Day: April 28, 2018

It seems all cryptocurrencies are still going through a bullish phase as of right now. With the Bitcoin Dominance Index on the decline, the altcoins are slowly making their mark on the industry. The Cardano price is a great example in this regard., as it has risen to $0.34 over the past few hours. A remarkable turn of events in the altcoin industry.

Cardano Price Remains Bullish

As is always the case when cryptocurrencies go through a bullish spell, there will be a brief correction afterward. In the case of the Cardano price, that correction has not been all that significant, even though there was a fair amount of bearish pressure earlier this week.

With the Cardano price dropping from $0.32 to $0,265, not much has been lost when all markets went through a steep dip, but it is evident the volatility still plays an integral role in the cryptocurrency world. Ever since that dip, the Cardano price has been moving up steadily. As such, it is now sitting at just under $0.35, and may surpass that value sooner rather than later.

Thanks to another 15.39% gain over the past few hours, the Cardano price is extremely bullish all of a sudden. The currency has also gained 13.54% over Bitcoin, which is interesting to take note of.  It is good to see multiple cryptocurrencies rebound so strongly after the dip, as there were some concerns over how this market would evolve after that sudden bearish momentum.

With $336.85m in 24-hour trading volume, things look pretty good for Cardano. It is not the highest trading volume this altcoin has ever seen, but it is far from the worst. If the volume continues to increase at a steady rate, reaching a Carano price of $0,35 and higher is not out of the question over the course of this weekend.

The way things stand right now, most of the ADA trading volume originates from the Upbit platform. Its lead over Binance’s BTC market is almost $100m, and Binance’s USDT pair is even further behind. South Koreans are turning extremely bullish on cryptocurrencies once again, which is a positive development given the semi-harsh regulatory crackdown late last year and in early 2018.

If this momentum can remain in place, the Cardano price will undoubtedly continue to rise. However, with this somewhat low trading volume mainly coming from one exchange, it seems as if this brief pump cycle may run out of steam pretty quickly. Profit-taking is always a smart idea when it comes to altcoins, although Cardano price speculators may want to hold on to their ADA as well.

An exchange should be secure, simple, and easy to use. Features should be easy to find. Depositing and withdrawing should be straightforward, and service fees should be minimal.

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This is not true for many cryptocurrency exchanges. Instead, many traders are forced to dally around the exchange for weeks before they discover all the features. Some traders never find features because of clutter. The success that traders should have is bogged down by unusable web interfaces.

Cryptagio offers an easily maneuverable and easy on the eyes exchange platform that gives international traders the power to trade without the clutter. Certain features make the interface simple to analyze such as easily customizable charts and chart snapshot cameras for technical analysis.

In an effort to attract traders and reward early adopters of the platform Cryptagio is offering 0% deposit fee and 0% trading fees for its first month.

This will allow you to take advantage of the six well known cryptocurrencies the site has. Those currencies are Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Omisego (OMG), Vechain (VEN), Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS),  Icon (ICX), and Tron (TRX). An exchange currency, Cryptagio Tokens (CPG) that halves the amount of trading fees once they are introduced is available as bonuses. CPG pairs are also in the works.

For now, Cryptagio is solely a cryptocurrency to cryptocurrency exchange, but they will offer fiat pairs soon. Cryptagio is securable with 2FA, and it hosts user support for traders that is available 24/7.

You can find Cryptagio on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin for further engagement. Exchanges are live, now.

The French government has announced that it has significantly lowered the tax rate for gains generated by cryptocurrencies after a Conseil d’Etat (Council of State) decision this week.

Gains from the sale of cryptocurrencies were previously labeled as industrial and commercial profits under French tax law and therefore could have up to as much as 45% tax levied on them for larger users. With French social security contributions (CSG) currently standing at 17.2%, some wealthier crypto traders could have been paying a massive 62% in tax.

French daily Le Monde noted that the decision to change the crypto tax rate came after citizens appealed to France’s highest regulatory body earlier this year to change the regulations for crypto transactions that had been in place since July 2014.

Under new tax laws specifically aimed at Bitcoin, the Conseil d’Etat has set the new crypto tax rate at 19%, which is the same rate applied to what the French call “movable property”, such as goods which can be moved, such as cars, jewelry and patents. Bitcoin now falls into this same category.

The council has made it clear that crypto mining falls into a different category as “certain circumstances specific to the transaction of cryptocurrencies” which would incur a 45% tax rate.

The Bank of France proposed a ban earlier this year on investment companies to keep financial institutions from conducting business in the cryptocurrency market until the government could enact proper regulation. The French ministry of the economy has since formed a task force in order to consider regulation, primarily aimed at addressing cybercrime, money laundering, and tax evasion. The task force was also created to develop possible international legislation of the cryptocurrency market.

Recent comments by French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, has suggested that the G20 still needs to find clarity on the subject of virtual currency and its regulation.

 image source: https://pixabay.com/en/piggy-bank-money-cow-dollar-bill-3297061/   Alexas_fotos

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There is a lot of speculation regarding an exploit abused by some ERC20 token creators. Various assets have had their total supplies artificially inflated due to a proxyOverflow bug in the original ERC20 creation smart contract for those tokens. This has caused a fair amount of problems already, and it only further highlights the immaturity of this technology in general.

The proxyOverflow bug That Causes Major Havoc

It was only a matter of time before someone found a way to successfully abuse smart contract technology for financial gain. Few people will be surprised to learn those efforts mainly originate from newly created ERC20 tokens, as they are always a risk, for obvious reasons. PeckShield has kept tabs on an ongoing proxyOverflow exploit abused by multiple ERC20 token creators to increase the total supply of said assets.

This exploit allows users to transfer significant amounts of tokens and attach a massive fee to them. When this takes place, the proxyOverflow will increase the total supply of available tokens, even though that was never intended to happen. It seems this is due to a classic integer overflow found within the proxyTransfer() function, which is an integral part of all the affected smart contracts. Exploiting this overflow bug will have catastrophic results for the tokens in question.

Furthermore, this method can be used by assailants to transfer vast amounts of tokens to an address with a zero balance. The massive fee attached to these transactions will be sent to the msg.sender, which has all kinds of troublesome effects. So far, at least nine tokens have been affected by this issue, although the final tally may be a lot higher when everything is said and done. Exploits like these can affect dozens, if not hundreds, of ERC20 tokens with improper coding.

Although these developments are all quite worrisome, they also highlight the need for a security response mechanism in the Ethereum ecosystem. When issues like these are discovered and reported, there is nothing that can be done to remedy the affected contracts unless the creator of the contract decides to do something about it. With no proper coordination and communication, problems like these will have a ripple effect on the Ethereum ecosystem.

It appears quite a few exchanges have already suspended the trading of these tokens until the smart contract problems are addressed. While that is the proper course of action, it also negatively impacts those users who legitimately invested in these currencies and are now unable to do anything with them. At the same time, everyone holding any of the affected tokens is vulnerable right now, and thus there appears to be no other choice.

If there is one valuable lesson to be learned from all this, it is that proper audits of smart contracts before deploying them need to become a mandatory standard. Problems like these could have easily been avoided if the smart contracts had been reviewed by an independent party prior to using them on the live blockchain. It is a terrible development for the ERC20 industry, as all tokens will be scrutinized moving forward.

One of the biggest challenges currently faced by the traditional digital advertising ecosystem is that of fraudulence. While this has been an issue plaguing this multibillion-dollar industry for a while, the problem was brought to the forefront of public consciousness during the Russian Methbot Ad Fraud scheme of 2016 in which Russian hackers used a click-fraud machine to steal about $5 million a day from advertisers and publishers.

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While this has been the largest and most infamous case of fraud within the digital advertising sector to date, losing money due to hackers is not the biggest problem facing the industry. Everyday fraudulent activities, unfair cuts and mistrust amongst consumers cost over $6.5B annually for advertisers. Moreover advertisers are also forced to use multiple third-party measurements and verification tools to stave off — often ineffectively — the growth of these fraudulent practices. As a result, it has been estimated that fraudulent activities — and consequent fraud-prevention methods — end up costing advertisers approximately $51 million per day. Furthermore, a study conducted by comScore — an online analytics firm — determined that over 50% of all internal ads never even reach the public because they are lost to botnet and click-fraud attacks.

Fraudulence is the most immediate problem being faced by the world of digital advertising. However, it is by no means the only one. The following are some of the other challenges and inefficiencies faced by traditional digital advertising:

1. Lack of transparency: The ecosystem is plagued by unscrupulous intermediaries between advertisers and publishers. Many of these middle-men do not bring value, but increase the cost of doing business resulting in only 30 to 40 cents of every digital media dollar actually reaching the publisher, according to the Association of National Advertisers (ANA).
2. Brand safety violations: Many intermediaries don’t adhere to the targeting requirements of the advertiser which results in brand messages being delivered on poor quality sites compromising the brand’s credibility and perception.
3. Dubious middle-men: These unnecessary additions to the ecosystem take cuts of up to 60%, resulting in the publisher being paid less than 40% of advertising revenues.
4. Consumer mistrust: Reliable industry players struggle to prove their honesty.

In consideration of all these challenges, inefficiencies, and redundancies, it is no wonder that this $223 billion industry has been labeled the most inefficient industry in the world. However, with the rise of blockchain technology — with its decentralization and security — the world of digital advertising is ripe for a revolution powered by the blockchain.

Is there any way to combat fraud and shams in advertising? Blockchain technology is currently the only real solution to the inefficiencies that thrive in the traditional digital advertising landscape. Furthermore, one of the most revolutionary platforms that has been established to address the needs of the advertising world is Papyrus.

The Papyrus platform is designed specifically to fight all of the issues faced by the digital advertising sector – fraudulent traffic, brand safety, excessive middleman cuts, and an absence of supply chain transparency. Unique features that make it a feasible solution for practical adoption are low transaction costs, privacy management, and the execution of smart contracts based on large data volumes –  no other project has a scalable blockchain and is applying it to digital ads market in this way.

On top of its blockchain platform, Papyrus provides decentralized monitoring and money flow management tools to digital advertisers and publishers, which help them to get visibility on third parties and ad agencies, fight fraud, control money streams and optimize supply chain efficiency. These tools cannot be manipulated by any parties: data for monitoring is stored immutably and money flow management rules are automatically enforced by smart contracts. For example, an advertiser can enforce automatic rules that say “fraudulent traffic won’t be paid for and brand safety violations will imply penalties for abusers”. Verifiers connected to the system provide data to verify these rules while the blockchain guarantees their enforcement.

By providing these tools, Papyrus creates transparency, trust, and efficiency within the digital advertising supply chain. Papyrus is a neutral solution that doesn’t compete with ad platforms and service providers while bringing benefits to all of them, unless they are making money in a gray area. Using the Papyrus solution, advertisers can always check how much of their money each publisher received, what performance of ad campaigns was registered by ad trackers, and what fees were given to service providers such as ad agencies, demand-side platforms, supply-side platforms. Also, advertisers can enforce their own anti-fraud and brand safety policies. As a result, advertisers have a clear view of all transactions and pay only for provided services.

Papyrus connects advertisers, publishers, agencies, advertising platforms and verifiers within the Papyrus blockchain network to create trust, fairness, and efficiency within the digital advertising marketplace.

This unique technical solution and architecture, which utilises smart contracts built on two blockchains (Ethereum and Papyrus), is capable of processing billions of advertising events as raw data.

How can Papyrus solve the issue of fraudulence?

Papyrus has launched its MVP (pilot decentralized advertising ecosystem) that consists of an advertising network using blockchain architecture to enable the transparent purchase of advertising inventory. All calculations between advertisers and publishers are controlled by smart contracts with automatic restrictions on payments, depending on the quality of results; as verified by independent verification service suppliers.

The MVP comprises 3 primary parts — Papyrus Advertiser Account and Demand-Side Platform (DSP) backend, Papyrus Publisher Account and Supply-Side Platform (SSP) backend, and Papyrus Viewability Verifier.

The Papyrus Advertiser Account allows advertisers or agencies to create an ad campaign and verify its efficiency. The campaign is supplemented with a smart contract so the advertiser may view all commissions paid transparently and flag fraud and violations.

The Papyrus Publisher Account is meant for the publishers to gauge their websites and ad slots and insert ad units. Publishers can use the interface to analyze commissions, streams, and violations, thus allowing them to make optimal adjustments after performance analysis.

Finally, the Papyrus Viewability Verifier is the component most directly responsible for ensuring that no fraudulence takes root in the Papyrus blockchain ecosystem. It allows auditors to detect violations, fraudulence, poor user viewability, breaches of brand safety, and noncompliance with publishers’ policies regarding advertised content. Furthermore, the auditors are chosen by both the advertisers and the publishers, and as such it is in their interest to establish a reputation for fair and efficient auditing.

These complementary components and practices ensure that the interests of advertisers, agencies and ad platforms, publishers, ad verifiers, and developers are well balanced. Furthermore, the level of transparency and the emphasis on reputation prevents fraudulent practices from taking place, establishing Papyrus as the foremost solution to the fraudulence and inefficiencies of traditional digital advertising.

For additional information on the platform, you can visit www.papyrus.global.

When regulators attempt to clamp down on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency activity, the public will respond in one way or another. In India, it seems things are heading in a completely different direction compared to what one would expect. With the central bank recently attempting to ban Bitcoin activity, the institution now faces legal ramifications for doing so.

India’s Central Bank in the Hot Seat

For as long as most cryptocurrency enthusiasts can remember, India has had a difficult relationship with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The situation has been uneasy from day one and will remain troubled for quite some time. Even though the Reserve Bank of India is looking to get Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency activity banned, it seems their efforts may be futile and even hinder their own activities.

To recap, the Reserve Bank of India issued a decree preventing lenders from doing business with cryptocurrency exchanges. That is a big problem for such exchanges, especially those which handle fiat currency deposits and withdrawals. Banks were told to slowly end their relationships with exchanges between April and July of this year. So far, it remains unclear how many banks have taken this notice into account.

If things were left up to the cryptocurrency industry and the general public, this new ruling would never be enforced. Earlier this week, a petition was filed with the Delhi High Court challenging the Reserve Bank’s decision. The Indian constitution seemingly does not allow for such a crackdown on cryptocurrency activity, according to Kali Digital Eco-Systems, which filed the petition.

While it is not the first time someone has claimed that such harsh action by a central bank is unconstitutional, it may work out in India. Without any official explanation by the RBI as to why such a crackdown is warranted and what they aim to achieve with it, it is evident one could challenge the decision process behind this turn of events.

It is also interesting to note that the petition does not just pertain to the Reserve Bank of India. It seems the goal is to address the government of India and the GST Council. Since the government seemingly carries the responsibility of empowering the RBI to take these measures, there is a clash with the GST Council’s ongoing formalization of cryptocurrency regulation. Without clear guidelines, a ban cannot be properly enforced.

How this situation will pan out exactly remains a bit unclear. With other exchanges potentially challenging the RBI’s decision in court as well, there is an interesting future ahead. Restricting the trading of Bitcoin and similar currencies is not reasonable, according to some industry experts. For now, Indian traders remain keen on Bitcoin, especially as OTC trading remains an option at their disposal.

$40 trillion market cap? Yes, please! #PRICE_ANALYSIS

Eternal Trusts guarantees a reward to all participants

Have you ever dreamed of being a sci-fi movie character? A time-traveller, a superhero, or even an immortal being? Who knows, maybe in a few decades all that will be possible. But will we be still alive and healthy at that moment? And moreover, will we have enough money to pay for these services? If you are an Eternal Trusts client, the answer is yes!

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Eternal Trusts is the world’s first blockchain platform for the pending acquisition of goods or services that aren’t yet available. ET has created a unique platform that is perfect for time-delayed actions, utilizing algorithm technology for the autonomous acquisition of a variety of services, including cloning, or the restoration of the human neural network after cryonic preservation – whenever this becomes both legally and ethically possible.

ET creates discretionary purpose trusts for their clients, as well as all of the necessary legal infrastructure protecting clients’ assets from any claims from third parties. Assets in trusts are stored in the most reputable banks and are managed according to the most reliable long-term investment strategies.

Save $80 monthly to fill your eternal, smart wallet

Eternal Trusts is not only for millionaires. In order to fill the trust fund with the amount of $1,000,000, one option is for you to sign a contract with an insurance company and make your Trust the beneficiary of the policy. Monthly payments to the insurance company in this case would be roughly $80 for 20 years, if you are 30 years old and healthy.

The company’s task is to ensure that by the time the client’s goal becomes achievable, the trust has an excess of funds to pay for it. ET trusts can exist for hundreds of years seeking possibilities to accomplish the client’s task.

Eternal Trusts leverages blockchain to make dream fulfillment a profitable enterprise

ET doesn’t only create the legal infrastructure and manage clients’ assets. Blockchain technology allows the company to get rid of the so called human factor in achieving the goals and objectives set by the ET customers. When it comes to purchasing services that will only be available in the future, the human factor is a serious obstacle. The man with whom you’ve signed an agreement today, may disappear tomorrow, for example.

ET makes the important first step towards a perfect solution where there is a place for a user and software only. The user sets a task or a goal and defines a certain algorithm for their implementation. Then, after clicking the “start button” (metaphorically speaking), the user initiates a fully automatic and autonomous process of achieving this goal. As soon as the user’s wishes become feasible on technical, legal, technological, ethical, financial and any other grounds, the transaction is made. ET acts as the creator of the infrastructure that will help to bring to life someone’s dreams to fly to Mars, or to wake up in 1000 years as a rich man.

Eternal Trusts launches a dream contest – submit your dream and win a chance to fulfill it!

ET is launching a unique offer: share your dream and get ETT tokens for it! Each participant shall receive a reward of 3,000 ETT tokens for completing the questionnaire. The company will also choose the 10 most useful, detailed dreams and then the community will vote for the best dream ever. The top 10 dreamers will be rewarded:

• 1 place – 1 000 000 ETT tokens
• 2nd place – 500 000 ETT tokens
• 3rd place – 200 000 ETT tokens
• 4th place – 150 000 ETT tokens
• 5th place – 120 000 ETT tokens
• 6-10th place – 100 000 ETT tokens

We’d like to achieve at least 3 goals through this contest and the poll itself. Please keep these goals in mind when taking part in the survey.

1. We want to process the collected data in order to compile ready-made products, bundles, consisting of the most reasonable purchases for each particular dream.
2. We want to compile the data into a piece of content “What does humankind dream about” and “The most wanted technologies that are not yet in existence”.
3. We want to list these dreams online anonymously as a part of our MVP, so that anyone could opt in for them and become our client. We can’t wait to see the check marks appearing one by one next to these dreams.

Create an account on http://eternaltrusts.io/ and fill in the questionnaire to participate in the contest. You can submit your application until DATE. Feeling lucky? Be sure to take a chance then! Head to http://eternaltrusts.io/ and feel the breath of future!

An SEC regulator thinks that the approach to ICOs should be “balanced,” while one Financial Services Committee member referred to ICO issuers as “charlatans and scammers” #NEWS

When Fundstrat Global speaks, the crypto world listens. In recent months it has been a steady font of good news for the ecosystem, with five figure price calls to predicting a very bright future, a crypto future. Resident guru Thomas Lee more-or-less foretold the current after tax season spike in prices when many others were decidedly bearish on the asset class. The firm recently surveyed a small group of institutional investors, and they appear to see cryptocurrencies poised for a breakout year. To help such investors make informed choices in that regard, the company also created five new crypto indices.

Also read: Bitcoin Markets Steady for Another Gox Dump, 16,000 Coins Moved by Trustee

Inflows of Big Money into Crypto

Fundstrat’s co-founder, Thomas Lee, tweeted how his company “hosted a small group of institutional investors” recently. It was a “mix of crypto and traditional macro [hedge funds] long-only.” It was a chance to informally survey basic sentiment about the market shortly after the end of tax season for the United States.

Of the nine questions, they included: if cryptos will rise during a recession (65% Yes), if bitcoin core had bottomed (82% Yes), bitcoin core’s year-end price (vast majority believed it will be between $10K and $30K); most believed regulators will provide clarity sometime this year; they do not believe Ethereum will be classified as a security; a great number seem to be moving away from “store of value” concerns, toward an actual currency; and 60% believe Goldman Sachs will be the first to introduce institutional crypto trades. The key “takeaway,” Mr. Lee insists, is how “institutions believe [bitcoin core] bottomed. We see this as a leading indicator for inflows of big money into Crypto.”

Indeed, Fundstrat’s Mr. Lee has been something of a fortune teller for the digital asset class. It was he, and almost he alone, who urged investors to perhaps buy the Crypto Winter dip, believing bitcoin core would bounce back after capital gains and relevant tax penalties were paid. As of this writing, he appears to be correct.

The future looks so bright for cryptocurrencies, Fundstrat also announced a set of new indices, five to be exact. “Commodity tokens,” wrote Mr. Lee, Sam Doctor, and Robert Sluymer, “in our view, are on-ramps for institutional inflows, given the expanding options for access (futures, etc.). And commodity tokens face less regulatory risk relative to other types of tokens at the moment.”

Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Core, Zcash, Monero, and Litecoin

Basing their choices on relative size, the five sectors comprising 75% of the sector’s cumulative market capitalization are Stablecoins, Privacy, Platforms, Exchanges, and Commodities (which take up nearly half of the index due to components Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Core, Zcash, Monero, and Litecoin). 

The Privacy index has four components: BTCP, ZEC, XMR, and DASH, with Monero and Dash taking up the lion’s share. The Stablecoin index has two components: DAI, USTD, with Tether forming a whopping 99% of the sector. Ether, as most might expect, overwhelms the Platform index.

More recently, the firm held out seven coins as ones to watch: BCH, BTC, EOS, BYTOM, IOTA, XLM, and NEM.

Are you bullish on crypto this year? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Twitter.

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