Day: March 9, 2018

Vitalik Buterin discussed a new idea Friday for a scaling solution that envisions how the capabilities of the ethereum blockchain might be expanded.

2018 has been rough for cryptocurrencies as a whole, with coins across the board seeing significant losses and general interest in the sphere gradually declining. However, there are a number of projects that have stuck out as performing particularly badly in the first quarter. Here are five of the biggest fails:

5. Verge (XVG) Wraith Protocol Launch

While Verge’s major development, the Wraith Protocol, was slated to launch at the tail end of 2017, several delays pushed the actual release of the development into early January of this year. While supporters and speculators were highly anxious to see the actualities of Wraith, most were left disappointed with what was put forth by the developers. While Wraith does offer an interesting feature – optional privacy – the protocol’s attempt at providing anonymity is questionable at best.

It was also revealed that some of Verge’s code base was copied from OpalCoin, a pet project of “Bitcoin Kid”, 14-year-old cryptocurrency developer Whit Jack. Since recording a high of just under 1,500 Satoshi in early January, XVG has dropped by over 70% against Bitcoin.

4. VeChain /r/Cryptocurrency ban

In an effort to combat astro-turfing and coordinated vote manipulation, moderators of /r/Cryptocurrency put forth a policy of suspending and banning coins involved in malicious practices on the subreddit. After evidence was provided that indicated team members behind VeChain (VEN) had been directing community members to upvote certain posts, the coin received a ban for the month of February.

This was the first ban handed out by /r/cryptocurrency, and seems to have sent a strong message to other teams enacting questionable practices. During the time of the ban, mentions of VeChain and posts regarding the cryptocurrency were removed or deleted. Strangely enough, VEN maintained its value against BTC throughout February, instead seeing a significant decline during the first week of March of about 30% for its BTC pair.

3. BITCONNEEEEEEECT

The most controversial project in cryptocurrency discontinued its “lending” program, which promised daily dividends from Bitconnect Coin (BCC), in January. The price instantly plummeted by more than 90%, and continues to drop. BCC is currently trading more than 99% lower than it was prior to the discontinuation of the program.

The team behind Bitconnect, as well as major supporters of the Ponzi scheme are currently facing a class action lawsuit currently worth over US$750,000 and growing.

2. Waltonchain PR fiasco

After someone behind the Waltonchain (WTC) Twitter account forgot to switch accounts when responding as a “winner” to a Valentine’s Day giveaway, the entire cryptosphere entered a frenzy as WTC ousted itself for rigging a giveaway. While it has been proven that a majority of the other winners were real and only about US$50 was handed out to each winner, the implications behind the scandal are massive. WTC’s price dropped by more than 20% in the day following the tweet, and continued to slide for the next several days.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of the screw-up. On March 6, a key partnership with Chinese corporate giant Alibaba helped the price recover to a value greater than that prior to the giveaway tweet. However, after significant discussion within the community in regards to the legitimacy of the announcement, official announcements were deleted and replaced with the below tweet. The second controversial tweet in just over a week sent the coin tumbling once more, and it’s still continuing its downward spiral.

Due to the current uncertainty of blockchain policies, our team has decided that in the future we will announce major partnerships depending on the situation so as not to affect the real implementation of blockchain technology. #Waltonchain $wtc

— Waltonchain (@Waltonchain) March 7, 2018

1. BitGrail Hack

In October 2017, BitGrail, one of the leading exchanges for Nano trading, was hacked, resulting in 17 million NANO being stolen. Rather than being addressed, the hack was ignored at the discretion of BitGrail’s CEO, “The Bomber”, until late January, when it was likely that the exchange began to experience solvency issues. BitGrail halted withdrawals and urged the Nano core team to fork its own blockchain to mitigate the hack. Unfortunately, as “The Bomber” refused to work with the Nano development team for months after the hack, there was little that could  be done.

When news of the hack surfaced, the price of NANO plummeted by more than 50%. Beyond this, investors who had kept their holdings on BitGrail saw their investments vanish overnight. For many early adopters of the coin who had not yet sold, these losses amounted to life-changing amounts of money. The owner of BitGrail was anything but sympathetic, and interactions with the community and concerned onlookers regarding the hack have primarily consisted of bashing and trolling.

Praetorian Group files $75 mln ICO with SEC in move to sell first registered security tokens in the US #NEWS

European Banking Authority chairperson says “excessive” regulation in fintech could restrict innovation #NEWS

While they’re not talked about all that much, prediction markets have always been an important part of financial domains globally. However, with the introduction of the blockchain, conventional trading setups are witnessing an overhaul, with future trends and predictions now subject to new decentralized mechanics.

Delphy is an all-new blockchain-based prediction market that allows users to bet on real-world events. With its blockchain design, the platform is able to completely eliminate elements of uncertainty, thereby allowing users to:

• Forecast real-world events
• Trade predictions

In terms of its usability, Delphy brings together two highly complex domains — crypto and prediction betting — and presents them in a palatable fashion that allows for more efficiency and less financial risk.

Also, while there might be other prediction markets available for use across the globe today, Delphy is one of the only such services available in China.

Additionally, Delphy serves as an excellent social platform where investors can come together and create their own betting markets. Owing to its highly intuitive and simple UI, this service has made it easy for digital asset owners to make accurate decisions regarding their alt-currency holdings using a novel setup.

Overview of Delphy

• Core governance module is completely decentralized.
• Promotes information sharing among participants, thereby reducing the risk of scams and fraud.
• Has been built with an added focus on smartphone usability.
• Allows predictions to be placed on real-world events.
• Comes with an easy-to-use interface.

Key Features

Delphy is based entirely on the Ethereum blockchain and makes use of a localized service client called LES which allows for better remote accessibility. Additionally, the platform also utilizes a P2P protocol that facilitates direct interaction between various nodes on the blockchain. As a result, Delphy is able to scale up or down as needed.

Overview of the architecture employed by Delphy (courtesy of the official whitepaper)

It should also be mentioned that this platform allows users to create markets using the same event but with different preferences. For example, each betting market can have niche trading aspects such as:

• Varying loss limits
• Different deposit amounts
• Malleable delivery rates
• Unique dispute arbitration mechanisms

Additionally, Delphy utilizes an event filter designed to weed out illegal or unethical events, such as predictions pertaining to someone’s assassination or the overthrowing of a national government. All of the predictions that are published on the marketplace go through regulatory and legal checks before they are made open to potential investors.

Visual representation of how prediction markets and events work on the platform

Lastly, this platform also acts as a social interface where network participants can come together and chat with one another. Not only that, there is also a P2P payment module built into the system that allows for instant money transfers.

How Delphy works

To start off with, Delphy uses an open-source framework that is not only decentralized but also makes use of smart contracts to facilitate internal transactions. These pre-defined contracts are also used for other purposes such as:

• Issuance of native DPY tokens
• Creation of specialized prediction markets and events
• Implementation of oracles and event filters
• Execution of pricing, trading and matching events

A simplified illustration of DPY token mechanics

Another major aspect of this platform is its use of a decentralized file management system called Swarm. This protocol helps streamline the storage of static data sets as well as metadata pertaining to specific events and prediction markets. As a result, mobile devices are able to access Delphy in a highly efficient manner.

As mentioned earlier, Delphy makes use of a technology called Light Ethereum Subprotocol. LES is a mechanism which allows the head of a block to be downloaded instead of the entire block during the synchronization process. This helps in increasing users’ access to information as well as enabling better remote operability.

About the project

Since its inception, Delphy has garnered a lot of attention from crypto enthusiasts across the globe.

The founder of this project is Bo Wang. Bo holds a master’s degree in information economics from the University of Michigan and is also the person behind Factom, a digital blockchain engineering firm based in Austin, Texas.

Bill Shiwu is the backend dev for this platform. According to his LinkedIn profile, Bill is an expert in the field of 3D game engine design and has previously worked with some of China’s largest video game publishers. Lastly, Jerry Qinggang is the lead tech for Delphy. He has previously served as a staff engineer for various IoT and cloud computing ventures within China and East Asia. His other areas of expertise include:

• JVM/EVM
• Hyperledger & Fabric
• JavaCard and N3 cryptographic algorithms

Token Performance History

Since Delphy tokens have only been on the market for a little over four months, it can be hard to assess their full future potential.

DPY token lifetime performance chart (courtesy of Coinmarketcap)

Upon its release, the value of a single DPY token was around US$0.81. The currency hit its all-time high on the 5th of January when the price of a single coin rose to an impressive US$4.58. However, as of March 9, the price of DPY currently stands at US$1.19 per token.

Final Thoughts

While the technology used by Delphy may not be novel, the fact that the developers of this platform are targeting an Asian audience could be what really sets this product apart from the rest. Since betting is a big part of many Asian cultures, it will be interesting to see how that market responds to such a blockchain service.

Even though the performance of DPY has been quite strong up to now, potential investors should still do a bit of research on their own before they go big on this currency.

If you would like to start investing in Delphy, DPY trading pairs are currently being offered on OKEx and Gate.io.

PBoC chairman Zhou Xiaochuan said the central bank will one day have a digital currency, though several requirements must be met first.

After a successful ICO, you have a significant enterprise to protect, demanding stakeholders to satisfy, and a challenging product roadmap to deliver on. #EXPERT_TAKE

BitIRA is a remarkable company for multiple reasons. They are the world’s only secure digital currency IRA solution. To improve their current products, the company recently introduced a few different insurance and security policies. As such, all BitIRA users can now enjoy a fully-insured product with funds kept in cold storage at all times.

A big Step Forward for BitIRA

It is evident any financial solution linked to digital currencies will need to be safe, secure, and accessible. In the case of BitIRA, the company has checked all three boxes for quite some time now, yet there’s always room for improvement. Most recently, the company introduced new insurance and security procedures to protect customer funds and make their offering even more competitive.

As part of these new security features, the company now offers end-to-end insurance. All of the assets held in storage by the firm are fully insured through a policy provided by Lloyd’s of London. Even internal fraud or theft will not disrupt the assets under BitIRA’s control. This will put a lot of investors’ minds at ease, as they know they are dealing with a properly insured offering.

Secondly, the funds are now being kept in multi-signature wallets, which introduces another layer of security. The keys required to access these funds are kept in separate physical locations, which is another positive development. With all of the funds in cold storage at all times, BitIRA is certainly taking this product to a whole new level. They even went as far as to put the funds in wallet devices stored inside various Class 3 vaults protected by armed guards.

Although security and insurance are critical in the world of digital currencies, the company also expanded its overall portfolio in an interesting way. More specifically, the company used to focus on just Bitcoin for its IRA products, hence the company’s name. This situation has now come to change, as it now encompasses Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum Classic, Litecoin, and XRP as well. This is a rather surprising development, even though it makes sense to pay attention to these currencies at this stage.

With global interest in cryptocurrency still rising, it makes sense for service providers to come up with different and creative solutions. Focusing on more digital currencies is always a good thing, and adding even more security to the existing product will certainly be appreciated by customers. With their new insurance policies now extended to cryptocurrencies in storage, BitIRA is seemingly ahead of its competitors in this space as of right now.

Big money from traditional investors needed before crypto ‘bubble’ pops, says CFTC ex-chair #NEWS

Any cryptocurrency project claiming to offer daily returns on investment will most likely turn into a scam at some point. For investors in USI Tech, it seems their worst fears have come true. The company has struggled with withdrawals since early January, and it seems things are only getting worse.

USI Tech has Major Problems

Anyone who takes a quick glance at the USI Tech website will know this program does not necessarily have the most honest of intentions. While they try to appeal to cryptocurrency investors of all kinds, their claims are quite worrisome. If this campaign is to be believed, users will grow their portfolios every single day, regardless of market sentiment. If that were possible, we would all be billionaires by now.

Moreover, the company guarantees that users will earn 35% referral commissions through a 12-tier program. While it is not uncommon for investment companies to give kickbacks to affiliates, the percentages offered by USI Tech have always raised questions. Not only will new investors make a profit every single day, but the person recruiting them will also get a percentage of the money these new users invest. It seems the company has a never-ending revenue stream to pay for all of this.

What is even more worrisome is how USI Tech claims users can withdraw their funds every single day without a hiccup. Unfortunately for those users, that is no longer a possibility as of right now. Nor has it been since early 2018, as it seems USI Tech has been hit by a string of bad luck. Either its withdrawals simply do not work, it has liquidity issues, or it is dealing with some legal issues which prevent them from giving investors their money back. No one is buying any of these excuses, though.

It is evident that projects such as USI Tech promise the moon and the stars to investors. Some people will fall for these tricks, whereas others will steer away from this platform. For the people who invested a lot of money in USI Tech, getting it out of the platform may prove very difficult, if not impossible. That is the price people pay for trusting a Ponzi-style investment program which makes claims that are simply not realistic.

Additionally, the USI Tech website sells so-called “investment packages”. As most people know by now, any company offering investment packages of any kind need to be avoided. We have seen things go from bad to worse for other companies offering similar products. OneCoin is the most notorious example, although BitConnect could easily fall into the same category. An investment package in the cryptocurrency world is virtually always a scam waiting to implode.

For the time being, we will have to wait and see how USI Tech decides to handle this uneasy situation. The company has not been too vocal about fixing its withdrawal issues or providing a solution to its investors. Projects like these give cryptocurrency a bad reputation, and it is evident that USI Tech has some explaining to do. Some people will make money when investing in these kinds of products, yet others will lose all of their savings. It is a high-risk, high-reward game, and not everyone will win.

The Tennessee Senate Ways and Means Committee has voted to advance a bill banning public retirement trusts from investing in cryptocurrencies.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin drops below $9,000, Ethereum sees monthly low below $700 #NEWS