Day: April 20, 2018

Tron’s product has not convinced Vitalik Buterin, he said as part of a mainstream press interview. #NEWS

Law enforcement agencies are showing great interest in Bitcoin users as of right now. They mainly intend to crack down on illicit activities taking place in the world of cryptocurrency. It now appears Amazon is preparing to enter this space as well, as the company recently received a patent to “identity Bitcoin users”. It’s an intriguing development well worth keeping an eye on.

Amazon and Bitcoin Tracking

The blockchain analysis business continues to grow. Various companies are active in this space as of right now, including the likes of Chainalysis and BitFury Group. It makes perfect sense for those firms to track Bitcoin users, as they have both been active in the cryptocurrency industry for quite some time now. Amazon, on the other hand, has not.

That makes a recent patent by Amazon all the more surprising. More specifically, the e-commerce giant obtained a patent to combine data from various sources to track cryptocurrency users. While that is not an especially surprising approach, Amazon hasn’t shown any major interest in cryptocurrency until now. The company has refuted any claims that it would start using this payment method, for obvious reasons. However, it does see merit in blockchain analysis, which is pretty remarkable.

Offering such a service to law enforcement agencies makes a lot of sense. After all, there are a lot of concerns about people using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a way to launder money and evade taxes. Given recent IRS reports regarding cryptocurrency holdings, it is evident that few people actually disclose their Bitcoin portfolios to the taxman. Identifying those users is a major priority for the IRS.

Even though Amazon filed its blockchain analysis patent back in 2014, it was only approved earlier this week. This comes at a critical time for the cryptocurrency industry, as law enforcement agencies have been showing an increasing interest in cryptocurrency analysis as of late.

What makes this patent so interesting is that it revolves around a “streaming data marketplace”. This seems to indicate that Amazon plans to create a solution which could be used to provide valuable information that others could buy for their own purposes. Customers could also subscribe to the feeds for specific data. That information could pertain to Bitcoin transactions, but it would also accommodate other undisclosed currencies.

For the time being, it remains unclear when Amazon plans to roll out this platform. With the patent only being granted this week, it is possible the firm has yet to build the necessary infrastructure to make all this happen. At the same time, Amazon is confirming its interest in cryptocurrencies by taking this route. It remains highly unlikely the platform will ever accept Bitcoin or altcoin payments, though, as it has no incentive to do so at this time.

JPMorgan Chase has partnered with National Bank of Canada and others to trial a blockchain platform aimed to improve the debt issuance process.

Have you, as an environmentally conscious person, installed a smart energy monitor in your house or business, but your electricity bill has not fallen, or worse, increased?

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Smart home energy meters are designed to save on power costs by monitoring your electricity usage and adjusting it according to peak and low cost times. In the interconnected Internet of Things world, these devices will even run your power hungry appliances at the most cost opportune times. Programming your washing machine to turn on in the wee hours of the night, when the price per kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity is at its lowest, could save a lot of money.

Unfortunately for the green consumer, few homes buying smart home energy devices are using them. Why is getting more efficiency from your electrons so tough?

Smart Homes Lack Smart Real Time Energy Management Systems

Behind the scenes, the buying and selling of electricity from the electric power grid is an inefficient process that adds a lot of costs to your power bill. The real time management of electricity supply and demand is, in reality, a process that can take days or weeks.

Electricity suppliers are buying and selling electricity in a highly inefficient and non-transparent power market. Even if your local energy supplier gets a good price for the power, it can take days and lots of paper shuffling to settle the transaction. Meanwhile, the delivery of power to end users has to be scheduled in advance, and congestion on electricity grids is common and costly. Most utilities are still on a monthly, rather than a real time, metering and billing system. In the current power market, real time response to electricity supply and demand does not exist.

Make Your Smart Home Hum With True Energy Demand Response

A conglomerate of European energy suppliers and traders has come together to make the smart home smarter and more affordable. Bittwatt has built a smart energy grid on the blockchain that fully enables the smart home. Electricity suppliers, traders, grid operators and consumers buy, sell and transport electricity with transparent smart contracts in one integrated electricity market ecosystem. Electricity demand and supply can be monitored, and electricity balanced, traded, delivered and paid for in real time across, not only local, but also regional and national markets.

The Bittwatt platform does more than help you monitor your electrons. Real demand response means a smart home energy monitor connected to the Bittwatt energy market will bring you real energy savings, and more comfort and convenience to your home.

Solar rooftop panels and other renewable energy gear can be monitored in real time, allowing you to identify times and devices that deliver cost savings. An advantage of a demand response system that monitors supply and demand in real time is the opportunity to optimize the selling of electricity back to the grid. These devices already have the artificial intelligence to make smart home decisions, and with the real time data feeding into them you can now make a profit.

Your household energy consumption patterns can be tracked and changed. You can now monitor the energy consumption of appliances and family members in your household. Who is using how many watts and when? Now that you know the real price at peak times, you can change energy consumption behaviour in your household.

Members of the Bittwatt partnership—comprising Bulgarian energy market coordinator and systems balancer Energy Market TSC, Romanian Power Supplier EVA Energy, and Macedonian electricity supplier Future Energy—already manage over 1,000 GWh of electricity in the European power market.

The footprint of their executive and advisory team of energy market and blockchain experts spans the global electricity market grid.  Co-founders Christian Hagmann and Daniel Cristina Stoicescu have over three decades of experience creating IT solutions to optimize electricity market operations in Europe. Hagmann also consulted on the development of COSS (Crypto-One-Stop-Solution)—the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange and payment gateway that will help facilitate Bittwatt transactions over the blockchain.

To benefit from the advantages of running your home on real time energy consumption,  start buying your kWhs is BWTs—the cryptocurrency for a truly demand responsive electricity market. On the Bittwatt platform, one BWT equals one kWh, or about $0.12 at current electricity prices. The initial coin offering (ICO) began on April 1st and runs for 60 days. Do not wait; The pre-ICO hit its target of $10.8 million in five days. Those who buy BWTs in the first phase of the ICO will receive a 20 percent bonus.

The next time your smart home brightens and dims the light as you walk from room to room, you will be saving money.

MEPs vote in favor of amending EU AML transparency laws, which will put an end to anonymity in the crypto trading sphere. #NEWS

A lesser-known bitcoin indicator appears to be undergoing a notable change, one that could signal where the crypto asset’s price is heading.

It does not happen all that often that cryptocurrency projects quickly raise over $100 million. Although we have seen a literal ICO craze, Intangible Labs is doing things the traditional way. Rather than rely on crowdfunding, the company has raised $133 million from private investors. This is a pretty significant deal for the Princeton University graduate-led venture.

What Exactly is Intangible Labs?

While it is commendable to see Princeton graduates show a keen interest in cryptocurrency, most people will not know the name Intangible Labs. That is not surprising, as not too much is known about this particular venture at this time. We do know the group plans to create a brand-new cryptocurrency and associated infrastructure. Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, this will be another stablecoin.

For those unaware, a stablecoin is a digital asset which has its value pegged to tangible assets, such as bullion, oil, or other resources. It can also be pegged to fiat currencies such as the US dollar, euro, and so forth. In the case of Intangible Labs, the team will create a currency which will maintain a stable value in the same manner. It will be issued on top of the Ethereum blockchain.

The new token will have a built-in mechanism to keep its price stable. That seems to be in line with how USDT and TrueUSD work, although it remains a bit unclear what the currency will be pegged to exactly. A digital asset does not magically maintain its value, even though we have seen some cryptocurrencies attempt to do so. None of those currencies were widely used, though, which makes the price control aspect somewhat trivial.

With $133 million having been raised through private funding, Intangible Labs can now build the necessary infrastructure for this new digital asset. Its backers include Bain Capital Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, and Google’s venture arm, among others. The demand for cryptocurrency-related investment opportunities is not slowing down by any means.

Making a positive impact in the cryptocurrency world with a stablecoin will not be easy. So far, most stablecoins have been scrutinized due to a lack of auditing and other shady practices. Whether or not Intangible Labs can address those concerns prior to launching its new token remains to be seen. For now, the team is still debating how the tokens will be issued, as there is still an option to conduct a public crowdsale despite the $133 million investment.

Additionally, it seems Intangible Labs will avoid scrutiny from the SEC due to the stable nature of this token. As it cannot go up in value, there is no room for profits to be made, and hence it is not a security token. That doesn’t mean the agency will not look into this particular venture, but there should be no regulatory issues.

Global chip manufacturing giant attributes lower 2H18 revenue forecast in part to changing cryptocurrency mining landscape. #NEWS

Taiwan will formally regulate bitcoin under anti-money laundering rules by the end of the year, says its minister of justice.

Bulleon, a universal Digital asset Sphere, is organizing a decentralized ICO. During this ICO, their own token, the Bulleon (BLN) will be sold in ten phases.

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The Bulleon cryptocurrency platform is designed to make trading easier and more simple. Eventually, Bulleon wants to create a safe and above all a practical digital asset that is both clear and easy to use, as well as attractive. The aim of the digital asset platform is to provide its users with a strong, concept-driven cryptocurrency. Users of the platform can quickly see profits and gains, to get all the possible benefits, without the extra effort.

During each phase, 760,000 BLN will be sold for a fixed price. Only when all the BLN in a phase are sold out, the next phase starts. Each phase, the price of the BLN is going up. So each phase, you will get less BLN per Ethereum (ETH; table 1).

Table 1. Phase structure of the Bulleon ICO sale

The Bulleon ICO is unique in its kind. Even though it has the same structure as other ICO’s, it is different from them, in that the people behind Bulleon decided to use a different approach to fund their ICO sale. Normally, there would also be a pre-sale. During this private sale, a big portion of the tokens would already be sold to large investors at a relatively low price. Regular investors would therefore pay more for a token than large, wealthy investors would.

Bulleon choose a different approach for its ICO. This way, smaller investors can already participate in an earlier stage. This system, where all the tokens are available for everybody in the market, right from the beginning, is a decentralized ICO. This has never been done before. Bulleon is the first platform in the world to give everybody, regardless of power, wealth or size of the contribution, an equal opportunity. Doing this, Bulleon tries to revolutionize the way of financial interactions.

The earlier in the ICO you will buy tokens, the higher your returns on investment will be (figure 1). Therefore, everybody is invited to join the ICO in one of the initial stages. The funds of the sold tokens will all be used to make Bulleon stronger, by investing on marketing, core development and services among others. Moreover, 80% of surplus funds (ETH) will be distributed to the top 25% in total ownership percentage in relation to the total surplus of funds.

The BLN is a shareholder’s certificate with voting rights and the right to receive dividents from Bulleon’s operating income. Check out the website of Bulleon on https://bulleon.io for more information or check out this ongoing ICO on https://bulleon.io/#ico or https://medium.com/@Bulleon_net/bulleon-decentralized-ico-24e2cc8b8f65.

Crypto markets see growth across the board, BTC and ETH up, and Ripple way up with 20 percent growth over a 24 hour period. #NEWS

Many criticize Bitcoin due to the power it consumes to mine, but rarely is it put in context of other industries and economic efficiency overall. Here we debunk some of the energy myths and look at whether we should look at Bitcoin as a store of energy as well as value.

Global economic leaders are meeting today in Washington DC for the Second G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, with cryptocurrency regulation firmly on the agenda.

As a follow-up to the Buenos Aires G20 meeting in March, where the need for a global plan for cryptocurrency regulation was initially discussed, more talks on the matter are set to take place in Washington.

The previous meeting of the world’s 20 largest economies reached some agreement, in terms of state leaders recognizing the importance of cryptocurrencies and their role in revolutionizing many banking procedures. The G20 has previously stressed the necessity to prevent the crypto industry from being misused by malicious agents, fraudulent schemes and other criminal activity.  However, members also stressed the need to not hinder the development of the technology through regulation.

The IMF and the World Bank Group will also be participating in the meeting that will be attended by 55 delegations, whose heads include 22 finance ministers, 18 central bank governors, and 9 international organization leaders.

The G20 had previously stated that this July was the date set for a package of recommendations to be put forward regarding cryptocurrency regulation, and June when the first practical proposal for crypto regulation must also be presented. In March, Italian central bank governor Ignazio Visco commented that he expected the recommendations would be overseen by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).

Speaking after the Argentina conference, a senior Japanese official said, “Many G20 members didn’t take crypto-assets too positively”. The official acknowledged that “some form of regulation was necessary” and suggested finding agreement between nations with varied interests and circumstances could be difficult.

Brazil’s central bank president Ilan Goldfajn said that cryptocurrencies would not be regulated in his country and Brazil may not agree to any regulations that are outlined by the G20 on crypto assets.

France agrees on the need for regulation and has already banned deposits and loans made in cryptocurrencies. It is likely that not all nations will take such extreme measures in regulating the use and trading of digital currencies.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has been given the task of addressing regulatory issues as the talks progress over the course of 2018.

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