Day: February 23, 2018

Regulation can actually make prices flourish! 😳 #IN_DEPTH

We are seeing a change of fortune as far as price action and altcoins is concerned. LTC, Lumens and DASH are on the fore front printing clear bull patterns that awaits confirmations today.

Besides these three, we remain neutral on EOS unless we see a close above $9.5 while NEO is also encouraging as scalpers can enter this trade and aim at $130 in the short term.

Let’s have a look at these charts:

XLM/USD

As per our projection, all we needed was a double bar bull pattern anywhere around last week’s lows at around $0.34.

That’s what we have now and as it is, I will be looking for that resumption of bull pressure as this is not only happening at support of the ascending wedge but at last week’s low.

Now, it depends on your patience because you can either wait for a cross above $0.40 or the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level or enter at current prices.

I recommend entry after today because for assurance purposes, a double bar reversal pattern-bull or bear is only useful if there is confirmation.

DASH/USD

We are seeing a nice bounce off the middle BB at $620 and so far, our plan is on course.

From yesterday’s analysis, there is a slight bullish resumption because of yesterday’s doji or bull pin bar right at the support or break out level.

The thing, even though we are seeing this reversal of last week’s gains, we remain largely bullish and today might actually determine the short to medium course for DASH.

Any strong bullish candlestick today and we shall have that nice 3 bar reversal pattern with $620 as our anchor and all bulls have to do is to refine their long entries in lower time frames on February 25.

EOS/USD

Because of lower lows and reversals from recent EOS price action, I still remain neutral on this pair.

Yes, of course there is a clear bull candlestick on the chart and that lack of bearish confirmation is what is positive for buyers.

From yesterday’s preview, the middle BB at around $8.5 remains our first resistance level and we should be watching what price action shows today.

Scalpers may look for buying opportunities in lower time frames and aim for $9.5.

LTC/USD

Yesterday’s forecast is on course and now with that reversal right at the middle BB, LTC buyers should be angling and hunting for long opportunities in lower time frame.

Ok, you may decide to wait and see if LTC bulls confirm yesterday double bar reversal pattern and even wait for a close above February 22 highs but the thing is, there are high chances that the 3^rd  phase of a micro-bull resumption being in play.

I recommend longs with every stochastic buy signal in the 1 or 4HR charts or when there is a pull back towards $180 or middle BB in the daily chart.

NEO/USD

There is s a reprieve for NEO and while there is a reversal right at the middle BB at $110-$115, I shall only recommend wholesale longs with any close above $130. That line remains a strong resistance and support line depending on price action.

Patience is important and now that bull pressure is building up after yesterday’s events, scalpers may as well enter and aim for $130 in the short term.

Conservatives and risk averse traders should wait for a convincing close above $130 or even $155 and wait for pull backs towards the middle BB before buying.

The post Altcoin Analysis: NEO, EOS, LTC, DASH and Lumens (XLM) appeared first on NewsBTC.

The DNotes digital currency is four-years-old today, and one of its co-creators, DNotes Global Inc co-founder and CEO Alan Yong, marked the occasion with an article that details the project’s previous accomplishments and future plans.

In that piece, My Yong talked about the importance of observing important milestones like anniversaries, and how those observances provide an opportunity to put things into context. In remarks earlier today, he explained why he wanted to celebrate the digital currency’s birthday in this unique way.

“Four years may not seem like a long time, but a lot can happen in just a few short years. That’s especially true in the cryptocurrency space, where innovation occurs at breakneck speed. For DNotes, the last four years have been a time of steady progress, as we have methodically rolled out the various components of the DNotes ecosystem.”

“Stakeholders who have been with us since the first launch in 2014 are aware of that progress,” he continued. “However, many of the more recent DNotes holders are less familiar with the currency’s history. I wanted to take this opportunity to summarize our progress, commemorate what we have accomplished to date, and briefly touch on the exciting changes that are coming in 2018.”

Yong’s anniversary article describes DNotes’ mission, and how it has progressed since 2014. He even delves into why the digital currency project is so important to ensuring greater financial inclusion for the world’s population. As he describes it, the DNotes team wanted to create a digital currency that was different than everything that had come before it:

“Our goal was to make DNotes a digital currency with purpose: to become an accepted cryptocurrency that can supplement the world’s fiat currencies and provide financial inclusions and empowerment for people everywhere.“

His detailed account of DNotes’ progress over the last several years provides some clues about how his company plans to accomplish that purpose. Much of his article is devoted to detailing a timeline of accomplishments, as he explores the digital currency’s history and the steps the company has taken to create a working infrastructure to support DNotes’ objectives.

Considerable space is also devoted to the company’s future endeavors, of course – and that seems fitting for a company that keeps its gaze firmly fixed on the future. According to Yong, the next version of DNotes is arriving soon. Aptly named DNotes 2.0, the new cryptocurrency will replace the existing version, and contain new features and benefits. DNotes 2.0 will reportedly be based on Proof of Stake, and stakeholders will be provided with new and improved blockchain staking rewards.

Yong also talked about the company’s other major plans for the next few months and years, including the imminent launch of a mini-IPO to raise funding that will be used to advance the company’s goals. Other plans include a new digital currency exchange, banking services, payment systems, charitable enterprises, and more.

As Yong notes, the company and the DNotes community have much to celebrate:

“On this, our four-year anniversary, we can all take pride in everything that our community has achieved in such a short period of time – even as we look forward to the unfinished work that lies ahead.”

About DNotes and Alan Yong:

DNotes co-founder Alan Yong is a well-regarded visionary who established Dauphin Technology in 1988. He is the author of the book “Improve Your Odds: The Four Pillars of Business Success and is well-regarded as a “thought leader” in the cryptocurrency industry.

DNotes is a digital currency noted for its consistent and reliable growth, and innovative initiatives that actively engage women, young people, small businesses, workers, and others – effectively inviting the world to participate in the digital currency revolution. DNotes Global, Inc. has plans to launch DNotes 2.0 in early 2018, with improved features and functionality.

For more information please visit: http://dnotescoin.com

Media contact
Name: Alan Yong
Email: [email protected]

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.

Partners collaborate to combine automation with a decentralized marketplace of expert analysts to detect and deter malware and cyber security breaches

BOSTON, MA / SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — FEBRUARY 23, 2018 — PolySwarm (www.polyswarm.io) today announced that Basis Technology will support its decentralized cybersecurity marketplace with Cyber Triage, the automated, agentless, endpoint investigation tool. Cyber Triage’s upcoming release will enable automatic querying of the PolySwarm network for deeper analysis, building on top of Cyber Triage’s existing cloud-based malware detection. PolySwarm is the first decentralized marketplace where security experts build anti-malware engines that compete to protect enterprises and end users.

“Cyber Triage endpoint investigations reveal suspicious files, but confirming these files’ malintent is often a manual process,” said Carl Hoffman, CEO of Basis Technology, the company behind Cyber Triage. “With PolySwarm integration, Cyber Triage response teams can optimize their process by rapidly gathering opinions and advanced analysis about suspicious files from a network of cybersecurity experts.”

“Cyber Triage + PolySwarm will deliver more rapid and thorough threat detection during time-sensitive security incident response. Allowing responders to query PolySwarm’s distributed network to investigate suspicious files for malware will enable incident responders to focus on kicking attackers out – and keeping them out,” said Steve Bassi, CEO of PolySwarm.

The PolySwarm market runs on Nectar (“NCT”), an ERC20-compatible utility token that makes it easy to submit and classify potential threats on the PolySwarm market. Nectar replaces traditional, outdated antivirus and threat-scanning subscription payments. The Nectar token sale begins February 20, 2018.

To learn more about Cyber Triage, please visit www.cybertriage.com. 

ABOUT POLYSWARM

PolySwarm is the first decentralized marketplace allowing security experts to build anti-malware engines that compete to protect you. PolySwarm incentivizes a global community of information security experts to disrupt the $8.5 billion cyber threat intelligence industry, providing enterprises and consumers with unprecedented speed and accuracy in threat detection. The PolySwarm market runs on Nectar (NCT), an ERC20-compatible utility token. For more information, please visit https://polyswarm.io

Media Contact: Transform Group, [email protected]

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.

Essentially, Zeroedge is the world’s first online casino that offers two unique advantages to the general online gambling public. Firstly, Zeroedgeruns exclusively on cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin for example) although, in this case, that cryptocurrency is Zeroedge Casinos own unique cryptocurrency called ZeroCoin.

The second advantage, and by far the most significant, is the fact that Zeroedge, much like its name suggests, will be offering a true 0% house edge to its players. This essentially means that, unlike conventional online casinos, where they can enjoy a house edge (advantage the house has over the player) of as much as 10% in certain casino games, and 1% or higher in others.

The old saying that the house always wins really does apply to conventional online casinos, as they have stacked the odds in their favour, meaning that you will never ever really win your games (not for long anyway). Since Zeroedge does not make any profit from the losses incurred by players, but rather through the increased value of ZeroCoin which is the main economy driver on the Zero Edge Casino’s network.

Interview with Adrian Casey – Zerocoin’s CEO.:

When was your business founded?:  The Idea came up in the summer of 2017

How many founders, employees & part time workers?:  Me and my partner were the initial founders, but he went on to work on another venture. So I was pretty much left with just an idea. We currently have a team of 10-15 employees including people working on full-time & part-time basis

Thanks for interviewing! First question – When did you first get into Bitcoin and why?

After MtGox in 2013, was when I got into Bitcoin and started my research around it. This was also the time when most investors/people started to pay more attention to cryptocurrencies. I guess you could say I was caught by the wave. Although, I wasn’t that much interested in the Bitcoin itself, my main interest was understanding how and why it works. So naturally I first opened up Mr.Nakamoto’s whitepaper to start from the roots and work my way up. I was both overwhelmed and captivated by the concept and ideas outlined in that document. It allowed me to reflect on how inefficient and fragile our financial system was, especially looking at events during and after economic crisis in 2008. The tec

Where did the inspiration for your ICO come from?:

The inspiration came from my own personal experience with online casinos. Playing at an online casino can’t be any more boring. The social isolation while playing those games is at a high-level and I dare to say, this is one of the main problems that leads to problem gambling. And to think that you must “pay” to have such an experience was something I couldn’t get my head around. I thought there is definitely something wrong here and it can’t last with all the technological and social progress we make as a society.   

Therefore, our mission at ZeroEdge is to make online gambling fun and most importantly “free of charge”. We want to create platform where people can interact with each other and socialize to eliminate some of the problems present in the traditional form of online gambling.

How will your business make money in the future?:

We will be generating income from our games, since not all players will be able to perfect game strategy, but the main source of revenue will come from parties wanting to build and operate their own games. For example, social influencers who wish to create some form of competition and reward their audience. We expect that games will become a big part of customer acquisition and retention strategies to keep businesses competitive and innovative.

What is the idea behind your ICO?:

The main idea behind ZeroEdge.bet is to make gambling “fair & free of charge”. By eliminating the house edge from our games, we are essentially giving players an equal chances of winning. We think gambling shouldn’t be a “pay-to-play” service as it is now, where the casinos have a locked-in profit mechanism in place without their players ever realizing this fact. With the help of smart contracts, we are creating a new approach to gambling where players can actually win, have more opportunities and are not pressured to play.

Can you walk us through the critical components of your business and how it will work?:

The most important component will be the ease of purchasing Zerocoin which is required to play 0% house edge games at Zeroedge.bet. Zerocoin will be purchasable on-site and on secondary markets such as exchanges. The key for us will be to ensure sufficient supply of tokens in circulation, i.e. liquidity. The token supply will be controlled by releasing a small batch of tokens from our reserves to meet growing demand for the token and fixing token’s price.

Another component is making our games look good to the eye. Obviously, we want to make our games as engaging as possible so that players are not bored after a few spins/hands. For this task, we use big data to identify patterns of visual preferences and player’s game choice based on certain characteristics. We have a dedicated team of UX/UI designers who have previously built and designed enticing games  

What was the greatest challenge you have faced so far?:

The greatest challenge so far was and still is convincing people that gambling doesn’t need to be negative. With ZeroEdge.Bet we want to use gambling as a means for people to socialize and build social circles which could possibly lead to an increased social inclusion and decreased problem gambling.

Where do you see your business in 5 years time?:

We expect our business to evolve into a social platform rather than just a casino. Our games will only be a medium for people to connect. Main activities on the platform might include sharing interesting content related to personal lives and stories, educational and cultural material, etc. In 5 years, the technology, particularly AI & VR might advance considerably and we might be seeing new forms of social interaction over the web. This is definitely something we will be looking to explore ourselves and implement on our platform to enhance user experience and continue pioneering the industry.

What are the biggest factors that will bring success?:

I would say the biggest factor will be acquiring a substantial user base. The gambling industry is a highly-competitive business which requires unique approach to stand-out from the crowd. The crypto-gambling is still relatively small market compared to fiat gambling, therefore I would say that the biggest factor that will influence our success will be our capability to capture fiat gamblers who might not be familiar with cryptocurrencies at all.

What’s your advice to other ICOs or Bitcoin businesses who are just starting out?:

My best advice for people looking start their business, is to think BIG. You have to have a grand plan and not settle for a small thing. Do your research, follow knowledgeable people from the industry and learn. Think of something revolutionary, that can possibly bring a lot of value not only to the business, but to society as well.

Aside from your website where else are you present on Social Media and how can people get in contact with you?:

Absolutely, we are present on Twitter where we announce major news regarding our project. Bitcointalk forum is another medium where we a very active with discussions and answering questions. However, I would definitely recommend joining our Telegram where our main community resides to talk anything related to the project, share ideas, ask questions and more.

What You Need to Know About ZeroCoin ICO and Launch Dates

Pre-ICO is set to start on the 28th of February 2018, closing out on the 15th of March 2018. While there is no soft cap set during the Pre-ICO stage, the hard cap is set at 1500 ETH. https://tokensale.zeroedge.bet

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.

23 February 2018 CLEVELAND, OHIO USA – Votem, the blockchain-based voting platform, has announced it will open the public presale of Simple Agreements for Future Tokens (SAFT) for its VAST Tokens on February, 27 2018. This event will be followed by a public sale later in the year helping to support the ongoing development of the VAST token with governments and organisations globally.

Votem provides a transparent solution to directly address the issue of electoral manipulation and in the process, capture a material share of the $10 billion global market. It’s CastIron platform coupled with the VAST token, enables citizens, organizations, and governments around the world to easily manage or participate in online voting with the highest possible level of verifiability, accessibility, security, and transparency.

Built on the Ethereum blockchain as an EIP-20 (formerly ERC-20) token, The VAST token will enable users to cast and store votes on the blockchain.  The VAST Token will provide secure and role-based access to the following standard features on the Votem Platform:

• Contest (Election) Creation & Set-Up

• Voter Access and/or Registration

• Simple Ballot Creation & Marking

• Ballot Submission/Validation/Storage

• Tallying and Results Reporting (with Audit Capabilities)

“In any functioning democratic institution, people’s trust is paramount; especially trust in free and fair elections. Unfortunately despite the best intentions of elections bodies, trust in elections is at an all-time low. Votem was founded to restore trust and access back to voting events and the VAST Token and related CastIron platform are designed to provide a level of security and verifiability that’s lacking in most countries. And with the recent news of nation states’ past and continued interference in national elections, our work has never been more important.” -Votem CEO Pete Martin

The public presale which opens February 27, 2018 is only open to accredited investors with limitations for individuals from certain countries. To find out more and to register as an accredited investor, please visit www.votem.io and join the official telegram channel (https://t.me/votem_ICO).

For Media Enquires, please contact Aleck Silva-Pinto @ asilvapinto at votem dot com

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.

Loyalty programs are designed to reward customers for their past purchases or other actions and to incentivize them to make more purchases.

One could say that this is an ideal scheme for increasing the profit of retailers. However, in real life it doesn’t work this way. A recent study by Colloquy shows that approximately 56% of programs do not give users real benefits from purchases, while 54% are organized so poorly that it’s incredibly difficult to earn points with them.

BitRewards solves these problems for loyalty management plans, as it more closely aligns the interests of merchants and shoppers. It’s a B2B2C platform that enables merchants to reward shoppers with BIT tokens (ERC-20 compliant) for their, and their friends’, purchases and other actions they may take that align with rewards. The decentralized rewards management on blockchain technology makes the platform unique and delivers terrific value to all platform members and their customers.

The platform represents a clear and perceptible value for retailers, their customers and loyalty software developers and vendors. The merchants receive a premium blockchain loyalty management system for free, thus saving thousands of dollars every month, whereas the shoppers are rewarded with liquid cryptocurrency that can be exchanged for fiat money or redeemed for purchases. As for developers, they can easily deploy a blockchain loyalty solution on BitRewards platform using open API and documentation.

Tesla among loyalty management vehicles

What is the secret of the success of Tesla cars?

It’s about user experience. The Model S reaches a speed of 100 km / h in 2.5 seconds – it’s so fast that the first trip causes an incredible rush of happy neurochemicals. This is the kind of experience, as compared with other loyalty programs, BitRewards offers.

The rewards for customers, in the form of BIT tokens from different merchants, are accumulated in a customer’s account, which is connected to the entire BitRewards Network. The tokens can be redeemed with any merchant within the BitRewards Network and the network’s partners that can promote their business with additional bonuses and discounts for the BIT token holders.

A customer crypto wallet’s BIT balance will also be connected to the bank debit plastic or virtual card, which users can spend just as if they used their regular credit or debit cards.  BIT tokens, unlike points, don’t expire; they cannot be lost, or cease to exist if the merchant goes out of business. The token’s demand and value is expected to appreciate, due to an increasing interest from retailers that receive world-class software for free.

AI-based recommendations system

The recommendation system is an essential part of the loyalty program, because its tailored product/service recommendations encourage people to purchase more. It is impossible to build a solid advisory system without a vast amount of data, and this is a problem for SMBs, as they do not have enough traffic and sales to accumulate such an amount. That’s why BitRewards develops and embeds into the ecosystem the first decentralized recommendation system – BitRecommendations.

The system gives product recommendations – look-alike items, as well as recommendations for rewards. Training of BitRecommendations is carried out using the data of thousands of stores, which will ensure the high quality of recommendations. All data received from the stores is stored on a decentralized IPFS file system. Metadata, including the rating of data quality, is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. This makes the system immutable and trustless – if BitRecommendations ceases to work, with the support of BitRewards DAO a new development team will be hired and a new system will be created using the accumulated data.

Action plan for the future

The full-functioning scalable rewards, and loyalty platform with the retailers’ and the users’ crypto wallet tied to the loyalty program of BitRewards, will be launched in Q2 of 2018. Much of the work will be dedicated to integrations with partners and the deployment of secure smart contracts.

BitRewards intends to show that the community will support the project – and the best way to prove it is to run a crowdsale. The public pre-sale started on January 12, 2018 and the main token sale will start on April 1st and end on May 1st. The total volume of BIT tokens will be up to 2,000,000,000 BITs.

Additional details on the BitRewards token sale are provided on the official website of the project: https://bitrewards.network

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.

The market participants seem to be keen on buying on dips 🤔 #PRICE_ANALYSIS

FOMO Moments

There has been an unexpected turnaround this morning and the markets have rebounded a little. Weekends are usually times when selloffs occur, led by Asia, but today everything is in the green once again. Bitcoin is leading the pack with a 7.5% recovery on yesterday’s prices to $10.500, altcoins have followed it back up, many by double digits. One as usual stands out from the rest and it is one we have covered a couple of times before; Nano.

Posting a 45% gain on the day Nano, formerly RaiBlocks, is flying during the Asian trading session this morning. It has jumped from $9.72 this time yesterday to $14.50 today, over the week gains have been even greater from a low point of $6.80 just three days ago. Nano hit an all-time high of $37 a couple of days after New Year when all cryptos were at their peaks.

The release of the Beta version of the Nano Android wallet on the 21^st is likely to have spurred greater interest in this altcoin. Investors have seen buying opportunities at low prices and this coin has seen the dividends. Facilitating fast and free micropayments with digital currencies Nano has an online wallet and mobile ones in continual development. There are only 133 million total supply tokens and they are all already in circulation so prices could well continue upwards. It is traded mostly on Binance which has over 90% of the total volume, $263 million has been exchanged in Nano trading over the past 24 hours.

There are a few other altcoins with double digit growth this morning and they include Ethereum Classic which is up 25% at the time of writing. Litecoin, Iota, Tron, VeChain, and OmiseGO are also rallying this morning.

More on Nano can be found here: https://nano.org/en

FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the Asian trading session and analyses the best performing one, looking for trends and fundamentals. 

The post Asian Altcoin Trading Roundup: Nano is Leading the Way appeared first on NewsBTC.

Unless you have been asleep for the last year, you cannot have failed to catch the buzz around bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum’s Ether and Ripple’s XRP. There are even some coins that were created as a joke that are getting significant investments, such as Dogecoin.

For a long time, bitcoin has been perceived by many as an anonymous payment system for online purchases. This myth has been propagated by mass media when bitcoin emerged as a popular payment method on the dark web. However, this is far from the truth. Due to its publicly viewable blockchain, every bitcoin wallet and every bitcoin transaction ever processed can be viewed online by anyone.  For that reason, several efforts are underway to increase bitcoin’s privacy. The most prominent of these is Confidential Transactions.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.