Day: March 5, 2018

Despite only running for four months, global messaging giant Telegram’s initial coin offering (ICO) is already on track to bring in one billion dollars — long before the product the company is raising money for is even built. Funding from the initial round of investors has already made the company’s launch the biggest ever. Telegram’s goal is to make it to over $2 billion total, a figure that will dwarf the previously largest launch which was conducted by Tezos and raised $232 million.

This move comes as financial authorities around the world have been cracking down on some ICOs, which seemed to rise out of nowhere last year as a novel way for start-ups to raise millions and millions of dollars in short periods of time. Since the start of the year, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been issuing subpoenas, demanding information about coin offerings that may have violated the law — the problem is that how to apply existing laws still remains largely unclear. Despite this, companies like Telegram are still proceeding with their offerings.

Telegram’s ICO

The company has taken in $850 million over the past two months from some of the biggest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, and it is now aiming to raise another $850 million over the next few. Further, a third $850 million round is in the works after that, according to the company’s white paper.

As per the white paper, Telegram plans to use its newly raised funds to create both a new kind of global computing network and a digital currency, the Telegram Open Network (TON), combining the attributes of existing virtual currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Skepticism

Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture firms have signed up to invest in the project, including Benchmark, Sequoia, and Kleiner Perkins, according to two people briefed on the private deal who asked to remain anonymous. That said, a lot of the venture capitalists that have invested other ICOs in the crypto-space have so far shied away: companies like Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, and Polychain Capital (according to the New York Times).

Arguably the main reason the ICO is attracting skepticism is that there is not even a prototype for the project — just the white paper, which outlines what Telegram intends the project to look like in the future. The company’s team has promised to release the software late this year or early next year.

“I cannot, in 132 pages, gain the slightest intuition as to how to go about proving that the hard problems it needs to solve will be solved,” Charles Noyes, an analyst at Pantera Capital wrote about the Telegram project.

On the other hand, supporters of the Telegram ICO and project have said that the company has a team of developers that have already proven themselves by building two incredibly popular tech products, VKontakte and Telegram.

Telegram

The Telegram app has been popular in countries with authoritarian regimes because it guarantees that all messages are encrypted and protected from government snooping. It’s this pro-privacy stance that has made it popular with many in the cryptosphere.

The company plans on using capital from its ICO to build a platform that rivals Ethereum. The Telegram Open Network (TON) is scheduled to be an ecosystem that supports apps, services, and a store — for both physical and digital goods. It aims to become an equivalent to the popular payment systems that other global messaging programs like WeChat have built.

The post Telegram on Track to Pocket Over $2 Billion From ICO Rounds, Despite SEC Prying Into the Funding Method appeared first on NewsBTC.

GE Transportation joins 230-member global Blockchain trade association. #NEWS

Coinbase announced Monday that it was not adding any new assets to either its GDAX or Coinbase exchange platforms.

An ICO for a company called Miroskii has been outed for listing Ryan Gosling as part of their team. The Chinese coin offering gives investors the chance to “join the Crypto Revolution” but there are several red flags over its legitimacy. The chief of these, of course, is their decision to include a stock photo of a Hollywood actor on their website.

Miroskii Appears to be the Latest in a Growing List of ICO Scams

On the Miroskii website, under the section listing the project’s team members, there is a headshot of Ryan Gosling, the star of The Notebook, Drive, and La La Land. The name accompanying the photo is “Kevin Belanger”. He is listed as an “experienced graphic designer with a clear focus on identities and illustration” for the company.

Eagle-eyed Twitter user @CryptoShillNye pointed out the uncanny resemblance of the Miroskii artist and the A-list celebrity:

Well, my twitter blew the fuck up today lmfao pic.twitter.com/mIalvZRqKL

— Shill Nye The ICO Guy (@CryptoShillNye) March 4, 2018

Miroskii has presented themselves as a crypto coin aimed at revolutionising the financial industry. They claim on their website to have developed “highly secure encrypted decentralized blockchain technology.” Amongst the sea of buzzwords, it is stated that they have united experts from several countries where cryptocurrency is incredibly popular: China, Hongkong, Singapore, and Japan.

As mentioned, there are several other causes for concern over the legitimacy of the Miroskii ICO. CNet highlighted that many of the other members of the team appear to be fraudulent too. Perry Henderson, a supposed CEO of various online companies, turns out to be a Texas estate agent, Joel Hermann, the founder of Mysterium Network, is, in reality, a lawyer from New York, and Craig Gulledge is actually Peter Roper a business consultant from the firm The Family Business Man. Further examples of the fake Miroskii team have been provided by Claus Wahlers.

Miroskii also claims to have raised over $830,000 from private investors. This is despite them only having a combined total of seven followers on prominent social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Whilst the Miroskii case appears to be the most blatant (and amusing) example of a fraudulent ICO, it highlights just how simple it is to create such a sale and dupe gullible investors into parting with their cash. However, most scam ICOs are much less easy to spot than the Miroskii effort. Such a proliferation of fraudulent companies associated with the revolutionary funding method has led to calls for greater regulation to protect investors in the space.

The post Dubious ICO Lists Ryan Gosling as Team Member appeared first on NewsBTC.

With the advent of the internet, various art forms have become infinitely reproducible and shareable. This is in stark contrast to the way in which arts such as music were distributed in decades past. Today, with the blockchain offering customers a decentralized means of sharing content, most creative material is distributed as digital data that is essentially a string of 1s and 0s.

LBRY can be thought of as the world’s first digital marketplace that is controlled entirely by its participants rather than some centralized governing body. In addition to being open, non-biased and user-friendly, LBRY is also quite efficient and employs a unique incentive design which makes it highly attractive.

Furthermore, this platform creates a bridge between users and digital content like movies, books, games, and music. As a result, LBRY makes content access and delivery highly streamlined and hassle-free.

Additionally, it should be noted that LBRY performs all of its internal transactions via a native protocol and not through the use of a proprietary service or network. Users of this platform do not need special access passes or permission cards to make use of the tools being offered.

Overview of LBRY

• Owing to its technological capabilities, this platform decreases the cost of content creation.
• This service facilitates self-publishing in an efficient manner, thereby allowing artists to harness their full creative potential.
• Content creators can charge a fee for their digital data, allowing them to earn a steady stream of revenue on the side.
• All of the digital content published by LBRY is not localized to a specific server or computer. This makes the platform free of issues related to network failure and disruption.
• No single user or party can unilaterally remove or block content on the LBRY network.

Key Features

LBRY acts as a well-defined service protocol as well as an external protocol enabler. The native protocol provides the fundamental architecture of this system with its current technological capabilities.

Similarly, the service layer which lies beyond the external framework provides users with a platform that helps them to discover and purchase a piece of digital content published by anyone in the world.

LBRY’s user interface

The primary LBRY application allows users to interface with the network, while the secondary client package helps power the native protocol to streamline content searching, payments, and downloads. In addition, the design of the platform is such that it allows users to passively earn rewards in exchange for contributing bandwidth, disk space, or processing power to the overall network.

In addition to all of the aforementioned applications, LBRY can be used beyond the realm of standard computer-based services. This basically means that through the use of devices such as the LBRY television dongle, LBRY radio, and other existing content access mechanisms, this platform can be used across a wide array of digital mediums.

How does LBRY work?

To start off, we can see that the primary LBRY service module helps users source relevant digital content. Additionally, this platform also allows for the implementation of customized search features, making data acquisition highly streamlined. Not only that, owing to the use of metadata, all content is cataloged and stored in a much more efficient and secure manner.

 A simplified sample entry of metadata within the LBRY blockchain

At this point, it should be mentioned that content discovery on LBRY takes into consideration featured data which is distributed through special channels that enhance overall data flow within the ecosystem.

From a distribution standpoint, LBRY uses a P2P model in lieu of a server-client model, which greatly improves financial transparency. In addition, content can come from a wide range of sources and cannot be stifled or controlled by any third-party organization or user.

Lastly, it should be noted that all internal transactions are governed by a native currency called LBRY Credits. These tokens are used to maintain balances internally and settle a smaller number of transactions to the core chain.

About LBRY

This project is the brainchild of Jeremy Kauffman who also serves as the company’s CEO. Jeremy has been involved with blockchain for nearly a decade and has been involved in a wide array of start-up projects that make use of decentralized technologies. According to his LinkedIn profile, he previously founded TopScore, a startup that deals with monetary transactions in the multi-million dollar range on a monthly basis.

Alex Grintsvayg is the project’s chief technical officer. He holds multiple degrees in computer science and psychology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and previously worked on SaaS as an infrastructure engineer.

Token Performance History

Since its launch back in late 2016, LBRY has remained relatively stable in value over the past couple years.

LBRY token one-year performance data (courtesy of Coinmarketcap)

Upon its launch, the value of a single LBRY token was around US$0.64. The currency hit its market high on the 14th of January, 2018 after rising to an impressive price of US$1.19.

However, as of March 5, 2018, LBRY’s price is US$0.48.

Final Thoughts

With so many developers looking to create decentralized content distribution platforms, LBRY comes with a pre-existing solution that is not only intuitive, but highly accessible to everyone.

Owing to its low fees and overall usability, LBRY has the potential to change the way creative content such as music, TV shows, and movies are distributed among network participants in a transparent yet efficient manner.

However, like any other investment, users should do a bit of research themselves before they invest big in this currency.

If you would like to purchase LBRY tokens, trading pairs are being offered on a host of online exchanges including Bittrex, Poloniex, and Cryptopia.

Cambodia set to announce a cryptocurrency launch inspired by the Venezuelan Petro. #NEWS

No urge to sell among Bitcoin traders, ‘hodling’ sees transaction numbers fall to two-year low. #NEWS

The cryptocurrency ecosystem attracts all kinds of people these days. A lot of novice users are always looking for free handouts in this industry, even though they don’t actually exist. Anyone claiming to offer free currency if users get in touch with him or her is a scammer. Vitalik Buterin recently took to Twitter to confirm that this “plague” is not ending anytime soon.

Cryptocurrency Handouts Don’t Exist

If it was possible to get rich without lifting a finger, it would surely happen in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Although a few fingers have to be lifted, this industry is perceived as being one of the best get-rich-quick opportunities out there. This is mainly thanks to the hard work of other people who have not been fortunate enough to become overnight millionaires.

To be sure, a lot of people still use faucets or other ways to obtain free cryptocurrency. While the amounts being handed out are fractional at best, it seems this business model is still pretty popular. There is no such thing as “free” in crypto, though. Everything you earn costs effort, time, and usually computing resources in one way or another.

We’ve also seen an influx of people impersonating important people in the cryptocurrency industry. Vitalik Buterin has been targeted quite regularly in this regard. People either create fake profiles using his picture and a slight change to his Twitter handle, or just comment on his tweets and promise people free Ether if they send a small amount to a specific address. Considering that so many people are new to crypto, the idea of receiving something for free attracts a lot of positive attention.

Or BTC. Or BCH. Or DOGE. Or Wild Beast Block. Yall are getting nothing.

— Vitalik "No I'm not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) March 4, 2018

These efforts are not limited to tricking Ethereum users, mind you. People imitating or hijacking Vitalik’s tweets have been promising other currencies, including Dogecoin, Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash. All of these efforts are complete scams, for obvious reasons. No one on the internet will ever give you something for free, as they most likely had to work (hard) in order to obtain it in the first place. There is always some effort involved on your end, and most of these online promises will eventually result in major losses.

It is evident these efforts are not limited to Vitalik Buterin or other prominent developers in the cryptocurrency community either. John McAfee and Andreas Antonopoulos have also been impersonated, and it is very likely a lot of other people have too. Criminals and scammers will continue to use this method for quite some time to come, as the strategy has proven to work and to be rather lucrative more often than not.

How all of this will play out for the overall cryptocurrency community remains to be determined. It is certainly possible we will see fewer of these scamming attempts in the near future. Hopefully, fewer people will be tricked into believing those efforts are genuine. At the same time, with new people entering this ecosystem every single week, a lot of new victims are ripe for the taking as of right now.

All eyes are on improvements on the Bitcoin Blockchain coming from SegWit and Lightning, but some of the Bitcoin Core contributing developers are getting excited about other improvements on the horizon. #INTERVIEW

Unibright is the world’s first blockchain based project of its kind that gives anyone the ability to craft powerful Blockchain solutions and Dapps with no coding skills or expensive developers. Users on the platform can define business integration workflows visually, without writing any codes.

Based on proven templates for different use cases, Unibright empowers process specialist without technical knowledge of a specific blockchain to define blockchain related business workflows visually.

The Background

The Blockchain as a concept has clear advantages in some areas of business integration. To benefit from the blockchain, a concept is required that allows the integration of specific blockchain technologies into existing IT- and business integration landscapes, which leads to the Unibright concept. The central part of the Unibright ecosystem is the Unibright Contract Interface (UCI), which defines the main structure, state variables, mappings and methods which every generated Smart Contract automatically implements, thus marking a smart contract Unibright conformant. It is the irremovable guarantee of recognizing smart contracts as part of the Unibright ecosystem, ensuring that Unibright conformant smart contracts can be found, called, maintained and connected.

Blockchain Integration & Use Cases Based On Unibright’s Framework

Unibright lets process specialists define blockchain based business workflows visually and for that, they are not required to have a technical knowledge of a specific blockchain.   These workflows enable Unibright tools to automatically create:

• smart contracts for various blockchains
• smart adapters to connect to different blockchains and off-chain IT-/ERP- systems
• smart query sets to monitor the ongoing business process

Let’s consider some use cases.

1. Lifecycle of an airplane on a blockchain – A Business Process

Several parties have to access information on an asset gathered over years and has to be safe from manipulation. All events in the lifecycle of the airplane like owner change, planned and unplanned inspections, numbers of flights and covered distance should be saved and trackable.

A smart contract on a public blockchain is the perfect way to gather and store information over a long period of time, and guarantee availability, immutability, and independence from any intermediary.

The involved companies can all rely on the technical interfaces provided with the “Asset Lifecycle” Template. The integration into individual systems of each party can be established by defining suitable workflows based on the template by using the Unibright Workflow Designer. The Unibright conformant smart contracts can be published into a public blockchain by the Unibright Contract Lifecycle Manager and are connected to individual IT systems by the Unibright Connector. The current state of the process can be monitored any time with the Unibright Explorer and can be presented to the public.

2. Approval Processes using Blockchain Technology

A product manager for a casual wear company is responsible to develop a design process of a new hoodie, and coordinate all departments and their respective approval on the ongoing design process. She checks the current approval state in the company’s ERP system and sees that Tom from the Marketing department just gave his final ok on the marketing materials. She sees that the next approval should come from buying department submitting the prime costs.

Anna from the buying department has to keep track of all offers of the different suppliers who would be able to produce the new hoodie. She has to get back to the other departments for detailed questions and only communicate by phone or email, as the suppliers are not integrated into the process due to security reasons.

The existing approval process works fine, except the supplier part. Anna has to do all the approval work manually, which is time consuming and error-prone. The blockchain can act as a state-machine: secure, reliable and deterministic. The current state of the approval process can be accumulated in a central smart contract which holds the control flow and implicitly decides on the final approval state.

Unibright’s “Multi-Party-Approval” Template offers a use case related predefined integration workflow for approval processes which can be customized. Steve from the IT department set up a private blockchain between all suppliers and the company. He designed the integration process visually with the Unibright Workflow Designer. The Unibright Contract Lifecycle Manager generated the needed Smart Contracts. The Unibright Connector integrates the existing ERP by automatically generated Smart Adapters.

3. Batch tracing using blockchain

The purpose of a batch tracing implementation is first and foremost to guarantee safety and reliability in the food supply chain. The idea is to keep track of all ingredients of a product (e.g. beer, soda) and to be able to track the usage of every ingredient through the complete process of production and delivery to the customer or store.

By using a blockchain to keep track and trace where the food comes from, a secure and trustworthy data storage for all data involved is created, which can even be presented to the end consumer.  By using the Unibright framework, it gets easy for business process specialists to make use of blockchain potential. The “Batch Tracing” Template defines a basic integration workflow which can be customized visually. All needed Smart Contracts for a specific blockchain are then generated automatically.

This is how, using the Unibright framework and the templates it offers, the whole lifecycle of defining, publishing, maintaining and monitoring a business process is supported.

About Token sale

The ICO will start from April 10th, 2018, and will last for at most 4 weeks, ending on May 10th, 2018 or ending instantly when all tokens are sold. The token sale will be managed by Ambisafe Financial, a leading global blockchain services and initial coin offering solutions provider company.

To know more about the platform, its features and participate in its upcoming in its upcoming token sale, please visit https://unibright.io/

The post How Can You Integrate Blockchain Into Your Business? appeared first on NewsBTC.