Day: March 7, 2018

The post News BTC Ripple Analysis March 8, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

Bitcoin Press Release: Better Betting announce details of their Early-2018 technology update, ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

Tallinn, Estonia, March 7th March 2018 – Better Betting is pleased to announce that nearly all  the new roles in its Estonian development office have now been filled and new team members are rapidly coming up to strength.The team includes data specialists, UX and designers, client side coders, QA and of course the all-important blockchain developers.

“With the FIFA World Cup looming squarely on the horizon we have beefed up development capacity in order to be ready with the first version of the BETR decentralized peer-to-peer and peer-to-sportsbook betting cryptocurrency based distributed betting system and the first reference clients by mid-May 2018” saidIan Sherrington – CTO.

The Beautiful Game

More detail on the underlying architecture and functionality that will be released for the World Cup will be made available in coming updates, but at this stage the company can confirm that it will cover Football only, with further sports to be released over a rolling release schedule post the World Cup.

Football league coverage will be limited to the World Cup in the first release but soon after will include major leagues in time for the 2018/19 season including the English Premier League, Spanish Primera Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1, Germany Bundesliga and the UEFA Champions League. Further leagues will be rolled out as momentum grows.

Market depth is expected to start strong with at least 50 markets including the all important match-winner, totals and Asian handicap markets. With strong support in Asia it is expected that the network will offer significant liquidity on main markets presenting punters who may be restricted or have simply outgrown their local sportsbooks the opportunity to take advantage of the Better Betting Liquidity Pool.

“I think this last point is particularly interesting – we are already seeing strong interest from professional sports bettors who are keen to be able to bet in a robust and secure way with higher volumes than are possible through existing sportsbooks” said Adriaan Brink – CEO.

All bets will be placed and settled using the BETR token which was released in an initial token offering at the end of January 2018 at a starting price of 10cper token and is currently trading and available for purchase on major exchanges such as HitBTC, Bancor, IDEX, Etherdelta, Bisq and Waves.

About BetterBetting

The BetterBetting Foundation was established in 2017 in Estonia, aiming to integrate blockchain technology into sports betting for a decentralized gambling system. Founded by Adriaan Brink and David Vanrenen, BetterBetting is a non-profit group of crypto currency and sports betting experts inclusive of the supervisory board members David Vanrenen, Hilly Ehrlich, and Mitchell Rankin; and the advisors Jon Matonis, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Jez San, and Eric Benz. For more information, go to https://betterbetting.org/.

Visit the Website: https://betterbetting.org/
Meet the Team: https://www.betterbetting.org/team.html
Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BETRBetting
Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BETRBetting/

Media Contact
Contact Name: Lindsey Lewis
Contact Email: [email protected]
Contact Telephone: +44 (0)7500662977

BetterBetting is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

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In a recently released patent application, tech giant Huawei touts a blockchain system for protecting digital property rights.

Swedish land registry soon ready to conduct first Blockchain property transaction after two years of testing. #NEWS

Cryptocurrencies are commodities

“The court finds the plaintiff has made a preliminary prima facie showing that the defendants committed fraud by misappropriation of investors’ funds and misrepresentation through false trading advice and promised future profits.”

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ICO issuers that have raised $50 million or more in token sales are being tightlipped when it comes to inquiries about SEC subpoenas.

Index Funds have always been pretty popular in the financial sector. They offer a lot of advantages, especially for unaccredited investors. Coinbase, one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges, is looking to launch such an Index Fund soon. This is a positive development for the cryptocurrency industry as a whole.

Why Index Funds Are a Good Thing

For those unaware, Index Funds have been around for quite some time now. Their main benefit is how they offer investment opportunities for less wealthy investors around the world. This does mean such a vehicle will be accessible to more people than just the traditional wealthy individuals. In the case of cryptocurrency, allowing more people to be exposed to these markets is only a good thing.

Another benefit of Index Funds is how they offer lower transactions costs, which is always a good thing. Regardless of which amount you are investing, lower costs are always a benefit. Especially when venturing into multiple assets or markets, any way of lowering costs is a positive thing. One needs to keep in mind there is always a commission cut to contend with as well. Higher costs mean you need to make more profit before actually increasing your portfolio’s net wealth.

Moreover, most Index Funds use a minimal turnover structure. This means it is a great tool to benefit long-term investors. In the world of cryptocurrencies, going the long-term route is always the best course of action. It will be interesting to see how Coinbase decides to tackle this business model exactly.

Coinbase Has Big Plans

It became evident Coinbase wants to get involved in the Index Funds market very soon. As such, the company may bring a lot more positive interest to the cryptocurrency space. Opening up this market to a lot of smaller investors will undoubtedly result in positive market traction. Right now, all cryptocurrencies are stuck in the dirt a bit as not enough fresh capital is entering the market.

Coinbase announcing the launch of Index funds. Huge news for #CryptoCurrencies if you ask me. Usually safer investments that will attract bigger amounts of money to the ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/elpXscWcdO

— Crypto Rand (@crypto_rand) March 6, 2018

Making the cryptocurrency ecosystem more appealing to investors has been a challenge. The launch of Bitcoin futures has not generated the buzz most people expected. Things are still heading in the right direction in this regard, though. Overall, the uptake of this new investment vehicle has been a lot slower than people would like it to be. With these volatile markets, it is only normal bigger investors will remain wary first and foremost.

These new Coinbase Index Funds can mean positive things for the industry as a whole. Exposing more people to this innovative form of digital money is always a double-edged sword. More investors will undoubtedly lead to more speculation as well. For now, we have to wait and see how Coinbase will move forward in this regard. The company has yet to unveil the specific details of their new venture.

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A U.S. district judge has backed the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission in defining cryptocurrencies as commodities.

Ripple makes the news almost every couple of days however the price of its cryptocurrency, XRP, just cannot gain traction at the moment. Partnerships keep coming and the San Francisco company’s network keeps expanding. This week’s announcement is a new smartphone application to enable on-demand payments for Japanese banks and their customers.

The announcement was made yesterday on the company blog. It stated that the Japan Bank Consortium, already RippleNet partners, will be releasing an app called ‘MoneyTap’ later this year. The app is a first of its kind operating with multiple banks; it will allow bank customers to make transactions instantly, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Bank Transfers Revolutionized

SBI Ripple Asia heads the 61 member bank consortium which accounts for 80% of all banking assets in Japan. The Ripple blockchain powered app will revolutionize domestic payments within the country which are currently limited to office and banking hours on weekdays only.

MoneyTap will work with a bank account, phone number, or QR code and will offer high speed, low cost transactions, eliminating much of the time and expense with existing transfer protocols.

Takashi Okita, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia said;

“We are proud to leverage Ripple’s blockchain technology through our new mobile app, MoneyTap, to improve the payments infrastructure in Japan. Together with the trust, reliability and reach of the bank consortium, we can remove friction from payments and create a faster, safer, and more efficient domestic payments experience for our customers.”

RippleNet has over 100 partners already utilizing the xCurrent transfer system and several others using or testing the XRP powered xRapid system. Director of joint venture partnerships at Ripple, Emi Yoshikawa, said;

“The release of the MoneyTap mobile app shows Ripple’s continued commitment to provide its partners across Asia and the world with blockchain-powered solutions that dramatically improve the customer payments journey. We’re proud to provide this production-ready technology that not only improves the international payments experience, but also have applications for domestic payments infrastructure.”

As with previous partnership announcements and company developments XRP’s price has not reacted and is still in decline with all of its crypto siblings. The altcoin enjoyed a fomo induced spike back to $1.05 a couple of days ago when the Coinbase listing rumors appeared again but has since tumbled back to its previous level at just over $0.90. Investors have been left wondering why Ripple’s cryptocurrency is not performing as well as the company is.

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The cryptocurrency markets are always evolving in many different directions. Right now, the overall sentiment is pretty depressing, as the markets have gone down in value for quite some time now. With some markets losing 10% in value or more, things are not looking all that great. Especially the Ethereum price is struggling as of right now, for some reason.

Ethereum Price Struggle Continues

Anyone who has paid attention to cryptocurrency markets this year will have noticed things are not going exactly as planned. This is especially true for people who have high hopes for the Ethereum price, as things have ground to a halt some time ago. After surpassing $1,000 last year, the Ethereum price has not been close to hitting that target again for over a month now. It doesn’t appear we will see that high Ethereum price anytime soon either.

Over the past month, it has been pretty evident the Ethereum price is struggling for traction. Although there was a push to $1,000 a few weeks ago, this trend did not materialize in full Instead, things took a turn for the worse once again, as the Ethereum price has been on a steady decline ever since. After dropping below $950 again, the Ethereum price quickly dipped to $900, $850, and is now struggling to reclaim the $800 level.

This is partially due to the recent Ethereum price decline of 7.62%. Although Ethereum has not suffered from much of a loss compared to the Bitcoin value itself, Bitcoin is certainly dragging all altcoins with it at this rate. Unless Ethereum can gain momentum over Bitcoin, the USD value of this altcoin will not go up anytime soon. Moreover, with the ETH/BTC ratio declining as well, there is no Ethereum price improvement in sight as of right now.

With $1.9bn in 24-hour trading volume, things are not looking all that bad for Ethereum as of right now. The demand to trade this altcoin is certainly there, but it seems the sellers vastly outweigh the buyers as of right now. This situation can turn around at any given moment, but for the time being, the bearish momentum will remain in place.

As of right now, the biggest exchange for Ethereum trading is OKEx. Their BTC and USDT pairs combine for over 16% of all trades, which is well ahead of Bitfinex, Huobi, and Binance. There is just one fiat currency pair in the top three, and three fiat currency pairs in the entire top ten. One of these top 10 pairs is the Korean Won, which doesn’t matter to the rest of the world in the slightest.

For the time being, it seems evident the Ethereum price will continue to decline for a while to come. Hitting $750 or potentially lower is not out of the question as of right now, yet a lot of holders hope their fortunes will change sooner rather than later. Right now, it is unclear if and when that will happen exactly, as the current trend does not instill a lot of confidence. Then again, that is par for the course, as this trend materializes during the first half of every year.

Bitcoin is looking increasingly heavy and could test the $10,000 mark in the next 24 hours, the price charts indicate.

Tim Draper who has been investing in future technology since the earliest days of the web said that in five years no one will be trading with fiat currency. The legendary investor and prognosticator of where technology is taking us sat down with CNBC’s Fast Money to talk about the future of Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

Greatest Technological Change

Draper said the shift that is happening in technology today is bigger than the iron or bronze age. When asked how he compared the opportunities now to when he was investing in web 1.0 and 2.0 he talked about how the web transformed information. But now blockchain technology has the potential to change almost every industry including the way government works.

He sees individual governments breaking down in the future to become a group of international entities that will compete by supplying their services to citizens.

When asked to compare where blockchain development is now as compared to the way the internet was developed, he put the timeline at the early eighties for investor potential, saying “it is all just getting started.” “This is the most excited I’ve ever been as an investor, and I was right there at the beginning of the internet,” he added.

Talking about the future of currency Draper stated that in five years fiat currency will be a thing of the past. There will be no more currencies linked to specific countries.

“In five years you’re going to walk in and try to pay fiat [a government-backed currency like the U.S. dollar] for a Starbucks coffee, and the barista is going to laugh at you, because they’re going to say, ‘What is this? Are you counting out pennies? Give me shells?’

Whether Draper knows this or not, Starbucks has indicated that it may use blockchain technology for an application that will process consumer payments in cryptocurrency.

The End of Fiat Currency

When asked what he would do with a fresh dollar for investment, whether that would be for an ICO or existing currency, Draper directly talked about the dominance of Bitcoin in the future. That he saw other cryptocurrencies falling away leaving Bitcoin as the standard.

He ended by talking about the Bootcamp he is launching in April at his Draper university to encourage learning and investing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. “Because all of this engineering effort, all that excitement, this focus is really on bitcoin and all of the cryptos around it,”

Draper, who is known to have predicted when Bitcoin would hit the $10,000 mark almost to the day, was an early investor in Skype and Tesla. He bought and is still holding 30,000 Bitcoins from the 2014 US Marshals Service auction of assets seized from the Silk Road.

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