Day: March 5, 2018

SBI Holdings, the financial services arm of the SBI Group, has bought a 40 percent stake in cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker CoolBitX.

Firm behind popular South Korean messaging app Kakao is launching a Blockchain subsidiary, and possibly an ICO. #NEWS

Ecuador is a very interesting country when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Although the national government does not favor this innovative form of money, local entrepreneurs are ignoring its warnings whenever possible. In fact, there are now cryptocurrency ATMs in Ecuador, which is a pretty big development for the industry as a whole.

Bitcoin Continues to Thrive in Ecuador

No one will deny that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have made their mark on the financial sector. Although not everyone may be in favor of this new form of money, entrepreneurs all over the world are pretty confident this industry will only continue to attract the masses in the future. Making cryptocurrencies more accessible to the average person on the street, however, will not be easy whatsoever.

One way of making Bitcoin and select altcoins more accessible is by deploying cryptocurrency ATMs. While that concept makes a lot of sense in most parts of the world, the situation is very different in Ecuador. More specifically, the Ecuadorian government has no love lost for Bitcoin and other currencies, as it wants to ban this form of money altogether. All of those efforts have been in vain since 2014, though, as there is still no official ban on cryptocurrency in the country as of right now.

While it is true the government of Ecuador attempted to ban cryptocurrency a while ago, the central bank countered its effort earlier this year. According to the bank, buying and selling Bitcoin is not illegal, even though using it as a payment method for goods and services may prove to be a different matter altogether. Using Bitcoin for this purpose is risky, as it may lead to governmental scrutiny in the long run. Surprisingly, some of Ecuador’s Bitcoin entrepreneurs are not too concerned about these developments as of right now.

Instead, we saw the very first cryptocurrency ATMs pop up in Ecuador last month. This is a remarkable milestone for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole. It is also worth noting that the ATM located in the capital city of Quito was built entirely in Ecuador. Two different models were unveiled recently, although they do not come cheap. One of these machines costs US$22,000, which may be a bit steep for most entrepreneurs in the country.

Even so, this venture is mainly designed to bring cryptocurrencies to the average consumer in a convenient manner. The ATMs exchange dollars for Bitcoin, Dash, and Pura, which is a rather interesting collection of currencies, to say the least. It is possible that more cryptocurrencies will be added in the future. As one would expect, both devices present users with digital wallets when they make their first purchase.

For the time being, these machines are not accessible to the general public, but that situation will change soon. They are merely an educational tool for now, as there are legal ramifications to using these machines as actual money conversion units. It is not surprising to learn the Ecuadorian central bank has already declared the machines to be illegal, although it remains to be seen how this situation will play out in the long run.

PROOF OF TOSS is a new decentralized open-source betting ecosystem that is aimed to modernize and change the betting industry. The platform allows users to create wagers, bet, and judge. PROOF OF TOSS’ CTO, Eugene Pavlenko, explained the project architecture and technical solutions.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Could you briefly explain the PROOF OF TOSS software architecture and what principles it’s built on?

While thinking over the software architecture, we concentrated on two main points: storing of information in smart contracts and fast data retrieval. In final implementation, there are three main components: smart contracts, website, and Elasticsearch which is used for indexing data and allows fast searching by different criteria.

In fact, there is no backend in the system, and this is an important feature. Thanks to that, the frontend interacts with smart contracts directly, without intermediary of server.

How and what for do you use smart contracts?

Events and wagers in the system are created with the help of smart contracts. Also, smart contracts are used for storing events, bets for every wager, collaterals, judging and event deposits.

In fact, all business logic is allocated inside the smart contracts. The website is just an interface, which calls smart contracts and outputs data. Thanks to that and blockchain technology, the system gains features important for betting, such as decentralization, transparency, possibility for instant payouts, challenge resolutions.

In the project, you use RSK smart contract platform. It seems that this is something new. What is this platform and why have you chosen it?

RSK smart contract platform is a sidechain of Bitcoin, it scales to 100 transactions per second, and declared to be increased to 2000 transaction per second. The Ethereum virtual machine is embedded inside RSK, which allows the execution of smart contracts written on Solidity.

RSK MainNet is now in closed testing; there are no projects on production now. So PROOF OF TOSS will be among the early adopters of this technology. Today, Bitcoin’s blockchain is the most stable and safe, and this is one of the main advantages of RSK. Another one is the utilization of unique scaling technology, which allows exceeding Ethereum performance.

Among the platform functionality, there is a selection of the event for judging. How is it implemented?

For this purpose we have developed an on-chain random number generator which is resistant to fraud and miners’ manipulations. It chooses a random event for a judge. There can be an infinite amount of events in the pool, but even in such case, our algorithm can pick a random event that fits a particular judge for a fixed gas amount.

One more potential problem is that miners can manipulate with block time and other data. To be protected from such manipulations, the solution for random number generator has to be nontrivial. Miners see the result of the transaction in the new block, if they are not satisfied with it, they can skip sending the block and keep selecting a better result. That’s why the random number generator should be implemented in a way when a miner is able to see the block only after sending it.

It’s known that betting and gambling attract fraud. How will the PROOF OF TOSS system be protected from it?

We’ve developed a system of deposits which makes fraudulent activity risky and unprofitable. If a user, for example, tries to create an event, bet on it and then judge it, vote for the unfair result and get the prize, it would be extremely unprofitable: for any of these actions a user has to make a deposit which is in a sense insurance from fraud.

We’ve also invented protection from miners’ manipulations with precise time. Voting and all the event conditions are connected with real time: 10 minutes before the start of the event all bets should be made. But the time on the blockchain may vary from the real time, and it may create a bug when one is able to keep making bets after the event has started. Our algorithm will protect from this possibility.

Silicon Valley company says its new platform is “the way forward into the Industrial Revolution 4.0”. #SPONSORED

With technologies like blockchain fostering digital innovation at an unprecedented rate, many industry experts predict that the creative domain will continue to evolve as society at large keeps progressing. However, this rapid advancement within the area of Intellectual Property (IP) has brought along with it many challenges pertaining to outdated infrastructure, information asymmetry and archaic centralized governance models.

Ink is an all-new decentralized solution that brings together the best aspects of the Consortium Blockchain and merges them with other public networks. In addition to this, Ink offers a high degree of cross-chain Interoperability that allows creativity to flourish.

The platform uses a decentralized content production system that is highly intuitive as well as quite user-friendly. Additionally, all internal transactions and processes are governed by a native token that ensures Ink can be scaled and operated at any level, from a small business to a large industrial setting.

In terms of its functionality, this platform aims to redefine roles, content, and behavior within the industry, so as to create a transparent ecosystem where a vast array of dApps can be created and correlated with each other. Since the entire setup is based on a credible and stable public blockchain, Ink will offer customers an Intellectual Property Asset Exchange that will serve as a trusted corridor for content-to-liquid-asset conversion and token issuance.

Overview of Ink

• Offers users an integrated platform that incorporates cross-chain protocols for better overall functionality
• Serves as an Intellectual Property Asset Exchange
• Highly scalable design that can be used with a wide array of applications
• Comes with a blockchain copyright registration module that assists in the distribution of digital cultural assets in a regulated and fair manner
• Provides users with a developed and polished ecosystem

Key Features

Ink provides users a whole range of blockchain solutions that can help facilitate and foster digital creative exchange in a streamlined manner. The platform also seeks to rectify many of the problems that exist within the creative industry today by implementing pertinent technological solutions.

Overview of the Ink Ecosystem (courtesy of the official whitepaper)

Some of the key functional aspects of this service include:

• Fast IP rights verification
• Free and hassle-free trading of cultural assets
• Unrestricted communication of specific data-values and technical information
• Creation of an ecosystem that supports the global cultural industry

Intellectual Property (IP) exchange model employed by Ink

Additionally, the implementation of a sovereign consortium chain allows Ink to help specific cultural industries, and in turn facilitates the creation of:

• A stable IP assets trading platform
• A commercialized monetary protocol
• A token management system

Lastly, owing to the use of cross-chain interaction modules, Ink is able to assist in the free exchange of essential data sets between public chains and the consortium chain.

How does Ink work?

Ink’s Sovereign Consortium Blockchain is essentially a collection of high-performance permissioned blockchain solutions. In terms of its digital architecture, the underlying framework employs standards that are maintained by the Hyperledger project.

Overview of the working model used by the platform (courtesy of the official whitepaper)

To cater to generic application scenarios, Ink comes with a host of customization and enhancement modules that allow it to meld and change according to the needs of the user. The consortium blockchain used by this platform implements a digital certificate mechanism that assists in the regulation of issues such as:

• Identification verification
• Permission control

Additionally, the CA node within this structure serves as the PKI service enabler. As a result, Ink is able to issue identity certificates in advance to various corresponding entities in real time. Lastly, the native blockchain is able to simultaneously control the access levels of multiple entities and even manage resource allocation using a fine-grained embedded policy structure.

Who is behind this project?

With the immense commercial interest that Ink has been generating in the past couple of months, it can be beneficial for readers to have a look at the people behind this venture.

The founder and CEO of this project is Walter Komarek. Walter has been in the digital domain for nearly two decades and is also the president and managing partner of Forbesfone, the largest telco provider in the nation of Malta. Additionally, he is the CEO of a company called Angel Investment that is based out of Europe.

Yukikawa Yuu is the cofounder of Ink. He has been in the blockchain sector for over 8 years and has been involved with crypto startups like Zaif since their inception. Yuu holds double degrees in law from Waseda University and international relations from Peking University. Lastly, he has played an active part in the Japanese television industry and has hosted shows such as:

• Up and Up, Young Man!
• Day Day Up

Token Performance

Since its launch back in November 2017, INK tokens have remained relatively stable in value.

INK token lifetime performance history (courtesy of Coinmarketcap)

When it was launched, the price of a single token was around US$0.28. The currency hit a high on December 20 when the price of a single coin scaled up to an impressive US$0.949. However, since then its value has dropped quite significantly, and the price stands at around US$0.16 as of March 5.

Final Thoughts

With Ink promising to deliver a platform that can help change the way IP exchange is done in certain contexts, it would not be surprising to see this technology start to gain more traction internationally, especially within more developed nations across Europe.

However, as with all investments, users should do a bit of research by themselves before they put money into this currency.

If you would like to invest in INK, trading pairs are offered on Bitz, LBank, CoinEgg, and elsewhere.

Fake documents, lies and other “creative” approaches can make tax problems much worse. #EXPERT_TAKE

The man credited for being the “Father of the Jobs Act” is exploring a number of blockchain projects that could help improve the legislation.

There are always interesting correlations in the world of cryptocurrency these days. With the XRP price going up quite spectacularly over the past 24 hours, it is not entirely surprising to see the Stellar price almost mimic the momentum. More specifically, we are now looking at a Stellar price of almost $0.4, which is pretty significant.

Stellar Price Momentum Continues

It is interesting to see how the cryptocurrency markets are evolving as of right now. While it seems every market is almost on the bubble of seeing major gains, very few of them are actually showing their true potential as of right now.  With Bitcoin going up slowly and Ethereum still stuck in sideways momentum, one has to look beyond the top three for any meaningful action right now. As of right now, the Stellar price is the second-strongest riser over the past 24 hours.

With the Stellar price increasing by 13.1% over the past 24 hours, it has become evident there is a genuine demand for this particular currency. What is exactly fueling this demand, remains to be determined at this point. Considering how Stellar is trying to do almost the same as Ripple, it is only to be expected both companies will be of great interest to financial institutions all over the world.

It is also worth noting the Stellar price is rising thanks to solid improvements in the XLM/BTC ratio. With a solid 9.54% gain in this market, things are looking pretty good for the Stellar price as of right now. Whether or not this trend can be sustained for another day or multiple days, remains to be determined, though. For the time being, the gains look solid and the momentum is still in place as we speak.

The overall 24-hour trading volume for Stellar has not been overly impressive, though. More specifically, we see just $88.38m in volume, which is lower than what people would expect at this time. With so many markets suffering from a decrease in trading volume, it will be interesting to see which currency will successfully buck this trend in the near future.

As of right now, Binance is the largest XLM trading platform, although Upbit, Poloniex, and Bittrex are all coming pretty close as we speak. Upbit is in fifth place as well with their XLM/BTC market, which is rather surprising but not entirely uncommon. The lack of any USD or EUR trading pairs in the entire top 10 is something to be concerned about, although this situation can still improve in the coming hours and days. More fresh capital will need to enter the cryptocurrency market sooner or later, though.

For the time being, it is difficult to gauge what the future holds for the Stellar price. Anything is possible in this market, but it remains to be seen how high the Stellar price can go as of right now. Reaching $0.40 is certainly possible, yet it may be difficult to go much higher than just that. Always remember to take profits when the time arises, as the cryptocurrency markets will always remain incredibly volatile.