Day: March 20, 2018

· Loyal Nauticus users eligible for an additional 5 percent bonus for one week only.

· Anyone who signed up prior to March 18 can access up to 40 percent bonus coins.

· Australian Government’s AUSTRAC has approved Nauticus’s registration as an independent remittance dealer.

Head to nauticus.io to secure your Nauticus Coins now!

DELAYING the launch of the Nauticus ICO by 36 hours is one of the toughest decisions Nauticus co-founders Jonathan Chang and Bryan Ng have ever had to make.

But user security always has to be the highest priority for any crypto exchange — because, as we’ve seen over the years, once trust is gone it is virtually impossible to get it back.

A comprehensive security audit by Chief Security Officer Barry Cheng on Saturday examined reports of scammers attempting to use the Nauticus brand name, and looked in detail at the cutting edge methods and exploits that have been used in recent sophisticated attacks on other exchanges.

The difficult decision was made to briefly hold off on the launch to allow our developers to implement a number of additional layers of security and to conduct further testing to thwart the remote possibility of a successful attack. They also resolved to launch the dashboard at a random, unannounced time to frustrate social media scammers trying to capitalize on the launch.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might cause,” said CEO Bryan Ng. “But we will never be sorry about prioritizing the safety and security of users ahead of any other concern. Our systems were already highly secure, but we were determined to put them beyond any shadow of a doubt.”

He reminded users to double check the www.nauticus.io address is correct before signing in to the dashboard and to only communicate through our official Telegram channel (https://t.me/nauticusblockchain).

To thank our 117,000 community for its patience during the security upgrade, anyone who registered on the site before March 18 is eligible for an additional bonus of 5 percent in the first week. That’s over and above any existing offer.

This means registered Nauticus users can get a bonus of up to 40 percent additional Nauticus Coins until March 25.

It’s a great week to buy, as each Nauticus Coin is priced at 0.00001 Bitcoin. ICO backers can also take advantage of the recent drop in the BTC price (currently around $8000 USD) to get even more coins. Nauticus is raising funds to launch an international standard exchange with 100 crypto and six fiat currencies, along with a green blockchain mine to provide vital server capacity and additional revenue.

The Australian Government’s AUSTRAC this week approved Nauticus’s registration as an independent remittance dealer.

The Nauticus Coin is modelled on the popular Binance Coin (BNB), and offers a similar 50 percent reduction in trading fees, which has seen BNB skyrocketin popularity.

The Nauticus vision and the strength of its team have seen the ICO attract glowing reviews, including 4.5 stars from ICO Bench, 4.45 stars from ICO Marks, 4.15 stars from Trudex, and a Gold rating on Top ICO List.

External auditor Ambisafe audited the security and function of the Nauticus smart contract and the code has been posted on Github. Nauticus has received backing and support from large-scale international investment funds and crypto specialists Fundify (US fund), BellAcre (Cyprus fund) and Whisper (Romanian and Cyprus fund).

The company has been highlighted in articles on CoinTelegraph, The Merkle, Coinspeaker, Bitcoin.com and Blockonomi, among dozens of other crypto news sites.

The Nauticus community is growing in strength, with 118,000 registered users; more than 27,000 Facebook likes; 8200 Twitter followers, and 5200 highly engaged users on Telegram.

Nauticus is working alongside more than 20 of the world’s top blockchain, IT and finance experts as advisors. They include former global managing director of Accenture’s Ecosystem of the Future David Hayat, former Vice President of Nomura Securities Kin Wong, founder of Scandinavian Capital Markets Arif Alexander Ahmad, Director of Trade.io Remigio Bongulielmi, and the founder of ABA Technology Patrick Roberts (ex-IP Australia) to name a few.

For more information and to read our white paper, visit www.nauticus.io

The Nauticus ICO presale is now live and the ICO itself runs from April 2 to May 18, 2018.

For all media enquiries contact [email protected]

Join our Telegram community. Follow on Twitter and Facebook.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

Thought, an artificial intelligence and blockchain start-up backed by Harrisburg University, is developing a completely new way of utilizing and processing data by integrating artificial intelligence and smart logic into every bit of data.

“In the few past decades, humans have advanced in technology at an exponential pace. It is incredible to witness. But all of these innovations have also caused an explosion of data. Everything ranging from social media to human genome research generates massive amounts of data,” says CEO and Founder of Thought, Professor Andrew Hacker.

“Currently, all data is created equal until it is sorted through and categorized by special algorithms. Data is inherently inanimate – it only becomes useful when it is processed by an application. The massive growth in data creation is adding up to a landscape littered with too much information and applications, and insufficient intelligence to handle all of it,” explains Professor Hacker, who has been granted a US patent for his innovative concept of Smart Data.

By combining the application layer into the data layer, Thought’s Smart Data becomes aware of its origin, knows its purpose, and is able to act on its own to accomplish its goal. It eliminates the need for traditional applications that traditionally make it possible for data to move between devices, cutting costs and complexity associated with these applications while also increasing speed.

Equality to the monopolistic world of AI

In addition, Thought is able to bring equality and accessibility to the highly monopolistic world of AI, where only large companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook have the capability to develop artificial intelligence.

“Till this day, access to AI and big data has been limited to only a handful of organizations, but for seeing true innovation take place, AI and data have to become easily accessed and available to everyone who’s looking to work with this emerging technology,” says the COO of Thought, Nathaniel DiMemmo.

Thought is building a foundational, information transformation network with data as the commodity. Participants are able to exchange data and applications, and the ecosystem is able to host data-hungry applications for researchers in fields like AI, healthcare, transportation, and communications. The open marketplace of information opens up new possibilities for smaller organizations to utilize AI.

Blockchain’s unparalleled security

Integrating blockchain technology introduces unparalleled security to the whole ecosystem of Thought. “Using blockchain technology allows us to protect every bit of information with multi-layered encryption, creating the highest level of security,” explains Samuel Jones, Chief Software Engineer for Thought.

Team

Building something as complex as Thought requires highly dedicated, technically savvy, professionals and knowledgeable advisors. Thankfully, Thought has exactly these people. Thought’s development team is over 15 team members strong and their incredible board of advisors ranges from PhDs to a retired Army Colonel.

Gil Obrien, CMO of Thought added, “Working at Thought has been, and will continue to be, an incredible experience. Our team is extremely dedicated and experienced in their respective fields. We have managed to solve all of the issues that have stood in our way and have powered towards the completion of our platform.”

“Working with Thought has been a great experience for me. Tackling real issues with experienced colleagues is invigorating,” says Samuel Heybey, Software Developer at Thought.

“The upcoming release of the Thought Blockchain, and its applications for businesses and consumers in artificial intelligence and analytics represents the bleeding edge of innovation,” says Dr. Eric Darr, President of Harrisburg University and one of the advisors of Thought. “Harrisburg University looks forward to continuing its work with Mr. Hacker and Thought Network as they continue developing new and valuable technology.”

Thought has launched their main tokens sale. Participate now and get a 10% discount on your token purchase at https://thought.live

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

If you hold cryptocurrency – or plan on doing so – you should seek the advice of an information security professional about the best ways to secure your assets; an expert can evaluate the particulars of your own environment and situation to help you best defend yourself against risk while accomplishing your financial goals.  That said, here are 18 pieces of advice to think about – and ideas to discuss with any expert with whom you consult:

1. If you own, or plan to own, cryptocurrency, educate yourself about cryptocurrency, and the various ways that criminals attempt to steal it. Make sure that you understand enough about cryptocurrency so as not to make a serious blunder that costs you dearly.

2. Use unique, strong passwords to protect your cryptocurrency wallets. For ideas on how to create strong passwords that you can easily remember, please see the article, How to Create Strong Passwords That You Can Easily Remember.

3. Ideally, do not store significant amounts of cryptocurrency on a computer (and certainly not an Internet-connected computer) – and by “computer” I mean not just classic-form-factor laptops, but also tablets, smartphones, and other general-purpose computing devices. Criminals know how to target these devices, and there are multiple strains of cryptocurrency stealing malware that can literally steal your crypto from your device. Either store your digital money on a hardware wallet (discussed below) or a USB drive (with encryption enabled) that you keep disconnected from any computers, and stored in a safe location such as a safe deposit box. Keep a backup in a second safe location. Remember, several online exchanges and wallets have suffered security breaches – so don’t think that outsourcing security to someone else is a panacea.

4. Consider storing your cryptocurrency on a specialized cryptocurrency hardware wallet. Wallets such as those from Trezor or the Ledger Nano S cost a little over $100, and are relatively simple to use. Typically, cryptocurrency hardware wallets require you to set up a password or PIN (similar to the PIN that you use at the ATM machine – but do not pick the same one), and what is known as a “seed,” which is effectively a passphrase that you can use to recover your cryptocurrency if your wallet malfunctions, or, if, somehow, you forget your PIN.

5. When you need to carry cryptocurrency with you in a mobile wallet, only take what you need. Keep the rest stored safely offline. Remember, a cryptocurrency mobile wallet is like carrying cash in your pocket – if you would not walk around with $5,000 in cash in your pocket, don’t walk around with $5,000 of cryptocurrency in the same pocket.

6. Backup all items related to your cryptocurrency (cryptocurrency, PIN, Private Key, and/or seed), and store them encrypted, in safe places – ideally, keep ½ of each in one location and ½ in another, both in safe deposit boxes or waterproof and fireproof safes.

7. Think hard about how and where you store any private keys – which are effectively the secret that lets you authorize payments and transfers of your cryptocurrency to others. Private keys should also be stored in an encrypted form, and should never be on devices that are out of your control, with the possible exception of when cryptocurrency is stored at certain exchanges for trading purposes.

8. Never store the backups of your cryptocurrency and of your PIN, Password, Private Key, and/or Seed in the same place.

9. Use security software on any and all computers from which you will ever perform a cryptocurrency transaction – and, once again, by computers I mean laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc.

10. Use multi-factor authentication for any exchanges that you use for trading cryptocurrency – and, if your exchange does not offer it, consider taking your trading business somewhere else. If you use app based second-factor authentication, make sure to turn off email/SMS based authentication.

11. Ideally, do not use a single exchange for a significant amount of cryptocurrency – spread your trading wealth across exchanges. If one exchange is hit by hackers, you do not want all of your eggs to be in its basket.

12. Use a unique email address for any exchange account that you open. The address should not be used for any purpose other than the exchange.

13. Do not overshare on social media – the world does not need to know what cryptocurrencies you hold, where you trade them, or what wallets you use. (One notable exception to this rule applies to columnists such as myself, who, despite any increased security risks inherent in doing so, should disclose any cryptocurrency holdings in relevant articles so as to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.)

14. Use multi-signature when possible – Some cryptocurrencies include multi-signature features (AKA multiple-signatures-required features) that prevent cryptocurrency from being transferred out of a wallet (i.e., spent) unless approvals have been issued for an outgoing transaction by multiple independent parties. The multi-signature feature can both help implement proper authorization controls and audit trails for organizations, as well as prevent money from being stolen by crooks who have infected a single person’s computer with malware or otherwise breached a single person’s accounts.

15. Plan for your demise – If you die, or are otherwise rendered incapacitated, and have not previously created a method for leaving your cryptocurrency to your heirs or others, your cryptocurrency will likely be lost forever. So, plan ahead.

16. Protect your cellphone number – make sure to password protect your cellphone number. Criminals try to steal people’s cellphones’ numbers – if you are using your phone for multi-factor authentication to a cryptocurrency exchange and a criminal steals your number, you could lose access to your cryptocurrency – and, if your password is not properly protected, a criminal could potentially steal all of your digital money in seconds.

17. Consider using decentralized exchanges, meaning exchanges that do not actually hold your cryptocurrency, but rather, let you trade it directly from your own wallet.

18. Practice good cybersecurity hygiene – there is no substitute for doing so, and failure to do so could lead to criminals stealing your cryptocurrency when you access exchanges or at other times.

This article originally appeared as 18 Tips to Help You Secure Your Cryptocurrency on the website of Cybersecurity and Blockchain Advisor, Joseph Steinberg.

The American Bar Association Section of Taxation issued some advice to the IRS regarding the taxation of cryptocurrency produced by hard forks.

The New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) has ruled that upstate power companies can charge bitcoin miners higher electricity rates who may be trying to take advantage of the state’s cheap electricity supply.

Power Up

Last week, it was reported that Plattsburgh city in upstate New York had imposed a temporary 18-month bitcoin mining ban, becoming the first city to do so. First proposed earlier this month by the city’s mayor, Colin Read, it was unanimously voted on permitting the city to curb miners from using all of Plattsburgh’s cheap electricity.

In a report from the New York Times in February, Read explained that bitcoin mining had taken 10 percent of the city’s fixed electricity supply in January and February. As a result, residents were complaining that their bills had risen by $100 or $200.

Now, the new ruling is taking things one step further, the PSC is attempting to level the playing field by ensuring that residents aren’t faced with unnecessarily high electricity rates while still encouraging mining operations to build their companies in New York.

We must ensure business customers pay an appropriate price for the electricity they use, said John B. Rhodes, Commission chair. This is especially true in small communities with finite amounts of low-cost power available. If we hadn’t acted, existing residential and commercial customers in upstate communities served by a municipal power authority would see sharp increases in their utility bills.

Prior to the ruling, the New York Municipal Power Agency (NYMPA), an association that has 36 municipal power authorities ranging in size from 1.5 mWh to 122 mWh, approached the Commission with their concerns regarding bitcoin mining operations and the impact it was having on local power supplies.

The PSC determined that due to the intense amount of electricity needed to power the computers efforts, bitcoin mining companies were using ‘thousands of times more electricity than an average residential customer would use.’ It went on to add that while a large amount of electricity usage may go unnoticed in more built-up cities, in smaller communities that wasn’t possible.

The new ruling means that municipal power authorities will be able to create a new tariff for high-density load customers who have a maximum demand that exceeds 300 kWh and a load density that is far greater than 250 kWh per square foot each year. It’s hoped that this will answer the needs for everyone involved while still providing a place for innovative companies to grow.

The post New York Bitcoin Miners Charged Higher Electricity Rates appeared first on NewsBTC.

The State Duma of Russia is considering a bill ‘On Digital Financial Assets’, echoing KYC requirements of US crypto exchanges #NEWS

China’s various bans on crypto aren’t keeping these two innovators from focusing their Blockchain projects on the Chinese market #INTERVIEW

After raising over $20 million in the private-sale stage, CEDEX followed it up with an incredibly successful token pre-sale. With over 1000 participating, CEDEX was able to sell all of the available 25,000,000 CEDEX Coins in just a couple of hours. The token pre-sale went live on March 16th at 10:00 GMT and finished at 13:54.

The quick finish to the token pre-sale was hardly shocking to cryptocurrency investors. CEDEX has been one of the most talked about ICOs in recent memory because of their potentially revolutionary technology that enables diamond tokenization.

In February of this year, CEDEX CEO Saar Levi and business development leader Boaz Hilel were recognized with the Audience Award at the Blockchain Economic Forum (BEF) 2018 in Singapore. The award was a good indicator of how positively people in the blockchain space feel about CEDEX.

And why wouldn’t they? With an annual turnover rate of $80 billion, the diamond market has the potential to be one of the most lucrative trading markets in the world. However – as Dani Zaharie wrote  in his article on CEDEX for Steemit – diamonds presently aren’t even considered an asset. While nobody disputes that diamonds have value and are highly sought after, there is no standardized or fixed pricing for them.

In comparison, commodities like gold and silver are fungible and can be easily exchanged, allowing them to have well-developed public markets. The last couple of decades have had a lot of trial and error when it comes to increasing the standardization in the diamond market so that it can catch up to those other commodities, but thus far all of the efforts have come up short in making the market open to general investors.

The CEDEX solution has set itself apart from those past trials in two ways. First is the DEX, a proprietary machine learning algorithm for pricing diamonds with unparalleled coherency and accuracy. An article on the major blockchain news outlet coinidol.com explains in depth how the DEX works, as well as how the DEX’s data can ultimately be used for category trading. What really makes the DEX impactful in the diamond market, though, is that it sets the bar higher for standardized and transparent pricing of stones. The result is that it enables investors who don’t have expertise in the diamond business to buy and sell with the confidence of a seasoned trader.

In addition to the DEX, CEDEX’s implementation of blockchain technology makes it possible for general investors to carry out peer-to-peer diamond exchanges transparently and trustlessly. The importance of cutting out the middleman in the diamond market is difficult to overstate. You see, that middleman is extremely costly in today’s market. So costly, in fact, that the typical diamond reseller can lose up to 50% of their stones fair market value in the deal.

By launching the DEX and the blockchain based diamond exchange together, CEDEX promises to bridge the gap between the traditionally private diamond market and the innovative financial markets that exist for most other noteworthy assets. Doing so will transform diamonds into a publicly tradeable asset and completely revolutionize the entire industry. That’s why CEDEX was listed as one of the Top 5 Cryptocurrency Projects to watch in the entire blockchain space for the month of March by Invest In Blockchain.

CEDEX Coin Token Sale

If you weren’t one of the lucky investors who managed to buy some CEDEX Coins during the short token pre-sale, you’ll have another opportunity on 17th on 10:00 GMT, where an additional 25,000,000 CEDEX coins will be made available to the public there will be 25,000,000 CEDEX Coins available to the public.

Participants on the whitelist will get early access to the token purchase, after which point they will be sold on a first come first serve basis to the remaining investors. It will be critical that you act fast to get your coins, especially considering the high demand experienced so far.

Unlike the token pre-sale, the general token sale has no minimum contribution.

To learn more about CEDEX and find out why so many people have been talking about it, you can read the project whitepaper, or the lightpaper if you’re short on time. TO get involved in the CEDEX community, you can join them on Telegram, Facebook and Twitter.

This is a sponsored press release and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or views held by any employees of The Merkle. This is not investment, trading, or gambling advice. Always conduct your own independent research.

Bitcoin breaches 9k barrier, but not for long. At press time is trading in high 8ks. #NEWS

Research has shown that most major cryptocurrency-only exchanges have significantly low liquidity, allowing price manipulation.

A team of German blockchain researchers have discovered images of child abuse on the Bitcoin blockchain. Since many network participants need to download a copy of the entire blockchain and it is entirely immutable, the legal implications of this might be damning for the world’s most popular cryptocurrency.

Indecent Content on the Blockchain Could Render it Illegal

The Bitcoin blockchain is a record of every transaction that has ever occurred on the network. One of its major value propositions is that it cannot be changed or amended by any party.

Other data can also be stored on the blockchain. Typically, this includes notes about certain transaction – perhaps what the payment was used for or other trivial information. As well as this harmless data, files and links can be uploaded to the blockchain. Unfortunately, it appears that some users have been using it to record highly illegal data. This includes indecent images of children.

The discovery was made by blockchain specialists at the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. They managed to find over 1,600 files that exist on the Bitcoin blockchain. According to reports in The Guardian, at least eight of these were of sexual content. One of these examples is thought to be depicting a victim of child abuse. Another two contain links to dark web repositories of child pornography. Finally, 142 of files link to other illegal services on the dark web.

This poses a very real issue for Bitcoin. Since miners and validation nodes need to store the entire blockchain on their computer systems, they are essentially in possession of illegal content. In a recent paper, the researchers explained the implications that the storage of such content on the blockchain could pose for Bitcoin in the future:

“Although court rulings do not yet exist, legislative texts from countries such as Germany, the UK, or the USA suggest that illegal content such as [child abuse imagery] can make the blockchain illegal to possess for all users.”

The idea of storing harmful material on the blockchain isn’t new. Back in 2015, a group of internet security specialists identified the risk of harmful software being uploaded to the Bitcoin blockchain. The fear then was that those downloading the chain would also install malware that could then be used to weaken the security of centralised entities such as cryptocurrency exchanges.

However, the research reported today does represent the first proof that the blockchain is being used in such a nefarious way. It seems that mass possession of child pornography would be a worthy enough reason for governments of the world to come down hard on Bitcoin and the technology behind it. The efficacy of such a course of action, remains to be seen though.

The post Could Indecent Images on the Blockchain Spell the Demise of Bitcoin? appeared first on NewsBTC.

It was our expectation that altcoin prices: NEO, LTC, IOTA, EOS and Stellar Lumens will continue edging higher as the market gets a reliever.

But really, will the new realization by the G20 that cryptocurrencies doesn’t pose a systemic risk to the establishment continue buoying prices? Well, that’s a question everyone else is asking and we shall see how prices react to that in the coming days.

Let’s have a look at these charts:

XLM/USD (Stellar Lumens)

After cryptocurrencies and blockchain endorsement, Stellar Lumens prices are still on their way up. In the 4HR chart, early buyers got in at a bargain while those who did yesterday traded a middle BB bullish break out with favorable entries during pull backs.

If you want to have a clear trajectory on price action, the daily chart provides a clear picture. The daily chart’s middle BB is our immediate resistance line and a probable zone where prices might resume their bear trend as the weekly chart shows.

Either way, if that happens or not, this week’s price action is obviously definitive for this coin. At the moment though, bulls can look for long opportunities in lower time frames with targets at $0.40 on the upper edge.

IOT/USD (IOTA)

As per our plan, IOTA’s surge continue and so far, our first take profit at $1.45 has been hit. However, here’s the thing and you should consider this in the days to come.

IOTA prices are actually turning and it’s likely that there will be a break out today assuming there’s a follow through of yesterday’s bullish pressure.

Note that prices are at a periphery and testing the middle BB and the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement line. Because momentum is high-check those diverging %k and %d which are turning from oversold territory-it is likely that there will be a confirmation.

If that happens-and odds are it will happen-there will be a change of tide as far as IOTA prices go. I’m net bullish in the short term, recommending buys with targets at $2.2 or the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement as per yesterday’s forecast.

EOS/USD (EOS)

History shows that after extraordinarily long candlesticks-(volatile ones), prices tend to slow down or even move within a consolidation before resuming the original break out trend.

That’s what we are seeing now and yesterday can be a perfect example. The slowdown in my opinion a loading opportunity and today, prices might surge past the middle BB in the daily chart.

Because of this projection and position, EOS buyers may as well target $9.5 in the short term.

LTC/USD (LTC)

In the daily chart, it’s apparent that LTC prices were net bearish with bulls struggling to break above the March 19 highs at $170.

Regardless, I’m still net positive on this pair and I recommend buying with every stochastic buy signal in lower time frames.

Any form of higher highs today will end up confirming a 3-bar reversal candlestick, the Morning Star and that will also mean buyers can aim for immediate resistance at $170 as potential targets.

NEO/USD (NEO)

The last time NEO prices were trending above the middle BB was in late February. Since then the liquidation of the middle BB has been visible and with every higher high, prices might experience the same resistance again.

This is despite the strong bullish momentum we are currently experiencing. Check out that stochastic buy signal with diverging %k and %d signal lines.

Note this though. Even if we can rave about bullish potentials, let’s not enter blindly. Enter at every stochastic buy in the 1HR or 4HR chart assuming you didn’t get in yesterday.

All BitFinex, Bittrex and CoinBase charts courtesy of Trading View

The post NEO, EOS, LTC, IOTA, Lumens: Technical Analysis March 21, 2018 appeared first on NewsBTC.

CryptoKitties will break away from its developer, Axiom Zen, after raising $12 million of venture capital.