Day: April 3, 2018

Bitcoin mining hardware firm Bitmain unveiled its long-rumored ethereum mining tech on Monday.

JPMorgan’s head of Blockchain Center of Excellence leaves to start new venture. #NEWS

There are always changes taking place in the world of cryptocurrency. Not all of those trends are particularly positive, though. It seems the Electroneum network suffered a major DDoS attack on Sunday, which may have allowed some people to double spend transactions.

What is Going on With Electronium?

In the world of Bitcoin and altcoins, there are always entities looking to take advantage of any given situation. In a lot of cases, these criminals will look for smaller-cap cryptocurrencies and try to quickly influence the networks. For Electroneum users, such an attack seemingly materialized over the weekend, as the network struggled quite a bit.

It seems that something was wrong with the Electroneum network for several hours. Whether or not this was a genuine attack or just a split chain is still unknown at this point in time. We did see the network generate a ton of empty blocks, and some of them were still being mined at the time of writing. This type of thing can easily cripple a network, as transactions are neither broadcast nor processed properly until things go back to normal.

To make matters worse, the Electroneum mining pools were behind the network by up to forty minutes at one point. This further hints that something nefarious was going on, although there could still have been many reasons for this particular development. Until the Electroneum team explains what was going on and how they plan to ensure it will not happen again, many people will assume the worst.

One obvious result of this attack on the Electroneum network is that the altcoin’s mempool quickly started growing in size. More specifically, the ETN mempool reached a size of just over 20MB at one point, which is a lot higher compared to what one usually sees when it comes to alternative cryptocurrencies. This development was especially intriguing given that the general feeling in cryptocurrency circles is that no one really uses ETN other than to send it to exchanges.

Whether or not this attack will be addressed in a constructive manner remains to be seen. Altcoins can easily be brought to their knees when attacks like these occur. Even Ethereum’s network grinds to a halt when there is an influx of transactions. In the case of Bitcoin, mining empty blocks has been a problem in the past as well. That’s been mainly due to Bitmain mining these empty blocks on purpose simply because it can.

For the time being, we will have to wait and see how this situation evolves. Things are not looking good for Electroneum, as there doesn’t appear to be any incentive to attack this altcoin’s network. It’s not the most popular currency, and it has low trading volume numbers overall. We can only hope the developers address this situation properly at some point.

Huobi, a Chinese cryptocurrency exchange, has launched Huobi Korea, its South Korea-based subsidiary, on March 30 with 100 coins listed.

Huobi Exchange Enters South Korean Market

The existing trading platform is now being marketed in the South Korean market through the company’s new subsidiary Huobi Korea. The exchange is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency-only platform that is able to go around China’s policy on initial coin offerings (ICOs) and domestic digital currency exchanges.

“The leading global digital asset exchange Huobi lands in Korea on March 30th, 2018. On that day, we will open 201 trading pairs of 99 digital assets which have passed the strict review for being listed on Huobi. Thanks for all your support to Huobi. Huobi Korea will continue to offer better service as we always do”, the official statement said.

Headquartered in Singapore, the platform has close to $1 billion in daily trading volume, $300 million away from the $1.3 billion in volume produced by Binance each day. Its newly-formed Korean Subsidiary is aware of the rising hacking attempts, namely Coincheck in January 2018, and has taken measures to prevent such incidents from happening to its own platform and customers. The exchange stores 98 percent of client funds in cold storage.

Additionally, the internal access to those funds have increased complexity: “In order to open the repository, we have added security to complex procedures that require multiple people to authenticate together”, a Huobi Korea spokesperson told news agency ZDNet.

The platform will facilitate the trading of 100 cryptocurrencies and 208 markets (98 BTC markets and 77 ETH markets) while preparing for a potential hacking scenario: “We are also creating an investor protection fund and run an investor protection program to immediately compensate for losses that are not investor error,” the official added.

The company has set up an international expansion plan to continue to grow its business despite the Chinese ban on cryptocurrency trading. The firm is targeting some of the world’s digital currency markets, including South Korea, U.S., and Japan, in that order. Having launched its Korean subsidiary in late March, the company plans to open its San Francisco office in late January.

Japan, the market with the highest adoption numbers in the world, is a priority for the exchange platform. The company, however, experienced a setback as SBI Group, a leading Japanese financial group, has decided to cancel the partnership that would launch its Japanese Subsidiary and SBI Virtual Currencies Exchange.

Founded in Beijing in 2013, Huobi has grown to become one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.

The post Huobi Launches South Korean Subsidiary appeared first on NewsBTC.

Since its inception by Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2009, the Blockchain has been nothing less than a viral technological revolution in most modern industries. Its decentralized and immutable nature has enabled cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin to exceed expectations for growth, advancement, and utility. Over the years, numerous Blockchain related projects have popped up to realize the full capacity of Blockchain’s immutability and reliability.

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From transportation to health, to voting and even agriculture, there is no doubt that Blockchain makes it possible to not only cut out the middle man but to also build an entirely new way of sharing information. However, even with all the sophistication that Blockchain comes with, it is evident that there are some inherent problems in a decentralized network that Blockchain alone cannot solve. In fact, one of the missing innovations that can potentially build the foundation for the new internet is a secure decentralized data layer that allows for the protected and private exchange of data.

After all, never before has there been a higher demand for a secure decentralized data layer now that we live in an advanced internet connected world where digital assets are being shared and distributed across different parties nearly every second. With more technological advancement comes the growing need to authenticate online electronic transactions, and offer security for sensitive information such as medical records, contracts, voting ballots and tax records among others.

To offer a solution to this problem, Topia Technology (through TopiaCoin) is developing data layer libraries that will enable a Secure Decentralized File Sharing Network (SDFS) that will enable users to create secure micro networks to exchange any digital asset associated with a Blockchain transaction.

What You Should Know about Topia Technology

Unlike most Blockchain companies with only a few years (if any) of experience under their belt, Topia Technologies boasts of over 15 years of skin in the game since its founding in 1999. The company has had vast experience building, managing and developing complex and secure data distributions networks for high profile clients such as the US Army, TSA, FAA and the Air Force. Evidently, with such customers, there is no doubt that Topia Technology engineers are a seasoned team of experts who deliver on strict performance metrics.

With knowledge in developing military-grade solutions for enterprises, not to mention expertise in high-performance data security for complex distributed networks, Topia Technology has come up with products such as Secrata (a flexible enterprise security data platform) and TopiaCoin(a combination of Secrata’s proven encryption and the irrefutable capacity of Blockchain technology)

TopiaCoin’s Secure Data Layer for dApps

Although there exist numerous decentralized storage solutions at the moment, available options still lack a capacity for sharing specified digital assets with a select group of clients. With Blockchain’s immutable public ledger, it is easy for most enterprises to think of this new technology as a magic bullet towards achieving top-notch data security.

Blockchain only protects the transaction data from being altered and does not offer any security for the digital assets associated with the transaction.  To achieve comprehensive levels of security to the network as well as the digital asset being transferred on the network, Topia Technology has developed TopiaCoin, which will be the first data security layer for Blockchain based applications.

How TopiaCoin’s Secure Network works

TopiaCoin network will enable the development of dApps such as a Secure File Sharing dApp for sharing of different file sizes while also enabling true end-to-end encryption of the shared files. By this design, a user on the TopiaCoin network will be able to securely send or receive a file of any size without the need of a central authority to verify the transaction.

Users of the platform will also be able to set up file sharing workspaces where there exist micro-networks that allow a specified group of individuals to send and receive sensitive data on a secured network. SDFS is set to be developed on top of other existing technologies such as Distributed Hash Tables and digital ledgers whereby the TopiaCoin will be used as payment on the network.

TopiaCoin Sale Details

With a roadmap set for the development of the TopiaCoin project and a currently complete implementation of the Distributed Hash Table, TopiaCoin is set to have a public sale of its tokens in the next 53 days. The proceeds from the token sale will be used to develop the technology and the network, fund special projects and also conduct community developments and marketing. With over 60 percent of the total token supply being allocated for the public sale, most investors will be eager to participate in this battle-tested Blockchain security solution project.

Conclusion

The fact that Topia Technology’s patented products will be integrated into the TopiaCoin network to enable unique data encryption that will allow enterprises to become impervious to common exploits that exist with SSL or TLS certificates is a plus no matter the industry. Basically, TopiaCoin is set to revolutionize the idea of data integrity on Blockchain networks. TopiaCoin is set to boost the security and immutability of Blockchain technology while allowing for high scalability, interoperability and easy collaborations in all industries.

The US Securities and Exchanges Commission(SEC) has charged Centra Tech co-founders, Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas, with fraud. Farkas was arrested over the weekend attempting to flee the US.

Their coin offering has been suspended after raising USD 32 million selling “unregistered securities”. The charge has been made by the SEC against Sharma and Farkas of “orchestrating a fraudulent coin offering”.

The SEC made a statement reporting that both Sharma and Farkas had no relationship with Visa, Bancorp, and Mastercard after claiming that they would be developing financial products backed by both credit card companies.  Cease and desist letters were issued by the above companies.

It is alleged that Sharma and Farkas sought out and paid celebrities to endorse the ICO, including boxer Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled. The agency also accuses the co-founders of creating fictitious executives and false marketing materials. Centra Tech claimed to have a Harvard MBA and banker Michael Edwards as a co-founder as CEO along with a Jessica Robinson as chief financial officer. Neither of these people actually existed.

A statement by the SEC alleges that “the defendants relied heavily on celebrity endorsements and social media to market their scheme”, going on to point out that “endorsements and glossy marketing are no substitute for the SEC’s registration and disclosure requirements”.

The SEC made it quite clear in January of this year that it wasn’t ready to ban coin offerings, but promised to chase down firms abusing the industry and selling unregistered assets, claiming “that its the bad behaviour of the people taking advantage of the technology we want to look at”.

This year the SEC hinted at cracking down on ICOs as it believes that many offerings are being conducted illegally.  SEC Chairman Jay Clayton suggested that “their promotors and other participants are not following our security laws. Some people say that’s because the law isn’t clear. I don’t buy that for a moment”.

Further regulation is still under discussion.

The post Mayweather-Endorsed ICO Founders Charged with Fraud appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Monex Group, a Tokyo-based financial services group, is considering buying Coincheck. Shares in Monex jumped 23% off news that the retail investor was eyeing the Japanese exchange that was notoriously hacked this year. The move would benefit both parties, giving Monex an entry into the burgeoning crypto markets and granting Coincheck’s owners a way out.

Also read: Google Moves Against Cryptojacking, Bans Chrome Mining Extensions

Coincheck Floats Plans to Check Out

Following the loss of $500 million in NEM, which was hacked in January, Coincheck’s owners have looked increasingly uncomfortable. The exchange has since resumed trading and reimbursed NEM customers, but it was no secret that its owners were seeking a way out. It looks like they may have found one in Monex. The deal, if sealed, could be worth “several billion yen” [several million USD] according to the Nikkei stock exchange.

One of the biggest problems Coincheck has faced in the wake of the hack is restoring customer trust. A changing of the guard would go some way towards achieving that. Monex group is a trading firm specializing in brokerage, foreign exchange, insurance, and alternative investments, but has no exposure to cryptocurrency.

Cryptocurrency exchange acquisitions are extremely rare, although last month Circle concluded its takeover of Poloniex. A week ago, Japan’s Bitarg exchange denied reports that Yahoo was considering purchasing it, and the New York Times’ Nathaniel Popper has tweeted the rumor that South Korean investors are eyeing a $400m move for Bitstamp.

Monex Shares Leap 23%

Shares in Monex Group jumped 23% off news of the Coincheck buyout, hitting their daily limit of 424 yen, and coinciding with bitcoin climbing $400 as the cryptocurrency markets returned to green. The Monex-Coincheck deal looks likely to go through, with the Nikkei reporting that plans are in place for Coincheck’s Chief Executive Koichiro Wada to step down. Before the paperwork can be inked, Monex will seek reassurance from the Japanese Financial Services Agency regarding Coincheck’s registration, which had yet to be approved at the time of January’s $500 million hack.

Do you think the Monex-Coincheck deal will be good for the exchange’s customers? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, and Monex.

Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

The post Monex Shares Jump Following News of Coincheck Acquisition appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Upwards movement across the crypto markets today brings ETH over $400 and BTC climbing higher above $7,000 #NEWS

Bitcoin fell by 50 percent in the first three months of 2018 – a drop that marks the cryptocurrency’s worst Q1 performance on record.

It is estimated that more than 2.3 billion individuals across the globe play video games on some digital platform or another. While the gaming industry as a whole is valued at a staggering $90 billion, only a small number – around 4,000 pro gamers – profit from this blossoming market sector.  

DMarket is essentially a blockchain-based global marketplace that allows users to transform in-game items into real-world commodities. The platform is scalable and allows gamers to trade virtual items for any of their favorite game titles easily.

It is currently quite difficult for users to trade in-game items and earn money solely on the basis of their video game skills. DMarket serves to bridge this gap using smart contracts and blockchain technology.

The platform is secure, stable, and comes loaded with a host of other features such as:

• A one-click sale option
• Real-time asset evaluations
• Live exchanges

All virtual trades can be carried out between two or more gamers irrespective of the platform or console they are using.

Overview

• The platform makes use of smart contracts to serve as a link between gamers and its blockchain without the need for any intermediaries.
• All internal trades and transactions are facilitated by the native DMarket token.
• Owing to its use of an open-source API, DMarket allows third-party game developers to create their own platforms.
• It allows gamers to earn a steady revenue stream in a transparent and fair manner.
• The UI is extremely straightforward and easy to use.

Key Features

First and foremost, DMarket provides blockchain enthusiasts with the opportunity to not only facilitate in-game item trades but also to create fresh digital content. Each transaction must undergo security accreditation so that only traceable processes are registered within the blockchain.

Overview of the current gaming market

Another thing which many gamers will appreciate is that DMarket allows them to switch between games without losing their arsenal of in-game items.

From the perspective of developers and publishers, DMarket embodies an intensive marketing model that allows video game titles to reach a larger, more diverse audience. Not only that, the company also organizes special events, promos, and general advertising events for games to boost their global appeal.

There are other features which really make this platform stand out:

• DMarket allows publishers to maximize their returns by providing them with fees from every exchange involving their intellectual property— i.e., in-game items.
• Gamers are able to earn a steady income stream for playing video games that they love. Additionally, since gamers are required to spend substantial amounts of time hunting for in-game items, the LTV of digital assets increases.
• One of the most underrated aspects of DMarket is that it gives gamers an opportunity to test themselves as content developers and create unique in-game assets for any game stored on DMarket.
• Since the market utilizes smart contracts, it is completely unbiased and transparent. Users can be sure that all profits are distributed automatically using terms that have been agreed upon beforehand.

How DMarket Works

To understand the workings of the DMarket ecosystem, we have to first understand its two primary components.

1. Decentralized blockchain database: as the name implies, this is an independent distributed data storage unit through which all internal transactions need to pass.  Since all processes are facilitated using predefined agreements, users can be sure that no intermediaries are required.
2. DMarket system: this is a trading platform that has the ability to process a large number of operations per second. The governance module of this system was developed using advanced coding techniques that employ Golang and PostgreSQL. Not only that, in order to deliver high performance, DMarket’s developers have chosen a microservice architecture with a RESTful API.

Visual representation of how DMarket works

In addition to all this, DMarket implements clusters built on Kubernetes. This not only helps streamline the overall efficiency of the system but also ensures stable operation of microservices within the market.

Lastly, DMarket uses an independent multimedia storage service. This service serves as a bridge between the platform and its associated blockchain, allowing for high-speed storage of media resources.

About the project

Vlad Panchenko is the founder and CEO of this venture. He is currently ranked as the #1 private merchant of digital games globally, with over 15 million titles sold via online marketplaces such as eBay, G2A, and Kinguin. Vlad is also associated with other high-profile projects:

• Founder of skins.cash, the second-largest virtual items marketplace in the world
• Founder and CEO of SunTechSoft

Alexander Kokhanovsky is the cofounder of this project. Alex has worked in the eSports industry for nearly two decades now and is also the founder of Natus Vincere, one of the most successful eSports teams in history.

Lastly, Andriy Khavryuchenko is the core system architect for DMarket. Andriy is also known for being one of the senior developers of the DASH cryptocurrency. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been in the crypto domain for the past 6 years and has over 26 years of experience in software development.

Token Performance

Released into the market in February of this year, the overall value of DMT has since remained fairly stable.

DMT token lifetime performance chart (courtesy of CoinMarketCap)

The currency hit its market high on the 28th of March when it reached an impressive US$1.85 per token. However, since then, the price has dipped significantly and the value of DMT currently stands at US$0.548 (as of March 31, 2018).

Final thoughts

With the gaming industry expanding at a scary rate, it’s expected that by the year 2020, the revenue generated by this industry will exceed US$128 billion. DMarket has the potential to disrupt this market segment and unlock the potential of in-game item trading for more than 2.3 billion people – the number of people who play games every day.

If you would like to start investing in DMarket, DMT trading pairs are currently available on platforms such as Upbit, Bittrex, EtherDelta, and IDEX.