Day: March 2, 2018

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said it will roll out a blockchain system to track beef imports from a new meat supplier in Australia.

Competition is heating up in the ethereum ecosystem, now that scaling project Liquidity.Network has launched in test mode.

If you are holding the cryptocurrency for the benefit of someone else, who has to pay the taxes? #EXPERT_TAKE

It remains pretty difficult to make sense of the cryptocurrency markets as of right now. While it seems Bitcoin is poised to note some more gains over the weekend, most other top currencies are struggling to reach any degree of momentum. The TRON price is one of the few exceptions in this regard, as it has noted a strong 15.64% gain in the past 24 hours.

TRON Price is on the Move Again

In this world of cryptocurrency we live in today, it is always interesting to see the TRON price go up once again. This particular currency had a solid run at the end of 2017, but things quickly fell apart in early 2018. Considering how all of the markets suffered from similar momentum, it is rather evident altcoins will follow Bitcoin’s lead in this regard. The TRON price was no exception, as its previous all-time high was quickly followed by a massive decline to just under $0.04.

Over the past week, it seems very little has changed for the TRON price, although there was some positive market momentum earlier this week. None of those efforts effectively resulted in major gains whatsoever, but the situation is still improving as we speak.  Over the past 24 hours, we have seen the TRON price gain 15.64% in USD value, pushing the price to $0.051 once again.

This price gain is not just the result of the current Bitcoin price increase either. As we have seen with other altcoins in the past, the TRON price has gained 12.97% over Bitcoin and 16.6% over Ethereum. This further confirms Ethereum is struggling for momentum as we speak, and the year 2018 may not be all that great for that specific currency. TRON price speculators will not are about Ethereum all that much, for obvious reasons, but it’s still interesting to keep an eye on.

With $552.94m in 24-hour trading volume, things are not looking all that bad for TRON as of right now. This trading volume is a lot higher than most other cryptocurrencies cna bring to the table right now, although it seems to be heavily inflated due to TRON being added to a new Korean exchange. Considering how Korea’s trading volume is irrelevant to the rest of the world, it is possible the current TRON price trend may reverse in the next few hours.

So far, it seems the TRON trading volume is primarily dominated by Binance. The company’s BTC and ETH trading markets represent over 61.5% of all TRON trades once again, with Huobi completing the top three as of right now. The new Korean exchange pair has not been added on Coinmarketcap as of just yet, thus it remains to be seen how that will effectively impact the market as a whole. For now, things look promising, but positive momentum will run out eventually.

Whether or not we will see more TRON price gains in the coming hours, remains to be determined. It is certainly possible reaching 0.055 will be achieved, but there are always a lot of questions as to whether or not the current momentum is the direct result of this new Korean listing or not. Assuming that is indeed the case,  the momentum will die down eventually and the TRON price will head back to $0.04.  Both options are still possible as of right now yet only time will tell what the future will bring.

Predicting the future price of cryptocurrencies is rather complicated. With so many different factors to keep in mind, accurate predictions are rather rare. That being said, a group of panelists recently discussed some of the top cryptocurrencies for 2018. The results are pretty interesting, as the “big winner” is not the altcoin you might think.

Cryptocurrency Prices in 2018

The opinions on cryptocurrency prices are always interesting to keep an eye on. So far, the overall market sentiment appears to be pretty bearish, but things are always changing. According to a team of panelists, 2018 will be pretty good for Bitcoin later this year. They see the price per BTC rise to as high as $29,533, which is a nice increase compared to right now. Even though that is a 184.31% increase compared to right now, such gains are not impossible where cryptocurrency prices are concerned.

Although we see similar trends for most other currencies as well, not every coin will perform as well. Cryptocurrency prices fluctuate quite a bit, and so will their gains accordingly. Bitcoin Cash, for example, is set to gain as much as 116.41% by late December 2018. If that prediction holds true, the price will surge to $2,721. Not the value most BCH supporters are hoping for, but it would be a solid start.

Ethereum, on the other hand, will face a fairly difficult year, all things considered. Although the panelists see its price rise to $2,550, it’s not much “better” than Bitcoin whatsoever. It seems both of these currencies will remain linked together for some time to come. Whether or not that is good or bad for other cryptocurrency prices, has yet to be determined.  It does appear some of the altcoins will effectively decouple themselves from Bitcoin and the likes, though.

The Rise of Cardano and Dogecoin

When looking at all of the predicted cryptocurrency prices, it is evident the panelists have high hopes for two specific coins. Cardano will see a meteoric rise in value, surging by nearly 600% by the end of this year according to predictions. That would put the Cardano price at just over $2.33, which almost seems impossible to achieve right now.

Ripple’s XRP is set to undergo a wild ride as well. With a prediction of $6.13 by the end of the year, there is still a long way to go for this digital asset. It would represent a 541.34% increase compared to the current price. This is by far one of the boldest estimated cryptocurrency prices, but it is not entirely unfeasible. We saw wild growth late last year, and 2018 may bring us more of the same.

According to the panelists the biggest gainer of them all, however, will be Dogecoin. Many people consider Dogecoin to be a joke currency, as it was never designed to be taken all that seriously. Even so, the Dogecoin price is estimated to rise to a whopping 19 cents. Compared to the current price, that is a near 3,000% increase over the next nine and a half months. A bold prediction, although few people actually invest in this altcoin. All of these estimated cryptocurrency prices are pretty intriguing, although it remains to be seen which will come true.

The post Predicted 2018 Cryptocurrency Prices: Major Gains for Cardano and Dogecoin appeared first on NewsBTC.

Chosun, South Korea’s largest business-focused mainstream media outlet, reported that one the country’s largest banks Woori trialed Ripple payments for remittances.

Ripple Trials

Woori’s digital strategy department successfully processed payments on the Ripple blockchain network and according to the company, Woori might be able to process large-scale remittance transactions on the Ripple network within 2018.

The South Korean bank already completed phase two of its Ripple trials, having completed phase one of Ripple payment settlement in January. Woori spokesperson told Chosun that the bank remains highly optimistic in using the Ripple network to process remittance in the long-term.

The bank further emphasized that Ripple is far more efficient than Swift, which normally takes 2 to 3 days to process transactions between banks whereas Ripple is capable of processing transactions instantaneously. Many banks in South Korea along with 61 banks in Japan have already started to trial Ripple payments, with an intent to use Ripple commercially within this year.

Woori and Shinhan, two of the biggest banks in South Korea, initially joined the Ripple consortium in December 2017, when the Ripple team wrote, “the Japan Bank Consortium — a coalition of 61 banks in Japan, organized by SBI Ripple Asia — has announced the launch of a new Ripple pilot with Woori Bank and Shinhan Bank, two of South Korea’s largest banks with a collective market capitalization of more than $30 billion.”

Kookmin’s Cryptocurrency Exchange Rejection

Earlier this year, the South Korean government clarified its stance on cryptocurrencies, and strongly emphasized that it will not ban or prohibit the trading or usage of cryptocurrencies, but instead regulate the space to protect both businesses and investors.

South Korean banks were requested by the government to ensure traders cannot open accounts on cryptocurrency exchanges without anonymous identities or bank accounts, and stricten the process of opening bank accounts for the purpose of trading cryptocurrencies.

Consequently, Kookmin Bank, the largest bank in the country, decided to not provide banking services to cryptocurrency exchanges, likely due to its connections to the government.

Shinhan Bank, the second biggest bank in South Korea, along with six other banks stepped up, and announced their intent to provide services to cryptocurrency exchanges, offering millions of virtual bank accounts to cryptocurrency traders.

Korbit, Bithumb, and other major cryptocurrency trading platforms stated that Kookmin bank users will no longer be able to trade cryptocurrencies with the bank’s accounts, and will have to migrate to banks that support cryptocurrency exchanges.

“In order to comply with the identification and anti-money laundering regulations being enforced by the government, the current KRW deposit method will be terminated by the end of January 2018,” the Korbit team said.

Woori, Shinhan, and several other banks that still remain highly optimistic in regards to the potential of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are expected to continue the development of their individual projects while conducting trials of public cryptocurrencies.

The post One South Korea’s Largest Banks Trials Ripple, Hints Full Integration in 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin passed above the $11,000 mark this morning, but low volumes could be capping gains.

A fork of a fork of a fork? A new cryptocurrency just launched that’s nearly identical to zcash, but commentators are questioning its value add.

Lichtenstein-based Bank Frick will be the first regulated bank to offer direct investment and cold storage of five cryptocurrencies. The unprecedented announcement was made in a press release on February 28.

Private Bank Offers Five Cryptocurrencies

The bank, which specializes in providing financial services for an international clientele of mostly professional investors and advisors, says its customers can now buy and sell Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ripple, or leave the assets in cold storage wallets that the bank will hold for safe keeping.

The offer is aimed at professional market participants and financial intermediaries. Chief Client Officer Hubert Büchel told media;

“Our goal is to bring crypto banking at least to the level of quality of classic banking. Our services are in high demand from companies across Europe. The companies know that we reliably support them in implementing their cryptocurrency and blockchain business models in accordance with existing European regulations.”

They are one of the first banks to offer direct purchase of cryptocurrency but as the popularity of investing in digital funds grows it is expected more institutes will follow their lead.

“Intermediaries and their clients can easily get to know a new, exciting universe with these direct purchases, diversifying and investing in it without correlation to other asset classes. Investments in cryptocurrencies are highly speculative, which is why only a small amount of admixture in the portfolio is advisable.”

Buchel elaborated when asked about the growth potential for these kinds of services.

Crypto-Services Continue to Spread Around the World

Bank Frick reports that they were one of the first to offer cryptocurrency services when they added a basket tracker certificate based on Ethereum and Bitcoin back in September 2017. A few other banks across Europe are slowly easing crypto trading into their services.

In neighbouring Switzerland, both Vontoble and Falcon private banks have been active in crypto investment of some kind since 2016. While Swiss online bank, Swissquote entered into a partnership with Bitstamp in order to offer clients crypto trading, though initially that was limited to Bitcoin only.

The worldwide infrastructure for buying and selling cryptocurrency continues to increase as fears of the new technology subside. With digital currency enabled ATM’s popping up and exchange services showing up in airports trading fiat for crypto will move off of the computer.

Soon many more countries may follow the path of Australia with shops offering cryptocurrency right along with the milk, eggs and Vegemite.

The post Private Liechtenstein Bank One of the First to Offer Trade in Cryptocurrency appeared first on NewsBTC.

Some of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the global market including Binance and Kraken have halved bitcoin withdrawal fees due to the rising adoption of scaling solution and transaction malleability fix Segregated Witness (SegWit).

SegWit Adoption

Last week, Coinbase, a major bitcoin brokerage and wallet platform with over 12 million users, along with leading cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex enabled SegWit and transaction batching, to significantly reduce bitcoin transaction fees and relieve congestion on the bitcoin blockchain network.

On February 23, Coinbase Vice President Dan Romero stated that the company will also focus on the development and integration of emerging technologies and second-layer solutions like Lightning.

“New technologies which require SegWit, like the Lightning Network, have the potential to significantly increase the usefulness of Bitcoin as a payment network and benefit customers. We currently have a dedicated full-time software engineer working on open source contributions to the Lightning Network,” said Romero.

Since then, the adoption of SegWit has risen from 13 percent to around 30 percent, by nearly 3-fold within a period of several days. As the largest bitcoin wallet platform in the world, Coinbase accounts for a large portion of bitcoin’s daily transaction volume. The integration of SegWit by Blockchain, the second largest bitcoin wallet platform in the market, is expected to increase SegWit adoption further, in the short-term.

Kraken and Binance

Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the global market with a $1.9 billion daily trading volume, along with a major San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading platform Kraken halved bitcoin withdrawal fees, due to the rapid adoption of SegWit and decreasing transaction fees.

On March 1, Kraken stated, “effective immediately, withdrawal fees on Bitcoin (XBT) are reduced to 0.0005, and withdrawal fees on Bitcoin Cash (BCH) are reduced to 0.0001.”

On March 2, following the path of Kraken, Binance announced, “Binance is happy to announce a 50 percent reduction in $BTC withdrawal fees. Effective immediately, BTC withdrawal fees are only 0.0005 BTC.”

If more cryptocurrency exchanges processing billions of dollars worth of trades on a daily basis continue to integrate SegWit and transaction batching, in the short-term, bitcoin transaction fees could drop substantially.

Although the fees of bitcoin could rise again as its price spikes after a long recovery and its transaction volume surges to its previous levels, SegWit and transaction batching are expected to work as short-term solutions, while developers and businesses seek towards integrating second-layer scaling solutions.

Peter Todd, a bitcoin developer and respected cryptography consultant, stated that the integration of Lightning could turn out to be too complex, and the current implementation of Lightning could be vulnerable to DoS attacks.

“As for the Lightning protocol, I’m willing to predict it’ll prove to be vulnerable to DoS attacks in its current incarnation, both at the P2P and blockchain level. While bad politics, focusing on centralized hub-and-spoke payment channels first would have been much simpler,” Todd wrote.

Hence, if developers and businesses continue to go down the path of Lightning to scale the Bitcoin network, it will require significant work by both the businesses and developers in the open-source community of bitcoin to practically implement Lightning.

The post Major Cryptocurrency Exchanges Halve Bitcoin Withdrawal Fees Due to SegWit appeared first on NewsBTC.

South Korea’s Wooribank has reportedly completed an overseas remittance test using Ripple’s DLT solution.