Day: April 7, 2018

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a warning to firms that deal with cryptocurrency derivatives, as they likely require authorization from the agency to do business.

Posted Friday on the official FCA website, the statement advised that cryptocurrency derivatives have the qualities necessary to be considered tradeable assets. As the statement reads, this means that firms involved with regulated activities using cryptocurrency derivatives are subject to FCA guidelines, as well as any relevant provisions indirectly applicable to European Union regulations.

Despite the FCA declining to acknowledge cryptocurrencies as either currencies or commodities in regards to regulation, the statement notes that it is ”likely” that firms offering cryptocurrency derivatives require authorization to do so.

This would potentially require companies holding initial coin offerings (ICOs) to comply with the FCA guidelines, although the statement noted that this would depend on the nature of the token offered.

Other areas outlined that would fall within the FCA’s regulatory parameters include cryptocurrency futures, cryptocurrency contracts for differences (CFDs) and cryptocurrency options.

The final warning of the statement precautioned firms that neglecting to authorize activities under the FCA’s regulation is a criminal offense. The statement finished, ”Authorized firms offering these products without the appropriate permission may be subject to enforcement action.”.

The FCA on the industry

In 2016, the FCA said that there were no plans in place to regulate the blockchain industry for the time being, as it needed what it described as space to develop.

However, the agency has been outspoken on its unfavorable view towards cryptocurrencies and ICOs. Chief executive of the FCA Andrew Bailey said in December 2017 that Bitcoin investors must be prepared to ” lose all your money”. He compared cryptocurrency investments as similar to gambling.

December 2017 also saw the FCA announce a further study into ICOs, scheduled to determine if there was a need for further regulatory action depending on the applicability of UK laws to the investment model of ICOs.

The post UK Financial Conduct Authority Warns Firms About Crypto Derivatives appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

The shared economy has been growing at a vigorous rate since cash-strapped consumers began sharing more during the 2008 recession. New income streams have been generated from renting out living spaces, cars, sports equipment and power tools. Yet as more consumers participate in peer-to-peer exchanges, average household wealth is not keeping pace.  

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The largest beneficiaries of the sharing economy are the centralized platforms that facilitate the exchanges. Corporate middlemen including accommodation giant AirBNB and car sharing service Uber raked in  $18 billion in revenues in 2016, or 10 percent of the shared economy wealth. Some platforms, such as Uber, take a 30 percent or higher cut to serve as the go between for peer rentals.

Blockchain P2P networks are replacing these corporate structures with community platforms and enticing consumers to jump on board for a greater share of the wealth. The movement of the shared economy to the blockchain is putting more money in the wallets of consumers and creating a new generation of shared economy businesses.

Sharing Economy 2.0

Call it the revenge of the uberites. The blockchain, specifically built to host peer-to-peer networks, distributes economic power and trust, currently concentrated in central authorities, among the users.

High and increasing transaction costs have slowed the collaborative economy’s  growth.The sharing economy generates income when individuals rent out items they are not using. The blockchain significantly lowers the cost of operating peer-to-peer lending by allowing lenders and renters to transact directly over a smart contract. The middleman and costly administrative infrastructure are eliminated.

Trust issues are also replaced by cryptographically secure and traceable transactions. Cyber security has been a growing concern since the identity of tens of millions of Uber drivers and customers was exposed in a 2016 data breach by hackers. AirBNB hosts are becoming victims of online property piracy. In one scheme, an old ad with the original host’s profile is advertised in a different geographic location. When the guests show up at their holiday rental after being coaxed into sending a deposit off of the AirBNB platform, no such rental exists. With a self-executing smart contract, a trackable escrow payment can be provided via the renter’s smart wallet. Payment is only released when the door to the rental is unlocked.

New Collaborative Consumption Models

With the major risks of offering shared services mitigated on the blockchain, many new shared services models are developing. New decentralized marketplaces include home EV charging station operator Share&Charge and shared computing power platform Golem. Soon, 3D printers, parking services and drones will be rented by activating a smart contract with a digital token.

The sharing ethos is also improving upon the blockchain, which has itself fallen victim to centralized, authoritarian control. Skywire is providing a truly disruptive model by creating its own blockchain to host its shared free internet services. The service is accessed via its own cryptocurrency, the Skycoin (SKY).  Internet users can earn Skycoin by sharing their bandwidth with other internet users.

By also collaborating on software development, Skywire is building a better blockchain model for the sharing economy. Over 80 developers across the globe have contributed to the development of the Skywire platform. The new cryptocurrency protocol provides unique advantages over the ECR20 token standard used by most ICO tokens.

One major improvement is on the Bitcoin mining process, which has fallen prey to profiteering owing to a centralized reward-driven protocol. Skywire has replaced the faulty reward mechanism with its own mining process based on the Obelisk consensus algorithm. The Skycoin blockchain is reconciled across all nodes, rather than on a block-by-block basis. The algorithm relies on a web of trust to keep malicious nodes from entering a network.

In addition to the improved mining process, the Skycoin will be distributed in increments over 25 years to prevent inflation and speculation.

Early investors in these shared value creation marketplaces should enjoy more of the economic profit being steered their way.

Tom Lee, former chief equity strategist for JP Morgan Chase, has often provided insights on the cryptocurrency market and Bitcoin; in a recent CNBC interview, he estimated that cryptocurrency holders in the United States owed around USD 25 billion in capital gains taxes.

US tax date impacting market

Lee believes that the present cryptocurrency sell-off is in anticipation of the looming US tax day on 17 April; he also believes that sometime after this date, “market misery” and selling pressure will begin to alleviate, pushing the market back up.

On 23 March, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released a notice describing its treatment of cryptocurrency as virtual currency and, therefore, general property taxation principles and laws were applicable. The small reminder from IRS may be partly responsible for the present sell-off which is profoundly impacting the market.

“This is a massive outflow from crypto to USD, and historical estimates are each $1 of USD outflow is $20-$25 impact on crypto market value,” Lee added in the CNBC report.

Wheels spinning in the USA

The US is undergoing a shift of attitude toward Bitcoin and cryptocurrency practices overall. Since February, the state of Arizona has been passing realistic and promising bills through the Arizona House of Representatives which would reshape how the state interacts, regulates and utilizes cryptocurrencies as well as initial coin offerings (ICOs).

The HB2603, HB2602, and HB2601 bill package, if finally voted law, would mean that Arizona would be the first state to accept cryptocurrency as payment for taxes. Providing a legal definition for tokens and amending old legislation would protect individuals who run blockchain nodes, which is primarily an issue of energy costs caused by computing power.

There is an oddly positive tone emanating from the US; BitcoinNews recently reported that Jay Clayton, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had begun to change his tone on ICOs. He aptly identified the need for lawmakers and regulators to tackle fraudulent blockchain activities to prevent the legal frameworks from restricting “the capacity of this new security”.

In another turn of events, cryptocurrency firm Coinbase is reportedly “in talks” with SEC in regards to the trading platform becoming a licensed and regulated virtual money entity.

If Tom Lee is correct, capital gains tax made from cryptocurrency this tax period will account for about 20% of the US total. If these estimations are anywhere near accurate, it could be an indication to the government to seriously consider blockchain technologies and their accompanying cryptocurrencies as a vital fabric in the weave of technological and financial advancements of the future.

The post US Cryptocurrency Holders Could Owe $25 Billion in Taxes appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Even though smart contracts are a massive improvement in the world of blockchain technology, their code often leaves much to be desired. Every smart contract needs proper auditing, yet it seems few companies are actually pursuing this option right now. Quantstamp recently took a look at Bancor’s smart contract and noticed some discrepancies.

The Bancor Smart Contract Issues

To put everything into its proper perspective, the Bancor smart contract is not under immediate threat as of right now. Most of the code is well-written and does not warrant any changes whatsoever. However, Quantstamp did identify two vulnerabilities which the team will need to look into sooner rather than later. For the five contracts being audited, only a few aspects triggered an official warning.

Quantstamp is doing the entire blockchain industry a favor by properly analyzing all of these smart contracts. The last thing anyone needs is another repeat of The DAO, with millions of dollars worth of funds being lost or stolen and necessitating another Ethereum hard fork. For Bancor, it seems addressing these issues will not be much of a problem, assuming they take this feedback to heart.

The two vulnerabilities discovered by Quantstamp are well worth taking notice of, though. The first flaw occurs when the BancorConverter contract executes the state of another contract. According to Quantstamp, this can create a problem, as it takes “little skill to exploit” the reentrancy flaw. The company even highlighted the line of code which is at risk, and it will be interesting to see whether or not Bancor addresses this problem soon.

Moreover, a total of ten warnings arose in the assertion failure department of this smart contract. While this flaw is not as severe as the previous one, it could hint at other critical vulnerabilities in the smart contract. Quantstamp has not found any of those flaws as of yet, but they did highlight several lines of code which could cause problems down the line.

This information needs to be taken at face value, even though it’s still up to the Bancor team to review this report and act upon it. While discovering potential smart contract vulnerabilities is a positive development, it goes to show that audits like these should have happened weeks, if not months ago. Any company relying on this technology needs a proper independent audit at some point. Why so few companies decide to pursue this option will always remain a mystery.

It will be quite interesting to see what Quantstamp’s other investigations turn up. With so many smart contract-based projects raising millions of dollars, it is evident that looking over everything with a fine-tooth comb is more than warranted at this stage. Pointing out the flaws found in various smart contracts is of the utmost importance in this industry, although no one can force companies to take such advice to heart.

Indian teenager Hashita Arora, just 16 years of age, has received an offer from a Californian blockchain investment firm for her home-developed tracking app.

Hashita has gained worldwide attention as a result of her success with the app, one of many young people making an impact around the globe within the crypto community. Despite her meagre years, she has attracted the attention of Californian-based blockchain investment firm Redwood City Ventures.

The app is a popular iOS application used to track crypto prices. It helps retail investors to monitor prices of more than 1,000 cryptocurrencies across about 20 exchanges and in 32 fiat currencies, in ten languages. Launched in late January in Hashita’s hometown north of New Dehli, the application soared to the top of the app store charts in 24 hours.

Hashita received racist hate mail and misogynistic attacks online from people doubting the origins of the new app and casting doubts on her ability to invent the technology. The young Indian national originally studied in the US at an MIT summer programme and is currently applying for work in the country through a program currently offering visas to foreigners with exceptional abilities. Talking about her earlier experiences online, she commented, “I learned that the online world can be cruel. But I feel I have an entrepreneurial spirit and I love startup culture.”

She said that she was delighted to be a part of the Redwood City Ventures team and looks for support in the development of other ideas and products.

Home-educated Hashita had been learning about coding and digital design since the age of 13. She went on to learn about cryptocurrencies in a tech magazine and quickly became passionate about the subject, realizing an opportunity existed to use her skills to develop a help app.

It was Redwood City Ventures founder, Sean Walsh, who eventually discovered Harshita after posting a cryptocurrency app advertisement on LinkedIn. On meeting Harshita, Walsh was impressed with her maturity and intelligence, realizing she had designed an app that would be both useful and could be marketed at a good price.

The young Indian’s next venture is to plan to use the money earned from her app to improve her education. She then plans to move to Silicon Valley.

The post Indian Teenager Finds Californian Buyer for Crypto App appeared first on BitcoinNews.com.

Given the evolution of the digital currency market in the last couple of months, portfolio trackers have become a must-have service for crypto investors throughout the world.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

BitUniverse represents an innovative portfolio tracker, available on Android and iOS, which gives users access to a wide variety of features designed to make managing crypto assets easier, while also increasing profit margins and investor efficiency.

The platform has been built on top of five pillars, which also represent BitUniverse’s main features. These are the crypto portfolio (which allows user to check their holdings, prices and profits), professional data (presented visually through candlestick and pie charts), real-time ticker (supporting over 170 exchanges and more than 5,000 coins), sync from exchange (allowing users to automatically track their portfolio via API data imports), and lastly, timely alerts (customizable notifications based on changes in prices).

BitUniverse has become quite popular as it’s the only service in the world to offer complete asset management, even beating out leading apps like Blockfolio. This means that users can add all of their wallet addresses and also track mined coins, assets on exchanges, ICOs, airdrops, and fiat to get a balanced overall picture of their crypto finances.

The API integration allows data on assets alongside transaction history to be pulled automatically from exchanges. Do keep in mind the fact that data is read-only, thus security is ensured. The same principle applies for assets inside wallet addresses, a feature that is unavailable on similar platforms.

Some of the other exciting services offered by BitUniverse include, but are not limited to:

•       Quick price updates every 2-4 seconds;
•       24/7 Telegram-based customer support;
•       Fully-customizable alerts that notify users when coins exceed or drop below a certain target price;
•       The ability to track and sort coins via their market caps;
•       A UI designed with ease-of-use in mind that offers pie charts, candlestick charts and more;
•       A built-in Ethereum ERC-20 wallet available on Android, a feature that remains unavailable on BitUniverse’s competitors;

It is important to point out the fact that BitUniverse is still in development, which is actively influenced by user feedback. In the future, the app plans to add a couple of more services, such as multiple portfolio management, advanced alerts, order-book details and more.

For more information about BitUniverse, feel free to check out their website, or try the app out on your iOS/Android device.

Most readers will be familiar with cryptocurrency hard forks. It seems that we will soon also be dealing with something known as a hard spoon, which operates in a very different manner. It is a concept that may become more common as time progresses, even though it remains to be seen how much value this approach brings to the table.

The Hard Spoon Concept in a Nutshell

Unlike what one would expect from a hard fork, the hard spoon concept takes a very different approach. The first hard spoon will be deployed in May or early June of this year, and seems to involve the Ethermint token. As blockchain projects tend to get a bit more complicated and reliant on other platforms, it is evident some interesting problems will occur at some point.

A hard spoon essentially is a new blockchain which takes the account state of an existing chain into account. People familiar with the concept of a hard fork will recall that some projects take a “snapshot” of an existing blockchain and issue the newly created tokens accordingly. While this does not necessarily warrant a novel approach, the hard spoon is not focused on competition.

Instead, it was established mainly as a way to provide broader access. Replicating the account balances of an existing cryptocurrency can be rather bothersome in some cases, yet this becomes a trivial manner when using the hard spoon approach. For the first creation of this kind, the Ethereum blockchain will be hard-spooned to ensure that ETH holders will be able to access their existing coins in the Ethermint VM zone.

Moreover, the existing balances ported over to the new VM can be used as free tokens within Ethermint itself. It is an interesting approach which may not make much sense to people not showing any interest in Ethermint, but it will still be interesting to see how this venture plays out in the long run.

According to the team, a hard spoon can best be described as a meta-protocol on top of a blockchain to create a token which inherits the blockchain’s underlying token balances. It is a concept which was first proposed by Vitalik Buterin, although most people overlooked his comment at the time, by the look of things.

In the end, it is good to see a different approach to bringing value to new tokens which borrow some elements from existing cryptocurrencies. Rather than take value away from the main currency, a hard spoon will invite community members from the original chain to explore a new platform.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

A recurring theme throughout otherwise worthwhile and meritable cryptocurrency projects is a striking inability to take on legitimate real world usage. While in theory, such networks have wildly exciting applications, the reality is that such meaningful use is impractical. Talking.IM’s future-ready blockchain, however, provides a network fully prepared to take on any level of use worldwide.

Disclosure: This is a Sponsored Article

Dynamic Sharding with Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAG)

Talking.IM (TIM) is a revolutionary blockchain network that utilizes a two-layer implementation that shards, or splits, the universal blockchain into a number of DAGs(graphs) in order to maximize efficiency of the network and provide a framework that can scale to any level of activity, potentially taking on even 100 million transactions per section.

Essentially, graphs represent geographic localities. The more activity the network sees, the more graphs are utilized. For example, if a graph represents Asia, and an explosion of usage is seen in Singapore (perhaps a major industry adopts TIM), the graph representing Asia would fork into two- with the Singapore locality maintaining their own graph and the rest of Asia operating on the same graph. If more and more usage is seen in Singapore, the nation could even see sharding into any number of graphs until the entire volume of activity can be seamlessly executed.

Graphs represent the first layer of the Talking.IM network. These sharded graphs exemplify a distributed merkle tree. What this means is that participants in the network do not need to interact with and store the entirety of this layer of the network. Additionally, each block in the network only needs to store a small portion of the total layer- or a fraction of the merkle tree. This implementation eliminates bloat that would otherwise cripple the scalability of the network- as can be seen in a vast majority of existing cryptocurrencies. This also provides an even more efficient manner of interactions, because the geographic sharding of the network means all transactions place in proximity with one another, thus reducing latency between peers. Additionally, this represents a much more eco-friendly approach than can be seen by other projects.

The second layer of TIM is the universal blockchain. This global chain is tasked to interact with and verify the individual graphs. The miners propagating the first layer graphs cooperate with miners on the second layer to ensure that no graph is growing independently from the global network. Essentially, top layer miners act as organizers- connecting a representative node from every graph to each node so that every graph will maintain consensus with each other and the top layer blockchain.

Applications of the Network

Beyond the massive scale of transactions, TIM utilizes a virtual machine for the creation and communication for smart contracts throughout the platform. With smart contracts, more intuitive and impactful activity can take place on the network.

The first implementation the development team is working on is an application called Blockchain Taxi. Blockchain Taxi will represent a peer-to-peer alternative to legacy ridesharing services (Uber, Lyft, etc.). By removing the middleman, users of the platform are not subject to excess fees and abuses of privacy associated with the centralized provider. Additionally, as graphs represent geographic localities, riders and drivers are connected in a dramatically more efficient manner, heavily reducing latency and redundancy so that connections take place in the quickest and least resource intensive manner possible.

As the network grows, it is logical to suggest that individuals and groups worldwide will create their own smart applications to interact with TIM exactly how they see fit. With a massively scaling network of potentially 100 million TPS, Talking.IM represents a blockchain environment fully equipped to take on any and all developments built upon it, that can similarly take on any level of activity experienced by said developments.

Every dollar counts when it comes to retirement savings. So, why not provide a mechanism to younger investors that ensures transparency, control, and smart investment decisions in the long run? That mechanism is a platform which understands how to aggregate all of your investment portfolios in one location, on the blockchain.

As of July 2017, the National Retirement Risk Index determined that more than half of working-age households were at risk of being unable to maintain their current standard of living in retirement. What’s troublesome is the lack of control over portfolios and the lack of transparency available to investors. For millennials, the time is now to get a hold of their finances, let alone their financial future. But how do they go about doing this?

Putting Control Back Into The Hands of The Younger Investor

With a traditional retirement plan comes a lack of engagement and the inability to control the structure of how the plan is set up. Many times, younger investors have had others set them up for them, whether it’s mom and dad, a planner, or even a broker. Nevertheless, there is still one major problem: the investor is left out, until it comes time to retire. This is not a realistic approach in ensuring financial strength, independence, and wealth, at least in today’s digital age. So, what can an investor do in order to meet their realistic retirement goals?

Aggregate Your Portfolios

Raphael Vantroost, CEO of Auctus, believes that proper retirement or goal-based saving thrives on a holistic portfolio construction. “It’s all about approaching investments as a whole, not in parts,” said Vantroost. He emphasized the importance of having a single location, (i.e., a blockchain) where all of one’s portfolios can be placed and analyzed with all the numbers, figures, and risk factors. This allows for a better connection between the two parties that really matter – the investor and the entities holding his or her funds.

Most importantly, it addresses the lack of transparency and centralization, as platforms like Auctus, which utilize blockchains for specific needs, want to bring individuals closer to services and their funds. The idea is to bring them together, not keep them apart.

Allocating Assets

In my conversation with Vantroost, he indicated it may be smart to allocate assets to certain accounts, but maybe to allocate a smaller portion towards investing in cryptocurrency. “With the volatility of the market, it’s never a good idea to invest everything you have, but when you allocate a smaller portion, you never know what you’re going to find,” he explained. We’ve always been taught about the ultimate battle strategy: divide and conquer. Same concept here. Diversify your funds.

Risk Management

With the emergence of smart contracts and automated/robotic risk advisors, the chances of jeopardizing your portfolio or making potentially harmful financial decisions are reduced. Having tailored analytics based on one’s individual portfolio could provide significant value to the investor when it comes to making informed decisions on risk/return.

Digital History

By placing your portfolio on a blockchain, there’s a digital trail. You now have an encrypted, well-guarded history of the life of the portfolio, from beginning to end. There’s very little chance of fund manipulation or head-scratching in an effort to understand why a portfolio is returning the dollar amount that it is.

It’s all there. On the blockchain. The clock is ticking on your retirement. Start early.

Overstock’s CFO resigns for the same post at Blockchain-based indirect subsidiary DeSoto that involves Overstock’s CEO Patrick Byrne. #NEWS

Fake news might start online, but it can have serious offline consequences for businesses, individuals and communities. While social networks have to tackle the problem of misleading or inflammatory content, there also needs to be a way to mitigate its effects in the real world. That’s where Vizsafe comes in, by providing a platform for people on the ground to report on the accuracy or otherwise of information that – if left unchecked – could result in unnecessary concern, disruption and lost revenues.

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News that Cambridge Analytica, a UK data analysis and communications firm, may have manipulated voters in the 2016 US Presidential Election with carefully-targeted misinformation has placed intense scrutiny on Facebook as a distributor of propaganda and ‘Fake News’. While speculation and rumor online is nothing new, there is the growing danger that misinformation starts to have an impact on businesses and individuals. Consider that in September 2016, Donald Trump tweeted that a bomb had gone off after an explosion in New York, with Hillary Clinton soon following suit. The event became a launch pad for various terrorism speculation, but it later became clear that the explosion had not been terror-related at all. The narrative was based on a false premise. For this reason, big tech firms like Google, Facebook and Twitter could soon be held liable for certain posts on their platforms and laws proposed in the UK last year could lead to heavy fines if such content is not removed quickly.

Eyes on the ground

Currently, Vizsafe has a ‘geoaware’ solution that helps to mitigate this risk with actionable intelligence. Already in use at some of the world’s most valuable facilities, including municipalities, sports and entertainment venues, schools and universities, Vizsafe’s platform aggregates, maps and distributes visual data from smartphones and other sensor networks. Vizsafe users can easily post, map and share incident reports from their phones with photos, videos and messages, providing real-time information that can improve response and reduce risk. This proven solution links these user submitted reports with security camera feeds and other critical sensor data to deliver total domain awareness for its customers.

Everyday, customers like Gillette Stadium, home of the NFL’s New England Patriots, rely on Vizsafe for their security, risk mitigation and facility maintenance needs. Using Vizsafe’s platform and mobile app, reports can be validated immediately, which accelerates response and avoids the potentially far-reaching consequences of misinformation. The idea is to encourage staff, partners and visitors alike to report potential problems in real-time, giving the venue ‘eyes on the ground’.

Crowdsourcing safety

What Vizsafe enables is real-world verification of a threat or, conversely, early indications that all is in fact well. And while a single report may not have enough legitimacy or reliability to put minds to rest, the fact that intelligence is crowdsourced and submitted by many different individuals gives it far greater credibility. In a world where a hoax, false alert or misunderstanding can spark a panic just as effectively as a real threat, Vizsafe can be used to ensure the response is measured.

With smartphone cameras in hand, the crowd itself has become the most powerful sensor network available, which is why Vizsafe set its sights on how best to harness this resource for community safety. Now, Vizsafe is preparing to launch a new, fully public version of this app that will enable anyone to report issues they see, whether in a sports and entertainment venue, in their place of work or around their neighborhood. And, while it features the same powerful functionality as the existing app – aggregating, filtering, mapping and displaying data, and alerting the appropriate teams – it also incorporates a game-changing new feature.

Blockchain and Doing Well by Doing Good

Using the blockchain, Vizsafe is integrating a reward token into its platform to create a decentralized peer-to-peer ledger of crowdsourced safety reports worldwide. The SPOT token will incentivize citizens to upload reports within a given municipality or facility, or concerning a particular issue. When a reported issue has been addressed, a member of the appropriate organization or agency can flag it as ‘resolved’ using the same app. Assuming the report was legitimate, the person who uploaded it automatically receives a SPOT reward to their smartphone. This encourages people to ‘be the change they want to see’ in their communities, rather than walking on by.

While it’s down to Facebook and other social networks to police their own platforms, it is their interface with the real world that Vizsafe is so well placed to deal with. For example, people with first-hand knowledge or footage of a major incident will be able to upload this to give the authorities and first responders a better idea of what was happening on the ground – rather than forcing them to rely on hearsay, rumor and inaccurate social media reports. More routine use cases would involve reporting general safety hazards, such as a fallen tree on a powerline, broken glass on a sidewalk, pollution spills or even a lost dog, thereby saving both public and private organizations time and money, while improving community well-being. Consensus is delivered, recorded, and verifiable in the blockchain by the Vizsafe platform, whether it’s the existence of a threat or an ‘all clear’ message, Vizsafe offers a valuable and more credible counterpoint to other online sources.

To find out more about the forthcoming blockchain-powered version of Vizsafe’s safety crowdsourcing platform and to learn how their members are doing well by doing goodTM, visit https://www.vizsafe.com/blockchain.

With over 57 million players in 2017, fantasy sports has rapidly grown and become a vital part of the electronic gaming market. Fantasy drafts across all sports continue to grow in popularity, especially with sites like FanDuel and DraftKings drawing in huge pots of cash. Whereas we once settled for filling out brackets for March Madness and placing cash bets on games, the new landscape of fantasy sports has players drafting and trading the virtual counterparts of their favorite players and building teams across every major sport to compete with other players for cash prizes.

But with all its success, it is no stranger to accusations and the courtroom. The online world of fantasy sports has faced a number of challenges over the years, ranging from legal battles, ineffective marketing budgets, and complex interfaces, to little to no external competition. And if we’ve learned anything from these companies, it’s that the industry needs to change, and fast.

What Is Online Fantasy?

For those new to the world of fantasy, the idea is that individuals are able to run and manage their own sports teams, starting with a real-time draft, maintain the team throughout an entire season, and earn points based on their players’ statistics as well as the fantasy platform’s in-game rules.

With companies coming out of the woodwork claiming to provide fun and fair platforms, fans still have yet to be provided with an answer to industry-wide accusations of manipulation and insider gaming. It’s not about the competition, it’s about redefining the industry to allow for a better understanding state-wide as to the legality and functionality of online fantasy.

Check The Scoreboard: Challenges Facing The Industry

1. Uncertainty As To Its Legal Status

If we were to check the scoreboard on how this industry is perceived, the line still hasn’t been drawn very clearly as to the regulations. Fantasy sports is not just online betting, as many consider it to be gambling as well. While the legality varies from place to place, creating laws and ensuring they are followed is still a grey area.

Over the years, the two major pioneers in the industry, FanDuel and DraftKings, have faced litigation over accusations of “insider gaming” and fund manipulation. While the law moves quickly, fantasy sports faces legal issues on the regular. The majority of issues surround unfamiliarity with the industry at large in conjunction with the lack of transparency in the gaming process. What many people deem a game of skill, others claim is a game of manipulation and scandal.

Introducing this world to the blockchain could help alleviate these issues, ensuring total security and defined terms as to how the platforms operate and function. Time will tell what the future of fantasy holds in each state.

2. Understanding The Rulebook

With the expansion of the gaming industry, people are finding new ways in which to play games, via their smartphones, tablets, and other devices. There is no doubt a steep learning curve to the game, especially for those who are unfamiliar with the world of online fantasy.

3. Player Verification

As a result of strict regulations and anti-money laundering initiatives, many gaming platforms require users/players to go through complicated verification procedures each time they want to deposit and withdraw funds. This requires providing proof of a government-issued identification card, SSN, and/or proof of residency. Adding to that, the amount of time it takes for funds to be deposited and withdrawn is less than timely. Why? Banks are cautious when it comes to dishing out funds for an area that seems a lot like gambling.

4. Lack of Transparency

Many platforms are protected by the creators/owners, rather than place the control with third parties. Ultimately, this presents many questions as to fairness of play, usage of player statistics, and other in-game rules.

“Even among the largest companies in the industry, we don’t know how the software operates because they are closed, proprietary systems that we’re not allowed to investigate,” said Viktor Mangazeev, CEO at MyDFS, a company building a blockchain-based fantasy sports platform. Mangazeev told The Merkle that it’s easy for rumors to occur about insider gaming, bot-assisted play, or even the manipulation of game statistics which can cast doubt on the entire operation. Platforms like MyDFS that use blockchain technology can make the changes mentioned above, which would help improve the experience for online players. “It opens up avenues for new ways to play,” explained Mangazeev.

The Blockchain Referee: Overcoming These Challenges

Utilizing blockchains and smart contracts allows for fair play and more transparency as it relates to in-game data and transactions among parties. The risk of “insider-gaming” would be significantly reduced, as the contracts and transactions are essentially automated and encrypted, based on terms agreed upon prior to the season.

It’s time to streamline the user experience online. It starts with playing by the rules. The way to do this? Blockchain technology.

Ensuring Fair Calls Through A Decentralized, Transparent Gaming Process

By utilizing smart contract technology, users and regulators would be able to check the system’s game data and transactions at any point in time. Storing in-game statistics and important data relevant to every game on a blockchain ensures fairness across the platform.

Blockchain technology should incentivize major players like FanDuel and DraftKings to prove to the industry and state legislatures that they are serious about ensuring fair, secure, and legal sports betting. Otherwise, they will continue to face allegations as they have over the years.

This system can come in handy for events like the World Cup. With its global reach, having a system with a centralized token could represent the same worth, regardless of a player’s location.

Streamlining Financial Transactions

Due to the decentralized nature of blockchains, users/players can access an anonymous transaction history, and investors can monitor their players’ performance. Everyone benefits from transactions that occur almost instantly, rather than waiting days for them to process.

MyDFS, a blockchain-based daily fantasy sports solution, offers such a platform which aims to connect sports fans around the world with a transparent, easy-to-use, and fair platform. MyDFS’s CEO told The Merkle that when it comes to streamlining, the exclusion of fiat is the solution because it removes the middleman and other intermediaries that make it more difficult to deposit and withdraw funds. This ensures security and accessibility for the community. “Excluding fiat makes online fantasy sports a safe and easier process,” said Mangazeev.