Day: April 2, 2018

This week the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi’s educational subsidiary ‘Huobi Research’ conducted a survey with close to 2,000 individuals from 23 different countries to get a visual of what cryptocurrency sentiment looks like today. As cryptocurrencies have slid in value over the past three months according to the report, 77.9 percent of those polled were still bullish over the next three years.

Also read: Trezor to Implement Bitcoin Cash Addresses

Digital Currency Investors Still Optimistic After the Recent ‘Crypto Winter’

Huobi Research has recently published a cryptocurrency sentiment index-survey taken from 1,797 people stemming from various regions worldwide. Questionnaires were distributed over the internet and respondent identities cannot be confirmed Huobi explains. The sentiment index measured positivity and negativity in score ranges between 0 to 100 while a 50 point mean indicates the market cap remains unchanged.

The study details that out of those surveyed in the sentiment index for composite investors this month is 71.7 percent. Short term sentiment ranged around 61.1 percent, medium term (76.4%) and long-term measured around 87.5. Huobi’s report also details that 77.9 percent of voters believe cryptocurrencies will rise by more than 30 percent in the next three years. Even after the ‘Crypto Winter’ of 2018 in the short term, more than half of those polled believe that the total market value of cryptocurrencies will increase in the next month.  

    

“The short-term market expectations of investors were scattered, but the overall sentiment was optimistic,” explains the study.  

55.6% of the voters believed that the total market value of cryptocurrency would increase in the next month, with the highest percentage of voters choosing to increase slightly, reaching 29.6%. Another 26.4% of voters held a more pessimistic view and believed that the market value of next month will decline.

Investors More Confident in the Medium and Long-Term Cryptocurrency Prospects

The research reveals that most investors are more bullish towards the medium-term market in regard to the cryptocurrency economy. Around 77.6 of the participants believe that the total market value of cryptocurrency will see gains in the next three months. “51.1% of the voters were confident in the market and believed that the market value of cryptocurrency would increase by more than 30% in the next three months,” Huobi’s paper details. The long-term analysis reveals similar findings:   

About 14.9% of voters were pessimistic about the market for the next three months — A total of 88.0% of voters were bullish about the long-term market.

Overall the long-term is where the most confidence rests at the moment with the investors Huobi surveyed. Additionally, the report explains investors who think the crypto-market cap will drop by more than 30 percent accounted for 6.9 percent.

What do you think of the Huobi Research survey? Do you think sentiment indexes can show a good indication of how people feel about the market? Let us know what you think about this research in the comments below.

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Images via Shutterstock, and Huobi Academy of Blockchain Research. 

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Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a store. And a forum. And a casino, a pool and real-time price statistics.

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Did we get orders right last time? 🤔 #PRICE_ANALYSIS

Over the past six months we’ve seen numerous high-profile cyber-attacks hitting online cryptocurrency exchanges around the globe. To better protect their digital and fiat assets — in a market that’s volatile enough as it is —an increasing number of traders are looking for alternatives.

Enter: the over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency market, which moves hundreds of millions of dollars of coins on a daily basis, mostly via the online messaging and video platform Skype, participants told Reuters. The participants who spoke with the news giant include traders who work at Chicago-based Cumberland Mining, Goldman Sachs-backed Circle, and New York-based broker-dealer Genesis Global Trading.

“Generally, you would go trade through an OTC desk when you have a large block trade you want to do without moving the market too much or incurring too much slippage,” said Kevin Zhou, founder of cryptocurrency-focused hedge fund Galois Capital.

OTC transactions are settled through bank wire transfers and by sending cryptocurrencies to digital wallets. OTC trades are not reported and independently audited, but some dealers said their desks often handle more than $100 million of cryptocurrency trades daily with minimum ticket sizes between $75,000 and $250,000.

“When the big [exchange] hacks happen we tend to see business go up,” said an OTC trader who asked to remain anonymous.

Increased Volume

Genesis on average handles $75 to $80 million in trades daily, 10 times year-ago volumes, Chief Executive Michael Moro said. In December, the firm hit record monthly volume between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Boston-based Circle handled up to $4 billion in OTC trades monthly over the past year, spokesperson Jennifer Hanley said.

Cumberland has been adding employees and opening offices across Asia and Europe, according to Global Head of Trading Bobby Cho. Most investors message traders directly, but are required by firms to undergo know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) checks with their compliance departments, traders and investors said. Trades are settled bilaterally, generally by the firm’s back office, which is why Skype is the perfect tool.

“We needed a tool that was global and more or less free and Skype provided that,” said Cho.

Genesis, Circle, and Cumberland

While business is growing, OTC firms are forced to deal with the absence of clear rules from regulators: the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) considers Bitcoin a commodity, while the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said some cryptocurrencies may be securities, without specifying further. What type of asset is traded and whether it must be traded with an accredited investor dictates if firms register with U.S. regulators and what compliance rules they follow, said Joel Telpner, partner at Sullivan & Worcester.

Genesis has registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. It only offers trading in seven coins and, like other firms, records trader-client conversations. “We’re about as highly regulated as you can possibly be in the digital currency space,” said Moro.

Circle’s OTC desk trades a “very limited” selection of cryptocurrencies “aligned” to its “regulatory licensure,” said Hanley, and was “working closely with regulators to foster transparency in this developing market.”

Cumberland trades 25-30 cryptocurrencies and encourages regulators to work with participants to fully understand the market as well as the implications of any new laws and rules, according to a spokesperson.

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The Bank of Japan evaluates the success of cryptocurrencies in terms o fulfilling their intended use in a recently published consumer Q&A on crypto investing — and it’s not too flattering.

Gambling can be exciting. That’s what EtherSpin is here to offer the next wave of cryptocurrency enthusiasts. EtherSpin offers tons of advantages over existing platforms such as universal cryptocurrency gambling.

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EtherSpin’s Success

EtherSpin already has hundreds of active players trying the live platform before their public ICO. The game is open to the public, decentralized and provably fair. The dev team is working on developing more features to the platform. The live beta platform is already extremely popular with users, and bets are being processed actively in real time.

The problem with other casinos is that they don’t accept cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin and Ethereum. With EtherSpin, players can play with all cryptocurrencies! The EtherSpin development team is introducing gambling games for all cryptocurrencies on the market. This is the first of its kind.

Investing in EtherSpin

Trying to predict the next 100x cryptocurrency move is risky. No one knows what the next big cryptocurrency will be, so EtherSpin will introduce all cryptocurrencies onto the platform.

Since EtherSpin is designed for every cryptocurrency, an investment in EtherSpin is an investment in the whole cryptocurrency sector. As the crypto industry grows, so will EtherSpin as it adopts new cryptocurrencies onto their platform.

EtherSpin will also be the first casino to add small cryptocurrencies first before they get big, which means they will have a monopoly in the gambling sector with a huge first mover advantage. Casinos like EtherSpin have often seen their value increase by 10-20x after ICO, and EtherSpin has a huge competitive edge over existing platforms.

EtherSpin’s public ICO has just started today, and the first token buyers this week will get a discount of 60% on all tokens. To participate in this exciting ICO, visit https://etherspin.org/

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.

Over the past few years, we’ve been hearing more about cryptocurrencies and how they are set to change the future of how we transact online. Of course, currently, the most well-known cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, a name that has been grabbing news headlines all over the world. As Bitcoin becomes more famous, and as more people begin to invest in it, many are asking the question, what’s the difference between a cryptocurrency and a normal (terrestrial) currency?

Essentially, cryptocurrencies only exist online. You can buy your cryptocurrency from certain online sites, such as a Bitcoin exchange, by exchanging your regular currency for it. As with any normal currency, there is a certain conversion rate at which Bitcoin (for example) is valued at. The really big difference with cryptocurrencies is that unlike regular currencies such as USD or Euros, there is no central bank or government controlling it. Even better, you don’t even need a bank account to buy Bitcoin, or any form if ID, making it ideal for online gambling.

Other types of cryptocurrency such as Zerocoin are now gaining prominence in new ways, such as powering the world’s first 0% house edge online casino, ZeroEdge. Now, gamblers that are tired of always being ripped off by online casinos, where every game is skewed in the casino’s favor, can enjoy true 50-50 casino gambling.

Check out how it all works down below.

ZeroEdge.Bet – Revolutionary online gambling platform with 0% house edge games

ZeroEdge is a unique concept set to revolutionize the way you gamble online. Currently, all online casino games come with a house edge, i.e. the advantage that the casino has over you, which varies between 1% to 10% or more, depending on the game. ZeroEdge’s solution – offer games with 0% house edge and give players a completely fair chance of winning. In other words, playing at ZeroEdge.Bet is literally free, you don’t have to pay anything to the casino like it’s with traditional online casino sites.

The most amazing part is that Zerocoin value increases as more people join the world first 0% edge gambling platform. It is all achieved by creating a closed-loop economy in which high demand for 0% games drives Zerocoin’s value up. This model is also known as Metcalfe’s law which was originally invented in 1993 and can be seen in the actual Bitcoin’s price growth. ZeroEdge offers a unique gambling model which potentially could revolutionize the $70 Billion gambling industry. Players won’t be losing money but instead earning from the increasing Zerocoin value.

We have made a survey & asked hundreds of people about their gambling preferences & experiences.  The main finding was that 99 % of them stated that they would choose 0% house edge games to play if such games were available. High demand for the world’s first 0% house edge games will increase the Zerocoin value exponentially. An important task for us will be to educate the players and raise their attention to this beneficial concept.

Zerocoins (ZERO) will be available to investors during an upcoming ICO. Visit http://www.zerocoin.bet to find out more.

The post Cryptocurrencies vs. Terrestrial Currencies– What’s the Difference? appeared first on NewsBTC.

BitPay, the world’s largest blockchain payments provider, has closed its $40 Million extended Series B fundraising round, bringing the total amount raised to over $70 Million since the company’s inception in 2011. New investors in BitPay include Menlo Ventures, Capital Nine, G Squared, Nimble Ventures, and Delta-v Capital. Aquiline Capital Partners led the initial Series B Round, which was extended at the end of last year due to increased investor demand.

According to Stephan Pair, the company’s CEO, the funds will be used to help the company further expand its operations in growing markets across Asia: 

“BitPay had a record 2017 as we processed over $1 Billion in bitcoin payments. We brought on these new investors who can help BitPay scale globally to meet customer demand,” said Pair. “Our goals include key hires in engineering and regulatory licensing, as well as expansion into emerging markets in Asia – one of BitPay’s fastest-growing regions for transactions and wallet adoption.”

Menlo Ventures

Menlo Ventures selected BitPay as its first institutional crypto investment after spending significant time researching the broader crypto and blockchain ecosystem. According to the company, Menlo is committed to thesis-based investing, and prioritizes companies that are reshaping large and important markets through technology and process-driven breakthroughs. Poised to place itself amongst a rapidly evolving industry, BitPay joins the Menlo portfolio alongside other leading companies like Uber, Roku, BlueVine, and Warby Parker.

“We gravitated towards BitPay because we felt the company had identified a killer use for crypto in facilitating low cost payment solutions for cross-border commerce and B2B payments, which is a massive market poorly served by the existing payment rails,” said Tyler Sosin, a partner at Menlo Ventures.

“We are impressed with the company’s execution—it has demonstrated extremely efficient growth and a stickiness with merchants and consumers that is the hallmark of many great payment service providers. As the market leading crypto-processor, BitPay is well positioned to both benefit from and serve the fast moving crypto-ecosystem.”

BitPay and Asia

Asia is a growing region for BitPay, and as a result a significant portion of the Series B investors call the continent home. Capital Nine is an Asian fintech corporation and investor with millions of customers across Asia. Other investors from Asia include Alvin Liu, Co-Founder of Tencent, and Yong An Financial Holdings Co., Ltd. 

It’s should come as no surprise, then, that Bitpay is thinking about using the $40 million from its extended Series B fundraisinging round to fuel its international expansion, particularly into Asia. According to Pair, Bitpay could open an office on the continent this year in either Hong Kong or Singapore.

“Bitcoin’s popularity is spreading rapidly throughout Asia and BitPay has an opportunity to extend its technology solutions across Asia,” said Sam Lin, Director of Capital Nine. He added that “BitPay’s cross-border payment solution helps businesses pay or receive international payments faster and more economically.”

Across the globe thousands of companies have signed up with the payment processor to accept Bitcoin payments, including popular brands like Microsoft, Newegg, Namecheap, Gyft, and Virgin Galactic. Altogether, the company claims to work with over 30 e-commerce and point of sale integrators to promote the use and acceptance of digital currency. 

The post Menlo Ventures Select BitPay as Its First Institutional Crypto Investment appeared first on NewsBTC.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has halted the Floyd Mayweather-supported Centra Tech initial coin offering.

Russia-based SKYF drone manufacturing company and the Sweden-based Swedron company has agreed to become partners in Northern Europe. Together, they are going to launch a collaborative test flights facility in Sweden and practice experimental flights of SKYF drones in accordance with European regulation rules.

Under the partnership agreement, Swedron cooperates with SKYF to get a UAV license to fit EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency) regulations. SKYF will become the first heavy lifting UAV in the European Union that applied for certification in accordance with EASA regulations and for getting the unique tail number.

After the license has been obtained SKYF will be used in Sweden as an experimental UAV at the test facility. The purpose of test facility is to test and verify SKYF as a platform for new drone operational fields such as heavy lifts, agriculture, and fire extinguishing.

In a longer perspective after the EASA type approval, Swedron will act as a sales- and training facility hub in Europe for future pilots to come.

• “We are very pleased and excited about this cooperation. We believe in SKYF and see a lot of potential in the UAV heavy lift segments all over Europe”, says Tomas Glatzl, TRI Swedron Sverige A
• “We are excited about the collaboration with Swedron team which has wide experience in the European market. Now we can examine customer request more carefully and understand the specifics of EU regulations. It allows us to enter the European market faster”, says Alexander Timofeev, CEO of SKYF and SKYFchain.

SKYF is a heavy-lifting unmanned aerial carrier vehicle with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. It allows the development of different drones with various modifications for diverse tasks ranging from cargo logistics to firefighting. At present, the maximum useful load is 400 kg (880 lbs) and the maximum the flight range is 350 km (220 miles) or up to 8 hours.

In 2018 SKYF team launched the spin-off project named SKYFchain which develops the first Business-2-Robots Operating Platform in the cargo logistics industry. SKYFchain is an open blockchain platform for keeping and exchanging data of all cargo robots’ operations and transactions. Any action on the Operating Platform has an own price depending on the type, frequency, and complexity of transactions and is denominated in a traditional currency. All calculations within SKYFchain will be processed in SKYFT tokens, as required by the smart contract logic.

The first cargo robot to start operations on SKYFchain will be SKYF. SKYF will use SKYFchain to operate hundreds of freighter drones that have already been pre-ordered by the largest oil/gas and logistics companies around the world. SKYFchain is open to any other manufacturers of unmanned drones, including cars and cargo ships. It is also open to logistics providers and financial organizations and has every chance to become a universal tool, a standard for the unmanned logistics industry. Within 5 years, SKYF plans to spend over the US $50 million to buy SKYFT tokens on the open crypto-exchange. The funds will be used for the further development of SKYFchain. The SKYFT tokens emission conforms the international legislative regulation of the blockchain and is compliant with the SEC of the USA.

The post Russia’s SKYF to Become the First Heavy Lifting Drone Certified under EU Aviation Safety Regulations appeared first on NewsBTC.

After raising 6,500 ETH from its pre-sale and successfully completing its public token generation event, IPSX – a decentralized blockchain – unlocks new possibilities in the IP sharing and renting industry that is said to benefit both businesses and individuals.

The main issue with IP addresses is that there is no easy way of sharing or renting IP addresses even though there is enormous demand for it. IPSX enables users to share their IP address or use it as a Data Centre to share a full range of IP addresses in return for compensation in real-time in the form of IPSX tokens.

IPSX will create a framework and an IP address marketplace that will allow business and services to build custom applications that require a large number of IP addresses, have specific needs such as Uptime, Usage time, geolocation etc.

The benefits of using blockchain in the market place ensures Transparency, by providing a clear breakdown of the division of revenue between the platform’s users; Immutability as it covers the liability on IP usage; Managing reputation by creating a market with trustworthy partners, low maintenance costs, as financial settlements are done in a cost-effective manner and Maximum security as it is based on a high-security network.

With more than a thousand companies whose core business is mining Big Data via web-scraping, data has become the newest resource in the Internet of things era. Big data analysis reveals powerful insights and finds hidden patterns within big data sets, this helps to make informed business decisions, reduce wastage and increase profits.

Data mining from scraping requires a large number of IP address.  For instance, HiQ – a company that aims to improve HR services through data acquisitions –  recently won a suit against LinkedIn whereby a U.S. federal judge ruled that Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) LinkedIn unit cannot prevent HiQ from accessing public profile data. Ruling that the data is not the property of any online platform on which they have been enlisted nor can it be legally withheld from third-parties. The image intelligence market has extremely high potential and with improved SEO ranking and tracking tools the possibilities are endless but often the IP addresses of such Data Science companies are blocked by the larger conglomerates namely Google, LinkedIn etc.

The solution for these image intelligence firms is to rent out more IP addresses but this is a daunting task with the lack of reliable IP address providers. IPSX aims to build a complete ecosystem by building an IP address market and establish transparent prices based on demand.

As a VPN provider, by using the IPSX platform, you would be able to integrate your system with IPSX’s SDK to let your clients chose, in real time, from millions of IP addresses from all around the world.

The VPN providers can access the VPN for short time periods and only have to pay for the time they used the service, this will make the service easy to access and improve cost efficiency.

IPSX will be the easiest way for users from across the globe to make the internet completely decentralized, free from profit interests for various actors, operated with total transparency.

IPSX was co-founded by George Bunea – a blockchain enthusiast and evangelist, investor, and blockchain businesses developer.  Mr. Bunea has vast experience in developing new companies, growing new departments for already established companies, as well as developing and aligning business models.  George is a seasoned software developer.

For more information, please visit:

IPSX website: https://ip.sx
IPSX Whitepaper: https://ip.sx/dist/Whitepaper-IPSX-05.pdf
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/IPExchange

 

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Ethereum community stirred by a possible hard fork to invalidate ETH ASICs, with rumors that Bitmain’s centralized hashpower is targeting the Blockchain. #NEWS

Dash has been one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrencies for investors ever since its inception in early 2017. That is largely because of its impressive transaction speed, which compares very favourably against Bitcoin, and other cryptos.

Evan Duffield designed Dash – initially called XCoin and then Darkcoin, briefly, before its current name stuck in March 2014 – for its pace and anonymity. Specifically, it was Dash’s processing time that made it an immediate hit in the crypto community, according to Ryan Taylor, who took over from Mr. Duffield as the project’s Chief Executive Officer in April 2017.

“Dash is an open-source project that delivers safe decentralised financial solutions,” he says, noting that within two days of its launch 1.9 million coins – around 10 percent of the total supply (22 million) – were mined.

“It is a form of digital cash that can be spent online and at merchants and service providers worldwide. Unlike Bitcoin, Dash can be sent and received instantly, with zero risk of double payment or theft, and it boasts tremendous stability in its value.”

Dash’s platform has been likened to PayPal, and its tokens are well established as one of the top-10 cryptos. Indeed, as of 2017, Dash was a member of the $1 billion market-cap club. By August 2017 over 300 organisations around the world were accepting Dash – a portmanteau of ‘digital’ and ‘cash’ – as payment, including Apple (in the App Store).

That number is set to rise. In autumn 2017 it was announced that Dash had partnered with BlockCypher, a leading Blockchain Web Services (BWS) provider. The pair aims to launch a grant programme for startups and other more established companies seeking blockchain-based solutions in enterprises and new markets.

Dash is unique as a cryptocurrency – a reason many tech enthusiasts invest in the coin, as it diversifies their portfolios and might be viewed as a hedging tool against Bitcoin, the founding crypto.

In addition to Bitcoin’s feature set, it offers instant transactions (InstantSend), and private transactions (PrivateSend). Further, it operates a self-governing and self-funding model that enables the Dash network to pay individuals and businesses to perform work that adds value to the network. This governance and budgeting system makes it a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO).

Mr. Taylor, who moved from Wall Street to join the Dash project as Director of Finance in 2016 before transitioning to CEO, believes Dash will eclipse Bitcoin before long. “Dash has rapidly become the number-one digital currency for payments because of our cheap and instant transactions, anywhere in the world,” he continues.

“Dash is in many ways a better Bitcoin. It is quickly incorporating payments industry best-practices that the digital currency industry has lacked. Dash transactions lock within a couple of seconds due to our revolutionary second-tier masternode network, making Dash acceptance feasible at the point of sale and online, just like credit cards.”

On December 20, 2017, Dash reached a high of $1,370.16 per coin, according to global trading and investment platform eToro. And although the value dropped in early 2018, Mr. Taylor is optimistic that Dash will reach a price of $1,000 by the end of the year.

eToro, which boasts over nine million users, specialises in cryptocurrencies, and offers many top cryptos – including Dash – to buy outright or trade.

Its motto is: “Cryptos Needn’t Be Cryptic.” And the eToro team has produced this handy video history of Dash to help inform investors:

Pros and cons of trading on eToro

Pros

• Straightforward, user-friendly, trustworthy and experienced platform
• Instant execution of trades, thereby locking in a price
• Ability to use CopyTrader and other innovative tools
• Huge cryptocurrency community that shares knowledge and helps each other
• Fast execution
• Regulated company

Cons

• Only nine cryptocurrencies offered by the platform, currently
• Users are unable to withdraw the cryptocurrencies directly
• Users’ cryptocurrencies are held by eToro

Want to learn more about trading Dash and other cryptos? Visit www.eToro.com now, and join the online global community.

All trading involves risk. Only risk capital you’re prepared to lose. Past performance is not an indication of future results.

 

The post Why Invest in Dash? appeared first on NewsBTC.

Amber Baldet, who led development of JPMorgan’s permissioned blockchain platform Quorum, is leaving to start her own project.

CryptoMKT, one of only three cryptocurrency traders operating in Chile, was told late last week that state lender BancoEstado was closing its account within 10 days. The news comes after other commercial lenders Scotiabank and Itaú CorpBanca made similar account closure announcements and the country’s other banks declined to accept traders as clients.

Santiago-based CryptoMKT — which operates in the market with Buda and Orion — is taking legal action over the closure decision. In the meantime, the company has initiated talks with fintechs over potential payment-processing alternatives.

“Cryptocurrency startups in Chile aren’t going to close because of the barriers being put up by the banks,” CryptoMKT commercial manager Daniel Dupré told BNamericas. “There are [payment-processing] alternatives, which we didn’t look into previously because they have an associated cost.”

“[BancoEstado’s] decision came as a shock,” he said, explaining that the company had been working with the bank on the blockchain-related issues and still had meetings scheduled when the news of the account closure came.

CryptoMKT, which works with Ethereum and Stellar, has 30,000 clients in Chile and a total of 50,000 in Latin America, handling more than $80 million in transactions per year. The platform allows users to buy and sell Ethererum directly with local currencies: Argentinian Peso, Chilean Peso, Euro, and, come August, Brazilian Real. The company currently operates in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Spain, with plans to expand into Colombia, Mexico, and Peru by the end of July.

Scotiabank, BancoEstado, and Itaú

While some banks have not given a particular reason for their stance, in the past executives have cited concerns over cryptocurrency’s association with financial crime, particularly the risk of money laundering.

Last week Scotiabank Chile CEO Francisco Sardón was reported as saying that his bank was simply “doing its job,” and that there was no deliberate “persecution” of the cryptocurrency industry. 

BancoEstado (according to local newspaper Pulso) reportedly said in a letter to Buda informing it of its account closure decision, that it had decided not to operate with companies involved in the cryptocurrency sector while there is “no regulatory recognition of said activity.”

Itaú CorpBanca CEO Milton Maluhy did not give a reason for the bank’s decision but has said that regulations need drawing up.

Moving Forward

Dupré said local banks simply do not understand the cryptocurrency sector or blockchain, and he rejected arguments about money laundering, citing automated internal security procedures in place at CryptoMKT and the fact the company voluntarily complies with UAF’s (Chile’s Financial Analysis Unit) regulations.

He argues that the move was damaging to the country’s reputation as a promoter of technological innovation:

“This gives the country a bad image. On a global level, stories have already appeared in international media in England, the US that Chile, in some way, has taken an anti-innovation stance.”

Dupré called for stakeholders to sit down together to discuss issues and work on a potential regulatory framework like that recently adopted by Mexico. There is currently no regulation governing cryptocurrencies in Chile, and the central bank does not recognize them as legal tender.

The founder of Buda, Guillermo Torrealba, said the following regarding the matter:

“They’ve demonized cryptocurrencies because they don’t understand the technology.” He added, “It’s important that as a country and industry, we have guidelines to grow the cryptocurrency market in a healthy and legally compliant manner.”

The post Chilean State Banks Closing Cryptocurrency Exchange Accounts Causes Concern Over Future of Industry in The Country appeared first on NewsBTC.

The recent developments in blockchain technology and cryptocurrency infrastructures are gaining increased interest among computer security and finance professionals. Mr. Nicholas Price, founder of KeyCaptcha with 40 million users worldwide since 2010, did not leave those developments unnoticed. He leads a development team creating STeX Exchange – the first “exchange for grown-up people”.  This is a smart cryptocurrency trading platform with automatic liquidity consolidation. The platform automatically aggregates offers from best exchanges in one place.

Q: Nicholas, what made you start this new project? How did you get to this idea?

A: In the beginning, we got interested in cryptocurrencies and developed a couple of trading robots. Very soon we realized, that market is very far from mature. This market lacks platforms being able to provide sufficient grade of service, with regards to transaction speed and asset scope. The security aspect is also worth noting, as only a sheer number of crypto-exchanges managed to avoid break-ins and loss of clients’ funds. At some point, we understood that we would be able to do better and to do something we ourselves could enjoy using. This regard both service and security.

Q: Nicholas, what do you mean when you say, “An exchange for grown-up people”?

A: First, this market is very new. A lot of services were created by cryptocurrency enthusiasts lacking necessary experience in things like computer system security, load balancing and scalability and exchange tools which professional traders are used to. Even now, there are a lot of platforms not offering technical analysis instruments and necessary technical indicators. Even the essential stop-loss and take-profit orders are missing. I’m not even talking about trailing-stop and take-profit orders which are ideally suited for the fast-paced cryptocurrency trends. Without those, even an experienced trader won’t be able to do business with full efficiency. The results might differ by several times simply because the crypto-exchange did not provide the necessary services! We decided to fix this situation by creating an ideal service free from teething troubles, a service of the “grown-up people”.

Q: Could it be sufficient just buying bitcoin at the conventional exchange and start making money on cryptocurrencies?

A: The first impression may tell you that yes, it could be. However, one should remember that thereafter fast-paced rallies when bitcoin rate raises multiple-fold there are one or one and a half year periods of fall when the rate is within a “range” or is falling. Will you feel good enough to take losses all year long before the first profit, unless you started before the major rally? Just recently bitcoin fell 70% down from the maximum!

Meanwhile, trading professionals are making earnings even at those times, jumping from one cryptocurrency to another, getting the maximum effect even in the falling market. There is always a cryptocurrency which is growing, at least against another cryptocurrency. If you had jumped from bitcoin to Ethereum in November 2017 and jumped back in February 2018, then your holding of bitcoin could threefold! Even if we take the recent bitcoin rate adjustment into consideration (the bitcoin rate is roughly the same as November 2017), you could take a massive profit, unlike those who simply purchased bitcoin in November and held it.

Q: Do you mean that it is possible to profit from cryptocurrencies even when the market, in general, is not growing?

A: Yes, but to do that you must be able to sell one coin and buy another and do it fast. Even better, change directly from one coin to another. This feature is absent in the old exchanges. Any exchange offers a very limited set of cryptocurrencies which are sold for US dollar or bitcoin. So, you must sell the coin which is listed on one exchange, withdraw your money (it can take a whole day), send funds to another exchange, where another coin is listed… etc.… Meanwhile, the coin rate may grow twice, the market may grow 20 – 30 %, and your profitable transaction is busted half-way.

We have developed a new “A2A” technology to be implemented at STeX. It allows trading momentarily between any coins, without delay. This technology allows us to be resource-savvy, and we can carry more than 200,000 cross-rates, when most of our competitors carry not more than 200.

The same applies to the exchange listing. We are going to raise the number of listed tokens and cryptocurrencies to 500 already in the first year of operation. Until recently the traders had to open accounts at multiple exchanges to trade interesting coins. Now one account on STeX will be enough.

Q: Why did STeX create their own utility token A2A?

A: A2A (Any2Any) name derives from the technology we developed, and it is also the core of this technology. When you have hundreds of various assets you will need some median value, a certain absolute denominator of value providing every other asset denomination. This applies not only to trading but also to commissions accounting.

Presently no other technology except A2A is able to process all cross rates fast enough. A2A not only leads crypto trading to the big world tier but also sets the new technology standards in the industry.

Q: Don’t you fear your competitors who promise users commission-free trade?

A: Not at all. As you may be aware, there is no such thing as free lunch. When you put your trust, your money and your large-scale transactions in a certain project it is essential to understand that the provider would not put its reputation at stake and is able to present all means for secure and redundant service. Commissions allow the best projects to be able to render the best service.

A crypto exchange is where traders make millions. And at the point of transaction, everything must be working without delays and fails. It applies especially during the peak load times because this is exactly when the buy and sell rates are most favorable.

STeX is designed in such a way that the traders will be making more money here than at other exchanges. For instance, here we have best rate aggregation, spread margin minimization to name a few. Take a trader making 1 ETH per day here at STeX, after commissions and 0.5 ETH elsewhere without commissions. Where will this trader bring the business?  It matters how much money you carry home at the end of the day and not how much commission you paid. Active traders will also enjoy our flexible discount system.

Q: Do the holders of A2A token receive an additional discount?

A: Of course. A2A tokens are an entity of the discount program. To minimize the commission, you need to hold A2A tokens on your internal account balance at the STeX Exchange. The user account at the exchange may receive various bonuses. And by the way, unlike our competitors’ tokens, for instance, BNB, our A2A do not lose their discount potential after first years of use, though the discount system structure will change.

During the first year of operation, all STeX Exchange users will receive 50% discount on commissions under the condition that this commission is paid in A2A tokens from the account internal balance. Unlike with other tokens, the large volume trade users may retain this discount rate. This concession will encourage users to apply various strategies, execute more transactions at the same cost and serve the less marginal market movements.

STeX.Exchange project has raised 15k ETH during the August-September crowdfunding campaign and released its MVP. To raise additional funds for the venture, STeX will conduct an ICO. The STeX A2A fundraiser will commence on May 1, 2018.

The alpha version of the STeX trading platform has been successfully released on March 27, 2018, allowing users to test new A2A technology. STeX is going to list 5 new coins every week until Beta release in July 2018. Over 100 coins expected to be listed before September, with more than 10,000 direct crosses.

Please see the exchange website for more information.

 

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