the ZeroEdge token. The game developers will be rewarded with ZeroEdge tokens for their contribution to the network depending on various factors, e.g. the popularity of the game, UI/UX levels, etc. This feature will create a highly competitive environment and will ensure a wide variety of available games on the platform.

What You Need to Know About ICO and Dates

Pre-ICO is set to start on the 28^th of February 2018, closing out on the 15^th of March 2018. While there is no soft cap set during the Pre-ICO stage, the hard cap is set at 1000 ETH.

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“The issue of competitive currencies by private-sector organizations and the survival and loss of currencies due to market competition is an ideal institutional system.”

– Friedrich Hayek, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist

The rise of blockchain technology is making Hayek’s dream become reality. There is still much progress to make though; competitive currencies alone are not enough to destabilize the existing traditional financial system, nor to establish a truly desirable one. DCC, the world’s first public chain for distributed banking, is ready to bring real change to the financial markets.

From centralized to distributed banking— DCC’s vision

“Distributed banking is a new kind of cooperative service relationship where financial service organizations collaborate with each other on a decentralized blockchain basis.”

– Stewie Zhu, Project Leader, DCC

The traditional financial markets are heavily dependent on centralized banking institutions, with key user credit data and transaction data controlled by a handful of mega-sized financial firms. By contrast, DCC’s goal is to serve as a public chain for distributed banking, establishing a decentralized financial trading platform. In DCC’s framework, each individual has full control over their credit information. Financial institutions are then able to provide multiple competitive services to customers according to their digital credit data and there are no fixed relationships among institutions.

DCC’s user account system is based on decentralized DCCID which ensures that transactions and credit data cannot be tampered with. Personal credit data reports are stored in the cloud, while all data transmissions are encrypted for the highest level of security. Blockchain’s intelligent contract interaction architecture successfully shifts personal data from the grasp of centralized credit institutions to decentralized individuals.

The DCC platform is open architecture too, meaning any party can create intelligent contracts based on open standard protocols or develop DApps (decentralized apps) to expand the DCC environment.

DCC will ultimately transform the financial market structure, leveraging innovation to drive change from centralized to distributed and decentralized.

Why do we need DCC?

The traditional financial industry is highly centralized.Financial transactions rely heavily on the endorsement and support of large financial institutions, with substantial transaction fees paid out to these institutions. Monopolistic financial institutions have in fact raised lending rates for borrowers and reduced the interest income for lenders. In some cases, intermediaries have even distorted the credit rating of borrowers for their own benefit, making it impossible for lenders to accurately identify risk, which can have a destabilizing effect on the market. The outbreak of the 2008 financial crisis, to a large extent, was the upshot of excessive greed and a complete disregard of market risk by several major investment banks.

Public chains for distributed banking based on blockchain technology have now broken this monopoly. As the first ever distributed blockchain financial service platform, DCC can virtually abolish transaction costs and commissions while providing a secure and convenient service that’s affordable for traditional financial institutions. On DCC’s public chain, all financial services firms have equal status, and they bid for customers based on the same criteria. There are no longer a monopolistic few who “control the whole”.

In the new era, the traditional major banks will have equal status with smaller institutions, which is in the interest of fair market competition. This way, competitive smaller financial firms have the opportunity to set the trend, making the overall market more active and free. There are even benefits for the traditional major banks, as their own risks will be greatly reduced, benefitting their long-term development.

How does DCC achieve inclusive finance?

“A family in South Africa could easily get a loan from a North America-based financial institution that changes their lives through DCC.”

-Stewie Zhu

Under the current financial system, there is almost zero possibility for the above to happen, but such cases will be commonplace in the future with DCC.

Let’s take this South African family as an example.They would not have to pay expensive fees, or spend time and money building credit records with a bank. By registering their credit footprint on the DCC platform and entering the needs of the family, financial institutions around the world would be able to learn of their circumstances and offer appropriate services. The cost of financial services on DCC can be greatly reduced by cutting out credit data control from traditional central financial institutions. The family can quickly and easily find out what they can afford to borrow and sign digital contracts online.

As the family works hard and begins to repay their loans, they leave a positive footprint on their DCC records. Other financial institutions cannot take control of these records, and the family are the owner of their own credit data.

Similarly, the general public all over the world can, through DCC, prove that they are trustworthy and have the ability to repay loans before quickly obtaining financial support. By rewarding the service party and trustworthy borrowers in the form of digital currency, DCC has a positive impact on financial activities. Compared with traditional financial markets, the DCC platform not only achieves lower interest rates and easier borrowing but also will greatly reduce default and risk.

As greater numbers of people get the support they desire through DCC and transform their lives, the global economic polarization of the rich and poor can be curbed, and productivity from individuals from all social backgrounds enhanced. One of the greatest features of the distributed financial services system is that it enables financial services to reach an extensive number of people and spread benefits to all sections of the society.

How will DCC change the blockchain industry?

DCC addresses the biggest shortcoming of the traditional blockchain currencies — the lack of true value. DCC’s value comes from the financial activities and transactions of all its members. As increasing numbers of financial transactions are completed via DCC, the DCC digital currency will have a more concrete foundation. Today’s socio-economic operations go hand in hand with the flow of large sums of financial capital, which bringsDCC a broad range of potential commercial applications and invaluable potential.

This is the beginning of the commercialization of blockchain technology. Based on the huge market demand and by eliminating the key weakness of traditional digital currencies, DCC can become a high-quality digital asset which is worth holding on to in the long term.

Passion and inspiration —the essentials of a successful team

DCC’s core team of experts is an all-star line-up. Stewie Zhu, a graduate of Oxford University and the London School of Economics, is a specialist in behavioural economics and game theory, and has been an active player in the blockchain industry for many years; Professor Lu obtained a PhD in mathematics from Yale University, and brings extensive experience as a former director in several major investment banks along with an unwavering enthusiasm for all blockchain related topics; Shi Fei, Vice President of JP Morgan, is an authority on quantification, derivative pricing and quantitative risk analysis, with valuable insights into blockchain; Chen Yu is an angel investor with countless successes and achieved fame online as “Jiangnan Young Cynic” by advocating decentralization;YuhangGuo is founder of DIANRONG and Chairman of Galaxy Capital, and is one of the earliest blockchain investors.These top-class academic experts and investment gurus make concerted efforts to develop the distributed banking system and allow millions to benefit from blockchain finance. Professionalism, strength of character, inspiration and enthusiasm are the key to DCC’s success.

Will DCC cause an explosion in the blockchain industry? It may be too soon to draw a definitive conclusion. What’s certain is that the financial industry needs a blockchain revolution, aided by the support of real economic activities. DCC is the bridge connecting the two. Responsive investors have already started to explore DCC’s investment channels. Whether you sit and wait to see how things unfold, or act now to seize a potentially valuable opportunity, the decision is yours.

The post DCC —Realizing the Dream of Inclusive Finance appeared first on NewsBTC.

You can give cryptocurrency as a gift, and it doesn’t trigger income taxes. #EXPERT_TAKE